To ask you to object to this? Pre-paid benefits cards

[LuisSuarezTeeth]

a step too far

We're talking about human beings.

Thanks Arsenic and those that have already signed.

I was going to add, this rhetoric of choice chimes particularly well with people who see an Us and Them.

We are Good and deserve choice of services.
They are Bad and must have even naturally occurring choice taken away.

But I see Territt is there already with the Us and Them.

Obviously no Worker™ receives handouts...

I don't see the problem with the cards

Did you read the thread Territt ?

Yet we're not trusted to buy groceries?

Not very tory at all.

So the question is, who benefits?

I think Tesco are close to being part of a coalition g'ovt TBH.

The Foodstamps system in Ohio, USA seems to be fuelling, rather than reducing the drugs problem. Food stamps are being sold at a percentage of their face value. As a result, participating retailers are pulling out of the scheme.

If politicians have a pre-paid card for the same amount for their 'expenses' set at the same rate, then no.

However I think this is just another way to control the poor so I cannot support it. I will sign the petition.

Interesting article but not very well put together. It would help addicts (I disagree due to the black market issue which is well known to happen whenever this has been tried) but would also give addicts a good telling off because they think of their benefits as pay which they haven't worked for (i.e. a shame initiative which I disagree with I guess because I am a naive liberal leftie who doesn't think shaming people should be public policy) and if it's for addicts it would only be for a very small number of people (so what) and when it is rolled out to other benefits claimants (which IDS hasn't said it will be yet) it won't make any difference (which experience of these schemes indicates it will).

My opinion of IDS is neither here nor there.

I live in an area which is a bit of a benefit blackspot. Butcher doesn't take cards but is much cheaper than the very limited supermarket we have. Greengrocer doesn't take cards. No decent supermarkets with a full range within walking distance. Aldi, Lidl, Iceland etc not in walking distance most people shop at the twice weekly market which again doesn't take cards. This area is very much a cash economy and these cards would not just affect an individual but the whole community. Dread to think how many businesses would be destroyed by it.

... these people should be grateful that they are being supported by the workers when they receive hand-outs.

I will answer this calmly.

These people are people like me, who worked for 40 years then became ill and/or unable to find employment.
These people are people like you, your family and your friends, after something has gone wrong.

Supported by the workers is what YOU were, during my working years, when our contributions paid for your education, your doctor, the roads you travelled on and the policeman who helped you when you were lost.

Hand-outs are, in fact, insurance payments. This is how the entire scheme works: we pay in when we have money; that money goes towards supporting a healthier & safer society. In times past, it paid for your education & medical treatment, etc. Currently it pays for me to have somewhere to live and something to eat.

So I am not "these people", we are all these people.
The support I receive isn't the only kind of support from this scheme. You and your children get support as well.
Benefits are not hand-outs. They are paid-for entitlements from a national insurance scheme.

Hope this clarifies things :)

Just to add: While this isn't the point at all, let's suppose everyone was invoiced today for all the public support they've received since their mother got pregnant with them.

Setting this off against the tax & NI we've all paid during our lives - I'd still be in credit. Not many people would. Higher-rate contributors, such as myself (before getting ill) have never minded this fact, because it's important to live in a safe & healthy society where everybody gets an education.

But those we supported in the past have no right to complain about supporting us now.

Well said Garlic
This isn't something that would only effect benefit claimants anyway, it would effect us all when the crime rate goes up because desperate addicts cant use their benefit money to buy drink and drugs.
It will effect us when we renew our contents insurance if burglary increases, when our supermarket shopping goes up because of the effect of shoplifting of booze and when we decide what age it is safe for our dc to walk to their friends houses without us if there is increased risk of them being mugged.

It's potentially an incredibly effective 'othering' policy, isn't it?

Sadly, many people in RL like my mum and her vile DM-bothering partner will buy into it wholesale.

GarlicOctopus, its all fine and good calling it an insurance policy but what about all the work shy scum that haven't ever worked? who's parents haven't ever worked. there's a lot of them in the UK.

Territt16 There are very very few of those work shy scum as you call them. The majority of the people who rely on benefits are those who have worked, have paid taxes, will pay taxes in future but due to a change in circumstances hit hard times.

Recent research has shown that there aren't a lot of multi-generation benefits claimants.

You do realise Territt that the vast majority of benefits claimants are also working? I'm sure you do. Just checking.

I didn't say anything personal. Just told someone to fuck off, something that happens all the time here.

Territt What about all those with disabilities.
Oh, and if you read the Joseph Rowntree Foundation studies, they prove that there is no such thing as generational benefit claimants, so no, there aren't a lot of them in the uk, you're just choosing to believe what the Daily Fail tells you to.

Its just the start. I saw a couple of very worrying things in my Twitter feed last night. Apparently there is going to be a new initiative reminding claimants to brush their teeth.

And they are discussing the possibility of charging £75 a night for a bed in an NHS hospital.

An initiative to remind claimants to brush their teeth?

How on gods earth are they going to do that? Oh hang on, they're going to make EVERYONE pay (except pensioners and under 16's I'd imagine) for dental services. Taking the NHS out of that service completely.

Benefit claims for that go down, the NHS is dismantled a little more....yep, that sounds like a tory policy all right.

its all fine and good calling it an insurance policy but what about all the work shy scum that haven't ever worked?

Leaving aside the word 'scum' for a minute - the purpose of a national insurance policy is to insure the nation against the effects of living amongst the poor, diseased and desperate. If you've been to, say, India or Africa countries on holiday, you will have seen the states in which the majority population live, experienced their desperation, and been fearful of their diseases.

As the world's sixth or seventh richest country, we can afford not to have this going on in our own backyard. Prevention is funded by everybody, because everybody benefits.

Of course 'scum' is a subjective opinion. Were I given to being that rude, I'd apply it to the grasping leaders of the corporations making untaxed and often illegal profits out of our public insurance fund. And to the politicians who permit them.

North Tyneside???

Can you opt in / out???

Dawn I was waiting for that deletion. Post your ODFOD separately, otherwise your valuable comments go too

Garlic let's not ignore the term "work shy scum".

That's pretty much why the idea gets support. It makes "hardworking families" feel so much better.

Darkest can you link about the teeth thing please?

Maryz ya darlin