You got to let me know;
" Are we human? Or are we Chancellor?"
( apologies to "The Killers")
Time that it was means-tested / taxable - that way the poorest would benefit the most.
True! I remember about.. oh decades ago, when aquaintences of mine who were GPs and owned their own practice were telling us about how exhausting their european touring holiday had been, so they just took a week in a hotel in Norway on the way back to chill and do nothing....they thought.."We'll just use the Family Allowance Account" (as it was called then....they paid the "Giros" in to a savings account!)I was outraged!
There is nothing that brings home the relativity of poverty and unrealistic middle class expectations like the 40% tax bracket threshold!!
And perhaps time to raise the 50% tax bracket!
Certainly to make Council Tax rates more realistic.
The original ideas behind Welfare Benefits were nothing like those that currently exist - Bevan would be utterly outraged.
Well, I wouldn't like to sweepingly generalise across all Welfare benefits. I think reform is needed, but my reasons and my reforms would be idiosyncratic and different as anyone's given the ability to ignore both the perspectives I havn't had, and the complex domino/knock on effects that any small changes have.
I think universal Child benefit was implemented for very good reason, but I think there are now other strategies for addressing that reason, and it's time is now past.