There is only one question that needs to be asked in the debate about Welfare Benefits…and that is ‘What can we afford?‘.
When there is ‘no money left’ what can we afford?
That seems to have escaped the BBC who continue to question Coalition welfare reforms and the need for them on the basis that we have an endless supply of money.
The BBC et al ask only ‘What do they need?’ with no requirement as to answer how to pay for those ‘needs’.
That may seem easy for an organisation that doesn’t have to work for its funding but in the real world that’s a model that is the stuff of dreams….imagine being able to force your customers to pay for your goods even if they don’t use them…and in advance as well.
Some, even those on the Left, have come round to the idea that a bit of moderation and belt tightening might be in order.
George R points us in the direction of this piece by Dan Hodges:
‘Be under no illusion, when the great pillar of welfare finally comes thundering to the ground, every single one of us is going to be buried beneath it.’
Perhaps if the BBC took a wider perspective, a longer perspective, one that embraced both sides of the argument more equally rather than being the soapbox of choice for every welfare and vested interest group that wants to shout down the reforms, we might get not only a reasoned debate but a workable solution.
At the moment the BBC is serving only to buttress one side of the argument.
Who will suffer because of that? The children that the likes of Owen Jones and Jack Dromey MP proclaim they are protecting…it is they who, years down the road will be paying off the debts that were piled upon them by the careless generosity of those who support an ever growing, and ever more generous, benefits system.
Tax the rich or stop giving money to the banks is the response. Not enough rich (who will anyway avoid paying) & no money actually to the banks (just a big reduction in tax take as they no longer have the same level of illusionary profits)
The socialists have this idea that the ‘rich’ are an endless source of wealth which will solve all the problems. The method they use to decide the value of this wealth is to look at the stock market capitalisation value of a company, look at the individual shareholdings to identify the richest, and then use this to place a value on the individual. The problem is, when the number get large (e.g Microsoft & Bill Gates) you’re looking at a sum that could never be attained in reality. Bill Gates can’t just sell his stake without losing any value, as if his MS shares were a cash machine. His net worth is actually nothing like the $50-odd billion quoted because that sum can never be realised. It is the value of the company, not Bill Gates.
We need a British version of this followed by the question to the endless spending proponents of how to solve it:
Excellent !!! I can’t understand why the BBC have not aired this ?????
or maybe it’s because it is much too much of a credible illustration.
One argument is they know what they are advocating and the consequence, which is the bankrupting of Britain and ensuing chaos and collapse. Isn’t the first principle of Marxism to destroy what is already in place in order to build the new society? Or some such. Global warmism and its ‘mitigating actions’ fits the same theory, anyway.
The BBC has a seemingly unending supply of (our) money. and naturally assumes that the Government has too.
Its all Balls really (see what I did there?).
In even asking the question “What can we afford?” you are showing the traits of a petit bourgeois shopkeeper and a certain grocer’s daughter (whose name somehow eludes me for the moment). Remember: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
Only joking!!! The government could/should tax the rich more but it wouldn’t alter this basic question.
And if taxing the rich results in less taxes going to the Treasury, that would be fine according to your socialist principles of hate and envy.
No, I was only joking – I agree with the question “What can we afford?” It’s just my and loathe socialist hate and envy.
[should read] … it’s just my style of humour and I loathe … [sorry for error!]
I recall the top-rate tax cuts in the 1980s (Howe, Lawson et al). They were reduced to 60% and then to 40%. The fascinating paradox was that tax yield from those groups actually went UP! But Labour and the BBC can dine out forever on “tax cuts for the very rich” so it may have been bad politics to do it in this recession.
Getting £10 billion extra revenue is a pretty reasonable benefit for bad politics.
Or should we, like the left, pauperise the country to make a political point?
I quite agree with you, the £10bn extra revenue argument ought to win the day; but this site isn’t called Biased BBC for nothing.
Or should we, like the left, pauperise the country to make a political point?
The trouble is there are some on the left who think that should be a goal in itself to bring about the socialist utopia. They called it the Cloward Piven strategy.
Ok Andrew, your original post threw me!!
