The Budget and Benefit: Part 2 - some thoughts

In my last post, I laid out the basic information about the proposed changes. In this post I try to flesh out some of detail. I will look at the impact on some claimants, and express some opinions.

Some concrete examples

First of all, let's look at some concrete examples of how the changes might affect people. I'm not going to express any opinions here: the figures speak for themselves.

Low-paid workers with children, and out of work couples with children

Alex and Hilary have three children. It's March 2016. Alex works 35 hours per week, and earns the national minimum wage, 6.70 per hour (it is already scheduled to increase from £6.50 in November 2015. They would also normally receive £48.10 per week Child Benefit (which isn't going to rise for four years).

Let's look at how Alex and Hilary's situation develops:

• In April 2016 Alex starts to receive the national minimum wage of £7.20 per hour: however the income threshold for the tax credit calculation is reduced from £6420 to £3850, and the rate at which income exceeding the threshold is increased from 41% to 48%;
• In April 2017 the national living wage is increased: from the budget statement this looks likely to be to about £7.75.

Here's a summary of how the changes pan out. (the full calculations are available at the end of this post, in case you're interested, as are the assumptions I've used). I have also included the equivalent out of work benefit payable for comparison. For simplicity, I've not included rent or mortgage costs, and all amounts are rounded to the nearest pound.

	March 2016	April 2016	April 2017
Net earnings	£219	£230	£243
Child Benefit	£48	£48	£48
Working Tax Credit	£46	£6	£0
Child Tax Credit	£170	£170	£168
Total income	£483	£455	£460
Change		- 6%	-5%
Out of work benefits	£333	£333	£333

Now let's look at two other couples:

• Jo and Jean situation is the same as that of Alex and Hilary, in every way except one: their third child is born after the start of April 2017.
• Ali and Jay do not make any claim for tax credits until after the start of April 2017

Here's a comparison of what each couple are likely to get in April 2017:

	Alex and Hilary	Jo and Jean	Ali and Jay
Net earnings	£243	£243	£243
Child Benefit	£48	£48	£48
Working Tax Credit	£0	£0	£0
Child Tax Credit	£168	£115	£105
Total income	£460	£406	£396
Out of work benefits	£333	£280	£270

So if, for example, your third child is due to born in March 2017 but actually emerges in April you stand to lose about £54 per week (about £2800 per year).

You will also notice that an out of work couple with three children who make their first claim for benefits after the start of April 2017 will receive more than £60 less than an equivalent couple would have got before the rules changed, a reduction of around 20%, or £3,276 per year

Low paid worker without children, Universal Credit system

Ahmed single, has no children, and is looking for work. He is on Universal Credit.

Remember that one of the selling points of Universal Credit was that it made the transition into work easier, and made it more worthwhile working. A person on income based Jobseeker's Allowance is, at best, £5 per week better off, no matter how much they earn. If they were on Universal Credit, a specified amount of earnings are ignored: any earnings that exceed this reduce Universal Credit payments by 65p in the pound.

The problem is that, although the amount of earnings ignored for a single, childless, adult, is £111 per month (about £25.54 per week), from April next year it will be zero.

So this is what things look like for someone like Ahmed...

Mmm...
As you can see, for earnings up to about £25 per week, and above around £100 per week, the changes  remove any real advantage gained by introducing Universal Credit in the first place. Between those figures the post-budget version of UC effectively splits the difference. The maximum difference between the JSA rules and the post-budget UC rules is about £21 (and applies to earned income of £80).

Now here's the thing. The earnings disregard has been around for quite a while: Income Support - on which the rules for income based JSA and income related ESA are based - was invented in 1987, and the disregard was £5 then. It hasn't moved. If it had increased in line with inflation it would now be about £12.56. So the best that Universal Credit can offer compared to Income Support at its inception is an £8 per week increase.

For a wider analysis of the financial impacts of the changes, I strongly recommend the following (pdf) presentation by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS): http://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/budgets/Budgets%202015/Summer/Hood_distributional_analysis.pdf.

