AIBU to be really annoyed at benefits Britain characters

[Fatallyshy]

Boo hoo your children won't get the latest games consoles while you spend all your time with them but you don't you prat about with your mates getting drunk. While me and my partner work all hours we can to pay the bills we cannot afford the dog (that you have) the new games consoles the holidays and in a few month we won't be able to afford the rent, or the heating.

Aibu to wantt a better life than the those one the dole when I work for everything I have?

I saw a bit of it last night and was really confused how they lost a dog and a 3 year old. Now, I understand the children are not the camera persons responsibility but there were 2 adults being filmed, did the camera man/woman not notice a child missing for 15 minutes? Also, the bit I saw the girl had been in prison and couldn't get a job but really seemed to want one. Did she get the Frankie and Benny one? I switched over by then.

I think if you find the people on Benefit Street aspirational you've got issues.

Most people tend to think they've been shafted by society and used as puppets to whip up benefit-bashing frothing and ease through hideous cuts to the welfare of the most vulnerable. Which seems to working. At least on you.

Where are these magic job lands we are all supposed to move to anyway?

No she didn't get the Frankie and Bennies job.

I'm going to voice my opinion here, which I'll probably be flamed for, but after seeing the thread which proved that the majority of opinion on Mumsnet does not necessarily reflect reality, I'll be brave.

I don't watch watch programs like Benefits Britain as I think it is deliberately inflammatory- even the title has a Daily-Mailesque 'Broken Britainess' about it. But I live in a slightly deprived area, am on a low income and in receipt of some benefits myself so I do feel like I have an informed opinion. I get the impression that lots of people who get 'angry' about benefit bashing actually live in houses worth quarter of a million and have a decent wage and have never met people who openly admit that they get that they piss the system about- probably a minority but a reality none-the-less.

I have a colleague who, in order to get a council house faster, lied on her application claiming that she was a single parent when she was still with her childs father. She lied and said that her mother was going to kick her out by the weekend. She was never out of the council building saying she was homeless and wanted temporary accommodation- she told me they could only keep you in temp accommodation for a limited time and then they 'had to' give you a house. She is currently in a council house with her boyfriend and son. This annoys me because there are genuine single parents out there who need a roof over their head and THEY have just taken it . I hope they get caught.

I was having a discussion with a barlady and I casually mentioned that I was struggling to find a new flat. She told me to pack my bags that day and go to the council, refusing to leave until they housed me She told me that is what she did. I didn't do that because AGAIN, there are genuine people out there who are actually in awful circumstances. I just needed to pull my finger out and contact more estate agents.

I have met people who have told me they do odd jobs cash in hand without declaring it, and still receive 'pocket money' from the govt.

I understand that benefits are important for so many families, mine included. My quality of life would be shit if my income didn't get boosted, and my partner and I both work AND he is at uni. I don't care if someone has 1000 kids and are receiving what they are entitled to- it is the people who declare things wrongly or exaggerate their circumstances to jump the queue that fucking piss me off.

It's is not the claimants fault that there is a shortage of council houses, is it?

It's been that way for decades, yet no-one seems to care enough to actually do anything about it, other than blame the housing benefit claimants and council tenants.

Why isn't the government funding councils to buy up and renovate empty or abandoned houses?

I don't think having a criminal record is necessarily a bar to getting a job my dh went off the rails when he was younger got involved with drugs did some dodgy stuff and served two and half years in jail for it admittedly he will never gat a job that requires a crb check but he has always worked he works in a warehouse .

"I get the impression that lots of people who get 'angry' about benefit bashing actually live in houses worth quarter of a million and have a decent wage and have never met people who openly admit that they get that they piss the system about- probably a minority but a reality none-the-less."

I'm not sure I agree with that. In my own experience, and from reading the threads here. It's the working poor, on a similar, or lower (especially this) income level than the claimants, who are the biggest benefit bashers. Sometimes driven by an odd sort of envy,

I agree with you to some extent scotch because the minute anybody posts/anything about benefits they are called a benefits basher some people do take the piss I,m sure there are much more that don't but some do

x2boys agreed. It is almost like people on here want being on benefits to be equated to having a profession and if you say anything about it then you are a posho looking down on the 'dole scum.' It is very tedious. Even if you are on benefits you still don't know what you are talking about and are still a 'judgy' bastard.

I mentioned the words 'safety net' on a thread months ago in relation to benefits, and apparently it is a MN bingo word . If people can agree that the majority of people don't want to be on benefits, then why is it not okay to say that benefits are a safety net, and not a way of life? I would rather be paid over a tenner an hour than accept help to be honest. But there are definitely work-shy people out there, and I have met them. Of course, the 'ODFOD' crew will be along to tell me that they were a figment of my imagination.

I watched this in the hope that it would show what it is really like on benefits . But, as I should have known, it was full of stereotypes which allows viewers to think that he benefits system is too generous and that everyone on it is a lazy scrounger.

We have been on benefits for a year. My DH lost his job just before DC3 was born. In October he had a stroke-thankfully he has physically recovered. He is signed off work until mid-August. Hopefully he will be well enough to work by then. I can't work, I'm agoraphobic, but this didn't really matter until October. Now I feel huge guilt that I can't take over the working role when DH was ill.

We are skint!! We have a large overdraft that we have no hope of getting out of until he starts working again-thank you Santander for adding an extra 50% in overdraft charges from August, really appreciated!! We can't afford to go on a £9.50 Sun holiday, let alone anything more expensive. I am already worrying about Christmas and have told family members we are only buying for children this year.

