G
Guest
Guest
What's silly about sick and disabled people? Would you rather they all be put in the gas chamber?
Who will you be voting for?
- Thread starter blackwood_villa
- Start date
G
Guest
Guest
No wurzel you are still trying to get out of the argument by changing the subject, do you have political ambitions by any chance? Because you sound like a politician.
I never wanted the EU in the 1st place so that's a pin in that one then.
I never wanted the EU in the 1st place so that's a pin in that one then.
G
Guest
Guest
No Wurzel you spewed a load of shit then tried to change the subject, good bye ignoramus.
mike_field
Vital Football Legend
Working through this might not make sense.
Green - didn't deny people weren't being screwed over, but it was the same under changes under Labour as well as I remember the news about it when they did one of their 'fraud' crackdowns - it's always an unindended consequence of being so open with benefits.
And that starts with Labour and them buying votes and manipulating stats to make them more electable and less accountable.
Does ATOS need a slap, oh yes. Don't disagree there.
We aren't Greece though, simply because we have something to offer other than tax avoidance and tourism. They were over centric reliable and fudged the books to gain entry. They also went Euro.
Civil unrest was over the extreme of it, and paying it fullstop, and being ordered by Germany in effect - but that's what they voted for and assumed all would be pretty. Feel for the genuine, not those who used it as an excuse to party without realising they were destroying what their own money needed to rebuild - so slightly counter productive.
And wouldn't happen here like that, welfare alone keeps most ticking over - now introduce 80% tax across the board and not just as a gimmick on high earners and that would be different - but it'd never happen.
EU needs changing completely but there are more benefits than down sides, and I'm anti EU. People point to the Swiss, if they tried to be a non member with the trade agreements they have in existence it wouldn't be in their favour anymore, because the EU needed them as taxhaven/neutral/the stolen stored wealth etc more.
If we tried to do that we wouldn't get the same deal, it would take years to put back into effect as stand alone agreements simply because the agreements we originally have no longer apply - Swiss and others have amended over time.
Surely villa prove trying to go back to square one isn't always sensible...it needs changing and the tabloids need to report things properly, not just what suits EU outrage.
But it does need amending and within a status of human rights yeah there is wholescale agreement, but not overruling as long as you operate within those remits. It would also be nice if we had a home office who acted instead of hiding behind it to pretend their hands are tied.
But surely you see the hypocrisy of Farage..so anti EU it's the only position he's ever held with all the benefits that gives?
No other noticeable mandate for benefits, employment, welfare, health...etc.
I don't get why you'd vote or have I misunderstood and you mean basically as a protest on EU issue alone?
Green - winter fuel allowance still exists. It hasn't been stopped.
And wind the bollocks in - this could be a decent debate. Not need for the Question Time insults.
Green - didn't deny people weren't being screwed over, but it was the same under changes under Labour as well as I remember the news about it when they did one of their 'fraud' crackdowns - it's always an unindended consequence of being so open with benefits.
And that starts with Labour and them buying votes and manipulating stats to make them more electable and less accountable.
Does ATOS need a slap, oh yes. Don't disagree there.
We aren't Greece though, simply because we have something to offer other than tax avoidance and tourism. They were over centric reliable and fudged the books to gain entry. They also went Euro.
Civil unrest was over the extreme of it, and paying it fullstop, and being ordered by Germany in effect - but that's what they voted for and assumed all would be pretty. Feel for the genuine, not those who used it as an excuse to party without realising they were destroying what their own money needed to rebuild - so slightly counter productive.
And wouldn't happen here like that, welfare alone keeps most ticking over - now introduce 80% tax across the board and not just as a gimmick on high earners and that would be different - but it'd never happen.
EU needs changing completely but there are more benefits than down sides, and I'm anti EU. People point to the Swiss, if they tried to be a non member with the trade agreements they have in existence it wouldn't be in their favour anymore, because the EU needed them as taxhaven/neutral/the stolen stored wealth etc more.
If we tried to do that we wouldn't get the same deal, it would take years to put back into effect as stand alone agreements simply because the agreements we originally have no longer apply - Swiss and others have amended over time.
Surely villa prove trying to go back to square one isn't always sensible...it needs changing and the tabloids need to report things properly, not just what suits EU outrage.
