BY BEN KERRIGAN
The chancellor George Osborne’s budget was impressive in its pledge to help the homeless.
His huge £110m sum to provide a safety net for vulnerable people in London and other cities, and end the spell of homelessness, is commendable, though we must wait to see it implemented before getting too excited. The chancellor plans to double funding for the ”rough sleeping social impact bond” to raise money for innovative projects designed to improve the long term welfare of homeless people in the capital.
Homelessness in Britain is an ugly shame to this country; one whose root cause is in the reckless lifestyles and habits of the homeless themselves, though some are undeniably from very unfortunate backgrounds. Many of the homeless in Britain have bad and expensive drug habits, picked up earlier in the lives by awful peer pressure and low self esteem. Many of them have no qualifications, limited skill sets, and weak family backgrounds.
Some other causes of homelessness, particularly of women, has been attributed to domestic abuse, an area Osborne has pledged £40m to address. Before we clap for the
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man who has been credited for being one of the savvy orchestrator’s of last May’s election victory, we must ask if his ambitious and thoughtful package for the homeless will extend to other parts of the country where homelessness is rife.
Essex, Northern England, and other parts of the U.k is ravaged with a level of homelessness that make us reevaluate our economic position in the world. Our economy is nowhere near its best, and has fluctuate dover the years, but we remain one of the strongest in the world. Against this fact also lies the sad reality that a fraction of those we see on the streets are shameless beggars with roofs over their heads who would rather beg tirelessly, even in the cold, to support their self inflicted destructive drug habits. They are the scum of society and should be rebuked and exposed at every opportunity. They need help and guidance, but that’s only effective to individuals willing to turn their lives around.
His tax levy on ”hard working families” is unfortunate and should be frowned upon. Taxes are inherently positive for the purposes of helping the least privileged among us, but heavy taxing is tantamount to appreciating the sweat that accompanies their hard work.
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Against this testing political backdrop, the chancellor was tasked with coming to the House of Commons to concede that the economy he has presided over for six years, and about which he was boasting only four months ago, is now performing materially less well than he had claimed. His Fizzy drink tax will be heartily applauded in many circles, especially among the wealth of commendable campaigners for healthy living, until this thought is soured by the reality that executives and business men stand to gain immeasurably from such tax rise.
One positive pledge the chancellor made was to turn every primary school into an academy. Primary school children are the future of every economy, making any goal set in this direction unarguably positive. The one weakness here painfully lies in the question of how he will achieve this. Many children in secondary schools lack discipline, and this unquestionably is the result of weak discipline in their primary schools. High standards must be set for primary school children, with teachers trained and equipped to achieve nurture primary school children effectively. Their parents must be equally compelled to lend a collaborative hand to the process, and should come under regular review and examination.
The Chancellor’s levy of a bedroom tax on the poor for having a spare room, whilst simultaneously handing a tax cut to the middle classes who rent out their spare room should cause any fair minded person to sigh with disappointment. This plan is even more bothersome in light of his admission of having to ”fess up to lower growth and higher borrowing”-it flags up the question of whether he inadvertently highlighted a lurking contradiction between his admissions and his master plan to move many aspects of the country forward. A seeming contradiction between fact and fiction. And things can potentially get worse if Britain leaves the EU, and economic shocks follow as predicted.
That’s all hypothetical, but the future shall be Osborne’s best Judge.
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