We don't have Sky or the latest phones-mine is a Nokia brick!! We have nothing to sell (second hand original X-box or temperamental Wii-both bought when working, anyone??). We don't even have the obligatory plasma telly-I'm not very good at this scroungers lark, am I?! Yes, I have a laptop, but, as an agoraphobic, it is my lifeline.

A 'normal' person on benefits does struggle. It is hard. We have to spend less on food shopping so DH can take DS swimming once a week. We are lucky to live in a HA flat and it makes me laugh when people say 'move to work'. I have been on a few different waiting lists for SIX YEARS to move nearer family to get support with the agoraphobia. You can't just click your fingers and a home in a different area is available.

Do people really believe this stuff??

Sorry, that was really long and ranty .

You did say 'start off' with the young singles, fraidycat

Do you genuinely think your scheme would lower the total number of unemployed people in the UK ?

There would need to be an area with a large number of specific vacancies unfillable locally, and a pool of skilled labour currently unable/unwilling to move to that area.
Is that the case?

I watched the show last night.

I know several people like the two girls who lost Giro the dog and a 3 yr old child. These girls needed some focus, they needed to be taught how to take care of themselves, let alone the children. That being said, Zara did paper to want more than the squalid way she was living with an empty freezer and her child in the care of others.

The mother of the two boys was a typical stereotype and she didn't seem to care about anything other than her fags and swearing at anyone who challenged her. Maybe that was bad editing, but I doubt it. That being said there are people out there like her.

The old chap with the frozen pizza I genuinely felt sorry for. He was careful with his money, and yet everything seemed to be conspiring against him.

Then we had the 35year old mummies boy. Mummy needed to teach him to be more self sufficient and more of a parent to his children.

I don't think the people who call out "benefit basher!" have an issue with people disliking the type of claimants that feature in these shows. It's when people make sweeping generalisations and assume we must all be like that that benefit bashing comes into play. We talk of safety nets but what about people who have to be on benefits long term for whatever reason and get accused of choosing it as a lifestyle just because they didn't do it for a couple of months and manage to suddenly get well or suddenly become flexible in terms of hours they could work or suddenly access childcare that doesn't exist.

Yep you did say "start off" So basically that would mean low income families would end up moving all over the place disrupting and interrupting their childrens education.

Its unworkable because of reasons already mentioned by other posters.

Moving for a low security minimum wage job IF you get offered it in the first place? Ludicrous.

Then theres the cost of moving... The DEPOSIT. The fact that a lot of landlords don't like HB.
Having to break a long standing tenancy agreement to sign a new one which is less secure.

I particularly love it when posters suggest sofa surfing. Im sure any young single posters who are currently unemployed would get inundated with PMs from Mners who make suggestions like this.

Smelsa people who depend on benefits long term, such as those on disability allowance or carers allowance, ARE also using it as a safety net- no shame in that whatsoever- because if we didn't have benefits like that they would be buggered. If we didn't have benefits for people who relied solely on it then they wouldn't be protected by THE SAFETY NET against the likes of poverty. It is a positive thing. (However that is not to say that people on benefits are not living in poverty- I wish carers got so much more, same as State Pension. It's fucking crap.)

I hope I am being clear enough in what I am saying, I'm trying not to be offensive at all because the only people who I can't stand are benefit cheats, not the people who are truly entitled to what they get. The way I see it is- if its offered, bloody well go for it. There needs to be more awareness for what people are actually entitled to, especially a lot of elderly people who may not have access to the information. It makes me sad that things like Winter Fuel Allowance and etc are not advertised on TV, when they'll put on adverts about not indulging in road rage in front of children and a new 'sexy' campaign against littering.

I think you misunderstood, scotch. I was saying what about people on long term benefits as a safety net who get accused of it being a lifestyle choice because people don't generally understand the fact it isn't a lifestyle choice in those circs. I worded it badly and it looks like I am benefit bashing when I'm trying to say really badly is that I wish people would recognise that those of us on long term benefits haven't necessarily chosen it and some of us fall into that safety net description too.

Reading it back it does look like I'm saying the opposite though

There would need to be an area with a large number of specific vacancies unfillable locally, and a pool of skilled labour currently unable/unwilling to move to that area.

You may have a point, I'm not sure.

Let's say the people who move are as capable of doing a certain job as the people in the area they move to that are doing that job. The increase in the number of people who can do that job lowers wages (unless it's already a minimum wage job) and the lower cost of getting that type of job done may increase demand for it. (If it is a minimum wage job then it's possibly becomes true that minimum wage constraint is creating unemployment in this case.)

TBH, you could start the scheme even more tentatively than I suggested, by simply offering to pay relocation costs of volunteers. There must be some people for whom the payment of relocation costs would be enough of an incentive to move. Then you could monitor outcomes.

But if you change the way of looking at the problem... instead as framing it as 'how can we get these lazy gits to shift their arses', you could reframe it as 'how can we create jobs in these unemployment black holes?'

Objectively viewed, it's crazy that half the country is overworked and overcrowded, with soaring house prices, and the rest is the opposite.

HS2 might be a step in the right direction; the BBC's move to Manchester was good from this POV.
The country as a whole needs to be less London-centric, but when everyone who's anyone is in London, there's a bit of a vicious circle going on.

scotchtikidoll Winter Fuel Allowance does not have to be advertised because pensioners find that it's automatically paid to them - no claiming involved.

scotchtikidoll Did you report your lying colleague? If not, why not? you can do it anonymously, you know.

YANBU but Mumsnet is not the place to post this.