Westminster Council Fat Tax

[Ridgley]

Westminster Council?s plan to improve local health by withholding benefits from residents who fail to lose weight. Should the council interfere with residents life. I think if a captain of a ship would like the crew to listen to him he/she should set an example there are plenty of overweight Westminster councilors.

[DJKillaQueen]

Westminster are out of their minds to do this. There are many people who are overweight because they have too poor mobility to exercise. That poor mobility being the result of painfully crippling conditions like Arthritis for example.

Personally I think taking away anyone's benefit for anything but a legal reason is asking for trouble. You can not leave people with nothing to buy food, heating and shelter with (which is the reality of removing or suspending a benefit). People on benefits very quickly get into serious trouble when they don't receive any money, not only financially but from a mental health perspective too. Some will even turn to crime out of desperation.

And yes, if Westminster want to penalise the overweight poor, maybe they can tax the affluent according to weight as well!

All the time now we hear comments (including from Cameron himself) about the deserving poor vs the underserving poor. Well any fool knows there is equally deserving and undeserving affluence too.

I really do wish attention would shift away from misleading the public about welfare (only a fraction of welfare benefit spent is on the unemployed for example) and back to the things that really will get Britain moving again. Investment in those who want to set up home grown businesses or self employ is what the government should be doing, because those are the people that in turn will employ other people. We need to make it possible for people to get into work by making sure the country is creating jobs, instead of making it nigh on impossible for the unemployed to get out of the poverty gutter, whilst we bash them a bit more.

[Loz]

A bunch of nobodies at Westminster Council put together a report on something they have no control over. The Gruniad picks it up for a bit of hysterical Tory-bashing.

Isn't this a bit of a non-story?

[steveo]

What about an ugly tax?

[Burbage]

steveo Wrote:

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> What about an ugly tax?

There's no need for one, apparently. Ugly people in Britain earn up to 18% less than the merely plain (compared with 15% less in the US, according to one book-touting professor), which seems reasonable enough to me.

In any case, the effects of sexism, ageism and racism seem to be of the same sort of magnitude, despite reams of arrant legislation, so the more insidiously subjective -isms are bound to go untackled for the moment. Besides, nobody's going to join an Ugly People's Alliance (with the notable exception of Italians) and, even if they did, I can't imagine the meetings would be without a good deal of suspicion and rivalry.

Perhaps surprisingly, organizations for larger individuals are more active and the NAAFA has been running, with conventions and everything, for over forty years. Sadly, that's only in America. In puritanical Britain, despite the presence of a branch of the International Size Acceptance, a rival American NGO that's fond of mid-90s web design and prefers to make its public appearances by radio, we're mostly stuck with the cruelly commercial Weightwatchers and the vile parasitism of bus-shelter snake-oil and bullying sanctimony.

As for Westminster's proposals, I'd be surprised if they were legal. As far as I can tell, the plans are to order doctors to prescribe the use of council-run facilities, and I'd be very surprised if the Office of Fair Trading didn't have something to say about that. Any alternative arrangement, however, would require commercial 'studios' to snitch on their customers, which would fall foul of data protection regulations.

Moreover, there's at least some reasonable-looking evidence suggesting that at least a handful of fat people might have genetic causes for their conditions. It can't be proven either way as yet but, if the presumption of innocence still holds, that's the point. You only need one spectacularly expensive legal challenge to make an indiscriminate bit of cheese-paring look very silly.

They could change the law, I suppose. It's not just Westminster behind this report (there's a whole Local Government Information Unit), and there may be hundreds of other councils, those with leisure facilities left at any rate, ready to pounce on any chance of skimming a few quid from those in hardship as soon as it's safe to do so. And that's a precedent we might want to keep an eye on. If being fat keeps you out of the job market, so might not going to evening classes or failing to start your own business, and there are lots of us not doing either.

The other precedent, of course, is removing benefits on grounds of ill-health (except for those ill enough to be dead), and we might want to think for a while before changing that principle. A near-equivalent proposal would be to cut benefits to people who refused 'flu jabs. Yet we can't even suggest that health workers take vaccines without suffering the protectionist screams of their banshee publicists.

