Re: A Contemporary Christmas Carol : Fri Dec 27, 2013 1:53 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

So what do claimants live on?

Frozen pizza, it seems to be the national dish judging by the chest freezers in supermarkets.

If you give me the link to your Twitter feed I should be able to find the figures you quoted if you're too busy, we wouldn't want people thinking you're just making stuff up.

Re: A Contemporary Christmas Carol : Fri Dec 27, 2013 2:01 pm  

Chris28 wrote:

Strange. I seem to recall being taught about "the poverty trap" in economics in the 1980's. The trap being that working can mean you are worse off, as you pay tax and NI etc on earnings, so people chose to stay on benefits. We'd had 5 years of Thatcher then, and I doubt it was a new concept anyway.

Its just disappointing that the masses swallow this claptrap from politicians without questioning it, or thinking for themselves.

Absolutely its always been an issue and the theory of working tax credit is a good one in handing back taxation to low paid to encourage them to work rather than just drawing benefits. In practice it can be abused by employee and employer alike, it can subsidise low pay for employers, it can encourage employers to advertise two 20 hour posts rather than one 40 hour full time post because its cheaper for them, its also commonplace in (for instance) the hotel industry (where my wife works) to have employees state that they must have more than 16 hours a week but definitely no more than "xxx" being the figure at which their tax credits drop - still doesn't make the theory of WTC a bad one though and as we've seen recently provides some good PR when the employment figures are released.

What is claptrap is statements based on the total benefits numbers which include in-work benefits (but they don't tell you that) and which are designed to outrage the party supporters into believing that there is a whole generation (or three generations, another Tory Party lie) consisting of "millions" (IDS's figure) of benefits claimants that have yet to be dealt with and thus justifying more and more stringent headline grabbing measures so that we are supposed to approve and applaud the fact that the terminally ill are being recommended for sanctions and return to work, sadly those sort of headlines work.

And sadly those headlines work because no-one ever questions them and sadly this must be pinned on the door of the Labour Party for every time IDS and his department of lies issue another statement like the one he has offered exclusively to the Daily Mail (I wonder why) today then the Labour Party should be demanding a breakdown or justification for the numbers that he uses and exposing those lies time and again until he learns to stop.

They aren't doing it though, but they will have to start soon.

Re: A Contemporary Christmas Carol : Fri Dec 27, 2013 2:22 pm  

BobbyD wrote:

Frozen pizza, it seems to be the national dish judging by the chest freezers in supermarkets.

If you give me the link to your Twitter feed I should be able to find the figures you quoted if you're too busy, we wouldn't want people thinking you're just making stuff up.

SO they steal the frozen pizzas because they haven't got the money to buy them, how and where do they cook them because they will presumably have been evicted for non-payment or rent.

If we adopted the Norwegian model (considering that their unemplyment rate is 3.3%), would you also be happy paying Norwegian rates of tax and NI?

Re: A Contemporary Christmas Carol : Fri Dec 27, 2013 2:47 pm  

BobbyD wrote:

Oh Christ, he doesn't have to care, he's part of a team running the country. They set out an agenda, and people either vote for it or not. At the last election the 3 main parties promised massive spending cuts, NHS privatisation and benefit reform among other things. Millions of people voted for these policies. If you weren't one of those, my commiserations but you took a stand. The problem is, with Rachel Reeves promising to be even tougher than the Tories the Conservatives are who you have to vote for otherwise these sanctions will be even more commonplace as Labour will surely get elected, then you'll be praying for the return of the "disgrace" that is IDS.

But nobody voted outright for him did they? I saw what Labour were doing to the old Incapacity Benefit through Atos. It was fair and asked non leading or yes/no questions. This joke of a government got hold of it and turned it into a farce. It wasn't Labour that came out and said they wanted to slash DLA by 20% (as Maria Miller admitted).

Believe me, I will never, ever pray for the return of the absolutely disgraceful Iain Disregards Statistics as long as I have a hole in me bum.

Re: A Contemporary Christmas Carol : Fri Dec 27, 2013 2:52 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

SO they steal the frozen pizzas because they haven't got the money to buy them, how and where do they cook them because they will presumably have been evicted for non-payment or rent.

I've no idea how they obtain them, perhaps the first thing you should look up, sorry, second thing after the LES unemployment article you posted on what I can only imagine is the worlds longest Twitter feed, is how many people stay unemployed for longer than the 2 years.

If we adopted the Norwegian model (considering that their unemplyment rate is 3.3%), would you also be happy paying Norwegian rates of tax and NI?

Oh God no, I've lived there. 36% starting rate of income tax, 2 rates of VAT that make ours seem generous, which means it's cheaper to get on a ferry to Sweden to buy meat, not booze or fags, meat. It's the side people don't hear about when they demand our country be more like those wonderful Scandinavians because they read how great it is in the Observer Travel Guide or whatever it's called.

Now, back to those employment figures you made up are having trouble locating.

