Yet another £600 million down the drain

Graham_Devon

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Well I'm not on the fence.

I abhor throwing money at everyone just because relatively few find themselves unable to afford as nice a life as they would like.

It is not just the money, although that's bad enough. More importantly, I believe it creates a dependency culture. We see plenty of symptoms of this all the time. The evasion of personal responsibility in favour of a "gimme" culture where the "rich" should pay for my own inability to save, or make anything of my life.

Get rid of the NHS then?

Get rid of the state pension?

Moby

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Well I'm not on the fence.

I abhor throwing money at everyone just because relatively few find themselves unable to afford as nice a life as they would like.

It is not just the money, although that's bad enough. More importantly, I believe it creates a dependency culture. We see plenty of symptoms of this all the time. The evasion of personal responsibility in favour of a "gimme" culture where the "rich" should pay for my own inability to save, or make anything of my life.

....ahh yes like all the so called 'personal responsibility' that's been shown by the bankers and the tax dodgers. For many people in this world 'lifestyle is not a question of 'choice' as you put it.

CLAPTON

it's difficult to see why an 8 year old is less worthy of free school lunches than a 7 year old
or indeed why an 11 year is thus deprived or a 15 year old

young people entering the work place or going to Uni are usually a bit disorganised and often skip lunch so I'm sure it's better and will lead to 20% better results if they were given free lunches (in fact one could say that it's really a H&S issue as many workplaces are dangerous or the people have responsible jobs that need good nutrition so this would also show a 20% improvement too)

vulnerable elderly people obviously need a proper hot meal at lunch time and this would save 20% of something as they will need less care in the future.

in fact looking at the economies of scale, we could get rid of kitchen/dining areas in private homes and create extra bedrooms if we provided three meals a day at state institutions
so we would see 20% increase in the bed room space in all homes and better feed people although it would cause a problem with the 'spare room ' surcharge but lets not be picky over details.

I offer these useful ideas freely to any political party smart enough to be following this thread.

vivatifosi

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

It is not just the money, although that's bad enough. More importantly, I believe it creates a dependency culture. We see plenty of symptoms of this all the time. The evasion of personal responsibility in favour of a "gimme" culture where the "rich" should pay for my own inability to save, or make anything of my life.

But it isn't just the rich paying. As I mentioned earlier, you will have childless people on lower than the average wage, paying taxes to support the feeding of children from families with a household income two or three times higher. How is that fair?

I agree with broader entitlement point though, but think this is now so ingrained it is across all income groups. The great generali vs carolt battle on child benefit withdrawal is evidence of that. Reality: to have a working system going forward most people will feel some pain.

CLAPTON

amusing article in the Guardian today about Tower Hamlets
Apparently they have already introduced free lunches for their youngest pupils and it is an amazing success.


however, it appears that parents who already qualified for free school meals don't now bother as they are free for all.

no problems for the parents of course but schools get a £900 pa 'pupil premium' for each 'free school dinner' child which they can't claim as the parents aren't registering

doubtless the problem will be solved by some new byzantine process

Loughton_Monkey

CLAPTON wrote: »

amusing article in the Guardian today about Tower Hamlets
Apparently they have already introduced free lunches for their youngest pupils and it is an amazing success.


however, it appears that parents who already qualified for free school meals don't now bother as they are free for all.

no problems for the parents of course but schools get a £900 pa 'pupil premium' for each 'free school dinner' child which they can't claim as the parents aren't registering

doubtless the problem will be solved by some new byzantine process

Well it might be interesting to note how many of these children claim free school meals. There is no shortage of cash in the "People's Republic of Tower Hamlets"

http://www.theguardian.com/education/gallery/2013/jul/19/supercar-schoolboys-tower-hamlets-in-pictures#/?picture=413211015&index=4

Supercars, schoolboys and stilettos in Tower Hamlets - in pictures

In Tower Hamlets, one of the most deprived parts of London according to government statistics, 16-year-old students are increasingly spending large sums of money to rent luxury cars for their National Record of Achievement ceremony. The teenagers, who are too young to drive, are chauffeured around the neighbourhood and attend the ceremony at school, often before spending a night on the town

michaels

vivatifosi wrote: »

But it isn't just the rich paying. As I mentioned earlier, you will have childless people on lower than the average wage, paying taxes to support the feeding of children from families with a household income two or three times higher. How is that fair?

I agree with broader entitlement point though, but think this is now so ingrained it is across all income groups. The great generali vs carolt battle on child benefit withdrawal is evidence of that. Reality: to have a working system going forward most people will feel some pain.

I think universal benefits that allow a lower level of 'survival' than current benefits but are payable to all are more likely to promote social justice as then all work always pays, tax rates may need to be slighly higher to compensate but the current rates of 32%/42%/47% (inc ni) are an awful lot lower than the marginal benefit withdrawal rates of 95% plus.

Would it be a disaster if everyone received 5k per annum benefit (total including housing, 3k for first child and 2k for each subsequent child) and then all income was taxed (plus ni) at 35%/45%/50%? (note no more tax free allowances etc).

ruggedtoast

I quite liked living in Tower Hamlets, apart from the frequent stabbings, shootings and murders and providing you stayed in the Bengali bits, it was a cheerful place.

Tylium

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

So now our Nanny State is deciding to give every school kid free school meals for the first 3 years. This just about takes the biscuit for yet another unaffordable gimmic designed to take even more responsibility away from parents and individuals.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24132416

Cleggie reckons it's 'worth' £400 a year per child. So they don't need to feed the kid much when it gets home, and parents can swan off to the pub with more in their pocket.

Yet another costly 'benefit' which will be just like the heating allowance. It will be impossible to take away. In fact once it happens, it will just create criticism "why can't 8 to 11 year olds get it....?" and it won't take long to creep in for the entire school life. In fact the NUT has already lambasted Cleggie:



We are getting to the stage where it will become "accepted" that babies are born, get free food all the time up to secondary education, after which they are given a house, benefits, and finally a bus pass, an old age pension - plus, of course, a heating allowance.

What next? Free 2 week all-inclusive holidays? Free computers and Broadband? A Christmas Hamper? And when all the buses have been stopped, a free household car?

I am absolutely appalled.

!!!!ing scrounging "yoof". They should pay their own way, right?

MacMickster

Whether this provides value for money or not, the problem is that we don't have sufficient money to fund this giveaway.

It sounds awfully like an attempt to buy votes.