No and No.



My grammar may have made the post ambiguous but I've no doubt you know I support a welfare state so that part of your post isn't applicable to me.

OK, if we accept you support a welfare state and, as you've already allude to, you support a finite cap on benefits. Who do you suggest should lose out?

What do you suggest should happen when housing benefit does not cover the cost of housing? Do you simply move the tenant to a cheaper area? Do you tell the landlord that he'll have to accept a lower rent? Or do you sit on your hands and wait for the inevitable eviction and pass the problem from the DWP to the Local Authority? Perhaps you have another solution?

3. Some people on this forum actually claim benefits and know the system and how it works and whats happening inside out. I have paid my taxes all my working life. I had three jobs in the months leading upto my diagnosis, one full time and two part time jobs (part time jobs on a weekend). I paid 20% tax on my main, full time job and 25% tax on each of my part time weekend jobs. I became ill. I couldn't work. I had to give up 3 jobs I loved, one working at the Boulevard, getting to work AND watch my team. I have kept my end of the bargain paying my taxes, I expect any government to keep theirs. Unfortunately no one told Mr Cameron this and he has done everything in his power, along with his cronies, IDS, Grayling, Miller, McVey to pillory me at every turn. I have been made out to be a liar along with my consultants, GP's, etc, I have been told I'm a skiver, I should be at work, I've been told that because Mr HWS earns more than £7.5k a year he has to support me making me feel worthless to society, which has taken me a long time to realise that I'm not.

"First they came......................"

This one has become top of my hit-list at present.
They keep wheeling the annoying irritating bitch out on BBC News for interview.
She seems to be Tory centrals new female face after sidelining the equally nauseating Baroness.

She should stick to being the pretty face of TV presenting because she knows bugger all about disabilities or illness. She first started on Childrens TV. Thats about her level.

Quote ="Ajw71"...There are multiple opinion polls out there suggesting general support for welfare reform...'" There are polls and there are polls, not all are worthy of note. Before I take much notice of any poll, I always want to know what question was asked. "Welfare reform" could mean anything from abolition of the welfare state rigfht through to increasing benefits. It's only a few weeks since Gove used the same tactic about "survey after survey has shown ..." and it turned out that the one survey that even touched upon his topic was irrelevant. Quote ="Ajw71"...This article puts it very nicely... blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehous ... and-right/'" That op-ed says nothing of any note other than that IDS is making the reforms in the name of social justice rather than cost saving ... which is, of course, total rubbish, he is making the changes in lne with Tory ideology.

Quote ="Ajw71"...There are multiple opinion polls out there suggesting general support for welfare reform...'" There are polls and there are polls, not all are worthy of note. Before I take much notice of any poll, I always want to know what question was asked. "Welfare reform" could mean anything from abolition of the welfare state rigfht through to increasing benefits. It's only a few weeks since Gove used the same tactic about "survey after survey has shown ..." and it turned out that the one survey that even touched upon his topic was irrelevant. Quote ="Ajw71"...This article puts it very nicely... blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehous ... and-right/'" That op-ed says nothing of any note other than that IDS is making the reforms in the name of social justice rather than cost saving ... which is, of course, total rubbish, he is making the changes in lne with Tory ideology.

And, of course, is peddling lies in the process of trying to 'sell' these changes.

You lost that one as well.

By the way - has anyone seen AJW and crumpledforeskin in the same room at the same time?

Yes, he and was caught out trying to say that the claimant count went down because of his reforms ... his own department had to issue a statement saying they couldn't support the claim.
But, as usual, the rightwing press didn't blare out the correction as they did with IDS's lies.

I lost? Because you say so.

Don't make a fool of yourself laddie.

Well of course you will try and discredit them because you are don't want to face the fact that the majority support the changes that are being introduced.

Even if you were to somehow draw the conclusion that the majority did indeed support the reforms it would be because they have all been brainwashed by rabid right wing press. So predictable.

The people who administer these things are useless. We wrote a while back to stop child benefit. Mrs D subsequently wrote to say we had to actually pay some back to them. So what do they do? They now write saying they going to pay 6 months backdated child benefit into our bank account!

As has been pointed out to you many times before, the problem with polls is twofold, firstly in the aim and intention of the poll (in case you didn't realise it almost every poll has a pre-determined intention), and secondly in its interpretation and reporting.

If you ask the question "Do you support measures to stop benefits claimants from claiming for things they ar enot entitled to" then you will get a big majority of the population to agree with your poll, if you then publish your findings under the headline "Big majority of the population support welfare cuts" then most of the population will believe that it must be true, without further investigation.

Its a simple enough example, but with this term of government we've seen that they are no longer trying to hide or deflect blame from their decisions, they are now brazen with it and my first and instant reaction to any poll is now "Show me the actual poll and the results and then let me see the reporting before I decide for myself".

