Fraser Stewart: What my job in a UK job centre told me about today's benefits system

you manage to close down any political discussion here isitmebut, I hope you are satisfied.

P.S. ssd... "in the meanwhile enjoy your 15 minutes of MN fame....."

You realise that your last post was full of false accusations and threats...I guess you didn't like my answer on 'the banks' and that's all you're good for.

"when a poster hasn't came up against them before they cant quite believe the vitriol and one sided argument they spout and therefore feel obliged to answer back, but sooner or later most posters get their measure and carry on the discussion without giving them airspace...I don't think you'll last much longer on MN isitmebut,"

FACTS make an argument, and I don't begin with "vitriol" I just respond to bullies that have clearly been on here much longer than me and had success doing it.

The 'stop shouting', the 'you give me a headache', the 'we don't want links' that qualify a point, the 'are you English' etc etc etc...whereas I NEVER criticise another poster/style (other than claig, but we have form lol) and make it personal, I just concentrate on the facts and wish others would do the same..but not bothered if they need to whinge to censor the truth, I can handle it.

there's been loads of posters over the years who suddenly appear on MN and make themselves heard, very loudly...isitmebut is just the next one in a long list....they have very unique posting styles and they're easy to spot, and ignore....when a poster hasn't came up against them before they cant quite believe the vitriol and one sided argument they spout and therefore feel obliged to answer back, but sooner or later most posters get their measure and carry on the discussion without giving them airspace...I don't think you'll last much longer on MN isitmebut, then you'll have to find another unsuspecting site to launch yourself upon and sort the idiots out....

in the meanwhile enjoy your 15 minutes of MN fame.....

anyway. back to the discussion, the media and government have really does us up like a kipper, if so many people think the economic problems today have been caused by lazy workshy scroungers and benefit cheats, all getting rich at our expense...it used to be single parents who got the hard time, now its the unemployed or the working poor, the lazy bastards...

Oswin ...'we', is that the royal 'we', as this post in what, 10-days old, and the first one of yours on this thread appeared about 40 minutes ago.

The OP covers several matters, other posters have brought up other subjects e.g. tha banks, YOU or anyone else don't get the board to yourself to DICTATE what is discussed.

I will not discuss my personal circumstances, but I'd bet one pound to a penny, I've had more bad experiences with jobs centres and benefits over my life than you have - so don't try that bull squirt on me.

This isn't the coalition's fault.

I was signing on well before the coalition came into power. Treating the unemployed like parasites, patronising them, talking down to them and acting as if they were lazy scroungers was de rigeur.

I hate the job centre. Useless morons.

See your doing it again. Derailing into anti labour. We are talking about sanctions. Have you ever been in that position?

"“Rachel Reeves vows to cut welfare bill and force long-term jobless to take up work offers or lose state support”

In football parlance 'it's all gone quiet over there'.

Did the quote above BURST the false self righteous 'bubbles' of the anti Isit hooligans, acting in concert?

No wonder you don't want factual links, you've relied on board mob rule to drown others opinions out.

Laters folks.

Oswin .. I have discussed 'the topic' just based on the accusations within the OP quoted below, and I'm sorry if you lot want to fester in anti Conservative self righteousness rather than remember WHY a party had to get a grip on benefits etc, but there we are.

"I left for one reason and one reason alone – the coalition government taking office in 2010. In a matter of what seemed like seconds my role had changed from getting people into work, to cutting the welfare bill by any means: from merciful to mercenary; helping hand to hired gun."

"This contrived notion of "Benefits Britain", then, is founded on a series of hyperbolic falsehoods, forced relentlessly at us by a seedy and sensationalist media intent on demonising out of context those who cannot reasonably fight back."

The politically opportunist sad fact is that Labour knew we couldn't afford the monster they created, and sometimes, usually in the middle of electoral cycles, they 'kin ADMIT IT.

October 2013; “Labour will be tougher than Tories on benefits, promises new welfare chief”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/12/labour-benefits-tories-labour-rachel-reeves-welfare

“Rachel Reeves vows to cut welfare bill and force long-term jobless to take up work offers or lose state support”

August 2013; “Labour to substantially cut benefits bill if it wins power in 2015”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/21/labour-to-cut-benefits-bill-2015

”Labour will cut the benefits bill "quite substantially" and more effectively than the Tories if it wins power in 2015, the shadow work and pensions secretary said on Tuesday”

”Liam Byrne, a Labour frontbencher, said the coalition's welfare reforms were failing to cut costs enough, and called for cross-party talks to "save" some of the government's key schemes.”

Does anybody else just scroll right past isitme's posts on these threads?

Bloody hell Isitmebut, your a nause man. Your rants hurt my eyes. I find it impossible to read. Why cant you discuss the topic in hand? Why does everything have to come back to your hatred of labour. Its tiring. Everytime there is a interesting discussion on the politics board you derail it.

Just the ONE, think yourself lucky, there's a small army of the outspoken and factually ignorant, often acting in concert using Mail, that gets my goat up.

notechnologicalbreakdown no need to apologise , I was a bit rude. Another poster causes me great irritation on thread of this nature.

AndNowItsSeven, ssd, sorry, will try to get out of competitive mode. Sanctions. Here is the report from a parliamentary inquiry into sanctions, efficacy, effects, etc. I am not quite sure how they came to the conclusions in the introduction from having seen the oral evidence presented and had a cursory glance through the rest of the report, but I have yet to read it fully. Hope it's of interest.

