I think most people agree that it is a good idea that individuals who can work should be in work and it doesn't make sense to disincentivise them by making it more lucrative to be on benefits instead.
However, the obvious point is the reason being on benefits is more lucrative than being in work is because pay and working conditions are generally crap. Something like 40% of people who are on Universal Credit are in-work. Why? Because Government and working people have failed to demand that employers, especially large corporations ensure that pay suitably reflects the hard work of their employees.
We have failed as a society where a young person, despite being in work, barely has any chance of financial security or getting on the property ladder or families must live pay cheque to pay cheque because big business has been allowed to walk all over the labour force. Instead we have the warped narrative that people are lazy rather than being demoralised and without hope for a better future. We get this bizarre situation where the British taxpayer supplements the wages of people because the Government cannot seem to find the will to protect living standard and working conditions for the population by expecting businesses to pay their fair share.
Hard work does not pay. Social mobility is on life support and merotocracy is a lie.
It's easier to blame the poor and foreigners though I guess.
The cost of living is what is ruinous. The corporate greed. The bloated bills we have to pay while those companies cream millions in profits. That could be tackled. Take the BBC. A licence is compulsory. That needs to be scrapped. Hard work does pay. There are many successful people in business who are testimony to that. But not everyone has that drive or hunger, or the mental capacity to get the gears of enterprise working. And the red tape put in the way is increasingly prohibitive. But when you put wages up, that means bills go up as services need to be paid for. Also, immigration is keeping wages low at the bottom end of the pay scale. There was some story the other day about how immigrants have to pick fruit and veg in this country. No Brits wanted to do it. Why? Because the wages are shit.
Personally I think the outrageous rents and mortgage rates we currently have will forever exclude people from being able to rent affordably or own their own property. Having said that there are plenty of stories of young people who scrimp and scrape and get that deposit saved then start on the property ladder. That's how you do it.
Syl said
Mar 23 1:16 PM, 2025
There is something really wrong when a person on benefits is better off financially than a person who is in full-time employment.
Barksdale, it is easy to blame the unemployed 'poor', and foreigners, but immigration, legal and illegal, has to be sorted.
Governments, this one and previous ones, have allowed the UK to be brought to it's knees in certain areas, the north much more than the south...I live in the north.
It seems no one has answers...immigration has to be controlled one way or another, this influx affects your kids and mine.
My grandson left uni with a huge debt, he is no nearer buying a house now than he was 5 years ago, he works for the NHS and is totally fed up with the way many of the staff are treated. His partner also left uni, (both with masters) and she has struggled to find a decent employer, at the moment she is temping, using none of the skills she trained 6 years for. They are holding off starting a family because of it.
They live a good lifestyle, but prospects of it getting better, like my generations did with hard work, are not as likely as ours was.
Barksdale said
Mar 23 4:32 PM, 2025
Digger wrote:
The cost of living is what is ruinous. The corporate greed. The bloated bills we have to pay while those companies cream millions in profits. That could be tackled. Take the BBC. A licence is compulsory. That needs to be scrapped. Hard work does pay. There are many successful people in business who are testimony to that. But not everyone has that drive or hunger, or the mental capacity to get the gears of enterprise working. And the red tape put in the way is increasingly prohibitive. But when you put wages up, that means bills go up as services need to be paid for. Also, immigration is keeping wages low at the bottom end of the pay scale. There was some story the other day about how immigrants have to pick fruit and veg in this country. No Brits wanted to do it. Why? Because the wages are shit.
Personally I think the outrageous rents and mortgage rates we currently have will forever exclude people from being able to rent affordably or own their own property. Having said that there are plenty of stories of young people who scrimp and scrape and get that deposit saved then start on the property ladder. That's how you do it.
I agree with a fair amount of your post but want to specifically address the hard work doesn't pay point.
There will be a fraction of people who will manage to make their way from nothing to wealth and I wish them nothing but all the best. It may seem I am anti-rich but that isn't the case. However, I think we have reached the stage where it is next to impossible for that to happen from people from ordinary backgrounds and it is difficult for them to even reach financial security. We then sell them the message that if they haven't succeeded it is because they just didn't want it enough, or there is something wrong with their character, or they need to grind more.
