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

durhamjen what is wrong with being prejudiced. I always thought that a discussion comes from all points of view. Being prejudiced simply means that someone is on one side of the argument.
There are too many posters on here that get their backs up if someone doesn't agree with them. I can see all sides of this question but I don't get annoyed if someone disagrees with me.

Live and let live.

I think the whole tax system needs overhauling.

It has been reported that Facebook paid £4,327 in corporation tax in 2014 although its UK turnover was more than £104 million.

An article in the Guardian today says that because companies do not have to give full details of how their tax bill was arrived at, it is impossible to know whether a company genuinely has made a loss and, if so, why, or whether "creative accounting" has been used to decrease its liability.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/12/facebook-tax-politics-power

Gill, I personally know a family who are on benefit who have a social worker as the man is of low intelligence and cant work, they are encouraged to buy new stuff and get loans from the dss, they bought a new pram and baby equipment. My husband worked as an engineer yet we budgeted and bought a second hand pram and buggy, very little was new apart from gifts. We were careful and never got into debt yet the social workers seem to think that those on benefits need 'new' stuff'.
It makes you wonder why anyone works at all. btw I was working full time too when DD was born. As I write this Im sitting on a 30 year old sofa with nothing new in sight apart form this laptop which was a gift.

I don't resent those who get benefits but at the amount they seem to get if they can afford lots of new stuff and I cant see why the government cant cut back the benefits, 2 children are more than enough unless you can really afford them. Anyway they should be given vouchers for food and clothes and heating then they couldn't waste their money on drink and smoking and probably drugs too

I said fair share, Elegran. Fair is not taking your money and jobs away just because you are asked to pay your fair share.
The UK now is seen as a tax haven by many multinationals.

I am pleased you said that, ethel, about prejudice.

"There were a couple of people on there who will fit your prejudiced view, but they were definitely not all like that."

This is what I said, and it does not say there is anything wrong. So perhaps you can explain why I was attacked for saying it, because I do not understand it, either.

Ethel, on the programme about foodbanks, I think it was, the man who ran the foodbank said he did not see why everyone should be sanctioned just because a few need to be.
Or it might have been a bishop who said it. Can't remember. It's not important who said it.
Most people who are on benefits do not cheat; it just seems like that because of the news coverage and the bias of the paper. You have just confirmed that by saying that you know of one family who get more than you have. What they do not have is pride in themselves that they have earned what they have. Whose fault is that? Where can they get that pride from?

dj they can bloody well work like most of us. If they haven't got the brains to do a proper job then they can clean toilets or scrub floors.

*That's just silly, roses. How can anyone have a better grasp of real life than anyone else?
We are all living in the real world.*

If you actually live it. If you see it daily. If your relatives or friends who you trust to tell you the truth are living it or seeing it.

I am sure you have all heard the saying 'we are all in the gutter only some of us are looking at the stars'. Well, that applies to the hardworking people who cant get benefits and are on a low income. Yes some of us don't have a 'pot to piss in' as the saying goes but we battle on, we have to pay out taxes to keep the scroungers in new tvs and holidays.

Genuine people should always be helped, and unfortunateky a lot of people know how to play the system and say the right things to get what they want.
It's a damn shame and leaves even less for the genuine claimants.

So anyone who feels sympathy for those who are struggling is just walking around with his/her head in the clouds, not looking at the real world? Is that so, soon?

Latest figures for benefit fraud.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/426914/FandE_IG_May15.pdf

Not a lot, really, roses. Far more fraud at the top end of tax fraud.

You are prejudiced, ethel. You can take that how you like, and so can anyone else. You have a pot to piss in. You have a house. Some people do not. They have to sleep on park benches, but presumably you blame them for that, too.

What a load of tosh Djen, and you know nothing of anybody's circumstances and finances.

Centrepoint are asking for sponsors for bedsits to give shelter to young people sleeping on the streets

Roses, are you saying that ethel does not have a house and a pot to piss in?
I am sure she said she was very proud to have bought her council house.

"dj they can bloody well work like most of us. If they haven't got the brains to do a proper job then they can clean toilets or scrub floors."
Are you saying that is not prejudice?

So cleaning toilets and scrubbing floors are not proper jobs and for those who lacks brains ? ethelbags views on me and many like me

Have you any idea how you sound DJ?

'you have a pot to piss in' quote. Is that the level of debate you aspire to?

Tosh doesn't even come near it roses

Where is our disgusted emoticon?

Cleaning toilets/scrubbing floors, etc., isn't a very nice job to do but it is a proper job because it's something that needs doing. And people who are unable, for a variety of reasons, to do a more pleasant, well paid job, should not, in my view be talked about in such a derogatory way by describing them as not having "the brains to do a proper job".

There are plenty of people with brains who are doing highly paid but totally useless jobs or jobs that damage society rather than improve it.

It was ethelbags that used the expression "pot to piss in" first, not durhamjen.

thank you Eloethan, a kindness much needed x

"I am sure you have all heard the saying 'we are all in the gutter only some of us are looking at the stars'. Well, that applies to the hardworking people who cant get benefits and are on a low income. Yes some of us don't have a 'pot to piss in' as the saying goes but we battle on, we have to pay out taxes to keep the scroungers in new tvs and holidays."

Anya, why do you not criticise ethel for using the phrase first?

Thanks, Eloethan. I have just noticed your post.

When I had a cafe, someone once said to one of the staff that she was surprised that someone with her qualifications was working in a place like that. I checked the staff and five of us had degrees.
Prejudice.

"We do not need a magic money pot, roses. All we need is for people to pay their fair share of tax, and to pay decent wages." - and that on its own will do it?

No, it won't.

Of course everyone should pay their fair share in taxes, of course everyone should get decent wages. If those in work get decent wages they won't need benefit top-ups. If there is more tax coming in, then there is more in the kitty to help those without an income, for whatever reason.

But that on its own is not enough on which to build a country where everyone is fully employed and getting those decent wages.

The government doesn't provide jobs. They are created by employers, or by self-employed individuals working for themselves. There is a balance to be kept between what is good for the employee and what is good for the employer.

There are small to medium sized businesses, and then there are multinationals.

Small to medium sized businesses are rooted in this country. They can't take themselves away, so if they are not making enough to employ more people to take on more work, they stay as they are and don't grow bigger to employ more. It is a circle. Some small employers on Gn have given their views on that, and on the vast amount of paperwork they have to do.

Multinationals have their pick of locations. "Fair is not taking your money and jobs away just because you are asked to pay your fair share." but multinationals are not in business to play fair. They are there to make money for their shareholders. They don't say openly that that is why they are transferring their operations, of course. They are "rationalising their production" or "outsourcing" or "investing in a developing area" - where the workers are happy with peanuts and the authorities with a few hefty "donations".

If you rely heavily on firms with global interests to provide jobs, then you are competing globally to attract them to be based here. Less reliance on these vast corporations and a great deal more support for home-grown industries would make a steadier economy, and that would help take out the peaks and troughs that dump people into poverty.