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Sept. 17, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
25:32
What the Conservative Party Did Next
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I think it's worth looking at what the Conservative Party has done since their election win back in May.
Now, I know that some people watching this video may well be Conservative voters, and I'm not trying to make this video an attack on the Conservatives, and I'm certainly not making this video to be an attack on you.
I just really think we should actually ask ourselves, is this the kind of society we want to live in?
Is this really what we want to be?
Because this is the kind of society that the Conservatives are going to make.
I will of course endeavour to be as fair-minded as possible, and represent the position the Conservative Party is in as accurately as I am able to do.
I'll start with the things that concern me the least, and then move on to the things that concern me the most.
Which is why I'll be starting with the 10% pay rise that MPs will receive.
Now, you might be thinking, well, typical cronyism, and I can't believe how many of them turned out to vote for a pay rise.
A pay rise that was approved by Downing Street, despite a succession of MPs saying that it was not appropriate.
In fact, loads of MPs were actually behind the idea of not getting a pay rise, which is something you may well find remarkable.
David Cameron found himself under mounting pressure to block an expected 10% pay rise for MPs after the Education Secretary and former Community Secretary both said they would give their extra pay to charity.
David Cameron opposes the move but said he will not block the increase, saying MPs' pays is a matter for IPSA.
Oh yeah, and that 10% increase is backdated as well.
Now, it's very easy to be cynical when dealing with this, but this is actually being handled by the IPSA, which is an independent body that regulates MP pay, and their assessment is that MPs are underpaid, but that they had far too many generous allowances.
I think it's important to remember that this is a response to and solution for the MP expenses scandal.
In exchange for a 10% pay rise, the MPs are going to have a restructured pension scheme and lose some of their expenses.
I've got no doubt that there are going to be plenty of people who are objecting to them getting a pay rise anyway, even if they're losing their expenses, and maybe I'd be one of them, but it's really not the worst thing in the world, and at least the expenses issue has been settled, at least for now.
The next issue that the Conservatives could have done far worse on is the top rate of tax.
In 2010, the previous Labour government increased it to 50% from 40%.
And in his 2012 budget, George Osborne cut it from 50p down to 45p, which is why then-Labour leader Ed Miliband labelled it a millionaire's budget.
Being worth over £4 million himself and being well within the top earners' tax bracket, everyone was wondering, will George Osborne cut taxes for the rich yet again?
And there are certainly arguments for him to do so.
The evidence is apparently conclusive according to the Financial Times.
However, this report's behind a paywall and I don't have access to it.
Since I can't examine this report for myself, I'm just going to assume that what they're saying here is broadly accurate.
Since George Osborne cut the top rate of tax, there has been more revenue entering the Treasury.
Frankly, I find the knowing that they will keep more of their own money has incentivised them to make more a bit of a general collectivist statement.
I don't think Paul Goodman knows this.
I think this is the agenda he is trying to push.
However, I haven't seen the report, so I can't really comment.
This isn't the only pressure, though, as 160 Tory MPs back cutting the top tax rate to 40p.
Now, an optimist, I suppose, could say, well, look at the data.
There's more money coming to the exchequer since the tax rate was cut to 45p, so it'd make sense to just cut it to 40p and theoretically increase it even more.
A cynic might say, well, yes, but these people are all in the top tax bracket, so they would advocate for that, wouldn't they?
But in addition to the MP pay rises, it seems that giving a tax cut to the wealthiest at a time when Britain faces fresh waves of austerity cuts will undermine David Cameron's new blue-collar conservatism message.
And with two-thirds of voters being opposed to Osborne's plan, it seems that he recognised which way the wind was blowing.
And despite mounting pressure from his fellow Tory MPs, Osborne refused to cut the tax rate.
Now, I didn't see the Financial Times report, so I don't know why the revenue to the Treasury has gone up after the 50p tax rate was cut, and maybe it is directly because of the income tax being cut, and maybe it is because the wealthiest people have been incentivised to earn more.
But personally, I think that sounds like a convenient fiction, and I think that that's probably the case for a lot of people as well.
And I think that the real reason that George Osborne kept the tax rate as it is is because of the fear of public backlash, which is something the Tories are surprisingly sensitive to.
Take for example fox hunting, which the Conservatives were planning to legalise if they won the 2015 general election.
Anyone who knows anything about Britain will know it as a nation of animal lovers, and fox hunting is a very, very unpopular thing.
And the Conservatives cancelled the idea before they even took it to Parliament for a vote because of overwhelming pressure from the public.
So, so far, so good.
There's nothing here that I would bother criticising the Conservatives over.
In fact, I actually appreciate them being responsive to the public on certain issues at least, even if the only reason they're doing that is to save their necks.
But the thing is, then the Conservatives do things that frankly I find baffling, that just are so spineless.
