Archive for Ethnicity: Mixed – Black and White

Zionist Imitation Syndrome – The Disease of the UK Establishment

20 May 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

The Zionists who rule the Israeli Government, in many cases against the wishes of the law abiding Jewish inhabitants of the region, are terrorising the Palestinians. One might think of this terror purely in terms of physical violence, but that is not the worst form of terror.

It is a tradition of Zionists to get satisfaction out of suppressing people – Stopping them enjoying their rights in such a way they feel ultimate despair because they know they are being treated unlawfully, but there is nothing they can do about it. Does this sound familiar? Some of you might be thinking of what the Nazis did to law abiding Jews in the concentration camps, but I’m thinking much closer to home.

The UK Government breaks EU social security and other Council of Europe and European Union Laws every day. Here are the ones they break in my life, which sometimes make me feel a despair like the Palestinians are feeling. Some may think this unlikely, but people who are as principled as me find it that much more overwhelming – we don’t break the law, we know others do, but one should not expect the government to – but they do.

The government are preventing me submitting documentation to them with electronic signatures of any kind. You might not think this a big deal, but when you consider nearly everything I do is online, and I have a disability which makes handling paperwork difficult, so much so that I have to scan in each letter I receive to read it properly, then it is at least inconvenient. But when like me you know the government are breaking the law by not letting me sign documents electronically, and you have the principles I do, then you feel the same despair when our government is breaking the law (Section 7 of the The Electronic Communications Act 2000), as the Palestinians do with the Zionists running Israel breaking the law.

The whole thing got on top of me yesterday when I received back from the government, a claim form that I sent over a month ago, which was for money I needed to pay my staff. The reason they sent it back to me was because they had moved office, even though I sent it to the one on the form and they had received it at that office. The anger that then enraged inside of me that it was sent back to me, had been building up for weeks, as each day of running my business, I have had more and more bureaucracy from the government, which is created mainly by civil servants lack of initiative than my error. Anyone who has worked for me who lacks initiative knows they’d be out on their ears, and many have been. Some of these now work for the government, so I guess I should take some of the blame for an inept public sector.

Why on earth did they not send my form onto to the new office when they would have received it a month ago? Why on earth did it take a month for them to decide to send it to me? I cannot do anything about it. The times I got a solicitor to send them a 7-day notice because they refused to pay it, I didn’t even get a reply, and then I eventually had to cave in because of low cashflow.

It fills me with such rage that the government are breaking the law every day and getting away with it, yet when a benefit claimant breaks welfare law, like the government are breaking the law in relation to my claims, those people are brought to book and face the full force of the law. It is not fair. We have no legal aid to take them on, like I was able to when I was 14. Living in the UK, and I am not being flippant when I say this, is like living in a concentration camp, one with more humans rights abuses per capital than the victims of Israelite suppression in Palestine.

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie

“We want more jobs” – Well become self-employed then!

15 May 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

All I seem to hear today is one person or another complaining they don’t have a job. I was once in this position, but coming from a family of three generations of entrepreneurs and becoming a co-operator by experience and not superficial factors, I have been able to self-help myself into work by being my own boss. My full story can be seen in the video below:

Since 2006 I have employed a number of people through the PAYE employee payroll system. These are some of the things I have had to do in my time as an employer:

  • File a P46 notice for a new employee
  • File a P45 for a leaving employee
  • File P14/P35 notices each payroll year
  • File National Insurance / Income tax returns each payroll money
  • Pay employers and public liability insurance
  • Pay holiday pay to employees
  • Ensure each employee is given a health and safety induction
  • Ensure each employee knows and follows policies on health & safety, grievance, equality, etc.

And if I fail to do the above, or one of my employees breaks the law in any way, such as discriminating against customers or other staff, it is me that pays the price, which could ruin my life and give me a criminal record.

Tell me again, why would I want to create ‘jobs’ on an employee basis, when if I engage self-employed sub-contractors they are responsible for much of the above?

