He has sparked fury by declaring that in household where there is someone earning £45.000 per year then the mother will stand to lose their child benefit, however, in households where there are two earners below the £45.000 cut off point, they will be able to retain their benefit, this means that the combined income of up to £88.000 pounds will keep their benefits.
It is obvious that this has not been thought through, Osborne announced this at conference and even the cabinet had no idea of the decision and there was grumblings at the lack lustre subdued Tory conference that Osborne is attacking the Conservatives core vote.
Also there has been no mention of single parents, although earning £45.000 per year seems a lot, it is not in the South East, where the average mortgage is around £1.100 per month and then the parent will have to pay out for child care, council tax, gas, water, electricity and food, household insurance, personal insurance and food is very expensive. if the parent commutes to work then train fairs are very high and fuel for cars is also very high.
And again no one knows because the chancellor has not said if this amount is before or after tax and national insurance and pensions is deducted.
In opposition and during the election campaign, Conservative and Lib Dem politicians repeatedly pledged to keep universal child benefit.
David Cameron specifically ruled out any changes. As did George Osborne and Nick Clegg and other Tory and Lib Dem frontbenchers. This is what they said.
"We will preserve child benefit, winter fuel payments and free TV licences. They are valued by millions." - George [Gideon] Osborne, Conservative Party Conference, October 2009.
"There are some things we have specifically ruled out. Take the issue of child benefit, it goes straight to the mother, it is very simple." - David Cameron. Sky News, May 3, 2010.
"There are some benefits and I think child benefit is one of them, where actually I think it's quite important that everybody, rich or poor, wherever they live, feels they have got a stake in it". Nick Clegg, the Politics Show, March 7 2010.
"We are not cutting child benefit. There is absolutely no threat to child benefit". - George Osborne, Radio 5 Live, March 11, 2010.
And what George Osborne said Monday 4th October 2010: "A system that taxes working people at high rates only to give it back in child benefit is very difficult to justify at times like this".The absolute hypocrisy of this situation is David Cameron and Mr Osborne both claim the child payments they are axing. The Prime Minister and wife Samantha, who are worth about £3million, pocket almost £2,500 a year for their three youngsters.
Wallpaper heir Mr Osborne has a personal fortune put at £4.3million and he and wife Frances get £1,752 a year for son Luke, nine, and daughter Liberty Kate, seven.
If either of these men felt so strongly about receiving child benefit, the why are they claiming them? Why not have got in touch with the department and have the benefit stopped?
Test Centres In The Firing Line
Hundreds of driving test centres across the country are to be shut down.
Fury at Boris Johnson Strikes Rant
London mayor Boris Johnson sparked anger by calling for new anti-union laws. He said that the unions should need the support of 50% of members before they can walk out.
Blasting the Tube strike by the RMT and TSSA over the loss of 800 ticket office jobs, he accused leaders of "naked political action that has nothing to do with health and safety".
The RMT's Bob Crow hit back that the Mayor was trying to distort democracy.
If it was only the case that ballots were only valid if over 50% of the vote was won, then Boris Johnson would not be London Mayor and the Tory party would not now be in government as neither secured 50% of the vote.
While striking should always be a last ditch scenario,each one of us that values our job, or the NHS, education or the welfare state, should be prepared to support strikers who are going without their pay to try and secure not only their jobs and services but ours also.
The government who said it would listen and that if they did not then we could "sack them", is not listening to us, or the concerns we have that they are cutting too fast and too deep and why are they forcing the elderly, young, chronically sick, disabled and the unemployed to pay for the bankers greed, which got us into this mess? They make noises about making banks pay, but this it all they are, noises! many of the bankers are big financial bankers of the Tories, so the government is hardly going to force them to pay.
Job Scheme Is Doomed
Coalition attempts to cut jobless figures will fail due to lack of vacancies.
Research by the Institute for Public Policy Research found there will be almost five people including almost two long-term unemployed chasing every vacancy.
The "ConDems" are paying companies and charities £3billion to do "whatever it takes" to get people who have been unemployed for a year or more into work.
But Institute director Nick Pearce said: "There simply are not enough jobs out there".
It seems like the government are beginning to panic and they have every reason to do so, they are taking a huge gamble with all of our livelihoods and our children and grandchildren's futures. The unemployment figures are worrying, in August the amount of people claiming was first put at 2.300, but they were later revised upwards to 3.800, yet this went unreported, a jump of 1,500 is significantly higher, especially as the lower figure was sold as just a minor rise, who was behind this misrepresentation and how did it come about?
Today although unemployment fell, it was once again down to the fact that people are taking up part time positions. We seem to be a country that has a glut of part time positions, where are they all coming from?
Employers seem to be making more part time positions as opposed to full time, this is beneficial to them as they do not pay so much in national insurance contributions and the state has to top up the pay of full time workers taking up part time positions, so the taxpayer is subsidising these employers to pay low paid part time wages, why would they want to take on full time staff? Last month those claiming benefit rose by 5,300 and how do we know that this is not going to be revised upwards again?
"The latest UK labour market data provides further evidence that the labour market recovery is faltering, even before the public sector job cuts really begin. The 5,300 rise in claimant count unemployment in September was the second monthly increase in a row and, although small, suggests that the trend has turned," said Vicky Redwood at Capital Economics.
The number of people out of work for longer than a year has risen to its highest level in 13 years, while the number of job vacancies fell by 30,000 in the three months to September.
Employment climbed by 178,000 between June and August, but this masked a further rise in part-time work, with a 143,000 increase in the number of part-time workers to a record high of almost 8 million. Self-employment also grew to a new record of almost 4 million."
Further Reading Claimant Count Rises Again - The Guardian
The Mirror Both Cameron and Osborne Claim Child Benefits!
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