Interrogare quaerentium
That’s what Google Translate renders in Latin from the phrase “who questions the questioners?”, which is good enough for us. After weeks of silence, Labour’s irony-free “2014 Truth Team” Twitter account sprang back into life yesterday. As part of its mission to “find out the facts and expose the myths”, it made this dramatic assertion:
The link points to a Herald piece in which, sure enough, the Scottish Government does indeed refuse to guarantee something. But it’s not the “UK pension rate”.
The pension referred to is one of a flat-rate £144 for all pensioners, currently mooted by the Tory/Lib Dem coalition. But the figure, and the date of its implementation, are merely suggestions. The UK government’s paper on the subject notes (our emphasis):
“The start date for the single-tier pension has yet to be decided but for planning purposes we have assumed that it would be 6 April 2017, at the earliest. We have used this date for illustrative purposes.“
In future a person would be eligible for a single flat-rate pension of around £144 a week provided they had paid, been treated as having paid or been credited with National Insurance contributions for 35 years. This is an illustrative weekly rate that reflects the figure used in The White Paper, The single-tier pension: a simple foundation for saving.”
In other words, £144 is merely a random amount that’s been plucked out of the air for demonstration purposes, and which won’t in any event be implemented at the earliest until April 2017 – two years after the current government’s maximum term of office ends. (And one year later than the Herald piece erroneously claims as a definite date.)
It is, therefore, in any meaningful terms, a complete fantasy. It’s a pledge – except it’s not even a pledge, more of a vague hope – made by one government on behalf of an unknown future one, which cannot bind that future government in any way. To the “2014 Truth Team”, though, it’s carved in stone like the Ten Commandments.
Not only is the anonymous Scottish Labour mouthpiece citing a hollow, wishful-thinking dream policy of its two UK political opponents as a current reality, it’s also demanding that the current Scottish Government promises to make that dream come true on behalf of its own successors, since 2017 will also be after the next Holyrood election.
So let’s just recap the original accusation, with more accurate phrasing:
“SNP claim Indy would create a fairer welfare system. FACT – the Scottish Government now refuses to guarantee something several years in the future, that it has no power to guarantee (because it will be for a future Scottish Government to decide), and which cannot be guaranteed by any UK government either, and indeed which no UK government, current or future, is currently even promising anyway.”
In fairness, that’s more than 140 characters. Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity, we’ve asked not only the Truth Team, but Ed Balls and Ed Miliband, if Labour will guarantee a flat-rate £144 pension if they win the 2015 UK general election. We’ll keep you posted when they reply, which we’re sure will be any minute now.
And when we tell you, it actually WILL be the truth.
Parcelle veteratores… or at least, that’s what Google Translator gives me for a parcel of rogues.
Also on benefits. I do have a look at the online SUN.It has been fairer than most and certainly fairer than the rabid Scotsman. However it is currently carrying a report on the welfare system. Now I’m sure the journalist who wrote the story knows exactly what the SNP are planning for the welfare system if they win the first election however he has completely come up with another story altogether. Maybe I’m missing something and they really do see things that I can’t.
Truth and politics in general make uneasy bedfellows, but truth and Labour in particular seem utter and complete strangers. Their conduct so far in this campaign has reached the lowest of the low. Their naked attempts to demonize the SNP and YES support has guaranteed social division for years to come which will take a great deal of work to heal.
If a parliamentary Labour mouthpiece loudly declared that the sky was blue and the grass was green I’d have to go check for myself these days.
Labour are casting themselves into the wilderness. I trust the people of Scotland will see through their game of trying to woo England by pissing all over Scotland.
“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.” ? Joseph Goebbels
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.” ? Joseph Goebbels
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.” ? Joseph Goebbels
With longevity for all affordability is only achievable by means testing. A pension rate for all of 144 a week? Quick calculation; 65 million population, 1 in 5 will be pensioners by 2020 = 13 million x 144 x 52 = £97,344,000,000.
£97 Billion a year in other words…,
@macart
technically the sky isn’t blue and plants only appear green because they don’t absorb the green part of the spectrum. So Labour lies again!! 🙂
Can we ask the Truth Team whether successive Labour governments were complicit in supressing the McCrone report and other ‘inconvenient’ documents? Or are they the only ones that can pose the questions?
Just to add that their motto is actually “Nos mentiri te salutant” – we who are about to lie salute you. To which is commonly appended “(cum duo digiti)” (with two fingers).
“affordability is only achievable by means testing” Atypical_Scot – I entirely disagree. Means testing costs a lot to implement, is easily avoided or gamed, and has iniquitous side-effects and traps. Universality in all benefits is the only fair solution. If it is expensive, pay for it with higher taxes for those who monopolise free public resources e.g. land.
