To think that a 23k benefits cap will drive some families in the SE

[Minifingers9]

... Into destitution?

I live in a pretty unappealing and comparatively cheap part of greater London but you can't get a 3 bedroom rental for under £1400 a month.
If we lost our jobs we wouldn't be able to live on 23k a year as a family of 5. Not when 15k of it was going on rent.
Why don't they have regional benefit caps?

I doubt that people do these things because it's funded by the taxpayer. I'm trying to italicise because. I find it hard to believe that people think it through like that. More that the fact certain facilities are there means that people use them. I imagine some people don't really need child benefit to feed and clothe their children but they take it and use it anyway.

Sadly some people do these things because they can and prefer to receive money without the inconvenience of working for it. I don't think they should be able to do that if work is available and there is a parent to care for the children whilst the other works.

Beaufort Belle, why are you so interested in other family's circumstances? You do know an awful lot about that family don't you? I am sure your information must be accurate - was it gleaned from a cat'sbum mouthed mother in the playground?

Lulu, perhaps if you made it a little clearer and didn't state things in the manner of a ten year old stamping their feet, you would get further. At no point did I say it was about me, however, my situation is that we may look like the type of family you describe and that you, and others make many judgements without knowing the facts.

And yes it's Saturday and I was at my desk at 7 and I am 4 hours into work (with just a couple of posts on here).
Oh do stop being such a bore. Good for you. I went to bed at 12.30, got up at 2.30, back to bed at 3.30 and then dh needed the loo at 4.00. Back to bed at 4.30 then up for the day 6.30. We all know how hard you work, you've been banging on about it for years.

Again with the 'most'. Most people did not vote Tory.

In support of Lulu I think it's perfectly acceptable to say It is not fair without being ridiculed for it and accused of feet stamping. That is a perfectly reasonable comment, which she has qualified in her viewpoint.

ninky about 15m people voted conservative or UKIP . About 13m voted labour, snp and lib dem.

That suggests the majority of voters are centre right (or even further right).

I am surprised that the opinion is a family of 4 can't live on £153 a week if housing is paid for.

sunny straight from the mother's own mouth so yes I do know about it directly and I don't agree with the family's philosophy. I don't think it's a philosophy that should be enabled by the benefit system.

I would be happy to pay more tax but only if it reaches those who need it rather than those who want it.

I agree with that ThickandThin. Fairness is important in a functioning society, so it is reasonable to state if something is unfair.

And it isn't fair that some people make choices they'd rather not based on their wages because they can't afford more children, or they can't afford to live near their family, or they can't afford to buy or rent in the area they grew up in while other people make the opposite choices and get to have the consequences paid for by the state.

The system has to encourage personal responsibility and it has to ensure that people are better off in work than out of work or it will collapse completely.

49 Romeyroo I don't understand your confusion. Someone in your circumstances would not receive anywhere near the 23k cap. So therefore the fact that you earn less than 23k does not make you in poverty.

Good article here about Tower Hamlets;The Guardian exactly what Mrs DV said, the 'gritty' areas are being seen as desirable, people that own their properties are being forced to move to make way for unaffordable (to them) developments.

Oh do stop being such a bore. Good for you. I went to bed at 12.30, got up at 2.30, back to bed at 3.30 and then dh needed the loo at 4.00. Back to bed at 4.30 then up for the day 6.30. We all know how hard you work, you've been banging on about it for years.

Looking after your family.

The owner occupiers aren't being forced out, in most cases they are welcoming the gentrification as it increases the house value.

The wealth that has gone into the east end of London has been very good for many social housing tenants. Once they've crossed their own front doors, nothing has change, but from my experience when they walk out their front doors nowadays, they are no longer faced with grime, infrastructure that should have been knocked down years ago, litter everywhere. These areas have become much nicer places to live for everyone, not just private buyers.

