AN ABSOLUTE DISGRACE

The next time someone berates me for criticising New Labour, I will point out that Help The Aged, not just the usual left suspects, says it is a "national disgrace" that there are now 2.5million pensioners living in poverty. That's 300,000 more in 2006/7. The number of children living in poverty has also gone up for the second year running. Another of New Labour's pledges shot down in flames.
What's the problem? Well , tax credits , lauded by many, fail on two counts. 1. They subject millions to the indignity and unfairness of means-testing. 2. Millions more don't claim them so are even worse off than they could be under the current imperfect system.
What we need is a fair, progressive tax system which makes benefits universally available -and lifts our older people and low-income families out of the ghetto which tax credits and a refusal to tax the richest has created. I do not doubt that when New Labour made its pledge to end child poverty all those years ago it was a sincere one. But the New Labour way - taxation by stealth smoke and mirrors - has patently failed. We need an open and transparently socialist taxation policy