Simon;
Universal welfare is fair, but why do millionaires require a state pension if supplying that means the overall welfare allocation is less to all individuals?
Fasciculumque pila saccis.
Well I don’t know if Labour will guarantee £144 pension but according to the Telegraph (sorry!) the coalition are already backtracking on the triple lock guarantee ( the Coalition’s guarantee that the state pension will rise every year in line with prices, earnings, or 2.5 per cent, whichever is the highest).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10124546/Steve-Webb-Pensions-triple-lock-cannot-be-guaranteed-after-the-election.html
Also said
“all political parties will have to make decisions about whether they can afford to continue to support the elderly to the same degree after the next election.”
So MSM will be full of “A non-independent Scotland cannot guarantee pensions will be safe” headlines then???
Loadum of shiteus.
That’s the Latin for everything that comes out of Truth Team’s Twitter feed.
Universal welfare is fair, but why do millionaires require a state pension if supplying that means the overall welfare allocation is less to all individuals?
The wealthy/those earning a decent wage put the most into the insurance pot; far more than they ever get back. They’re paying the welfare bill for those who don’t have as much to put in. If you give them nothing in return for this generosity they’ll likely want a tax cut. When that happens, less goes into the pot and so the amount available for everyone goes down.
Means testing is well established as a mechanism to remove the welfare state.
http://forum.chronicfatiguesyndrome.me.uk/index.php?action=printpage;topic=12244.0
From the British Medical Journal:
The assault on universalism: how to destroy the welfare state
…The direction of travel should now be clear. More and more, the middle classes will ask why they are paying into a system that gives them little back. The idea that the state is an insurance system, from which they can benefit if they are in need, is steadily eroded… There will be ever greater reductions in the funding, and inevitably the quality, of those remaining services used by the middle classes, such as primary and secondary education and healthcare, persuading them that they would be better off seeking private options. Public services will become like public hospitals in the United States, a service for the poor. As Richard Titmuss famously said, a “service for the poor” inevitably becomes “a poor service,” as the vocal and politically active middle class abandon the system.
My Latin is a bit rusty, but my guess is that “Who questions the questioners?” would be something like “Quis interrogabit ipsos interrogatores?”
Google Translate is awfully bad at translating into Latin.
Quis interrogabit ipsos quaerentia, I think.
Rev, if we all spoke Esperanto none of this would have happened.
@themadmurph
LOL 😀 Yer right! I knew a second opinion was required and sure enough…
Scottish skier;
The rich pay more taxes, the collective taxes do not cover pensions, they barely cover the NHS and other welfare, hence the 200 billion annual shortfall in the UK. We live in a capitalist EU. 10,000 plus elderly died in the UK this winter (again) from fuel poverty, whilst millionaire’s collected their pensions.
Labour, Truth, WMD and 45 minutes to doom. That is all you need to know.
I wouldn’t accept the time of day from these people unless it was independently (or separatistly by their reckoning) verified.
Dont forget that a £144 a week flat rate pension is actually far worse for the majority of people than the current lower basic state pension with SP2 top up (second state pension).
In fact the switch to a flat rate pension is estimated to provide the Treasury with a £9bn windfall.
So should this “Truth” not say “SNP refuse to take more money from pensioners!”
Panda paws
Same story on page 2 of the Herald.
All three parties backtracking methinks….
It’s all Greek to me.
Oh well, que sera…
In Latin the sentence structure is subject, object and finally verb?
The weather vane on Renfrew’s town hall is a ship (was?). And the motto,
Deus navem guidit – God guides the ship.
Constructing a Latin motto for North British Labour could be fun – duplicity, truthlessness(?),cronyism.
Langour nobis guidit?
@velofello
Janus deum nostrum est
The two faced is our god?
@velofello: Yes, SOV is the unmarked word order in Latin, but it’s generally free, so you can rearrange the words to your heart’s content, e.g., Ovid: “multos numerabis amicos”, lit. “many you-will-count friends”.
As for the motto, something like “Dupleitas, Mendacium, Grex”?
@handclapping, “Janus Deus Noster”?
The “I’m from no party ” unionist from newsnicht last nicht
https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/430074_204384163019003_207132973_n.jpg
Velofello
Voter off fuck?
The UK cannot afford its existing pension commitments so can’t understand any logic of discussing better ones.
Means testing ends with private insurance and 2 tier systems.
Surely the bigger picture is how you prioritise your government spending? Would also make sense for [some] state pension contributions to actually be invested in a Future Wealth Fund rather than spent/wasted?
