I downloaded a book to my Kindle eReader over the weekend. Not only was it a translation from the German, it was by a 19thC writer - E.T.A.Hoffman - who is not always the easiest writer to follow. So I struggled with it for a while before I realised that I had downloaded the second volume and obviously was starting mid-way as it were. I have now downloaded the first volume and finding the whole thing a lot easier to understand!
Why am I telling you this? Because I had the same feeling yesterday listening to Vince Cable's proposals regarding the green paper on Pension reform. A lot of the arguments for the pension reforms - with which I obviously do not disagree - are the arguments used against retaining Child Benefit for better off parents. The Telegraph article points out that these reforms will benefit women particularly - another reason that I would favour them - but again these are the arguments that I put in my blog arguing why Child Benefits should not be messed reformed!
So I have the feeling that I have opened the newspapers 'halfway through' the story and that the government has had a change of heart over welfare cuts and are not using the opposite arguments for two different 'benefits'. but it seems I haven't!
And the blog title? Well obviously it is a mish mash of the Joe Egan/Gerry Rafferty song and not only does it refer to my feeling of starting in the middle of a story whose beginning has passed me by, I also particularly identify at the moment with the refrain:
Clowns to the left of me!
Jokers to the right!
Here I am stuck in the middle with you.
Elizannie is in the West Country, a bit cold but having fun.
Photograph courtesy of Daily Telegraph, article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/8086637/Women-to-benefit-most-from-pensions-shake-up.html
