Cracks are appearing? Great bloody rifts. What gets me, is that there is no understanding on the behalf of the Tory/New Labour prats that capitalism depends on money getting around. Give poor people more money they'll spend it on. Keep them poor and you rob yourself of the very consumers on which capitalism depends. We can make leftie/liberal comments all we like. But the argument needs to be put to the post-Thatcher generation in their own terms. The rich want an educated workforce; roads that don't damage their Lamborghinis; hospitals that keep the workforce in work etc etc. It needs paying for.
Phillip Hammond saying they responded accurately and correctly to recommendations re: Grenfell. "Technical expert research was commissioned word salad" Marr: "Should we put sprinklers in all these buildings and schools without them?" Hammond: "These are technical questions and what I am hearing from fire safety experts is that it is not necessary to retrofit sprinkler systems which don't always ensure the saving of lives" Hammond just got nailed on voting against landlord regulations.
. The emergency money will be made up of £500 in cash and £5000 delivered through the department of work and pensions into bank accounts or similar in a single payment. This comes from the £5m that the prime minister announced on Friday. The £500 cash is already being made available to those affected and further payments are available immediately from the council at Westway centre, or from Monday through the post office in Portobello road, as and when families need it. The £5000 will be made available from Monday and support workers will assist households in accessing it – including those who don’t have bank accounts. The discretionary fund is also being made available to meet funeral costs, and to top up payments for those households with complex or additional needs. The fund will be kept under review and will increase if necessary.
I think you miss my point there. Sadiq Khan has been very vocal about the problem of "buy to leave empty." He commissioned the report to back up his assertion and give weight to his argument so Sadiq Khan is the one in the right here. It is the London School of economics that is at fault. The same LSE that were all over our screens presenting their research and predictions r.e. Brexit that came up with that report to "defend" their $$$ interests. A while back when Gove said "people are sick of experts" was exactly because of this sort of thing. I may not like Sadiq Khan much as he is a fully paid up member of the $$$ crowd however he was right on this one.
Sorry Beefy but that is talking about benefit fraud vs tax avoidance. The latter use "legal" means to avoid paying. The former use illegal means to get money. Dave is talking about people "legally" claiming for things. I am a parent that hears on the council estate playground the people bragging about their ADHD and ASD money. I myself get DLA for my ASD/ADHD child. The thing is this money is supposed to be to support the person with the disability. It is not supposed to be to get Mum and/or Dad a nice new car, massive telly and every other trimming that an extra £10k can be used for. Lots of parents in receipt openly brag about what they have or are buying and there is a vast amount of money "legally" being handed over here. That does not figure in your fraud figure. My DLA money all goes on the kids. We bought A car, not a nice new flashy one. An 8 year old car to get us around. It helps us take the kids places and to schools. It enabled me to apply for my son to go to a much better school miles away because we now have transport. We regularly take them to an ADHD friendly youthclub type place. We bought the Lincoln Season Tickets with this money. I wouldn't be going to the football without them. The money that gets left over is invested into their child trust funds. After all there is no point me saving it because if I had more than £6k in my savings they would start reducing my housing benefit. SO we don't spend it on ourselves. All goes to the kids either now or for their future. <-----I guess (it is) me "avoiding" losing housing benefit by putting the leftovers in their trust funds (not counted as savings) instead of my savings account is me "playing the system." It isn't money we need otherwise it wouldn't be left over. DLA+extra tax credits+carer's allowance is the equivalent of an extra £10k if you had to earn it and pay tax. So if you take into account just that ADHD part where money is being handed over for a disability yet it is being spent on things for the parents then while it may be legal it should be taken into account just as legal means of avoiding tax are taken into account. You are quite right that the system is not working as like you have made clear it is penalising people who have very real disabilities but you cannot ignore the widespread abuse of the system in other areas because it is not working in one.
Personally i would like to see the government/council have more control on what benefit money gets spent on, rather than just giving it to people to spend how they like. Although the government are doing the opposite with Universal Credit, allowing people to spend things such as housing benefit on whatever they want rather than have it paid directly to landlords. presumably to save on admin costs. Massively increasing arrears among those trialled.
The 34bn is actually tax avoidance and tax evasion. Tax avoidance is just people using loop holes, were Evasion is illegal. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...st-35-wealthy-tax-evaders-per-year-report-re/ 16bn is from tax evasion still far more then low income benefit fraud. As I said they go after the poor because they are easy targets. Big companies and rich guys get away with it far more.
The rent should be paid directly to the landlords. But then the rest of their benefits they should be allowed to spend how they want. Who are we to tell people who are sick and disabled etc that they can't buy themselves some sort of entertainment to try and break up their poor lives. I know a guy on ESA who has a PS4, he manages to buy about 5 games a year to entertain himself. He doesn't go out or anything due to his illness. Some see this as him exploiting his benefits and he shouldn't be allowed to do it. **** those people for wanting him to live a life of boredom.
