Will the cruel Tory welfare reforms save any money?

First topic message reminder :

My personal opinion is that the current spate of tory reforms to the benefit system are cruel, regressive, and worst of all won't save money (the alleged intention).



In a supposedly modern civilised country one would think housing would be considered a human right.......rather than simply an investment / a chance to make a fast buck.

I note there is talk of a yacht for the biggest benefit claimee of them all. I note over £10billion has been spent on the olympics. I note £32billion is being spent on a high speed rail link (london-birmingham) - this will shave, a no doubt absolutely vita,l 32mins off the journey (essential??!!!) and be used by a miniscule % of the UK population.

How about investing this money in affordable social housing instead? Or do government no longer care to invest in those they view as peasants and serfs?

The tories efforts to turn the nation against those unfortunate enough to find themselves unemployed via vile smears, and an insidious propaganda campaign, are reminiscent of Nazi germany's propaganda campaign against the jews.

Iain Duncan Smith is a disgusting human being and has blood on his hands.

Instead of kicking the weakest targets that can't defend themselves....maybe the Bullingdon bullies should try picking on somebody their own size.....like the bankers, or benefit leeching corporations like Tescos.

They currently resemble a 20st thug stamping on a little girls head.

Welfare is essential and if we are to remain a civilised country we owe it to ourselves to provide for those less fortunate; unless we want to see people starving and homeless turning into savages.

The biggest burden on the UK in recent times has not been the unemployed.....welfare is not a burden - it is an essential expense in a civilised nation.

The biggest burden, and the cause of much unemployment, has been the rich greedy bankers who have cost this country, and us taxpayers, untold £billions in order to benefit a few. They have placed the real burden on the UK.

http://t.co/exdlWkwJJ6

link to Ekklesia - No money left, or is it just in the wrong places?

An interesting question

People can always afford the things that they really want.
Governments are people.  Somehow, in spite of repeated cries of poverty, various administrations have somehow cobbled together sufficient resources to tackle the Northern Ireland troubles, to liberate the Falklands, to invade Iraq, to invade Afghanistan (again!) to intervene in Libya, and now to meddle in Syria's civil war.

Don't ever believe a Government, or a farmer, or a Councillor who says they have no money.

Cheap credit encouraged us to borrow and get used to a higher standard of living. Paying back takes money out of the system, money that is currently in circulation now being used to deliver interest payments to the lenders. The government's bank-rolling of the losses incurred by either individuals working inefficiently, or due to the structure of the banking system, has transformed a financial system into a debt-circulation system. Surely there are other options than enslaving some people to debt while others grow fat on their losses?

Those who have gained are loathe to agree to any changes, and those who have not as yet been ensnared by debt do not see why they should bail out those who are.

Repayment just means less money is in circulation for the exchange of goods and services, even though people want to make stuff, have stuff and provide services. The quantity of available liquidity within the medium of exchange (money) is reduced and so less can happen.

International agreement makes it a fixed total sum, with much of it removed from circulation, unless it is called negative equity, or debt, which increases the actual  sum in circulation but calls it debt, with interest due to be added for repayment.

Demand for this debt money has to be split between the repayments to the lenders and the needs of the dispossessed.

I don't know how international agreement will develop a more effective compromise and keep the basic free market ideology running smoothly.

The topic question is answered in a recent "Guardian" article:

"Study says welfare cuts by coalition threaten to undo rise in living standards achieved under Blair and Brown"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jun/06/child-pensioner-poverty-reductions-labour

If more money is required, take it from The Poor - they are the least able to resist.

 
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOcHQaFCMAAsaA8.jpg

.....good to see Labour showing strength and solidarity with the Unions to fight for ordinary peoples rights, wages, and welfare.

- oops sorry! I forgot the Labour party are now actually supporting Tory welfare reforms.....and diluting Union power.

Who are you supporting these days, sickchip?

The Labour Party.

Although that doesn't make them immune from criticism and pressure to change.

Sickchip....One of a few posters who doesn't wear blinkers


To other posters......Either you support the poor, in which case you would be questioning Labours stance on Tory welfare changes....Or you support the party no matter what and you don't give a toss about the people

One of a few posters who doesn't wear blinkers

LOL. There speaks a Tory who passes judgement on us, so blinkered himself that not only does he laud the most damaging and divisive Prime Minister of modern times as his 'hero', but he uses a picture of the disgusting specimen as his avatar. What greater hypocrisy can there be than that woman wrapping herself in the Union Jack, when she destroyed so much of the fabric of this country, bought Polish coal rather than deal with British miners and caused most of our utilities to end up in foreign hands?
 
