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Really??

(92 Posts)
NfkDumpling Thu 18-Jan-18 06:59:41

The following popped up on my FB page this morning.
I usually ignore all this sort of stuff but this seems too extreme and rather nasty. It follows on from a spate of ones about pensioners being better off in prison which did the rounds and died a year or two back and has now risen from the dead. I've no idea where to go to check the facts. I would assume that someone has found a refugee family who have received this sort of help - and probably needed and deserved it - and assumed a blanket award for all refugees, legal or otherwise. But am I being too kind?

Pip Keeling
13 January 2017 ·
STATE PENSION - keep this going please

Read and pass on:
Dear Prime Minister
I wish to ask you a Question:- "Is This True?"
I refer to the Pension Reality Check.

Are you aware of the following ?

The British Government provides the following financial assistance:-

BRITISH OLD AGED PENSIONER
(bearing in mind they worked hard and paid their Income Tax and National
Insurance contributions to the British Government all their working life)
Weekly allowance: £106.00

IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
(No Income Tax and National Insurance contribution whatsoever)
Weekly allowance: £250.00

BRITISH OLD AGED PENSIONER
Weekly Spouse Allowance: £25.00

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
Weekly Spouse Allowance: £225.00

BRITISH OLD AGED PENSIONER
Additional Weekly Hardship Allowance: £0.00

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
Additional Weekly Hardship Allowance: £100.00

A British old age pensioner is no less hard up than an illegal immigrant/refugee yet receives nothing

BRITISH OLD AGED PENSIONER
TOTAL YEARLY BENEFIT: £6,000

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
TOTAL YEARLY BENEFIT: £29,900

Please read all and then forward to all your contacts so that we can lobby for a decent state pension.
After all, the average pensioner has paid taxes and contributed to the growth of this country for the last 40 to 60 years.
Sad isn't it? Surely it's about time we put our own people first.

OldMeg Thu 18-Jan-18 07:33:28

Luckily I don’t have FB friends who’d post such blatant rubbish, and the one who once did got short shift. I suggest you unfriend if it was a friend or simply block if it was a FOAF.

Eglantine21 Thu 18-Jan-18 07:38:09

This article is over six years old and went viral at the time. I'm sad to see it brought back to life.

Illegal immigrants, of course get nothing.
Refugees/ asylum seekers get some sort of accommodation plus a subsistence allowance. When this article was first published it was £36 a week.

You can check it out on full fact.org. Sorry I don't know how to post a link.

WilmaKnickersfit Thu 18-Jan-18 07:40:30

It's malicious rubbish. Check out the facts about the message here

illegal immigrants and state pensioners

Please, please do not circulate it any where else Nfk or you'd just be helping to stoke the fire. wink

NfkDumpling Thu 18-Jan-18 07:49:46

Of course I'm not going to circulate it Wilma- I really wanted to try to stop this person circulating rubbish. She just jumps on awful bandwagons. (I can't unfriend her without upset, and really she's quite a nice person. Just easily led!) Thanks for the link - I shall quote bits at her!!

Fullfact.org looks like a site I can browse happily for quite a while! Thanks!

maryeliza54 Thu 18-Jan-18 07:53:18

Why would you even want to check this - it’s clearly complete and utter racist rubbish. It’s the sort of thing Britain First post. What is a British Old Aged Pensioner? If people can’t use the right description,it’s highly unlikely they could get figures correct. Lumping illegal immigrants and refugees together is also complete bollocks - illegal immigrants by definition wouldn’t be in the system to claim money. And no one in receipt of the basic state pension alone wouldn’t be entitled to other help. I don’t think this racist FB post should have been posted on here giving further publicity to what anyone with the minimum amount of knowdge about how the system works knows is completely false.

WilmaKnickersfit Thu 18-Jan-18 07:57:17

Nfk sorry, I didn't mean to imply you were going to circulate it, honestly that's not what I meant.

maryeliza54 Thu 18-Jan-18 07:58:12

You’ve circulated it on here - and no your friend is not a nice person. Being easily led is a sign of stupidity at the best. Message her and say that posting this reflects badly on her and you don’t want to have this sort of racism popping up on your FB Page. When we don’t challenge racism, we endorse it, we are complicit in it.

WilmaKnickersfit Thu 18-Jan-18 07:58:17

PS fullfacts.org is usually my first port of call for information. wink

maryeliza54 Thu 18-Jan-18 07:59:23

I’m going to report it and see what HQ think

WilmaKnickersfit Thu 18-Jan-18 08:05:06

In case anyone is interested, two other sites I use to check if something is real or true are

Snopes
Hoax-Slayer

MissAdventure Thu 18-Jan-18 08:05:06

I've never heard of fullfacts.org, so its done some good. Presumably everyone here can read, so they can read the facts for themselves.

