Welcome to the Opposition Mad House, where logic is tortured till it cries out. This twisted, warped and rather insane logic has yet again been shown by Red (and mad) Ed.
So what has Red Ed done? He has claimed that pay day lenders should be banned from advertising on children's TV channels or in children's TV slots. Why is this Ed? It's because in his own words "I know how influenced they [children] can be by what they see and I don't want pay day lenders taking advantage of the cost of living crisis and targeting children in this country." So in other words Ed thinks Wonga is trying to get children to borrow from them through their advertising campaigns.
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| Apparently, the old people of Wonga are wanting to lend to people they specifically bar from being leant money. |
Is this man having a laugh or what? People under the age of 18 cannot take out pay day loans. Go onto Wonga.com, or any of the other pay day lenders website's, and you'll see that one of the main conditions is a person has to be over the age of 18 to get money. There are no 7 year olds calling up Wonga; or if there are they're being denied loans because the companies will not lend to people that young. This means that whether or not they find the funny old puppets amusing or not is meaningless because they can't borrow money. So why ban them?
Well there are two reasons why Red Ed could have said this. Firstly he has gone logically mad; this is not unsurprising considering the people he has to work with in the Shadow Cabinet and Unite. I'm surprised we didn't notice his madness when he tried to make out the spare room subsidy was a tax.
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| Despite the obvious symptoms, Ed Miliband refuses to see a Doctor. |
I do not buy into the idea of stopping adults from seeing advertising campaigns. As a nation we have decided that once someone turns 18 they have the freedom to make their own decisions, and sure this means facing consequences, but most importantly it means people can go out and better themselves. It's an adults choice to take out loans if they want to and they know all the risks but also the benefits. We should stop patronising adults as if they are children unable to make reasoned decisions because once we start doing that we start going around restricting people in other more meaningful ways. We could ban alcohol advertising because adults are in no way able to make good decisions on them. We could ban junk food advertising because it makes you fat.
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| Lefties (altogether): Ban Everything!!! |
People have the right to make choices and we should not pester and annoy people by restricting their choices in an attempt to be paternalistic. People know the facts about pay day lenders. Its not like nobody knows that Wonga charges massive rates off interest, especially after all the Leftie's have been banging on about it.
A strange article. it was obvious that Ed is concerned by children seeing the adverts (that have nothing normally to do with them) and then potentially putting pressure on parents if they overhear conversations about financial difficulty or not being able to afford things.According to the BBC Article from a couple of days back, 30% of children knew the advert music and jingles, and advertisers are spending higher and higher amounts targeting children's TV. To suggest Ed genuinely thinks children may try to take out loans themselves is really daft on your point, and a failure of reason and logic by you. Secondly, you show no compassion towards the poorest who feel the need to take out payday loans because of financial hardship caused by austerity and the cost of living outstripping wages. For some, it is a choice between eating and not eating this week, and in modern Britain is it a travesty that families have to make that choice. These loans aren't taken out normally by people who want a shopping spree, but by people in hardship. Payday companies target the most vulnerable who can feel they have little choice. It's just typical Tory diatribe to not understand this and see pay day loans as a perfectly normal and free market transactions, and ignore the financial coercions than drive vulnerable people to use them.
ReplyDeleteIt's called satire to expose that Ed is using children wrongly to make people believe what he is saying. He's pulling on people's heart strings to make decisions they wouldn't normally want. It also points out the real argument Ed has that he wants to stop adults from watching these adverts. I think people shouldn't be told what to watch or not to watch because then we lead ourselves into banning more things. Some people, and I know a few of them, do use Wonga not to eat or heat but pay for stuff we should allow these people and others to use them that way and a part of this is allowing advertising.
ReplyDeleteOn people turning to Wonga out of need to heat or eat I think that there is good knowledge what interest rates Wonga charges. I think people are mad to use Wonga, don't do it. I think it is wise to allow other forms of charity and reliance which this government is bringing in. Welfare payments to many people (although the number of recipients is down) is actually up, those on disability for example. Pensions have increased through the triple lock. We're allowing the community to help people be it through food banks that a Conservative Government has compassionately allowed to advertise. My advice to people who need to heat or eat is to use these routes and rely on family, neighbours and friends who give much better advice and help than any government. This is not a case of sod you and absolutely a case of let's get the best help for you.
On 30% of children knowing these jingles as I pointed out in the piece is also neither here nor there. Children repeat a lot of things. Everyone knows the meerkats from compare the market, doesn't mean that children are buying insurance policies. Again heart string pulling in what should be a factual argument.