PAY BENEFITS TO THE RICH, NOT THE POOR, SAYS LIAM BYRNE !

Oh dear ! It seems that the Labour party is in disarray again.

 

Liam Byrne, the man who left a note when he departed from the Treasury in 2010, apologising for the fact that there was no money left, is now reported to have come up with a crackpot plan for improving the benefits system. He wants to "strengthen the old principle of contribution" and has said that many people "feel they pay an awful lot more in than they ever get back".

 

Poor Mr Byrne. He clearly hs no understanding of the workings of an insurance system. He also seems to be becoming a Conservative.

 

His first point, about better-linking of benefits to contributions, is basic; only those who pay in should get anything out. This would, of course, remove many thousands of Labour voters from the receipt of Government largesse and, no doubt, would also result in their votes going elsewhere. Those who are permanently unemployed or otherwise financially disadvantaged would get nothing while those who complete a full working life would be eligible for maximum Government handouts.

 

The second point is another 'statement of the bleedin' obvious', but is also a necessary fact of life in any insurance system. Some of us always end up paying more than we get back - just think of car and house insurance; some people pay in year after year and never make a claim while others claim with painful regularity. When we consider the welfare and benefits system in this country, it is the wealthiest who pay most in and who mostly get very little, if anything, back; it is the poorest who pay in little, if anything, and take the most out. This is, actually, how the system was designed to work and, with some amendment, the way it should work.

 

Mr Byrne is an idiot but we already knew that. The Deputy Leader of his party, Harriet Harman, pointedly declined to support his silly utterances on television this morning, and one has to assume that his proposals will be binned very swiftly indeed. In the past, he might then have been able to consider crossing the floor of the House to join the Conservatives, but today's Conservative Party is at least as socialist as his own Labour mob. It looks as though Mr Byrne is on his own.