 

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

Towards the pluralist model of disability

14 May 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

Many will have heard of the debate between the social model of disability and the medical model of disability. These two polarised viewpoints make up the first and second ways of inclusion. The first way – the medical model – assumes that anyone who is not perfectly healthy nor perfectly able should meet a defined medical condition in order to received assistance. This medical condition is their disability. The second way – the social model – assumes that anyone who is not perfectly healthy nor perfectly able has an impairment, which is only a disability if it is not accommodated for by others as if they accepted it there would be no impairment. There is a third way also – the recovery model – this assumes that anyone who is not perfectly healthy or perfectly able must be helped by others to overcome the impairment that comes from an identifiable medical condition so that they are not disabled by it. None of these ways are satisfactory to me, so by using the Fourth Way process I think it is possible to take the best of the first and second ways and eliminate the third. The fourth way – the pluralist model – would assume that anyone who is not perfectly healthy or perfectly able is a human being with a distinct personality derived from those imperfections. In some environments those imperfections will be advantageous and in others they will be impairments. Under this model both the person with the medical condition and the people around them have to weigh up factors around whether the environment needs to change to the person or the person needs to change their environment. This is best decided with the ‘reasonable adjustment’ instrument. If it is reasonably possible to change the environment to accommodate the persons impairment then it should be done, but if it is not reasonably possible then that person will have to decide whether they want to stay in the environment and mitigate that impairment with support, or whether they want to go to an environment where that medical condition gives them a strength so they have no impairment.

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie, Fourth Way Society Foundations, Humanities and Principles, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

Aspire to greatness? You’d be having delusions of grandeur in Wales today

14 May 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

I set up Glamorgan Blended Learning Ltd in 2007, as a way to gain work experience for myself, while at the same time regenerating my local community in the way I wanted to in public life, and increasing the employability of students in the area. I had the chance to do something simliar with Steve Powderhill when I was doing my HND, BSc(Hons) and MSc, but my success at doing this for other students has been limited and not enhanced by government programmes funded from tax payers money who get in the way of this, in many cases because they believe following rules is more important than achieving what they are there to do. Other schemes where I wanted to increase my profits, both to become more self-sufficient and also to provide match funding for GBL’s project, got turned down for reasons not based on business potential but other factors, including unnecessary rules. A number of these projects are listed below, and I will add more as they occur or when my complaints regarding them are concluded.

GoWales

I approached Ross Edwards at GoWales to offer students accredited work taster programmes where they could enhance their CVs with real accomplishments, like a peer-reviewed research paper – all they would have to pay for was the accreditation fee that was charged by the accrediting body – I would have supervised them pro bono (i.e. for FREE), with the only benefit to me being CPD points. This seemed fair to me as it was win-win between the student and me, but this is what Ross Edwards from GoWales said:

GO Wales Work Tasters is an employability scheme whereby both host and participant give their time over for no monetary remuneration, with no monetary costs nor formal expectations that should relate to paid work are placed upon the participant. Perhaps you’d wish to advertise these roles as GO Wales Work Placement opportunities, a scheme to which they seem more fitting?

Ross Edwards has given all reasons under the Sun why I can’t access the university’s students to provide them with work experience. When I ask in the summer he says ‘there is no point getting any students this time of year they are all international and their English isn’t good enough’, and in the autumn he says ‘we have run out of funding for now, come back later in the academic year’. It seems to me that Ross is on to a nice litter earner in his job – Have HEFCW who fund them audited them?

Software Alliance Wales

I got turned down from seeking involvement of university students in developing commercial smartphone applications that would look good on their CV as they would be in the mobile phone application stores.  Universities that pride themselves on having “close links with industry” but it seems they are expecting private firms like mine to be charities and provide work experience with no return on our investment. This is what Jaime Hindle from Software Alliance Wales said:

After consideration it was deemed your project proposals would not be suitable for SAW Student Development Projects. The intention of these projects is for students to investigate options and develop proof of concepts, over the duration of the academic year. It is not the intention for students to develop commercial alternatives from pre-written specs.

This scheme is funded by the European Social Fund. Have the Wales European Funding Office audited whether the aims of the funding have any benefit on those who are meant to be more employable, or is it another ‘jobs for the boys’ exercise?

Finance Wales

I got turned down for a loan/support for my business from the Welsh Government’s official finance arm, with the messenger being Chris Tolley. The reason was because my business model was to focussed on making profit and not enough on expanding the number of direct jobs it offered. To quote him exactly, Chris Tolley said:

I fully understand your comments concerning risk and it is refreshing to note, you do not wish to expand your company, only your profits however, we could not lend on the basis you desire.