I agree in general however I would clarify the first paragraph on "if you give poor people they'll spend it on" which of course they will and if you give them more and more they will also spend that on, however giving people more and more money does not mean they will spend it on things they should be spending it on. The same kids will still not be getting what they need like food, clothing, love, support despite the extra money. I know you are talking about those that are really poor and I agree there. People who "need" money should be helped however it becomes a hot potato where you define the difference between "need" and "want." I've long advocated financial advisors being available to help people in struggles because undoubtedly there are many people who are poor, but there are a vast amount more that have made themselves poor with bad financial management. They aren;t all like me keeping a spreadsheet for my budget and not taking on any credit. If they were Brighthouse and Argos would probably go out of business. What also needs addressing is stuff like scratchcards and bookies. There are bookies all over the place these days. 3 on this estate and bookies aren;t like they used to be just people laying bets. They sit on the machines all day long in there. And if you queue up at any shop on a council estate with 5 people in front of you then at least 2 will ask for a number 3, 10 &11 scratchcard. Scratchcard dispensers have replaced sweets on the counter and are big business. There is a lot of stuff targeted at poor people despite all the concern. Credit is aimed at the lower end of incomes without any worries by lenders and scratchcards are a massive problem. I know several people that spend a tenner on scratchcards EVERY time they go to the shop and when you are talking about lower incomes, without a car and quite possibly without a job then, they go to the shop EVERY day because they have to carry the bags home. (Losing) scratchcards compete with McDonalds for the title of "who contributes to the most litter" on this estate. So while I agree that more needs to be done for those at the bottom of the ladder there is undoubtedly a lot of money being thrown at people that do not help themselves and yes they do spend it however that spending does not help them. Financial advice, debt counselling, gambling addiction counselling would be much more advantageous to many people than any extra money because that extra money just gets spent on more things that don't help their plight. It does not help anyone when we have the right (Tories) saying "most of them are spongers" and the Left (Labour in particular) saying "None of them are spongers." It gets annoying when middle class people go on telly to talk on behalf of "the poor" to attack any attempt to address this problem saying "I work with these people and in these communities and this is not the case" when it most definitely is the case. Labour are as much to blame for this as the Tories. The Tories want to cut too much and look at far too much black and white however Labour try and expand the numbers of people involved and add a nuance of it all being about not enough money. They both need to stop trying to use it to their political advantage and actually take real numbers, real figures and real research and find where the truth is. In many cases it is not "not enough money." It is "not enough money because it was spent on something else." The latter spirals and spirals.
Hate to be middle class and all that, but I work with the local foodbank as a volunteer. We do have financial advisers, but a lot of our clientele haven't got any money to manage! One of the biggest issues is that so many people I see and speak to clearly have mental health issues which are not being addressed. Normal functioning doesn't feature for many, so getting to appointments is haphazard, resulting in sanctions on benefits followed by sofa-surfing etc etc. However, you are quite right, Imp, when you say that the right say "Scroungers!" while the left go into denial. It is always thus. The outcry over means testing the winter fuel allowance was a classic. I'm 75 and don't bloody need it! I digress, sorry. But your analysis is spot on. The simplistic scroungers/oppressed divide doesn't tackle the issue. You and I might disagree on where lines are drawn, but at least we have enough experience of the world to know that there is a line out there somewhere. Still can't get why you vote Tory, but hey, everyone has their faults, mate!
Problem is means testing for the winter fuel allowance would cost more then simply letting everyone have it.
Yes, I get that. Jez, bless him, didn't need to make it sound as if all OAPS would be in penury if it was means tested. If it is more expensive to administer means testing than to make it universal, then make it universal. Those who don't need it can give it to their favourite charity. I agree with the £100 (or whatever) a week universal benefit for the same reason. Cut out the costly bureaucracy of Job Seekers etc. All in favour of that.
£70 a week JSA and ESA, they cut it a few months back. To people on it are even worse off. Also stopped a back to work scheme for people with mental health issues last year. Then go on about helping people with mental health issues....
The Tories want to tackle it but don't get it right and don't address problems when they occur. Like the DLA. I agree with the policy however I don't agree with them protecting the administration of it when quite obviously people are being refused/sanctioned/dismissed when they shouldn't be. Labour don't want to deal with it. Their answer for everything is "more money." Throw more money at people who don't prioritise properly and they will spend more money on the wrong things. Throwing extra money at people does not mean that they will spend it on what they needed but couldn't afford. I'm not so much on about people that go to food banks and it is good to hear you have financial advisers there to help those that have problems in budgeting, however there are loads that don't go to food banks yet ignore their children, spend all the money on themselves and then complain they have no money. Plenty that will openly state they had to take on that £1,500 loan before Christmas to pay for their children's Christmas presents justifying it by stating they can't have their kids being teased by others and then struggling the rest of the year round paying off the interest on their high APR loan. This is not a rare occurrence. The kids all have tablets, phones, games consoles, nike airs. What a lot of them (not all) don't have is responsible parents. Lots of kids round here hardly have any engagement with their parents other than "Mum is dinner ready yet." Even then dinner is ready and each family member picks it up when they want and eat it separately. Rather than all the presents to keep their children quiet then they could try and be a family instead. I get what you mean about mental health problems. I am not arguing about that. My argument is that if the Tories try and deal with something Labour will then pull out examples of failure to say the whole policy is wrong and should be reversed. There isn't even the thought of saying the policy needs to be altered. Just a wholesale attack on the policy being wrong. The middle ground is never found because both parties are not interested in getting it right. They are quite simply interested in saying the other side is wrong. So I vote Tory because I think they do try and change things. I think Labour fail because rather than try and get the Tories to find "the sweet spot" they demand it go further than it was before the change. If no-one cares about finding the sweet spot then I'd rather we didn't just throw money out there because it just ends up in the pockets of the already rich then. That is people's money (tax funds) that is then squirrelled away to the rich by throwing it at the poor for them to spend on interest payments and credit payment for this year's mobile phone upgrade and the ultimate sky collection.
You mean at current it would cost more. That is the civil service for you. In this day and age with Universal Credit coming in. Linked to NI numbers surely it becomes automatic? They always use this "cost more to administer" excuse. Computers should be automatically making these decisions. When they say it would cost more to administer they try an make it sound like everyone will be interviewed or that some chap is sat there looking through forms with a calculator and a notepad.
