Panorama Britains Homeles

Well said FlicketyB

Good post, FlicketyB.

I would also like to mention, with reference to a previous post, that there is a difference between 'vulnerable' and 'feckless'. I agree we should look after the vulnerable but should be careful as a society not to encourage fecklessness.

The media will always seek out the cases that will cause the most controversy, and for that reason I rarely watch any of those programmes. I do not want to go through life with my 'head in the sand' but equally do not want to be wound up by some of the sensationalism portrayed on tv and in the newspapers.

Iain Duncan Smith has come in for a lot of flack on GN but quite honestly I think his job is a poisoned chalice and he has to do something to cut the huge welfare budget, which is not at all what Labour intended when they introduced the Welfare State. Some people (albeit only a few) look on 'welfare' as a right to do as they wish and have as many children as they wish and not as a safety net for when times are hard.

IDS has poisoned the chalice himself. He's messed up everything he's touched.
I find it quite amusing the number of people who say they never watch programmes like this but then pontificate on them.

Of course.

The Welfare State is a Sacred Cow Which Must Not Be Meddled With under Any Circumstances.

Surely we are allowed an opinion even if we do not watch every programme and read every article, including all the sometimes tedious links constantly posted on GN?

www.leftfutures.org/2012/04/the-best-graphs-are-the-ones-osborne-doesnt-publish/

Graphs showing the various areas of UK indebtedness show that the major area of indebtedness is attributable to the financial, not the public, sector. It is not the high cost of welfare (which includes state pensions) that caused this country's economic crash but the mismanagement of the financial sector.

Flick has made her point well.

I think what is often forgotten (or ignored by some) is that those who have no intention of ever working, whole generations of families in some cases, are draining the Welfare State and leaving less for those who fall on hard times.

But there are those in great need who get nothing. A friend in her 50s has breast cancer and has had a double mastectomy. She is undergoing chemo and is just broken by it - barely able to function for nausea, diarrhoea, headache, anaemia. She has been denied most benefits and gets the very base level of Income Support - about £50 per week. She cannot pay her mortgage and the company will not defer has payments as hers is interest only. How is she supposed to live without borrowing? She is not "feckless" - for every benefits scrounger there is some poor soul like this. It is a disgrace.

Many apologies for the links - I know it will get some of you spitting tin tacks! It isn't easy for me to chop it up and paste as it will be a very long post in order not to lose context and I can't post the pie charts.

It would seem that the birth rate in England & Wales is falling and has been since 2008:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/7764311/Birth-rate-falls-in-England-for-first-time-in-almost-a-decade.html

Maybe these programmes are leading viewers to believe the opposite of what is true? Does the timing of these programmes coincide with the public getting 'uppity' about corporation tax evasion?

Another link that verifies this is:

www.economicshelp.org/blog/6348/economics/cost-of-benefit-fraud-v-tax-evasion-in-uk/

I find it difficult to get hot under the collar about welfare fraud when tax avoidance/evasion costs so much more. Welfare fraud is, as stated, a drop in the ocean compared to tax 'irregularities'.

I agree Mishap. It certainly is an absolute disgrace that people who are very ill also have the added anxiety of getting into serious debt - this is not the way a civilized country should be.

Aka Flickety also said that the number of families in the UK with more than 5 children is under 10,000 but why, out of this barely significant figure, is it those that are on benefit and leading fairly chaotic lives which programme makers concentrate on?

And for those who keep saying it is the welfare state that is draining the economy, please look at my above link which shows it is the financial sector which caused and continues to cause mayhem. New scandals of mis-selling, reckless behaviour and various types of illegality/"insider dealing" are still popping up but the sector continues to resist change.

I so agree Mishap.

How can there NOT be help for people like this ??

It's the same with the NHS. Breast enlargements funded, a child in need of a £12,000 operation which is approved by NICE is refused finding.

Something is so very wrong with the system.

Holly, no need to apologise about the links. Some posts seem to be aimed at posters rather than discussing the OP and I should just disregard those.

I will read your link later but have to go out shortly so will not comment, only on what I have noticed previously in the press.

