Thanks. I’ll have to have a look.
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It sounds like we all agree that we don’t like people that cheat the system. Be that by not paying as much they should or by taking out more than they should.
It feels like in a normal sane world this should be common ground.
You have to ask why are people so polarised, when I expect our actual differences are not so wide as the political divide?
Is human nature really so varied? Or is it the propaganda that aims our natural instincts at their preferred targets.
Are we really on here arguing the relative morals of helping children vs. the elderly?
Why not both? And why would somebody want you to choose?
Is it possibly because the elderly can vote and children can’t?
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Modern media and social media.
E.g. Did people all of sudden become angry at cyclists, or were they directed to be angry but certain sources?
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So what are the incentives to work and contribute if after all your hard work, you are considered nothing more than an expense?
Consigning a generation of people to poverty and lower outcomes is not a blame that I would place on people retiring, they haven’t consigned them to anything. The Government maybe, or questionably the individuals themselves.
Anyhow, it’s a matter of opinion. I still believe they are of equal morality, if it was determined by financial upside you could throw in a number of claimants are a negative.
I concur.
Sorry, I wasn’t aware that my statement targeted any specific group.
Labour suspends seven rebel MPs over two-child benefit cap - BBC News.
Well only last year 7 MPs had the Whip suspended for supporting an SNP amendment.
However, I accept that “U-turn” may have been the wrong term to use in my reply.
I welcome the decision but I feel it is a decision made to quieten the discontent among the back benchers. Rather than a balanced “choice” but that’s my opinion.
But that was a U-turn surely?
I maybe wrong but how did it leave them with an additional £5bn in spending. It was a benefit cut to save £1.3bn. Which following a backlash they scrapped/toned down to appease.
So my understanding is it didn’t create additional spending, just stopped them from reducing spending.
As I have said I understand it doesn’t happen over night.
You have supplied no evidence to support the above, however, I admire your optimism and genuinely wish for you to be right.
I think our points/angles of debate slightly differ here. I appreciate that there are a lot of factors that affect the Governments spending and I am in no way trying to under play the challenges the Government faces, however, I still stand by my opinion that it seems to be reactive rather than proactive.
@redfanman I genuinely mean it, when I say thank you for your educated and balanced response(s). I hope your optimism is justified over time.
Why do you never relate to the supporting documentation you provide to justify your point, just a snarky comment.
Can you elaborate as to what I am supposed to be looking at in this graph and how it relates to my reply to you.
My response to you referred to 110,000 of the Total Net Migration of 204,000 being Asylum seekers, a reason why it wasn’t in the news.
You have provided me a graph that does not show Asylum figures, therefore its context is irrelevant to my point.
My Source of the “numbers” for you, taken from the same ONS report you have referred to.
Maybe try reading the text and not just looking at the pretty pictures. 
I hope I have interpreted your post correctly and I apologise if I have missed some of the context behind it. I am also not disagreeing with you .
In my opinion the majority of people don’t work hard to be classed as Rich, they do it to survive, because it is a necessity, because it is what people should do. It is about having respect.
I work hard (although other people may disagree) to survive and to provide, to better myself annd people around me and have no problem paying Tax into a system that helps and supports other people. But I want my money spent wisely rather than being taken for granted or mis-used.
People are getting irate at working hard for no financial reward, because their money is increasingly spent on people who don’t or are unable to work hard and this is something that needs to be better managed by any party that is in power.
Whether we become Rich or not, get rewarded for our sacrifices or not, fail or succeed, we all need to be better humans and take responsibility/accountability for our own decisions.
As we have started quoting the Bible:
[ Timothy 5:8]
8 Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
“In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us” ([2 Thessalonians 3:6]
The book of Proverbs commonly addresses issues like laziness in a cause/effect format. For instance, it instructs that those who don’t go to work don’t get paid. As a result, they don’t have money, and thus they don’t eat. The concept is easily relatable to modern day life.
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Who’s getting penalised for hard work?
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I quite honestly couldn’t give a shit about whether there are multiple generations on benefits and not working, if the cost to enforce that is higher than the cost of paying out their benefits.
You can’t just have a myopic focus on one particular factor. For example, from what I remember of the last time I looked at the issue (mid 2010s), the states in the US who imposed a work/drug testing requirement for unemployment benefits ended up spending far more on that than they saved.
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Seriously I was showing you the total numbers.
As for the rest, check your maths. You’re way off. Also check what net vs gross means.
Hint. Now I’m being snarky.
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You may not, but a lot of others do in England and they have as much right to their thoughts as you do.
They all work hard for their money and don’t want to give it to those that aren’t prepared to work or help to give to or support society.
We all work hard, darling. And most people who work very hard don’t live in a two million pound house.
I remember doing minimum wage jobs when I was younger. It was fucking exhausting.
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Which is fair enough, but in work benefits are paid to those that already are in employment. It’s not a subsidy to those people, so much, as a subsidy to their employers.
Around 1.5 million people receive carer’s allowance. They may or may not be working, but they are saving the country a fortune in employing carers (even if there were enough people to fulfil that role).
You will always get chancers gaming the system, but it’s a minor element for which a lot of effort is already spent in enforcement.
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It always amazes me how some better off people are surprised that others choose a life of just barely surviving on benefits to a life of just barely surviving and working 60 hours a week to manage it.
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From fullfact.org:
Figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that in 2023/24 £7.4 billion was overpaid in benefits expenditure due to fraud. This is approximately 2.8% of total benefits spending.
Overall, the government overpaid £9.7 billion in benefits payments, whether through fraud, claimant error or official error.
From the BBC:
New analysis suggests seven million households are missing out on £24bn of financial help and support because of unclaimed benefits and social tariffs.
The research from Policy in Practice, a social policy and data analytics company, says awareness, complexity and stigma are the main barriers stopping people claiming.
This analysis covers benefits across England, Scotland and Wales such as universal credit and pension credit, local authority help including free school meals and council tax support, as well as social tariffs from water, energy and broadband providers.
- More than three times as much in benefits is unclaimed as is fraudulently claimed.
- Fraudulent claims are only 2.8% of the total amount paid out.
Why the outrage?
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Because that’s what people have been told to think by very wealthy people who don’t want to pay tax👍
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The Bongo-Bongo Land line is brilliant.
So they’re willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces?
Read what I said again, my point was that trying to cut down on such cases often costs more than just giving them the money to begin with.
It’s just a fundamental disagreement. I get hard work. My grandfather worked as a gas meter reader all his life. But I do not get how financial success gets penalised. It’s just different philosophies. I grew up with nothing. Made something. So selfishly I think I should keep some of it rather than give it to some who do not care or do not work. I have never wanted to lose the safety net for those who need. My tax has always been paid with broad shoulders. - as that what percentages do. But some do not like success. My dad came from nothing to be a headmaster and died of the stress of trying to help less advantaged kids.
I did what I could from a crap Yorkshire comprehensive where I was bullied to shit for trying. So forgive me for making a few quid for my family.
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Maybe that makes be posh. As I was called all my childhood.
Interesting quote I heard this week.
“Scandinavian level services with US level taxation” (or maybe Dubai)
Interesting thing is that the US government through one way or another is the biggest creator of jobs. That could apply in the UK too.