General Chat

I never intended this thread to be a red or blue political argument, I was just sooo angry I needed a rant and rave about what had happened to my dear sis.
Anyway, she is off to the C.A.B. tomorrow to see what can be done about an appeal and to apply for rent rebate etc., so that is good.
Also my good lady wife and I have taken onboard my daughters comment about sleeping in the cellar. Tomorrow evening we have a builder coming to have a look down there with a view to making it a nice habitable area rather than a hole in the ground full of junk. Then if things don't work out for Sis, or if she wants to in the future, there will be room for her in our home. And I have to say she would be most welcome.

Eddie, unfortunately the EEC, American Wars, Nuclear Weapons are but a tiny drop in the ocean when it comes to the countries total budget.. Even if we cut the lot tomorrow we would no better off.

Taxing the rich doesn't work either. They are already paying half of what the earn in income tax before they even start spending when they are taxed even more.. Also there are just too few of them to raise any serious amount of revenue

Bottom line is that the middle of the road family, bringing home £20k or so a year has to bear the brunt of funding the welfare state, education and the NHS. They are now fed up to the teeth with paying for this and want it to stop. Hence, cuts and savage ones at that, are inevitable.

Everything in my garden isn't rosy either. I have to use my savings to make ends meet, and don't get a penny from the state as I was stupid enough to invest what I earned in my house, and what little was left in small pension. Unfortunately it got worse under the last labour government. and I am now about two thirds as well off as I would have been under the last conservative government, so at least for me, thing can only get better.

I have no problem with the needy receiving welfare. The issue perhaps, is in deciding who are needy and who are not and there are a lot of people out there receiving benefits which I and others like me are paying for, who are not that needy, and I would argue are less needy than I am.

I have deliberately not made comment re Eddies sister's particular situation as this is between her and the authorities to resolve, and, hopefully if she is deserving then she will receive what she is entitled to.

Hope things work out.

Hope she manages to sort things out. Its lovely that your daughter suggested giving her room up for her auntie and she is lucky to have such good family that your willing to help her out!
I wish your sister all the best!

I hope things work out for your sister, the CAB should be able to tell her about the benefits she is entitled to - what a caring family you are,
Kind regards, Liz

I can only add, do try your MP. I wrote to ours some years ago in despair over a cut we faced, undeservedly I might add, as it left us facing homelessness. I hadnt voted for him either, but within days of his receipt of my letter everything was righted. I was very sad when he died, a genuine man of action. Thankfully, our present one is pretty good too, I vote for him, not his party.

Your sister must fight back - it can be done altho it is a very stressful thing to have to do. I wish her luck at the CAB, she is lucky to get an appointment so fast.

I must congratulate you on your daughter's kind nature, obviously partly due to the way you have brought her up. Wish my brothers were as thoughtful, I could be dead for all they bother about me or my son, and it's been that way since both of them married very selfish showoff type women.
Still don't have to thank them, do I lol?

Good luck to your family Eddie

Lizx

There is,or has been,worldwide recession and I am not really surprised considering that twenty years ago two of the most powerful people in the world,Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were in the early stages of dementia.

We have just had new glasses because my partner has become unemployed so we get help with them which the £54 a week I get as a carer does not entitle me to even though I may not earn more than ninety odd pounds a week. This is my bugbear, carers allowance does not have the concessions of other benefits.It is so unfair!

The first thing ANY government should cut are MP's and local Councillors who have offshore bank accounts.
If they're don't pay the tax of this country like the rest of us, they have no right to say where our tax goes!
This would create much more money than making the disabled work (where are the jobs?) and hunting down innocent people in their quest to find the odd benefit 'cheat'.

Oh - and it would probably clear half the House of Commons!

Lets not have opinion dressed up as fact please.I'll tell you what the last government spent the money on.

They spent the money on making sure that the banks in this country did not collapse.If any of them had gone under you would have seen calamotous scenes of people scrambling to get their money out of the banks that remained.

Why were the banks in trouble,not because of the policies of the government but because of the actions of spivs and speculators,oh yes the very people that are the leading backers of the Conservative Party.

William Russell Jones

This is all getting off the point.
The fact is my Sis is happy to continue her little job, pay her taxes and be useful to society.
However if she loses her mobility benefit she cannot get to work, so she loses her job. Therefore she cannot pay her rent and could lose her home.
This is absurd, because
A) if she loses her job she can get unemployment benefits instead, except she will not be able to travel into town to sign on without a car. There are no buses off the main roads here in Devon.
B) She will get all of her rent paid and
C) If she came to live with me, I may be able to get carers allowance for looking after her, being her transport etc, (plus the rent will be paid to me).
And Osborne said on Andrew Marr this morning that it will benefit every one if they work!
It seems to me he wants to make a pauper of a very sick 58 year old woman. There is no way society would benefit from making her unemployed and unemployable.

