Nick Cohen on Welfare
Sadly I will be mowing the lawn, and so unable to tune in, but I would be intrigued to hear Nick Cohen's views on welfare (he shares a panel with, in addition to Oliver Kamm, Charles Murray and Fraser Nelson[1]).I'm not aware of much Nick Cohen has written on welfare in recent years, except for his article in the Evening Standard in January this year in which he bemoaned the situation of a 'standard young couple' on "£100,000 a year", whose 'modest ambition to live an ordinary life' is now beyond them. This couple, part of the "less fortunate", find Council Tax to fall on them "with all its weight".
From this article I think we can see the seeds of what Nick Cohen's reform of welfare would be like. A primary responsibility of welfare is to help those who are 'less fortunate'. So presumably income support would be set at a higher level than £100,000 a year per household, as that is not enough money to live on (after tax it's about £200 a day). Council Tax benefit would also be given to those earning £100,000 or less. All that seems the logical outcome of his stated views. More fancifully, will he advocate subsidised Prosecco? Grants to renovate period houses in Islington? Free holidays in India for hard-pressed writers? To find out, and also how a man with such a ridiculous sense of who are the 'less fortunate' and who aren't will square the circles, I think you'll need to tune in.
[1] Fraser Nelson has been featured on this blog before. He made a breathless argument that New Orleans was a richer city per capita than inner London, an argument made entirely on the wrong assumption that a household is the same as an individual.
Update: I've listened to it. Cohen was a bit out of his depth, and I thought Charles Murray was impressive, although I think his assumptions that someone can put £2k a year into a pension fund and it will grow to £250k over 45 years could be optimistic if the funds grow as large as he thinks, as returns are likely to be much smaller. Simon's (in the comments) summary of John Rentoul's views is totally accurate. What I find most strange is there was no dicussion (I expect no-one really knew) of who this 10% below the poverty line actually are.
Labels: Nick Cohen
posted by Matthew @ 4/13/2007 07:53:00 AM
Comments: 12
