This thread is rather depressing! But England (and the US) are fortunate to live in Democratic countries. It's really frustrating sometimes when you see how stupidly people vote and act. Regardless of which party they support. No one ever wants to pay taxes, but everyone demands government support for their issues, etc. The government is messed up, but we like to play the victim rather than acknowledge we are the ones who keep voting these jokers in. But OTOH, all the good things in our countries are down to the people as well. And if you look around the world at some of the terrible things that happen elsewhere, we all have it pretty good. As long as people have the vote, things won't go too bad. I just grit my teeth and think I would still rather have a freely elected Trump as President, than some "benevolent" dictator installed via military coup. Then I try not to think about it too much more as it is too depressing. That's basically my political view in a nutshell.
Our democracies bring the illusion of choice. I think it's unfair to label people as stupid in these circumstances. Because as fortunate as we are to live in a democracy, we can be unfortunate if our home town/county is an area which is directly opposed to our pollitical view. e.g. A labour voter living in rural Hampshire can vote for them all their lives but will never see a labour MP in their constituency. They just have to hope the will of the people elsewhere bring the government they desire.
The depressing thing about this thread is the constant bashing of one party or another, the gnashing of teeth and the blinkered, died in the wool support of a colour. It's worse than football. This is why I really don't like the politics thread, don't contribute (apart from this) but am glad this isn't blocking up Koeman's. I'm a voter who votes but doesn't "support" a party no matter what, so my vote is there to be won and I have a fairly unbiased view on things and have voted for different parties through the years. The last couple of days have underlined my detest of political debate and its apparent purpose of point scoring. Example: I read consistent negativity towards the recent benefit cuts and how appalling it is (I understand that view) followed by the resignation of the minister heading that department because (according to his Statement and not popular belief) he disagreed with this push too far. We the get not one post saying, "That's good, glad he did that," but a stack of comments belittling his decision for other reasons and "he only did it because..." Buggered if they do. Buffered if they don't. I really do hate political discussion. It brings the negativity out in people and never, ever a positive view.
Does a guy that has agreed on all this suddenly get a heart? 1. Disability benefit cuts The stubborn Tory said his Personal Independence Payments (PIP) shake-up would "improve the lot" of the disabled even as MPs told him: "How do you sleep at night?". Some 370,000 sick and disabled people will lose up to £3,500 a year as a result. "This all came on the back of an independent review published just after the last election asking us to look again. "We have done that. And in fairness I believe this is the right way to go and will improve the lot of those worst off." The Work and Pensions Secretary is slashing £1.2billion from PIP by making it harder for claimants who struggle to use the toilet or get dressed to qualify. 2. Benefit sanctions Just last week, IDS claimed benefit claimants hit by his brutal sanctions regime thankedhim for taking their benefits away. He said: “Seventy-five per cent of all those who have been sanctioned say it helped them focus and get on. Even the people in the job centres think it’s the right thing to do... sanctions are the reason why we now have the highest employment levels ever in the UK, and more women in work. “What we say is, ‘we’ll give you all the support but at the end of the day we expect you to do something for it: go back to work, take the job, take the interviews’. And it works, talk to any of the advisers in the job centres. “The Labour Party had sanctions. We haven’t actually changed the sanctions regime. It’s just a classic buzz from the Left. These are just political campaigners – they leap up and down on everything. These people are never going to vote for us. You have to understand, these people hate us.” 3. Zero hour contracts The Work and Pensions Secretary claimed workers trapped on cruel zero hours contracts are actually “more satisfied” than those in full-time work. “The zero-hour contract is badly named,” the out-of-touch Tory said. Mr Duncan Smith made his comments in an extraordinary interview with Sky News. The benefits axeman insisted the contracts are taken by workers who "want that flexibility". And he dismissed the hundreds of thousands of workers trapped on them as “a tiny proportion of the population". He added: “People who do them are more satisfied with their work-life balance.” 4. Work capability assessments Thousands of people have been forced to undergo stressful and humiliating medical checks to "prove" they are too sick or disabled to work. But IDS said they "help." "These regular reviews, I think, will help them and benefit them," he told the BBC's Andrew Marr. "We haven't introduced this to hurt or to harm disabled people. The purpose is to try to support disabled people." He added: "The idea is to get people assessed so that we can find out those whose conditions have improved can then seek work, and many are going back to work now, and those who need full support get that full support." 5. Inventing fake benefit claimants to promote his sanctions Iain Duncan Smith refused to resign after his department used made-up quotes in leaflets about hated benefit sanctions. Labour MP Debbie Abrahams and a 50,000-strong petition have called for the Work and Pensions Secretary to quit after the scandal was exposed. He admitted the flyers were a "mistake", but said it was a one time thing: He said: "What it seems happened, and we are investigating that at the moment, is somebody along the way put up what was essentially meant to be an example of the kind of advice we give and ended up going out as a quote which was quite peculiar and quite wrong. "We've immediately taken that down and stopped it. That sort of thing doesn't really happen. It happened this one time." But asked whether he'd resign, he said: "You know, Debbie Abrahams just bangs on the whole time about that and the reality is every time she asks a question, nine out of 10 times she's wrong." 6. Scrapping child poverty targets IDS' Welfare Reform and Work bill abolishes the legal requirement for the Government to try and reduce child poverty. It also redefines child poverty to be measured by the number of GCSEs a child holds, and the level of worklessness in their household - instead of the income based measure used by all other developed countries. He defended the changes by saying: “Due to a lack of adequate measurement, it has been possible to ignore the true level of poverty – not just measured by a calculation of relative income, where you are considered to be in poverty if your income is below 60 per cent of median income. “But rather, in assessing the barriers people face to improving their own situation – whether that be problems of debt, relationship breakdown, poor education, addiction, or something else.” http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/6-times-iain-duncan-smith-7587895? If he has suddenly got a heart I still can't thank him. He has been a part of a government that has hammered the poor and sick over and over. As I said before I am not a one party guy either. It's why you don't see me praising Labour..
