grouchy old git

Gordon Brown today pledged to reform the UK’s system of providing social care. Brown launched a 6 month public consultation on how to make care services fairer and more affordable. Whatever his intention the outcome is unlikely to improve Brown’s flagging electoral prospects as it seems likely to confirm the growing shortfall of funds for caring for an increasing elderly population.

Key to the debate is whether the state should fund care for all older people, or only those unable to provide for themselves. The current ambiguity over whether our (considerable) taxes - and those already paid by today’s seniors - cover (amongst other things) care in our old age needs to be clarified.

If so, then morally the state has a right to pick up the tab for the care of all old people. If not, then the relatively well-off elderly should not expect to be subsidised by the relatively poor taxpayers of today, many of whom are bearing the brunt of rising food, mortgage and fuel costs or are priced out of the hosuing market altogether.

In actual fact, though the UK claims to operate a “National Insurance” system the amounts paid in under the scheme are not held in individual accounts but are pooled to meet the commitments of the day. Ie today’s NI payers don’t fund their own pension pots but pay today’s pensioners in the hope that tomorrow’s pensioners will fund them when they grow old.

As such the state is currently unable to fund the long-term care of all of today’s elderly. Those that have the funds should rightfully use them to fund their own care. But no one should be forced to sell their home to pay for care unless going into residential care and leaving no dependants in that home. And of course those without means should have their care funded by the state.

Contrary to the views of some of the most vocal commentators on this subject it is not the abstract компютри втора употреба??????state that must pay for today’s old but those currently paying tax, many of whom are also struggling at this time. They should not have to carry the can for the failure of successive governments to actually invest National Insurance contributions as they were inteded.

It’s said Gordon Brown spent most of his life waiting to become UK Prime Minister. It all started well, no dount due to the relief that sanctimonious warmonger Blair had finlly gone, but less than a year into the job his premiership lies in tatters. Why?

Brown is not a lucky man. Within a short while of taking office the country saw attempted terrorist attacks, widespread flooding, and outbreaks of foot and mouth disease. Worse was to follow with the credit crunch and the run on and subseqent collapse of Northern Rock. Not good, but arguably Brown couldn’t be blamed for any of this.

Last Autumn Brown foolishly leaked hints that he was planning a “snap” election. No dount buoyed by high opinion poll ratings he was persuaded by his spin doctors he could win a full parliamentary term of his own. He should have considered these suggestions for all of 5 seconds and got on with the business of governing. Under UK law Prime Ministers are not elected, individual members of parties are. Labour had a respectable majority and as its leader Brown had 3 years to make his mark before needing to go to the people. Elections are risky things, it only needed a crisis such as Northern Rock, or a minister getting caught with his trousers down, or numerous other “events” to turn the polls on their head. So much better to go to the people when you have a record on which to be judged. But foolish Brown allowed the speculation to continue unchecked and left himself looking indecisive and weak when the plans were abandoned.

In his final budget as chancellor in Spring 1997 Brown announced that from 1998 the “basic” tax rate would fal to 20% at the cost of abolishing the 10% starter band. Knowng he was unlikely to be chancellor the following Spring why did Brown tie the hands of his successor, download polyphonic ringtones | real ringtones | free mobile phone ringtones virgin | sprint ringtones | funny ringtones | phone ringtones | download free cricket ringtones | free real music cingular ringtones | free phone ringtones sprint | tracfone ringtones | info phone remember ringtones | free polyphonic ringtones | nickelback ringtones | cingular free go phone ringtones | cheap mobile ringtones virgin | free ringtones for cricket phone | download free real ringtones verizon | cricket ringtones | free ringtones tracfone | 24 theme ringtones | especially when so much can happen to the economy over a whole year. And why did he not spot that the tax changes would help the relatively better off at the expense of the relatively worse off. This was a chancellor at the top of his game after a decade in the position. Was he so incompetent he didn’t realise the uproar? Or was he so insensitive he didn’t care about bashing his party’s natural supporters? And which crime is worse?

Brown was slaughtered in recent local elections and has seen Labour’s opinion poll ratings fall to the lowest since records began.

I grew up on a council estate in one of London’s roughest boroughs. I am a natural Labour supporter. I could never vote Tory and have no room for the chameleon-like Cameron, a Blairesque character who seems prepared to say or do anything to get elected. Don’t forget the liberal calling for the Tories to change was Michael Howard’s chief manifesto writer! But I have been unable to bring myself to vote Labour since 1997 and don’t envisage voting at the next election.