I well remember Dennis Healey in the 70’s saying they were going to squeeze the rich ‘until the pip squeaked’.
Well he (Healey) did just that and he and his socialist friends became very rich….Funny how that happens isn’t it ?
Could not imagine Tony Blaire, Mandelson et al profiting to the extent of £millions from their socialist values !!
…………..or have I got that wrong ?
I was young at the time but I remember my parents saying that Healey’s definition of “rich” included a lot of Labour-voting skilled manual workers. He seemed to have lost track of what some of his own supporters were earning.
I also remember the time…just about, and also remember the “Brain drain” from the UK following Healey’s pip squeezing exercise.
I think the bBBC’s approach is just part of the endless socialist propaganda that has permeated most people’s mindset such that even rich people think we should pay towards the cost of their children, all pensioners (regardless of income) believe they have a ‘right’ to state-provided freebies, and indeed that almost everyone thinks that other people should pay for their healthcare, education, etc.
‘The State is that great fiction whereby everybody tries to live at everyone else’s expense’.
Bastiat.
Socialism is that all too familiar reality whereby Socialists (on the grounds of an appeal to “social justice”) try to live at everyone else’s expense.
I’ve plenty of time for Dan Hodges who is generally despised by his own party (that statement is tautological) not least because he tells the truth and they
CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH.
My only gripe is that he describes himself as ‘A Blairite’ – in the (ridiculous) belief that *snigger* being ‘Blairite’ is a political philosophy.
never seen him on the BBC – wonder why.
I’ve seen him on there before, speaking on behalf of the hilariously named ‘Hope not Hate’ taxpayer-funded organisation that employs him, and who’s leader – Nick Lowles – is a committed Communist that wants to see indigenous Brits driven from their towns and cities, and who is also a former member of the Red Action group (who’s members planted the Harrods bomb for the IRA).
They’re referred to as an “anti-extremist” organisation!?
There is only one question that needs to be asked in the debate about Welfare Benefits…and that is ‘What can we afford?‘.
I don’t agree.
An example would be in India where parents purposefully maim their children to enable them to make more money as beggars. So the mindset that just thinks it’s good to give to the poor and beggars is actually enabling having a child deformed. It shows the need to look carefully at what charity is actually doing, determine the desired outcome, and find the best way to achieve that end.
If this man Philpott, for example would have been a hard working man to earn the money to raise his family, it’s fair to say the dynamics that led to his actions and lifestyle wouldn’t have happened. The benefit system has raised a large segment of society who are scroungers and good for nothings, and so the deeds they will do in their life are likely to reflect that. So the payment they receive is actually creating further problems for our society.
This can’t be right.
I believe in helping more unfortunate people, but only in such a way that they will eventually be able to help themselves. This is what has not been pursued by successive governments, and why we face so many of the problems in our society that we do.
So the question first is not what can we afford, but how should any money be spent from now on.
The analogy used that if you give a man a fish he can feed his family for a day. Teach him to fish and he can feed his family for a lifetime.
Well said
Quote from Guido comments:-
Stuart:-
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to £100…
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay £1.
The sixth would pay £3.
The seventh would pay £7..
The eighth would pay £12.
The ninth would pay £18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay £59.
So, that’s what they decided to do..
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball.
“Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by £20″. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just £80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.
So the first four men were unaffected.
They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men?
The paying customers?
How could they divide the £20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?
They realised that £20 divided by six is £3.33. But if they
subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.
And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth now paid £2 instead of £3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid £5 instead of £7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid £9 instead of £12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid £14 instead of £18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid £49 instead of £59 (16% saving).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.
“I only got a pound out of the £20 saving,” declared the sixth man.
He pointed to the tenth man, ”but he got £10!”
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a pound too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”
“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get £10 back, when I got only £2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works.
The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction.
Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.
In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics.
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible
Re-posted from Pete Ross
PS webmaster – you’re still running on GMT.
The Left work on the “In the long run I am dead” principle. It does not matter if they bankrupt the economy if they benefit during their lifetimes. Build up a huge bar bill and pass it onto the next generation. Their appeal to voters (other than their client class) is that they promise to attack anybody who has made a success of their life.
