Thursday 7 June 2012
You don't know what you've lost 'till it's gone.
You never know what you've lost until it's too late and so it has been with London's wholesale destruction of communities from the sixties to the present day. BBC 2's The Secret History Of Our Streets got off to a brilliant start with an investigation into the sad decline of Deptford High Street at the hands of well meaning but autocratic planners and environmental health officials. As I say, you don't know what you've lost 'till it's too late and I fear that this may be true of a lot more things before long. Nick Clegg and IDS, ably supported by the Sun I should add, have launched a campaign to means test pensioners benefits such as the winter fuel allowance and Freedom Passes. Why not just go for it and means test the NHS, state education and every other last vestige of a distributive society? I fear that our grandchildren will curse us for ever.
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2 comments:
Ah. Well, there's a good row to be had about the complexity of means-testing. You can't be for the principle of transferring wealth from the working-age poor to rich 60+ people though?
My mum needs her winter fuel payment to pay for fuel in the winter, and her bus pass has opened up her social horizons immeasurably. My dad earns more than I do, and is embarrassed and angry that he's being given money he doesn't need to heat a house he acquired far more cheaply than his children can hope for.
Pick your battles: it's profoundly unsocialist to expect workers to pay for handouts to the most fortunate members of the most fortunate generation that ever lived.
The one weakness in your argument, Anonymous, is the implication that this government intends to take money from the more affluent and give it to the poor and vulnerable. However they dress it up it's a means of getting more money out of the poor. That's what they do, that's all they do.
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