Re: A Contemporary Christmas Carol : Fri Dec 27, 2013 2:59 pm  

Hull White Star wrote: But nobody voted outright for him did they? His constituents did. I saw what Labour were doing to the old Incapacity Benefit through Atos. It was fair and asked non leading or yes/no questions. This joke of a government got hold of it and turned it into a farce. It wasn't Labour that came out and said they wanted to slash DLA by 20% (as Maria Miller admitted). Yes, unscrupulously fair, just as this nurse, who quit in 2009 says. Oh, sorry, wrong article, still it makes good reading. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... er-1340838 Believe me, I will never, ever pray for the return of the absolutely disgraceful Iain Disregards Statistics as long as I have a hole in bum. Then when you get Reeves, and more people suffer as she's promised, your whining will fall on deaf ears.

Hull White Star wrote: But nobody voted outright for him did they? His constituents did. I saw what Labour were doing to the old Incapacity Benefit through Atos. It was fair and asked non leading or yes/no questions. This joke of a government got hold of it and turned it into a farce. It wasn't Labour that came out and said they wanted to slash DLA by 20% (as Maria Miller admitted). Yes, unscrupulously fair, just as this nurse, who quit in 2009 says. Oh, sorry, wrong article, still it makes good reading. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... er-1340838 Believe me, I will never, ever pray for the return of the absolutely disgraceful Iain Disregards Statistics as long as I have a hole in bum. Then when you get Reeves, and more people suffer as she's promised, your whining will fall on deaf ears.

Re: A Contemporary Christmas Carol : Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:08 pm  

BobbyD wrote: His constituents did. Yes, unscrupulously fair, just as this nurse, who quit in 2009 says. Oh, sorry, wrong article, still it makes good reading. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... er-1340838 Then when you get Reeves, and more people suffer as she's promised, your whining will fall on deaf ears. I don't have to whine, I have my benefit thank you very muchly and an acknowledgement from this government that I am what I say I am. How many flights of stairs did you put down on your ESA50 pre 2008 and did you say you could or could not step up two steps on the same question post 2010? How much pain did you say you were in on your ESA50 pre 2008 in the half a page box asking you to explain and which box did you tick to say if you could hold a pen in your ESA50 post 2010. Labour was trialling Atos, this government went full steam ahead, changed the questions, disregards specialist opinion and calls people liars. {why do I have a sense of deja vu here??}

BobbyD wrote: His constituents did. Yes, unscrupulously fair, just as this nurse, who quit in 2009 says. Oh, sorry, wrong article, still it makes good reading. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... er-1340838 Then when you get Reeves, and more people suffer as she's promised, your whining will fall on deaf ears. I don't have to whine, I have my benefit thank you very muchly and an acknowledgement from this government that I am what I say I am. How many flights of stairs did you put down on your ESA50 pre 2008 and did you say you could or could not step up two steps on the same question post 2010? How much pain did you say you were in on your ESA50 pre 2008 in the half a page box asking you to explain and which box did you tick to say if you could hold a pen in your ESA50 post 2010. Labour was trialling Atos, this government went full steam ahead, changed the questions, disregards specialist opinion and calls people liars. {why do I have a sense of deja vu here??}

Re: A Contemporary Christmas Carol : Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:15 pm  

BobbyD wrote: Yes, unscrupulously fair, just as this nurse, who quit in 2009 says. Oh, sorry, wrong article, still it makes good reading. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... er-1340838 One memorable quote from that article... Last week, a Panorama documentary revealed that each week between January and August last year, 32 people died who the Government had declared could be helped back into work. Each week for eight months, 32 people died who had been removed from the benefits system. Given that even my old mate who died in a hospice at the age of 52 from an inoperable brain tumour could still press the morphine button as long as someone had placed it in his hand that morning, then that one criteria would class him as being fit to work according to the ATOS spokesperson who in turn insists that they are just following government instructions. That makes me sick.

BobbyD wrote: Yes, unscrupulously fair, just as this nurse, who quit in 2009 says. Oh, sorry, wrong article, still it makes good reading. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... er-1340838 One memorable quote from that article... Last week, a Panorama documentary revealed that each week between January and August last year, 32 people died who the Government had declared could be helped back into work. Each week for eight months, 32 people died who had been removed from the benefits system. Given that even my old mate who died in a hospice at the age of 52 from an inoperable brain tumour could still press the morphine button as long as someone had placed it in his hand that morning, then that one criteria would class him as being fit to work according to the ATOS spokesperson who in turn insists that they are just following government instructions. That makes me sick.

Re: A Contemporary Christmas Carol : Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:20 pm  

Hull White Star wrote:

I don't have to whine, I have my benefit thank you very muchly and an acknowledgement from this government that I am what I say I am. How many flights of stairs did you put down on your ESA50 pre 2008 and did you say you could or could not step up two steps on the same question post 2010? How much pain did you say you were in on your ESA50 pre 2008 in the half a page box asking you to explain and which box did you tick to say if you could hold a pen in your ESA50 post 2010.

Labour was trialling Atos, this government went full steam ahead, changed the questions, disregards specialist opinion and calls people liars.

{why do I have a sense of deja vu here??}

Labour voter by perchance!

Re: A Contemporary Christmas Carol : Fri Dec 27, 2013 3:25 pm  

BobbyD wrote:

Labour voter by perchance!

Just read the comments from the article that JC posted this morning from the DM. It seems that some staunch Tories are even sickened by this man and what he is doing. When you have commentators from the Mail bemoaning IDS and his ideology, tells me everything I need to know.