my mates mum who is 83, worked and paid taxes for 50 years gets fuck all because her husband died and left her 60k 2 years ago. Until she spends the bulk of it ( think she's allowed 8k in the bank) she gets £90 a week state pension, no rent help or bills paid. Her rent is £160.00 per week plus all expenses so is paying around 120 every week and is to scared to buy herself anything non essential. I keep telling her to spend the lot or at least make it look like she has. Scag heads get more help..
And this gents is why the system is broken. Unfortunately, somebody, somewhere, currently raking it in in terms of benefits is going to lose out IF the government ever sorts it out. And then they'll be some career politician arguing that those losing shouldn't be, even if they really should. Worse still some who lose out might genuinely really need it, and some that don't will sit there having more babies..... And round and round in circles we go...... This brings me back to additional reasons as to why the referendum vote may have gone the way it did. What didn't help with the EU vote was that it became more and more public knowledge of what EU migrants were 'entitled to claim' (and non EU migrants), in some cases claim on mass and simply ship the money straight back out of the UK to the country they came from. Now I'm not saying that the rules are their fault, or that my own personal voting decision was skewed by this, frankly my dislike for the arrogant EU ruling elite overshadowed it all and benefits didn't even come in to it However, when you've got child benefit claims going in for multiple children sat 1000's of miles away who have never set foot on UK soil, and their parents hadn't even paid in to the system for 6 months, let alone 50-60 years, then I can understand why some may have voted for that reason. I know David Cameron eventually (under massive pressure) half heartedly negotiated a 4 year period of which a migrant couldn't claim 'in work benefits', quite whether that goes ahead is any ones guess and I presume has been swept under the carpet But take a hard working, Long standing UK citizens mentality, somebody not too different from any of the 3 stories we've listed here. They've paid taxes in full to what they see as 'their country', only to be told there's no help for them because they 'don't qualify' Stood next to them whilst being told such heartbreaking information there are 10 fellas in the queue from Poland, 5 from Bulgaria and 3 Romania all getting hand outs. All sharing a house designed for half the occupants residing in it, and all shipping child benefit claims straight back home to a bunch of kids the welfare officer has never seen or met. All paid for over the course of a lifetime of taxes by any of the 3 people we've discussed. These people aren't racist, these people aren't xenophobic imbeciles, these are / were hard working UK citizens all their life's It's the government's own doing, and it didn't start with immigration, but it's a very easy excuse for somebody UK born and raised to blame when the government isn't helping them in the hour of need. The whole things a mess, and it needs sorting. Let's just hope that when we leave the EU some focus goes towards shaping the benefits system towards those who've actually made it possible to exist, the tax payers.
which was my mate from aylesburys reason (and pretty much his only reason) for voting the way he did. which i thought was rather ironic seeing as he had not long informed that as part of his work reviewing the english judiciary's I.T system he estimated 11mill a year could be saved if its employees spent just 15mins less a day on social media. it's amazing the little factoids you learn. but it doesn't change the fact that we like some other places do rather well out of it and once the money and investment comes direct the daily mail and express's of the world briefed by tory/ukip so called special advisors start whipping it up (just look at some of the comments on here by the, cough, educated). hmm, best start thinking up some new retorts in preparation. :Hilarious:
I reckon you will find that the people costing the Country a huge amount in benefits are not migrants but British people, many living as a single parent family, where the father pays nothing towards the welfare of his children and the State pays for their housing, food and clothing, whilst the father goes off and does the same again elsewhere. These are also the people who i suspect swung the EU vote to leave.
But that's missing the point. You are possibly correct in regards to some UK citizens and how they're costing the welfare system, I don't doubt that at all But people see it as the British welfare system, the British welfare system they've helped fund their entire working lives. (Some obviously not) They don't see it as a European welfare pot, especially when people who deserve being looked after by their own country are turned away, and those walking through the open door of EU free movement of people regulations are getting almost immediate hand outs. As already mentioned, 3 descriptions within the last few posts are by people far removed from what you describe. All deserving far more than any UK born crack head, baby machine, immigrant etc that's not racist, that's just quantifiable fact as it's they who funded the pot for years via tax. As such, I get why some very well educated, hard working people 'may' have had this also as a reason to leave the EU. When your own head of state can't really change it by going to Brussels cap in hand, perhaps people thought they'd force the issue when given a chance. Everything isn't black and white, and it wouldn't have been many people's reasons, but if you ask me for an honest answer and whether my mum should have been given help over a mid 20's Romanian fella in the country for 6 months maximum? Then yes, unequivocally yes....without question or hesitation It's not anybodies fault but the government's
I'm not going to disagree with the way you argue about how benefits are meted out to some and not others as its scandalous but............ I have one client who has 6 staff working in one place all female, where i know for fact that the benefits bill for them is well over £1,000 per week. All British, all working yet the State makes up their money to levels that most have to earn themselves, whilst the fathers of the children contribute nothing. And big companies have used that fact for a long time to pay staff a low wage. All of this is not EU law but UK law. Benefits are not EU wide but decided by each Nation individually. If anyone thinks any UK government is likely to change benefits in any significant way and leaving the EU will make that happen, then they will be very disappointed. Even IDS has been saying that the government cannot cut benefits further.