The large majority of young people I see in my organisation or know from my social circle are not defective in some way. I suspect that is the case for most young people. Instead they are struggling in a system that is rigged against them, which they either know consciously or unconsciously (which then begins to manifest as mental illness.)
I am incredibly grateful to have come up in the era I did because I think that was probably the last window of opportunity for some time for that to happen.
Barksdale said
Mar 23 4:35 PM, 2025
Syl wrote:
There is something really wrong when a person on benefits is better off financially than a person who is in full-time employment. Barksdale, it is easy to blame the unemployed 'poor', and foreigners, but immigration, legal and illegal, has to be sorted. Governments, this one and previous ones, have allowed the UK to be brought to it's knees in certain areas, the north much more than the south...I live in the north. It seems no one has answers...immigration has to be controlled one way or another, this influx affects your kids and mine.
My grandson left uni with a huge debt, he is no nearer buying a house now than he was 5 years ago, he works for the NHS and is totally fed up with the way many of the staff are treated. His partner also left uni, (both with masters) and she has struggled to find a decent employer, at the moment she is temping, using none of the skills she trained 6 years for. They are holding off starting a family because of it.
They live a good lifestyle, but prospects of it getting better, like my generations did with hard work, are not as likely as ours was.
I agree that immigration needs to be brought back under control and rates are far too high at the moment. I also think it is legitimate to look towards skills based immigration as our primary focus.
I just don't think it as large an issue (or disability fraud) when it comes to falling standards of living as wealth hoarding.
Red Okktober said
Mar 23 5:17 PM, 2025
Reeves has announced that she intends to 'slash' 10,000 civil service jobs to save money - even more competition for the sick and disabled that she is supposed to be getting back into work.
I think her and Starmer have bitten off far more than they can chew, and they are just talking the talk at the moment and making grandiose plans that are never going to work.
The shit will start hitting the fan at some point, and people will wonder how on earth were this pair of imbeciles allowed to run riot unchecked and cause so much damage.
Digger said
Mar 23 5:51 PM, 2025
Barksdale wrote:
Digger wrote:
The cost of living is what is ruinous. The corporate greed. The bloated bills we have to pay while those companies cream millions in profits. That could be tackled. Take the BBC. A licence is compulsory. That needs to be scrapped. Hard work does pay. There are many successful people in business who are testimony to that. But not everyone has that drive or hunger, or the mental capacity to get the gears of enterprise working. And the red tape put in the way is increasingly prohibitive. But when you put wages up, that means bills go up as services need to be paid for. Also, immigration is keeping wages low at the bottom end of the pay scale. There was some story the other day about how immigrants have to pick fruit and veg in this country. No Brits wanted to do it. Why? Because the wages are shit.
Personally I think the outrageous rents and mortgage rates we currently have will forever exclude people from being able to rent affordably or own their own property. Having said that there are plenty of stories of young people who scrimp and scrape and get that deposit saved then start on the property ladder. That's how you do it.
I agree with a fair amount of your post but want to specifically address the hard work doesn't pay point.
There will be a fraction of people who will manage to make their way from nothing to wealth and I wish them nothing but all the best. It may seem I am anti-rich but that isn't the case. However, I think we have reached the stage where it is next to impossible for that to happen from people from ordinary backgrounds and it is difficult for them to even reach financial security. We then sell them the message that if they haven't succeeded it is because they just didn't want it enough, or there is something wrong with their character, or they need to grind more.
The large majority of young people I see in my organisation or know from my social circle are not defective in some way. I suspect that is the case for most young people. Instead they are struggling in a system that is rigged against them, which they either know consciously or unconsciously (which then begins to manifest as mental illness.)
I am incredibly grateful to have come up in the era I did because I think that was probably the last window of opportunity for some time for that to happen.
It's a hard one because we have people who seem to just have nothing but bad luck and then others who forge successful businesses from just about nothing. Is it luck or is it a dogged belief that you can succeed if you really want to. And I'm not talking about the really rich, but just those who can comfortably get by.
Red Okktober said
Mar 25 6:17 PM, 2025
Rayner's at it now, claiming that working class people don't want handouts and trying to justify welfare reform. She ain't fooling nobody.
