ChaoticMusings

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.

Syl wrote:

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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.

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 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. 

Barksdale wrote:

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Digger wrote:

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 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.  

 

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 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. 

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 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.

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.

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?

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

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 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?

 

 

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.

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

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 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.

Magica wrote:

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Syl wrote:

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It's one form of culling, I suppose.

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 Yes, the pensioners and disabled.  Who next?

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 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,