Queen promises to make poverty and budget deficits illegal

The Queen today delivered her annual speech to the combined Houses of Parliament, setting out her government’s plans for legislation over the next six months. As expected, this was the shortest speech of the current parliament, running to just 13 minutes and contained promises to: - Enhance the governance of the financial …

[Anonymous Coward]

"Queen promises to make poverty and budget deficits illegal"

So, rather than make these things illegal why does she not actually help?

A reduction of the civil list and giving a lot of her income to child charities would be a start.

Giving up the throne and removing her money sucking family from the public teat would be even better.

[Anonymous Coward]

May I be the first

"Outlaw child poverty by 2020 "

To suggest we outlaw everything we don't want?

I suggest we start with murder, rape, physical violence etc. We could pass a law making all of those things illegal, that would stop them ever happening again wouldn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

child poverty is a re-introduced law

only on its first time around those 'guilty' of it were put in work houses......

if the full amount of time is left before an election it is a sign of the contempt that the elected classes have for the voters.. holding onto power for as long as possible no matter what.

[seanj]

Accessory before the fact...

If the next government does indeed fail in it's attempts to reduce the budget deficit, will Gordon Brown, and also Alastair Darling, be locked up in the tower along with the chancellor of the time as accessories to not halving the deficit?

[Chris Bradshaw]

Hurrah

'this is about governing, it's not about electioneering' - at least there is one person in UK politics who cares more about the long-term prosperity of the country than whether he/she will have a job come next election.

Oh, hang on, never mind...

[Jimmy Floyd]

Poor Liz

Normally, it's a bit of an historic oddity having the monarch describing politicians' desires for the coming year. This time, it's almost offensive having the poor woman acting as Brown's grubby little mouthpiece while the government writhes around in its death-throes.

Anyone who doubts the dignity of the Queen must consider how capable they would be of reading the speech without dropping in a little "yeah, right!" or "as if!" under their breath.

[ElFatbob]

FFS

Legislating against child poverty?

Well, if you Labour f*cktards hadn't shafted the economy (again) and bailed out your wanker banker friends, you might have had some money to put to the eradication of child poverty.

Instead, you've created an economic situation that is likely to put more children into that situation. Oh, that and the welfare dependency you've consigned millions to.

You'd have made more difference by legislating against farting.

[amanfromMars 1]

J'accuse, naturally ....... for is not the Truth as Plain to See

"Second, there are several measures that appear to embody the impossible in law. Precisely what the government will do if it fails to halve the budget deficit or eliminate child poverty on deadline is unclear. Locking the Chancellor in the Tower of London is probably not an option."

A law without punitive sanction is a joke and an insult to intelligence and therefore also just as window dressing to entice and deceive the ignorant masses into false hope? Was there ever a more useless Government than that Presently Pretending to Administer to National/International/InterNetional Needs whilst Wilfully and Shamelessly Executively Feeding and Tending instead to their Own Personal Greeds?

Time for a Rapid Force Change to Virtual Mode, methinks, to leave all the Junk Baggage behind ..... if you have the cojones for IT, that is. Come On, now, ... What are you? Men or Mice? Squeak up.

Surprise us all with some Special Intelligence Servers before they surprise you, and Virtually Extraordinarily Render you Right Publicly Branded as Servants to Fools and Folly. The Scripts are Out There and Running ........ Carpe Diem or Perish in the Sea of Inadequate Thought.

[Richard 102]

Outlaw poverty?

Isn't that a moving target? I remember reading that, in 1990, you could make more money than 97% of the rest of the world and still qualify for poverty benefits.

The real cause of poverty is people making poor personal choices. Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute (a libertarian think tank in DC) had a book called "Getting Better All the Time" where he talked about trends in the US through the 20th century and how life has improved. One thing I remember vividly. In the US, if you:

1) graduate high school at the age of 19 or younger,

2) have your first child at the age of 20 or older, and

3) are married to the other parent when that child is born (not conceived, but born)

then you are 98% likely to never need government poverty benefits. Now, to make poverty "illegal", we will need to have the government meddling EVEN DEEPER in our lives, and really, that isn't going to solve anything except the problem of how to get more totalitarian government bureaucracy ... and ask people in eastern Germany how well that worked 20 years ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Outlaws

Well if, as is widely believed, the Tories form the next Government, wouldn't having the budget deficit halved enshrined in law just be a way of enforcing budget policy on the next Government?

Brown has had a field day throwing horrendous amounts of money down the drain in his bid to "Save the World". Now he wants the next Government to not repeat the same mistake - hypocrite!

As for making child poverty illegal - I agree. Any kids who are found to be living in poverty should be locked up for sure!

