Tory welfare cuts will impoverish 200,000 children next year and more than 600,00 in 2020

An old law from 1824?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagrancy_Act_1824

www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/news/crime/doncaster-man-prosecuted-for-sleeping-rough-1-7513585

This is something else that has gone unnoticed, a new law which allows the homeless to be prosecuted.

We know from the unfortunate contributors on here who have had to wrestle with the gordian knot that is the benefit system, and they will assure you that riches are not there to be had.

I know they're not from personal experience *GillT57, as I explained in my post.
However, there are some who seem to do quite well somehow, and we have one in the wider family who exasperates her DM and DSF beyond belief.

And at the other end. Does this seem right to anyone?
Two wrongs do not make a right as my DM used to say very often.

Yes rosequartz I do have a working husband, and neither do I plan on closing my business, I was just trying to get across to soon that none of us can be smug, none of us know what is around the corner and when we might need help for a little while, and I really dont like this idea that in some people's eyes, a person needs to have no possessions, no luxuries before they somehow 'deserve' help from the state. I do agree that the system has got a little out of hand, and undoubtedly there are cheats, but there are also tax dodgers and cheats in business, but we can't blame and punish the majority because of the minority. There are also a lot of urban myths about how much money people get, by no definition can basic benefit levels be described as luxury. If a person tells another that they are living such a life on benefits they are dishonest either because they have made fraudulent claims/work in the cash job market or because they are misleading the person they are telling. I have said on here before about a person I interviewed for a job who told me in all honesty that the Polish people on her estate were given a car by the benefits people. Thus it spreads like Chinese whispers. We know from the unfortunate contributors on here who have had to wrestle with the gordian knot that is the benefit system, and they will assure you that riches are not there to be had.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/13/tories-big-business-tax-loopholes

And at the other end. Does this seem right to anyone?

No; drives in front of houses.
Some have parking areas. In front of the houses.

Some exceedingly posh people don't have tvs, they don't think it is good for their children

Has anyone said they believe that 'having a tv equals not being poor'?

rosequartz, possibly a drive to you is a parking area to me

GIlT, you wouldn't be entitled to sick pay

To those who believe having a tv equals not being poor , what stern judgement

GillT57 I am not sure (please correct me if I'm wrong), but I thought you said you had a DH who was earning.

I did not seem to be entitled to much in the way of benefits when the same thing happened to me as DH was still in work, although he was at retirement age. I didn't have a business but I was unable to continue to work. Luckily I had my NI stamp paid so my state pension had those years added.
Incidentally, that happened to us when there was a Labour government in power.

I think some posters may have seen occasional cases where the benefits system has let people down, and other posters have seen cases where the benefits system is being abused.

In the real world people with a car in their drive do lose their jobs and are not always able to find another job so they need hell
I think it should say help anniebach Normally would not pick up anyone for a typo, but .....
Yes, been there, done that as they say, and the help was very minimal - under James Callaghan's Labour Government. However, it did mean that strenuous efforts were made to find work.
As well as being a matter of that old-fashioned word 'Pride'.

The Welfare State has got completely out of control over many successive governments and whoever tries to get it back on track and back to its original intention is going to be villified.

I dont know how your step daughter, with teenagers and no small children in the home is able to be without some kind of work,Ceesnan as I understood it anyone with children over school age is obliged to apply for jobs, go on training course etc. or they have their benefits sanctioned. Or maybe she is one of the many people who send in applications to my company and then fail to attend the planned interview, but are able to show they have applied for jobs. I dont have time for anyone milking the system, because it leads people to believe that they are the norm, and not the ineffectual few.

Kupari45 interesting post. I do think we all have a problem with the gap between extreme poverty and relative poverty. Who decides? Relative poverty is a something that has to be decided by bodies that are not influence by what appears to be the need to be angry. With fact and figures before them it needs to be decided calmly.

so soon if I was to be diagnosed with a serious health condition had to fold the business, then you think I would not be entitled to any sickness benefit or anything until I had sold all my assets? What if like a lot of people I have a few used assets like car, tv, books, furniture, but no income to pay my council tax, my utilities, what then? I have very little in the way of savings, so should I sell my house? Would I then be the deserving poor? Oh, I forgot, as a self employed person I probably wont get sick pay anyway so will just have to sell the house.