On that note - will the cruel Tory welfare reforms save any money?

Clearly no - but isn't it becoming more and more obvious that they were never intended to?
It's a sort of Eton School social engineering project for senior boys, isn't it?

May I respectfully ask every voter at the next General Election to remember that NONE of the spiteful Tory measures against the poor could have been taken without the support of Clegg's Quisling Lib-Dems.

Express your opinion - you can only do it effectively once every five years now.

'Daily Mail' corrects misleading benefit statistics
 
The paper admits it was wrong to state that 878,000 people on incapacity benefit dropped their claims, rather than face a new medical assessment.
 
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/07/daily-mail-corrects-misleading-benefit-statistics-dwp-prepares-mps-grilling

Ivan......I support the welfare changes the Tories are making (well most of them) but then we are honest about it and say tough luck, go get a job if you don't like it.

How honest are you going to be?

The Tory policy-wonks went into overdrive to justify their proposed decimation of the Welfare State, and identified a genuine resentment among working-class people against benefits scroungers.  In their own endearing way, the Tory-led coalition judged that the best way to exploit that feeling was to represent EVERYBODY who was in receipt of benefits as somehow working the system.

The Toffs have centuries of experience in divide-and-rule.

blueturando wrote:-
Ivan......I support the welfare changes the Tories are making (well most of them) but then we are honest about it and say tough luck, go get a job if you don't like it. How honest are you going to be?

LMAO. I suspect that hell will freeze over before I meet an honest Tory, an oxymoron if ever there was. All the crap which is excreted by your vile party and its supporters is at best half-truths, but more often a mixture of downright lies and hypocrisy.
 
I hope you can sleep easily in your bed, knowing that the policies you support are causing tenants to be evicted because they can’t pay the bedroom tax, severely disabled people and terminally-ill cancer patients being refused benefits, and half a million people having to rely on food banks to stay alive. But of course you don’t mind that; at least Osborne has cut the top rate of income tax to reward Tory backers in the City.
 
Until there are enough jobs to go round, it’s nothing short of callous to tell people to “go get a job if you don’t like it”. Where jobs are available, unemployed people may not be able to afford to move to those places. And of course you conveniently ignore the fact that 60% of people on housing benefit do have jobs, while many others who work can’t make ends meet because they’re not paid a living wage.
 
I’ve never posted anything on this forum or elsewhere unless I believed it to be the truth. That’s how honest I’m going to be.

Five things Iain Duncan Smith doesn't want you to know about the benefit cap
 
A summary of an article by George Eaton:-
 
1. An out-of-work family is never better off than an in-work family
 
The claim on which the policy rests - that a non-working family can be better off than a working one - is a myth, since it takes no account of the benefits that an in-work family can claim to increase their income.
 
2. It will punish large families and increase child poverty
 
The cap applies regardless of family size, breaking the link between need and benefits. As a result, most out-of-work families with four children and all those with five or more will be pushed into poverty.
 
3. It will likely cost more than it saves
 
For all the political attention devoted to it, the cap is expected to save just £110 million a year. But even those savings could be wiped out, due to the cost to local authorities of homelessness and housing families in temporary accommodation.
 
4. It will increase homelessness and do nothing to address the housing crisis
 
Most of those who fall foul of the cap do so because of the amount they receive in housing benefit (or, more accurately, landlord subsidy) in order to pay their rent.  The cap will increase homelessness by 40,000 and force councils to relocate families hundreds of miles away, disrupting their children's education and reducing employment opportunities
 
5. It will encourage family break-up
 
The measure creates a financial incentive to be apart, since parents who live separately and divide the residency of their children between them will be able to claim up to £1,000 a week in benefits, while a couple living together will only be able to claim £500.
 
