Today’s announcement that Child Trust Funds are being axed at least shows action will be taken to some degree to reduce government spending but at the same time has stirred up a mass of outrage and talk of evil Tories from those who live in the old entitled world that was New Labour.

This article via the BBC has readers comments which usually prove amusing due to the number of lefties being around ten times the number of normal people. A selection to demonstrate my point :

How unfair on my unborn baby who is due at the beginning of October. They miss out on something that was promised! Why couldn’t this be cut in nine months’ time and then everyone knows that it will be gone! So unfair!

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With a disabled two-year-old and a new baby on the way, this announcement hits me in the pocket to the tune of £3,850. Plus I work in the public sector so expect to have my salary frozen or get made redundant over the next few years. It’s a brave decision to to take money away from disabled children in your first act in government, let’s see who they target next – I bet it’s not big business.

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The Child Trust Fund was an amazing idea – the plan to give children some money when they reached 18, their own money. It would have changed life and perspectives for everyone. As we know, this Cabinet has no interest in this kind of thing – all their children and grandchildren will be very well heeled for their entire lives.

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I feel this is a shamefully bad start to a new government. I would have expected the Conservatives to act is this vindictive fashion to ditch a flagship Labour policy, but for the Liberal Democrats to acquiesce in this theft from children is abhorrent. It smacks of Margaret Thatcher’s removal of free school milk for children in the 80s.

And so on. I will admit to being slightly unfair with my selection as there are one or two comments supporting the decision but the general theme of “it is our entitlement” comes through quite strongly.

One thing I find quite refreshing in the whoel article is for a government minister to actually say something in a straightforward manner and in such a clear way to leave arguments against it as nothign more than selfish whining :

Chief secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, said halting these payments to newborns from the end of the year – and the top-up payments – would save £520m.

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Mr Laws said it was “deceiving” people if they were handed funds that were from borrowed money.

“I know that this will be a disappointment to some parents, but we need to be honest about what we are doing,” he said.

“At present, the child trust fund is based on the claim that young people will build up an asset which they can use later in life.

“But since government payments into the scheme are essentially being funded by public borrowing, the government is also storing up debts which will have to be repaid by the same young people.”

Too bloody right!