Looks like the money the government spent supporting my studies at Kingston Business School and Cardiff School of Management was wasted if they are expecting the private sector to be as bloated and inefficient as the public sector! This is what I said to him:

I come from a family of three generations of entrepreneurs, I am not going to waste my time with an out-dated business models to satisfy people like you [...] I went to Kingston Business School, and learned from the best minds in the country. Outsourcing operations that are not core to one’s business is what one does.
Does the Welsh Assembly subsidise Finance Wales Plc in any way? Is the Welsh tax payer getting value for money out of this service from Finance Wales Plc and its many subsidaries, or is it not achieving anything but more ‘jobs for the boys’?

 

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie, Auto-Wiki, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

Does Labour councillor for Tonteg Jean Hutchinson realise how silly she sounds?

5 May 2012 jonathanbishop One comment

A newly elected Labour councillor for Tonteg, Jean Hutchinson, told me today that the party that my best friend Mark Beech and I set up, The Pluralist Party has no right to call itself democratic because it only has two members. Jean Hutchinson also said that our co-operative, Glamorgan Blended Learning Ltd, which only has four members, can’t be considered significant either.

The thing Labour councillor for Tonteg, Jean Hutchinson needs to realise is it is action on the ground that counts. Jean Hutchinson’s Labour Party can have as many members and councillors that it wants – My grandfather was offered a co-option onto Llantrisant Town Council. As you can see here, he said he wouldn’t sit with those (persons) if they were the last people on earth. If Labour councillor Jean Hutchinson is anything to go by I don’t blame him. She used to be a nice person until she became a Labour councillor. It seems that all women who sit among the persons in the Labour Group on Llantwit Fardre Community Council, who I consider chauvinist bigots, don’t keep their pleasant zeal for that long.

My firm, Glamorgan Blended Learning Ltd, while only having 4 members, has engaged over ten people in the last three years, who have worked on various projects. The artist, who worked on our underpass project in Treforest, is now a senior art teacher at Hawthorn High School. One of our former directors is now on the board of a Plc. And as you can see here, I have gone from being an employee to being a director of three limited companies. Everyone who has worked for GBL has gone on to make a difference elsewhere.

Being someone who listens to Richard Branson’s CD’s I’m convinced small is beautiful. The Virgin Empire is made up of lots of small firms each run by their own managing director. Richard Branson knows from complete experience, what I know from experience and academia, which is that the closer the most senior people who direct the use of the business revenue are to the workers who receive it, the more successful a business will be. I knew this at 15, when a business as part of a school project failed because not everyone was a shareholder and thus weren’t motivated to work for the business. I became a believer in co-operativism when I was 15 by experience, unlike the many members of Labour’s sister party The Co-operative Party who are there in Labour MP Owen Smith’s words for ‘CV points’. I unfortunately agree with him, and their lack of commitment to the co-operative movement was no more apparent than when they expelled me from the party for co-operating with other co-operators who happened to be members of Plaid Cymru. I had co-operated with these persons, who direct the Plaid Cymru Credit Union, in my capacity as director of GBL, yet because I worked with them on Pontypridd Town Council, a body the Labour Party don’t recognise, I was in the wrong in the Co-op Party’s eyes because I should have only co-operated with Labour Party members who did not support co-operativism.

So, can Labour councillor for Tonteg Jean Hutchinson tell me what she has done the last few years as a member of the Pontypridd Labour Party which at most has 600 members? I’m sure it is a lot less that what Mark and I have achieved through our firm, by bringing people together for ad hoc projects, without the inefficient permanent staffing structure other organisations have which reduces what they can give for each pound of turnover they have.

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie ,

Why the country is in the mess it is in – and why NatWest are part of the problem

3 May 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

I am having trouble differentiating all my passwords for all my different financial service providers. So I was looking to consolidate. I have a Mastercard with Barclaycard and looked into transferring it to NatWest who I have a student account with.

I enquired at NatWest prior to applying, because I didn’t want a mark against my credit report – I have the highest possible score of 999. NatWest asked me if I was in a job with a £10,000 and over 18. I said no to the first and yes to the second. They said I could have a card with a £500 limit – My business soften spends more than that a week on purchases let alone the month period they were offering!

NatWest said I could only have the package I have with Barclaycard if I was in a job earning £10,000. There are lots of people with credit ratings of around 700 who are in employment at risk of redundancy who would be eligible for this card but in the case of me – someone with the highest rating of 999 – I wouldn’t be able to get it!

