Reply #1: The point is, though... [View All]

that if a benefit is universal, then it's universal. Miliband is not defending the rights of millionaires to benefits out of sympathy with them, but because once you start chopping benefits from some, it can be used to call into question other people's rights to benefits, and even be a first step to taking them away altogether.

I'm not sure where I stand on this. On the one hand, if you must have cuts in benefits, means-testing seems the fairest way to have them, so long as the limit isn't set outrageously low. And I've seen the hypocrisy of middle-class Tories and their spokespeople in rubbish newspapers like the Hate-Mail, who are all in favour of cuts for the poor, but scream when it affects themselves. On the other hand, the 'slippery slope' argument is a real one; in part because poorer people have less power, and so if only poorer people are receiving a benefit, then they don't have as much clout if they protest about it than if richer people were also affected and protesting. Sad but true.

Certainly, I think that if benefits are to be means-tested, this should take into account the total income coming to the home, not just that of one earner.