NfkDumpling Thu 18-Jan-18 08:08:40

I never thought for one moment Maryeliza that any other gran would take it as being Gospel! I just wanted to know where to get the facts to put this 'friend' right. I'm such an innocent!

Iam64 Thu 18-Jan-18 08:13:50

Nfk - of course it's nonsense and nasty nonsense at that. I'm not a fan of Mr T but, in this case I'd say the phrase "fake news" is appropriate.

maryeliza54 Thu 18-Jan-18 08:15:01

And here’s another tip- I went on FB and looked at Pip Keeling’s Page - it’s full of utter racist right wing filth. Your friend is now associated on social media with a racist.I don’t suppose she’s job hunting is she but this is how people end up losing jobs or not getting them because employers look at what they post and share on FB,Twitter etc. And you’re associated with her. And Miss many people don’t check the facts for themselves - they just engage in spewing out utter rubbish which fits their racist view of the world - they want such posts to be true and ergo,they are.

maryeliza54 Thu 18-Jan-18 08:19:33

Nfk surely you know that this forum is open to anyone - not just those of us who post. Why didn’t you just say on here,that you’ve received a very unpleasant FB post with what you are sure are false figures about the amount of money state pensioners and refugees get and asking for help in how to check the facts?

WilmaKnickersfit Thu 18-Jan-18 08:21:29

I have an old friend who doesn't live near me who is terrible for emailing malicious or pernicious information just like this one from Facebook. I emailed her several times to say something wasn't true backed up with a with a link. She's an intelligent woman, but she never checked out stuff before forwarding it to lots of people. Every time she was shocked that someone would send out lies. Before Christmas I decided I'd had enough and sent a reply saying I would like her to take me off her friends list for emails because I didn't agree with most of the information she sent me. She is really upset now, but has spent quite a bit of time on the sites in my links and I would like to believe her eyes have been opened. I haven't replied to her last few messages and her Christmas card had a hand written letter inside. She apologised again and said she intended to keep writing to me. She wants to meet up and I can't make up my mind what to do. sad

OldMeg Thu 18-Jan-18 08:22:07

Don’t be afraid to point out to your friend thst this is blatant, racist rubbish. If she is so ready to believe this sort of stuff you almost have a duty to tell her it’s not on.

Something like ‘sorry Xxxx I just have to point out that this is a load of bollocks spread by a racist website. I hope you don’t think any of this is actually true. You’ve quite upset me.’

You can of course leave out any words you consider offensive don’t water the message down. Sometimes we are complicit in racism simply because we are too polite or timid to say anything.

MaggieMay60 Thu 18-Jan-18 08:23:34

Thank you Eglantine for posting the address of full fact, I always trawled the net trying to find out the truth now I can just click on my favourites bar. smile

OldMeg Thu 18-Jan-18 08:25:02

Wilma give her one last chance and meet up. But do discuss her attitude when you meet and see if she has truly taken your comments on board. If so great, but if not then you’ll have your answer.

WilmaKnickersfit Thu 18-Jan-18 08:30:13

OldMeg I'm leaning towards meeting up with her because even though we don't see each other much, it's like we just last met yesterday. We just clicked when we met on a training course and spent 6 weeks sharing accommodation which was some of the best times in my life. Thanks for the advice, I think I will get in touch with her. I know she'll be falling over herself trying to apologise about the whole thing.

WilmaKnickersfit Thu 18-Jan-18 08:34:19

Sorry for hijacking the thread.

NfkDumpling Thu 18-Jan-18 08:41:06

Some really nice people are easily lead - and easily upset. It can be difficult to put them right without hurt. I have replied to this friends post to the effect that it's old fake news, best to check first - but I've done that before and she's slipping back into old habits. I fear she has friends who will pass it on. I've reported it to FB in the hope they can do something. (not holding my breath on that one!)

GracesGranMK2 Thu 18-Jan-18 08:46:15

NfkD what was you point in promulgating such obvious lies? If you were not sure, surely the thing to do was make a check of basic state pensions.

Of course I'm not going to circulate it Wilma You have! You did! You posted the vile fakery on here and someone, somewhere will be very glad to believe it because it will back their nasty little views.

GracesGranMK2 Thu 18-Jan-18 08:49:34

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