But it does need amending and within a status of human rights yeah there is wholescale agreement, but not overruling as long as you operate within those remits. It would also be nice if we had a home office who acted instead of hiding behind it to pretend their hands are tied.
But surely you see the hypocrisy of Farage..so anti EU it's the only position he's ever held with all the benefits that gives?
No other noticeable mandate for benefits, employment, welfare, health...etc.
I don't get why you'd vote or have I misunderstood and you mean basically as a protest on EU issue alone?
Green - winter fuel allowance still exists. It hasn't been stopped.
And wind the bollocks in - this could be a decent debate. Not need for the Question Time insults.
BBJ
Father Of The Forum
It's just occured to me that if I register (living as I am at present in Lancashire) I'll get to vote in the next UK general election.
I'm sure I am not alone in wondering if it's worth voting for any of the current runners and riders.
It's almost 50 years since I first voted, I have never missed voting in an election, both whilst living here in the UK and in Ireland but I think we are approaching a defining moment in so-called liberal democracies for the penny is starting to drop that it's not about the ordinary punter, it's about keeping in place a system for the benefit of the few.
I'm certain that the Irish government is really a puppet on a string and I'm not even sure if Britain has too much control over its destiny either.
I'm sure I am not alone in wondering if it's worth voting for any of the current runners and riders.
It's almost 50 years since I first voted, I have never missed voting in an election, both whilst living here in the UK and in Ireland but I think we are approaching a defining moment in so-called liberal democracies for the penny is starting to drop that it's not about the ordinary punter, it's about keeping in place a system for the benefit of the few.
I'm certain that the Irish government is really a puppet on a string and I'm not even sure if Britain has too much control over its destiny either.
G
Guest
Guest
Very good post BBJ :14:
Juan Mourep
Vital 1st Team Regular
The way the Irish people have been screwed to put it bluntly, is an absolute disgrace, sold out by those who are supposed to have your welfare at heart.
Britain has about as much control as every other Country that falls under the umbrella of the International bankers, they control our governments and us, we are trapped in a cycle of debt that can not be broken, it is a flawed system with only one outcome, until that is dealt with it doesn't matter which puppets stand at the front.
Ricardomeister
Vital Youth Team
If I am faced with the same 5 choices as last time then there is a 99% chance that I will spoil my ballot paper. There is no chance whatsoever that I would vote Tory, Lib Dem, UKIP or BNP and the only reason that there is a 1% chance that I would vote Labour is because I live in a Labour/Tory marginal, and as much as I dislike Labour I dislike the Tories even more. If the Greens actually bother to stand this time then I will probably vote for them as a protest vote.
As someone with a very serious disability (who has not been adversely affected by the cuts), as much as Labour failed sick and disabled people (especially the likes of James Purnell and David Freud) with the introduction of the deeply flawed ESA Work Capability Assessment, the Tories have taken things to new depths in terms of callousness, dishonesty and incompetence.
I think that everybody would acknowledge that cuts had to be made in every area of spending but the way that many of the cuts aimed at the sick and disabled have been rushed and callously imposed cannot be ignored.
Re callousness, I would cite the 1 year time limit of contribution based ESA for those people in the Work Related Activity Group. This policy imposes a 100% cut on 280,000 people who are officially unfit for work. This is in spite of Chris Grayling admitting that people in this group " have proved to be sicker and further from the workplace than we expected. So it will take far more time than we predicted for them to be ready to make a return to work." In addition, another 210,000 who are also officially unfit for work are losing part of their contribution based ESA.
In addition, the new rules re appeals and the withdrawal of legal aid for first tier welfare appeals are callous and fiscally irresponsible. We have record numbers of successful appeals and the coalition's answer to this is to make it harder to appeal rather than actually get the decision correct at the first chance. The CAB found that for each £1 spent on legal aid for welfare appeals (which cost less than £20m pa anyway) we actually save £8.80 in the long run. The new system for mandatory reconsiderations is also callous as there is no chance that it will work in the way that the coalition claim it will. The DWP has lost over 20% of its staff since 2010. There are huge backlogs just about everywhere you look but they will supposedly be able to deal with an extra 200,000+ reconsiderations within 2 weeks?! Yeah right! It took them over 2 weeks to send me a PIP claim form! People will now be faced with going for potentially several weeks with no income.