And I can't help but wonder if their vacillation on these issues is a manifestation of the spinelessness and unwillingness to stand for something.
Take for example when Britain was suddenly given a bill by the European Union for £1.7 billion, and George Osborne very bravely came out to say, No, we're not paying it, we're only going to pay half of it.
So, Osborne declared victory over the European Union and said he had forced Brussels to halve the UK's £1.7 billion budget bill.
And what was this bill for?
Well, the success of Britain's economy of all things.
But, okay, Osborne paid half of it because this way he can make sure the rules can be changed to ensure that Britain will never again be ambushed with an enormous bill.
David Cameron was left furious after he was presented with the unacceptable bill at the start of a summit in Brussels.
Great, stand up to them, Cameron.
He told European leaders that the demands were leading hundreds of thousands of British voters to decide they want to leave the EU.
Yes, that's exactly what's happening.
They won't listen, though, will they?
So, what are you gonna do, Cameron?
How are you going to show them?
Oh, by settling the bill in full.
Not even just paying half of it, paying the whole damn thing.
Britain transferred the money in two instalments on July the 1st and September the 1st.
The UK was among the nine countries that were forced last October to pay more as a result of rising national wealth.
So, on an unjust issue that they themselves are rightfully angry about, and which they would have had massive amounts of public support for, they decide to just cave.
And yet they want foreign students to be banned from working in the UK and forced to leave as soon as they finish their courses under Theresa May's tough new visa rules.
Foreign students will be banned from working in the UK while they study and will be forced to leave the country as soon as they finish their course under these tough new rules.
The move is designed to crack down on visa fraud in the UK.
The new rules will apply only to non-EU students who accounted for 121,000 immigrants last year.
Only 51,000 of these foreign students left the UK, leaving a net influx of 70,000.
Theresa May hopes to stop immigrants using colleges as a back door for a British visa and has banned 870 bogus colleges from accepting foreign students.
Alright, great.
I mean it seems a little bit draconian to prevent students from being able to get, you know, just part-time jobs to help sustain them through university while they're here, but okay, it's a measure to try and disincentivise foreign students from coming here and not returning home after they've done their degrees.
One might wonder why let them come at all then if that's the case, but fine.
It's rather baffling, broad and belligerent, but fine.
I don't really have too much of a problem with it.
I have a problem with the Tory plan to deal with EU migrants because their plan to deal with EU migrants is going to directly affect young British citizens because of the remarkably wide dragnet the Conservatives are casting.
So the Conservatives have plans to introduce a four-year residency test for migrants as a key part of the UK's negotiations of its EU membership.
But lawyers say applying such a test to migrants alone would breach EU laws.
So the government is considering extending the rule to all UK benefit applicants from the age of 18.
So what does this mean?
Well it means that British people, even if they have lived in the UK their entire lives, from their 18th birthday would be ineligible for benefits for four years until they reach 22, despite the fact that they may well have already paid taxes, despite the fact they may well be paying taxes right up until say their 19th birthday when they're made unemployed and they can't claim benefits despite having paid into that system.
And it's not like the Conservatives have a particularly good record on immigration anyway.
With net migration being up 50% to 318,000 last year.
But Cameron said he wouldn't cave in and abandon his target of reducing net migration below 100,000.
Well, I mean, I hate to say this, Cameron, but I'm starting to think that maybe you will just say anything.
But again, okay, fine.
This isn't all the worst things that could happen.
You know, I'm not thrilled about the idea of young people not being able to claim benefits if they need them.
They are absolutely entitled to these things as British citizens, and therefore they deserve them.
But what really starts to piss me off is when they start attacking workers' rights.
For example, David Cameron being open to the idea of workers saving up to fund their own sick pay.
It will come as no surprise that this idea was first floated by Ian Duncan Smith, the man born without a soul.
The man so out of touch with reality that he thinks that there should be a debate about encouraging people to use personal accounts to save for unemployment or illness.
We need to encourage people to save from day one, but they need to know that they can get some of the money out when their circumstances change.
Spoken like a man who has no idea what it's like to be part of the working poor.
Saving is something that people with spare money do, Ian.
It's baffling how they're trying to couch this as well.
I think the Prime Minister shares the Work and Pension Secretary's view that we should be doing more to encourage people to take personal responsibility for how they manage their affairs.
You mean how they get sick.
And what you think, like McDonald's or Amazon or any of the other giants, multinational corporations that dominate the UK's economy shouldn't have to pay for their employees when they're sick, just for the short period of time that they're ill for.
You don't think they should have any burden of responsibility.
I mean, the responsibility is on the peasant for getting ill, isn't it?
And since we're on the topic of business, I mean, yeah, David Cameron, of course, buys into the nonsense of the gender pay gap.