Does anyone here feel sorry for her? Can anyone understand or condone why she does it?
Ceesnan I don't think she is alone if that helps at all.
No doubt someone on this thread will understand, condone and sympathise with her.
My sympathies are with you and your DH.

ps the post above contains irony btw

anniebach it just seems very odd to me that someone we know of failed to get a nice new house up the road (social housing) with parking right outside. Perhaps it was because she doesn't have a car - the person allocated the nice new social house has a 4x4.

anno I heard today that Lloyds Bank are going on another drive to sell, sell, sell to unsuspecting customers, which is worrying.

One of my step daughters lives in Social Housing (with a drive). On that drive there is a car. My DSD has never worked, has two teenage daughters, two failed marriages under her belt, and a grim determination to never work if she can possibly help it. She is an expert at claiming "crisis payments" when she needs extra money and I am so ashamed of her attitude that I now will not visit her. DH goes and invariably comes back with a lighter wallet as she has spun him yet another sob story. She might be just one of a minority but that does not make it acceptable. Does anyone here feel sorry for her? Can anyone understand or condone why she does it?

Yes rosequartz I did read the post , I referred to drives yes? I also read these people received help ,I assume this was because they needed it

It's now 3 years since I gave up being a CAB adviser but I haven't forgotten the vast number of debt cases that passed through our hands - most clients were not in employment. Credit is easily available and not just to people with jobs. I recall a case in which an 18-year-old young man with learning difficulties was given a credit card and proceeded to buy all the items teenagers crave. We found and proved that the card company was at fault but this was not an isolated instance. There are also the catalogues from which goods are customarily bought on credit which mounts up from week to week; when someone loses a job, they aren't asked to surrender their credit cards and they may have many of these which they continue to use through years of unemployment. So are those big flashy TVs and well polished cars bought on credit? You bet your life they are. The bailiffs are seldom far away.

^ I do not suspect everyone of being on the fiddle.^

Nor me, but there are some who are, and they are the ones taking money away from those in real need.

Who is that man who is the leader of a left-wing activist group, he is well-educated, has a degree, but pronounced that he would never work and has lived on benefits all his life. If he is claiming benefits because he is unable to work, he is managing to do a pretty good job of stirring up anarchy in the UK and working very hard at that. Can't remember his name but I am sure someone on here will know who I mean.

I believe him as well.
Well, of course you are entitled to believe him, just as other posters are entitled to believe some of the other things they hear about.
Fair do's

flats and social housing do not have drives

Really?
They have near us, the ones I mentioned before that people I know in need failed to get. There is now a nice 4x4 parked on one of the drives.

There is quite a lot of social housing on estates nearby, all nice houses with drives

I do not have the latest, but I do not resent others having them. ipad? What's an ipad? I do not even have a mobile phone that works, let alone an ipad; but as I say, I do not resent others having them. I do not know when they got them how long they have had them for. I assume they got them before they lost their jobs, or became too ill to work.

I don't resent others having them either, but I do think it a little odd if people have these things and have no intention of working and want the taxpayer to pay for them.
how long they have had them for - well, presumably, if they are the latest they have only just got them.

dj and I live in the real world Ana
Perhaps, but so do other posters who have seen a different real world to others!
Did you read Kupari45's post?
Or other posters further up the thread?

If our business goes belly up. I would not expect to get money from the government/taxpayers, if we havent sold our assets. Why should I? That is not fair to other taxpayers in my opinion.

[I wouldnt take an ipad from a child].

And of course, ana, you know where everybody else on gransnet lives and how many of them know families where nobody works, so you can make such sweeping statements, even though they no longer go on political threads.