As George Osborne gleefully strips more money from the very poorest in our society; pulling the £9p/h "living wage" out of his hat like a rabbit in the budget as his other hand steals your wallet, read this and weep: this government gives £93bn away every year as corporate welfare. £44bn of that is tax relief.
That's £3,500 from every single household in this country every year. Every. Single. Household.
Think on that as disability benefits disappear, as students lose their grants and child credits are cut; think on that next time some fat cat gets a juicy bonus.
We elected these bandits in with a majority.
(sidebar: I've had a conversation on Facebook about this, and the prevailing view amongst some friends of a friend was that without this kind of support, companies would go bust and wouldn't be able to employ anyone and everyone would be worse off; that although some of this money went to fat cats, the majority of it funded economic development; that nobody should have to pay tax on inheritance..... I can't help but think that this is a form of Stockholm Syndrome, or is otherwise similar to the way that people often view royalty: these people are our betters and we should trust that they know what's best for us and what's best for the country. I find this belief almost as disturbing as this Government itself, but it does help explain why they won a majority).
the problem is that if people can convince themselves that these cuts won't overtly effect them, then they won't give a shit - the majority of people don't seem to be particularly engaged with politics at a deep level (in a way which reflects deeply held core beliefs), which is why things like leaders debates (personality politics) and 38 Degrees (knee-jerk clickbait responses which make people feel like they're actually doing something when really the effect is marginal at best) are diminishing what we're really going to be facing in the coming years.
ReplyDeleteplus a right-wing press and hamstrung media stamp out the truth for the sake of figures and sensation - "but we've got the internet, the truth will get via that" - balls. i refer you back to your point about their majority.
i've said before (and apologies if i've done it here!), the problem with social media is you surround yourself with like-minded people which creates the feeling that this is what real-life is actually like - then you go outside.
rant over! it was fairly scatter-gun and i don't think i've really thought it through - just angry.
sorry!
I had a very circular conversation with one guy: it can't be £3,500 from every household, because some will only be paying £500 in tax. No, it's the equivalent of £3,500 from every household. Yeah, but some people won't be paying that much. It's the equivalent: the total divided by the number of households. Well, it's misleading because not everyone will be paying that.... Etc.
ReplyDeleteha - that's like your "scale of 1 to 10" question!
DeleteAt that point, I realised that Facebook is not the forum for this kind of nuance political debate with people you don't know very well and who you might easily offend. I thought I'd see where he stood on God (he's already made it clear that he sees 20mph speedlimits as ridiculous, and I didn't even bother picking that one up. Well, you just spend all your time looking at your speedo and not the road, don't you? Why don't they just teach kids the Green Cross Code instead?)
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