"Benefits are a lifestyle choice for so many these days"

[Bellerina2]

I'm on the bus and two women behind me are having a long conversation about perceived benefit cheats and one of them just said the above phrase. WIBU to hit her over the head with a rolled up copy of the Guardian??

But seriously, it's so depressing that people think this. Well done to the government and likes of the Sun and Daily Mail for convincing people that those on benefits are leading some sort of charmed life

What I simply don't understand about these threads is the level of denial. I am supposedly a "thickie" for saying that I do know someone who is, actually, not scrounging, but perfectly entitled to her benefits - it's just that I don't think they should be entitled to them in her position.

" he lives by himself and will go away at a moments notice to gigs in Europe or across theUK. he often mocks me when he has has a drink "
well then somebody must be subsidising him mustn't they? maybe your parents.

and sorry but it is the sign of a 'thickie' to use personal anecdotes to judge a huge swathe of the population.

The gov have no intention of making work pay, they do have every intention of making those who can't or don't work, pay.
Those who can't work have been really shafted and it is so depressing that so few people who aren't in this position can see it.

No parents aren't subsiding him! They are horrified at his attitude.
TBH I couldn't care less. It's his choice how he chooses to life his life. He,like the others aren't doing anything wrong. Just claiming what they are entitled to.

*define 'nice life' please flipchart?

For me it would be not having to count the pennies in the supermarket, having a car that I could afford to run, a nice hair cut regularly, good shoes, a holiday once a year, not worrying about heating the house, being able to sit in a cafe and read the paper if I choose... and those things are nothing really compared to what some would consider to be a 'nice life' are they?

Trust me NOBODY on benefits has a 'nice life'. And these things do not happen in a vacuum as others on this thread have pointed out. Yet you get some thickie coming along and saying ' well my brother, blah blah'*
Plenty of people in work can't afford thos ethings and plenty of people out of work can.

I'm not judging a huge swathe of the population. I'm judging the system that allows the council to pick up the tab for people's accommodation when they have other sources of income.

But you clearly want to label anyone a "thickie" who may not agree with your rose-tinted view of a "huge swathe of the population".

One persons nice life is mother persons hell!
It's all subjective.

My nice life is paying bills when they come in. Another persons is following their hobbies and interests. Another person it would be something else.
So the question define a nice life is ridiculous. It's subjective.

The main motivating force for the sort of bucketheads who persist in ranting on and on about 'benefits scum' is of course superstitious magical thinking. They have to believe that that the longterm unemployed are lazy, selfish, have it easy, etc because despising these people means it won't happen to them. they are 'hardworking' and therefore will be OK. Never mind the fact that poverty can happen to pretty much anyone. Your job could disappear if a new automation process gets invented that makes you literally redundant - or the company you work for decides that it would be cheaper to sack you and replace you with a coerced workfare claimant - actually, you might end up being that coerced workfare claimant, doing your own former job, only for less than half your former wage. You or your partner or child could have an accident or become ill enough to need longterm continual care as well as being unable to work.
Yet MPs, company directors, bankers, etc, not only get paid huge sums of taxpayers money (often for not actually Working Hard at all) but often increase their income proportionately to the amount of money they take from the poor - by selling them dodgy financial products, cutting their wages and removing employment safeguards, etc.

I'd call anyone who believes everyone on benefits is destitute, miserable, a victim of circumstance and absolutely desperate to work, not only thick but naive and emotionally vulnerable.

well I have no idea how someone on benefits can afford to go off on gigs abroad at a moments notice as you stated. Unless you are exaggerating just a teeny tiny bit?

And yes potatoprints, if work actually paid, things might be different, But it doesn't and that was a government policy. Then they and their brainwashed lackeys can shout about how lazy and undeserving we all are, and bring in more immigrants.
As I said before, I will not hear anything against immigrants on a personal level, hell I married one and my dad was another. But I would like to be able to mention it without being told I am 'lazy' and 'racist'.

Surely saying all bankers, MPs etc are "bad people" who do not work hard and are some sort of Sheriff of Nottingham characters is just as bad as saying that all benefit claimants are of the same type?

You're dead right there, Brass. The government has done a pretty good propaganda 'divide and rule' job with its fucking infuriating 'hard-working families' nonsense rhetoric.

There but for the grace of God is a better maxim to live by IMO.

solidbrass I agree with you.
At no point have I benefit bashed.

I have nearly lost my job twice in the last two years. It's a job I love but one I'm sure Cameron would love to get rid off asit helps the most unable of people.

( this is a job that I love despite ending up with a black eye and cut face from being smacked and scratched down my chest by a client just before Christmas!)

There but for the grace of god, most of us wouldn't dream of living for years scrounging off everyone else. Thankfully.

Anyway, you can rant as much as you like. After the election the gravy train so many have been enjoying for so long will be terminating at the station!

"Surely saying all bankers, MPs etc are "bad people" who do not work hard and are some sort of Sheriff of Nottingham characters is just as bad as saying that all benefit claimants are of the same type?"

I do not think anyone said that did they? But yes I would say that is a reasonable analysis, lol.

and it is not a fucking 'gravy train' Grace - would it be better for children to starve then?

Flipchart, I think dawndonna was making the point that nobody works harder for their pittance wage than carers on call 24/7/365 rather than commenting on what you do personally.

Especially if they are caring for more than one person. I couldn't even begin to calculate how much their services save the taxpayer / government.

People are people. Some are workshy arseholes regardless of income and class. And some aren't. It's just that the workshy aresholes with no money expect the rest of us to featherbed them.

well I have no idea how someone on benefits can afford to go off on gigs abroad at a moments notice as you stated. Unless you are exaggerating just a teeny tiny bit?

I don't need to exaggerate at all. It's a anonymous forum so stretching the truth doesn't count for anything here. I went last year to a gig in Croatia with him and he got tickets for Download. I'm not going to that one though. Obviously Jamie isn't staying in 5 star hotels.cheap flights and hostels or camping all the way. He has just carried on doing what we used to do in our teens and early 20s.

Yes Sunny - beautiful extrapolation there. From believeing that those who choose not to work are scroungers to starving childrne in one fell swooop. And we'r ethe " thickies"

you do sound a bit of a thickie grace, you are just parrotting stuff from the DM.

I've got my Bingo card out, Sunny. You haven't said " workhouse" or " tax cuts for the rich " yet and I'm in a bit of a hurry.

yeh I have got my DM brainwashed thickie bingo card out, and YOU have not said 'hard working families' or 'workshy' - c'mon, quick hop like a bunny now.

There but for the grace of god, most of us wouldn't dream of living for years scrounging off everyone else. Thankfully.

I don't know what that means.