Breaking Brown's culture of dependency

This year, Radio 4's Woman's Hour is sixty years old. As part of the celebrations they've conducted a number of polls about changing female attitudes that has thrown up some surprising results. Firstly, the "permissive society" of the 1960s is no longer a reality it seems, women, and men, cheat on partners less, and apparently want to settle down in their 20s. The poll also found that rather than following men up the career ladder, an increasing number of women have a desire to be at home nurturing kids by the age of 30.

Now I'm not sure what data exists that shows the number of women choosing that path today compared to 10,20 or 30 years ago. But, assuming the polls finding are accurate, it seems that if ever there was a policy about re-structuring the workings of taxation that was a worthy one, the transferable allowance for those couples with young families could well be a winner.

I've no doubt that Labour would do their best to portray such a thing as some sort of tax cut for the rich. I can just hear the argument now that, because all couples could benefit from it regardless of salary, it is, by their definition, "unfair". However, that argument is easy to tackle when transferable allowances are placed in the context of the low earning families.

That demographic, if they chose to take the option, would effectively be removed from the tax net completely. The real terms increase for them from the policy could be massively significant in bringing about social justice by elevating the bottom upwards. What's more, it would be far cheaper and simpler to administer than the current fiasco that is the tax credit system.

Instead of taking people's money only to give it back to them, transferable allowances would reduce Gordon Brown's ever-increasing link between individual and the state. It would release thousands of families from the culture of dependency that's been encouraged over the past ten years.