Is this likely to happen? Benefit related.

[littlemisssarcastic]

And where would it end?? Is this just the start of a slippery slope ?

And which shops would take these tokens? Those who donate to Tory party funds? Bet Tesco will make a killing

I've not heard one person on Mumsnet say people getting benefits are scum. I think the system needs to be improved/changed call it what you will. I don't see the harm in paying part of benefits with a food card. If I was on benefits now I would think this was a good thing as everybody has to eat.

Lady it really isn't the majority - just 2 of the usual people

Also, you can already arrange for the benefit to pay power companies direct.

Watch the thieving bastards (not claimants! Power company execs in suits!) like a hawk though - my last bill was £150 more than I really owed. Why aren't power companies on rogue traders dressed in shit clothes? Because you can rip more people off if you have a suit, sit in a centrally heated office and spout bullshit that's why.

To me, these execs are worse than the sleekit cunts who shoplift - there is nothing more sleazy than a lizard-smiling eviloid who had the government behind him/her whilst they have their hand in the till and the other scratching their self-satisfied 'I'm a Decent' arseholes. When I look at a policy maker in a suit, all I imagine is that the inside is smeared with shit oozing from their distorted brains.

If you think its a good idea, you lack understanding of human behaviour and economics. You need a history lesson in what happens when you prohibit access to alcohol. And you need to read up on EU legislation on discrimination.

All it will achieve will be a costly system to run, increases in crime, increased costs to those people with the least money and even more stigma. All round everyone will be worse off; both those on benefits and those not on benefits.

It won't work.

And I wouldn't want to live in Wigan, ta.

I think this policy is about changing attitudes and behaviours, but not in how benefits are spent, more in the level of shame attached to claiming them. A generation back still often think of it as shameful to need assistance (there's many cases of older people not claiming benefits they are entitled too and need out of embarrassment). Bring that back would save a lot of money without having to officially cut anything.

If people stop talking about 'entitlement' to benefits and make it more what you should be grateful for it makes it easier to cut.

It's funny because you go mad about me making 'sweeping generalisations' about people on benefits yet at the same time you're wanting to paint a picture of them all being poor lonely people who are simply doing their best at life and deserve everything.

There's some of both. Obviously. But something needs to be done about the thousands who see living on benefits as a lifestyle choice - as an alternative to working. In my area I see more of the people I've described than the ones who really do need and deserve help from the state.

And I said in my opening post that I think this should only be applicable to those who make no effort, not those who are disabled, have worked previously etc etc.

Nothing will ever change. People will get away with the same old bullshit because the same old people cry about it.

Its absolutely maddening when I know I have to work my arse off to get anywhere near what they get. And by 'they' I mean the real benefit scroungers I see day in day out and know personally.

I was brought up for my teenage years on benefits. My mum had 4 of us. It was a while ago but it was tough. However, she chain smoked and drank a lot. We often had no food in the evenings and sometimes had a friend who dropped round restaurant scraps for her two dogs (yes, she could afford those too). I vividly remember eating bits of roast beef from the scraps which had been scraped off plates. We lived in the affluent South, near Horsham, and there were jobs a plenty. My Mum didn't want to work. We were all secondary age so she could easily have done so. She needed help to get a grip. I left home and one younger sister ran away and was put in lodgings by SS.

Something does need to be done for children in these circumstances. We were not well cared for. I got my youngest sister out and to live near me at 16 but my Mum still didn't really care. I paid her phone bill off with my first pay cheque and continue to give her money.

There are benefits scrounges, there are those who cannot budget and there are those in real need. The system needs to try to cater for all of these. Unfortunately, it is a bureaucracy and so people have to set up and run a system for all 3 types of people on benefits, as well as trying to get people back to work and taking responsibility for their own finances.

it is easy to call people names when they bring up something you don't want to face.
the reality that someone like my dd will end up on benefits.
so any scheme like this will affect people like her.
she won't ever be able to work, that is not a choice she made, as she did not choose to be disabled.
yet she would end up having to use a card or what ever.....how the fuck can that ever be right.
I think the trouble is with some people is that they only have themselves to think of. they don't see the reality

They do need to eat but everybody does not need to be told what they can eat and where they can get food from.

Oh the reason why it seems like 'its in the majority' is because the evil slimy messages that have gone out recently have allowed people claiming working tax credit and child benefit to view themselves as not benefit scrounging scum, whilst trousering thousands of pounds a year - what we are experiencing here is transferred self loathing ie hate those who are like what you hate about yourself.

without exception, all working tax credit scroungers and all child benefit leeches drink. Its the only way they can maintain their massive cognitive dissonance without handfuls of tramadol and jellies.

