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Welfare reform must ensure people working earn more than those on benefits, says Balls

January 4, 2013 5:57 pm

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  • Monkey_Bach

    Mr. Balls appears somewhat confused. People in work have ALWAYS been better off than those on benefits. The Shadow Chancellor might find the following blogger’s article illuminating.

    http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/george-osbornes-benefit-bullshitting-hides-his-true-agenda/

    I was hoping for better than this from Balls, but there you go.

    Eeek.

    • AlanGiles

      I never expect too much from that flabby-faced overgrown schoolboy. Again, on the World At One today he sounded entirely unconvincing. It’s all just a great big game to politicians of all parties – a pampered little elite who know little about life beyond Westminster. Perhaps if some of them had lived in the real world, on minimum wage with no monthly £400 “food allowance” or public money to patch up their duck houses, moats or elderly MPs buying £8000 TV sets at our expense, they would understand a bit more what life is like for real people. 1 job for every 50 or 60 applicants, many people who are working are doing so part-time, even though they want full-time work. Where is Balls going to magic up these jobs?.

      He is trying to say two contradictory things at once – that he disagrees with the Coalition’s view, but at the same time he also agrees with it – a bit like Byrne agreeing with “three quarters” of the Coalition Welfare Reforms, then he doesn’t, then he does (again), then he doesn’t. I honestly don’t think Labour 2012 has the faintest idea of what to do, except slightly rearrange the Coalitions arrangements and make a great deal of noise doing it. It’s a hollow vessel that makes most noise.

      • jaime taurosangastre candelas

        An £8,000 TV at our expense? Please Alan, tell me that is a typo. That is more money than I would ever spend on a car, let alone a piece of domestic entertainment. My old Volvo cost me less than half of that, my wife’s Discovery was less than £6,000 (she put in an extra £1,000 of her money because she wanted the more expensive of the two we were offered).

        • AlanGiles

          Good morning Jaime. No I only wish it were a typo. It SHOULD be, but dear old Gerald Kaufmann, who remins a pontificating MP did just that:

          http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5330816/Sir-Gerald-Kaufmans-1800-rug-and-an-8865-claim-for-a-television-MPs-expenses.html

          This is why I get so angry about politicians of all parties pretending to be so outraged – there are some of the biggest fiddlers going. Then you have people like Maggie Beckett being made Dames, somebody else who was over generous with our money, not forgetting “Dame” Tessa Jowell, for services to the remortgaging industry, Duncan-Smith and Betsygate – they have no shame and no integrity, which is why they sicken me.

    • http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone

      Balls believes Tory bullsh*t – but that’s probably a prerequisite to selection as a Labour Party parliamentary candidate nowadays.

  • Brumanuensis

    Hold on, if welfare cuts are primarily affecting ‘strivers’, why this argument about ‘people earning more in work than on welfare’?

  • PaulHalsall

    Why should people who are disabled always live in poverty?

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