Osborne to give the poorest yet another good kicking

[joe_bloggs*]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/29/george-osborne-benefits-tax-credits-conservative?com...

he announced that a re-elected Tory government would hit 10m households with a two-year freeze on benefits and tax credits.
Same old tories

[bookhunter2007]

---

@twohelmets wrote:

You are diverting from the issue, and of course you would. The benefits culture is what it is, it has nothing to do with the banking crisis.

---

You do realise the Deficit in proportion to GDP actually declined under Labour, and only spiked - along with unemployment - due to the banking crisis?

Hence, it seems a bit misleading to imply "the poor" are to blame for "bankrupting the country".

[fallen-archie]

Benefits remain a major drain on public finances. So do defence, the NHS, etc etc. the graph above represents a view through the shutters, selective and unbalanced,

[twohelmets]

Oh gosh, a nice little graph. Well boys, let's keep increasing that benefits bill, it's all good!

[fallen-archie]

Graphs are good, they tell you exactly what someone else wants you to know and they look sooooo cool.

[bookhunter2007]

Perhaps if the Ignorati tore themselves away from tabloid headlines for one moment, they may actually clock the fact that the majority of the welfare budget is spent on pensioners, not job-seeking "scroungers":

http://opinion.publicfinance.co.uk/2013/01/fact-and-fiction-on-welfare-spending/

[joe_bloggs*]

Tories have never liked social security spending .Tories want you in a position to work for next to nothing or starve,and the massive rise in foodbank use confirms people are earning poverty wages in order to boost the profits of tory donor companies,which of course is their priority,Tories detest the minimum wage and any other improvements in working conditions because these policies undo all their efforts to keep working people desperate

[twohelmets]

I'll give you cool, real life and one of many, many tales I could tell you.........

Guy I know has been unemployed for years, his wife working in the black. One day, on the birth of his third (State sponsored) child, a midwife comes around to check all is well. While she was there, she notices that six year old Harry (not real name) is playing football with a slightly odd gait.

To cut a long story short, Harry was diagnosed with extremely mild Cerebral Palsy.

Me and ay wife, working all hours to meet our mortgage (yes, he has his rent paid) were managing to just about maintain a a very old Datsun. Some weeks later he turns up in a brand new car, something beyond our wildest dreams. Yup. he had a massive leap up the benefits ladder via motability.

A short while later he was caught fiddling the dole via his wife working in the black, let of with a warning due to having the terrible strain of a "disabled" son to look after.

Now, years later, after paying a FORTUNE in taxes but having become moderately sucessful despite that, people like him clamour about how unfair it all is because I have a nice car and how they deserve more and how I should be pretty much hung out to dry to pay for his idleness, breeding, his house, his fags.

I'm sorry, but there is simply no getting away from the fact that benefit spending under labour went through the roof, and so did taxes. Result? More people seeing the benefit of benfits and less wanting to work. You can try and divert from this massively increased spending on giving all you like, but it's not going away.

[fallen-archie]

Pensioners need and deserve support, there are other ways to make their lives more comfortable and less stressful, they don't want hand outs they want to live out their lives with freedom pride and dignity. There are many ways to achieve this if you are serious in your intentions.

[0125arwen]

Thousands of pensioners freeze to death each year, living the high life.

[twohelmets]

Hysterical nonsense. Being kept desperate is being told that a council house should be the pinnacle of your life's ambition as was the case under labour. Yes, the Tories have always kept an eye on the money they spend, which is their duty to any taxpayer.

[joe_bloggs*]

"but there is simply no getting away from the fact that benefit spending under labour went through the roof"

the number of working people claiming housing benefit is set to double between 2010 and 2018 costing taxpayers £12.9 billion.

the government’s own figures show they have spectacularly failed and are set to overshoot their own plans for spending on social security this Parliament by a staggering £13 billion.

Maybe thats what you mean by going through the roof,or maybe not

[bookhunter2007]

So Labour are the party that encourages unemployment & for people to lay about on the dole?

Here's another nice graph for you...

[0125arwen]

If you want more people in work enforce the minimum wage for everyone,

stop letting foreign workers force british workers out of a job,

put a stop to zero hours contracts.

Oh and stop advertising hundreds of thousands of jobs that don't even exist, in jobcentres.

[twohelmets]

---

@fallen-archie wrote:
Pensioners need and deserve support, there are other ways to make their lives more comfortable and less stressful, they don't want hand outs they want to live out their lives with freedom pride and dignity. There are many ways to achieve this if you are serious in your intentions.

---

I agree with you. However, pensions seem to be a bit of a side issue here. I think nobody has issues with paying out pensions, it's Barbara and her 11 kids (perhaps 12 as I type) in a half Million Pound house, or Abdul in a 3 Million Pound Mansion in Chelsea for his kids he brought over once he got asylum.

Play the rights and wrongs all you like, the fact is the benefits bill has ROCKETED under labour and their politically correct" war on poverty" and it is simply not affordable. Well, unless you think you can simply tax the working population until they bleed and think they will put up with it.