And I suppose none of the problems were caused by Blair and Brown,Such as selling off our Gold reserves for Peanuts,and robbing blind the Pensions which people had paid into for years,Or entering Wars which we had no need to.Then of course there are the Blair Millions,he like thothers in the Labour Party Feathered there nests quite nicely while allowing all and sundry into this Country to plunder our benifit systems.Methinks some people are in Denial of what went on over the last 12 years.**M**.

There is no doubt Bliar and Brown are partially to blame, no doubt at all. And every other thieving, coniving, two-faced s**t-bag in our government, present and past. I can count the truly "honourable" members on one hand.
Just to throw another banger into the fire, England is the only net tax paying country in the (so-called) united kingdom.
Scotland has its own government. So does Wales. And Ulster. Perhaps it is time for independence for England, which is the only country in the EU without it own elected government. English taxes used for English people....

I felt I should reply to the misplaced magic about Blair and Brown.lol

Whilst there was no one more critical of Blair as an individual than myself,but of course for the right reasons.Oh yes I disagreed with the wars but again for the right reasons.Of course we can look for others such as immigrants for our own shortcomings,but again the facts suggest otherwise.

As far as Gordon Brown is concerned,during the last week of the last election campaign I went to see him adress a meeting in Wrexham North Wales.I have to say I was truly shocked too find him to be so genuine and sincere.Of course entirely different from how he was painted in the Tory press.

I didn't hope to talk about millionaires but as its been raised,its perhaps worth pointing out the millions of someone like George Osborne,the very man who will shape the furture of lesser mortals like myself.

William Russell Jones.

Brown may be genuine as a person, but he was out of his depth as both Chancellor and PM and virtually bankrupted the country with his policies.

The bank problem was not the real issue, although it came at the wrong time. The government has effectually lent to the banks and in return has become major shareholders. As a result (a good idea from Brown as it happens) the government will eventually get its money back and with interest to boot.

No, the real problem is that Brown failed to manage the current account, and even before the bank crisis, was spending more money than he was bringing in and borrowing left right and centre to make the books balance.

The money goes out in order as follows:-

1. Welfare
2. NHS
3.Education

Everything else pales into insignificance, by comparison.

So top of the list is welfare. Working tax payers are becoming increasingly annoyed (mild description) at seeing money poured away in welfare payment which result in some (note some) families being far better of than they are. That is one of the main reasons that the last government were not re-elected.

So, what has to give?

Any alleged overspending bfore the banking crises was miniscule compared with what was spent then.

I do strongly suggest that Cameron and Osborne are with their dogma of "rolling back the frontiers of the state" relishing what they are doing now.

Whilst some may see welfare payments as a symptom of the countries decline,its worth noting that welfare recipients don't have accountants to fiddle their tax like the rich,people who many of us think should be shouldering both the blame for the current crisis and the pain.


William Russell Jones.

There are loads of people - some of the most vulnerable in our society - who will lose out greatly by the governments cuts. I know a number of adults with severe learning disabilities whose day centres are being, or have been, closed. The excuse made is constantly that it's is to give them more choice, but what choice do they have now? There's nowhere for them to work or socialise.
On the other hand, my Mum's neighbour is disabled, but worked fulltime commuting to London every day, before she got married. Since having children and her marriage breaking up, she's been claiming benefits, including a car and a grant to have improvements in her house. Her disability is no worse than it was before, but she claims she can't possibly work. Sadly, people like her give everyone with a disability a bad name!

Gerrybear, we don't know your Mum's neighbour of course but maybe having the children and the stress of her marriage breaking up has exacerbated her disability and/or added severe depression to her problem making it hard for her to make herself work.

Oh, and on Governments, surely it is 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Those who vote against a party are always quick to lay blame when they get in and start to try and sort whatever current mess there is, without waiting to see if they actually manage to sort it.

Think I read somewhere that we are paying 29 million pounds a day in interest on what we have borrowed.

Something has to give. Taxing fat cats will help but will only be a drop in the ocean.

Having lived too long and seen it all before, sadly it's no pain no gain. We have to mend our ways.

Happy days

The 'rich' ARE shouldering more. Their tax rate has been increased to 50% and they also get reduced personal allowances. Problem is, even so, there are simply not enough so called "rich" around so even taxing them 100% would not bring in any significant amount of income, so we keep coming back the the average working man having to shoulder the burden every time.

e.g.
10,000 'rich' earning £200k pay £100k tax each. Revenue = £1billion
10,000,000 "mr average" earning £25k pay £5k each, Revenue = £50 billion

Incidentally, tax avoidance is not a crime in this country. I avoid tax by putting money into an ISA.

I must admit I have avoided paying much tax on my investments by buying gold. Years ago wifes granny told me to avoid the banks, they are interested only in making profits for themselves, buy gold and diamonds, she said. And boy was she right.