Doodledog
*As an old-school socialist, I would rather have universalism than Thatcherite residual welfare. The former creates solidarity: everybody with a State Pension receives WFP; everybody with a child receives Child Benefit; everybody’s child can have a free school breakfast - whereas residual welfare causes division, as evidenced by the unfairness of what has happened over the withdrawal of universal WFP, ignoring those on the cliff-edge of Pension Credit. The cut-off is too low but wherever it is set, it will alway leave a body of people just missing out.*
Agreed. It’s the means-test that’s the problem. I never see means-testing as a solution and this is no exception.
I find the ‘bleating’ of people who can clearly afford to do without a boost of £200 (as evidenced by their posts about spending on other things) extremely offensive though. It is so obviously a dig at Keir Starmer and/or Rachel Reeves, as the same people moan about everything else the government does, and were conspicuously silent about the plight of the poor before money was being taken away from their own pockets.
That is not to ‘make excuses’ or ‘just because I voted Labour’ 🙄. It is because it looks so grasping and uncaring - the money could be better spent on those with not enough, but the moaners are too busy checking out the phones and nails of claimants to care about that.
I have lost a lot of faith in humanity since the GE. I am seriously considering a GN ‘detox’, as I think it is bad for my mental health.
It would be a loss of a voice of reason Doodledog
