Let them eat cake

It just keeps getting worse. Yesterday it was all about ministers randomly decided that a certain number of beneficiaries in the same place was dangerous - in much the same way that more than three people makes a riot.

Now Judith Collins is in on the act, her proposal is selecting some beneficiaries and giving a third of their money directly to a supermarket and (no explanation about what they're going to do about people who don't have a car and aren't walking distance from a supermarket). She said:

It wouldn't have to be everybody who's a beneficiary, but for those who are clearly not looking after their kids in terms of being able to get them fed before they go to school, we should be looking at it.

Now leaving aside how they'd decide which beneficiaries weren't feeding their kids (you want teachers to become spies on parents? If you want teachers to take on a more social welfare role then you'll have to take other work out of them, and also consider the possibility that this wouldn't be best acheived if they were taking a punitive role). The benefit is not supposed to be enough to live on.

For anyone who missed that: the 1991 benefit cuts took the Unemployment Benefit, the Domestic Purposes Benefit and the Sickness Benefit were all cut to a level that you couldn't live on. They estimated the bare minimum required to buy enough food, and then cut it significantly. If people can't live on the benefit it's not because they're doing anything wrong.

If you want to make sure kids have breakfast then give them breakfast at school. Stop with this punitive shit and provide resources to those that need them.