Wednesday 9 January 2013

First they came for the unemployed....

... and I didn't speak out, despite being unemployed and unemployable and living off taxpayer funded benefits myself.

In fact, I enjoyed the moral high ground while it lasted, gleefully joining in the witch hunt and kicking those further down the heap, because I was over 65 (or 60 if a woman).

Oops.

6 comments:

Barnacle Bill said...

Yes that's right get the sheeple to vote for you, even though they know you're going to be culling them as soon as their votes are counted.

Let's hope this time we're not going to fall for it!

benj said...

The Country's finances are tight so the Government are going to introduce more means tested benefits, because they cost three times more to administer than universal benefits.

1st possibility, the Government is stupid.

2nd possibility, the Government realises the public IS stupid and means testing is a vote winner.

Mark Wadsworth said...

BB, problem is that Labour are worse. Just different worse.

BJ, it must be option 2. Turkeys, Xmas springs to mind, all these stupid higher earners saying hooray that we've lost our child benefit, that'll reduce govt spending and hence our tax bills or wealthier pensioners who pay shed loads of tax saying hooray we've lost our winter fuel allowance etc.

Fact is, child benefit and winter fuel allowance ARE, from the point of view of the recipients, a modest tax rebate. Idiots indeed.

Woman on a Raft said...

Where there is a means tested benefit, it follows there must be a means-tester, and that implies a public sector worker whose vote is likely to follow their job, or at the very least, an agency worker who is ultimately dependent on the demand for government services.

There was a time when I thought that Conservatives wanted to shrink the public sector but it appears I'm a gullible fool.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Mark Wadsworth said...

WOAR, with the Tories, it's even worse as they sub-contract all this means testing to companies owned by their mates. So it ends up even murkier and more expensive than if we have additional public sector employees showing up in the actual statistics.

James Higham said...

66 isn't it now?