The IFS predicts, amongst other changes, that changes to the tax credit work allowances will result in 'just over 3m families losing an average of just over £1,000 per year'.  It also notes that the freeze in benefit rates will result in a cut in real terms of 8% between 2013 and 2020.  And if you are in any doubt of the regressive impact of this and the previous government's policies, check out the graphs on the impact of government policy by income (copyrighted, so not here, but there about half way through).

Other observations

This is where I start to let my opinions show a bit more.

The 'National Living Wage'

The introduction by the government of an official 'National Living Wage' (NLW) is, from one perspective, a stroke of genius. By appropriating the term 'Living Wage' the ground is taken from under the feet of campaigner for a living wage: we've got it now, haven't we?

Well: have we? Not quite. The NLW is set at £7.20 for the year April 2016. The Living Wage Foundation sets the following rates for the previous year (i.e. this year) at £7.85 outside London, and £9.15 within London. So the NLW is less than the campaign's living wage: considerably less if you live in London.

The budget statement has a graph (on page 33) showing how the NLW is projected to increase compared with what the minimum wage would have been if it had continued. However it is a bit misleading, as it employs that ever useful trick, the non-zero y-axis. So here's my version...

I don't know about you, but that doesn't really look like a game changer to me.

And, if you're not yet 25, you don't benefit from it at all.

So that's why I put it in 'scare quotes': it's not really a living wage at all, just a rebadged and slightly increased minimum wage.

Removal of extra help for third and subsequent children

I've already discussed this at length in my previous post, possible-reductions-to-tax-credits, and I haven't got much to add here.

However, there's one little detail that needs noting. At paragraph 2.103 of the budget statement, the chancellor says: 'The Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC will develop protections for women who have a third child as the result of rape, or other exceptional circumstances'.

There's clearly a problem here: a woman who has a child as the result of rape will need to prove that she has been raped in order not to be penalised for having the extra child. How will she do that? The Guardian notes that Alison Thewliss, SNP MP for Glasgow, has raised this matter, asking, for example: 'How are you going to prove it? What if there is no conviction [for the rape] as happens in a lot of cases?...What happens if it becomes known in the local community that a woman is receiving tax credits for a third child? What assumptions will be made about that woman and her children?'

Keir Starmer raises a wider question (as comment in The Guardian): 'What about mothers who have a third child because of ongoing abuse within the relationship?' As he goes on to note: 'Power lies at the heart of most domestic abuse, and that includes power over sex, when to have children and how many'.

As it happens, I'm not completely unsympathetic to the government's wish to disincentive large families. However any change needs to be brought in via a much subtler tool than this one, and one that doesn't produce such problematic consequences.

Young people

What have young people done to deserve their treatment by the Chancellor? They will normally now not be entitled to any help with rent between the ages of 18 and 21, and will have extensive extra requirements placed on them if they want to carry on getting Jobseeker's Allowance or Universal Credit. They will be expected to participate in 'an extensive regime of support' from the outset of their claim: obviously 'support' here is a weasel word, which translated means 'hurdles, obstacles, meaningless check-box exercises, and opportunities for losing benefit'.

I can only assume that they are being targeted because, as generalisation, and as a result of disenchantment with conventional politics, they are relatively unlikely to vote. If the young start ever voting in significantly greater numbers, the government better beware!

And finally, that 'Merry-go-round'...

Before the budget was unveiled, the BBC reported the Chancellor as saying that 'the low paid would be compensated by tax cuts in an effort to end the "merry-go-round on which people pay their taxes and then get back benefits" and firms would be encouraged to pay higher wages'.

There are two different issues conflated here.

The first is the assertion that claimants are being taxed on the one hand, and then receiving tax credits and benefits on the other, and that this is ridiculous. This argument is disingenuous: a person on the NLW will be receiving paying very little tax anyway. There is no 'merry-go-round' here, except insofar that richer people pay tax which then helps poorer people: I may be naive but I regard that as a Good Thing.

The second issue is the - legitimate - concern that tax credits are, in effect, subsidising employers. However the implication that, by reducing tax credits, employers will increase wages to balance this, is unconvincing. So unconvincing that the government never quite says this.

So the working poor will see their income reduced, and the wealthy will be able to carry on making money. And as for the non-working poor: who cares what happens to them? You do. I do. But who else?

