According to the FT:
Former Conservative chancellor Lord Lawson on Wednesday night urged George Osborne to cut the top income tax rate to 40p in next month's Budget, amid signs the Treasury is considering such a move.
I think there can be no doubt that this is a deliberately placed story to soften up the ground for such a Machiavellian announcement.
Tax cuts for the top 1%. That's 300,000 or so people.
Slashed tax credits for millions of families are expected in the same budget.
And it's expected that 300,000 children more children will be recorded as living in poverty when new stats are out today.
And in the meantime the IMF has said that the rich getting richer harms us all and that tax breaks need to go to those least off.
What can I say?
Or do?
But despair, that is.
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“And it’s expected that 300,000 children more children will be recorded as living in poverty when new stats are out today.”
Poverty and “relative poverty” aren’t interchangeable.
Tell me why not?
Are you really happy for people to be kept alive with no chance to participate in society?
If so, why
Relative poverty is a term created by affluent nations and often used by the left to score political points. The “relative” is left out only because the user wants to create more impact.
On the other hand true poverty is people dying of starvation. It is a completely different issue.
Saying “300,000 more children will be recorded as living in relative poverty” makes your point perfectly adequately.
Relative poverty is real: it is about social exclusion
If you think that isn’t an issue I have no idea why you are here
Sure, food and shelter are vital
But ignoring access to the means to live within society is me indicative of a degree of indifference to other people that I find profoundly unattractive in my kindest interpretation
I’ve never said relative poverty isn’t real by the definition given.
But let’s call it what it is which is relative poverty and not confuse it with absolute poverty.
I do not agree
Distinguish them and you legitimise relative poverty as an option not as significant as what yiu call absolute poverty
I just do not agree
Absolute poverty is the deprivation of basic human needs whilst relative poverty is about economic inequality. The only way in which relative poverty in the UK is comparable to absolute poverty in other parts of the world is that they both include the word poverty.
I don’t think a family starving in a 3rd world country would agree with you if you told them that the relative poverty of a family in a developed country is just as significant as their own situation.
To be honest I think it is about time the phrase absolute poverty was dropped in favour of destitution because in the developed world the word poverty has taken on a completely different meaning.
I really think you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about
Why do you think we have food banks, for a start?
James and Michael-I think it is important to see that the situation is a continuum and the causes related, that is, a form of free market ideology that creates high levels of inequity, lack of real democracy via trade/IMF rules that favour corporations and privitisation of assets. Greece is an example of a world in transition between First World and Third World poverty but it is all structurally linked whereas you define it as fundamentally different. The danger of saying this is that it implies poverty over here is ‘something we shouldn’t complain about’ -which is very wrong -it’s gonna get worse as well with the nutters we’ve got in charge.
Ed note: I am getting bored by your trite neoliberalism and the abuse that flows from it
This comment has been deleted for that reason
Expect the same of others in future
And cutting the top rate of income tax will help our beleaguered country how.
“And it’s expected that 300,000 children more children will be recorded as living in poverty when new stats are out today.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33266799
The new stats don’t show that there has been an increase.
There’s a graph in the news story that seems to show that the numbers have been and are falling. Good news, surely?
Or perhaps we need a new definition which shows the numbers are higher?
The numbers have increased
But not as much as expected, I admit
I read the paper
There are several indicators
The ONS graph shows good and fairly constant progress in the years covered (from above 25% in 1999/00 to 17% now.
Overall, this looks like relatively good news.
More concerning, in my view, is the gradual decrease in home ownership. This certainly will result in a concentration of wealth.
‘Or perhaps we need a new definition which shows the numbers are higher?’
Or perhaps one that includes housing costs?