The Labour party’s insistence on calling the reduction in benefits for people with spare rooms in their properties, a “bedroom tax” is effectively more of a lie than Cameron’s claims that the Conservatives are “paying down Britain’s debts”. Now, given as the Conservatives are not paying down Britain’s debts, in fact, their current economic policies contribute to the debt and make the existing problem worse, we can see that the Conservatives are guilty of a significant lie, deliberately used to mislead the public into thinking the Conservatives are doing a better job than they really are.
The “bedroom tax” is not a “tax”. Let’s discuss the definition of tax: A compulsory contribution to state revenue. This is not what is happening at all; what the government is doing is reducing the benefit available to individuals who claim housing benefit if they have unused/unrequired space in their houses. The change will affect those in social housing only. Why? Because this change already applies to those in private sector accommodation who receive housing benefit. That’s right: if you receive housing benefit, whilst also taking up social housing, you actually receive more at this present time than if you received housing benefit whilst taking up private accommodation. Given as we’re hearing claims of “insufficient social housing”, it seems ludicrous to incentivise behaviour that encourages people to take up social provision at that, arguably, should be reserved for those in dire straights – not those who could quite easily move to rented private accommodation. This is creating a level playing field. It’s not treating those on social benefits any better than those who take up private services – this is to be applauded. We’ve had 13 years of a party that encouraged dependency on the State and removed the attitude of private responsibility and self-improvement, and it’s about time this was removed. As long as Labour continue to lie, manipulate and mislead the population, they’re fighting a losing battle. So far, this debate has been on nothing more than propaganda. If Labour are so sure of their point, they should focus on the consequences of the reduction in benefit and make a case of that. They’re not sure of their point, so they don’t.
We had the mandatory question about whether ATOS had decided that Richard the III was fit to work. MPs need to find more original ways to amuse the electorate: Twitter came up with that one over a day ago.
Another interesting point to note comes from the first question: given as marriage is to become available to homosexual couples, will civil partnerships be available to heterosexual couples? Cameron effectively said no. He waffled through, saying that he’s all about marriage, and that he wants to promote marriage and not civil partnerships. However, some heterosexual couples may, arguably, be opposed to the concept of “marriage” but keen to do a civil partnership. In not opening this possibility up to then, the Government is maintaining a difference between homosexual and heterosexual relationships and the commitments each can make. In the interests of equality, both parties need to be able to access both types of commitment, rather than maintaining this artificial difference by suggesting that two people can make one commitment and another two people can’t – especially when the deciding factor is the gender, and therefore the sexuality, of the two different couples.
Cameron put in no effort today, but he didn’t need to. Miliband has only himself to blame for a poor performance and a poor analysis of Coalition policy. There’s much to dislike about what the Coalition are doing: manipulating the facts to fit a misguided ideology is not a good way to demonstrate this.
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