Appendix - details of calculations 

Bank of England inflation counter: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/resources/inflationtools/calculator/flash/default.aspx

Possible reductions to tax credits

An e-mail popped into my inbox today from the campaigning group, 38 Degrees: George Osborne: No more kids in poverty. Please don't cut child tax credit I decided I need to have closer look.

The issue has been covered extensively in the media:

Tory welfare cuts would hit poorest third of UK families, research shows:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/14/tory-welfare-cuts-would-hit-poorest-third-of-uk-families-research-shows
Cameron to hint at assault on tax credits in welfare speech: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jun/22/cameron-hints-at-assault-on-tax-credits-in-welfare-speech
George Osborne considering £5bn cuts to child tax credits: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33089711

What is being proposed?

The proposal is to 'return the per-child element of child tax credit to its real CPI-adjusted 2003/4 level' [1]. But what does that mean in practice?

First, some basics.

• Working Tax Credit is available if you are in full time work (as defined by tax credits regulations), provided your income is low enough. 
• Child Tax Credit is available if you have children, again provided your income is low enough. 
• If you are in full-time work and have children you are potentially entitled to both. 
• If you (or your partner) are in full time employment, have at least one child, no child care costs, and provided no-one in the family is disabled, the maximum Working Tax Credit you can normally get is £4,780 (in the tax year 2015-16), and the maximum Child Tax Credit you can get is normally £545 plus £2,780 per child (the 'child' element). 
• So if you have two children the maximum total tax credit figure is £10,885 (£4,780 plus £545 plus two lots of £2,780)
• What you actually receive is then reduced by 41% of any income you have over £6420.

The government is proposing reducing the amounts for children. The figure of £2780 per child would be reduced to about £1935. They get this by taking the actual figure used in 2003-4 and then increasing it in line with the consumer price index (the increases have presumably been higher than the CPI in the past in an attempt to reduce child poverty).

What's the government's rationale? And what do I think about their logic?

1. If you support workers with in-work benefits you are, in effect, subsidising the businesses that employ them.
2. This is a Bad Thing
3. To remove this anomaly you reduce in-work benefits: workers' pay will increase accordingly
4. The best in-work benefit to cut is the child element of tax credits.

Part (1) is indisputable. Part (2) is arguable either way. 

Part (3) is that bit I, and, I suppose, most of the readers of this post, find particularly unconvincing. Here's some questions that come to mind:

• What will be the drivers of pay increases? Market forces? Strikes? Employer goodwill?
• Will there be sanctions for employers who don;t increase their wages? (Of course not)
• Will all employers increase their wages, or just some?
• How long will it take for the entire employment world to make good the shortfall (if ever)?

And what about Part (4)? Why pick on the child element? The likely, and logical, reason is that all the other elements of tax credits have been increased broadly in line with inflation since 2003: only the child element has been increased at a higher rate, presumably with the aim of reducing child poverty.

Of course this leads to an obvious objection: won't reducing the child element risk increasing child poverty? Er... Yes. According to the Child Poverty Action Group [2] 1.1 million children were lifted out of poverty between 1998/9 and 2011/12. However they also cite research from 2013 that projected that from 2012-13 child poverty would rise, reaching a 600,000 increase by 2015/16. These figures, which are obviously due for verification any time soon, are  unlikely to take account of the proposed reduction to the child element, as this has only recently been suggested. 

Furthermore, this change would affect all families with children on low incomes, whether they're in work or not (this hasn't been mentioned in the media coverage I've seen so far) A single parent on Income Support with one child under five years old, for example, would see their income reduced by £845 per year too (more than £16 per week). 

Where have they got this idea from?

The government appears to have taken this proposal for a suggestion made by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS): Benefit cuts: where might they come from? [3] It's worth taking a look at.

Reducing the child element of Child Tax Credit is only one of the suggestions made by the IFS. It also highlights that it would be likely to increase child poverty by 300,000, and that, 'in the absence of much-needed clarity from the government on its child poverty strategy (and in particular its attitude towards the supposedly legally-binding 2020 child poverty targets) it is difficult to assess the coherence of such a policy.' 

One of the other suggestions they make is to abolish Child Benefit, and increase tax credits and Universal Credit accordingly so that the poorer are not worse off. The majority of families with children would lose about £1000, but it would be the bottom third (in income terms) who would be protected. 