It is the politics of envy.
That’s not the politics of Envy Wild ! The politics of envy is to do with the ruling party attacking certain groups because they are jealous of their success.
Further than that you do not understand the first principle of economics either!
We were left enormous debts by the presious generation, we even had to pay for WWII ! we paid for the IMF bail out and the only ‘benefit of that was an overheated economy which produced massive inflation and drew in foreign migrants to man already unsustainable industries.
What would be the consequences if we decided to pay back all this debt?
The economy would be wrecked, virtually everyone would be bankrupt businesses would not be able to raise capital, government expenditure would grind to a halt.
So no schools or hospitals army or anything.
We can reduce the national debt as a proportion of GDP by increasing GDP which is Labours suggestion. Tory policy sometimes described as the economic death spiral has the effect of reducing GDP making the debt proportion larger, then cutting spending which reduces GDP and on until they kill the economy.
It is now impossible for the USA to ever repay their national debt, the country is bankrupt its military adventuring having been a colossal drain on its finances, and the populaces rejection of its home built products.
It isn’t an easy subject, but it certainly isn’t as simple as the title of this thread suggests.
“That’s not the politics of envy”
I made two points. You are mixing them up 1) Running up the bar bill for future generations is not the politics of envy – correct 2) Politicians persuading voters to vote for them because they promise to increase (the already punishingly high) taxes on people who earn more than they do (even when the government could get more revenue with lower taxes) is the politics of envy – correct.
I suggest that it is you who is confused by conflating those two different points – which I did not.
A government can overspend and overtax. The two of course are not unconnected.
“you do not understand the first principle of economics either!”
You repeat your views on this topic ad nauseam on this website (usually preceded by the comment “you do not understand the first principle of economics”) and we can agree that economists disagree with each other on this (as in many other) topic because it is complex.
If only you applied that insight consistently – to your own economic pronouncements. Your opinion is noted.
The Labour government of 1997-2010 was in power for 156 months. For 155 of those 156 they were content to have the top rate of income tax as 40%. In their last month they increased it to 50% to appeal to their core vote (politics of envy) and to set a trap for the next government to reduce it to a sensible level that brought in more income.
Has the bBBC’s Stephanomics ever told us that this government has a higher top rate of income tax than applied for 99% of the time of the Blair and Brown government?
An obvious point to restate on tax cuts for the Tories’ so-called “rich friends”, is that in a mass participation electoral system, it cannot buy them an election – there just are not enough “rich” people, even if they all voted Tory. The party could swell its funds for campaigning by appealing to a “rich few” but it would still have to have policies of mass appeal to get elected.
‘thoughtful’, even if we accept the point you keep making every day that you don’t want to pay off debts incurred by previous generations (including your false assertions about WWII), how about just paying off the debts incurred by the 13 years of Gordon Brown’s disastrous mismanagement of the British economy?
He deliberately ran a deficit, even during boom years, so that he could bribe the present generation into thinking that Labour should be re-elected. In just 13 years Brown doubled the national debt so that present-day voters would feel better, at the expense of our children and grandchildren.
Labour, and their PR arm in the bBBC, seem to think that is acceptable. Most sensible people don’t.
False assertions? an amazing claim! If you don’t know my age then how can you say the assertion is false?
In any event when do you believe the debt for WWII was paid off? My source says it was 31st December 2006 for £45.5 million.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4757181.stm
I never said that current governments weren’t just as guilty as the previous ones, but I do take issue with people suggesting that after we have paid off the previous generations debt we should not leave any debt for the next generation. Aside from anything else this is simply impossible!
Graph of national debt to GDP, makes you wonder what we’re all worrying about!
Don’t forget that during the Brown / BLiar administration the Tories were criticising them for not spending enough!
Number 7 that’s brilliant.
Cut and paste I’m afraid, although I have seen it before.
I thought it worthy of repetition.
I, for one had not seen it before, and agree, it is a wonderful description of how to break down the tax system that even a piss head in a Derby council house can understand.
Heartfelt thanks for posting it my good fellow 🙂
But apparently not Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Gordon Brown or the BBC.