Hi Ghostship it sounds like you are good at budgeting and I'm guessing our incomes aren't that different if you are working a 40 hour week.

I would like to improve my budgeting so I'd be really interested in your approximate weekly budget % if you prefer not to reveal actual income & expenditure. Just very broad categories like food, fuel, housing etc. Do you budget anything for gifts, charity or leisure spending? Do you budget for anything that would be restricted under these proposals?

I'm wondering what an ideal low income budget would look like?

The thing is that I feel hugely embarrassed when I have to say I am on benefits. Even handing over my NHS exemption card for free prescriptions makes me feel like a pariah. I know that I have worked fully for the past 30 years save maternity leave and yet I feel like a lesser being for being in my current situation.

I honestly think this Govt have led to that with their appalling attacks on the very vulnerable and deeming them as 'scroungers".

I said I didn't see what was wrong with part of benefit payments being specifically for food. I don't know a lot about economics but I'm still entitled to an opinion.

Isabeller - my whole wage goes in rent, food and bills. That's the jist of it. Any treats or 'leasure' are due to my partner. Who I don't live with, and who doesn't contribute to my bills. I don't drive, can't afford to.

This is just another vile right-wing ploy to shame people into not claiming benefits, and to make sure that those who do are named and shamed, and shunned by society. I'm not sure if it's still the case, but asylum seekers used to be given food vouchers. What a wonderful way for the locals to be able to point and stare at the scrounging foreigner, and to for those using them to feel completely humiliated.

Yes it's shit that some people spend all their cash on booze fags and scratch cards, but it's their choice and being poor shouldn't take this choice away.

What kind of civilised society would consider something like this a good idea? As is often said on here at the moment, maybe Duncan-Smith should bring back the workhouses and be done with it.

Hi Jake, screw that! Its your money!

I have been on benefit for several occasions in my life and the amount I took out was never as much as I put in. I don't feel guilty because I worked for 10 years for a publicsector employer getting paid £10K a year less than others on equivalent wages - when I complained I was fired.

Its my money and I am entitled to it because I have built up a safety net for others who get into the shit, and I expect them to use it. I would like to punch to the ground people like cameron who still claimed DLA even though he is jewellery-dripping wealthy, more I would like them to live in a shit LA flat with the heating off - but I still would not take away the DLA because to never be able to live up to your potential because companies shut you out because of your weird leg or speech impediment is awful.

If we could, at a stroke, put all those shit workers, those lazy middle managers and the 'nice but useless' people in offices all over the country out on their arse, I would be happy with stopping the more wayward claimants, but to me someone earning £60K and being ineffectual is far more insulting that a claimant on less than £10K holdiong their hands up and saying 'I just can't get it together'

What I find interesting is that many claimants could solve nearly all their immediate problems and get back to work, if they were on more than a dependancy, waiting-for-the-next-cheque existence.

Obviously. But something needs to be done about the thousands who see living on benefits as a lifestyle choice - as an alternative to working

Maybe they should just get up tomorrow and try harder? HOW? when there are no jobs?

Do you know that in the 50's and 60's almost anyone could walk out of a job on monday and into another by friday. Anyone. The fact is manufacturing and heavy manual labour is no longer needed, what are we to do with all these "surplus" people. No longer required by a shrinking labour market.

SHOP GHOST SHIP! She has a partner who is earning NOT ALLOWED NOT ALLOWED
TELL THE BENEFIT!!!!

I tell you what we should do with all these surplus people - make them breed faster than the general population in the hope we will need massive factories (or call centres??) in the future.

Mind you with the lolz and bbz crap, perhaps we should get all these neonates in to a giant social media communications factory to sell shit by making vacuous posts from home...

MiniTheMinx - I am talking about people who have no INTENTION of working. There are so many. I started a debate on Facebook, a public one, where half the people said they had no intention of working because they were better off on benefits. This is probably true but it shouldn't be that way. If they weren't able to get booze and fags they might actually think of maybe attempting to get a job.

Heroine cognitive dissonance, well said. It seems that people really do believe that they are a class apart from anyone who has the misfortune to not have paid work. they forget that they benefit from T.credits and Child benefits and money towards their nursery care. All because the biggest net beneficiaries of state subsidies are businesses that refuse to pay a living wage, refuse to invest in core business and employ staff and then off shore their profits.

^If you're employed no one opines loftily about what you should spend your money on.

Benefits should be no different^
One is earned, one is given by the state. Big difference.