Both suggestions would, the IFS estimates, save about the same amount of money: about £5Bn

I leave you to ponder the reasons for the government preferred choice.

Conclusion

In his speech today (22nd June) David Cameron said[4]: "There is what I would call a merry-go-round. People working on the minimum wage having that money taxed by the government and then the government giving them that money back - and more - in welfare". These look like weasel words to me: a false equivalency is being presented. What is actually happening is that people on the minimum wage are too poor to be paying much tax anyway. But they do benefit from government assistance  to bring their income to a liveable level. 

Yes, it would - probably - be better if those at the bottom of the pile were earning more, and didn't need government assistance. But they aren't, and I can see no way in which a reduction in tax credits will lead to a prompt and universal increase in earnings. It's not even as if the Conservative party has given more than lip service to the Living Wage.

(The Daily Telegraph has published a surprisingly thoughtful article: David Cameron wants to cut in-work tax credits, and wants companies to pay staff more. How can he do it? I don't agree with all their suggestions, but it's a useful contribution to the debate.)

So, yes, I'm signing the petition. You might choose to.

But beware: if this cut doesn't become law, another one will...

References

[1] 'George Osborne considering £5bn cuts to child tax credits' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33089711

[2] Child poverty facts and figures http://www.cpag.org.uk/child-poverty-facts-and-figures

[3] Benefit cuts: where might they come from?  http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7762

[4] Report by independent on David Cameron's speech, 22/06/2015 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/working-poor-set-to-face-cut-in-tax-credits-as-david-cameron-attacks-merrygoround-welfare-system-10335820.html

Local Welfare Provision- a tiny bit of good news?

Good news in welfare rights has been rather scarce over the last few years. Any little scraps we find are therefore grabbed eagerly, even if they aren't very good quality.

Do you remember Community Care Grants and Crisis Loans? Well, if you do, well done, because they were abolished in April 2013, after which local authorities have had the responsibility of meeting this kind of need through local welfare assistance schemes. From the outset these weren't as good as the old system, not least because local authorities are not placed under any duty to provide any particular level of support or to ring-fence the money involved. As the government puts it, 'local authorities could spend as much or as little of the funding as they wanted, depending on their own local priorities'[1]. Mmm...

Anyway, at least it was funded. Central government allocated local authorities a total of about £175 million for 2013-2014, and about £172 million for 2014-2015.

However in December 2013 government announced - unexpectedly - that they would give local authorities no money at all from the beginning of tax year 2015-2016 for these purposes.

To say this was bad news is clearly an understatement, particularly in the context of the appalling extent of funding cuts to the poorest local authorities. According figures recently released in the Independent, between 2010/11 and 2015/16 the ten local authorities with the highest levels of health deprivation and disability have seen their spending power per head fall by an average of £275.69, compared with £23.19 in the ten local authorities with the lowest levels of health deprivation and disability[2]. The government's own figures, quoted by the Child Poverty Action Group's policy note on local welfare assistance schemes, show that in the final year of the old-style social fund, 32.4% of the money used to pay Community Care Grants was paid to people with disabilities[3]. It is hard to see how the poorer local authorities, in particular, would be able to fund any kind of local welfare assistance in these circumstances.

The decision to remove this funding was challenged by judicial review. The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), an 'intervener' in the case, pointed out that there was no indication in Parliamentary debates that the support for the schemes would be temporary, and also noted that although the DWP had committed to reviewing the schemes in 2014/15 to 'help inform future funding levels', they hadn't actually done this[4].

The case was settled when the government agreed to carry out a consultation. Their initial response to the consultation was not encouraging: They argued that there was already money allocated for this kind of thing in general grant funding to local authorities totalling about £130 million for the year 2015-2016[5]. 

However, on 3rd February Kris Hopkins, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, announced that the government was, after all, going to fund the scheme again[6]. Unfortunately, they have only agreed to provide £74 million, which still amounts to a cut of about 57% compared with the previous year. 

As the Chief Executive of CPAG, Alison Garnham, observed, in her response [7]:

"It’s obviously disappointing that despite all the evidence ministers are still insisting on a cut targeted at the poorest in their moment of greatest need but the £74m announced today may help preserve the foundations of local welfare assistance schemes which are a crucial last resort for people in acute need".

