to be disgusted - a call for the benefits people get to be published

[moisturiser]

Warning, Daily Mail link. here

Basically, the director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs wants there to be a website where every benefit claimant is named and the amount of money they get listed.

Now, clearly (hopefully) this has absolutely no chance of ever happening, but I an still disgusted that we live in a climate where someone of importance thinks this is rational.

Some choice quotes for those who don't want to click,

'The welfare benefits claimed by every individual ? including pensions, jobseeker?s allowance, bus passes, winter fuel payments and child benefit ? should be put in the public domain.

They should be listed, in full, on a publicly accessible website for all of us to inspect. Taxpayers have a right to know exactly who is claiming what and how much they are getting.

This wouldn?t be a matter of ?naming and shaming? anyone. After all, if you are legally entitled to a particular benefit, what is there to be ashamed about? Anyone ashamed to claim money from the State maybe shouldn?t be claiming it.

Surely, no one needs to worry about violent retribution against claimants. The British are far too reasonable to start taking up pitchforks and burning torches and assaulting imagined benefit cheats. We are generous and fair-minded people'

I receive no specific information about who is getting the money, how they are getting on and what steps they are taking to improve their prospects. I certainly never get anything even approaching a thank-you.'

The mind boggles. Hate crimes against those with disabilities have risen since this government came to power. I cannot even imagine how people would be targeted if this ever really happened.

Why, oh why, do you read DM drivel and get worked up over it? It's not journalism, it's not even 'news', it's a sensationalist, dreampt-up nonsense article designed to upset people.

You can post what you want, of course, but I don't understand why you would - and why you'd share the misery almost? People are strange.

I am, I almost can't find the words. Still trying. What the hell is happening to this country!

this exactly

No, I meant Lying post.

See, I don't usually. And if it was one of the DM's journalists I wouldn't bat an eyelid, honestly. But this is not one of their journalists. This is the director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs. To me, that is worth voicing my protest against. He is not nobody.

It's hard not to get scared when I part of a group of people who has been so targeted. I am disabled. I'm never going to get a job and join the ranks of people who don't claim benefits. It's a vulnerable position to be in. I would like to highlight for people who don't read this garbage just what some people are suggesting right now. I want to speak up against it. I have no voice in any other capacity.

Me to op.

That's fine, as long as I can have a list of all tax payers, what they earning and how much (or how little) tax they are paying.

...and I STILL struggle with my decision to give up work and support my autistic child. I felt guilty about it.....nothing to do with not being entitled to what I was having to claim.

Yes but then ask the Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs for his response. Your source is the DM... tell him that. He may be completely unaware of what he's supposedly proposing; either way, you'll get it from the horse's mouth.

I don't accept your reasoning for scaremongering; the tabloid gutter presses do enough of that. Does it make you feel better to spread the angst over something you really don't know the facts of at all? Read the provisions of the 'Data Protection Act' and see how this tripe stacks up against it.

You do have a voice - use it. Start local with your MP and keep 'kicking it upstairs' and encourage people to join in. I would join a proper campaign, but not this.

It's a right wing think tank. The problem is that they work right of the government. With the current government that means they're dangling off the edge of reason.

I'm not a fan of certain types of benefits and I sometimes think they are too generous, but even I think this man is crazy

What does he actually hope to achieve with this? I just don't see the point.

If he wants to make sure that benefits are only going to people who need and deserve them then fine, but wouldn't it be better to just make sure that the organisations that hand out benefits do their job properly?

This idea is just bonkers.

doesnt Sweden have everyone's (income) tax payments as public information?

if personal tax information is published, it makes sense to publish benefits received, but it would need to be about a transparent society, not targeting any particular group.

Lying he wrote the article. He is not just quoted in it.

I do accept that you feel that spreading these articles is scaremongering, and as I said I do not go about posting up articles written by their journalists, because I get that they are designed to distress and shock. But I think it is important people are outraged about this, that people know about this, because it isn't written by 'just' one of their journalists. For what it's worth, I have written to my MP countless times, I have protested in the limited ways available to me, nothing has come of that. I am utterly dismayed by what is happening in our society right now. I did say in my original post that this has no chance of happening. I just strongly feel that if someone is voicing this kind of rubbish that it's important that a lot of people turn around and say that they find the idea disgusting. It is important that as a society we are outraged that rubbish like this has a voice in our national media.

I feel really strongly about that.

As said above - the IEA is a right wing think tank. You might wish to note, OP, that the stuff you're reading is just their 'acceptable face' - you should see what they talk about when they're not in danger of being quoted.

Other gems of their include why retirement is bad for you and you should be forced to work longer and taking funding from Big Tobacco.

I just strongly feel that if someone is voicing this kind of rubbish that it's important that a lot of people turn around and say that they find the idea disgusting

I think you're right.

" Taxpayers have a right to know exactly who is claiming what and how much they are getting."

No, they don't.

"I receive no specific information about who is getting the money, how they are getting on and what steps they are taking to improve their prospects. I certainly never get anything even approaching a thank-you.'"

Would a "fuck off" suffice?

What a laughably offensive 'article'.

Thanks cozie, I will look into them a bit more.

It's not that surprising really. This government is so right wing that to perform their usual function (being right of the Conservative mainstream) leaves them dangling off the edge of reality.

It's going to be a bloody long list - with Child Benefit and Tax Credits and Housing Benefit, pension credit, winter fuel, bus passes - maybe they should print a list of the people in this country that get nowt.... it would be shorter

It would be an awfully long list.

Wouldn't it be quicker to list those people who don't receive any of those benefits, once you take out child benefit and pensions there wouldn't be that many left. Then take out everyone on job seekers, that's another big chunk gone.

ha! X-posted with madeofstardust!

Meglet

Fair enough, Moisturiser, I didn't click the link - I never do. I presumed, wrongly, that the article had come from the DM. As you say, it will never come to pass. There can't be many people who would think it a good thing anyway, surely?

Apologies to you. I still don't agree with publicising any tabloid whatsoever, but you have the absolute right to do that.