What I have noticed is that the media do report quite often on cases of feckless families who have many children (although there are of course families with many children who are not feckless); conversely there are many young women who are intelligent, thoughtful and hardworking but who do not wish to have children - Lucy Worsley being a prime example. She says she has been educated out of the reproductive process. I may get a lot of flak here, but I think that is a great pity. And many sensible, thoughtful, intelligent people will tend to limit their families as the OP suggests, whereas the feckless will nt and I think that is a worrying trend.

I meant to say also that I think that is very wrong, Mishap. She will not be feeling well enough to explore all avenues and I do hope she has someone who can help her do so. I wish her well in her recovery.

Thank you rosequartz

My feelings exactly Hollydaze, undoubtedly there are a few people who milk the system, and we can do nothing about people who have no conscience or sense of responsibility. I strongly suspect that this is another case of red herrings or smoke and mirrors or however you want to describe it; a distraction to get everyone hot under the collar about a small percentage of people while the major frauds and cheats are getting away with it. I keep going on about it adnauseum, and will say it to anyone who will listen ( and to those who will not ), but how is it that as a very small business I pay more Corporation Tax than The Ritz hotel? I do not understand how a business that is physically based in UK, provides services in UK can possible get away with it? They are not even doing a shipping it in from Jersey fiddle like Amazon. If you go to The Ritz ( not that I would) you buy tea and cakes in London, and eat it in London, so how can this be? Cameron and his buddies throw these programmes about 'benefit scroungers' in to distract and inflame, and I for one am not falling for it.

I don't think Cameron or his buddies have time to make tv documentaries as well as ruin running the country, Gill! The programmes attract viewers, that's why they're made.

They do use those tactics though Ana and may well 'nudge' tv programmers in a certain direction - divide and rule has always worked well; if they can get us fighting each other, who will notice what's going on right under our noses let alone have the energy to fight them as well! They may even be shareholders or board members of those companies that produce the programmes - it wouldn't surprise me, they seem to belong to everything else!

I didnt really mean that DC and buddies actually make or commission the programmes, it is just convenient to allow the tabloid type of programmes to distract people from the real villains. I also get really annoyed when figures are spouted about how much the welfare state is costing, when the figures include retirement pensions. These are not a benefit, they are earned and paid for.

retirement pensions. These are not a benefit, they are earned and paid for.

You do realise don't you, GillT57, just how many ministers would be spluttering into their tumblers of Glenfiddich hearing those words being uttered

Surely on their expenses etc they drink a better whisky than glenfiddich?

Retirement pensions are not a benefit, they are bought and paid for

I agree entirely and wrote to the then Pensions Secretary years ago to complain about them using the term 'benefit' for my pension. I did not receive a satisfactory answer.

I doubt that Cameron and co have much influence over BBC programme makers. It is time, however, that individuals and big businesses were made to pay the proper amount of tax that they owe. Cameron and co can surely do something about that, instead of HMRC endlessly harrassing small businesses, pensioners and hardworking families who may have been given too much tax credit despite informing the incompetent HMRC of changes in circumstances.

If the proper amount of tax was paid by these crafty people and big business then people who deserve help such as Mishap's friend would be able to receive it.

Whether it is considered fair or not for state pensions to be referred to as "welfare", it is a fact that state pensions represent around 75% of the welfare budget. The remaining 25% or so, represents benefits like Job Seekers Allowance, Housing Benefit, Carers' Allowances, etc., etc.

By lumping in state pensions with these other benefits I think a false impression is given that only those people "on benefits" are responsible for the size of the welfare budget.

I agree with GillT57 regarding the unfairness of small businesses (and their employees) paying taxes while large businesses (and some self-employed people) find ways of avoiding them.

I thought state pensions represented about 50% of the 'welfare' budget. Where did you get the figure of 75% from?

Yes, Eleothan, at one time part of our National Insurance Contributions was ring-fenced and invested for future use. I think that all changed back in the days of James Callaghan and Barbara Castle, when they introduced the convenient idea (to them, of course) that the present generation would pay for the previous generation's pensions. Then Maggie relaxed the rules on defined pendion benefit schemes to permit employers to either withdraw, reduce or abandon their contributions to employee's pension schemes. No wonder so many pensioners and prospective pensioners are in the manure now!

Yes, it said 47% of the welfare budget goes on state pensions in the report I read, too, Aka.