I'm looking forward to watching Reeves squirm tomorrow and blame all her shortcomings on 'the world has changed'
Reeves choosing to halve the income of disabled ppl some of whom are bedridden is morally repugnant. this choice is plunging millions of children into poverty. Of course some ppl claiming welfare are frauds but two independent doctors have to be convinced beyond all doubt that someone is not fit for work aswell as a GP so the percentage of chancers are low. Why not tax the billionaires of big business and the tycoons behind social media empires? So many labour MP's are furious and don't know what their party stands for. One confessed they didn't come into politics to rob the disabled and they intend to rebel. The Tories wouldn't go this far.. She is right that the world is changing, the lack of empathy and decency of sociopaths like Trump is being normalised. Ditto the misogyny of predators like Andrew tate and their trigger happy incel minions. And now the labour party robbing the disabled of the mere pittance they once received. It's disgusting behaviour.
Red Okktober said
Mar 27 11:52 AM, 2025
Anonymous wrote:
Reeves choosing to halve the income of disabled ppl some of whom are bedridden is morally repugnant. this choice is plunging millions of children into poverty. Of course some ppl claiming welfare are frauds but two independent doctors have to be convinced beyond all doubt that someone is not fit for work aswell as a GP so the percentage of chancers are low. Why not tax the billionaires of big business and the tycoons behind social media empires? So many labour MP's are furious and don't know what their party stands for. One confessed they didn't come into politics to rob the disabled and they intend to rebel. The Tories wouldn't go this far.. She is right that the world is changing, the lack of empathy and decency of sociopaths like Trump is being normalised. Ditto the misogyny of predators like Andrew tate and their trigger happy incel minions. And now the labour party robbing the disabled of the mere pittance they once received. It's disgusting behaviour.
I agree in theory with having more thorough checks for people claiming sickness benefit, as it used to be easy to influence doctors into writing sick notes, repeat prescriptions etc. So I imagine it's been easy to get signed off on benefits as well. I think most docs are pushed for time and want as easy a life as possible so just agree with what most patients want. It depends where the government draws the line though and I 100% disagree with genuine sick and borderline cases being punished. Even if jobs were available, many of the people being targeted will be completely useless in the workforce.
The world has always changed anon, wars, economic crisis etc. The government of the day is suppose to deal with that and not use 'the world has changed' as an excuse for inept performance. Russsia invaded Ukraine 3 years ago, Reeves knew that when she made her Autumn budget, and because 'growth' has been disappointing she is now blaming the 'changing world', but she already knew and should have factored that in to her original projections.
Also, the new future projections are based on things promised and not things done. House building seems to be central to this, and the figures they have promised have been deemed unreachable by the building industry. Even if if they managed to get somewhere close to the target numbers in 5 years, there will still be a housing crisis because we would have had an another 5 years worth of immigrants arriving.
'The government is set to fall woefully short of delivering on its promise to build 1.5 million homes by 2029'
We will never have enough houses the way this country is being run...just as we will never have enough NHS services.
Too many people contributing too little, demanding too much.
Rayner has pledged that 1.5 million new homes will be built before the next general election, and maybe they will, but for whom?
A huge undertaking locally is building new houses, 90% are big 4/5 bedroom houses, 10% will be affordable housing for first time buyers.
As has been pointed out by local residents, 2 or 3 smaller homes could have been built on the land where one new house will stand.
How many new buyers can afford a million £ mortgage in today's climate?
Red Okktober said
Mar 27 1:53 PM, 2025
I don't think anyone takes any pledges by this government seriously. They just say things that look good on paper then fail to deliver and make excuses, rinse and repeat. They are a bunch of charlatans. By having a target for 2029, it means they won't be around to answer the shortfall as there will be another GE, and absolutely no way will this lot be voted in again. They keep going on about this so-called £22 billion black hole they inherited - I'm wondering how big the black hole is going to be for the next government!
The Shadow Chancellor accused Reeves of 'fiddling the targets' then failing to meet them. She came up well short of the £5 billion savings she promised to make from welfare cuts, and had to make some last minute additions, and is still a bit short.
