SHOULD Chancellor Philip Hammond get his cards after his National Insurance U-turn? It would be appropriate if he did.

National Insurance was created in 1911 by Liberal politician David Lloyd George as a means of creating cover against illness and unemployment for workers without the state picking up the whole bill. He based it on an idea that the Germans had introduced in 1884.

Everyone aged between 16 and 70 and earning under £160-a-year had to contribute 4d-a-week to the scheme. Their employers contributed 3d-a-week and the state, through the taxpayer, threw in 2d-a-week. Lloyd George sold it to the workers as them getting “9d for 4d”, and, should they fall ill, it entitled them to 10s-a-week sick pay for 13 weeks, plus access to a doctor.

A similar scheme was set up for workers in seven cyclical industries to insure them against unemployment – they paid 2½d-a-week as did their employers while the state paid in 3d-a-week, and this entitled the worker to a dole in case of unemployment of 7s-a-week for 15 weeks.

The money raised by the National Insurance (NI) was supposed to be ringfenced for healthcare and sickness and unemployment pay – everything else, like school-building or defence or foreign aid, was supposed to come out of Income Tax (IT). IT and NI are meant to be very separate, although successive governments have found that they can pledge not to increase tax but then raise NI without breaking their pledge. Mr Hammond tried to take this cunning to a new level by claiming he was only increasing one class of NI contributions and so that didn’t contravene his party’s pledge not to raise all NI.

Back in the early days, the NI schemes were administered by friendly societies and trades unions, and required the worker to buy a NI stamp from the Post Office and stick it on his National Insurance card. The card showed that the worker qualified for the benefit, and still today we use the phrase “I’ve paid my stamp” to suggest we are entitled to something because we’ve paid for it.

The NI cards were usually kept by the employer. Therefore, when you left an employment, or were sacked, you were “given your cards” so you could take them to your next employer.

MANY thanks to all who were moved to comment on last week’s note about why a railway station is so-called when you can’t catch a railway at it. You do catch a train at it, so shouldn’t be a train station in the same way you catch a bus at a bus station, a tram at a tram stop and a helicopter at a helipad?

Some people accused me of trying to Americanise the English language by suggesting this, although English newspapers have been using “train station” since the 1840s when the Americans were largely referring to “railroad stations”.

The best explanation of why “railway station” is the most appropriate came from Mike Orton.

He said: “You are referring to a stationary point on the railway. More than just trains can use the station – a bus or taxi can stop there, for instance. There's much more that goes on at a railway station than merely the catching of trains.”

This is true. Indeed, if £150m is to be spent on Darlington’s Bank Top station, it would be extremely disappointing if all you could do was catch a train there. For that sort of money, as well as all manner of connections, we’ll want restaurants, cafes and shopping malls there. Someone may even suggest a library, as well, so people can borrow a book to read while riding the railroad.