This is an interest earring article I read earlier this week

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/11625575/If-house-price-forecasts-are-on-the-money-it-will-become-unaffordable-to-exist-in-Britain.html

Being the torygraph they still can't admit it's prices but it's nevertheless an interesting article

And yet so many of them seem incapable of actually finding work....

another problem i see coming is it's not just the poor that have to move out of london because the rent exceeds the cap it's happening in other parts of the country

i live in the south approx 100 miles from london,a private 3 bed rent in a bog standard area is commonly 1K a month

as people have to move out of the city to find cheaper rent the rent is then being pushed up in other areas making rent that was once affordable now not so,does that mean the poor/low waged should forever move

also even though were only 100 miles from London the wages are dire

Tower Hamlets isn't what I would call "deprived". It used to be, it used to be downnright squalid. It is actually pretty smart now, and the council housing is about the best I have ever seen.

of course the council has been accused of bullying and corruption on an industrial scale, but the population are doing pretty well!

there is the usual dope heads on the street.

Dawndonna- I did not stamp my feet or act like a 10 year old. I made a perfectly valid point. I will say again that I have stated several times in this debate that I would happily pay higher taxes for the NHS, Education, pensions and support for elderly, disabled and ill people - they are our most vulnerable members of society.

I am disinterested in your personal circumstances, not uninterested but this debate is not about you. You clearly feel very badly done to as you are being rude to people who have an opinion different to yours and telling us all how hard your life is. It is a valid point made by others here that some people work extremely hard to provide the money that supports you. They/ We do it willingly and do not begrudge you or anyone elderly, ill or disabled those benefits. The benefits we subsidise unwillingly are paid to those who choose not to work, keep having children that they expect the state to house and pay for and who take no responsibility for themselves. The General Election showed how fed up people are with the benefits system. There was an overwhelming vote for the Tories and their anti-public service agenda.

I voted Labour, always have and always will. Does not mean I think we should be encouraing people who can work to live off the State.

I think even labour have come out in support of the cap recently so it's not a tory issue.

Lulu, that's a very good post and I think hilights what's wrong with the welfare state at the moment. When the welfare state was constructed there was a working generation who felt a moral duty to work and support both their families and those who were too elderly, sick or disabled to work themselves.

It worked. But that attitude has gone; and it's often illustrated on these threads. The left wing in particular seems to have abandoned the notion that those who are capable of working have a responsibility to those who aren't. To them it's a matter of choice. They might not dress it up as choice; but saying any claim of an inability to work should be accepted without question as should any claim of being unable to find work boils down to the same thing.

I do think the Tory cuts are going too far. But I think the fact it's happening has it's roots in 13 years of Labour government where plenty of people who were capable of working simply chose not to.

Lulu I came back to this thread thinking I'd probably been unfair and was thinking about how better to phrase things, but then I get this: It is a valid point made by others here that some people work extremely hard to provide the money that supports you. which negates the over thirty years I have worked, and the 25 years or more dh worked. We paid into a fund so that we could doff our caps to those who continued to be able to work. No. We paid into a fund that was there in case things went tits up. They did. We have put as much into the safety net as many others, more than some, and probably less than others. I don't feel particularly hard done by, as it happens, but I get irritated by the assumption that people on benefits, whatever the reason are profiligate ne'er do wells. I understand that folk get fucked off with those who cheat the system, but the new method of doing things punishes a majority to ensure a minority are doing as they are bid. The reality is that nothing will change, those people will always find a way round the system, and despite the fact that they really are a minority, the rest of us will suffer for it.

Agreed Dawn. I flinched when I saw that phrasing. I worked for just over 30 years, some of it as a higher rate tax payer because I had a good job and good salary. Quite honestly anyone here born after 1982 has benefitted from taxes that I paid along with everyone else.

What's worse though is that at no point did I begrudge paying that tax, nor did I care where it went as long as the most vulnerable were supported. It never crossed my mind to envy the woman with 8 children in her three or four bed house on benefits. Why on earth would I want that life? What in earth is there to envy?

I agree that sometimes helping people to help themselves is the best way. Am just not sure this is the right way though.