[Sam Liddicott]

civil list my foot

The Queen gave up all her incomes from land and property which vastly exceeds her income from the civil list.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunning-Kruger anyone?

http://dunningkruger.com/43/finally-after-all-those-years/

and even the source of Swine Flu has been IDd (perhaps I will put in an apostrophe after all) ID'd

http://dunningkruger.com/23/now-we-know-the-source-of-swineflu/

[brimful]

@seanj

You should've heard the radio 4 show this morning around 8 on the very same subject. Point was that what's the point of a bill when no one is going to be punished for breaking the law. The idiot on the receiving end of the question replied "it enhances our determination to do something and the public want it" or something along those lines.

[Graham Marsden]

Many of the measures appear to be...

... a desperate attempt by Labour towards conning the people it's been screwing for the last 12 years into thinking that a vote for them this time will actually make a damn bit of difference.

There, corrected it for you ;-)

[JimC]

Child Powerty at least is easy to eliminate...

You simple change the definition of Poverty...

As I recall its currently something like less than x% of average household income which is a pretty silly definition anyway...

[Scott 19]

@AManFromMars

Yes the last Labour goverment. The toffs however you put it genarally hand over a healthy economy to them and then they mess it up. More peolpe out of work than when they started, one of the worst deficits in history and all there rich mates richer, while the child poverty bit was a pledge by them 10 years ago and yet theres more in poverty now than when they took over. The change in the wind was signalled when the dark lord Mandy switched parties, personnaly if i was a labour supporter this would scare the cr*p out of me, hes up there with Nixon and everyone noses his aim for the power seat, not leader of the party though as it has a to short life span hes planning on running the party as head of PR, which if anyone in the party says anthing he doesn't like he simply declares to the media that it was a mistake.

The thing that should scare most people is that the current bunch of self serving politcos realise they've already lost and are now trying to screw up this country so bad it will take another 4-8 years to sort out, proven by the point that the incoming goverment has to solve child poverty? made harder by an economy on life support and jobs that just aren't there.

I feel sorry for the Queen (Queen Amidala) standing up and having to mouth the words of Mandy (Sith lord). Is Blairs or Browns son called Luke?

Beer icon cause i'm sure the poor dear need a couple of shots of brandy before speak this BS.

[SmallYellowFuzzyDuck, how pweety!]

Outlaw child poverty

How about for a start we just stop schemes that seem to throw endless money to the parents who own these children.

No I'm not a Daily mail reader, I just have a wife who deals with this as a job and she sees people receiving money and spending it on drugs and sky TV.

Also the other end is the childrens charities, consider that the boss of the charity Barnardos Martin Narey was alledged by the Telegraph to earn £166,532. Think about that next time you drop a pound in their collection tin.

No one really lives in poverty these days, just people doing well financially out of it.

[Richard Wharram]

These are laws ?

How is it even possible to create a law stating what the next government should do ?

Halving the budget defecit will be impossible given the mess Brown has left the economy in and they know it. It's just a stick to beat the Tories with once they get in. The whole idea is a bitter, twisted, small-minded, waste of time. Just like the men who thought it up.

Hopefully the Lords will throw it out. Maybe we should have a constitution that states what can and can't be made into a law ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice innit

Out of work, last thing you ate was a clump of grass a week ago; you've sold your shoes to a tramp to buy your kids a slice of bread; you tried to go on the game but the punters wanted you to give them the £300 per hour.

And now the plods have come along and arrested your sprogs for 'Being Poor in a Public Place'. and they're off to the nick for three squares a day and an X-Box each and you still have to suck gravel.

Ha; bluudy kids today, don't know their born.

[TeeCee]

Smokescreen.

"Cluster Munitions (Prohibitions) Bill"

I suppose that piece of legislation's in there to distract attention when all the others turn out be a clusterfuck too.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're worried about the poverty thing?

How about making parents responsible for the actions of their kids after removing not only their authority but that of teachers as well..

Basically they are aiming to make it illegal for England not to be a Disney movie.

Despite my strong left of center beliefs, one of the things I find most irritating is this fantasy the left has that all children are angels that can be raised to be responsible, respectful, law abiding and hard working without allowing any form of consequence for their actions.

I'll ask you this simple question. If someone was to coddle you like a mother doting on her newborn child every minute of every day how would you react? My guess is you'd lose it not only on that person but on everything breakable within reach of your newly purchased baseball bat. And people wonder why kids act they way they do in a world where they can do nothing wrong and some condescending bastard is continually praising them for a job mediocrely done.