Finally, and crucially, there are two other problems with the local welfare assistance schemes: there is no new statutory duty for local authorities to provide anything; nor is the money provided by central government ring-fenced[8]. Combining these with the punitive pattern of general funding cuts to local authorities we have the worst possible kind of post-code lottery: areas of high deprivation are going to have larger numbers of people approaching them for help, and less assistance - if any - to offer them.

[1] Local welfare provision in 2015-16: Consultation Summary of responses, paragraph 1
[2] "Most deprived English councils suffer biggest cuts in spending power", Independent
[3] CPAG Policy Note 1: Local Welfare Schemes (May 2014) - Section 4: who benefits from LWAS?
[4] CPAG Policy Note 1: Local Welfare Schemes (May 2014) - Section 5: the future of LWAS?
[5] Local welfare provision in 2015-16: Consultation Summary of responses, paragraph 4
[6] Hansard - written statements 3rd February 2015
[7] CPAG responds to local welfare decision, CPAG, 3rd February 2015
[8] Local welfare provision in 2015-16: Consultation Summary of responses, paragraph 1

Universal Credit expands to include some people with children...

...but don't get too excited.

Until now, only claimants without without children were able to claim  Universal Credit (and even then not in all places in the UK). This is no longer the case.

From 24th November, some claimants with children will be able to claim Universal Credit.

However, this will only apply to people who claim in the some districts of Chester, the Wirral, and Warrington. The actual postcode areas included* are:

• Chester: CH41, CH42, CH43, CH44, CH45, CH46, CH47, CH48, CH49, CH60, CH61, CH62 0 to CH62 9, and CH63.
• Warrington: WA1 and WA2; WA3 4 to WA3 7; WA4 and WA5; WA13 0; WA13 9.

Even in these areas, not all claimants with children or young people will be able to claim  Universal Credit. The main exceptions are claimants who are responsible for any children or young people get Disability Living Allowance or Personal Independence Payment, or are registered blind, or partially sighted.

All the other restrictions on who will be transferred from the 'old' to the UC systems still apply**.

For example, new claims for Universal Credit can only be made by people who are looking for work; in other words, people who would otherwise be claiming Jobseeker's Allowance. So single parents of children under 5 will still not be included (they are able to claim Income Support); nor will claimants who have a limited capability for work (they will still be claiming Employment and Support Allowance).

Another key exclusion is that people currently in receipt of tax credits will not be included. In practice, as far as I can see, this means that anyone who have had children for a while won't be affected, as - almost certainly - they will be getting Child Tax Credit already.

Putting all this together (and there are quite a few other restrictions I haven't touched on) the only people who will be moving onto the Universal Credit as a result of this new change are parents who have just had their first child, where one of the parents is just about to start looking for work. Who live in Chester, the Wirral, or Chester.

Having said all that, once a claimant is in the Universal Credit system they stay in the Universal Credit system, whatever their changes in circumstances.

In other Universal Credit news, the National Audit Office has published another critical report. The Independent notes that the NAO declined to agree with Iain Duncan Smith's assertion that the Universal Credit project is providing value for money.


"The National Audit Office has concluded that it is too early to determine if the Department for Work & Pensions will achieve value for money in its implementation of the Universal Credit programme.

The Department set out to transform the benefits system with Universal Credit and suffered early setbacks. Since the reset in early 2013, it has reduced the delivery risks by significantly extending its timetable for introducing Universal Credit and choosing a more expensive twin-track approach: the roll-out of its ‘live service’ (which uses pre-2013 IT assets), while at the same time developing its new ‘digital service’.

The DWP believes the additional costs of this approach are justified because it expects Universal Credit to achieve substantial benefits for society sooner and more safely. However, such potential benefits do not mean Universal Credit will be value for money regardless of how it is implemented and the cost of doing so."


The Independent also notes that the project "will not now be fully implemented by the end of 2019". As of a year ago, Duncan Smith was still insisting that the everything would be complete by 2017 (see, for example, my post from about a year ago: http://benefitsowl.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/universal-credit-another-update.html).