I honestly do not believe it will be possible to reform the Welfare State without some major, maybe cataclysmic, upheaval of UK society. The reason for that is more down to the somewhat schizophrenic way that ordinary folks think about welfare than it is an unwillingness on the part of government to tackle the issue. On the one hand people want deserving cases to receive help from the welfare safety net, on the other they don't want "unproductive members of society to scrounge off the system". How do you determine which cases are which, without spending an inordinate amount of time and money researching each claimant? You cannot view welfare as an end, of itself ... as something that is outside of any discussions you have concerning the economy. It is fundamentally linked to every aspect of financial/economic systems. And you'd have to overhaul the entire economic model, otherwise you are simply "dabbling". For a safety-net style of welfare to work well, you have to have in place actual affluence for the overwhelming majority of your population. This means that every full-time job is capable in some way of putting a roof over the head of the employee, feeding that employee and giving them a measure of quality of life. Every full-time job has to be like this. From this widespread wealth, funding a few needy people who cannot work full-time becomes easier. Not only that, full-time workers don't chafe and rebel against a broken welfare system they see as unfair. As soon as full-time jobs require "topping-up" by means of welfare payments, a snow-ball effect comes into play. Businesses will move towards paying lower wages in order to better perform (financially speaking) against their competitors. You then end up with the situation we have here - top-up payments for low incomes and people who cannot afford to work for a living because they lose the benefits that make their lifestyle possible. Thus, to have a successful welfare safety net, you need to redistribute not just wealth, not just the cost of living accommodation, but incomes. If nearly everyone is going to be richer then a lot of people will need to become poorer. No government can put this into effect and survive - the lobbyists and the people holding real power in this country would crush any attempt. Similarly, any attempt to remove the broken welfare system or to apply anything other than a superficial and ineffectual fix to it will be doomed to failure due to the public's outrage. This is the schizophrenia I am speaking of - the public as a whole generally detest that the system gets gamed, by "benefit scroungers" but the won't accept the hard choices needed to materially reform it. The only way you can resolve an un-resolvable problem, generally speaking, is to sweep the board and start again. I don't see the welfare system getting fixed before such an event.
see this bit here loz. that could be a pro EU argument Thus, to have a successful welfare safety net, you need to redistribute not just wealth, not just the cost of living accommodation, but incomes. If nearly everyone is going to be richer then a lot of people will need to become poorer. No government can put this into effect and survive - the lobbyists and the people holding real power in this country would crush any attempt. Similarly, any attempt to remove the broken welfare system or to apply anything other than a superficial and ineffectual fix to it will be doomed to failure due to the public's outrage. dont know if the will is there but 500000000 people united saying pay up or f.off. what they gonna do? move to a less stable part of the planet?.
If wealth wasn't redistributed by Government we would have starving, dying people on the streets of the UK. Does anyone really want to see that? A decent welfare system is the backbone of a civilized society but the reason we have ended up with what we now have has more to do with the wealthiest wanting to keep their wealth to themselves whilst the hardest working pay the most (in pounds and time) towards it.
You see, finm, I saw my post as both an argument in favour of EU membership AND Scottish independence. Oh wait, no - it had nothing to do with either. Silly finm :Hilarious: People are capable of changing things if: 1. They care enough about the issue. 2. There are enough who care about it. The art of good government is ensuring, above all else, that neither No.1 nor No.2 applies.
obviously a cynical post. the art of good governance is to lead the way not follow the herd. silly loz.
No mention there Loz of incontinent state spending, waste, debt and high taxation. If working people who pay taxes receive "top-up" benefits which are less than the amount they paid in, they were clearer paying too much tax in the first place and they are simply being bribed with their own money, minus the cost of administration which is flushed down the toilet. The calculated creation of the "client state" or cross-income state-dependency is catastrophically wasteful and economically illiterate. I don't believe in enforced and extreme redistribution because it is a disincentive to ambition and stifles economic activity. I do believe in fair taxation and social safety nets for the unfortunate. But it is a lopsided debate if we only concentrate on the avarice of the wealthy while turning a blind eye to the incompetence, political chicanery and profligacy of government. Governments must earn the right to have their fiscal activities viewed in a virtuous light. It cannot be assumed or taken for granted that government spending is always good and private wealth is always bad. Sometimes the reverse is true. Such prejudices and presumptions are wrapped up in ingrained political tribalism. Unless and until we move beyond that, no progress is possible.
Gimlet, the problems you mention are simply symptoms, they aren't causative factors. And simply wishing for fair taxation and social safety nets is merely stating desired outcomes, not methodologies for achieving such. If you could make me believe that a functional welfare system could be funded out of the savings of eliminating wasteful political practices, I believe you could extend the lifetime of our current social welfare model somewhat. However I don't believe there is enough wealth there for that, and even if there was, it would not be possible to realise it. There is simply no way of setting up the board so that, a. the wealthy retain their current levels of wealth and b. all those who work full-time can achieve a better-than-subsistence standard of living. If such were possible, we would have seen it by now. The only realistic economic model is that where the tide may raise some boats, it will correspondingly drop others (I hope this demonstrates the futility of using a simple physical model to describe an complicate economic system). It is a core belief of mine that in a reality where resources are limited, it is impossible to have relative wealth without a corresponding measure of scarcity and poverty elsewhere in the system. What Johnv would call a zero-sum game. This is not a call for revolution by the way. I don't suggest that we "eat the rich". I simply try to illustrate why all attempts to tinker with the welfare model, in preference to applying sweeping economic change, are doomed to failure.
