To be agreeing with new conservative benefits proposal re alcohol etc

Also within the group of approx. 700,000 long-term unemployed individuals with no caring responsibilities, an estimated 30% to 40% suffer from mental health issues, learning difficulties, or substance addiction but do not qualify PIP or the Universal Credit health element.

Hope we can really make these ones suffer!
(sarcasm for the contextually illiterate)

I'm really not love

That's far from the case everywhere.

No matter how poor you are, it still costs £4.20 to go swimming here, just £2 less than the standard price. And our local museum doesn't appear to offer any concessions at all, apart from £1 off for OAPs.

69 per cent agree with op. It is a vote winner.

46 MP's, these are the ones just in London. I think we'd have no MP's left if we looked closely and flung them out. Saying that, maybe not a bad idea! Grins.

I do think they take the piss. This is another.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8988751/Subsidy-for-MPs-bars-and-restaurants-rises-to-5.8m.html

While I understand that sometimes MP's work out of hours, I very much doubt there isn't someone who sells food in London out of hours, it's London! Even going back to my youth in Brighton there was an all night cafe. But even if they can't get food easily, why are we paying 2/3rds?

Vouchers will probably go to make profit for a private company and not provide value for money at all. So we will end up paying more for recipients to get less.

To be clear the specific group of long-term, unemployed, childless individuals collecting basic subsistence allowance accounts for just 0.9% of the total UK benefits and welfare budget.

Tbh a return to the workhouse has literally been proposed on MN by more than one poster, very recently. Society is truly turning rotten.

There were jobs though, prior to the Labour Govt coming in. So why don't we just cut the benefits of anyone who was on benefits then and still is now?

And the number of foster carers is going to magically increase?

As fun as this thread is, ultimately it is pointless as pretty soon most jobs will be performed by AI, anyway.
Yes those nice little office jobs will soon go.

Luckily for me, though I will freely admit this was more by accident than design in the sense that I did not forsee the AI takeover, I trained in a profession for 3 years which is AI proof.

I have to say that there's a good chance that those calling benefit claimants 'scum' will probably be unemployed themselves in a few years, though.

Not that I will begrudge them the little treats that make life bearable when that happens, of course, on the grounds that I'm not a completely unpleasant, vicious human being.

Sounds like a peach.

Recruitment takes time, not every vacant job is going to be up as an advert today. By next week another batch of jobs will be advertised and the week after more. Nobody expects someone to get a job instantly, even the Consveratives, hence the existance of benefits and job seekers allowance.

Yes, I'd like to know what pp meant by that too.

Is it worth the aggravation
To find yourself a job when there’s nothing worth working for
Its a crazy Situation
But all I need are Cigarettes and Alcohol.

How strange that on a thread about cutting benefits for people who are long term unemployed, there's cries of 'but there's a shortage of jobs'. Yet on a thread about migrant crossings yesterday there were cries of 'but we need these people to do the low skilled jobs'.

What happens after the six months to the "scum" as you called them.

you can't possibly speak for everyone who smokes

I can see these are issues and ought to be dealt with. Personally I’d have anyone taking the piss flung out of Parliament but I really don’t think piss taking is widespread, and if we’re expected MPs to live half their lives elsewhere we need to house them sufficiently

It probably does in the moment
The whole ritual of lighting the cigarette and smoking probably can help somone in the very short term
But not longterm.

Absolutely agree with this, for those who are on UC for no reason other than being unemployed.

Smoking does not calm nerves. Also, you can't help a using addict, they have to stop using to get better.

But surely as smoking is well known to shorten life you'd be glad that benefit claimants would die sooner as a result of it thus lessening the burden of the taxpayer in the long-run?

Or are you just not seeing further than the end of your nose?

I just do not believe it's as black and white as that. I work with adults who have been traumatised and had things happen to them beyond their control and they cannot work and are barely keeping alive and they rely on benefits. They don't necessarily have children to support but the fact they can't pay tax means they can't have a drink or smoke if it helps them to calm their nerves?

god it's such a sad cruel world we live in.

I wouldn't deny someone to buy something that actual is helping them to get through a day little at a time.

Can we restrict child benefit to vouchers too? I don't want my tax funding little Tarquin's Junior ISA.