I'd like to think that Westminster's wheeze will be dead in the water by spring. But I have a horrible feeling it'll be staggering along for some time.

[DJKillaQueen]

Great post Burbage.

[RosieH]

Loz Wrote:

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The Gruniad picks it up for a bit

> of hysterical Tory-bashing.

Pots and kettles, Loz, pots and kettles? I heard it on the BBC.

[Loz]

But I bet it wasn't the top story, Rosie, like the Gruin website had it for two days.

[uncleglen]

What about charging people who have accidents whilst doing sport (their choice) for their medical care- unless it is their job? And all the tall people I know have back problems- let's tax them as well- and so it goes on

[Ridgley]

I agree with all your post, it is another stick to beat the poorest in society. I am getting fed up of the Tories continually doing this so they can divide and conquer so that the public will concentrate on pointing the finger while the real agenda is put in place. I feel that the riots that happen in summer 2010 will be nothing compare to what will happen if they keep eroding the people.

[RosieH]

Ridgley Wrote:

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I feel that the riots

> that happen in summer 2010 will be nothing compare

> to what will happen if they keep eroding the

> people.

I fear that they won't. (sourdough) bread and circuses.

[Loz]

Ridgley Wrote:

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> I agree with all your post, it is another stick to

> beat the poorest in society. I am getting fed up

> of the Tories continually doing this so they can

> divide and conquer so that the public will

> concentrate on pointing the finger while the real

> agenda is put in place. I feel that the riots

> that happen in summer 2010 will be nothing compare

> to what will happen if they keep eroding the

> people.

You do know that Labour are just the same as Tories, except they wear red shirts?

[Ridgley]

Yes you have point Labour did not do such a great job but it is the Tories are in power not matter anyone says. Pull the ladder up jack let the plebs it cake.

[Huguenot]

The bottom 20% of earners (and non-earners) get over ?10,000 more back from the tax bucket than they pay in.

The next 20% of earners get almost ?10,000 more back from the tax bucket than they pay in.

The next 20% of earners get almost ?4,500 more back from the tax bucket than they pay in.

So people in the top 40% are quite literally taking money that they work hard to earn every day and handing it over to the bottom 60%. They do it largely without complaint, because that's the deal and most people feel that's reasonable social generosity.

So really, complaining about low earners getting a bad deal is pretty rude. The abuse dealt out by some in this bracket takes a 'sense of entitlement' to new heights.

Threatening riots if the top 40% don't hand over more is equivalent to extortion by menaces.

[DJKillaQueen]

You are not really reading what people are writing again H. The debate is about how many excuses we allow to penalise the poorest people in our society. You might want to see people left with nothing to buy food with, pay for heat and shelter with, but some of us are very aware of how destructive that is to people, many of whom find themselves where they are through no fault of their own. The unemployed and those on low incomes have enough to cope with and worry about, without people in positions and lives of privilege heaping ridiculous added conditions on them.

[maxxi]

Huguenot Wrote:

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>

> Threatening riots if the top 40% don't hand over

> more is equivalent to extortion by menaces.

But that's how it all works anyway Huge. What? You thought it was benevolence and/or charitable feelings that sees the 'haves' handing over their dosh? Nah mate, it's fear and the desire to keep the 'have-nots' away from the gate. All that's being debated is the price.

[Huguenot]

Well DJKQ, I don't want to state the obvious, but everything about this proposal and the responses to it is smoke and mirrors.

For starters the phrase 'fat tax' is simply wrong - a withdrawal of benefits is not a tax.

Secondly you've referred to it as a penalty - again a restriction of benefits to those who qualify is not a penalty, but a change of qualification for a bonus.

One could only refer to it as a tax or a penalty if one considered benefits to be an entitlement, which they are not. They are an organised and generous act of subsidy made by socially responsible high earners.

Given that perspective, it's not unreasonable that a burden of responsibility lies upon the recipients not to waste such largesse, or use it irresponsibly or unwisely.

In fact we all agree that our own government should be castigated and publicly humiliated if there is the slightest evidence of irresponsible behavior.

So why should people receiving benefits not be also required to spend them wisely - to the extent that they don't indulge in behaviors that risk pissing away more money stupidly?