How dumb is this - after all the outrage at the freebies, she took two free tickets to see Sabrina Carpenter just a few weeks before announcing the welfare cuts. She now says she won't take any more (after being caught out of course) free tickets as she 'understands public feelings about politicians freebies' Surely she already knew that after the last time LoL
Reeves choosing to halve the income of disabled ppl some of whom are bedridden is morally repugnant. this choice is plunging millions of children into poverty. Of course some ppl claiming welfare are frauds but two independent doctors have to be convinced beyond all doubt that someone is not fit for work aswell as a GP so the percentage of chancers are low.
BIB: Not sure where you get that from but I feel you're wrong there unless I've misinterpreted what you're saying.
It doesn't seem to matter whether your GP together with numerous specialists back up your claim with written documentation or not. Most, if not all, assessments are done by the likes of nurses or those of similar backgrounds who - having never met you let alone examined you - "grade" the impact your illness/disability has on a day-to-day basis. You can send in reams of paper and many of these "assessors" have been reported for not even reading those notes - many claimants have secretly taped their assessments and proven that what they said bore no resemblance to the assessor's written reports.
So many found the form filling and assessments so stressful they don't ask for a review when completely refused benefit(s) and those fortunate to receive PIP, but not the amounts they fully deserve, are too scared to ask for a review as there's a chance they could lose what has been awarded and/or many are too ill to go through it all again.
A bona fide UK citizen who has mobility problems could receive £28.70 a week on the basic mobility component which could be taken away/denied...offset that with an immigrant who will receive "£49.18 for each person in your household for food, clothes/toiletries"
OAP's denied Winter Fuel payment (£300 if single & born before Sept 1944)?...A pregnant asylum seeker (or has even been refused asylum) will be eligible for a £300 maternity grant, plus extra money will be paid each week if you are pregnant or already have kids under a certain age for food.
I don't want to think about the NHS costs with these immigrants, makes me see red.
Here's an idea...halt the immigration grifters/handouts and there might be enough to at least help out the disabled and OAPs..
"Benefit cuts will lead to more deaths, experts have said. The British Medical Journal, a leading medical publication, has published an article by four public health experts saying the sickness and disability benefit cuts announced last week could lead to deaths." Of course, these experts will be ignored also but who cares eh?
Syl said
Mar 28 12:09 PM, 2025
It's one form of culling, I suppose.
Anonymous said
Mar 28 7:45 PM, 2025
To the anon, I apologise if I was incorrect but I thought the most disabled had two doctors assess them at home after the box ticking process and a GP assessment. I may be wrong. But Reeves has taken PIP (personal independence payment) from only the claimants who receive the most money. That means she has halved the income of the MOST disabled. Hence the outcry, she knows its a disgrace and tries to justify it with wanting to "help the disabled who want to work get back into work." But those who are on the higher element, ppl with MS , others who are housebound, ppl needing assistance to put on socks due to chronic pain I sincerely doubt they are able to work whether they want to or not. Many of these people have worked for decades and paid their dues, fallen ill or been injured in an accident only to be told their contributions don't matter and their income is halved. If you have to take money off the genuinely disabled and vulnerable to balance your books you're in the wrong job.
Magica said
Mar 28 10:24 PM, 2025
Syl wrote:
It's one form of culling, I suppose.
Yes, the pensioners and disabled. Who next?
Anonymous said
Mar 28 11:57 PM, 2025
Anonymous wrote:
To the anon, I apologise if I was incorrect but I thought the most disabled had two doctors assess them at home after the box ticking process and a GP assessment. I may be wrong. But Reeves has taken PIP (personal independence payment) from only the claimants who receive the most money. That means she has halved the income of the MOST disabled. Hence the outcry, she knows its a disgrace and tries to justify it with wanting to "help the disabled who want to work get back into work." But those who are on the higher element, ppl with MS , others who are housebound, ppl needing assistance to put on socks due to chronic pain I sincerely doubt they are able to work whether they want to or not. Many of these people have worked for decades and paid their dues, fallen ill or been injured in an accident only to be told their contributions don't matter and their income is halved. If you have to take money off the genuinely disabled and vulnerable to balance your books you're in the wrong job.
