Shenanigans, I'm tempted to agree with some of what you say, but I definitely don't agree with all of it! But thanks for your contribution.
You claimed in your first post that the coalition was waging war on vulnerable people. That is an outrageous statement and if I were a Tory or LibDem politician (which I'm definitely not) with poor people in my constituency, for whom I was genuinely doing my best, I'd be doubly outraged. As I've already said, the austerity measures which have been introduced (out of necessity, note) inevitably hit poorer people harder since they have little or no room for manoeuvre. But how else are the books to be balanced unless wide-ranging stringency is introduced? To say that "we'll only hit the toffs and millionaires" might satisfy those on the extreme Left but it sure as hell won't reduce the deficit by very much - and it certainly wouldn't get us back on track economically inside at least 20 years. We all have a role to play, however painful it is.
Reverting to "toffs", I accept that your definition may well be valid but there is no doubt in my mind that the term is very often used in today's world in a derogatory sense - as in Enthused's use of it in her post! I've been accused of being one myself, merely because I speak as many former army officers do, but what utter nonsense, since the way I speak in no way reflects my sympathies for example for the plight of the poor or my loathing for tax evaders - or my views on many other things.
Enthused's post implied that there is something wrong or disgusting about millionaires and perhaps that, along with toffs, they are somehow the cause of the poverty of people she knows. Well, of course they can ride the financial storms better than most - I suspect they wouldn't be millionaires in the first place if they couldn't. But it's not their fault that the country is in the economic mess it is and since their ability to create jobs is part of the way out of that mess, don't for Gawd's sake knock'em unfairly. You in your own post refer to tax avoidance as though that's some sort of a sin, exploited by the wealthy. Sorry, but in my book it's not. If you, through your own initiative and effort, have built up a business which you sell when you retire, leaving you capital of say £800K and you've bought a house years ago which now has a market value of £700K, and your great-aunt Fanny died and left you another £300K, if you were so foolish as to now die those who you leave behind would at today's rate of inheritance tax have to pay the Exchequer 40% of £1.42 million, even though you had paid all your taxes along the way. Almost anyone owning a house in the London area may find it valued for probate at more than the £380K inheritance tax allowance and that, together with their other savings, means that their family, or whoever, would be liable for 40% on the total value of their estate beyond the allowance. So anyone who doesn't minimise what goes to the Exchequer rather than to their inheritors, is either very generous or very foolish (depending on your point of view!)
Your post suggests that I used the term wasters to describe the poor in general. I did no such thing. I merely said that if all wealth were redistributed evenly across the whole population then the wasters would rejoice - not, repeat not, that all the poor were wasters. But be clear, there are wasters out there. I've seen them in Northern Ireland where there were families (happily a minority) who'd never done a stroke for generations and were content to live on benefits - and I dare say we have our share of them in most parts of UK. But in no way do I blame the poor for being poor - except for the wasters! And to put things into perspective, we should acknowledge that despite the current economic stringency, and unfortunate though that is for those living on the margins, we are still one of the richest countries in the world. More people own their houses than ever before, more people run cars, take holidays abroad, buy the latest computers/TVs/mobile phones and so on than ever before. I know that's little consolation to those at the bottom end of the pile - but it's verging on the criminal to accuse the coalition of actually waging war on them.
Finally, I'm judging no-one (who the hell am I to do so). But I do strongly believe that we have to get out of the mess we're in by ourselves, and that inevitably means sacrifices from all of us.
Tony.
PS. Effer, along with millions of us moaners here in UK, I'm currently moaning that NZ seems to have beaten England in the T20 match in Bangladesh on the basis of the Duckworth/Lewis formula, just because rain stopped play in a match which England would undoubtedly have won had the full game been played ... It's not fair!!!
PPS. I'm not at all clear just what proportion of the UK's debt will be inherited by Scotland if they vote for independence - but I can see trouble ahead!
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