Great comment!
Nice story but wrong attribution. See – <a href="http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/howtaxes.asp" title="Snopes"
The correct link is below:
http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/howtaxes.asp
I too have received this more than once and in at least 3 different currencies: the truth of it remains the same.
Britain second in world for aid spending – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/9970620/Britain-second-in-world-for-aid-spending.html
Funny how the BBC appear to have overlooked that story.
Perhaps they don’t want to remind people that there’s an £8 billion pot of money that could be spent in this country, instead of on propping up the regimes of tin pot dictators…
Jeff
More likely the BBC downplay it because in their view this story is good for the Tories. Of course many people think the Tories are wrong on this one and the money should be spent at home but not the BBC who think that we should spend more overseas and more at home. Exactly where all this money comes from doesn’t concern them because they are always well provided for from the never empty public purse.
Today a news report on the bBC that aid money to Pakistan should be suspended until they start to tax the wealthy. Most of the MPs pay no tax at all (obviously they haven’t the expense accounts ours have!)
In a country bursting at the seams, why are we still funding human breeding?
“The BBC et al ask only ‘What do they need?”
Really? Because when I posted that no one had actually dared to ask this question including the bBC not one person disagreed with me. Perhaps you would be good enough to post the programs when this subject has been covered because even the BBC in all its bias would ask the question as to what is affordable.
The reason why the BBC never will ask this question is because they know even the Labour party will never be able to fund what is needed, and they’re not going to put their friends in a position like that.
Back in Victorian days there was the horrible work house and poverty railed about by authors like Charles Dickens, I for one would not wish to return to those days.
The question is not as simple as ‘what can we afford’ we can afford to pay , if we reduce the huge fat pay packets of massively over rewarded teachers for instance we could afford to pay more. What does afford even mean? Almost every state in the world is borrowing money to finance itself so what is an appropriate amount of borrowing?
This question is hugely loaded though, you talk about welfare, but you don’t mean welfare, you mean unemployment benefit, which for some reason you feel recipients of need to punished and starved to death. Is £53 a week too much for you? lets reduce it to a fiver a week, it doesn’t matter what they need it’s what we can afford !
Seeing as nearly 60% of the benefits bill comes from pensioners loading this generation with yet more of their debts, it’s only fair that they should bear some of the burden. If it’s possible for some one unemployed to survive on £50 a week and look for work, why shouldn’t a pensioner? Currently lefty Dave is looking to increase their pensions to close to £150 per week we could halve the benefit bill by bringing this back down to £50 !
Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it!
I’ve only just read yesterday’s Times (£) with an interesting article from John Bird, founder of The Big Issue. It’s the poverty lobby that should live on £53
Our bloated welfare state has caught the poor in a trap. And now the money has run out.
More than 230,000 people have signed a petition calling on Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53 a week. I have an idea too. Why don’t we get the self-declared defenders of the poor — the bosses of the poverty industry, that whole web of charities and campaigning groups who depend upon the welfare state for their existence — to live on that pitiful sum.
I’ve a better idea.
Why don’t we get “that whole web of charities and campaigning groups who depend upon the welfare state for their existence”, to use their money to help the poor?
There was a time when charity workers worked for free or next to nothing from shabby offices or front rooms. These days a charity’s CEOs pay would feed the 5000, literally.
I guess the socialists at the BBC would like to see the present system dismantled because they think in the new era they would be the top dogs (or thinking of Animal Farm ‘top pigs’.) They hate the boys from Eton (Boris and Dave), the Dukes of Westminster, the Queen etc because they show them that there is more to being top than just fame and a fat pay check. They don’t consider how it would work. It is just the politics of envy.
What is generally omited in the “Politics of envy” statement is the rider “and the politics of hate”. I have never come across a “real” left-winger who doesn’t envy and hate in equal and copious measures. It is bizarre that they tar the right with the “Hater” tag, when most of the hate comes from them. Think what a hater Dezi is for instance.
The Left have a tendency to project their feelings onto others – it is part of their narcissism. They are not very interested in other people. Their hate probably comes from their frustration at the universe for not satisfying their bottomless sense of entitlement.
