Thread 20 Starmer - Spring Statement

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5286167-thread-19-starmer-a-coalition-of-the-willing?page=40&reply=142981585

@PickAChew

I don’t understand your post - what/where is the ‘bottom of the internet’?

With respect to your DS, I am not certain how many times I have to repeat my views that those who legitimately require support, should receive it. You can ask me the same question as many times as you wish.

Breaking news - government sleight of hand over poverty figures.

Actual increase in poverty from their cuts to health related benefits is closer to 400,000 📢
https://bsky.app/profile/jrf-uk.bsky.social/post/3llcbnd4lz22s

So my name is X is what you’re saying that you believe the Tory’s have put loads of people onto PIP who shouldn’t have been and paying them all sorts of welfare?

and making a clear assumption from your comments that’s what you believe has happened - how do you believe these people have managed it? What floor in the system do you think exists that people can do that.

because as someone who has been through cloaking dla for a child, pop for an adult and then oil review I fail to see how you can completely just say “I need x” and be given PIP and even more so LCWRA.

the forms are brutal. 50 odd pages long!

My view is that, in all probability, a significant number of people receive state support, when they have absolutely no legitimate right to - and that has to stop.
I support Labour’s initial attempts to do so.

Productivity in the UK is terrible, and the taxpayer (like me) have had enough.

I’m fucking furious, being brutally honest.

So you're happy with my DS and anyone else with such severe disabilities receiving less support, then? That is what has been announced.

As for the bottom of the Internet, you need to familiarise yourself with the work of Dave Gorman.

Others have used the word ‘sad’, quite liberally in these posts. It was ‘sad’ when I withdrew bursary support for the needy child at my DC’s school, following the imposition of VAT. That child was compelled to leave the school.

If Labour’s policies negatively impact those who deserve support, then no, I do not support that element of it.

But, this is the environment we are in.

And now we get to the real crux of it. You are pissed off about P/S VAT.

You are comparing a bursary - something run and administered by an individual schools without much (if any?) statutory oversight and which can have quite high parental salary cuts off. £100k parental salary is the cut off for one of my local schools.

to disabled people filling in 50 pages of forms asking intimate questions and supplying evidence for assessment? For a payment intended to cover the additional cost of being disabled.

Wowsers.

I wasjust going to say fuck off, but that would probably earn me a ban.

Productivity is something that should not be defined purely by financial gain. My disabled relative has never been able to work, accordingly they've never been productive. My life would be much poorer without them in it, and I would have lost out on so much without them. Compassion, and fun being just a couple.

The problem in this country is the wealth gap, the disparity between rich and poor. In the last 15 years, the poor have got poorer and the rich have got richer (how many more billionaires do we gave now). Labour was voted in to bring about change, they have failed in this. They needed to be brave, and they were not, they needed to be radical, and they were not. I'm disappointed, and angry. Any businesses making massive profits at the expense of keeping their employees on minimum wage salaries is unforgivable, anyone avoiding or evading tax at the expense of the most vulnerable in society is an arsehole.

In my opinion, you are furious about the wrong people. It's fucking hard to get support, financial or otherwise for those with disabilities, but those exploiting others for obscene profits seem to escape scrutiny.

I agree that more should be done to tax large corporations, be it by ending some exemptions or other means, and much more to reduce tax evasion. Some of the changes to welfare payments I agree with and the need to reduce the welfare bill, but it does not seem even handed.

Increases in wages for many lower paid jobs also will reduce in-work benefits.

Fuck off dear is quite polite, isn't it?

The Tories are also complaining that the welfare cuts didn’t go far enough

I think the UK is full of spiteful people who don't have a clue what life with a disability is like. The fact that their fellow hateful scumbags approve means nothing.

I think a lot of people are led by politicians apportioning blame to minority groups - be they disabled or immigrants, any group that is less likely to vote - to distract from the growing wealth gap.
The problems this country faces are not because of disabled people and they will not be resolved by targeting them.

And not available online (naturally).

I reckon it's misplaced guilt at their lack of actually doing anything useful to help the disabled.

You quoted a piece from, I believe, the Financial Times, yesterday evening. This was the last paragraph:

The changes will push about 250,000 people into relative poverty, defined as households whose income is below 60 per cent of the median, according to government estimates.

You made no comment yourself, other than to quote it, therefore the assumption has to be that you support this change - which will result in relative poverty.

If you don’t support it, then please say so.

And re the BBC comment, I don’t think posting one person’s comment is serious data, even if it did get many likes. All that does is reflect the nature of people who post on that website.

As a country I think we should be supporting our disabled and our elderly. It was clear that pensioners were not being supported last summer - many people still supported labours decision to stop winter fuel for those on 13k a year. I am not affected by this and am nowhere near retiring but I think it was an appalling decision and set the tone for what life under Labour would be.

Labours spending on pensions, welfare, immigration, foreign policy, green energy and the NHS etc is not sustainable. We cannot afford all of it. The quicker we realise it the easier it will be to fix. The longer it goes on the bigger the issue becomes.

As a country we need to decide what is a priority and eliminate/vastly reduce the rest. We cannot keep spending the way we are.

What will Labour MPs prioritise? At present they see welfare and the elderly as too expensive and I’m guessing maybe they feel these citizens are the least capable of lobbying and rioting due to illness/incapacity and age.

While crime is rising and living standards are falling and communities are fracturing, tax payers with skills are looking at leaving. I’m doing all I can to help my children be desirable internationally as at present I don’t think the U.K. will be recognisable in 10 years. I pay a significant amount of tax and have never looked to leave previously but the country is clearly in trouble. It has changed for the worse in so many ways and I am reluctant to allow my youngest child half the freedom my eldest had only 15 years ago.

I do not have any disability, nor do I claim any disability benefits. I don’t claim any benefits. However personally I feel we should protect our elderly and disabled, I am happy to pay tax for the elderly and disabled. Do I think some game the system, of course I am not daft, and that needs addressing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8y0yzmgljo

Faisal Islam: Could surprise on growth save the day?

Thing is, it doesn’t matter what system we have - there will always be a minority who are gaming it.

The very obvious solution to the current economic woes, of course, is to raise taxes on those who can most afford it. It appals me that what TLP is doing now is targeting those who can least afford it, which goes so much against what I always thought they would do. Tory policies at play. Not even Tory Light.

@BIWI

Please can you define those that can afford it?

It has changed for the worse in so many ways and I am reluctant to allow my youngest child half the freedom my eldest had only 15 years ago.

That is 14 years of Tory for you

Don’t be disingenuous @43percentburnt

@BIWI

I am not being disingenuous. I could assume you mean Amazon and Corporate companies. Or banks. Or those earning over 250k a year. Or those without children. Or pensioners earning more than 50k with no mortgage. Or employers. Or people who earn money here but claim residence status elsewhere.

So you know the answer then. Why ask me?

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/child-poverty-low-income-record-figures-dwp-b2722489.html

Child poverty hits record high in UK with nearly 4.5 million in low income households

Some 4.45m children were estimated to be in households in relative low income, after housing costs, in the year to March 2024.

Lewis Goodall

Understand that normally loyal Labour MPs who had never intended to break the whip are considering doing so because of the child poverty figure. Serious discontent, though majority not in danger. Conversations abound among Lab MPs trying to size up how big the rebellion might be.