General Chat

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!

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!

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

Well all I can say is.....
1) don't blame me... I did not vote for them.
2) appeal because if you need it, you need it.
3) I cannot wait for a backlash, and it has to come.

We are OAP's, I am disabled, so we are just waiting to see what is going to happen to us.
AND.... We live very simply.

You cannot possibly agree with the idea of a two parent family both earning just under the limit KEEPING their family allowance, and a two parent family with ONE parent working and earning just over... losing theirs.

Did any of you see DC arguing with DM in house? DC was like a child. No real argument.
Please don't shout at me all at once, I'm a sick woman. ;-0)
Deanna X

Of course there should be cuts, no one disputes that whatever side of the political line they stand ( or those tight rope walking in the middle ;), the question is do we hit the weak the hardest because they won't/can't fight back?

I would have had a lot more respect for DC if he had answered a straight question 'straight'. Even if I hadn't liked the answer!

"Is it fair that a single parent earning over 43k has their child benefit stopped, when a couple both working but earning under 43k INDIVIDUALLY keep their CB"?

Simple 'yes' or 'no' would have sufficed, why could he not give it? ( I can answer that if anyone does not know the answer!).


( add, I am NOT against cutting CB per se, I've been saying that it should be means tested since I was 18 lol)

I,ve just read all of this,and some things I agree with others I do not.For a Start what you have to remember is this is the result of Blair and Browns mis-use of the economy ( Taxpayers Money) we owe Trillions of pounds which we are paying Millions a day in interest.( Perhaps if we stopped borrowing money to give in aid to other countries that would help ) but things have to be tightend up,and asap or this country will be unable to pay its way in the wourld.Some of you say that Mrs Thatcher ruined the country, ( Sold the family silver ) was a popular theme. Weell the last lot as well as feathering their own nests, Sold the Family. however,one thing remains the same, whatever party gets in power and whoever gets to be Top Dog in the Unions.they all sing the same song,to the tuine of the Red Flag. That is, The Working Man can Kiss my A--e I,ve got the Bosses Job at Last.Take care,Havew a nice day,**M**

I was half listening to something on t v the other day and it said that in areas where there had been a lot of reviews of allowances, a high percentage were stopped, but on appeal a high percentage of those were reinstated.
It will be worthwhile appealing this decision.

Shazzlou - I can never in my living memory recall the Labour Party looking after the working man/woman. In early seventies I was a working single mum and not one penny piece did I receive from a Labour Government.

My husband has been an ardent (not militant) trade unionist all his life and has been active within the trade union. He has wept for over 30 years because he no longer has a labour movement he can believe in. They leave such a mess someone has got to pick up the pieces. If you live beyond your means you have to pull your belt in. I can recall the 3day weeks early seventies and in the winter of 78/79, litter bags were everywhere, bins unemptied and the grieving relations could not bury their dead for weeks.

Eddie, tell you sister to appeal and advise her to get CAB to fill in forms. Socal workers have even advised this to people who are perfectly capable of filling in forms.
One classic error is that if we fill in a form we will say what we can do whereas the CAB fill in what you cannot do.

Well one thing for sure Eddie, you have a very thoughtful daughter :)

My youngest daughter came home a while ago, its her early finishing day at college. My Sis was still here, on the 'phone to the CAB. I told daughter what had happened.
"Can't Auntie come and live with us?" she says to me.
"No room here pet" says I.
" What if I get some of the boys from (army) cadets round and we cleaned out the cellar. I could sleep down there and Auntie can have my room".
Altogether more helpful than having a rant on here or crying down the 'phone at a stranger at the CAB.
I have to admit you're correct IGP. But also years of throwing money into the bottomless pit of the EEC and at pointless American wars and nuclear weapons probably has n't helped either.

If we don't have these cuts, who is going to pay the bill? There is no money.....the last government made sure of that....!

My parents always voted labour, i voted labour.
In the last general election i voted Lib Dem what a mistake.
Nick Clegg seems to have turned out to be a bit of a wimp!
(putting it politely) Never again will i vote Lib Dem!

IGP you evidently don't remember the 18 years of Thatcherism the same way I do. THEY left us with the 'Fat cat's Greed is good ' legacy which led to the banking fiasco amongst other things!

What it will do I think is polarise the support again, if the Conservatives go down in ignominy in 5/10 years time the Lib Dems will be finished for good I think.

However, I don't want to enter political debate on a thread which is about the unfairness of a decision on a specific case. So I'd better exit stage left .

Hopefully not! conservatives only look after their own kind.
Churn out comments such as "Why should a Duke pay more tax than a dustman"
Labour look after the working class.

Chances are the they will be in for the next 30 years. After all it was the last shower that virtually bankrupted the country.