If the lefts hatred seems pathological that’s because it is i.e. caused by a deep rooted psychological sickness
My money is still on unresolved father issues and I’m not being entirely flippant
To ‘envy’ and ‘hate’ add ‘spite’. A vile, poisonous brew which bubbles away in their guts and fuels their every utterance.
Most Socialists define themselves by what they are against (The Rich, Bankers, Tories, Daily Mail readers, blablabla). They are 100% clear what they are against. If you ask them what they are for, they restate in negative what they are against.
Concern for “societies most vulnerable” (TM) is a false-face.
The real question is not “What do they need” but rather “Are the recipients spending taxpayers money wisely?” The BBC should run a detailed documentary on this subject. Too many benefit recipients regrettably cannot control themselves when it comes to spending on what I view as nice-to-haves but not essentials, like high end clothing, mobiles, laptops, tattoos and a large family. I’ve no objection to anyone acquiring any of these things – just having to pay for them is the issue.
… not to mention the latest, and largest, chavscreen television, so that they can soak up even more bBBC propaganda about ‘the most vulnerable in society’.
Please explain how it is possible to live on £53 pw and to buy ‘high end clothing, laptops (essential if you want to find a job) etc etc. And more to the point if someone is working and propped up by tax credits why shouldn’t they have some nice things?
Ever wondered why we need tax credits? It’s so governments can keep income tax at an unfeasibly low level. So they load things like Gas & Electric with ‘stealth’ levies and make life’s essentials unaffordable to those on low incomes.
If the stealth taxes on these products were removed and switched onto income tax we’d all have a much clearer view of how much we were paying and the poor could afford to live without the government help. Work would begin to pay more than benefits.
Stealth taxes are one of the hangovers from the discredited BLiar years, criticised by the Tories who once in power have not only continued with them but introduced a few of their own.
‘Please explain how it is possible to live on £53 pw and to buy…
Being this is a site based on the BBC’s shenanigans, I’d prefer an explanation of how that curiously prooly parameter-defined figure got into the lexicon and is still being bandied about by some as the only game in town.
As I understand it, it was a figure announced by a BBC-selected shill who has since proven as reliable as a BIJ nonce source whose claims Newsnight opted to save 10p checking out.
Yet formed the basis of a witch hunt on par with the Mitchell mob rule.
Both of which seemed to founder on factual bases, but luckily for those pushing them, only when the accountability-free damage had still been done.
You’re Yvette Cooper and I claim my £5.
That was directed at Thoughtful.
“Please explain how it is possible to live on £53 pw and to buy ‘high end clothing, laptops (essential if you want to find a job) etc etc. ”
I know, it’s incredible how it’s done. And you do not need a laptop to find a job.
Rather than “what do they need”, or “what can we afford,” I’d like to combine and rephrase some of what people have said above and suggest that the question should be “Who really still needs it, and why?” That way we can have the illuminating discussion of why all those with their bleeding-heart masks on don’t want to stop the benefits fraud or cradle-to-grave lifestyle (or giant houses in nice areas or 40 cans of lager per week and online poker and Sky sports, etc.) taking vital resources away from the people who actually are the poorest and most vulnerable. We can then spell out the true moral values and priorities for both sides of the argument.
Both the UK and the US can afford a proper social safety net for those who lose their jobs, and care for the truly vulnerable. We cannot afford what exists now, which is not the same thing at all. The BBC doesn’t want us to have that discussion because they and the Left control the terms of the debate.
Absolutely agree, and the damage is not just monetary. A culture of entitlement followed by old fashioned jealousy quickly foments itself in that environment – which creates the indignant underclass we are all sadly familiar with.
The present system pays lots of people for doing nothing. Most of them could, and should, contribute to society by, for instance, tasks such as litter-picking, driving people for hospital visits, delivering meals to the elderly, helping in youth clubs and social centres. Any of these, and many more, tasks would help those on benefits maintain a connection with the real world and deliver something in return for our funding them.
I think that if we’re going to get anywhere in a debate about benefits we have to get away from wild accusations which are easy to prove wrong, & make the accuser just look bigoted. Why give this gift to the left?
