Someone sent me this over the weekend: -
While an argument could be made that means-testing means that those from the very poorest backgrounds can still go to college, the argument is wholly disingenuous for all sorts of reasons; not least because those from the most disadvantaged of backgrounds will have already fallen so far behind their better-off contemporaries as never to have considered themselves to have been in the race in the first place. Going to college is not on their radar. This policy (I use the word loosely) will bear most heavily upon those from a C1, C2, and D background, still mercifully in work, earning above BluLabour’s meagre thresholds, but yet not rich enough to afford to send their sons and daughters to college. BluLabour, true to its Thatcherite roots, is looking to limit access to HE to the rich once again. Related posts:
pamphlet Liberalism Versus the Social Market Economy.
This was a lucid and trenchant critique of David Owen’s
economic policies and of economic determinism, and a
restatement of Liberal principles on the integrity of the
community and on the vital need for economic and
social welfare policies that promoted unity not division
in society. In clear contrast to new Labour’s shift
towards Owenite views, Leighton wrote:
a transfer to means-tested welfare benefits for political
activists seeking to challenge the divisions between
those in and out of the workforce. Means-testing
generally involves stigma, low take-up and a sharp
division between those seen to be ‘enjoying’ the
benefits and those paying for them. For a political party
seeking to create a sense of community, as well as
flexibility in employment patterns during the life-cycle,
the Liberal universal tax credit scheme is the only way
forward.”