I should add that I don't agree with Westminster's proposal, but not because of some fake argument about stealing from the poor or penalizing the weak (which is completely untrue) but because I don't think neighborhood doctors should be deciding the distribution of welfare payments.

[DJKillaQueen]

I agree with you H on the terminology....of course it's not a tax (although the unemployed do pay taxes, and the benefits they receive count towards taxable income too).

This issue is this. Benefits are paid to help those with no other income. In return they are expected to look for work which is right. Similarly, most people in receipt of benefits at any one time, HAVE worked at some point.

Silly proposals like the one above (and I agree it is smoke and mirrors) are silly because they are aimed at penalising one group of people only, fueled specifically by an ideology that says those who don't work don't deserve anything, including health care. Back to the deserving and undeserving poor debate again.

Most people on JSA will tell you that after they pay for heating, electric, water rates, they are left with barely enough to buy anything else but basic food. And many people on benefits don't turn the heating on at all (because of the cost). So if they do smoke, then it's often at the expense of food for example. This idea that people on benefits need nannying in how they spend the money is a myth, perpetuated by media hype about alcoholics and drug addicts (for example), neither of which the vast majority of people in receipt of benefits are. It is virtually impossible to live on ?67 per week, wherever you live in the country, without making either/ or decisions every day.

The percentage of the welfare bill spent on JSA is so small in fact that the current hpye is a disgraceful campaign of misinformation designed to turn public opinion against the unemployed. The biggest slice of the welfare bill is spent on Pensioners, followed then by working tax credits and child benefits. Housing benefits follow that (where a million people in full time work need help). In fact...the vast majority of welfare goes to people in work or retired.

Meanwhile, in all of ths hysteria, there is no plan for economic growth, regeneration or employment. And no meaningful help or plan to get the unemployed back into work.

[Ridgley]

I agree with DJKQ on every point those who are not in need, do not really understand what is actually like. There are Just repeating the coalition stance on this there far more people in work on benefits then there are scroungers but the government are treated them the same way. Back to the point of a fat tax which is outrageous and unfair to pick on a section of society.

[Otta]

(although the unemployed do pay taxes, and the benefits they receive count towards taxable income too).

What tax do they pay?

[reddulwich]

This is unenforceable anyway. What are Westminster Council suggesting, that Doctors are going to be given the information of who is claiming benefits?! Or you have to tell the Doc, "I'm on JSA, Housing Benefit etc".

Its designed for one thing only headlines, to make it look that Westminster Council are tougn on people who are on benefits. And again to suggest that anyone who is on benefits is lazy, and or obese, and anyone who is obese is on benefits.

Its dog whistle politics, setting neighbour against neighbour. "Well you might be badly off, and not getting a payrise, but your neighbour is feckless/workshy/claiming benefits but fit for work....."

Meanwhile bankers ask for bonuses to be delayed until the 45p tax rate drops, businesses pay wages from payroll companies based offshore and we blame to poorest in society for what is going on.

Also people should keep in mind - the bulk of the Department for Work and Pensions budget is spent on Pensions, and the bulk of the benefits budget is spent on 'in-work benefits' - thats to support people in paying their rent for example in overpriced London rents. Not on skivvers as the Daily Mail would have you believe.

[Cyberia]

Otta Wrote:

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> (although the unemployed do pay taxes, and the

> benefits they receive count towards taxable income

> too).

>

> What tax do they pay?

They pay VAT, for a start...

[Ridgley]

Spot on Reddulwich it?s funny how no one else see this. I find when talking to people about this subject it seems to be people who has never experience being unemployed or on benefits are the one who have the most negative opinions on this. Thanks to the Tories blame everything on the poor.

[Otta]

Cyberia Wrote:

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> Otta Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > (although the unemployed do pay taxes, and the

> > benefits they receive count towards taxable

> income

> > too).

> >

> > What tax do they pay?

>

> They pay VAT, for a start...

I was taking that as read.

For the record, I basically agree with DJKQ's last post, I just wasn't sure about the unemployed paying tax comment.

[DJKillaQueen]

They also pay Council tax (Council tax benefit does not pay the entire amount).