The shame of Austerity Britain

Welshwife apparently the leasing system for cars is a disaster waiting to happen.

Watching the Foodbank scene in “I, Daniel Blake” had everyone in my cinema in tears.

I quite believe it Jalima - it would seem that many of them are never actually paid for.
Electric cars are slightly different because as they are such new technology some of the manufacturers want to have the cars back after a couple of years to see how they have worn with the general public driving them.

For those posters who suggest a pound of mince rather than a food bank, and simply say where is your human compassion.

Many individuals now living in our society would have been in some form of institutional care not so long ago. People with an IQ of 58, for example, seen as able to live a totally independent life. Yes, yes, I know those individuals ‘should’ qualify for support from the l.a team whose job in to support peopke with learning difficulties/disabilities. Add to the low IQ a history of childhood neglect and abuse. You’re likely to then be in some kind of stand off between various agencies, all if whom say the individuals needs would best be met by eg, mental health, drugs, alcohol, domestic abuse, the police, the adult social work team, the children’s services team (because the individuals children are the subject of care proceedings).
I’ll stop ranting but I do sometimes wonder what those posters with simple solutions to complex problems would do if they had responsibility for trying to sort out this mess. Cutting child benefit - that’ll sort it ?

I actually wouldn't want to pay more tax to enable government to hand out higher benefits, nor would I be pleased if that extra money was spent on treating obese, drug/alcohol/ cigarette abusers or those who clog up A&E on a weekend after drunken fights or piddling ills such as a cough or bottles stuck up their rses.

Many street sleepers, indeed, I'd venture a guess as high as 65% of them, actually PREFER it to the restrictions of supervised accomodation or living alone in a bedsit. For many, their only friends are other street sleepers and, un a weird way, they look after each other like a loose family arrangement.
They can and do make much more money than they would receive in benefits and don't have to pay for utilities etc. Some earn £200 pd which goes to feed their habits.
Some DO have living arrangements but choose to beg and, when they've 'earned' enough to cover their habit, they pal up with others in squats or on a users floor.
As for food banks, there are some who are deserving and some who have never worked and many in-between. Lots of them have iPads, iPhones, 55" tvs, smoke and eat junk food/takeaways.
You can live on a modest income if you budget properly but there are always those who use excuses for their spending habits.

Jane10
I'm not.

What about those waiting over long times for desperately needed operations. elderly people stuck in hospital because no care home will take them because social services will not pay enough for their care? Care homes shutting for the same reason, Seriously ill people unable to get an appointment with their GPs for weeks, Disabled people being unable to pay for the help they need. Children in oversized classes, schools dismissing staff because they cannot afford to pay them.

Anyone can think of people they do not want to help and read papers that give the impression that every benefit recipient is undeserving, Such selfish indifference to the suffering of many people, just because a few are on the make,

It is the story of the Good Samaritan played out in modern dress.

I totally agree with charboy

For the avoidance of doubt, I know full well that there are many deserving of a better NHS/schools system et al and I do not necessarily believe everything published in newspapers, however, I cited only a few instances in the pursuit of brevity. One would have to be a moron to believe every published article.

Raising taxation is usually used by the Treasury to restrict economic growth not stimulate it. If growth and inflation are becoming out of control, fiscal policy could be used to increase taxes taking some money out of an overheating economy.

Tax rises are not useful for stimulating the economy.

So to boost an economy and create jobs, investment funded from borrowing would be used to pump prime a low growth economy.

When an economy is in a state where growth is at a rate that is getting out of control (causing inflation and asset bubbles), contractionary fiscal policy can be used to rein it in to a more sustainable level. ... In order to eliminate this inflationary gap a government may reduce government spending and increase taxes.
economics.fundamentalfinance.com/fiscal-policy.php

It might seem contradictory to some, but injecting Government money into a low growth economy is a good way to to give it a boost. Taxation can be increased to restrict growth when inflation is getting out of hand.

This isn’t some extreme left wing economic model. It’s mainstream economic theory and has been used to manage economies around the world since the 1930s.
It started in the US with ‘The New Deal” to boost the economy after the Great Depression.
It has been used recently very successfully by Japan to pull themselves out of a decade-long recession.

I can see how that can work - we just need to do that and get people to spend again,

Iam64 Effective opposition? You don't mean communist Corbyn do you? I sincerely hope not. There are no political parties at the moment that inspire me to vote for them. We have far too many people living on a small island and we can't keep importing them and giving them housing, medical care, and benefits. Stop foreign aid. Charity begins at home.

LBC broadcaster Nick Ferrari spoke for millions when he said: “I salute the Daily Express campaign (stop foreign aid petition).

“At a time that we are looking at putting hospital patients in B&Bs and having whip-rounds to pay for books in schools I find it wholly unacceptable this amount of cash can be lavished on projects that have little merit or reward for the taxpayers who have funded them.”

Official data shows 26 per cent of the total spent on foreign aid is not controlled by DFID with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, now headed by Tory MP Greg Clark, splurging £687 million last year.