Ultimately the only poll that will count will be in 2015, or if Cameron gets challenged by his own party.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23122369 Well done, IDS, you've managed to create homes standing empty whilst still having a shortage of homes. That takes a special sort of talent for vindictiveness.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23122369 Well done, IDS, you've managed to create homes standing empty whilst still having a shortage of homes. That takes a special sort of talent for vindictiveness.

The word "vindictive" is particularly applicable to this specific piece of legislation as its based on nothing less than an opportunity to cut costs from a welfare budget for no other reason than a strange preoccupation with the sleeping arrangements of those in social housing and on benefits.

You can just tell even without asking the question that this cruel law came straight from a suggestions box during the first phase of government when heads of departments were told to go away and think up ANY reason to cut their budgets ANYHOW - this was probably put in the suggestion box for a laugh and its author probably never believed in a million years that it would be enacted but bizarrely we now find its upon us and causing absolute havoc amongst a group of people who are least able to cope - vindictive indeed.

What with soaring rent arrears, the cost of chasing those arrears, houses now standing empty, more being spent on B & B because the empty houses are "too big", councils and housing associations having to find staff to deal with the bedroom tax ... the whole bloody fiasco must be costing more than it saves ... but hey, it's not coming out of IDS's budget ... so it must be a success. www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancie ... 47.article ... and this goon thinks that it's necessary in order to keep interest rates low. You couldn't make it up !

What with soaring rent arrears, the cost of chasing those arrears, houses now standing empty, more being spent on B & B because the empty houses are "too big", councils and housing associations having to find staff to deal with the bedroom tax ... the whole bloody fiasco must be costing more than it saves ... but hey, it's not coming out of IDS's budget ... so it must be a success. www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancie ... 47.article ... and this goon thinks that it's necessary in order to keep interest rates low. You couldn't make it up !

Quote ="El Barbudo"What with soaring rent arrears, the cost of chasing those arrears, houses now standing empty, more being spent on B & B because the empty houses are "too big", councils and housing associations having to find staff to deal with the bedroom tax ... the whole bloody fiasco must be costing more than it saves ... but hey, it's not coming out of IDS's budget ... so it must be a success. www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancie ... 47.article ... and this goon thinks that it's necessary in order to keep interest rates low. You couldn't make it up !'" It's okay – IDS is a Christian. So it must be good.

Quote ="El Barbudo"What with soaring rent arrears, the cost of chasing those arrears, houses now standing empty, more being spent on B & B because the empty houses are "too big", councils and housing associations having to find staff to deal with the bedroom tax ... the whole bloody fiasco must be costing more than it saves ... but hey, it's not coming out of IDS's budget ... so it must be a success. www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancie ... 47.article ... and this goon thinks that it's necessary in order to keep interest rates low. You couldn't make it up !'" It's okay – IDS is a Christian. So it must be good.

TORIES - Putting the 'N' in CUTS

"Going to church makes you as much a Christian as standing in a garage makes you a mechanic..."

I do hope our resident tory nut-jobs take the opportunity to watch last night's Newsnight on iPlayer.

Reporting from Coventry, it presents real-world experiences, not the bull[is[/ihit rhetoric from IDS and his cronies, especially the crap coming from the mouth of the heartless harpy Harriet Baldwin MP - she obviously drew the DWP short straw

[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-big-lie-behind-the-bedroom-tax-as-families-trapped-with-nowhere-to-move-so-cannot-avoid-new-penalty-for-having-spare-room-8745597.htmlThe big lie of the bedroom tax[/url

Some councils have only sufficient 1 or 2 bed properties to re-home 3% of those hit by the bedroom tax

There are some excellent quotes in that article, but the most pertinent one is this ...

[iA spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “This ignores the fact that people may move to housing in the private sector and not all tenants will have to downsize because they could make up any shortfall through getting a job or increasing their working hours. These reforms will save the taxpayer £1bn over the next two years and help to ensure a better use of our housing stock when in England alone there are nearly two million households on the social housing waiting list, and over a quarter of a million tenants are living in overcrowded homes.”[/i


And there you have it, the basis of this whole tax on the poor, the unemployed and the under-employed, if you don't like it, if you can't afford to pay the tax, then either get a job, work more hours or rent from a private landlord instead of a council or housing association.

Even Thatcher wasn't this cruel.

The workhouse is the next logical step, in fact a DWP commissioned report even suggests such a solution for those who, through disability (mental or physical) may struggle to find suitable employment that would allow them to live independently. Board & lodgings in return for labour.

Arbeit macht frei

Nah, all these empty shops could be houses ... and never mind local preferences. www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... t-planning

Nah, all these empty shops could be houses ... and never mind local preferences. www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... t-planning