In theory applicants are advised to send in as much supportive medical evidence as possible with their claim but not everyone has that support. A pal (who I mentioned upthread) had quite a few supportive documents to back her claim but was deemed “fit for work” and yet there have been other claimants who, after just a GP confirmation(s), have had telephone assessments also and were awarded the 2 components making up PIP - again no medical, no first hand knowledge of their medical history. Also, a lot depends on how you fill in the forms - there’s an excellent benefits site that offers up advice/guides and from what I’ve read many despairing claimants have been helped.
It seems, to me anyway, that it’s generally more luck of the draw who you get for the assessment as to the end result. If you’re lucky you get someone who knows about your particular ailment etc and how it would affect your daily existence. How can someone “grade” someone on mental health issues when they have no experience with MH? It’s farcical.
Yet the Govt/DWP carry on ignoring the very people who they should be listening to ie the disabled, disabled organisations, medical bods and the likes, you know the very people who have hands on knowledge and experience. It’s abhorrent.
Anonymous said
Mar 29 12:02 AM, 2025
Magica wrote:
Syl wrote:
It's one form of culling, I suppose.
Yes, the pensioners and disabled. Who next?
It won’t be the MP’s salaries and perks that’s for sure.
Barksdale said
Mar 29 11:15 AM, 2025
Magica wrote:
Syl wrote:
It's one form of culling, I suppose.
Yes, the pensioners and disabled. Who next?
Probably some cuts to pension allowances, other forms of benefits and non-essential NHS programmes.
Welcome to Austerity 2.0.
Once again ordinary families carry the can for the rich who will no doubt get a bail out in the economic downturn,
Maddog said
Mar 29 3:33 PM, 2025
Barksdale wrote:
Magica wrote:
Syl wrote:
It's one form of culling, I suppose.
Yes, the pensioners and disabled. Who next?
Probably some cuts to pension allowances, other forms of benefits and non-essential NHS programmes.
Welcome to Austerity 2.0.
Once again ordinary families carry the can for the rich who will no doubt get a bail out in the economic downturn,
It's probably going to get worse. The UK is aging and the elderly are the biggest strain on social services, especially healthcare..
There aren't enough worker bees to pay into the system. Immigrants can plug some of the holes, but the UK doesn't seem to be trying to attract what they need, and instead allow for more problems to be imported..
It's all sort of a problematic ponzi scheme..On one hand their are only so many resources for so many people..On the other hand, you need an ever-expanding pool of workers to keep pace with the ever-expanding pool of non workers.
I think most western countries are going to have to start means testing for benefits that you get at a certain age..
I just don't know if any elected government can withstand the pushback they will receive from older crowd. It's called the 3rd rail of politics over here for a reason .
Syl said
Mar 29 3:53 PM, 2025
The population of over 90's in the UK is at an all-time high....and the men are at fault.
For some reason, more men are now living beyond 90 and catching up with the women.
Maybe we have looked after them too well.
The cost of living is what is ruinous. The corporate greed. The bloated bills we have to pay while those companies cream millions in profits. That could be tackled. Take the BBC. A licence is compulsory. That needs to be scrapped. Hard work does pay. There are many successful people in business who are testimony to that. But not everyone has that drive or hunger, or the mental capacity to get the gears of enterprise working. And the red tape put in the way is increasingly prohibitive. But when you put wages up, that means bills go up as services need to be paid for. Also, immigration is keeping wages low at the bottom end of the pay scale. There was some story the other day about how immigrants have to pick fruit and veg in this country. No Brits wanted to do it. Why? Because the wages are shit.
Personally I think the outrageous rents and mortgage rates we currently have will forever exclude people from being able to rent affordably or own their own property. Having said that there are plenty of stories of young people who scrimp and scrape and get that deposit saved then start on the property ladder. That's how you do it.
Barksdale, it is easy to blame the unemployed 'poor', and foreigners, but immigration, legal and illegal, has to be sorted.
Governments, this one and previous ones, have allowed the UK to be brought to it's knees in certain areas, the north much more than the south...I live in the north.
It seems no one has answers...immigration has to be controlled one way or another, this influx affects your kids and mine.
My grandson left uni with a huge debt, he is no nearer buying a house now than he was 5 years ago, he works for the NHS and is totally fed up with the way many of the staff are treated. His partner also left uni, (both with masters) and she has struggled to find a decent employer, at the moment she is temping, using none of the skills she trained 6 years for. They are holding off starting a family because of it.
