The mother of invention
On a low income? Unmarried? Childless? Feeling the pinch under a Labour Party that’s forgotten why it exists in the first place? Don’t despair, poor person, help is at hand. You too can enjoy the prosperity and aspirations currently out of the reach of the likes of you. This is all it takes:
Get knocked up.
Yes, get knocked up. Then you’ll be a family and all your troubles will be over. You may be a single-parent family but you’ll still be a family. Your relationship might not be ready for a child but you’ll still be a family.
You might have to give up your career hopes but you’ll be a family. You might not be one of those ‘hard-working’ families we hear so much about but you’ll be a family. You might be more of a burden on the state but you’ll be a family.
We like families. We want to give them money. We don’t like childless, barren women or relationships. We want their money. So, go on, pop one out.
Posted on April 21st, 2008 at 9:31am under New Labour
| Related posts... • The ragged edge of technology • Child M must stay • Abortion again |
• Permalink • Trackback • Subscribe |
|
|
|
• 9 Comments |
Or you can always emulate your favourite celebs, and adopt a Third World child.*
*This offer excludes Iraq.
Nah, they don’t let riff raff adopt. They have to squirt out their own kids.
We don’t like families either. My kids’ childcare costs £200 a week for which I get tax relief on £55. Can’t really afford childcare, but then again can’t really afford to eat if both myself and the missus don’t work. Don’t get me started on tax credits… What was wrong with the old system of bumping up tax-free allowances with each kid? Far too simple for Our Gord. And how come none of the now-whinging Labour MP lackeys moaned about this 10p tax scandal when it was first announced. Most commentators said then that it would hit the single, low-paid worker… oh hang on, there weren’t any looming elections or house repossession problems back then. I’m sick of the whole lot of them.
And another thing – it’s all well and good saying ‘We’ll mitigate the effect with things like tax credits and other hand-outs’ but what if some people out there actually prefer to earn, and then keep, their money, rather than having to apply to the state to be given it?
I don’t want to have to ask for benefits to top up my income in order to be compensated for the extra tax I pay. I’d just like not to pay the extra tax, please.
kates last blog post..I know, I know …
Works in Britain but not over here.
jameshighams last blog post..[pecking order] why it’s better to be the boss
I’m not quite sure what your point is here, but the thing that gets to me every time people talk about “giving money” to people with children is that they seem to think that this is somehow an incentive to have children. They forget, it appears, that babies and children require work.
Everyone just knows that your average person on benefits won’t take a 40 hour a week job for an extra few quid a week – it’s just not worth it. And yet a few extra quid a week for having a child is worth it? Hello? Apparently having children isn’t any effort at all. You just pop one out, stick it on the floor and collect the moolah.
My point is that this government seems to think that having kids elevates you above the common herd as if it requires any talent or confers special powers or something.
Yes, it’s hard work. Oh God, it’s hard. Yes, people having kids for benefits is largely a right wing myth. Yes, children, unable to work and earn for themselves, need help from the state. But the message seems to be here that one is less important if not firing one’s DNA at another human being.
1) a single person earning £12k is a lot better off than a parent earning £12k
2) in a progressive tax system, which I assume is what we’d all like apart from swivel-eyed libertoonians, people who are better off pay more tax than people who are worse off
3) therefore, it makes sense to tax parents less than single people
4) none of points 1-3 above mean that the bureaucratic nightmare of tax credits is sensible, or that it makes sense to raise taxes for the poor and cut them for the middle class…
john bs last blog post..A lie has a good ending
I’m happy to agree with all of that, John. It’s the moral aspect of all this that has got me frothing at the mouth.