In the meantime, I'll continue to do my best to keep you informed of progress.




*I've extracted this information (with some difficulty) from the following sources:
The Welfare Reform Act 2012 (Commencement No. 9, 11, 13 14, 16, 17 and 19 and Transitional and Transitory Provisions (Amendment)) Order 2014
The Welfare Reform Act 2012 (Commencement No. 17 and Transitional and Transitory Provisions) Order 2014
(Goodness me: if nothing else Universal Credit is providing plenty of employment for drafters of legislation. Universal Credit  has created an astonishing cobweb of legislative instruments.)

**For full details of these see https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/377732/uc-families-questions-answers.pdf

Government Spending Review 2013

Well, what fun. The country is still in trouble, and it's time to round up the usual suspects. We may all be in this together, but you're a bit more 'in this' if you're a benefit claimant. Gasps of surprise all round.

But what's actually changing? And who's going to get hit the hardest? Let's have a look.



Here's where you can find the government's actual document:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/209036/spending-round-2013-complete.pdf

People over pensionable age

People over pensionable age who live in some European Countries will no longer get the Winter Fuel Payment (worth up to £300 in some circumstances): the countries where this right will be removed are Cyprus, France, Gibralter, Greece, Malta, Portugal, and Spain.

This is likely to be the least controversial: very few people are going to feel sorry for ex-pats in the Costa del Sol losing heating money they don't really need. But it's not quite that simple: what if you live in Northern France, for example?

Jobseekers 

If you're a jobseeker, look out. 

• You will not be able to claim Jobseeker's Allowance until you have been out of work for seven days. 
• You may have to sign on every week, not every fortnight as at present, if they don't think you're trying hard enough, and you will have to provide a CV before you can claim benefit. 
• If you don't speak English well enough, you will be required to attend English language courses until you do.

Waiting seven days doesn't seem that bad (especially as you already have to wait 3 days), but is likely to cause hardship for people leaving low pay jobs who are already struggling, especially if they are in a pattern of short-term, insecure employment. And don't forget that when Universal Credit is rolled out, claimants will get paid benefit monthly in arrears, so will  have no income for 37 or 38 days: that's nearly 40 days in the wilderness. How fortunate there are pay day loan companies ready to help...

The CV issue isn't quite as bad as it sounds. According to the government, the claimant isn't actually expected to write the CV before turning up at the Jobcentre Plus: it will be drawn up at their first interview. I can't imagine they'll be very good CVs though: it's more likely to end up a check box exercise.

The requirement to attend English language courses is interesting: on the face of it it seems a sensible - I expect some claimants would welcome it - but who's going to provide the training? The government's spent the last few years whittling down the resources available to ESOL teaching.

Single Parents

This one doesn't seem to have been picked up in the media. At the moment lone parents are entitled to Income Support until their youngest child is 5. This will not change, but they will now be required to 'prepare for work' once the child is 3. This will involve 'regularly attending the Jobcentre Plus regularly, gaining qualifications, and taking other steps to improve their readiness to work'.  

Welfare Cap

A Cap will be placed on some parts of welfare spending: in other words, there will be a limit on how much money is in the pot for some benefits. This will start in 2015

Note that it won't apply to all benefits: the state pension will not be included, nor will Jobseeker's Allowance or any benefits that result from getting Jobseeker's Allowance (like Housing Benefit, but only with Jobseeker's Allowance).

What worries me is how this will work out in practice. Say more people start becoming sick, and it looks like spending on sickness benefits is increasing so that the cap is getting nearer. What happens? I presume the goalposts will be moved, and you will have to be sicker to qualify. The goalposts have already been moved many times: how much closer can they get?

Final thoughts

I'm intrigued by all the extra things claimants, especially jobseekers, are being asked to do at the Jobcentre Plus. How are the Jobcentre Plus staff going to do all this extra work?

Newspeak has, of course, raised its head again. The section with all the new demands for jobseekers is called 'Supporting people into work'. 'Supporting'? Mmm...

Finally finally, what saddens me is how being hard on benefit claimants is automatically seen as a good thing, by all the main parties. How disturbing it is that George Osbourne calls Labour 'the welfare party', and mean it as a term of abuse.