Murray McCallum says:
18 June, 2013 at 10:13 am
The UK cannot afford its existing pension commitments so can’t understand any logic of discussing better ones
Scotland spends less both as a % of Tax take and a % of GDP on Pensions while at the same time has far lower life expectancy than SE England.
Its not Better ones… its keeping an equivalent to what we have at the moment and not the ‘Right hand… left hand’ removal of money from pensionsers that Westminster is doing in 2017.
“The “I’m from no party ” unionist from newsnicht last nicht”
Good work, LITW. Will be using that.
@ Scott Minto
I agree with you. My point was aimed at the continuation of the UK where pension provision is already in a mess. The bigger concern for me, in regard to pension provision, is Scotland being sucked into this mess.
It shouldn’t be missed that the current rate of inflation would make £144 in 2017 the equivalent of about £85 in today’s terms and represents an actual lowering in real value of the state pension
Kerchingum Quidsinum
@ Rev Stu
Being up early for NZ schools rugby pre B+I Lions game has it’s uses.
Recedite, plebes! Gero rem Conventum!
Constructing a Latin motto for North British Labour could be fun
Nullus amat nos, non curamus?
The rich pay more taxes, the collective taxes do not cover pensions, they barely cover the NHS and other welfare, hence the 200 billion annual shortfall in the UK. We live in a capitalist EU. 10,000 plus elderly died in the UK this winter (again) from fuel poverty, whilst millionaire’s collected their pensions.
This is the reason there’s not enough cash in the communal pot.
http://www.libdemvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Basic-income-tax.png
And by advocating means testing, the number in fuel poverty will increase as those paying the most into the system get increasingly less back. This has been going on for decades now. End of uni grants, introduction of tuition fees etc; all needed to offset tax cuts. Of course one feeds off the other; charge uni fees and people ask for a tax cut as they’re not getting uni fees paid any more…
How would you feel if you crashed you car and when you phoned the insurance company they means tested you and told you that you could afford the repairs so there’d be no payout? At the same time, they were going to pay for the guy who crashed into you even though he was behind on his premiums because he was ‘poor’. I imagine you’d cancel the insurance policy; why pay it if you never get anything back?
Also, I’d rather not have my taxes wasted on a huge new level of bureaucracy/civil servants needed to means test >1 million pensioners. Think of the huge costs for staff, IT systems, forms… Then there’s the appeals. It’s a Labour party dream! That or a Tory party one where they use their mate’s company to do the means testing.
And where to set the level? Do you include the value of all assets? What about jewelry and silverware? Or do you just base it on income? Also, drawing a line means someone can have an income 1p less that someone else and they get the pension while the other does not. That’s ludicrous.
Means testing = neoliberal model. It is not about fairness, nor about saving money, it is about ending the welfare state. It’s about ‘I’m awright jack and sod the rest’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state#Three_worlds_of_the_welfare_state
The [neo]liberal regime is based on the notion of market dominance and private provision; ideally, the state only interferes to ameliorate poverty and provide for basic needs, largely on a means-tested basis. Hence, the decommodification potential of state benefits is assumed to be low and social stratification high (Ferragina and Seeleib-Kaiser 2011).
I’m paying for other people”s kids to go to uni right now. I’ll have paid for a lot of them by the time my 5yr old reaches uni age. As thanks, I trust that the state will cover uni fees for my kid. It would be just a small fraction of what I’ve paid into the pot. A little thank you for my contribution.
scottish_skier
I’m paying for other people”s kids to go to uni right now. I’ll have paid for a lot of them by the time my 5yr old reaches uni age. As thanks, I trust that the state will cover uni fees for my kid
Exactly. The concept of the greater good died in Southern UK with tuition fees and their recent 300% increase. My fear is the UK increasingly adopting the US models in education and health.
“My Latin is a bit rusty, but my guess is that “Who questions the questioners?” would be something like “Quis interrogabit ipsos interrogatores?””
I’d have thought that was more likely, because I used to know (from reading comics) that “who watches the watchmen?” was “quis custodes ipsos custodiet?”, or something akin to that. But there you go – that’s the modern age for you, Google rewriting Latin.
Murray
I think there is little doubt there are those in the Conservative Party that would jump at the opportunity to go down the US road. What is depressing is the compliance of Labour to stick with any and all neo-conservative whittling away of social provision.
Ed universalism is at the heart of the Labour Party Milliband (as long as it includes means testing) does not inspire with his inability to stand for anything other than what it is perceived middle England wants.
So from 2017 we’ll all be trilingual in Scottishland. English, Gaelic und latin ..!!??
