The benefits system

Originally posted by UK Wizard
I'm not opposed to some help, its the level of help that they currently recieve. The ration book idea from Chris McGee seems like a good starting point - but you don't seem to like that idea.

- I suspect that you have not really got the slightest idea of what you are talking about.

I suggest a couple of months living in a sink estate on benefits would open your eyes a tad to this imagined 'life of Reilly' - I'd love to see you fund a plasma tv on it!

For the short term not long term.

Why should they have luxuries when they don't work, basic living standards (above poverty line) will keep them alive and healthy.

- Well, if you really can't see it then I guess we have nothing to discuss.

......and if you really think that this mean and vicious society you wish for is purely a matter that only impacts on those that suffer the under-class living standards then you must be blind.

Here's hoping you or yours don't ever end up suffering because of it.

Originally posted by infinite
sminkeypinkey is a labour supporter, labour were formed on socialists ideas, thats explain his reasons for "lets help everyone, even the cheats".

- No.

It's called lets help all those that need help and not ruin our system of help on the basis of the few who cheat.

For once, look at the facts and see the numerous people cheating you out of money.

- How about you open your eyes to the wider picture of how many decent honest people have discovered just how threadbare our supporting systems have become, and how poor at support they actually are .
Try looking at how attitudes such as yours enacted by decades of right-wing politicians have turned the system into something pitiful.

You do have a clue how much the current benefit levels are, right?

Originally posted by sminkeypinkey

Originally posted by UK Wizard
But growing up and acting like an adult and not getting pregnant as a child. Sex Education is there for a reason, but the fools who go out and get "knocked up" deserve to live on the street.

Funny i don't remember saying that

Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
- I suspect that you have not really got the slightest idea of what you are talking about.

Who does these days

- Well, if you really can't see it then I guess we have nothing to discuss.

Enlighten me

......and if you really think that this mean and vicious society you wish for is purely a matter that only impacts on those that suffer the under-class living standards then you must be blind.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick, I'm not some evil upper class toff saying the poor are evil and must be burnt, I'm merely saying the benefits system is crap and many people who are recieveing benefits don't deserve them.


[edit on 24-12-2004 by UK Wizard]

Originally posted by UK Wizard
Funny i don't remember saying that

- Sorry, my bad, that was obviously infinite.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick, I'm not some evil upper class toff saying the poor are evil and must be burnt, I'm merely saying the benefits system is crap and many people who are recieveing benefits don't deserve them.

- The benfits system is crap.
The level of most benefits are appalling and the standard of public housing provision in many areas is dire.

Some people in receipt of beneifts might not 'deserve' them but I think that the manner in which we have dismantled the benefits system on the basis of a minority of cheats so that help is no longer there for the genuinely needy is a stupid as it has been short-sighted.

Making things even worse hardly seems an answer IMHO.

Like I said here's hoping you never have to experience it.

You'd soon find out the truth about 'Plasma tv's' on the brew.



[edit on 24-12-2004 by sminkeypinkey]

Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
- Sorry, my bad, that was obviously infinite.

i should have looked through the other posts to see where it came from.

- The benfits system is crap.

Something we can agree on

Some people in receipt of beneifts might not 'deserve' them but I think that the manner in which we have dismantled the benefits system on the basis of a minority of cheats so that help is no longer there for the genuinely needy is a stupid as it has been short-sighted.

I'm going to proberly regret saying this but i can why ID cards will help with benefit fraud.

I think the only way to truely sort out the benefit system is to build it from the base up again - to what ends we'll proberly disagree on.

Originally posted by UK Wizard
I'm going to proberly regret saying this but i can why ID cards will help with benefit fraud.

- I have no doubt that for our average 'punters' the full biometric coding will come into it's own here.

But it seems this is what many people are - or say they are - so concerned about so this is what we'll get.

It might even be that the impact of this helps the public finances and reduces the costs of the cards.

I think the only way to truely sort out the benefit system is to build it from the base up again - to what ends we'll proberly disagree on.

- I'd agree on rebuilding things and I imagine we'd disagree on some of it.

I don't mean to be in any way nasty about this but you really have to experience it to have an idea of just what it is you are talking about.

In early the 1980's I had two spells of extended unemployment (thanks Mrs Thatch). One lasted about 6mths and the other about 9mths.
It was horrible. It was genuinely being poor. There was nothing 'life of reilly' about it.
Even friends who 'did the double' (worked cash in hand and signed on) weren't 'rolling in it'.

