In praise of Iain Duncan Smith's Welfare Reforms

I think Ana that much is down to mediation. If there are frequent headlines, articles & TV programmes that focus mainly on the minority of
those on benefits unfairly and also regularly use sensationalist language then some of the people who read/hear them begin to accept it as the norm. You and I know that 'news' is about the unusual not the usual & that
headlines like ' millions of people go to work every day' does not sell a paper! We also know that newspapers have political allegiance so will 'spin' stories to suit the political group they align with. I guess that is why many of us read a range of press coverage to try to work out what the truth might be!

paragraphs? Who put those in!

Yes indeed, Penstemmon. And we also have to go by our own experiences and personal knowledge as well.

durhamjen I'm sorry to read that, very sad, both for you and for your late husband. There isn't one person on GN who would wish to take any benefit from those, like your husband, who need it, and it's dreadful that he was made to feel a 'drain on society'.

My point, which I keep making but is largely ignored, is that those who bleed the system (however many that is we can disagree on) are taking away benefits from those who should have them. I can name half a dozen who are fraudulently claiming incapacity benefit, probably more if I sat and thought about it. At least three of these were professional middle class people; two who claim they are incapable due to back problems the other with stress. Plus there are those, like Ceesnan's relatives who have no intention of working if they can avoid it.

But please believe me, my indignation at these people, is because they are fleecing a system which ought to support people like your husband, the family whose bread winner is made redundant, those in areas where jobs are impossible to come by and those who are incapable of working for whatever reason. The more that is taken out of the system by those who can but won't work, the less there is in the pot for those in genuine need, long or short term.

My career as a SW was centred mainly around people with disabilities, and they struggled to manage. The changes in the assessment system that made it hard for people with head injuries to get benefits created enormous problems. Many of these people looked "normal" but could not remember things, work out what order to do things in, control their tempers - all caused by an injury to their brains. It took many years to get their sort of problems acknowledged by the benefits system and believe me they and their families truly did suffer.

But I have worked with families who were never going to work - they were brought up by parents who gave them no structure or values - it is a pernicious cycle. But they are not to blame. As someone so rightly said, it is the preventive measures that need funding: Sure Start, Home Start, LA family centres, where children get the chance to have good experiences and the parents learn what good parenting is. In my area, all 3 of those options have lost their funding and closed. It is easy to go for the government to just concentrate on crisis intervention, but it is prevention that is needed - giving these children a chance from the beginning will increase the chance of them growing up to be responsible citizens who will have no need of the benefits system.

DH is an engineer and he was always an advocate for planned maintenance, as a complete breakdown costs more in the long-term.

Exactly, Mishap. People cannot say it's okay for someone to have benefits because they know him or her, but not that person over there who looks normal. It's like people having a blue badge for parking. Someone gets out of a car, and you think he looks okay. You do not know that once inside the shop/house, he has to sit down because the pain is too much to stand.
The number of times we were told it was nice to see us holding hands. I was holding him up, to stop him falling over, because the last thing he wanted to use was a walking stick or a wheel chair.
We never knew if his ataxia was caused by falling off the ladder. It did not matter, he still had it.
What do people say when they see someone walking as if they are drunk? Not he might have ataxia or be diabetic and be having a hypo.
They both make you slur your speech as well.
As far as Sure Start centres are concerned, my grandson would not have got the help he did so quickly for his ASD if his parents had not moved into a Sure Start area.
If we are not prepared to help people with problems, then we as a society have to accept the consequences. In my view that means accepting that a few people will try to fiddle the benefit system, in order to help the majority that do not.

Durhamj
As my father refused to undergo a means test my university fees were paid by him. My husband who lived 'over the border in Birmingham' whose father was probably richer than mine! Had his fees paid by Birmingham City with NO means test.

When I went to college I was already married with kids. But because I was under 25, the local authority asked for my father's financial details and I got a grant and fees paid because he did not earn a lot and had two other daughters living at home. It did not make sense to me, but I did not object.

durhamjen I have great sympathy for you over the loss of your husband obviously he slipped though the net and it must have been a terrible time for you.

I hope your nephew manages to get a job of course I do. But surely if you knew you had to go to the job centre to sign on at a certain time and that if you didn't go at that time you would be sanctioned any sensible person would make sure they got there on time. You would put money away out of your benefits for bus fare or leave in plenty of time if you had to walk.

£78 is not a lot to live on, you only get about £110 state pension, but if they gave everyone as much as they would get working minimum wage then some claimants would not look for work. You need some sanctions otherwise some people would just not bother.

"If we are not prepared to help people with problems, then we as a society have to accept the consequences. In my view that means accepting that a few people will try to fiddle the benefit system, in order to help the majority that do not."

Exactly, durhamjen! Where there is no compassion, there is no humanity. The survival of the fittest is the law of the jungle, not of the human world.

