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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be fed up of George sodding Osbourne and his Knobbish Ideas

999 replies

avivabeaver · 08/10/2012 11:04

The economy is proving harder to fix than he first thought

Solution- suggest cutting £10bn from the benefits budget and "limit the number of children people can claim for". So- are you supposed to choose your 2 favourite and just feed them then? Or what?

OP posts:
RatherBeOnThePiste · 09/10/2012 17:38

"I do feel there needs to be stricter guidelines though, I'm not contributing to a plasma screen tv!"

But were you joking?

Confused
domesticgodless · 09/10/2012 17:39

no probs NewChoos I can tell you're not a crazed Daily Mail waver. We may disagree but you appear to at least be thinking about and considering the issues.

NewChoos · 09/10/2012 17:40

Actually being honest, a tv would come down fairly low on my priorities as a genuine 'need'.

domesticgodless · 09/10/2012 17:40

but seriously.... the plasma screen TV/benefits cliche....needs to DIE

charleybarley · 09/10/2012 17:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NewChoos · 09/10/2012 17:40

Oh god I hate the daily bile as we call it in the Choos household.

domesticgodless · 09/10/2012 17:41

me too NewChoos have to say, I only have one for the kids. Mind you take my laptop and internet away from me and I would be bereft.

Also when universal credit comes in all benefit claimants will have to account online for a full 35 hours per week of jobsearching. In real time. So they will all need internet access. Wonder who's going to pay for that?

They will no doubt find that their local library has been closed due to cuts.

NewChoos · 09/10/2012 17:42

I think of that cliche as my BF used to work with families in need and I'm afraid he did have lots of daily bile stories :( but again hopefully in the minority.

NewChoos · 09/10/2012 17:45

A tv really isn't a need though is it. Internet I agree is needed more. But I am not going to keep going over the tv issue and I am rather sorry I mentioned it now! Really not a big issue for me....

PandaSpaniel · 09/10/2012 17:52

As a single mum on benefits (I have recently split from my partner and am at college) I find it a bit puzzling that people can afford TV's and Sky etc. I have had to cancel my tv service and just get basic internet as I cannot justify £60 + on TV. I am now trying hard to save for an aerial so I can watch freeview.

Really do not know how people manage luxarys on benefits. Someone please tell me quick! Grin

morethanpotatoprints · 09/10/2012 17:55

domesticgodless

Hear hear. Smile

domesticgodless · 09/10/2012 17:58

yes my sister also works with people in drug and alcohol addiction and says a lot of the cliches are true eg people end up as hopeless cases, don't want to help themselves etc.

She actually supports restricting benefit to certain things eg not allowing the purchase of tobacco!! I disagree not because I think benefits should be spent on tobacco (I don't) but because I think the idea of a 'ration card' for benefit claimants is a step on the long slope to the workhouse (which is also coming back you watch this space)

However she also said that once you look at the pattern of her clients' lives you understand why they have given up. Overwhelmingly histories of abuse as children, lack of hope in general. Shitty psychiatric care (I can vouch for that...but I had the privilege of an education and was not thrown out on the street at 16 so I perhaps cope better with my problems). No help until the shit really hits the fan (you try to kill yourself or overdose).

Exactly the generation who will now be brought up in even greater poverty and expected to get themselves out of it when they won't have any of the skills to do it and the government sure isn't going to help them with that.

domesticgodless · 09/10/2012 17:59

Panda I have to agree. I can only think that the stories are mostly made up eg the massive plasma tvs. Or the claimants were given them by caring family members as gifts etc.

I would struggle to pay for ANYTHING on £70 or whatever it is per week other than bills let alone internet.

MiniTheMinx · 09/10/2012 18:00

I wonder if we confuse long term unemployment and generational disenfranchisement and unemployment with "playing the system"

The thing is when Thatcher crushed the unions and disempowered labour and privatised industries she consigned pockets of the UK to poverty that is now entrenched some 30 years on. These communities have never recovered. Same when Blair sold out steel to some Indian geeezer who then closed our steel works and moved the operation to India because it's cheaper. I think domesticgodless is right in so many respects, this is just the start and no one on PAYE will be immune unless they are in that lucky 10%

PandaSpaniel · 09/10/2012 18:10

domesticgodless
However she also said that once you look at the pattern of her clients' lives you understand why they have given up. Overwhelmingly histories of abuse as children, lack of hope in general. Shitty psychiatric care (I can vouch for that...but I had the privilege of an education and was not thrown out on the street at 16 so I perhaps cope better with my problems). No help until the shit really hits the fan (you try to kill yourself or overdose).

I agree entirely. Without giving too much away, I live in a very deprived town where drug and alcohol addiction in rife and having a degree sets you apart from 90+% of people living here.

I am lucky, I have decent GCSE's, many don't, a decent family and good friends. However I have shitty mental health and the lack of support in unbelievable! It is all too easy to give up and become yet another statistic, reliant on benefits. Many people have never seen another way of living and don't know what (few) opportunities there are to better themselves.

morethanpotatoprints · 09/10/2012 18:15

Charley.

Ha Ha it is complicated. Sorry my link didn't work but the article is worth looking at. I had a headache after reading it.
At the moment we get wtc/ctc/chb. With the new uc other benefits will be included too.
All the rules and regs basically change and it will be hard for many self employed/businesses who had ctc/wtc/ to meet the requirements of the uc and will be significantly out of pocket. I'm not 100% certain yet but its looking like dh will be better not working at all.

domesticgodless · 09/10/2012 18:19

yeah I think all of us with mental health problems can empathise that bit more with how it feels to give up hope and maybe also start f*ing up your life a bit.

I've done it myself but stopped before it got too bad. However I've got a safety net- a rich ex husband (he hates me but for his kids sake has to ensure I'm housed and fed!) and parents who would care for me and bail me out if they had to.

I look at the poor sods ATOS is now kicking back to work and think 'there but for the grace of god'. If I hadnt' been brought up by middle class aspirational parents who surrounded me with books, if I hadn't gone to Oxford. If one of my kids had been born with SN. I could be there.

It will be so many more of us soon anyway. The British middle class is being eroded slowly in favour of a 'flexible labour market', eg the desperate working poor. The demolition of the safety net is essential to this. The government wants an insecure, frightened population desperate for a job, any job, and used to the idea that the state will not help them whatever happens.

domesticgodless · 09/10/2012 18:24

gosh I wonder where all the responsibility girls have gone, this thread has been taken over by a flood of people talking eminent good sense!!!

:D

There must be a thread somewhere else about a traveller/Somali/Romany family of 10 living in a 6 bed house in Holland Park on 13k a week or something.

PandaSpaniel · 09/10/2012 18:25

How do I do a link to the above

PandaSpaniel · 09/10/2012 18:25

Only 13k? Thats not a lot Grin

Glitterknickaz · 09/10/2012 18:28

I've got an ecking great heyooooooge great HD ready LCD TV.
Do I get to keep it?

Only reason I have it in the first place is that my non benefit claiming brother is a complete techno geek and upgraded his to a 50 incher and gave it to me for free but I'd hate to make bigots froth on that score too...

grovel · 09/10/2012 18:29

The responsibility girls have gone to cook wholesome, organic meals for their DCs who have finished their homework and done violin practice for 45 minutes.

monkeysbignuts · 09/10/2012 18:31

morethan my husband has his own business so is this new change going to effect us too?
We had to set up a business because my husband was made redundant 3 times in 6 years so either set up and go alone or sign on :(