It's in my view a true constant, life at the bottom sucks; making it even worse just makes it suck even more.
I don't believe making it more brutal actually 'helps' or incentivises anyone. You don't need the 'lash' the incentive of a decent life is something we all appreciate.

[edit on 24-12-2004 by sminkeypinkey]

Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
I don't mean to be in any way nasty about this but you really have to experience it to have an idea of just what it is you are talking about.

Thats fair enough, i've never been through economic depression.

In early the 1980's I had two spells of extended unemployment (thanks Mrs Thatch). One lasted about 6mths and the other about 9mths.
It was horrible. It was genuinely being poor. There was nothing 'life of reilly' about it.
Even friends who 'did the double' (worked cash in hand and signed on) weren't 'rolling in it'.

Now you've made me feel guilty

It's in my view a true constant, life at the bottom sucks; making it even worse just makes it suck even more.
I don't believe making it more brutal actually 'helps' or incentivises anyone. You don't need the 'lash' the incentive of a decent life is something we all appreciate.

Something needs to be done, my favourite is just re-building the entire system. Making it faster and more efficient, so the people who need the money get the money and those who have no right to it don't get any.

Originally posted by UK Wizard
Thats fair enough, i've never been through economic depression.

- Believe me you don't want to. It's really nasty.

Now you've made me feel guilty

- Ah well don't be, it's a long time ago now and things are very different.

Something needs to be done, my favourite is just re-building the entire system. Making it faster and more efficient, so the people who need the money get the money and those who have no right to it don't get any.

- Well I'm not going to disagee with the general idea there.

I agree with you both too, a new system needs to be inplace. Based on people who have tried to help themselves, not sit on the systems and thinking the state will look after them. A sort of means testing would prove to be better then the system we have in place.

(does the current sytem include means testing?)

I've been through it aswell (in the late 90s) and it was a piece of p**s. They were throwing money at me. I've got a fairly decent living now, not good, just enough to afford broadband and a few computer games every month or three (and a wife, biggest expense on the planet, ever).

I know a guy who works 20hrs a week stacking shelves at M&S. He's getting almost �20,000 a year. About 70% of his income is in various benefits.

The benefits system in ths country sucks, not necessarily because of the system, but because people see it as their 'right' to get money from the state.

You didn't like the ration book idea, how about this, for every year you have worked you get 6 months jobseekers allowance.

The fifteen year old girl with a kid (and yes, there are plenty where I live, they know that if they have a kid they'll get their own flat), doesn't she have parents? Make them stay where they are, see if they're so keen to get knocked up if they know they'll be staying with mum and dad. Before you say they don't get pregnant on purpose, come live in our world for a month, they do.

Originally posted by Chris McGee
The fifteen year old girl with a kid (and yes, there are plenty where I live, they know that if they have a kid they'll get their own flat), doesn't she have parents? Make them stay where they are, see if they're so keen to get knocked up if they know they'll be staying with mum and dad. Before you say they don't get pregnant on purpose, come live in our world for a month, they do.

Thank you Chris McGee!
This is very common across this country

Originally posted by Chris McGee
I've been through it aswell (in the late 90s) and it was a piece of p**s. They were throwing money at me. I've got a fairly decent living now, not good, just enough to afford broadband and a few computer games every month or three (and a wife, biggest expense on the planet, ever).

- Good for you Chris, glad to hear you found it all such a breeze.

But, are you trying to claim that your experience of the dole was typical Chris?

What were you?
A young guy on your own, living with mum and dad or in a rented Local authority/Council property of your own?

(Because the record of 'Housing Benefit' delays usually means aweful problems for private tenants and there simply is no assistance or benefit in relation to mortgage - interest only - payments for many months in a claim nowadays)

So it would seem your favourable impression is hardly typical and definitely against the mass of recorded experience for most.

I know a guy who works 20hrs a week stacking shelves at M&S. He's getting almost �20,000 a year. About 70% of his income is in various benefits.

- But this is in relation to 'working benefits' for the low paid with families; are you proposing to do away with these too?

This is new.

So far you have been complaining about benefits for unemployed people not really interested in finding work; are you now proposing to go after those in work but on very low pay?

The very benefits that make working attractive to those we wish to see move off of benefit?

Much as I am against subsidising employers I think you'll find that working benefits are a help to millions up and down the country and hardly in the same league as benefits to the out of work.

