"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

Dawn Grace Poole did not, " enable an abuser", she cared for a mentally ill and disabled woman. She was a carer.

Nice take on it, though.

the first Mrs Wotsit sorry Rochester was it? was NOT disabled though was she? I think Grace Poole was in the pay of an abuser yes.
btw those women who shout loudest about the 'gravy train' are probably being supported by their husbands and are treated no better than the hired help.

Dawndonnaagain It's not a tiny minority I'm afraid. Benefits abuse and benefits fraud are two completely different things. statistically, benefit fraud is very low, you cannot measure benefits abuse in this manner as it's an ethos/belief system. Well, you could give every claimant a lie detector test? I think not.

Hello, we're just doing a government survey : are you purposely having more children for more benefits and to get a bigger home?

Why yes, of course I am

As if.

Of course the super rich avoiding tax is way more important and would save us 500000 X more money.

oh no candidkate, the super rich are obviously very virtuous people!

Sunny The first Mrs Rochester had severe mental illness. I consider that a disability.

I don't live off my husband as it happens but how extraordinarily offensive for you to suggest that women who are supported by their husbands are the hired help. Next you'll be calling them prositutes.

I am not saying they are the 'hired help' I am saying they are often treated no better than that by their husbands, in some cases worse.
And marriage is essentially state sanctioned prostitution, if you want to go there.
Mental illness is not a disability though rreally. Also I think Mrs Rochester's illness was not helped by being locked in an attic and abused by Grace Poole. As it was fiction I can say what I like.

Im a single parent with 2 kids and work. I get more benefits paid to me now than what i would get if i didnt work and claimed income support etc. That doesnt seem right, but as a result im massively better off with most of my rent and childcare paid.

SunnyBaudelaire - They are the real scroungers. Don't see how tax havens/loopholes are any different. When they crash their expensive cars they go to the same a&e we all do. The benefits debate is really to distract us from the monstrous tax avoidance by those who should pay in the most. I don't really give a shit of sandy down the street and her 15 kids (according to the mail of course) gets housed in a 3 million pound house and dies on benefits, Sir Philip Green is avoiding paying hundreds of millions of pounds of tax because his wife lives in Monaco and Topshop is in her name.
That's who we should slag off on buses.

exactly the same here trapped.

Can you provide evidence that women who are supported by their husbands are treated no better than the hired help, please? I know many, many such women and not one is treated thus. Perhaps you just know some particularly unpleasant men, Sunny?

totally agree candid.
Having mixed with some super rich people, I can honestly say that they were the nastiest most reptilian fuckers I have met in my life. Yet people seem to think that rich = good, poor = bad. In fact it is quite the opposite, think gold mines in Rhodesia, that kind of level.

obviously not Gracie, do not be thicker than you have to be.

"Mental illness is not a disability though really" - er, so what about people on benefits because of this?

I really despair. I get called thick but... well, honestly. Sigh.

Also, "having mixed with some super rich people... nasty reptilian fuckers". So you met some super rich people. QED all rich people are bad.

Can't you see your hypocrisy? It's breathtaking.

Brenda where did I say that 'all rich people are bad'? No it was you that said taht, not me.
I cannot fucking stand people attributing words to someone who had not said them.
How am I a hypocrite Brenda? Would you like it more if I started making sweeping statements about lazy feckless benefit scroungers?

But you jump on people saying they know someone who is a benefit scrounger and then you yourself say you've met "some" rich people and make adverse comments about them.

Dawn Grace Poole did not, " enable an abuser", she cared for a mentally ill and disabled woman. She was a carer.

Nice take on it, though.

It is, isn't it. Jane wasn't a feminist either. I taught it for a good few years.
I would recommend re-reading.

candid do take a look at the highly respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Even you can't be so daft as to think that questions are asked in such simplistic terms.

Ditto Dawn and I respectfully disagree with you.

Sunny you said this, Yet people seem to think that rich = good, poor = bad. In fact it is quite the opposite, which does suggest ALL rich people, no?

obviously not Gracie, do not be thicker than you have to be. clearly I'm super thick but you've lost me there, Sunny! What are you talking about?

Oh, I'd missed this little gem from Sunny .

Mental illness is not a disability though rreally

Is anyone on benefits because of mental illness unable to work and classed as a disability? Because Sunny doesn't think you should be.

My husband is disabled because of a mental illness.

Mental illness is not a disability? twatty thing to say!

So bipolar and schizophrenia aren't disabilities then?

I would say mental.illness is a disabillity i, m an RMN some patients are simply unable to work because of their illness so claim disabillity benefits .

If it's a joke, it's a pretty sick one, Dawn. I'm pretty shocked at some of the things Sunny has said but that takes the biscuit.