Hook, Line, and Sinker, apparently.
Cameron plans to do this by forcing companies to disclose their gender pay gaps.
Cameron said, we will make every single company with 250 employees or more publish the gap between average female earnings and average male earnings.
That will cast sunlight on the discrepancies and create the pressure we need for change, driving women's wages up.
Well, I suppose it will, because that's the only solution to what you're suggesting, is artificially give women more money for being women because they're not working enough hours in jobs that pay well enough on average.
Unsurprisingly, Cameron's facing pushback here from businesses who are like, look, you're just going to create a witch hunt mentality where no solution is going to be good enough.
But what's more, I find it distinctly baffling that the Conservative Party, the party of capitalism, would be employing such Marxist ideals in its own policies.
I can only assume it's how Hayek describes on page 46 of The Road to Serfdom, when he says, like so many Marxist ideas, it is found in so many circles who have received it third or fourth hand and do not know whence it derives.
The Confederation of British Industry warned that publishing the gap in pay between men and women could be misleading and it preferred a voluntary approach.
They argue that the fundamental reason for the gap in pay between men and women is stereotypes, which deter women from pursuing higher earning careers.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter why women don't pursue higher earning careers.
Which makes this whole conversation absolutely balmy.
Cameron started by pointing out that on average, men earn more than women.
And this is considered to be an unacceptable gap, even though it is very clearly due to free choice.
But again, because of pressure being brought about by various interest groups, the Conservatives have just simply gone, well, I know that we are the party of capitalism, but we could try a little bit of Marxism.
Because apparently the Conservative Party doesn't stand for anything.
You know what?
That's not fair.
The Conservatives do stand for one thing.
They are the party who are against the poor.
If there is one place the Conservative Party have not wavered, it is in their attempt to destroy the welfare state.
And I know what you're thinking.
You were just quoting Hayek.
You were just railing against Marxism.
How can you be in favour of socialism?
And to those people, I say, well, it's not that cut and dried.
I'm not advocating for a planned economy.
I am merely advocating for taxes and regulation to provide help to the poorest people in society who don't have the opportunity of engaging with this system in the same way that, for example, you and I do, being presumably intelligent, upwardly mobile and capable people.
Not everyone is born into this situation and not everyone has these advantages.
And to paraphrase Thomas Sowell, I'm not interested in helping groups.
I'm interested in helping those who actually have disadvantages.
Personally, I really think you have to be pragmatic on this issue.
I don't think it's possible to get rid of the welfare state.
And I don't think I would even if it was.
I think I would prefer the governments being able to support the poorest and most vulnerable in society instead of having it done via private client-patron means.
And it's not like I'm against everything the Conservatives are doing in this way.
I think it's a good idea to lower the maximum amount of benefits that a family can be on from £26,000 a year to £20,000 or £23,000.
I think that's a good idea.
So when the Conservatives say that they want to reform the damaging culture of welfare dependency, I'm on board with them.
Yeah, sure, we do need to do this.
But the thing is, 250,000 people weren't taking to the streets in protest against that.
Because that's not where these cuts begin or end.
Unsurprisingly, these welfare cuts are going to hit the poorest third of UK families.
The government's reported package of welfare cuts in the next month's budget, including a £5 billion cut to child tax credit, would overwhelmingly hit the poorest third of families in the UK.
The research by the Resolution Foundation think tank that specialises in living standards puts a question mark over the political feasibility of the government pressing ahead with £12 billion in welfare cuts in its 2017-18 plan timetable.
David Cameron has ruled out cuts to child benefits and to the £85 billion pensions bill, leaving Ian Duncan Smith to look at cuts to tax credits, housing benefits, and some disability benefits.
Now, if I was being cynical, I would be inclined to say that these are benefits that go almost exclusively to people who do not vote conservative.
Child benefit wouldn't be cut because it affects millions of middle class households.
And unsurprisingly, people who vote conservative tend to be much older, with two-fifths of pensioners voting conservative.
So it can't really come as any surprise why David Cameron has ring-fenced these two parts of the budget.
These are people he is relying on voting for him.
And if you're part of the middle class and you don't want your child benefit cut, you can trust him.
He's not going to cut your child benefit.
He's not going to do it.
So what if Nick Clegg has said that the Conservatives have a secret plan to cut child benefit?
They're just salty.
Oh, except they absolutely did it.
They lied to your faces and then decided they were going to cut these tax credits.
And you might say, well, it's just working tax credits.
It's not.
It's child tax credits as well.
Three million families will lose around £1,000 a year under a measure which has been bitterly condemned.
I'm not surprised, especially given how they were told that this wouldn't happen.
So not only have child tax credits been cut, but also working tax credits have been cut, which are designed to top up the earnings of people on low incomes and the payouts and means tested.