The "Bedroom Tax" is another rushed, ill-thought out and callous policy. In theory the general principle behind it sounds ok, but in practice it disproportionately and unfairly targets disabled people. There is also a huge shortage of housing to downsize to, the level of help available through discretionary housing payments is both temporary and woefully inadequate, and it is very possible that the net savings from this policy will be zero.
There are other areas which I think are unfair and callous, especially re PIP, but I don't wish to emulate War and Peace!
In terms of dishonesty, there have been countless occasions where I have seen coalition ministers either blatantly lying or being so incompetent that they cannot get the most basic of facts right. Just in 1 DWP questions session from a couple of weeks ago, Duncan Smith got his facts wrong about who caused welfare dependency in some claimants, McVey got her facts wrong about the Housing Benefits bill under Labour, and Penning got his facts wrong about DLA assessments. I have noted countless other occasions where Duncan Smith and his ministers have either been deliberately misleading or have simply not told the truth. In addition we have the likes of Cameron making false claims about the disabled and the "Bedroom Tax" and Shapps making false claims about Incapacity Benefit claimants.
In terms of incompetence you need look no further than the Work Programme and Universal Credit. For the targeted "ESA New Customers Group" you are more than 3 times more likely to get a job through your own efforts than via the supposed Work Programme experts. For the long term sick (the "ESA Ex-IB" group) the "success rate" is a pathetic 1.2%. Re Universal Credit, the failings are well documented. Duncan Smith promised that there would be more than 1 million claimants by April, yet the latest figures show just 2,720 claimants!
The coalition have failed the sick and disabled in just about every way. There has been a significant increase in the success rate of ESA appeals with over 123,000 successful appeals in the last 12 month's figures. The DWP are rather reticent in giving figures for successful reconsiderations, but given the last set of figures from Chris Grayling, it would mean over 200,000 incorrect ESA decisions being overturned in just 12 months. Atos' "reward" for getting a whopping 20% of "fit for work" recommendations wrong was 2 highly lucrative contracts for PIP. As well as failing dismally on the Work Programme we saw an instant 40% drop in new Access to Work "customers".
PIP was only introduced in April 2013. Even ignoring the flawed rationale for this policy and the arbitrary target for cuts, we already have 6 month delays and Dame Anne Begg, Chair of the Work & Pensions Committee, has said (re the assessment process) that the DWP "have brought it to a dead stop. There is obviously a huge backlog with PIP assessments but there is no indication that that backlog is moving at all" and that "both Capita and Atos are almost paralysed with fear about making any decisions, in case they get it wrong, so they are not making any decisions at all." On ESA, assessments are supposed to be done within 13 weeks but in 2012 the DWP confirmed they were taking 19-20 weeks on average. Last year Mark Hoban confirmed that only 18% of assessments were being done within 13 weeks.
Apologies for the length of the post but there seemed little point in just listing the failings of the coalition without backing up my views. The criticism of the coalition is certainly not an endorsement of Labour, whose record is not much better. It is sad that so many people are so unaware of the realities surrounding the benefits/welfare bill and fraud rates etc but the media have deliberately misled people (I suspect with the encouragement of politicians) so they are unaware of facts such as the estimated benefit fraud rate being 0.7%; the real terms increase in welfare spending in the noughties being the lowest in any decade since the creation of the welfare state; unclaimed benefits and tax credits being around 10 times the amount of fraud; tax fraud being around 12 times as much as benefit fraud; most JSA claims last for less than 3 months with only 1 in 10 lasting for 12 months or more; the cost of working age benefits (compared to GDP) being the same as 30 years ago and less than it was through much of the 1990's; welfare spending under the 5 years of the coalition being around £200bn higher than in the last 5 years of Labour, thanks mainly to our ageing population with pensioners accounting for the majority of welfare spending etc etc.