Laborum iratus – not a perfect translation but near enough for the Lamont bunker.
This is what Google gave me for my suggested motto for the ‘Truth Team’; Quod verum est quod tibi, which should mean “The truth is what we tell you it is”. However, I don’t know the capabilities of Google, so I did an English to English translation. This gave me “What we tell you that the very act he goes”. Still, that doesn’t detract from the fact that the ‘Truth Team’ does not appear to be aware of the definition of truth.
truth
[trooth]
noun, plural truths
[troothz, trooths] .
1.the true or actual state of a matter: He tried to find out the truth.
2.conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.
3.a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.
4.the state or character of being true.
5.actuality or actual existence.
@Major
Can we ask the Truth Team whether successive Labour governments were complicit in supressing the McCrone report and other ‘inconvenient’ documents? Or are they the only ones that can pose the questions?
The Truth Team do not do the truth, which is a bit of a problem given their name….The Trougher Team is more appropriate for them. What they do do is bring SLAB’s gargantuan hatred of the SNP into focus.
“O homines ad servitutem paratos” (‘Men ready to be slaves’, said by Tiberius of senators who preferred to be led by others) or “obscuris vera involvens” (‘the truth being enveloped by obscure things’, from Virgil) are at least guaranteed to be proper Latin.
Janus Deus noster gets my vote.
Oddly when Gordon Brown delivered his recent contribution to the referendum – Together with Labour(?) or something,I thought of messers(?) Darling and Brown as Janus and so doodled a sketch. Unfortunately neither my hand artistry nor computer knowhow enables me to develop it further.
Darling/Brown and also a Lamont/Baillie placards bearing the motto, Janus Deus noster appeals.
Means-testing!I doubt that Scotland has a ratio of population to $millionaires of 19:1 as reported prevails in London so the financial “gain” to an independent Scotland of means testing against the societal loss of egalitarianism surely consigns means testing to the “round” file? Scottish skier says it for me, and I’m a tax paying retiree.
‘qui interrogat Interrogantes’ would have been better. ‘who interrogates the interrogators’
Constructing a Latin motto for North British Labour could be fun
SNP delenda est
A loose translation of mine “Out of the way Plebs! I’m working for the Union!”
Scottish Skier
Great sentiment and as you point out, there are not many millionaires in Scotland. I doubt you do really stand for no means testing, as the welfare state is, and always has been, and always will be means tested. Using the word entitled rather than means tested does not change it’s effect in real terms. There is a cut off to all welfare for a very valid reason – it’s unaffordable. A hip replacement costs the NHS £15,000. One hopes that everyone receiving a pension can also be afforded this when the necessity arises, but where does all the tax come from? NHS Scotland purchased under-performing (unaware I hope) replacement hips in bulk to save cash, many patients are now recalled for a second more costly replacement.
The average Scot in an average job will pay no more in tax in total than they get back in welfare during there working life (based on 2.4 children’s benefits = £30,000, education = £40,000) and health treatment = £2000 per person per year.
So, although I admire your convictions, I think there may be a small (sic) discrepancy in the books. A fair society does not borrow to encumber the future generations with un-payable debt.
Anyone know the Latin for stop all this latin pish?
I doubt you do really stand for no means testing, as the welfare state is, and always has been, and always will be means tested
It isn’t, wasn’t always and does not need to be. You understand that ‘means tested’ has a specific meaning separate from ‘funded by the taxpayer within a limited budget’?
A fair society does not borrow to encumber the future generations with un-payable debt.
Which is exactly why we should get rid of Trident and keep pensions and winter fuel payments and free education and free health care.
@John Lyons-
‘Bolloxus termimum’
Welfare is means tested. Pensions – 35 years you must pay a stamp, you can’t claim it until you are of an age. Council tax benefit – tax payers don’t get it, non tax payers do.
It should be the family that looks after their family, allowing the state to better everyone through health and eduction, infrastructure etc. Currently, everyone, no matter how strong or how many family ties they have, turn to the state. That is not the society that the welfare state was intended to support.
@ ianbrotherhood
‘Bolloxus ridiculousa’
Sorry John, bit slow today and just realised what Ian was saying. No more from me.
As Scott has stated the flat pension is at the expense of many in contracted out occupational pension schemes. i.e. State Earnings related pension scheme. In other words a secondary or top up state pension.
Also remember that the larger the state pension the more people spend. What governments giveth they taketh away. The trick is to increase indirect taxation to compensate.