They live a good lifestyle, but prospects of it getting better, like my generations did with hard work, are not as likely as ours was.
I agree with a fair amount of your post but want to specifically address the hard work doesn't pay point.
There will be a fraction of people who will manage to make their way from nothing to wealth and I wish them nothing but all the best. It may seem I am anti-rich but that isn't the case. However, I think we have reached the stage where it is next to impossible for that to happen from people from ordinary backgrounds and it is difficult for them to even reach financial security. We then sell them the message that if they haven't succeeded it is because they just didn't want it enough, or there is something wrong with their character, or they need to grind more.
The large majority of young people I see in my organisation or know from my social circle are not defective in some way. I suspect that is the case for most young people. Instead they are struggling in a system that is rigged against them, which they either know consciously or unconsciously (which then begins to manifest as mental illness.)
I am incredibly grateful to have come up in the era I did because I think that was probably the last window of opportunity for some time for that to happen.
I agree that immigration needs to be brought back under control and rates are far too high at the moment. I also think it is legitimate to look towards skills based immigration as our primary focus.
I just don't think it as large an issue (or disability fraud) when it comes to falling standards of living as wealth hoarding.
I think her and Starmer have bitten off far more than they can chew, and they are just talking the talk at the moment and making grandiose plans that are never going to work.
The shit will start hitting the fan at some point, and people will wonder how on earth were this pair of imbeciles allowed to run riot unchecked and cause so much damage.
It's a hard one because we have people who seem to just have nothing but bad luck and then others who forge successful businesses from just about nothing. Is it luck or is it a dogged belief that you can succeed if you really want to. And I'm not talking about the really rich, but just those who can comfortably get by.
Rayner's at it now, claiming that working class people don't want handouts and trying to justify welfare reform. She ain't fooling nobody.
I'm looking forward to watching Reeves squirm tomorrow and blame all her shortcomings on 'the world has changed'
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgde4gv409o
I agree in theory with having more thorough checks for people claiming sickness benefit, as it used to be easy to influence doctors into writing sick notes, repeat prescriptions etc. So I imagine it's been easy to get signed off on benefits as well. I think most docs are pushed for time and want as easy a life as possible so just agree with what most patients want. It depends where the government draws the line though and I 100% disagree with genuine sick and borderline cases being punished. Even if jobs were available, many of the people being targeted will be completely useless in the workforce.
The world has always changed anon, wars, economic crisis etc. The government of the day is suppose to deal with that and not use 'the world has changed' as an excuse for inept performance. Russsia invaded Ukraine 3 years ago, Reeves knew that when she made her Autumn budget, and because 'growth' has been disappointing she is now blaming the 'changing world', but she already knew and should have factored that in to her original projections.
Also, the new future projections are based on things promised and not things done. House building seems to be central to this, and the figures they have promised have been deemed unreachable by the building industry. Even if if they managed to get somewhere close to the target numbers in 5 years, there will still be a housing crisis because we would have had an another 5 years worth of immigrants arriving.
'The government is set to fall woefully short of delivering on its promise to build 1.5 million homes by 2029'
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-14508379/Labour-fall-far-short-1-5-million-homes-target-says-construction-industry-body.html
Too many people contributing too little, demanding too much.
Rayner has pledged that 1.5 million new homes will be built before the next general election, and maybe they will, but for whom?
A huge undertaking locally is building new houses, 90% are big 4/5 bedroom houses, 10% will be affordable housing for first time buyers.
As has been pointed out by local residents, 2 or 3 smaller homes could have been built on the land where one new house will stand.
How many new buyers can afford a million £ mortgage in today's climate?
I don't think anyone takes any pledges by this government seriously. They just say things that look good on paper then fail to deliver and make excuses, rinse and repeat. They are a bunch of charlatans. By having a target for 2029, it means they won't be around to answer the shortfall as there will be another GE, and absolutely no way will this lot be voted in again. They keep going on about this so-called £22 billion black hole they inherited - I'm wondering how big the black hole is going to be for the next government!
The Shadow Chancellor accused Reeves of 'fiddling the targets' then failing to meet them. She came up well short of the £5 billion savings she promised to make from welfare cuts, and had to make some last minute additions, and is still a bit short.
