Telegraph eviscerates Cam on child benefits

by Sunny Hundal
4:50 pm - October 6th 2010

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Sorry I missed this earlier, but today’s Telegraph leader column is very scathing of David Cameron and George Osborne.

It states:

Clever politics? No, crass and out of touch
Telegraph View: the ham-fisted plan to withdraw child benefit appears to be about political positioning, pure and simple

And that’s just the introduction.

The third paragraph is the most spot on:

The measure, which will save about £1 billion a year, is self-evidently not an urgent element in the Government’s deficit reduction strategy, because it will not be introduced until 2013. So why has it been rushed out now? This appears to be about political positioning, pure and simple. With harsh measures against lower-paid workers imminent – we should learn the future shape of public sector pensions before the end of the week – it was deemed clever politics to take a pre-emptive tilt at higher-rate taxpayers. This is not a grown-up way to conduct welfare reform.

On a rare occasion I can agree with the Telegraph.

Read the whole thing here.

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About the author
Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
· Other posts by Sunny Hundal

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Reader comments

5:01 pm, October 6, 2010

1. Mr S. Pill

*Applauds use of “eviscerates” in the headline*

And yeah, the coalition has jumped the shark on this one.

11:43 pm, October 6, 2010

2. diogenes

lol…you might be surprised how much support there is for this outside the BBC/guardianista class…no one takes Paxman or BBC opposition seriously anymore and the Telegraph opposition was from the second-rankers

12:30 am, October 7, 2010

3. Shatterface

‘On a rare occasion I can agree with the Telegraph’

The fact that the right-wing press support wealthy families who are reluctant to give up what is merely pocket money to them shouldn’t surprise us.

3:08 pm, October 7, 2010

4. Alan Kirby

Few seemed to have questioned the rationale of postponing this cut until 2013.
Given they’ve chosen to do it in a very simplistic way, I’d imagine the administrative requirements to stop payment to higher-rate taxpayers could be put in place within a few weeks. So why a 3 YEAR delay? Is GB hoping things will be much rosier then and he can announce they don’t need to do it at all? Are the poor and vulnerable also to be given a three-year grace period to prepare for his raids on their standards of living, which are likely, of course, to have a proportionately much more devastating effect? As one of the millions struggling on near minimum wage, I’m getting really ticked off with people on £45k [meaning they're among the top 10% of wage-earners] whining about how modest and ‘ordinary’ their lifestyles are, and how they’re ‘only just getting by’. Wouldn’t we love to be the opportunity to ‘just get by’ on that!

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.@libcon violently agreeing with the Telegraph. Just when you thought you'd seen it all. http://bit.ly/9ZoJw8