George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has recently announced that four billion pounds will need to be cut back from the annual welfare bill. His reasoning behind this is that it will stop people from seeing living on benefits as a ‘lifestyle choice’, and of course it will help to reduce the overburdening national deficit. But there are some significant flaws in his reasoning. From a social perspective, people who are currently suffering long-term unemployment after having only just got out of the worst recession in a generation can hardly be condemned as choosing that lifestyle; redundancy is something which is inflicted, not asked for!
Yet even if your political ideology does condone Osborne’s applications of the deficit reduction, it cannot understand the hypocrisy of other overspending. One and a quarter billion pounds in contracts has just been awarded to the building of two new aircraft carriers. So apparently it’s okay to take pauper’s benefits away from them as long as we’ve still got the capability to bomb little foreigners out of existence! And let’s not forget that in just a few days from now the Pope will be visiting the UK at a cost to the general taxpayer of anything between eight and twelve million pounds. This is the same Pope who condemns contraception regardless of the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and believes homosexuality is a mortal sin. As I am a liberal minded person, I’d rather not have to pay for him to visit my country. Hasn’t the Vatican got it’s own supply of finances? And what about Christian charity? Can’t churchgoers foot the bill to chat to their leader?
So, Mr Osborne, if you are going to take money from generally hard working people, then at least attempt to make it morally justifiable.
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