For the whole article:-
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/07/five-things-iain-duncan-smith-doesnt-want-you-know-about-benefit-cap

Osborne added fuel to the fire with his propaganda statement re working people leaving home for work and seeing benefit claimants windows curtained whilst still in bed. Of course this type of propaganda leads not only to the disabled and sick being lumped into the equation but gives more and more justification for the Tory tyrants to administer even more cruel medicine to the benefit claimants via pumped up media/press so called polls.
The two cruel barstuards who are behind this attack on vulnerable people are the front man Duncan-Smith and worst of all is that animal Lord Freud so called Minister for Welfare devastation, who sits out of the limelight plotting his dirty work.
They really are the absolute pits.

sickchip wrote:We're seeing the steady introduction of Chinese/asian economics for the UK. Our leaders and captains of industry want to compete with them and have set about creating an improverished, hungry, and desperate labour force.  

75% of new jobs involve working for £8.00ph (not even considered to be a 'living wage'these days) or less, and are often part time and/or temporary.

Our general workforce, society, and economy is being engineered so that the few at the top are kept in the lifestyles they are accustomed to at the expense of the majority.

"Our general workforce, society, and economy is being engineered so that the few at the top are kept in the lifestyles they are accustomed to at the expense of the majority."

Nail on head chip.

All true, but "China" is not the comparison.  Chinese Workers are no longer prepared to produce smartphones for a bowl of rice a day.

The USA is rapidly returning to its old habit of regarding the UK as a colony to be exploited economically. Compare the price of an Apple computer with any other on the market, then wonder why Sony charge more for their product than any competitor. It's because they can.

Class war is not about money but bullying power. Once the tories have got us all on zero contracts they will save money, but at the moment it is about degrading the British people as their Great Leader, Hitler, would have done if things had gone as they wanted.

Zero hour contracts are a disgrace. How the frack have unions and people allowed them to even exist is beyond comprehension - though I guess it's down to docile apathy, an appalling education system, and mass brainwashing. And, of course, the system and law is increasingly leaning towards 'forcing' people into corners via threats over personal debt etc that means the system can now push people into 'almost' slavery - and if you don't obey they will stop your benefits, send in bailiffs, take you to court, seize assets such as cars, make you homeless.......basically destroy you unless you play the game according to their rules that are made so you never win, but begin to accept constant struggle is better than the total destruction of your life. Where are the Unions? Where is the Labour party?

However, if we are to have zero hour contracts, there should be a stipulation that the employer will pay the equivalent of what an individuals JSA/Income support would be if they don't provide enough working hours for them to make that amount. This would negate the need for constant applications for 'benefit top-ups'  for 'unpredictable' wages and also cut out much silly bureaucracy and form filling.

Subsidies from the British Taxpayer enable British businessmen to pay starvation wages.

I thought nobody would ever notice, sickchip.

Don't worry Vince Cable is talking about doing something about it.......not that the two-faced paper shuffling jobsworth and fetid windbag ever will.

Vince Cable - the most useless old git in the office. How does he get away with it?

All this is really what we expected from a rotten Tory administration. The fact that the government is a so called "coalition" means nothing as far as looking after the workforce. In fact in this case it is perhaps worse because the Tories have a front con man on board, there to sooth the pain to those who think Cable is on their side.
The whole issue of this Zero hour nonsense being allowed to prevail is that it massages the unemployment figs, which along with the con on the immigration propaganda has many of the fickle electorate well and truly tricked into considering voting this lot in yet again according to polls. Of course the Tory press/media are plugging this like hell.
 
God help us all if these polls are correct.

Like so much associated with this government, the "zero-hours" policy was imported from America, just like downsizing, outsourcing and derivatives investment.

Why do we let them do that?

There's always a thirst, isn't there, for quick answers that sound authoritative and simple?

The Tory philosophy is attractive in a sense, because it provides just those simple certainties that we seem programmed to want.

I guess you could encapsulate the Tory point of view in a few very short sentences, such as
'Labour caused the recession'
' Hard working people pay taxes so that idle layabouts can choose not to work'
' Spending money on welfare only encourages poor people to be feckless'
' Private enterprise is always better than State provision'
'There's work out there, if only people will bother to look for it'

These and statements like them make for eye catching headlines - if you take the time (often only a few seconds) to actually think about the message you can see it's fallacious and often just plain wrong, but isn't it always the rubbish tunes that stay in your head?

" .... but isn't it always the rubbish tunes that stay in your head?"

Especially when they are reproduced in the National media day-after-day-after-day.

Constant dripping wears away the hardest stone.

Indeed OW,the National media has a lot to answer for when it comes to assisting the rich Tory regime.
So much so that they should be accused of being utterly non democratic. Who would be powerful enough to not only accuse them but to be in a position to curb their right sided leanings?
 