Giant houses in nice areas? Not the single claimant IDS is attacking, 40 cans of lager & online poker & sky sports? examples please?
Of course there are no examples of a single claimant getting all this, it’s just bigoted nonsense. There are of course examples of immigrants with large families being gifted these things, and here is the problem & it isn’t being tackled.
Unmarried mothers (lets not use left wing niceties to disguise what they are) untouched, it is still possible for a girl of school leaving age to decide she’s not going to work, get herself pregnant, and move to the top of the housing queue.
A single adult under 25 receives £56.25pw but an unmarried mother with a single child receives £56.25 for herself, but the child attracts £20.30 child benefit plus child tax credit of £62.09 a total of £138.64, nearly three times as much. Plus on top of this there are a whole host of extra benefits available.
So long as the state believes that an adult can survive on around £40pw with deductions but a baby needs double this, we will have problems with people making this choice. The gap is simply too wide.
The problem is that no politicians (particularly the Tories) will increase single persons rate, but pay for it by reducing the amount paid for having a child.
So we’re stuck in a trap of our own making which leads to people like Mike Philpott who managed to claim a net income close to £70K simply because he kept on producing children.
The Coalition has decided not to tackle this issue but to attack the lowest & most vulnerable the single jobseeker, in doing so they are making the situation worse not better, because the incentive for girls to just have a baby is even greater now than it was before.
But the coalition aren’t being bigoted; the media may be and many people read and believe this media however most is because almost everyone KNOWS someone who is milking the system so assumes everyone else in every area is in a similar boat…
Millions on unemployment benefit but millions of immigrants walk into jobs.
You’re quite right about children but I thought the idea was to reduce Child Benefit at least to the first two children only.
I never suggested the coalition were, just that we need to be careful when repeating these kind of false statements.
There’s someone a friend has told me about, she has a string of low paying part time jobs while the scroungers a few doors down live the life of Riley. But he’s working which makes it fraud and very different to the claims of sky tv etc etc. Yes he has been reported but they’ve failed to catch him.
This is often the way
OK, let’s ignore BBC bias and get into the complexities of the welfare system.
But first, if ‘you’ think ‘we’ need to be careful, whilst possibly conflating what you believe are falsehoods with contrary views, could you rejig this a tad, please?:
‘…she has a string of low paying part time jobs while the scroungers a few doors down live the life of Riley. But he’s working…’.
As there appear to be a variety of sexes and numbers in there that are hard to equate.
no worries thoughtful, I wasn’t meaning you, I was meaning the opposition/BBC etc, who also complain of the ‘outrageous’ generalisations about everyone being a scrounger but then wheel out their own wild generalisations of specific unique examples of ABC who will be XYZ worse off.
Hey, thoughtful, here are the examples you asked for:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9296570/Outrageous-case-of-family-who-receive-50000-on-benefits.html
There are plenty more, as you well know. The BBC has done investigations into this as well, even though they pretend it doesn’t exist when it’s time to attack a Tory.
Perhaps if one of the useless Tories allowed on air focused on how much this sort of thing is a direct cause of the current need for cuts, things would be different.
NHS: global free health service;
BBC-NUJ censors the largesse.
“How foreign ‘health tourists’ are bleeding the NHS dry: Damning whistleblowers’ testimony exposes how they fraudulently get free treatment worth hundreds of millions a year.
“Doctors say ‘health tourists’ come for treatment but leave without paying.
“Practice may cost British taxpayers hundreds of million of pounds a year.
“One doctor said the country is ‘being coerced into p****** away their health budget trying to heal the world.’”
By SUE REID.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2303734/How-foreign-health-tourists-bleeding-NHS-dry-exposed-damning-whistleblowers-testimony.html#ixzz2PVETIex7
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UK and Foreign Aid.
BBC-NUJ reports one aspect of the Pakistan problem-
“Stop extra UK aid to Pakistan unless taxes increase, urge MPs”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22017091
BBC-NUJ policy is that UK foreign aid budget should be at least 0.7% of GDP. So, BBC-NUJ will pursue this political policy whenever it wants in its broadcasting propaganda.
