Democracy, but only if you pay for it

Today The Telegraph's Ian Cowie has stooped to a spectacular low that makes the Daily Mail look all sunshine and rainbows. He proposed that only those who pay a minimum of £100 a year in income tax be allowed to vote.

Clearly the motivation behind this is to destroy the left wing vote. It will mean that those who typically vote left would be excluded from voting: The unemployed, the low-waged, full-time students, etc.

Of course, it would have a massive effect on us disabled people. Though Incapacity Benefit and ESA are "taxable" benefits, they're not enough per annum to pay income tax on!

He says:

Restoring the link between contributing to society and voting about how it is run would be a sensible first step.

So he thinks disabled people who volunteer for their local youth work charity aren't contributing to society? That people who care for a disabled loved one aren't giving back to the country they're claiming benefits from; despite saving the state £87bn a year? That the unemployed person who runs a Brownie pack is just scrounging and providing nothing in return?

Possibly his sickest claim of all is:

This modest proposal would, however, exclude large numbers of people who have no ‘skin in the game’ and who may even comprise the majority of voters in some metropolitan areas today. Their contribution is not just negative in financial terms – they take out more than they put in – but likely to be damaging to the decisions taken by democracies.

I compromise the majority of voters? What, by contributing to a site like this which exposes just how shafted disabled people are?

I have no "skin in the game"? Right, cos it's not like disabled people are dying because they lost their benefits; and who knows if at some point in the near-ish future that I'll lose my piddling income and find myself as one of them?

I'm damaging the decisions taken by democracies? What? By making sure people are aware of how those decisions will affect disabled people?

We have been voting ourselves better benefits than we have earned for decades and – sooner than later – that has got to stop.

On a micro scale; I'm sorry Mr Cowie that I was only able to pay income tax for 3 and a half years between starting work a week after finishing university in 2003 and becoming too ill to work at the end of 2006. No-one is sorrier than me because I miss the life I had back then. Having been on benefits now for 4 and a half years I've claimed back way more than I paid in. But that's the whole point of "national insurance". It's an insurance against life going tits up for you.

On a macro scale; Better benefits than we earn? Have you seen the rates of benefits? Imagine you became too ill to work. Permanently, not something that's only temporary until you have an operation. You apply for ESA and get turned down and shunted onto JSA. Could you, Mr Cowie, really live on £67.50 a week for life?

That’s how non-contributory democracy led to the credit crisis in a nutshell.

Really? As the "finance editor" for a national newspaper one would expect you to do a little more research than that, rather than just reading Iain Dickhead Smith's claims that benefit claimants caused the deficit. I think you'll find it was the bankers that crashed the economy and not us non-workers living on a pittance.

It’s time to restore the link between paying something into society and voting on decisions about how it is run.

No thanks Mr Cowie. I'd rather live in a country where the human right to be part of the decision-making process about what affects us is upheld. Even us filthy scum that can't pay income tax.