Just like the bankers, the media/press have too much power which they use in favour of the Tory party.
As you say "drip drip" feed in favour of Tories, "drip drip" feed against Labour.

sickchip wrote:-
I forgot the Labour party are now actually supporting Tory welfare reforms.

I see that Ed Miliband has pledged to repeal the bedroom tax:-
 
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bedroom-tax-ed-miliband-says-2242367

Good show and about time he started to put his head up out of the sand.

Criticism of Coalition policy is beginning to come from unexpected sources. Julia Laite, Lecturer in British History at Birkbeck, comments on the (fictional) Downton TV series' portrayal of social trends and the cultural context. The thing that bothers her is the way the relationship between masters and servants is portrayed. They reach ridiculously intimate proportions which aren't in keeping with contemporary reality. What bothers her most is the blurring of profound inequalities of that time, relative to an era right now where the benefits and rights of British workers are being eroded. The effect is to create a serious depoliticisation of the past.

"What bothers her most is the blurring of profound inequalities of that time, relative to an era right now where the benefits and rights of British workers are being eroded. The effect is to create a serious depoliticisation of the past."

 
This is what bothers many including myself.
However, if Julia thinks Cameron and Co will take any notice of her comments,then she will be bitterly disappointed. Tory ideology in this respect is and will continue to be implemented irrespective of any criticism from any source.
Re-election is a second priority IMO, task completed by the end of the forced 5year term.

Some of Gideon Osborne's tricks will only come to fruition AFTER a 2015 election, e.g. the Government guarantee for banks lending larger amounts on mortgages. Presumably his intention is to create a feel-good factor for the lucky new homeowners, but there's a ready-made "boom-and-bust" inherent in such a proposal and somebody else might find themselves holding the baby.

Ivan wrote:-
"I see that Ed Miliband has pledged to repeal the bedroom tax."

 
And I have absolutely no doubt he fully intends to do just that. One problem is that so many now are wrongly in my opinion running round saying "they are all the same". If that is truly the belief of some, it is up to Ed Miliband and His party to show otherwise. He has now said he will repeal the so called bedroom tax but what about all the other attacks against the poor, needy and sick, very little is being said about them except by Iain Dumkopf Schmidt, when he rushes to any available microphone to inform us of his next Blitzkrieg on those too weak to oppose him. If he wants to be seen as something other than Tory light, he needs to get out and tell the public what he wants for Mr average working man and those now on benefits. He has also said hardly a thing about the re nationalisation of the NHS and any other privatisations made by this greedy Tory led Coalition.
I only hope he puts matters right at the Labour Conference.

Hello bobby boy, how are you?

My take on Ed is that he may be keeping his powder dry until nearer the time of the next election.
You know how the fickle public (not all) tend to forget the nasties this Tory operated so called Coalition have dished out to the poor and sick over the past 3yrs. If Ed starts to attack now, it will all go in one ear and out the other. The drip drip Tory method via the media/press worked well for them, not for Labour though, therefore
a large scale bombardment nearer the time covering every evil Tory deed may be the idea.

bobby. I accept that repealing the bedroom tax is an easy move, because it will actually save money. That evil policy of the vicious bully Duncan Smith isn’t reducing benefits, it’s actually costing an extra £1.5 billion per year. People evicted from their homes are having to be re-housed by councils, usually in private rented accommodation.
 
Those duped by the Tory papers might well say “they’re all the same”, partly because Labour can’t get its message across in the press and gets very little coverage from the Bullingdon Broadcasting Corporation. To communicate with people, Labour has to rely on its ‘doorstep’ campaign by members at weekends, Facebook, Twitter, forums such as this and ‘The Daily Mirror’. If you have any suggestions as to what Labour should put in its next manifesto, you can post them here:-
http://www.yourbritain.org.uk/
 
Andy Burnham pledged some time ago that the Health and Social Care Act of 2012, which facilitates privatisation of the NHS and removes the duty of the government to provide health care for all, will be repealed, but was that mentioned by the BBC or the Tory press? No. We’ve been told by Shapps that if the Tories win in 2015, they will make it easier to sack people. We also know that they would bring back foxhunting, and they’re floating the idea of a charge of between £10 and £25 for going to see your GP, something which that class traitor Shirley Williams supports. Anyone who really believes “they’re all the same” must be thick beyond belief.