My biggest issue with Labour is its warmongering in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Brown was a member of each cabinet that authorised these “actions”. But beyond that Labour - with 3 full terms with good majorities - has totally missed a huge opportunity for true change.

So, can Brown turn it around?

It will be difficult. Once the public sense a leader or party are damaged goods there isn’t usually a way back. On the plus side Brown does have two full years to improve. Making a firm commitment to withdraw from the bloody disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq would be huge step forward.

The state of the economy is largely beyond Brown’s control, though after spending 10 years as chancellor he will undoubtedly be held responsible for it. The credit crunch is due to greedy bankers making irresponsibly risky loans. When things are going well they pick up obscene bonuses, but when it goes pear-shaped they seem able to walk away with their huge bank accounts and without any accountability for the mess which the long-suffering taxpayer is left to clear-up. If Brown could do something to either regulate the industry or to force its overpaid members to pick up the tab when it goes wrong that would enhance his standing enormously.

For someone who planned for so long to become PM Brown doesn’t seem to have any clear vision of what he wants to do with his power. He needs to embrace some cause and produce demosntrable results before the next election. Tackling the houding crisis by providing significantly more affordable rented housing would be an excellent project.

The test will be whether a lifelong but currently disillusioned Labour man like me feels sufficiently motivated to back the party at the next election. If so I suspect many like me will turn out at the polls and Brown will pull off the greatest comeback since Lazarus. Otherwise I fear Cameron will get in by the back door. Not on positive endorsement but simply because too many judge the New Labour project an abject failure.

Just over a year ago Gordon Brown delivered his last budget as chancellor. It was a bizarre spectacle as he proceeded to announce tax plans not for the following tax year (2007-8), but the one after (2008-9). Not only is it imprudent in the extreme given the volatility of global economics to fix the government’s financial plans so far ahead, but at the time it was widely expected that Blair would step down and that Brown would be his replacement, thus Brown was effectively tying the hands of his successor as chancellor.

In that budget Brown abolished the 10% starter tax band and reduced the “basic” rate by 2% to 20%. Absurdly for a Labor government the effect of this was to take money from some of society’s poorest and re-distribute it to the better off. One can only assume this was pure political posturing to ensure Brown grabbed the headlines as a “tax cutter”, even though the budget was fiscally neutral.

There is now talk of a rebellion among Brown’s own Labor MP’s opposed to the change. One has to ask why it has taken them so long to realise the effect of Brown’s budget, or more cynically whether it might have something to do with Brown’s plummeting poll ratings and the increasing risk they’ll be out of a job after the next election.

For someone who craved the top job for so long, Brown’s performance as leader has been pedestrian to say the least. In fairness he’s not been lucky with terrorist attacks, floods, foot & mouth, Northern Rock and the credit crunch and all its associated problems coming on his watch. But for one who was chancellor for so long and who follishly crowed about abolishing boom and bust he must expect the blame for any economic slowdown to lie at his doorstep. His apparent dithering over whether to call a “snap” election last year also irreversibly damaged his credibility.

The next election doesn’t have to be held for two years. Labor, and Brown, can stil win it. But only if a) he can find a cause he passionately believes in and demonstrate the vision to nmake a genuine change fopr the good, b) he doesn’t put a foot wrong from now on, and c) he starts to get some good luck for a change, such as a much softer than expected landing from the credit crunch.

This morning’s BBC TV show The Big Questions discussed the issue of whether faith should be banned from schools.

England has a tradition of religious (faith) schools, partly or wholly funded by the state.

At one time I was highly skeptical of a system that effectively gave official backing (and funding) to the indoctrination of children into a particular faith. As one who, although Spiritually aware, has never been particularly religious I didn’t want to churn out generations of bigots who would continue to perpetuate the many wars and other negatives conducted in the the name of religion.

However, further reflection has given me a deeper perspective on the issue and I no longer consider the faith school such a bad idea.

The government/state is not some superior entity with divine right to dominate all within its realm. It exists only at the behest of its people and spends only money that they pay in taxes. Faith schools are very popular, and if that’s what folk want, then that’s what they should get for their money. Not just CofE or other Christian faiths, but all faiths for which there is sufficient demand.

Where state funded faith schools exist they must meet minimum academic standards, and also give students an awareness of major world religions other than their own.