To start a benefits "myth busting" thread so that I can link the thickos of Facebook to it

[MarmaladeTwatkins]

When they start moaning about how people on benefits can afford diamond shoes and other such items.

I'll start.

1. Housing benefit is mostly paid out to WORKING people. So all of this talk of going out and getting a job and buying their own home if they don't like the bedroom tax is a flawed argument.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

Ohhh here's a good one,

Apparently the dwp are allowed to decide you can't go on a date or have sex.

Because if you have a casual boyfriend you then can't be a lone parent.

Utter bollocks you can have sex with whoever you want.

[WestieMamma]

There have always been disabled people. I have a cousin severely disabled from childhood. Why is it such as issue now.

Because a while back we as a civilised society decided they should have equality with able people and be given the resources necessary to live full and independent lives, as opposed to being trapped in their homes or asylums and only being allowed the crumbs we threw them.

[StillSeekingSpike]

'After all, even the
middle classesyes, even the bridge dubs in the country townsare
beginning to realize that there is such a thing as unemployment. The 'My
dear, I don't believe in all this nonsense about unemployment. Why, only
last week we wanted a man to weed the garden, and we simply couldn't get
one. They don't want to work, that's all it is!' which you heard at every
decent tea-table five years ago, is growing perceptibly less frequent. '

George Orwell- The Road to Wigan Pier.

[maisiejoe123]

You are all agreeing with each other and sometimes it is important to get another view point. It might not be your view but it is a view. Swearing,and telling you to get off a thread is all a bit pointless.

Just because I dont agree with you.....

[FasterStronger]

NMW should be raised to a living wage to end poverty.

[maisiejoe123]

Still, it doesnt get around the fact that I have a fair amount of money to spend and no one wants to do the work. It doesnt of course fit into your argument that there are no jobs and people are desperate to work.

I want some building work done. Its not weeding my garden!

And what has George Orwell got to do with anything!

Can someone please explain how despite calling two companies no one is interested in it! They havent even seen the work involved or quoted for it. They just have bothered to reply!

[Theicingontop]

Perhaps they're fully booked and don't need your custom.

But feel free to take your lone example and apply it to the rest of the country.

[WestieMamma]

I have never been unemployed, but why is that? Have I just been lucky? Why are some more lucky than others. My DH and DF voted Labour all their lives. Every election the red poster would go in the living room window. Both were not born in this country but both ended up doing 80 years employment. Were they lucky too...

Yes, they were very lucky.

My parents were the same. Then my dad got sick in his early 50s (early onset Parkinsons), went downhill fast and my mum had to give up work to care for him. They've been on benefits ever since. As someone has already said, everyone is just one illness away from being on benefits.

[maisiejoe123]

Maybe they are fully booked. Would be professional to call back and say.

I have had this a number of times over the years we have been here. Maybe they have always been fully booked and not bothered to reply. Lucky them!

[MurderOfGoths]

"I have never been unemployed, but why is that? Have I just been lucky?"

Luck definitely plays a part.

Well done you for working with companies who weren't hit by the recession.

Well done you for not having unexpected health problems that forced you to stop working.

Because of course, those things are all to your credit, and if other people just worked harder then they could avoid those things, right?

[maisiejoe123]

So, I seem to have had very lucky parents, I have also been lucky myself. I have been unlucky in getting someone to do some building work because they are always fully booked when I have asked for a quote.

Its a small example - of course it is but surely I am not lucky and everyone else isnt!

[SaskiaRembrandtVampireHunter]

Maisie I have no idea why the builders you called haven't phoned you back. Maybe they're busy, maybe they don't do the kind of work you're offering. Phone some different firms and and hopefully they'll be more helpful.

However, what you are saying here may be your opinion, but you are mistaken. And I'm afraid, that your opinion does not trounce actual facts and figures.

[YouTheCat]

Oh god, Maisie, where to start with the claptrap you have come out with?

And actually there are more people claiming benefits under the Coalition because there are more people unemployed because they cut so many jobs.

[FasterStronger]

Raising taxes would end poverty.

[MurderOfGoths]

So because you haven't had work or health related bad luck then no one has?? I've never given birth to a little girl, does that mean no one else has?

[FasterStronger]

there are no jobs.

[maisiejoe123]

And my company was hit by the recession. Who wasnt....

[maisiejoe123]

Whether you think I am mistaken or not - the changes are going through. Swearing and such like at me isnt going to change that.

[twofingerstoGideon]

Here's a myth:
ALL 'hard-working tax-payers' resent benefit claimants and think they should be given the absolute bare minimum.

[MurderOfGoths]

"And my company was hit by the recession. Who wasnt..."

There's being hit by the recession, then there's being hit by the recession. Or did you miss all the companies making redundancies and/or closing down entirely? How exactly does someone not become unemployed after being made redundant or their company goes bust?

[maisiejoe123]

Raising taxes for who? There will come a point where higher rate tax payers would leave the country. I would when it reaches a certain point....

[glossyflower]

Just to point out number two ... no illegal immigrants aren't entitled to anything, but... I'm British myself but am a member of a minority community, and I know people who come over from my grandparents country, that is not part of the EU on fake EU country passports - with their own photo on them and everything!
Once guy had a job on this fake passport and even used it to get a hernia op on the NHS.
Ok they don't want it to claim benefits but to earn money and send it home.
I know many many young women coming over here marrying widowed or unmarried older men - one woman married a family friend who was elderly. Then after the amount of time she could get her own British citizenship divorced him and tried to take his house. Then she had the cheek to ask our elderly friend to marry her mother who was his age, so her mother had right to stay here.

I had no idea this even went on, but I have seen it for myself. And yes I did report what I saw to the home office.

[SaskiaRembrandtVampireHunter]

Maisie when did I swear at you?

[FasterStronger]

Raising taxes would end poverty = myth

[maisiejoe123]

Of course I didnt miss the companies making redundancies. I was in one of them! But then some on this thread would say I have been lucky again!