I wonder at yours too - where does the money come from to pay in work benefits, general taxation given the private sector is by far the largest employer it is not a huge leap of faith to suggest it is also the larger contributor to the tax income.. So far from being subsidised by the government they are actually propping up the government.

All I hear on here is government is subsidising big business - nobody has yet produced figures to support that argument that is my point. If Morrisons makes a £500m tax contribution but its employees get £300m in work benefits who is subsidising who?

This.

I have given you an extremely specific example of government subsidising big business by using public health – and the budgets involved – to advertise branded products on behalf of the corporates that it had invited to join the government's public health committee.

On in-work benefits: a number of companies are not paying the living wage to at least some of their employees (and some are, in effect, avoiding paying the minimum wage by cutting hours).

We know this to be factually the case.

We also know it to be the case that people on low incomes require in-work benefits, including but not limited to housing benefit, simply in order to live at a basic level.

If that stopped and people could not keep a roof over their heads or barely feed themselves, this would not be conducive to their performance in the work place. That's not rocket science.

So if companies that are highly successful are relying on the taxpayer to top up low wages in order that their employees can operate at a basic level, it is a subsidy.

We know that plenty of companies are not paying a living wage to their lowliest staff – if you Google every single company that I mentioned specifically in my earlier post, together with 'living wage', there is a mass of information out there about campaigns to change this.

In the meantime, companies are showing remarkable levels of reluctance to do this – that's why the campaigns have been in place for some time and are ongoing. But since the taxpayer is making up the difference, why should they treat their own employees better and potentially reduce their (massive) profits a little (even though the evidence shows that the living wage has a positive impact on productivity etc)?

Whether originally intended as a subsidy or not, that is what it is.

If Brown had thought that a goer he could have got them to by tax / compulsion. So it's either not feasible or he preferred to have mllions of people beholden to the state - effectively to his party. The party that likes poverty - look how all the areas that have voted Labour for 50 years are still the poorer areas. No coincidence.

As causal links go, that's got to be one of the daftest you've ever come up with

Why? The USA resolved to put a man on the moon within, I think, 10 years and did it in less. Look where China was even 10 years ago and compare Shanghai now with, say, Hull or Liverpool, other old ports. In other words, governments can make a difference if they want to and are committed. How much of an Empire did we build in 50 years? The bottom line must be either Labour has no resolve or intention of significantly improving the lot of its voters or it does and is hopelessly incompetent. Make your own mind up.

If you could show that there is no poverty in the US or China ...

I've made me mind up: you're an idiot

That's not the point. The point is that people on here (mentioning no names) believe that the government can engineer by virtue of setting wage rates, tax rates, etc a lack of poverty. Given that you seem to accept that, Labour purports to aim for a "fairer" society and, I have have pointed out, when people endeavour to do things with real resolve they can achieve great things rapidly surely you must agree that either Labour either do not care or are incompetent?

All points that have validity but not in this argument - the point is do companies pay in more/less in tax than their employees draw in in-employment benefits. If they do then the government is subsidising big business enabling them to pay lower wages. If not then big business is actually contributing to society as whole. I don't know but I suspect the latter to be the case.

All the other stuff is just a tactic of government to encourage businesses to succeed and thrive and employ more people.