And obviously people are going to find it remarkably difficult to go without this money, so the solution appears to be to petition for a higher minimum wage.
And you had people like the shadow Chief Treasury Secretary Seema Malhothra accusing the government of wrecking family finances and being in denial about the impact these changes are going to have.
But the thing is, I don't think that they are in denial about it.
I think they're just going to try and work around it.
For example, the number of children who have slipped into poverty is set to rise for the first time in a decade.
So what do you do?
Obviously, you redefine what child poverty is.
David Cameron is looking to revive plans to change the way that child poverty is measured in advance of figures that are expected to show that it has increased for the first time in a decade.
Now, call me a cynic.
The current definition of child poverty is whether a child lives in a household with an income of less than 60% of the national average.
Cameron's official spokeswoman pointed out this means that fewer children could be in poverty during a recession because the average household income has fallen.
Really, Cameron, is this the hill you want to die on?
Fewer children are in poverty because more people are impoverished.
Is that really where you're going to make your stand?
I don't think it's an argument against poverty if the national average has just gone down.
In real terms, all of these people have got poorer.
It's not that the definition of poverty needs to be redefined.
But okay, so when they're not trying to take money away from children, what else are they doing?
Well, I don't know whether this is worse.
They're cutting the Independent Living Fund, which, as you can see by this article back in January, isn't a new idea.
The problem is essentially that the Independent Living Fund is a vital lifeline for 18,000 severely disabled people.
Despite this being a really low place to find budget cuts from.
And despite the fact that there was a hundred-person protest outside Westminster Abbey, instead of these funds being given to individuals, the government has said that local authorities will be given the ILF budget.
Which Ellen Clifford, a spokeswoman for Disabled People Against Cuts, says that the scheme's closure signals a return to institutions for disabled people.
And I guess we'll find out whether that's correct or not, because the Independent Living Fund was closed.
This is an interesting and quite cunning measure from the Conservatives.
Simply put, people who currently receive support from the local council and the ILF will receive all of their support from the local council.
So if things change further down the line, it's not the fault of the Conservative Party, it's the fault of individual local councils.
Not only that, but they are actually reducing the amount of money that was put into the fund from 300 million to 262 million.
And this money does not have to be ring-fenced, so it could technically be spent by local authorities on other things and is subject to normal budget cuts.
I'm really trying my best not to be excessively cynical about this, but honestly, it just looks like a way of cutting these in future, and from alleviating themselves of the responsibility of doing so.
Finally, though, we'll look at the bedroom tax, which frankly is one of the most abominable things I think the Conservatives have ever done.
This is where some particularly unpleasant chickens come home to roost.
One concern is about divorced or separated fathers with low incomes who can't afford a second bedroom, which can be the sole barrier between maintaining a relationship with their children and losing visiting rights altogether.
But frankly, they are not the group for whose treatment I am most appalled.
Because a number of Conservatives are finding that they have serious concerns about the bedroom tax itself.
And why wouldn't they?
Daniel Cab just fuck you, Poland.
The MP for Shrewsby and HM tells the Work and Pension Secretary that I believe the time has come to review this policy and for you to take on board feedback from constituencies as to what is going well and what needs to potentially be reviewed and amended.
He complains that several senior members of my association have expressed concern to me over some of the practical and logistical aspects of this legislation and its impact.
And you know what?
I don't blame them.
I don't blame them for worrying not so much about the logistical aspects, frankly, but about its impact.
For example, the disabled Liverpool FC football coach who was given an award by David Cameron could lose his home because of the bedroom tax.
But you know what?
I mean that you might be thinking, well hey, I'm a person who gives a shit about others.
I find this abhorrent.
Yeah well that's because you didn't know who Rob Tomlinson was.
A man with cerebral palsy who has to bathe in a paddling pool after being forced out of his home due to the bedroom tax.
These are the disabled individuals whose quality of life is being destroyed under the phrase, we want work to pay.
We want to end benefits culture.
Well, I don't know whether you've noticed, David and Ian.
Disabled people aren't a part of benefits culture.
They aren't the slovenly do-nothings who don't want to get a job.
They are people who are either unable to get jobs or unable to normally attend them and so require extra assistance.
And chucking them out of their houses because they committed the cardinal sin of living somewhere with a spare bedroom.
Honestly, it's just enough to make me sick.
Fucking sickening.
And there seems to be no end to it.
I'm literally finishing up this video and I flip to Facebook to waste five minutes.
And what do I see?
A 330,000 person strong petition against something that I've never even heard of.
The trade union bill.
What do I find?
First thing on Google.
This sinister trade union bill is an assault on the rights of working people.
The planned act will drastically curb union activity and put civil rights and industrial relations at risk.
Why would any government do that?
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