In contrast:-
‘Daily Mail’ has’:-
“We spend more on aid than Germany (even though our population is 20million less than theirs)”
By Daniel Martin.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2303696/We-spend-aid-Germany-population-20million-theirs.html#ixzz2PVKWDoVM
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People in the Labour party and the BBC attacking the Government’s attempt to reduce the welfare bill and, today, George Osborne’s comments about Philpott’s chosen lifestyle, seem to have forgotten that, shortly after Blair’s 1997 election victory, Frank Field was appointed to “think the unthinkable” on welfare reform.
The fact that the Labour government bottled out doesn’t alter the fact that, even then, there was widespread belief that welfare was doing considerable damage and the cost was getting out of control.
Heard the 3pm news on radio 2.
Osborne only gets his views summarised, whereas Anne Begg (a mere Shadow numpty of Labours) gets to speak to the nation stating that there are only 50 family set ups with more that 13(or was it 17) kids.
So-in the BBCs eyes-no problem to be “exploited” or to “grandstand/make cheap political points” over-indeed if prisoners get the vote, they may yet be craving Philpotts vote.
Noted too the newsreader saying that 8 years for his accomplices was, in fact a “long prison term”.
No editorialising then?…that`ll be sixteen months/kid then!
Where`s Esther Rantzen then?…or has she gone to ground after Savile then?
Bloody BBC!
…”whereas Anne Begg (a mere Shadow numpty of Labours) gets to speak to the nation stating that there are only 50 family set ups with more that 13(or was it 17) kids.”
Which is a perfect example of the left/BBC deflection/omission mission.
“Noted too the newsreader saying that 8 years for his accomplices was, in fact a “long prison term”.”
I know it’s simplistic, but that works out at 1.33 years per child.
‘1.33 years per child’
Hence, for the relatively lesser crimes regarding children some within the BBC appear to have committed, facilitated (Savile) or glossed over (Grooming gangs), the punishments meted out thus far (not draconian to some, possibly) probably seem quite harsh.
There would appear to be a magic age to be at the BBC, between 18 and 25. Or, in the case of the top floor, senile but who cares?
But they weren’t sentenced to 8 years, they were given 17 year sentences of which they must serve a minimum of 8. That doesn’t mean that they will automatically be released then, and will have to serve the rest on tag & parole, with the supervision of parole officers. They could be recalled at any time.
It’s incredibly simplistic Joshaw, but if you’re going to make this calculation at least use the total sentences which even if you take the minimums it’s 31 years between the three of them or 5 years per child but could be as much as 10.
‘5 years per child but could be as much as 10.’
There was recently another thread that threw up the ability of some to miss the main, grotesque points in a triumph of pedantry, whilst still missing any hint of morally relative irony.
Interesting to see this trend revisited so soon after 53 actually being maintained as the new three times as much.
Personally, ‘as much as 10…per child’ still doesn’t seem like much of a term for the crime committed, even if it has appalled BBC news readers.
Which I think was the point being made.
Being a bit of a gadfly aren`t we thoughtful?
It`s an eight year sentence if that is as much as they will serve…if that!
For you to tell me it`s a 17 year sentence when they`ll only serve eight..well, that`s so New Labour.
Tough on crime-tough on talking up the pretence that crime doesn`t pay!
You call yourself thoughtful…let`s hope that`s still justified, miss!
“It`s an eight year sentence if that is as much as they will serve…if that!”
Exactly. I’m not interested in theoretical sentences.
Hopefully not a gadfly, sometimes my posts tell it as it is, and not my opinion.
Someone serving a sentence who is released early for good behaviour is still under some pretty strict and intensive supervision for the remainder of that sentence, they can at any time be recalled to prison if the parole officer feels it necessary. Restrictions can be placed on their lives in a way that cannot be done after the whole sentence is completed.
This isn’t an opinon, that’s the way it works.
It is your opinion that it works.
I’m no expert on crime statistics, but it’s an easy job to Google the statistics on re-offenders and give it a cursory glance to see that it runs anywhere from 25% to over 50% depending on the various groups analysed.
