8th July Budget

robfosters · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:21

Caged said:
If it's not fraudulent then it's people playing by the rules. You either tighten up the rules or you try and make sure assessments are more accurate, but then you're looking at using medical professionals (expensive) instead of a bunch of apes at Atos. I'm not convinced you'd see any savings.

You can never have a perfect system. The sad fact is that in order to ensure everyone who is genuine gets the benefits they are entitled to, you're not gonna be able to stop a few Blaggers through.

Caged · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:24

DampDog said:
I tend to agree, however we seem to be sleep walking into lets blame the scummy poor for all the countries woes and are prepared to happily jump on the bandwagon regardless of whether it's really valid or not. To the point where we count every room in the house and every penny. Yet we are not even prepared to shine the spotlight in some places where £300 is considered trivial, yet we have families who have incomes of less than that a week.

I guess what I'm saying (and I understand that this is a weird concept in the Britain of 2015) is that I'd like to see evidence of a small attempt at researching things before deciding on policy.

Why are we worrying so much about cutting everything to the bone and getting returns that are quickly diminishing instead of looking at ways of getting an extra 12bn a year through taxation because companies are doing better and employing more people at higher pay? We're just going to end up with a bunch of irritated people who have moved to some dump of an area, earning minimum wage working a job they hate while the government tells them that the country is great and if they don't agree it's because they don't work hard enough.

Hitman_Leon · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:24

[TW]Fox;28273337 said:
You don't need to have watched the television show to know - it was, rightly or wrongly, quite a significant news piece at the time.

I googled that, now I remember the headlines on the news sites but never caught the name as I avoid like the plague reading sensationalist/reality-tv/sheep fodder garbage like that.

dowie · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:24

Caged said:
If it's not fraudulent then it's people playing by the rules. You either tighten up the rules or you try and make sure assessments are more accurate, but then you're looking at using medical professionals (expensive) instead of a bunch of apes at Atos. I'm not convinced you'd see any savings.

Yes, you tighten up the rules and perhaps you bring in more general conditions/guidelines for things like depression. The issue with things like depression is that it is self reported, I'm not saying that these people haven't all been depressed at some point just that some of them probably could work but have convinced themselves that they're written off now for life.

I wouldn't look at bringing in medical professionals I'd look at setting a time limit and then whacking a good % of these people back on JSA automatically.

robfosters · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:27

dowie said:
Yes, you tighten up the rules and perhaps you bring in more general conditions/guidelines for things like depression. The issue with things like depression is that it is self reported, I'm not saying that these people haven't all been depressed at some point just that some of them probably could work but have convinced themselves that they're written off now for life.

I wouldn't look at bringing in medical professionals I'd look at setting a time limit and then whacking a good % of these people back on JSA automatically.

Do you think every single person claiming ESA and DLA should be given a thorough medical or should it be done on a case by case basis?

Sorry, but the time limit idea is a bit silly.

Caged · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:28

dowie said:
Yes, you tighten up the rules and perhaps you bring in more general conditions/guidelines for things like depression. The issue with things like depression is that it is self reported, I'm not saying that these people haven't all been depressed at some point just that some of them probably could work but have convinced themselves that they're written off now for life.

I wouldn't look at bringing in medical professionals I'd look at setting a time limit and then whacking a good % of these people back on JSA automatically.

So if people have depression and aren't 'cured' by an arbitrary date then that's because they are liars?

You need to decide whether you want to help vulnerable people back into work that they can take pride in, or force/shame them into a job that they hate because there's no other option. Personally I think the first option is better for the country long term, but this is the era of the individual so sod the bigger picture am I right?

StriderX · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:30

Caged said:
So if people have depression and aren't 'cured' by an arbitrary date then that's because they are liars?

You need to decide whether you want to help vulnerable people back into work that they can take pride in, or force/shame them into a job that they hate because there's no other option. Personally I think the first option is better for the country long term, but this is the era of the individual so sod the bigger picture am I right?

Well, there only so many jobs.

scorza · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:35

Just seen the news - headline for me is the BBC being made to fund free TV licences for the over-75s. That's pretty much a 20% cut in the BBC's budget from what I've read - unless the BBC decides not to fund it, in which case they'll have a load of angry pensioners complaining. Typical devious Osborne, I do think they're preparing the way for privatisation of the BBC.

robfosters · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:38

scorza said:
Just seen the news - headline for me is the BBC being made to fund free TV licences for the over-75s. That's pretty much a 20% cut in the BBC's budget from what I've read - unless the BBC decides not to fund it, in which case they'll have a load of angry pensioners complaining. Typical devious Osborne, I do think they're preparing the way for privatisation of the BBC.

They'll wish they hadn't sacked Clarkson now.

Caged · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:39

He doesn't want the BBC News website becoming a rival to the newspapers online content because he hasn't been as successful at telling the BBC what to do as he has with his mates at the Mail, Times, Telegraph, etc. The idea of a major source of news not being able to be bought upsets him.

dowie · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:40

Caged said:
So if people have depression and aren't 'cured' by an arbitrary date then that's because they are liars?

not necessarily

You need to decide whether you want to help vulnerable people back into work that they can take pride in, or force/shame them into a job that they hate because there's no other option. Personally I think the first option is better for the country long term, but this is the era of the individual so sod the bigger picture am I right?

I think we need to spend less and in general we probably could spend less and more people probably could work. Writing people off long term for depression is BS, yes I think putting them back on JSA after a period of time has elapsed(perhaps set according to the severity of their condition initially) is a reasonable albeit imperfect option. We don't have the resources to constantly mollycoddle people.

Caged · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:42

Don't we? We seem to be excellent at wasting it in other areas.

Danthus · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:45

Caged said:
He doesn't want the BBC News website becoming a rival to the newspapers online content because he hasn't been as successful at telling the BBC what to do as he has with his mates at the Mail, Times, Telegraph, etc. The idea of a major source of news not being able to be bought upsets him.

Very interesting that you have said that given that Labour today have called for the replacement of Nick Robinson to be impartial.

MrMoonX · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:48

The real issue is, we have rich people who haven't done any real work to get where they are dictating what they think is best to society, there's very few actual lay people in the commons.

They won't sort out housing as most of them are landlords, they take loads of houses out of inheritance tax, as they want their parents money, they just don't know what the average worker does and how we live

Caged · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:49

I think the BBC is liberal leaning (like most media companies to be honest due to the sort of people the industry attracts) but not biased towards any particular party. So it annoys Labour and the Tories equally, which is good.

dowie · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:52

Caged said:
Don't we? We seem to be excellent at wasting it in other areas.

thus the need for cuts...

StriderX · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:52

Caged said:
I think the BBC is liberal leaning (like most media companies to be honest due to the sort of people the industry attracts) but not biased towards any particular party. So it annoys Labour and the Tories equally, which is good.

BBC is a current-government supporter...always has been.

robfosters · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:54

dowie said:
thus the need for cuts...

But from the areas we're wasting it, not from areas we're not.

Caged · 5 Jul 2015 at 19:58

dowie said:
thus the need for cuts...

I think perhaps if we are that badly wanting for money then maybe don't promise the world to pensioners or inflate the housing market through buy to let tax breaks before you attack one of the most basic functions of a welfare state.

dowie · 5 Jul 2015 at 20:01

robfosters said:
But from the areas we're wasting it, not from areas we're not.

well perhaps that is where opinion comes into it but IMO we are wasting rather a lot on benefits and it accounts for a rather large portion of government spending