Who was it said "we will tax the rich until the pips squeak"? Or something like that? The rich, high earners, just left. The brain drain. It's happening now, certainly where I am currently stationed. Never mind, the benefits claimants will be going nowhere. 😉

[bookhunter2007]

---

@twohelmets wrote:

---

Play the rights and wrongs all you like, the fact is the benefits bill has ROCKETED under labour and their politically correct" war on poverty"

---

Really? Looks like Maggie took that prize...

[0125arwen]

---

@bookhunter2007 wrote:

---

@twohelmets wrote:

---

Play the rights and wrongs all you like, the fact is the benefits bill has ROCKETED under labour and their politically correct" war on poverty"

---

Really? Looks like Maggie took that prize...

 Plenty of jobs back then.

---

[joe_bloggs*]

---

@twohelmets wrote:

---

@fallen-archie wrote:
Pensioners need and deserve support, there are other ways to make their lives more comfortable and less stressful, they don't want hand outs they want to live out their lives with freedom pride and dignity. There are many ways to achieve this if you are serious in your intentions.

---

I agree with you. However, pensions seem to be a bit of a side issue here. I think nobody has issues with paying out pensions, it's Barbara and her 11 kids (perhaps 12 as I type) in a half Million Pound house, or Abdul in a 3 Million Pound Mansion in Chelsea for his kids he brought over once he got asylum.

Play the rights and wrongs all you like, the fact is the benefits bill has ROCKETED under labour and their politically correct" war on poverty" and it is simply not affordable. Well, unless you think you can simply tax the working population until they bleed and think they will put up with it.

Who was it said "we will tax the rich until the pips squeak"? Or something like that? The rich, high earners, just left. The brain drain. It's happening now, certainly where I am currently stationed. Never mind, the benefits claimants will be going nowhere. 😉

---

If you check the facts you will in fact find the benefits bil has ROCKETED under the tories and their politically incorrect war on the poor

[astrologica]

Although the government likes to describe pensions as 'benefits', they have to be paid for by contributions. Older people receiving a pension today have probably paid into that pension all their working lives, so it is not a benefit, it is an entitlement.

[al**bear]

Too many again talking about 'people on benefits' in the way the Tories and their media chums want you to think of them - Workshy ne'er-do-wells

But as I said before, two thirds ARE the Poorest working people, the people who clean your streets, work in your Hospitals, for your Councils, in retail, in the service Industries etc etc. Remember Government and Local Government employees have already been having cuts in their salaries in real terms for the last 4 years (about 9% it has been worked out)

Real cost of living = How much it really costs a person to live - not the airy fairy Inflation rate (either one) an example of how stupid, they are, a fall in the inflation rate earlier this year was put down to a fall in the cost of Air travel costs

We are all supposed to be in this together, but anyone earning over say  £22k a year and a homeowner have hardly been touched by this recession, compared to the less well off. Any loss on Savings interest, has been easily offset by having their Mortgage rate static, in fact loads have remortgaged to cheaper ones.

the Deficit is like a Mortgage, start making Multi-nationals pay it off not the poor and needy - Hammer companies who use Luxembourg, Ireland etc to avoid paying their Taxes in the Countries where the money was earned, this would include UK Companies who do it the money they earn elsewhere as well.

Stop half the TAX avoidance and we could start slashing the deficit immediately, but No, Osborne is trying to get in on the act, be giving special deals to Companies to move to the City of London, while squealing about Ireland and Luxembourg doing it

As for the benefit cap of £500 a week for families,this has been vastly overstated by the Tories and has saved a fraction of what they said it would. Trouble is most of this is made up of housing costs and so it is in the SE with their ridiculous rent costs that were causing the problem, also, it wasn't even the Claiment who got this money but their landlords

[tommy.irene]

Dear Mr. Cameron, Please find below our suggestion for fixing the UK 's economy. Instead of giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan: There are about 10 million people over 50 in the work force. Pay them £1 million each severance for early retirement with the following stipulations: 1) They MUST retire. Ten million job openings - unemployment fixed 2) They MUST buy a new British car. Ten million cars ordered - Car Industry fixed 3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed 4) They MUST send their kids to school/college/university - Crime rate fixed 5) They MUST buy £100 WORTH of alcohol/tobacco a week ..... And there's your money back in duty/tax etc It can't get any easier than that! P.S. If more money is needed, have all members of parliament pay back their falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances If you think this would work, please forward to everyone you know. Also..... Let's put the pensioners in jail and the criminals in a nursing home. This way the pensioners would have access to showers, hobbies and walks. They'd receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs etc and they'd receive money instead of paying it out. They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly, if they fell, or needed assistance. Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them. A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell. They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose. They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counselling, pool and education. Simple clothing, shoes, slippers, PJ's and legal aid would be free, on request. Private, secure rooms for all, with an exercise outdoor yard, with gardens. Each senior could have a PC a TV radio and daily phone calls. There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to. The criminals would get cold food, be left all alone and unsupervised. Lights off at 8pm, and showers once a week. Live in a tiny room and pay £600.00 per week and have no hope of ever getting out. Think about this (more points of contention): ......................................................COWS Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Appleby almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the county of Cumbria? And, they even tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 125,000 illegal immigrants wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Also; Think about this ... If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone -- YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM! It is time for us grumpy old folk of Britain to speak up!