The benefits system in ths country sucks, not necessarily because of the system, but because people see it as their 'right' to get money from the state.

You didn't like the ration book idea, how about this, for every year you have worked you get 6 months jobseekers allowance.

- You seem to be confusing working benefits with non-working benefits.
Your ideas seem confused.

The fifteen year old girl with a kid (and yes, there are plenty where I live, they know that if they have a kid they'll get their own flat), doesn't she have parents?

- .....and what if they are so estranged that such a relationship is impossible?

Make them stay where they are, see if they're so keen to get knocked up if they know they'll be staying with mum and dad.

- Er, we're talking about someone already 'knocked up' Complaining about it after the event is hardly much help to anyone, huh?

......and what's with these fantasies about 'making people do....x, y or z'?

Before you say they don't get pregnant on purpose, come live in our world for a month, they do.

- No thanks Chris. Your paranoid world is scarey enough from here.
For everyone of these cases you can genuinely point to there are several more in your head...... so you enjoy them all to yourself ok?

I suggest you go live on a sink estate for a couple of months on benefits and discover the reality of this imagined 'life of Reilly' you seem to fantasise about too.

(not that it has occurred to you but what must life have been like for any of these kids - cos at the ages we are talking about that is all they are, children - to have a future and a life so aweful that life as a single-parent in Britain - facing people with attitudes just like yours - is, according to you, 'attractive' to them, hmmm?)

Originally posted by infinite
Thank you Chris McGee!
This is very common across this country

- I'm still awaiting some evidence of this common occurance infinite.

sminkeypinkey, just open your eyes, but im starting to believe you are very blind due to your socialist thinking It happens across the country on a large scale, even popular TV shows pick up on this common problem.

Originally posted by infinite
sminkeypinkey, just open your eyes, but im starting to believe you are very blind due to your socialist thinking

- No, I just refuse to go along with a 'Daily Mail/Telegraph' cartoon version of Britain.

Feel free to back up your claims with some figures about thios epidemic of teen mums in council housing.

It happens across the country on a large scale, even popular TV shows pick up on this common problem.

- Since when did a TV caricature mean 'typical' and 'common', hmmm?

I am not denying it happens.
I am questioning this earlier claim of yours regarding "most couples".

see sminky the Conservative Party isn't all evil when i comes to benefits/economy....well at least not anymore

First, we recognise the obvious point that one of the most important aspects of poverty is that people don't have enough money. We have to offer financial security. But money isn't the whole story. Values matter too. As Irving Kristol puts it, "It's hard to rise above poverty if society keeps deriding the human qualities that allow you to escape from it." That is why, secondly, we need to strengthen society by reinforcing decent values. Thirdly, there is our progressive agenda for spreading ownership and choice more widely than ever before in our history."

www.conservatives.com...

Caring Conservativism

Originally posted by UK Wizard
see sminky the Conservative Party isn't all evil when i comes to benefits/economy....well at least not anymore

Caring Conservativism

- Yeah yeah yeah. What's up? Can't they do anything but re-heat tired old discredited ideas?

They talk a story of sorts now yet what do we see?
They now have a man central to their worst past as leader.
Their every spoken instinct screams that they don't even understand what they got so wrong before and why they were rejected so emphatically - in 2001 as well as 1997 - cos their language for sorting the UK's problems has barely changed at all.

As for this old worn-out guff about 'compassionate conservatism?

You could go back to where it all started.
Bush mk1 started that one in 1988 and Major was making similar claims back around then too (he became leader in 1990), certainly they were talking that kind of tale endlessly in the 1992 general election.

It was sufficiently 'I'm not Thatcher' enough for the electorate to buy it (along with a lingering dislike of Neil Kinnock).
My how quickly we woke up.......and if you wish to check the polls it has been from that point that the public have despised them ever since.

But, sorry mate. No dice.

Hear it all before and - much more to the point - suffered it's practical effects all before Wizard...... along with the rest of the over 30's.

You didn't so I guess you have some excuse but like I said before it'll be a long long time before the majority of the UK electorate forget what that crowd actually did in government as opposed to anything they are merely now saying as they try to get back into gov.

Just because it has a neat alliteration is no actual recommendation, it's been tried and failed and I doubt anyone - excepting the zealot tory - who has heard it before would go for it in any big way now.

Sorry.

[edit on 7-1-2005 by sminkeypinkey]