Politics Home has revealed another Bedroom Tax fiasco:
Ministers were accused of a fresh ‘shambles' over the so-called 'bedroom tax' today after it appeared Whitehall departments were at odds over plans to crack down on 'subletting' of council homes.
Labour went on the attack as it emerged that the Department for Communities and Local Government were looking at plans to criminalise the practice just months before the Department for Work and Pensions recommended it as a way to avoid the cut in the 'spare room subsidy'.
Omnishambles is now just too kind a description of this government.
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Their posteriors are clearly being confused with their elbows. Laughable if it weren’t so sad. As one affected by the ‘bedroom tax’ farce it seems more clear than ever it must have designed by the disastrous Lord Freud during a champagne fueled lunch break (At Taxpayer’s expense no doubt) and written on the back of a napkin. The need for realistic representation (People’s Assembly?) is more desperate than ever. let’s hope this signals the demise of the career politician and heralds a new form of democracy….doubt it though.
Do try to avoid the trap of criticising our government for failing to deliver on the rational and publicly-stated aims of policy – savings for the taxpayer, independence for the working family, whatever – as if such criticisms matter.
These stated aims are mere window-dressing, and our rulers neither care about them, nor about any criticism of apparent failures in them.
The policy objective of the Bedroom tax is a welfare cut, for its own sake as a deliberate cut to the living standards and economic security of the affected citizens, to be imposed as part of the shift to an overtly punitive ‘Victorian Poor Relief’ replacement for social security.
It doesn’t even matter to our policy makers if the total cost is higher than the ‘savings’ of reduced benefit payments: nobody who matters pays any tax. The attack is the objective and all this misplaced criticism is privately amusing and publicly ignored.
Above all, this criticism is worse than ineffective: it misdirects our efforts. You have become the hapless vicar berating the property developer for his failure to contribute to the organ fund, while the parish church is being bulldozed for executive houses. All that you will get is insincere apologies, a tenner from the organ, and a public expectation that you make some show of gratitude.
You are at your most effective when your researches and your criticisms go to the engine of our rulers’ bulldozing agenda: the withdrawal of the rich from economic participation in society by organised and government-supported tax evasion, and the exploitative ‘monetisation’ of services that ordinary citizens prefer to fund efficiently by taxation and receive by right as common goods.
While I agree that the stated aims are not really much of a reflection of what is going on, I do not agree that criticising those stated aims is a waste of time and effort. You are correct that those who pursue this agenda do not appear to care at all about public opinion: and I conclude that they are not interested in another term in office, for reasons we may speculate about. But it is still important that people are made aware that the policy fails in their own terms.
Even yet a great many people do not believe the real aim here: they are still content to assume good intentions and sincere belief in the economic benefits of the policies espoused. They attribute the unwillingness to recognise that the plan is not working to some combination of ideological blindness, and face saving: not to the real malice which implies it is working exactly as planned. Perversely I value the fact that people do not recognise this kind of thing very readily, because who wants to live in the kind of world where that level of distrust and suspicion is the norm? It leaves us vulnerable, certainly: but the alternative is arguably worse
But if I am correct in that it is truly important to take the argument at face value and show it is absurd on its own terms: if that is demonstrated people may well come to consider that ” for a mistake that is too big”. and then look elsewhere for an explanation.
I agree that the underpinning agenda needs to be exposed and that Richard and others have been fantastically successful in exposing those things which really matter, and in getting a platform. But the disconnect between what they say and what they do is an important part of that, and it is important at every level
This fiasco reveals the Government’s line of thinking very clearly.
The poor should not be allowed to avoid a state imposition and should be criminalised for doing so.
The rich are allowed to avoid taxes and to cap it all when they evade them all efforts are made to decriminalise them eg Liechenstein Disclosure Facility.
A man who sent a text encouraging rioting is likely to receive a lengthy prison sentence.
Despite all the scams and fraud in the banking sector, does anyone face jail? No not as far as I am aware.
Do we really live in a democracy?