Nick Ferrari said he salutes the Daily Express campaign

The Home Office sent £362 million abroad, the Treasury committed £71 million on overseas aid, the Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs spent £67 million and even HMRC managed to commit £9 million - £4 million more than the Ministry of Defence.

Foreign aid is meant to be spent on “strengthening global peace, security and governance” and “tackling extreme poverty and helping the world’s most vulnerable”.

It makes more sense if we see foreign aid and other spending as a percentage of GPD. Govt money is at incomprehensible levels for most of us so that a percentage makes more sense. Some of these percentages are amazingly small - a drop in the ocean in the great scheme of things.

It’s no good us spending on imports. Part of the pie is given to other countries. We seem to be addicted to importing. We need to do stuff for ourselves. It’s scary we can’t feed ourselves and building on farmland. We are so overpopulated and there are people who say we need more to care for the elderly and pay for them but if we had a high wage country we wouldn’t need so many people. The extra now will need to be looked after by even more people when will it stop.

To do things for ourselves we need people to be trained and people to be willing to do unpopular jobs. Over the years Govts have allowed businesses to go by the board until whole industries have been decimated. Also lots of training and apprentice style jobs have been axed. It will take years to redress this situation.
More people are leaving the U.K. now and less people are coming in so the problem you are worried about might be soon sorted but by the same token you will not have the people to do the necessary work needed.

You're right welshwife. We need more high quality training schemes here. We shouldn't rely on poaching qualified people from poorer countries.

It’s scary we can’t feed ourselves and building on farmland
It's a two-way thing - we export as well as import food and drink (although we do import more).
Nearly 60% of land in the UK is farmland (not all used productively) and less than 6% is built on (not just homes).

Throwing this out there. Our local hospital has outsourced discharging of the elderly to care homes. To a company with shareholders who pay minimum wage. Is this the way to go. Doesn’t it cost more in the end. It seems to be happening in all sectors.

Yes I agree with you on that lyndie. More privatisation of the NHS by the back door.
Britain could afford a properly funded health service without giving money and profits to private companies if the Government chose. It’s a political choice.

Of course many MPs have interests in private healthcare companies. 64 MPs listed below.

defendournhsyork.wordpress.com/2017/02/14/selling-off-nhs-for-profit-full-list-of-mps-with-links-to-private-healthcare-firms/

We have not been told where the Government is spending our money to accrue so much debt. Certainly not on public services. There are huge amounts spent on personal staff, first class travel, stately home grants and entertaining. But Government debt is running out of control. They are desperate to keep the details of the spending away from the public.
It is very wrong that an increasing number of people are needing food banks and most are hard working families. The government has tried to say they need austerity to make people find jobs. But these jobs pay a pittance and some families need three or four jobs to try and make ends meet then still find they need help from a food bank,
This week we have seen an increasing number of desperate people saying their rents have gone up by around 16%. These situations are driving people to suicide, greedy landlords are allowed to make families homeless. They clearly cannot get replacement homes that keep the family together. There is no social housing. Some private landlords just do not realise what it's like to budget for a family and will take every penny the tenant earns and not allow for food. It is true some landlords believe food banks are there for their tenants! We saw a TV programme that showed a private landlord shocked when he found out his tenant had about £52 a week left over after rent, utilities and was "wasting" it on food and clothes for his family of four. He was about to increase the rent when someone told him food banks are for absolute emergencies, the family would go very hungry if he raised rent or would have to become homeless. The family concerned were professionals, the rent already a silly figure for a sub standard accommodation. Private landlords are the huge problem in this country. If people have real homes to bring up their children as they did when there was adequate social housing we have less poverty, more stability in society and they take pride in their environment. This Government use food banks as part of their policy which is very wrong, in fact it is outrageous and they get away with it by the constant shaming of the most vulnerable in society

Charjoy" How many of those going to foodbanks are genuine?
How many go to takeaways each week rather than buy a pound of mince etc ?
Take out Fish and chips and pizzas etc are a luxury when you consider what they charge.
Perhaps we need a bit more education on how to manage."

The people living like this are not the poor. Maybe a few yeas ago they could afford these luxuries but this is Tory propaganda. People who go to food banks are REFERRED by GPs, social workers or the DWP. They have to show proof they are in desperate need, then they cannot have a donation regularly, they just go hungry.

We need more education to ensure people don't fall for extreme political propaganda to deliberately avoid taking responsibility for those less fortunate than us. That is the road down to becoming uncivilised. I'm afraid this country is going that way and those at the top are wrecking everything we have always valued like the NHS, education, police, social care and all through repeating hatred towards those less fortunate

The average person pays their taxes but we have a huge problem with our richest hiding most of the tax they should be paying and small businessmen not declaring vat. If the Treasury collected all the tax owed there would be no problem with funding the NHS and other pubic services. We have a problem with OAPs hiding their property and savings with relatives as they retire and claiming free social care worth hundreds of thousands when they need it. All these people are crooks and the rest of us have to suffer because they have found a way around the system.

I also think we need to teach secondary age children basic cooking skills and food/ calorie values.