Entitlement

(Redwing above to kick off my contributions to the Blip Big Year)

Driving about East Lothian in the sunshine today gave me a mini-rant to start off 2013 (well, it's been a while and people like SooB might have been getting withdrawal symptoms). The Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 is a little like an aural Daily Wail, and certainly picks its topics accordingly.

There was a lady in the studio today defending her position on child allowance, and proposed changes that will mean households with combined incomes of more than £100k will no longer get the allowance. You see she has an income in excess of that (it wasn't clear whether that was just her, or combined income) and still claims child allowance, and thinks it grossly unfair that the position is changing.

Amongst her arguments were some gems: it's a 'tax on children' gave her some sort of moral high ground (though I have to ponder whether that moral high ground is lost when, basically, she doesn't need the allowance to give her children a good start in life, and so is, essentially, lessening the help that those who really need it can get); she's never claimed any other benefits in her life (well yes, most are means tested, or based on you not being able to work, but you earn in excess of £100k - bit of a straw man that one); that other people play the system (ah yes, the old 'two wrongs make a right' argument); and that this was the 'thin end of the wedge' that would lead to things like education becoming means tested and having to be paid for (so so so many problems with this ridiculous argument - just like people writing into newspapers to complain about 20mph zones asking 'where is this going to end? With men holding red flags walking in front of cars....' - it would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that people actually do believe these kind of things when they say them - for the record, I'm pretty sure I can categorically state that in the next couple of lifetimes we are not going to be in a position where education is means tested, purely because education is, absolutely and correctly, a basic human right that must be offered by a state).

Anyway, she trotted out the same nonsense as caller after caller rang in to complain to her (most adopting the 'my parents had 17 children and never needed child allowances' line, which in itself is a weak counter-argument). Basically though there was a sense of 'entitlement' that ran through her defence and statements; that she'd always been able to get the allowance, so why should it stop now? (because of course benefit systems and benefits entirely cannot be changed, ever). Presumably a sense of entitlement she's passing on to her kids now, the eldest of whom was going to be starting university this year, and 'could not have been expected to provide for or support himself' before going to uni where he would then be saddled with debt. My immediate thought was 'so he didn't need to get a paper round as a kid then', which, if the allowances were so needed would surely have also helped the household.

But I also couldn't help thinking that, earning in excess of £100k a year, she'd be looking after her son at uni to ensure he didn't get into debt anyway, with very little impact on her lifestyle. And that's what this boils down to. Earn over £100k a year; choose to have children, knowing how much they cost; but because of that £100k+ be safe in the knowledge that you can afford those children (she had two); and yet still feel that the State should give you some help, even in these straitened times, with other people who genuinely can hardly afford to put food on the table for their kids.

Maybe I'm biased. As a kid my mum and dad used to get school food vouchers for us; and help to buy new school uniforms and shoes at the start of a new school year, because we truly had very very little - and I know that if I had a kid now, earning what I earn, not being anywhere near £100k, I wouldn't need that child allowance. Entitlement doesn't come into it; morality does, but not in any form that would be recognisable to the lady on the radio...