Indirect taxation is currently 65p per £. Ever decreasing circles…,
‘A fair society does not borrow to encumber the future generations with un-payable debt. ‘ No it doesn’t and ias long as debt is managable what is the problem? Every country borrows and loans against the future. I feel ok about being encumbered with debt arising from my grans pension, the cost of the NHS, the costs of winning WW1 and WW2, increased education levels, science research. I’m happy with my taxes being used topay for this and I’m also happy with universal benefits. No one is forcing you to apply for a bus pass on retirement. as a 40% tax payer for several decades I want my fair share when I need it otherwise why pay tax at all. I could keep it in a tin under the bed. Though it’ll be no use when I’m ill and there’s no decent hospitals of medical staff because there’s no resources to built them and educate the staff.
@ Velofello
Custodi in Scotiam catenas
The debt is manageable? 144 years to pay the UK public sector debt IF things don’t get worse is not managed full stop as far as I’m concerned.
Surely tax is a matter for after we get a Yes vote? There is no point in discussing it further, unless we regain our self-determination. There is a point, however, to highlighting misleading statements coming from the ‘SLabour Truth Team’.
@ Atypical_Scot
“The debt is manageable? 144 years to pay the UK public sector debt”
They’re still paying off the debts for the Napoleonic wars, so I think their 144 years to pay the public sector debt is a bit optimistic
http://blogs.people.co.uk/nigel-nelson/2012/07/britain-still-owes-167millionf.html
.
The City of Sydney only paid off their famous Harbour Bridge a decade or so ago.
PFI has roots in the colonies, you know.
Dear Napoleon,
Thank you for your recent payment reminder. I can only apologise for the two centuries of default however, you will notice I have been keeping on top of my Capital One credit card, with which my last purchase was a 3D printer capable of creating a very large cannon.
Yours, see you on the field,
General DGAF how much debt I’m in.
“If a parliamentary Labour mouthpiece loudly declared that the sky was blue and the grass was green I’d have to go check for myself these days.”
I’d be thinking I must be colour blind and going to an eye check.
Ecce,sciurus!
Behold, a squirrel!
£144 per week pension?
144 years to pay off the National Debt?
Is this all gross exaggeration?
I’ve been over the figures a dozen times…,
@Atypical_Scot
Thats what happens when you leave it to the butcher, the baker and the wallpaper maker. A pound is twelve ounces and a thumb, Rolls thirteen to the dozen and Hey Merve can you print me another trillion the books still dont balance.
Westminster isnt working for us.
Ditching cost of WMDs, never ending MoD financial negligence, Westminster corruption, pretendy empire and role at the top table, … while looking to keep universal free education, health and provision for the elderly seems a good deal to me.
The bitter together “deeper pockets”, “sharing risk”, “security”, lines are surely weak when there is no money in the pockets (or maybe the money is in the wrong pockets), why share risks you can avoid, and all at a time when professional soldiers are being made redundant.
Re. Westminster not working for us. Things are getting pretty bad when banks refuse (or are unable), to return depositor’s gold. The New York Fed. won’t even allow the German government to inspect their own gold. The clincher though, has to be Goldman Sachs selling gold that they did not own, and then charging their customers a storage fee for gold that did not exist.
I’d like an audit of the Bank of England, before any negations start. I wonder if there is any chance though, of the BoE waving its Royal Charter privilege of being exempt from audit?
http://nsnbc.me/2013/04/18/federal-reserve-refuses-to-submit-to-an-audit-of-germanys-gold-held-in-u-s-vaults-2/
CameronB
http://subrosa-blonde.blogspot.fr/2010/01/bling-bling-blag-blag-guest-post-from-b.html
@ Bugger (the Panda)
As I said, I want an audit of the BoE. I think it would only be prudent.
Would anyone be surprised if it turns out that the BoE’s gold is all in Boris Johnson’s Mum’s basement and he doesn’t even know?
He would get away with it too – ‘just some of the chaps having a jape…’ he said, ruffling his hair, grinning impishly.
atypical, indirect taxation is not 65%. That much I would bet my life on without further googling.
Overall taxation might be nudging those levels, but it still sounds a little high to me.
…OK top result for tax freedom day in the UK is May – the first half of the year, meaning taxation levels are sub 50%.
Atypical_Scot: Truly universal welfare means a citizens income, so that no-one is excluded. As soon as you exclude someone, there is a ‘benefits trap’ and unfairness.
Also, I just saw that Swinney has announced a big flat rate pension deal. Reacting to this labour twit or planned for today anyway?
Simon;
Holding breath for a limited time only due to the restrictions of reality…,
…and breathe out…,
Short of breath ex-smoker – but for how long can I sustain what I know to best for me when temptation lurks in every corner shop?