If the coalition had come out and simply said that these cuts had to be made because we cannot afford to pay benefits at their previous levels, not just because of the financial crisis but because of our ageing population, and acknowledged that many genuine claimants would unfortunately have to lose out, then I could at least respect their honesty. Instead they have deliberately set out to mislead people by insinuating large numbers of claimants are not genuine, blamed Labour for problems that were actually caused in large part by the previous Tory government and come up with complete nonsense such as this supposed "modern understanding" of disability. It is a sad indictment of the coalition that perhaps their one area of success (the Benefits Cap) will save around 0.05% of the welfare bill!
As someone with a very serious disability (who has not been adversely affected by the cuts), as much as Labour failed sick and disabled people (especially the likes of James Purnell and David Freud) with the introduction of the deeply flawed ESA Work Capability Assessment, the Tories have taken things to new depths in terms of callousness, dishonesty and incompetence.
I think that everybody would acknowledge that cuts had to be made in every area of spending but the way that many of the cuts aimed at the sick and disabled have been rushed and callously imposed cannot be ignored.
Re callousness, I would cite the 1 year time limit of contribution based ESA for those people in the Work Related Activity Group. This policy imposes a 100% cut on 280,000 people who are officially unfit for work. This is in spite of Chris Grayling admitting that people in this group " have proved to be sicker and further from the workplace than we expected. So it will take far more time than we predicted for them to be ready to make a return to work." In addition, another 210,000 who are also officially unfit for work are losing part of their contribution based ESA.
In addition, the new rules re appeals and the withdrawal of legal aid for first tier welfare appeals are callous and fiscally irresponsible. We have record numbers of successful appeals and the coalition's answer to this is to make it harder to appeal rather than actually get the decision correct at the first chance. The CAB found that for each £1 spent on legal aid for welfare appeals (which cost less than £20m pa anyway) we actually save £8.80 in the long run. The new system for mandatory reconsiderations is also callous as there is no chance that it will work in the way that the coalition claim it will. The DWP has lost over 20% of its staff since 2010. There are huge backlogs just about everywhere you look but they will supposedly be able to deal with an extra 200,000+ reconsiderations within 2 weeks?! Yeah right! It took them over 2 weeks to send me a PIP claim form! People will now be faced with going for potentially several weeks with no income.
The "Bedroom Tax" is another rushed, ill-thought out and callous policy. In theory the general principle behind it sounds ok, but in practice it disproportionately and unfairly targets disabled people. There is also a huge shortage of housing to downsize to, the level of help available through discretionary housing payments is both temporary and woefully inadequate, and it is very possible that the net savings from this policy will be zero.
There are other areas which I think are unfair and callous, especially re PIP, but I don't wish to emulate War and Peace!
In terms of dishonesty, there have been countless occasions where I have seen coalition ministers either blatantly lying or being so incompetent that they cannot get the most basic of facts right. Just in 1 DWP questions session from a couple of weeks ago, Duncan Smith got his facts wrong about who caused welfare dependency in some claimants, McVey got her facts wrong about the Housing Benefits bill under Labour, and Penning got his facts wrong about DLA assessments. I have noted countless other occasions where Duncan Smith and his ministers have either been deliberately misleading or have simply not told the truth. In addition we have the likes of Cameron making false claims about the disabled and the "Bedroom Tax" and Shapps making false claims about Incapacity Benefit claimants.
In terms of incompetence you need look no further than the Work Programme and Universal Credit. For the targeted "ESA New Customers Group" you are more than 3 times more likely to get a job through your own efforts than via the supposed Work Programme experts. For the long term sick (the "ESA Ex-IB" group) the "success rate" is a pathetic 1.2%. Re Universal Credit, the failings are well documented. Duncan Smith promised that there would be more than 1 million claimants by April, yet the latest figures show just 2,720 claimants!
The coalition have failed the sick and disabled in just about every way. There has been a significant increase in the success rate of ESA appeals with over 123,000 successful appeals in the last 12 month's figures. The DWP are rather reticent in giving figures for successful reconsiderations, but given the last set of figures from Chris Grayling, it would mean over 200,000 incorrect ESA decisions being overturned in just 12 months. Atos' "reward" for getting a whopping 20% of "fit for work" recommendations wrong was 2 highly lucrative contracts for PIP. As well as failing dismally on the Work Programme we saw an instant 40% drop in new Access to Work "customers".