This is why the country is in the mess it is in. Someone working in the construction industry earning £10,000 year with a credit rating of 700 is seek preferable to someone like me who is a self-employed writer and research and developer like me with a surplus of less than a quarter that with a credit rating of 999 and therefore less risk is told not to apply because banks like NatWest have terms for their cards which don’t recognise this. Also, because I am self-employed and company director with a many high value transactions going on these cards for both my firms and me, then NatWest will make more money with me than the person earning £10,000 through higher commission on sales.

The banks have learned nothing since 2008.  Like NatWest they are just not up to the job of knowing the difference between low risk and high profit customers to high risk low profit customers. NatWest and the others are not going to make any money giving credit cards to people who won’t pay them back however much interest is added to that high risk customer’s balance. The sooner they start understanding risk the better decisions banks like NatWest will make.

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie

Securing more convictions for rape, and avoiding false accusations

20 April 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

As a victim of rape, each time a case is reported is a reminded of the time it happened. I recently complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about how distressed I was by a commercial that depicted graphic scenes of a serious sexual assault on the music channels in the early hours.

I watch the music channel at this hour because the music videos are, shall we say, more ‘liberal’. But I do not expect, as has happened on many an occasion, to be subject to offensive adverts just because of the time of day I watch the TV. Wanting to watch scantily dressed pop stars like in the video below should not equate with wanting to watch vile and offensive content, as the adverts sometimes are, should it?

This experience of rape means on the one hand I can’t easily deal with dramatisations of rape, and it also makes me less trusting that others may accuse me of such. Simply canvassing some people in the election the other evening who were drunk, and speaking to them in their home made me worried they might mistakenly think they experienced something they didn’t.

When you are raped, it is as if you are paralysed, and can’t do anything to stop the abuse being done to you. So when people start sentences with ‘Why didn’t you…’ it is that much more insulting.

Ched Evans was found guilty of rape - Courtesy: Wikipedia

I think, however, instead of drilling into people that they should shout “rape” or simply carry an alarm, we should be trying to ingrain it into people, especially women, to dig their nails into their attacker so that not only does their attacker have the nail marks on them, but the attacker’s DNA is also on their fingernails. This is easier said than done, for the reasons I said about being paralysed, but if, through training, this could become an immediate reaction then more convictions could be made.

The recent case of a Wales footballer, Ched Evans, was a stark reminder of my past. Only a year ago I started to come to terms with the sexual abuse in my childhood. I went to this website, Urban75.net, and I hoped there would be people there from Wales that would understand. This was far from being the case. I was set upon by flame trollers who used the opportunity to harm me – these are called Snerts. There were a few people  who tried to support me, knowing what I was going through, called MHBFY Jennies.

This with Ched Evans shows that the risk of miscommunication of sexual consent where either party is intoxicated. I have long asked, “If a person is not drunk enough not to know their PIN number, why are they drunk enough not to say no”. It is clear that alcohol makes one more willing to engage in sexual activity, even if one would not want it if sober.

So, as one woman told me, if one is ‘in the moment’, especially when intoxicated, how can one protect oneself? It is clear to me that when under the influence of alcohol people will more easily consent to sex than when they are not. So, as this case has shown, there needs to be clear to understand rules about when someone is able to consent and when they are not.

In European countries there is increasing amounts of legislation requiring drivers to carry breathalysers with them to check they are safe to drive. I would say that legal guidance should be issued on what is a safe limit to know whether someone who has been drinking is able consent to sex. Using a ‘disposable‘ kit like the one pictured from Amazon could mean someone is able to collect evidence that the person they had sex with was sober enough to consent.

At a conference I went to a few years ago a similarly aged female wanted to come into my room so I could get her Internet connection working. I set my mobile phone to record audio and asked her the time so it was recorded. Nothing happened between us, and no complaint followed, but the fear of such situations is always present in victims of rape, many of whom like me feel that if an accusation is made against us, then the abuse we suffered will be dragged up and used against us. So I guess I am saying that if people put themselves in any vulnerable situation where they could be raped or falsely accused of rape, to may every effort to record evidence of the situation they are in should it be needed.

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie, Auto-Wiki

Refuting Genesis 3 – Can biology rise to the challenge?

3 April 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

I have previously shown how it might be possible, through huge advancements in science to refute the claim that we descended from humanoids (i.e. Adam and Eve) instead of simply being genetically different from chimpanzees purely through natural selection of genetic defects.

