Broken Britain Part 1: Things can only get worse

So it’s official, 15% of the population, that’s nearly 8 million people in this country, live alone. The study by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) also shows the number of children in single-parent families have more than doubled in the last 20 years. The result is a society so broken, that is at the root of many ills blighting our lives today.

The (ONS) report also shows that the number of men and women aged between 25 and 44 living alone has doubled between 1986 and 2006, while the proportion of men over 75 living alone rose from 24 per cent to 32 per cent.

A combination of ill-thought out social and economic policies and the dreaded Human Rights legislation has meant that the process of separating couples, children from parents and elderly from families has given rise to an alarming level of irresponsibility that when we talk about children and their attitude and behaviour, we forget that it relates to the lack of role models they have been denied in their formative years in the form of fathers, mothers, grandparents and extended family. Hence many youngsters turn to gangs as a sense of belonging and so begin the downward spiral.
Labour has virtually made it economically senseless to marry, for many people. The effects of the skewed tax and benefit systems which encourage single parent families and actively discourages parents from marrying in some cases, is at the heart of our broken society. Their mindless, "Metropolitan" policies and utter mismanagement of the economy and benefit system and distortion of society and family values are the heart of our desperate plight today.
Labour has created many monsters that are destroying Britain daily. The lone parent family is just one of its creations. It is blindingly obvious that children do better within a two parent family. The tax system and lone parent benefits, encourages under achievement with children following binge drinking and drugs rather than a work effort to improve their lives. Politicians can't see that this also puts extra pressure on housing and education needs. Political correctness is part of the vicious circle denying people the right to criticize the evils of society today and the ills that give rise to creation of a society of perpetual under achievers. We can hardly be surprised that we have children drinking, using the internet unchecked, and failing to reach even basic standards of writing and arithmetic. After all, there do not seem to be any standards of decency any more. I suppose it would, (or would it) be cynical to imagine that this lone parent state of affairs has been deliberately brought about by Government who hope that these people, given council houses on benefits will vote for them. I do not mean here lone parents who are single parents through divorce or widowhood, but those who deliberately choose to have lots of children so that the state can keep them.

The study also shows that the gap between rich and poor has remained unchanged since Labour came to power. With the 10% income tax band about to be done away with and doubled to 20%, the gap between rich and poor won't be unchanged for much longer. No matter what any study says the poor are about to become even poorer.

This shambles of a Government has yet again demonstrated its loathing of the middle income workers and pensioners by a sneering tax hike on family cars and utility vehicles to justify its "Green" tax. The iniquitous stealth rises in income tax and other taxes (ie council taxes, National Insurance) are about to increase again, by stealth. Not reminded in the budget of course, in April are fuel duties, "Green" taxes that only appease the doom-mongers and help Gordon's deficit. The forty per cent income tax on middle earners caused by designed fiscal drag to prop up a failing Benefit system is making it virtually impossible for many to leave the benefit system.
Whilst we concentrate on the young and families when discussing social breakdown and poverty, we cannot ignore that there are an increasing number of poor among the retired and elderly for the fundamental reason that the basic state pension is still pathetically low and annual increases in the pension have been determined at the very unreal level of inflation of approximately 2%. At the same time increases in charges for the Council Tax have doubled in a decade and costs for utility services of gas, electricity, water, petrol and basic foodstuffs have increased well above the rate of inflation. The Government accepted definition of low income associated with poverty is one in which the household income is below 60 per cent of median disposable income and the median disposable income in Britain, before housing costs are deducted, is £18,200 per annum. That means a household with an income of less than £10,950 per annum is in relative poverty; some 22 per cent of pensioners and retired people fit into this category and 14 per cent of adults of working age; and, around 20 per cent of children, or approximately 2.6 million, live in households with low incomes. In what is supposedly the 5th wealthiest nation in the world, this is an unacceptable situation that has not been helped by increasing indirect or stealth taxation, by the fact that the personal allowance, at £5,400 per annum and at least £1500 below the governments poverty income level, has remained so low for so long and exacerbated in some measure by the proposed loss of the 10 per cent starting rate of taxation from this month. It is not just the loss of the 10p starting rate of taxation that is helping to increase the rate of poverty in UK nor the doubling in a decade of the iniquitous council tax, nor the loss of NHS dentists which again affects the poorest levels in society, but, it is the increase in the cost of basic foodstuffs like bread, butter, eggs and chicken, all of which have increased by between 20% and 80% in the last 3 years and have increased by 18% in the last 12 months. The increase in costs of essential utility services like gas, electricity and water, all of which have increased by at least 15% in the last 12 months coupled with the regular rises, often twice or three times a year, in the cost of petrol and diesel, which have increased between 21% and 25% in the last 12 months means that the ‘average’ household in UK now pays in the order of 36% in income tax. The increase in monthly mortgage repayments primarily because of the stupidity and greed of bankers who tried to make even bigger bucks in the US sub-prime mortgage debacle costing UK banks enormous sums of money, means they will seek to recoup from UK customers adding further pressure on hard-up families.. Meanwhile, ‘average’ earnings, that is for the vast majority who are not in senior positions within companies and organizations have increased by 3% to 3.5% at most over the last 5 years. Little wonder then that everyone who is not in the higher-rate income tax bracket and is paid less than approximately £36,000 per annum is increasingly feeling the pinch from an over-zealous Prime Minister, and former Chancellor, who is squeezing us until the pips squeak.

It really is time that the pips began to squeak back.