PIP was only introduced in April 2013. Even ignoring the flawed rationale for this policy and the arbitrary target for cuts, we already have 6 month delays and Dame Anne Begg, Chair of the Work & Pensions Committee, has said (re the assessment process) that the DWP "have brought it to a dead stop. There is obviously a huge backlog with PIP assessments but there is no indication that that backlog is moving at all" and that "both Capita and Atos are almost paralysed with fear about making any decisions, in case they get it wrong, so they are not making any decisions at all." On ESA, assessments are supposed to be done within 13 weeks but in 2012 the DWP confirmed they were taking 19-20 weeks on average. Last year Mark Hoban confirmed that only 18% of assessments were being done within 13 weeks.
Apologies for the length of the post but there seemed little point in just listing the failings of the coalition without backing up my views. The criticism of the coalition is certainly not an endorsement of Labour, whose record is not much better. It is sad that so many people are so unaware of the realities surrounding the benefits/welfare bill and fraud rates etc but the media have deliberately misled people (I suspect with the encouragement of politicians) so they are unaware of facts such as the estimated benefit fraud rate being 0.7%; the real terms increase in welfare spending in the noughties being the lowest in any decade since the creation of the welfare state; unclaimed benefits and tax credits being around 10 times the amount of fraud; tax fraud being around 12 times as much as benefit fraud; most JSA claims last for less than 3 months with only 1 in 10 lasting for 12 months or more; the cost of working age benefits (compared to GDP) being the same as 30 years ago and less than it was through much of the 1990's; welfare spending under the 5 years of the coalition being around £200bn higher than in the last 5 years of Labour, thanks mainly to our ageing population with pensioners accounting for the majority of welfare spending etc etc.
If the coalition had come out and simply said that these cuts had to be made because we cannot afford to pay benefits at their previous levels, not just because of the financial crisis but because of our ageing population, and acknowledged that many genuine claimants would unfortunately have to lose out, then I could at least respect their honesty. Instead they have deliberately set out to mislead people by insinuating large numbers of claimants are not genuine, blamed Labour for problems that were actually caused in large part by the previous Tory government and come up with complete nonsense such as this supposed "modern understanding" of disability. It is a sad indictment of the coalition that perhaps their one area of success (the Benefits Cap) will save around 0.05% of the welfare bill!
derryvillain
Vital Youth Team
I live in Northern Ireland ...so honestly why bother? It's a sectarian head-count, and the people you get to vote for have no real power to make any decisions (both Westminster and the EU tell them what to do). I would've considered voting UKIP, as I do think the EU overriding UK democracy is a real issue, however the local UKIP people are a bunch of hardline Loyalist fruitcakes - and if NI/UK did exit the EU, would I really want to inadvertently hand more power to the clowns that routinely get elected here?
Last time I went to a polling booth was in Brum. Ross Kemp was campaigning to keep the BNP out of Frankley Parish Council (LOL). I walked, in thought about it, then spoiled the ballot paper. It was one of those moments where it dawns on you just how much of a farce the whole thing is.
Last time I went to a polling booth was in Brum. Ross Kemp was campaigning to keep the BNP out of Frankley Parish Council (LOL). I walked, in thought about it, then spoiled the ballot paper. It was one of those moments where it dawns on you just how much of a farce the whole thing is.
Yep.
thefacehead
Vital Football Hero
It's pointless you lot bickering with each other as if you are swayed left or right you are just going to disagree.
My view in the narrow is that I would never trust a Labour government, they spend far to much money the the Tories have to make cuts that are unpopular but essential, thus get slated for being uncaring, soulless and callous when the truth is the money must be saved somewhere whilst also not stunting the economic regrowth.
I'm not going to say anymore, that's my view and I won't pointlessly argue with someone who has the opposite view.
My view in the narrow is that I would never trust a Labour government, they spend far to much money the the Tories have to make cuts that are unpopular but essential, thus get slated for being uncaring, soulless and callous when the truth is the money must be saved somewhere whilst also not stunting the economic regrowth.
I'm not going to say anymore, that's my view and I won't pointlessly argue with someone who has the opposite view.
BBJ
Father Of The Forum
Thanks for your kind comment, GV.