Agreement with durhamjen and Ariadne from me. Ninny, I've already said I share the frustration expressed by many about benefit fraud. Your point about the state pension and job seekers is a reasonable one. I have sympathy for people whose benefits are stopped (often for weeks) because they fail to jump through every hoop, on every occasion, and on time. Individuals who have learning difficulties or mental health problems aren't always able to organise themselves properly. If your literacy skills are poor, using a computer at the library won't be easy. In fact, going into the library may present a challenge to many. Our local libraries no longer have enough staff to help all comers, but at least we have a local library.

If we are not prepared to help people with problems, then we as a society have to accept the consequences

The consequences of which could be a rise in criminal behaviour. People often quote the 'learn from history' but seem not to put it into practice: if people are going hungry or cold, they could well feel there is no alternative but to take what they need to survive; how can that make sense?

The whole enterprise of DHSS changes has happened too quickly, especially for older people, which hasn't given those who become affected time to make arrangements: in the case of someone my age, who is going to offer pension provision at this late stage? Where are all these jobs that we are supposed to be applying for? Why are so many employers able to pay such low incomes that people can't afford to live without having their incomes topped up?

Why isn't financial help available to help people set up their own businesses? Why do local councils not offer reduced rent/rates for start-ups to ease the financial burden during those first critical years? Why not give tax breaks (including Employers National Insurance which, I believe, is around 13% of each employees pay) to people who manufacture items in Britain thereby making those products more affordable?

Micro enterprises provide more jobs and do more for the local community than their larger counterparts - yet little support is given from Government. If this support was given, maybe the jobs would be there for people to apply for; whilst we keep the status quo, things will never improve.

Blaming fellow countrymen is not always the answer; changing the system often is.

A new slant on benefit fraud.
www.politics.co.uk/news/2014/05/16/iain-duncan-smith-used-false-statistics-to-justify-disabilit

Sigh. Never let statistics or systematically gathered scientific evidence get in the way of a firmly held opinion. Those ministers drive me mad (all parties).

Seeing is believing.

What I find interesting is that everyone on the board appears to have been appointed by this government. No friends in the UK Statistics Authority.

David Cameron is using the deficit as a cover to dismantle the welfare State and the role of the State for the above mentioned reasons, but none of this reality is being picked up by either Labour Ministers, Lib-Dem ministers, or the BBC Media. This reality is being dumbed down. The BBC media is compliant.

The very fabric of the role of what the State should provide in tax payers money to welfare, services and State pensions, is being whittled away under cover of reducing the deficit, and there is no opposition to it.

The Tory mantra of making painful cuts to reduce the deficit is little more than a smoke screen they hide behind to implement their ideology of reducing the size of the State, driving down wages, cutting benefits ect.

My guess is that they'd make pretty much the same decisions for ideological reasons even if there wasn't a deficit.

The cynic in me says how easy it is for the right wing comfortably well off, greed infested Tory supporters to ridicule and chastise people on the receiving end of Tory cuts in welfare. And how equally easy it is for the right wing press to encourage this, just to sell their papers.

The Thatcherist, hard line, anti social policies the Tory's are forcing on us all makes them feel superior. And they perpetuate the suffering while living in their comfy homes without a conscience.

The Tory's pretend to care about the pensioners having to choose between heating, or eating, the Tory's pretend to care about the family's wondering how they are going to feed their children today and tomorrow.

The Tory's since Thatcher have been the same !

No longer a small "c" left of centre Conservative party with a good social conscience.
No, since the 80's they have been ultra right wing, hardnosed, and with no compassion but to condemn the poor to a life of misery and no hope so long as they can live in relative luxury.

This is how they want it, to keep the masses under their eternal control. The Tories only aim is power and control.

For that reason the Tories love it when the economy is bad, so bad that they blame the masses of poor for it. It is malicious and insidious.

And what makes it even more appalling is that the Tories actually do believe they are superior intellectually to everybody else.

This will be their downfall!, and I hope that this will be at the next general election in 2015.

The Tories deserve to be out of office for decades to come, if only to stop their bare faced arrogance.

Food banks in 21st century Britain, is as bad as the chronic homelessness we have, the awful old age poverty, and the low waged economy the Tories have nurtured throughout their 18 years of running Britain, 1979- 1997, and I might add, New Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, 1997- 2010, did nothing fundamental to reverse any of it.

Britain has suffered Thatcher's ideology for over 30 years. And the pensioners and the low waged workers are being screwed.

IDS is a right wing Tory whose political parties ideology has run Britain since Thatcher. And its this free market system which has placed people in the situations they are in. I am not a member of any political party, and I can see IDS in n objective light.

Anybody praising this man needs to see a shrink.

There's a lot of political ignorance on this forum. We havent had a "Labour" Government since the 1970's. "New" Labour under Tony Blair continued Thatcher's right wing free market policies.

Hello again, Ivanhoe! You've been away for a while...

It doesn't really sound objective to me!

And the BBC is compliant? Oh come on .....!

ps are you saying we are ignorant? Perhaps you are right, but we are entitled to our opinions without being insulted.

If that is you when you are being objective, Ivanhoe then please forewarn us when you intend to be partisan, so that we can take cover.

Leave it. [hit your head with a frying pan emoticon]