So as well as taking away the tools to teach unnatural behaviour such as politeness and social acceptable behaviour while kids are young enough to be influenced by such things, they also believe that being irritatingly nice all the time will make kids love everyone in this wonderful world of Disney. And if your kid doesn't respond as they fantasize they should? You'll get fined.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Outlaw child poverty by 2020"

My, how Dickensian of Her...

"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Several of these are 'reintroduced', others are too late anyway

Financial Services Bill

- Why didn't you think of that BEFORE giving them £80 billion of our money?

Fiscal Responsibility Bill

- Gordon Brown had a 40% of GDP 'rule'. He broke it - when does he get locked up in the Tower?

Personal Care at Home Bill

- Was previously turned down by Labour. They can't afford it anyway

Crime and Security Bill

- Under 16s are already the legal responsibility of their guardians. Why not enforce these existing laws?

Energy Bill

- This has been published Labour policy for how long? Two years?

Flood and Water Management Bill

- Labour have been encouraging building on flood plains for ten years.

Equality Bill

- Basically already exists, spread over a few different laws. The only bits that don't were personally vetoed earlier this year by Lord Mandelson in his capacity as Business Secretary.

Cluster Munitions (Prohibitions) Bill

- The UK signed the UN Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3rd Dec 2008. Already done!

Child Poverty Bill

- Labour have already missed their 2010 deadline for halving child poverty... They had ten years, and they manage a small decrease 1997-2004, followed by an increase since. According to a few charities, they've almost back where they started in 1997.

[Martin 6]

@Poor Liz

You have to feel sorry for the old dear.

It's a hell of a job to read this without pissing yourself laughing, that and having to watch the Royal variety performance sober is almost elder abuse.

[night troll]

Mandy in cloud cookoo land again

"It will be for the public to judge whether they believe these policies are relevant, achievable and affordable."

Relevant, probably. Achievable and affordable, after 12 years of this lot? Not a chance.

@amanfromMars

Not only one of the few times I could understand your post but also fully agree with it, thank you sir.

@Martin 6

You owe my boss a new keyboard and monitor, I must remember not to drink coffee while I am reading elReg.

[Spider]

other bills to follow

Brown forgot to mention the planned bill to limit vertical (and therfore lateral shoreward) movement of the surrounding coastal sea waters. This is believed to be issued following the Canute study.

[Steve X]

All that in 13 minutes?

Wow, must have more like powerpoint slides with bullet points than a speech.

Clever, though. Lets the Minister for Spin not only pretend to be doing something, but setting up the successor government for embarassment when they try to repeal the child poverty act, even if it was pointless to begin with. "Have you stopped beating your wife" and all that.

More typical nulab, only care about the image, never the substance. God knows what more damage they'll do in the next 150 days :(

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, rather than make these things illegal why does she not actually help"

Not her job, she just reads out whatever the government of the day tells her to. If you don't like the monarchy either have a revolution or bugger off to france!

[Anonymous Coward]

Title

Knowing the colour full history of childcare in the UK can´t you just send the kids off to the coal mines of the "nice" children homes in Auz?

[Francis Offord]

Heard it all before

A pity that the second line in your introduction will not be implemented but the words of that old refrain are apposite, "seems to me I've heard this song before". What still does not sound true are the sentiments, whatever party is in power, they never do what they say on the tin. They could make a start by cleaning up their own house of secrets, sorry, perhaps I mean their outrageous expenses. Time to accept a basic wage and let the gravy train pass on through with all it's attractions, and with only a very basic allowance given in extreme circumstances. Perhaps we could then lead the EU into making their budget balance or call for dissolution of that infamous, so called, parliament. Perhaps the Belgians could finally come to realise that the most famous Belgian is a fictional character, Hercule Poirot. Worse than Gawdhelpus Brown, the foreign leader of our parliament in England.

[Anonymous Coward]

when politicians define metrics and targets

As economics bloggers on BBC have pointed out Labour have an excellent plan for reducing child poverty.....

Current definition of child poverty is a relative measure judged against an "average" figure. By wrecking the economy and making the whole country poorer the "average" goes down and borderline families are "lifted" out of the "poverty" classification.

Should another party (and I don't like any of them BTW) fix the economy and raise the "average" figure then borderline families are plunged into the "poverty" classification.

Ergo, in an economic slump we end up with fewer people in "poverty", in an economic rise we can end up with more people in "poverty".

This is what happens when politicians define metrics and targets.

[Anonymous Coward]

targets based on averages

I posted a minute ago about child poverty being a measure based on an average and the unintended consequences.....

It reminds me of how I tease a friend of mine who is a teacher that it's ridiculous that, in this day and age, half of all pupils are below the average at reading and writing and we should look seriously at the teaching "profession".

She agrees that all pupils should be above the average. She doesn't get it at all. She should work in government.

Paris because she'd get it.