Yes, Juan M, our so called leaders in Ireland ought to have told the ECB to take a running jump. Even the IMF, that bastion of socialism, said that the bond holders in the banks ought to have been burned. That's how capitalism was supposed to work. You took the risk in the hope of high rewards. The new model says if the big boys lose out then the taxpayer will give them their money back.
Much as I like the fact that the UK and Ireland are now getting on better than ever (and long may that continue) my view is that the big loan was to ensure that the Irish banks would not default on their commitment to their British peers. So a lot of the money went straight into zombie institutions and straight back out to the City of London.
I would never not vote - even in that political basket case that is my native Norn Iron (not that I'll be moving there anytime in the next 1,000 or so years). However, it may well be that my next visit to a polling station will result in my spoiling the paper.
Yes, Juan M, our so called leaders in Ireland ought to have told the ECB to take a running jump. Even the IMF, that bastion of socialism, said that the bond holders in the banks ought to have been burned. That's how capitalism was supposed to work. You took the risk in the hope of high rewards. The new model says if the big boys lose out then the taxpayer will give them their money back.
Much as I like the fact that the UK and Ireland are now getting on better than ever (and long may that continue) my view is that the big loan was to ensure that the Irish banks would not default on their commitment to their British peers. So a lot of the money went straight into zombie institutions and straight back out to the City of London.
I would never not vote - even in that political basket case that is my native Norn Iron (not that I'll be moving there anytime in the next 1,000 or so years). However, it may well be that my next visit to a polling station will result in my spoiling the paper.
mike_field
Vital Football Legend
Great post Ricardo, and very little to disagree with.
In terms of the housing benefit cut, I'd add the flaw in the system could be solved simply with a clause each tenant with a spare bedroom cannot have their benefit cut prior to being offered two appropriately bedroomed alternative property choices within a five mile radius of current occupancy.
Can't punish them if there is no alternative then, and those who happy to move will be able to...
Still not a perfect solution but would be a great step in starting to ensure people were punished unfairly for it.
but yes you are spot on as well, from a pure financial aspect benefits could've stayed exactly how they were, we would recoup far more by having an active and competent HMRC when it came to tax avoidance, and sorting out life on that side of the coin with all the many legal schemes people can use - the potential loss of income to the treasury there is 20 times what 'benefit cheats' cost us, and doing it in the right way yeah the spongers could be targetted but it could be more focused and less of a broadstroke in the process.
But I do always find it funny when successive governments seem to ignore tax loopholes...don't know why though of course.
There's also a strong argument that in terms of recent changes even though overall it's such a small % save, that this will be eclipsed by the cost of making changes, dealing with appeals and so on -
But as ever especially when tabloids get involved, benefits come into one bracket, but as you say there is the JSA/incapacity fraud element we always here about, then there is the element of people unemployed who genuinely want to work but we never hear about them - because they usually find jobs - we hear about those who have made it a career and have shiney big TV's on in the background and leather settes when photos are taken.
And it all goes towards the idea that benefits have to be addressed because it's an outrage...when the single biggest contributory factor is pensions - which yes (Royal Mail pension issues is a good pointer) had the seeds laid back in the Tory Gov, and then last Lab Gov despite having money a plenty failed to rectify the pots and create a surplus despite knowing the poop was aging.
Instead they vote attracted by generous out of work benefits, and schemes with catchy headlines like free laptop deals in certain areas etc, when that money (and the idea behind it which was good) would've been far better served by putting into local libraries and groups so the benefit was more widespread rather than individual.
We always get the speeches from the MP's and the outlets that follow them talking about when it debt you have to cut back blah blah and it rings a chord for many people - but the part that's missed out is when money is tight you prioritise spending in key areas, you don't take 10% of everything to try and be fair.
And if we prioritised as a country - benefits wouldn't be the first place to start anyway. Even ignoring the fact I believe in work benefits are 2-3 times larger than unemployment benefits anyway - but that doesn't fit the lazy scrounger get off your arse message does it.
In terms of the housing benefit cut, I'd add the flaw in the system could be solved simply with a clause each tenant with a spare bedroom cannot have their benefit cut prior to being offered two appropriately bedroomed alternative property choices within a five mile radius of current occupancy.
Can't punish them if there is no alternative then, and those who happy to move will be able to...
