General Chat

we are living longer... state pensions, pension credit and winter fuel allowance come to around half of the total DWP budget.

You feel you will have failed in life if you claim pension credits? Wow is that all you have to worry about...turning down a benefit you're entitled to, you'll soon get your free glasses, dental care & a bus pass, you've earned it so that's ok.

Joy put this thread up for people to discuss the problems they're facing due to the ATOS/Government/DSS new assessment for people with Disabilities. This system is flawed, it causes considerable stress & upset to people suffering a wide variety of health problems to the point some people have commited suicide-do you think this is fair?
The majority of people claiming this benefit have been diagnosed by Senior Consultants but face a medical with a GP or Nurse who apparently know better than Specialists in a specific illness...that is the waste of money surely?

Sooo John, I could go into great detail about what it's like to live with my disabilities but frankly they are mine & you appear to have an extremely introverted view of life-I'm not in the mood to be judged by you. You do have my sympathy though living in your "black & white" world, so quick to tar people with the same brush, often factually incorrect, however, reminding us how things have improved in the last couple of hundred years because I would've been in the Workhouse, now I fight tooth & nail to survive on a pitance in the here & now.

And, what exactly is a 'socialist republican'?


John?


........going for one more cuppa

Back to my argument......you can’t read one article in a paper (Even the Guardian) and make a judgement!

Gins, No - definitely not in Cameron league. More the Leanne Wood league (who she? Ed). With a touch of Ted Heath and Clem Attlee.

Must have misunderstood what you meant. Thought you said 80% were working and paying - 20% were not working and enjoying. :-S

Gracious Rose!!! Those figures are pretty disturbing. If I had guessed, I would have said 15% was spent on NHS and 10% on DWP. But DWP is over 25% and increasing.

And we are spending a piddly amount on developing trade and businesses - which is where our jobs and our growth and prosperity come from.

Makes me wonder if any Government would have instructed ATOS much differently :-( :-(

John....you are NOT, one of the 20%


.....unless, you are in the 'Cameron' leagues

Gins It should be simple like that. But we were told that we could claim something like child credits a few years ago. Even quite well off working families were told they could claim this (probably about 1995). They gave us about £3k - very nice, good holiday, couple of weeks shopping in Waitrose instead of Tesco.

Then they wrote to us to say they had overpaid us and wanted the £3k back. Lots of families were caught in that nonsense. What on earth was all that about?

Yes, I will enjoy laying back next year as one of the 20%. But many of the others are hardly laying back - look at why this thread was started by Joy.

I see many sad cases of real want now - probably for the first time in my life. We are not getting to them because the system is so complex now and quite a few are making a career out of manipulating the system. So those in real need are often now in desperate need - and winter is fast approaching
:-( :-(

This is interesting, albeit for last year

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/26/government-spending-department-2010-11

The coloured graphic gives a breakdown of exactly where the benefit spending goes, ... but it's well worth looking at where else money is spent.

My Mum, who was oxygen 24 hours a day, needed to have a downstairs loo, she was told she could get a grant for it, but before she could get it, she had to have a check by a doctor to make sure she was "ill enough" The doctor visited on a Sunday, examined her, saw she was on oxygen, that cost about £250.00. Someone could of just looked on her medical notes, or phoned her doctoor and saved 250 quid.

My Dad, who lived in Spain, needed to come back to England, as he developed dementia. he was to go into a private care home, but before he could be accepted, he had to be assessed, and that had to be done in England, it meant he would have to be in a council run home for about two weeks, so I called Social Services for help as what to do, they said the best thing I could do was to bring him home, and leave him at Gatwick airport, then call Social Services from the airport, then leave him there ! I was also asked why it was I wanted him to be near me, and why did I think he had the right to "come home" after he had lived in another Country for years. I won't print what I said in full, it would be reported, but my Dad paid all his his taxes until he retired, when he was ill, he paid for treatment in Spain, he wanted help here, the Country he was born in, for two weeks. he died in Spain, before I could get him home.

You have to fight a lot of the time for what is your right it seems, bloody terrible state of affairs that is :-(

Rose, probably I was aware of this batty old aunt who kept saying she would not take her old age pension as it was charity. She had a good milinery business and kept working till her early 70's and was able to live on her savings till she got to about 85 when her money was running out and she was still well.

Someone told her that the Government had just introduced an over-85 pension, it was not charity, but she had to fill a form in. Savings? £8,000. Sorry you can't have it because your savings exceed £3,000. So the batty old girl went out and spent and gave away £5k (lot of money in about 1970) in 6 months and claimed again and got this "pension" which more or less paid her bills. She lived to 93.

So think I must have inherited some of her battiness :-D I am more concerned about avoiding pension credits, as I will personally feel that is a sign I have failed in my life. And I was brought up to hate the idea of a means test, but I would have to have one to get pension credit. Probably that is silly, but it is how I feel.

John...you freak me out!


Pareto principle... We, 80% of us, work and pay for everything..


20%.........sit back and enjoy :-|

John I was more specifically referring to your comment

"feel bad about taking my old age pension next year, though I couldn't manage without it."

that you have paid for... regardless of how much or where the money from NI goes or doesn't go in general.

Rose I think in 1966 I felt differently to now. I paid a certain amount of insurance and that gave me defined benefits ie sick pay, pensions etc. It was a social contract, underwritten by the Government. And it all seemed pretty straightforward. It wasn't generous, but it did give a basic amount of money to people in need.

But many of those benefits I thought I was going to get for ever have disappeared in my lifetime. Free dental work, free prescriptions etc. To get what you thought you were getting for your NI stamp in 1966 you had to take out BUPA and private dental insurance by about 1990.

And there is no longer any connection between what I pay for NI (which, after 65, is NIL :-D) and this massive benefits circus today. The NI stamp is simply absorbed into Govt income, and the NI stamp would have to be a huge amount to cover what the Govt is currently spending on welfare.

John I can't believe you can feel it is all " charity" when you have paid into NI all your working life? :-0

Strangely, I think you are right when you say I am stuck in 19th Century, Gins. I do often joke that I have secured my place in the workhouse next year when I can't pay the gas bill. At least , I hope I am joking :-(

I suppose family history can do that to you. And I do think of it all as charity, and benefits as being alms distributed through Government agencies. That those fortunate to be able to give want to give to those who deserve help.

I feel bad about taking my old age pension next year, though I couldn't manage without it. I had an gt aunt who thought of OAPension as charity and refused to draw it for over 20 years from about 1950-1975.

And yet I feel great if I am in a position to help someone who needs help.

Perhaps the modern world has passed me by. The single mother deliberately having a child to get a place to live and get benefits - a career choice and not rare at all these days. The family who always think somebody else has the resoonsibility to put things right - usually the council. People who complain there are no jobs without considering the option of making their own job.

I do feel that the working poor are often worse off today than the poor who have never worked. It is Government policy that that will not continue - you will never be worse off if you are working. And the worthy unwaged will be caught up in the rush to reign in the unworthy unwaged.

Too right Joy :-(

WORKHOUSE Gins

some of these poor ill people would be better cared for in jail :-(

I am opening a new 'Work House'


......all mod cons, toilet (Bucket) and food :-0


All of you, who dont fit into the 'norm', I mean you who dont pay taxes can have a floor for the night


John, you are so, in the 19th century

the more i read the more shocked i am at whats going on :-(
it saddens me the way the sick and disabled are treated


what happened to the promises David Cameron made to help them :-(