I now have a challenge to the world’s biologists. One of them, Paul Myers has already failed the challenge. Even though he can’t provide me with any evidence that my hypothesis is wrong, he has been very abusive because I dared question his religious biases as an Atheist.

Disgraced lecturer Paul Z Myers is known to be intolerant of non-Atheists viewpoints to the extent he is willing to desecrate the Quran and other sacred texts

It is my view that the Bible cannot be written off as a document until science is able to refute it. Science has already done this in some areas. For instance science has provided evidence to support the claim that Pi is not 3 as the Bible says, but 3.1415…

So, as I shown in the article referred to above it will be possible to show whether what made us split away from our chimpanzee cousins was a humanoid or inherited genetic mutations.

Let me provide you with some facts most biologists will support as accurate:

  • The main difference between humans and chimpanzees is that chimps have Chromosomes 2A and 2B which in humans have fused as Chromosome 2;
  • Our earliest descent when we split of was Lucy who had; Better working memory, better able to communicate and work with others, better child rearing capability;
  • Lucy is likely to have been prone to Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs)
  • HERVs have been known to have drastic evolutionary consequences, as evidenced by tests on fruit flies who can transfer the virus.

Let me provide you with some facts most Biblical scholars with support as accurate:

  • Adam and Eve increase their knowledge and reasoning ability through eating the forbidden fruit
  • Eve had better child rearing capabilities

Classes of endogenous retroviruses - Could these be the key to the origin of life? Courtesy: Wikipedia

I therefore ask the biology community to refute the following:

  • Lucy inherited the mutations that came from a HERV in part causing Chromosomes 2A and 2B to fuse in her which was carried forward to subsequent generations.
  • Lucy’s differences from chimps are one of the reasons that humans have such a developed prefrontal cortex essential to social function
  • It is the human prefrontal cortex that gives us our advanced social/emotional skills and impairment in this can lead to problems like schizophrenia, autism, etc. as I showed in this poster published in 2011.
  • Lucy and her descendants are likely to have experienced many of the symptoms of autism as their frontal lobe would be developing at a faster rate than those primates who eventually became chimpanzees.
I ask the community of Biblical scholars to consider  the following:
  • It is possible that the forbidden fruit could have been infected by a fruit fly carrying a retrovirus causing the mutations in Adam and Eve that were replicated in Lucy, who was a child of their son, whose wife was a primate?

Does science have all the answers today, or will it have to wait until tomorrow?

I am not presenting this as my version of the truth, as it is not in that category. I am merely showing one way in which Genesis 3 could be refuted. Real scientists like myself know that refute does not mean disprove, or even prove, but provide evidence that will support or oppose a claim. I argue that the claims above to the biologists are refutable, as science should be able to say whether I have got it right or wrong. I know Fanatical Atheists will shout their mouths off, but if they can’t provide evidence against what I am claiming then their opinion is just an opinion, no more than that.

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie, Faith & Religion: Mixed - Anglican Solomonite and Gnostic Scientist

A minority? And a Labour Party member? There is a way…

26 March 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

The Labour Party is not a great place if you are one of the people in a minority group; whether young, a woman, Black, or disabled. You might have, liked I did, joined the Labour Party because you believed in the ideals of the left, such as equality, solidarity and tolerance.

If you joined the same Labour Party I did however, you’d be left disappointed.

Chances are you’ll be in a Labour Party branch which few people attend, which are dominated by a small number of retired men. They work as a pack and hand out all the positions to those within their favour. If you’re an idealist, as I was, you’d not want to take part in this game of favourtism, as you want to be chosen on merit. You could, as I did, spend years hoping things will get better, or as I also did, stage a coup at one of the branches in your area where you can form a ‘pack’ with other minorities.

The ‘Treforest method‘ as it is called, is where Labour Party members who want to get on but are held behind by a ruling clique, of which there are many in the party, find people from among them willing to sign up to the party and then once the Branch’s annual general meeting comes around, all turn up unexpectedly and vote yourselves into the key positions. This will make it easier to get the elected positions.

As you can see from the photo above, when I did this in Treforest, only one of the officers was from the previous membership, who took on the role of treasurer. Within 3 years of becoming Branch Secretary I was the county borough candidate, beating one of the established members, Avil Reid, who hates me to this day. She hated me so much that she stood for the town council in neighbouring Rhydyfelin instead of being on the Treforest list with me, which I got elected from.