How dumb is this - after all the outrage at the freebies, she took two free tickets to see Sabrina Carpenter just a few weeks before announcing the welfare cuts. She now says she won't take any more (after being caught out of course) free tickets as she 'understands public feelings about politicians freebies' Surely she already knew that after the last time LoL
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/27/rachel-reeves-refuse-free-concert-tickets-criticism-freebies
BIB: Not sure where you get that from but I feel you're wrong there unless I've misinterpreted what you're saying.
It doesn't seem to matter whether your GP together with numerous specialists back up your claim with written documentation or not. Most, if not all, assessments are done by the likes of nurses or those of similar backgrounds who - having never met you let alone examined you - "grade" the impact your illness/disability has on a day-to-day basis. You can send in reams of paper and many of these "assessors" have been reported for not even reading those notes - many claimants have secretly taped their assessments and proven that what they said bore no resemblance to the assessor's written reports.
So many found the form filling and assessments so stressful they don't ask for a review when completely refused benefit(s) and those fortunate to receive PIP, but not the amounts they fully deserve, are too scared to ask for a review as there's a chance they could lose what has been awarded and/or many are too ill to go through it all again.
A bona fide UK citizen who has mobility problems could receive £28.70 a week on the basic mobility component which could be taken away/denied...offset that with an immigrant who will receive "£49.18 for each person in your household for food, clothes/toiletries"
OAP's denied Winter Fuel payment (£300 if single & born before Sept 1944)?...A pregnant asylum seeker (or has even been refused asylum) will be eligible for a £300 maternity grant, plus extra money will be paid each week if you are pregnant or already have kids under a certain age for food.
I don't want to think about the NHS costs with these immigrants, makes me see red.
Here's an idea...halt the immigration grifters/handouts and there might be enough to at least help out the disabled and OAPs..
"Benefit cuts will lead to more deaths, experts have said. The British Medical Journal, a leading medical publication, has published an article by four public health experts saying the sickness and disability benefit cuts announced last week could lead to deaths." Of course, these experts will be ignored also but who cares eh?
Yes, the pensioners and disabled. Who next?
In theory applicants are advised to send in as much supportive medical evidence as possible with their claim but not everyone has that support. A pal (who I mentioned upthread) had quite a few supportive documents to back her claim but was deemed “fit for work” and yet there have been other claimants who, after just a GP confirmation(s), have had telephone assessments also and were awarded the 2 components making up PIP - again no medical, no first hand knowledge of their medical history. Also, a lot depends on how you fill in the forms - there’s an excellent benefits site that offers up advice/guides and from what I’ve read many despairing claimants have been helped.
It seems, to me anyway, that it’s generally more luck of the draw who you get for the assessment as to the end result. If you’re lucky you get someone who knows about your particular ailment etc and how it would affect your daily existence. How can someone “grade” someone on mental health issues when they have no experience with MH? It’s farcical.
Yet the Govt/DWP carry on ignoring the very people who they should be listening to ie the disabled, disabled organisations, medical bods and the likes, you know the very people who have hands on knowledge and experience. It’s abhorrent.
It won’t be the MP’s salaries and perks that’s for sure.
Probably some cuts to pension allowances, other forms of benefits and non-essential NHS programmes.
Welcome to Austerity 2.0.
Once again ordinary families carry the can for the rich who will no doubt get a bail out in the economic downturn,
It's probably going to get worse. The UK is aging and the elderly are the biggest strain on social services, especially healthcare..
There aren't enough worker bees to pay into the system. Immigrants can plug some of the holes, but the UK doesn't seem to be trying to attract what they need, and instead allow for more problems to be imported..
It's all sort of a problematic ponzi scheme..On one hand their are only so many resources for so many people..On the other hand, you need an ever-expanding pool of workers to keep pace with the ever-expanding pool of non workers.
I think most western countries are going to have to start means testing for benefits that you get at a certain age..
I just don't know if any elected government can withstand the pushback they will receive from older crowd. It's called the 3rd rail of politics over here for a reason .
For some reason, more men are now living beyond 90 and catching up with the women.
Maybe we have looked after them too well.