Budget talk and child support

 The excitement of Wednesday has naturally given way to more detailed analysis of the budget  although for me personally it's broadly speaking neutral although how goods and services may be effect is to be seen- some may go up.

The big issue in this budget was the thorny question of the Two Child Cap on Universal Credit which is a benefit payable to those in work, those looking for work and some unable to work which was introduced in the UC system at the outset by the then Liberal Democrat/Conservative Government.

The idea behind it was to avoid the situation where Dave at the Pub alleged half the residents of Blogtown Estate were having kids cos they could get more money, avoid having to work and he was fed up of his taxes paying for it.

The argument run you could have up to children's costs fully paid for but any others you'd have to find your own money for and so people wouldn't expect to have big families on the state.

 One problem with the policy was it took no account of family structures prior to making the claim such as if you already had three or more children or were expected another when you made the claim so those children would struggle (or all of them would) leading to increased child poverty which even though I'm not left leading politically I'd have to say in my experience of being a Generalist Advisor at the CAB here it certainly did.

Now it's been decided to remove it entirely.

I do have mixed feelings over this as while I agree it badly needed reform and certainly to respect family structures prior to claims and that in general people have a right to family life including starting your own, there was some anecdotal evidence of situations where a few people did have six or more  children whilst making benefit claims and in general terms we don't for population and environmental reasons wish to encourage large families which leads then to greater school provision needs and bespoke housing conversions having to done with the taxpayer paying to accommodate large families not least when others may of been waiting years for accessibility related adaptations to meet their disabled needs. 

To me there does need a cut of point administered firmly but humanely around the absolute number of children collectively we all fund in a single family unit. 

 

 

  

Let's do something we can indoors instead

Plans for today have been changed on account of the sub zero temperature and specifically the ice that was really bad yesterday as put quite simply there is no way I can get about in this without being very likely to fall over and injure myself.

That makes no sense to me.

It's going to be a more read the comics and watch a few YouTube videos kind of a day apart from being in to take a few parcels in rather than leaving notes with instructions.

I've been working on tidying up the oldest micro sd cards that hold music the digital audio players use, removing anything moved to the most recent one in better quality and redoing a few as there was more capacity in the cards  even if at some point I may copy them over to a brand new higher capacity card those earliest plays could never accept.

The first players such as the Sansa Clip Zip+ were bought as means of hearing music copied or downloaded on "Treacle" the old desktop tower computer and the  short lived HP Laptop without being glued to them.

They also came with a FM Stereo radio built in which when I was commuting was useful for catching "The World at One" or "Does he take sugar" on BBC Radio 4, 

Days like today really want me to back to summer time fun outdoors.

Tangled webs

 

It's been a funny old week although as with so much of that's been going in recent years the story keeps on growing and growing making blogging difficult as you're out of date before it goes live.

Two things really that join events is control of the narrative which when it comes to both the BBC under fire for an edition of the tv show Panorama and Talk of plots against the UK Prime Minster, Keir Starmer.

With the BBC it was an editing of two speeches some 45 minutes apart which gave rise to the idea in viewers that Donald J Trump, U.S. President not loved by this blogger incited things he plainly did not although many of do feel he has massive responsibility for events that took place not least his inaction upon seaming that gun toting mobs were descending upon the white house.

That was a distortion of truth, a major ethics failure that no one involved in the production seemed to care about and to which the story having broken for a week took that long for anyone to issue a formal statement.

Seeing these addresses were well covered you might of thought the facts would be verified before the program was aired but not.

In Sir Keir's instance some persons working for him put out some damaging talk attacking Ministers in the attempt to suggest the Prime Minister was fighting back against allegations of weakness and attempts to remove him. Anything like that should of been agreed WITH him.

Yes there is an element of "dead man walking" complete with lame duck Chancellor but it's just made things worse undermining support in Cabinet which both of them need.

Take three Part II

With more twists and turns with personal matters this week I look at three albums that have one thing in common, having a much loved female singer performing on them.

 Marvin Gaye needs no introduction but at various times in his career Motown fitted him up with great female singers to record duets with such as Mary Wells and Kim Weston.

In 1966 Motown got Tammy from Wand and Septre records, signed to the label issuing a few classic 45's but then linked her to Marvin and this 1967 album captures the magic of the pair, clearly close personally with songs such as Ain't No Mountain High Enough and If This World Were Mine.

This is the 1981 budget US reissue. 

Sadly Tammi became very ill necessitating treatment and rest but it didn't prevent this the second record the pair of them put out including You're All I Need To Get By and Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing.

This is the August 1981 Emi pressed reissue using the original tube cut stampers. 

For me these are some of best soul recordings of the era. 

The early nineteen sixties were different than everything post Merseybeat but it was a high point for soul and close girl harmonies which Little Eva born in North Carolina had featuring the world wide smash title track and Breaking Up Is Hard To Do,

This is a favourite although it misses her duets with Dee Dee Irwin and Turkey Trot.

It was reissued in 1972 in simulated stereo on London Records.
 

nn