I didn't say he did, I just pointed out that nobody ever sees any good in politics, ever. I don't like the man and you've just proved the point of my post. I'll keep myself just to reading this occasionally from now on, because it is a den of negativity and hatred.
I see good when there actually is good. A lot of politics isn't about how can they help the general public. It's how they can help out themselves or people around them. It's why I am split on the EU in/out vote. The EU do a lot of good things but also a lot of bad things. If a party suddenly came in and said we will help the poor/sick/disabled and stuck to it I would praise them. Be it Labour, Tories,Libs or even UKIP ( ).What I can't praise is cuts for the worse off when the richer people get help. Even I end up with £33 more a month because of the budget. To me that isn't fair when poorer people are having benefit cuts. So I will be giving it to a charity.
I don't agree with cutting money from the disabled, perhaps there is an argument for money to be distributed better. Regular assessments has a flip side of course. Those assessments can lead to an increase in support for those whose conditions have deteriorated. I think because these measures are reported as budget savings that the moves sound more sinister than they actually are.
If the regular assessments were handled well I would agree. But they aren't. All they are there for is to try and get people off benefits. Atos who recently stopped doing the assessments didn't even have doctors or nurses doing the assessments. What is worse is people with mental health issues were judged on what they could do physically. How does that make sense? The assessments aren't there to help people. They are there to try and screw people over.
I make no bones about being a Labour supporter, but that doesn't mean I support everything they do. Zero contracts and privatisation of some parts of the NHS were both introduced by New Labour, if I remember correctly and they are, IMO, totally against what Labour stands for. Zero contracts have opened the door for undermining workers rights and job security, whereas opening the door to privatising any part of the NHS, was a mistake of colossal proportions, that will be exploited further. I am a simple person, who doesn't claim to understand the nuances of politics, so my views may appear somewhat naive, at times, but I look at the Tory party and see a party that won't rest until all the best things the Labour Party introduced, have been eradicated. Namely the NHS, the Welfare State, Social Housing and Workers Rights.
Assessments need to be given by medically trained people who don't just understand about the condition/illness a person has, but also about the impact of medication on each individual. Some people, being assessed at the optimum time, when they feel at their best, between doses of drugs, would potentially be passed as fit to work, yet 30 minutes later, they would present differently, as a result of the medication wearing off. The bit I have highlighted would probably never happen, because the assessors' brief is to decide whether or not the person should be receiving the payment, in the first place, rather than looking to increase the payment/support.
It does seem incredibly strange why someones medical record is not the main factor in determining benefits. I understand when working out what equipment and care is required that a diagnosis is only half the story. It's a complex issue and I expect government has done its best to make it more complex
IDS gone. I think there is more to it than meets the eye and reading between the lines, it would appear that IDS and DC probably dislike each other more than Cameron and Corbyn.
I think IDS is a very principled man who wanted to change welfare in a way that he genuinely believed would help people, although others may not agree with him. I think there have been a lot of clashes between his ideas and Osborne's desire to cut welfare spending and he's had to compromise his ideas and plans a lot. This resignation isn't a total shock, there have been rumours about him quitting before. I suspect relations between him and Osborne/Cameron have been strained for some time and this latest incident was effectively the straw that broke the camel's back. Is the EU vote part of that strained relationship? Yes, although I don't know how big a part. Is this resignation just about the EU? No I don't think so.
So the Tory rebellion to the budget "is on" according to a few tweets. It could be the first time since 1984 a budget bill has failed to be passed.
Why.......that is just your negative thinking. Regular assessment are just what they are assessments. I have been in touch with a fair few disabled people recently. Not one of them are having any benefits cut if anything the benefits have all gone up. There is one of them though that is having his benefit renamed but he isn't losing any money only gaining. Like all things beefy you can use statistics to suite your own agenda. I am not saying some won't lose there benefits or part of it. Oh and yes there will be mistakes at grass routes level of how people are assessed. From what my friends tell me the ones they know off that are losing benefits are the ones they assumed shouldn't have them anyway. In other words incorrect assessments at local level. It seems everyone likes to knock the ones in government labour or conservative but often the real problem with changes is at local level. On the one side you have people being too enthusiastic with the changes and then you have the other side of the coin with the "it won't work brigade" that just can't get enthusiastic and don't implement the changes properly and just blame the government for it not working. Getting things right is a challenge for who ever is in power. Persuading people to implement changes correctly at local level is the most difficult..
No it is not my negative thinking thank you. Just because I and others have different experiences in it doesn't mean I suddenly have a agenda. There are far more then just "mistakes". Who brought Atos in? Why are there so many protests? If no benefits have been cut how come a ESA reduction of £30 has all been agreed? How come IDS until recently kept blocking the real effects of the benefit cuts/sanctions? He lost the day before he resigned. So that info will come out soon. How come so many people are speaking out about benefits? Your friends are the lucky ones. The PIP changes won't work it is why they are being dropped. As I have said before on here. If the government sorted out benefits for the better I would thank them. But there is a limit to the amount you can keep cutting of the poorest of the poor. I have also said the whole system needs looking at. Which includes local as well.
George Osbourne's stated intent is to reduce public spending to around 30% of GDP. With NHS spending supposedly ringfenced, and pensions also protected, that means the axe will fall especially heavily on welfare, local government, the police and the armed forces. He'll try and dress it up with talk about directing resources where they're really needed, but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Services will suffer and individuals will suffer as the direct, quantifiable result of George's fiscal targets.