P.S As the first link is long winded, here are the two main comments I mean, I'd forget GDP measurements based on the then structure of our economy, which was unsustainably tilted towards public sector/spending, and reliant of the 'growth' of a financial/consumption bubble.

• If the government had entered the credit crunch with a budget surplus and lower public sector debt, the government would have had more room to pursue a real and sustained economic stimulus.

• A budget deficit of 3% of GDP may have sounded relatively low. But, in hindsight, this exaggerated the underlying deficit because tax revenues were boosted by tax revenues which evaporated during the credit crunch.

ssd ... 'the banks' happened after 9-years of many suspect Labour policies.

And those banks, lending to anyone with a pulse helped form the financial bubble that Labour thought those (via the tax receipts) would pay for the massively increase in the 'fixed spending cost' on the State, services, welfare/benefits/tax credits - which with about an annual £30 bil plus borrowed overspend, did so, right until the bank bubble burst and the recession began - creating the huge annual budget deficit.

I tired of explaining it, may I suggest you read there three links, the 'bullet points' at the end of the first economic link explains better about the reliance of a 2007 fat State, on the proceeds of a financial bubble.

www.economicshelp.org/blog/5509/economics/government-spending-under-labour/

metro.co.uk/2011/04/11/gordon-brown-i-made-big-mistake-on-banks-before-financial-crisis-650630/

www.theguardian.com/business/2011/dec/12/labour-regulations-city-rbs-collapse

ssd .... I've just see your "unhinged" comment on the other page.

You see I see masses of posts and politicians still on their platform talking about 'the bedroom tax' as an unhinged waste of time.

There were 5 million people needing social homes by May 2010, there were around 800,000 or more spare bedrooms within social housing, so with the money all gone - any attempt to try and free up all those spare bedrooms for the even needier poor with children, as a perfectly viable policy to try as a sensible reorganisation of our social housing stock.

But for political gain, instead of focusing/worrying about the 5 million a socialist government left needing social homes, its was a socialist 'lets look for victims' who need their spare bedrooms - that SHOULD be allowed not to pay the 'spare room subsidy', if their local authority was worth their salt.

Unhinged, hypocrisy, politics, it seems to be in the eye of the beholder.

so do you think the banks had anything to do with the state of the state then?

or was it all GB's fault?

ssd ... alternatively, there are many, many people who get their jollies and even electoral success by constant misinformation and/or taking a new 'victim(s)' story to portray a politician/party in a bad light e.g. as uncaring - not wishing for others to understand the enormity of the problem, as it suits their politics for the 'big picture' not to be understood.

Indeed they'd have you believe that there were no problems pre May 2010, and getting back to this thread, the OP has made a serious accusations post May 2010 that are "founded on a series of hyperbolic falsehoods"- and I'm sorry if it does not suit your politics, it is important to understand HOW we got to the state of the State and what is false and what is not.

AndNowItsSEven ... an interesting accusation, I don't post anywhere else, I don't even have a Twitter account, so to someone who has been consistent with their views for the past 40-years, 2-years on here, PROVE IT.

isitmebut is only here to derail threads like this and take the arguments away from the opening post into something they want to discuss, eg. slate labour and Gordon Brown and throw in as many links that support this as they can

then the thread turn their way as posters engage in their argument and forget what the op was about, which in this case is something well worth discussing

This thread would be interesting without isitme and also the constant copying of other people's posts.

For the ideology that like to think everyone not rich is 'a victim', I think I'm being victimised. lol

Has anyone else simply been skipping past each of isitmebut's recent posts? What rude and patronising way to address others.

On the topic of sanctions/job centres, it does seem to hark back to the very Victorian notion of the deserving and the undeserving poor. You only 'deserve' to be able to feed and clothe yourself if you jump through all the hoops.

I remember seeing a short series by the 'foodie' Huge Firmly-With-a stall, or something like that, travelling around the Scandinavian countries looking at their society.

And I was so impressed when in a high tax society that I think was Denmark, might have been Sweden, where he met school children, they understood that they when going to work would pay high taxes, so wanted to try very hard at school to ensure they got good value for future taxes they were going to pay - and the chance to better themselves to obtain a higher skilled/salaried job, to limit the effect of those taxes on their living standards.

Where as here, we were offering a mediocre education to the masses, and many of whom grew up, seeing older mates, understanding work didn't pay and they'd be better off having a jollie at school and then getting benefits - waiting for their big chance on Britains Got Talent.

All the while the lefties who would not understand 'personal responsibility' if slapped it around their face like a wet U-kipper, like to quote rich versus poor stats and say when the children finally wake up (or forced) to work, why is this person on the minimum wage or low wages due to an EU policy of free movement that will always dilute the workforce/salary levels in the lower 50% paid jobs?

Compounding this ballshit, you then hear socialists, who wouldn't know how to create a private sector job if it didn't involve UPPING their taxes, say, under us we WILL provide high-tech jobs for the educationally challenged under our watch.

We have to have joined-up-policy-thinking and then everyone that can plays their part, on education, the size the State needs to be, not just a source of taxpayer employment, private sector job creation, new housing, and immigration - as what we had by 2010 was an unsustainable policy driven shit stack, with £1 trillion of National Debt and a £153 bil annual overspend - which if had not significantly changed direction, god knows where we'd be.