Monday 24 March 2008
Slight technical hitch
Something seemed to have happened to the site over the past week, which meant that no comments could be left on the most recent posts. Think I've got this sorted now. On a more general note, rather disappointing that the only thing people seem to want to comment on is expenses, and that no-one has anything to say on, for example, child poverty.
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11 comments:
Probably because the government itself isn't doing much any more about child poverty, except for blaming their inability to do anything on the self-employed.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/setback-for-labour-as-child-poverty-rises-for-the-first-time-since-1997-442148.html
That news story is a year old! What about this year's Budget, which had child poverty as its central theme?
And if you don't think the Government is doing enough, isn't that even more reason to comment?
Ditching the 10% tax band doesn't do much for child poverty either.
Poor families end up paying more tax than before?
And, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, 13% of adults moving from benefits to work are paying an effective marginal tax rate in excess of 70%.
A further 7% of adults face a marginal tax rate of 90% plus.
That's 20% of the adult population being clobbered with penalising rates of tax way in excess of anything experienced by high earners.
I see you're more than happy to quote age-old links.
http://kerry-mccarthy.blogspot.com/2008/03/seal-hunt-view-from-canada.html
You've missed your metier. You should have been a local councillor.
You take absolutely no position in your blog or your website on national issues to the constituents who elected you to represent them in the Commons.
Yet you are 45th out of 650-odd MPs on expenses, 65th on staffing costs (are they family?), 14th on staffing + office costs.
So, you know, where's our money going?
Before we even count in your pension and your gains on selling on the 2nd home you're claiming for on your 2nd home allowance
Not to mention what you're getting on the John Lewis list
Why did VSO have to pay your travel, rent and basic expenses for your trip to Uganda when you're an MP on God knows what a year, VSO is a charity and Ugandans live on next to nothing?
I went out there on a volunteer placement, working in their Kampala office and was treated exactly the same as any other VSO volunteer. In fact it was such a success they've decided to arrange placements for at least ten MPs this summer and had their first meeting in parliament today to start the ball rolling on that. Incidentally, most of VSO's funding comes from DFID.
P.S. If I'd spent my summer holiday swanning round in Tuscany at my own expense you'd probably have criticised me for that too.
If you'd done anything at your own expense there could have been absolutely no criticism.
What you mean to say is, most of VSO's funding comes from the tax payer via the DFID. Which makes it less of a charity and more of an NGO.
You could have offered to pay for the trip yourself. And let VSO's funding go to where it's really needed.
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