People think of the Labour Party as a well oiled election machine, but they struggle in many cases to get a quorum at selection meetings, which means they are supplemented with officers from the constituency who can vote in who they please in an almost rotten borough like fashion.

The advantage of this is that it can mean any minority who is able to get enough people to join to support them by turning up to the key meetings stands a chance of getting on in the party, where they wouldn’t otherwise.

 

 

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie

Why the Champagne Socialists Irritate Me

2 March 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

I am highly educated, possessing 4 degrees and having studied at private school over 8 years when I was younger. There is an assumption for some reason in this country that if one is educated then one must be ‘well off’ financially. I also have the best credit rating one can have – 999 – and people seem to think I must be ‘well off’ because of that too. Many of these people are ‘Champagne Socialists’ – that is they live a good lifestyle and talk about the poor without doing anything as a kind of social ritual of pity.

The fact is, my income at the end of the year is less than one quarter of the national average. But for some reason when I try to have a sensible conversation about welfare reform people who have never been as financially poor as me, living financially secure lives scorn me for trying to tell them some how truths. They claim I ‘attack the poor’ for wanting a voucher system to support responsible purchases among parents to end child poverty. I would say it is their ignorance that is keeping people poor.

Over my life I have claimed these various out-of-work and in-work income assistances:

  • Income Support
  • Incapacity Benefit
  • Housing Benefit
  • Council Tax Benefit
  • Working Tax Credit
  • Access to Work

The first one, Income Support, I only got around £3,000 a year from and was only allowed to earn £30 a week and work no more than 8 hours. On Incapacity benefit I got no extra money, only my stamp paid. Housing Benefit and Council Tax benefit helped a lot, but I was forced off these when my Incapacity Benefit was cut off because I did ‘permitted work’ and was told if I can work 8 hours I must be able to work more.

This short sharp shock, broke me out of my comfort zone where I was afraid to risk coming of benefit (someone if one says benefit claimants think one gets attacked for because of their snobbery about benefits). This meant I went onto tax credits, which I have had support from since, building my way up from working 16 hours in 2009 to 48 hours in 2012.

Even so, if I were not able to live with family, and housing benefit was not available, then right now I would be homeless. From my point of view, a responsible society would replace financial hand-outs with vouchers. It is snobbery to see food vouchers as degrading, when at least they give the person in poverty choice over what food to buy. I would be happier giving a homeless person a food voucher, as I have done with McDonald’s tokens. I fear all too often they want money for drugs or alcohol which are the easy option out.

I have in my possession right now a voucher – a NHS Optical Voucher so I can purchase spectacles. I get this because I am on tax credits. I don’t feel it is degrading to have such a voucher. Those who say they are have probably never been on benefits – they are the Champagne Socialists who act like their heart is bleeding, but are still living their relatively luxurious lifestyle.

I in fact think even the most financially wealthy should have vouchers as part of universal healthcare. People may not see it as choice to give people vouchers for certain things rather than give them money for anything, but the way I see it, targeted help through vouchers will better tackle poverty than say giving someone money to spend on things like cigarettes and alcohol which do not improve their situation.

So in essence, anyone who says I am degrading poor people when I call for a voucher system is directly insulting me by saying it is degrading for me, as I would be eligible for vouchers under such a system. Social mobility is restricted by ones ability to pay for certain things like education , especially where one cannot save for an education on benefits due to means testing. I would prefer to replace means-testing with ‘needs-testing’, where people regardless of income get the support their need in the form of a voucher that can only be spent on the specific good or service. This is what happens with opticians with the free-sight-tests and prescription glasses one can get, just by presenting one’s Tax Credits Exemption Card.

If all children are ‘born equal’ then they should have equal access to public services throughout their life. Whether their parents are rich or poor, I think a voucher system would be the fairest way to ensure social mobility is improved, especially if catchment areas are removed and people can send their children for education outside their county – as my parents managed to get for me. Personally I don’t see how money printed by the Bank of England in the form of cash is better than money printed by the DWP/NHS in the form of vouchers. Providing one can access the goods or services one needs to enjoy one’s life, then it doesn’t matter how much one has coming into the bank.

An lonely on-looker's diary - The world through the eyes of an Aspie
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