Still not a perfect solution but would be a great step in starting to ensure people were punished unfairly for it.
but yes you are spot on as well, from a pure financial aspect benefits could've stayed exactly how they were, we would recoup far more by having an active and competent HMRC when it came to tax avoidance, and sorting out life on that side of the coin with all the many legal schemes people can use - the potential loss of income to the treasury there is 20 times what 'benefit cheats' cost us, and doing it in the right way yeah the spongers could be targetted but it could be more focused and less of a broadstroke in the process.
But I do always find it funny when successive governments seem to ignore tax loopholes...don't know why though of course.
There's also a strong argument that in terms of recent changes even though overall it's such a small % save, that this will be eclipsed by the cost of making changes, dealing with appeals and so on -
But as ever especially when tabloids get involved, benefits come into one bracket, but as you say there is the JSA/incapacity fraud element we always here about, then there is the element of people unemployed who genuinely want to work but we never hear about them - because they usually find jobs - we hear about those who have made it a career and have shiney big TV's on in the background and leather settes when photos are taken.
And it all goes towards the idea that benefits have to be addressed because it's an outrage...when the single biggest contributory factor is pensions - which yes (Royal Mail pension issues is a good pointer) had the seeds laid back in the Tory Gov, and then last Lab Gov despite having money a plenty failed to rectify the pots and create a surplus despite knowing the poop was aging.
Instead they vote attracted by generous out of work benefits, and schemes with catchy headlines like free laptop deals in certain areas etc, when that money (and the idea behind it which was good) would've been far better served by putting into local libraries and groups so the benefit was more widespread rather than individual.
We always get the speeches from the MP's and the outlets that follow them talking about when it debt you have to cut back blah blah and it rings a chord for many people - but the part that's missed out is when money is tight you prioritise spending in key areas, you don't take 10% of everything to try and be fair.
And if we prioritised as a country - benefits wouldn't be the first place to start anyway. Even ignoring the fact I believe in work benefits are 2-3 times larger than unemployment benefits anyway - but that doesn't fit the lazy scrounger get off your arse message does it.
mike_field
Vital Football Legend
Pointlessly arguing is quite enjoyable try it! lol
In general I agree though, Lab overspend and never plan for the future because when things go tits up they never have to sort it out, that's left to the Tories but they do it line with their own political standpoint of shrink the Gov and welfare state and do it in broad strokes which always hits people it shouldn't hit, because they never do it sensibly and focus where they should.
And then we repeat because the Tories piss every one off because there is a clear inequality in their balance, and we end up with Labour back....
IF the Tories could ever find some balance it would be a wonderful thing, but that is true of Labour as well.
G
Guest
Guest
I will be voting for Lambert, ive never known a bloke be so shit at his profession yet get rewarded with a shiney new contract worth millions, now thats a leader.
thefacehead
Vital Football Hero
True, it would be very interesting to see how it would play out if they did 5 years each on a rotation, not going to happen but 3 terms is probably too long for any government.
mike_field
Vital Football Legend
Agree, I keep saying one term Lab, two Tory to try and find balance.
First term though you get through everything major you want to correct - or at least the seeds are planted - then second term things come to a fruition somewhat, and you can tie up other things that you wanted to do but weren't a priotity.
By third term really you are just pissing about with things to try and look busy and justify your position and if you last that long as PM/frontline cabinet regular you are getting stale so turn more of an eye onto what you can do after stepping down.
We'd have been far better placed with the crash if we hadn't have had that last term of Bliar/Brown really and rebalanced somewhat as we have now from public sector workforce, to private...the economy wouldn't have been so mismatched then, but it's speculation on how much noticeable effect that would've had really.
First term though you get through everything major you want to correct - or at least the seeds are planted - then second term things come to a fruition somewhat, and you can tie up other things that you wanted to do but weren't a priotity.
By third term really you are just pissing about with things to try and look busy and justify your position and if you last that long as PM/frontline cabinet regular you are getting stale so turn more of an eye onto what you can do after stepping down.
We'd have been far better placed with the crash if we hadn't have had that last term of Bliar/Brown really and rebalanced somewhat as we have now from public sector workforce, to private...the economy wouldn't have been so mismatched then, but it's speculation on how much noticeable effect that would've had really.