As if this wasn’t enough , what isn’t factored into these figures, to make it appear that it’s not as bad as it might be are the statistics for all the unsolved crimes.
Surrey, which is one of the worst, only solves 20% of reported crimes.
How many of these are committed by re-offenders that are simply not caught, and won’t be reflected in those previous statistics?
Common sense suggests that people re-offend because they believe the odds are they will get away with it. The softer society is in dealing with criminals the more they are likely to commit crimes.
There has been a growing problem in this country for a very long time. Putting people in prisons is expensive, so the government decided to save money by not building more prisons and inventing reasons to let people out early. People have been taking advantage of this for generations now, and it will only get worse until a different tack is taken.
“Restrictions can be placed on their lives”
You mean they have to behave themselves?
Shocking.
My problem is with the ones with 4+ kids, and no intention to pay for any of them, ever.
I don’t have kids for 2 reasons…I don’t like em, and, even if I did, I couldn’t afford one…
So why the hell are my taxes subsidizing someone else’s grubby offspring?
Because Labour says there’s votes in it for them and Tories are scared to say “no” in case someone calls them “nasty” (which they will do anyway)
As they say, don’t vote for politicians, it only encourages them.
“Left Leaning BBC Ignores Britain’s Benefits Social Class in Calculator”
[Excerpt]:-
“… there is a huge hole in the BBC’s analysis and that is it excludes the 8 million of adults of working age who claim benefits of which at least 5 million are permanently on benefits and thus comprise the benefits class that amounts to 22% of those of working age in Britain, that would comprise near double the class referred to as the Precariat.
“Furthermore the benefits class social pecking order would be linked to the amount of benefits they are in receipt of and therefore the benefits class would tend to straddle the whole range from the Precariat right t(h)rough to the established middle class as illustrated by the recent case of Mick Philpott (found guilty of killing his children in a botched attempt to increase benefit payments) who was reportedly in receipt of £60,000 in benefits per annum which is an comparable income to those in the Established middle class. The breakdown of the benefits class is further complicated when those in receipt of tax credit benefits are taken into account, who tend to be perceived as the more deserving of benefit claimants.”
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article39788.html?
Can we have a new board please?
Not the global, ‘free,’ financially abused NHS which BBC-NUJ is prepared to portray:-
“How NHS health tourism is costing us billions: a surgeon’s story.
“Since blowing the whistle on systematic abuse of the NHS, I’ve heard from dozens of NHS colleagues. This is what they have to say.
J. Meirion Thomas.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8880071/international-health-service/
Listened to Jeremy Vine show at lunchtime.They were discussing whether shows like Jeremy Kyle could have influenced Philpott to do what he did.I noticed that Philpott was given the courtesy of a Christian name throughout the show ,whereas Jeremy Kyle was consistently called Kyle. Anne Widdicombe came in for a drubbing also,as did the Daily Mail.
On a different note, on the Radio 2 morning news it was suggested that North Korea was only reacting to US provocation!!!!
This seems to apply to BBC-NUJ-
“The Philpotts – what happened to Labour’s view that we should be tough on the causes of crime?”
By David Blackburn.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/04/the-philpotts-what-happened-to-labours-view-that-we-should-be-tough-on-the-causes-of-crime/
One of the houses at the bottom of our street has been rented out by the council for a young family. I walked to work this morning (the two parents were outside having a fag, she in her PJs and he playing on his mobile phone. I came home tonight at around 1730hrs, she was still in her PJs and he was still playing on his phone. In fact I have walked past their rented home numerous times and there they are puffing away, throwing the fags into the street, where a carpet of them cover the road.
Hey nothing wrong with smoking, but it would be nice if they spent their money on improving their lives. How much are cigs now ?
“Yesterday the Mail revealed health tourism is costing the NHS ‘billions’. Here our readers tell THEIR stories.”
By SUE REID.
This political area too, seems to be taboo for BBC-NUJ to debate the issues.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2304268/Yesterday-Mail-revealed-health-tourism-costing-NHS-billions-Here-readers-tell-THEIR-stories.html#ixzz2PaBsc2HR