to wonder what benefits will get the chop from the £12 billion of cuts?

[steiner8]

Just that really. I'm wondering which benefits are going to go or be significantly cut. Anyone have any idea?

Bathtime I completely agree that some wealth redistribution is essential for a fair and civilized society.

The argument is generally about how much is redistributed. The left want more, the right less. The current economic climate makes this even more unpalatable.

As I explained above, I paid HR tax for 20 years before becoming a non dom. In fact, I still pay some income taxes on the btl houses DH and I own. (Boo hiss etc) DH has worked his nuts off for the NHS but is also a Tory voter. And I am hardly a "scrounger" since I don't reside in the UK or use any services and have never claimed any benefits. I guess reading comprehension is not a strong point, but thank you for illustrating my point about being abusive towards Tory voters so beautifully.
Are you familiar with the story about the 10 men buying a beer together according to their incomes? It's quite old now, but I think that makes a good point about the logic of calling the people who already pay the vast majority of the tax in this country "cunts".

The right want less wealth distribution?

Really? Are you sure?

Because there has been a whole lot of redistribution going on since the financial crash.

And the Tories are planning lots more of it.

Does it just not count as "redistribution" if rich people are getting richer at the expense of the poor?

Oooh, you paid tax for half a working life. Big round of applause for you.

Surely you're not a story voter now anyway, since you don't live here and have nothing at all to do with the UK and never drive on our roads of avail yourself of our stable security situation.

You see Bathtime you're doing it again? I don't really need to say anything at all, because you are doing such a great job of treating me like a panto villain and proving my original point!
20 years of HR tax pays for a LOT of healthcare and education. What about DH's 30 plus years of contributions, working in the NHS, do you want to scoff at him and call him a cunt as well? I deliberately chose a lucrative career so that I would be able to take care of my mother in her dotage. I would still like to able to do that given the current parlous state of the NHS, so I have offshored some cash. And yes, expats still get to vote (and in fact the Tories ran an excellent online campaign in my part of the world, the cunts!)

This article suggests the cuts will be housing benefit and tax credits:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/11690098/David-Cameron-Welfare-cuts-will-stop-the-merry-go-round-of-benefits-dependency.html

It seems odd that Cameron has pledged to leave CB alone. There are families on joint incomes of up to 100k receiving CB. It doesn't seem right when deep cuts are being made elsewhere.

ttwk i was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth.. im not educated i did not have a good education.that has a knock on effect of how my life will be its very likely i will only ever be in min wage jobs.

I am willing to bet any sum you wish that I had a worse start in life than you did. But I am not poor now. I also went to a deprived primary school but I am educated, because I educated myself. When all the other kids we smoking and doing drugs and joining gangs, I was down the library.

Too many people fuck up the their lives and blame their background, because it's easier than confronting their own failings.

Yes, people have to bring up disabled kids, but I know someone who does that and is wealthy. If you have access to the internet to moan about how poor you are, you have access to the internet to trade on ebay, start an online business etc. And if you don't know how to do that, then get on Youtube and learn.

As for the idiot who used the Royal Family as an example perpetuation of wealth, then I did say words like 1% and vast majority. The Royal family are not a typical case.

I agree that social mobility is poor, and one of the reasons for that is a benefits system that enables it.

We don't accept child abusers using their own abusive childhood as an excuse for their behaviour. We wouldn't accept a rapist's plea of "well my dad was a rapist" as an excuse. We should not accept "I'm poor because I come from a poor family." Plenty of people do climb out of poverty, and plenty of kids move from middle class childhoods into drugs and skid row. We all have choices.

I fully accept that you have better opportunities if you come from a wealthy background. My kids went to a great school and had lots of opportunities, and so far they've grabbed them. But no one's future it is set in stone and the attitude on MN is that you might as well give up before you even try.

bathtime and it's not just on social security cuts that they made promises they didn't expect to have to deliver on. They are also in a mess over Europe, and the human rights act - though the last of those already appears to have been kicked into the long grass.

The sight of tories scrabbling to deliver promises they never expected to have to uphold would be hilarious if it weren't for the fact that it's people's lives that they are playing with.

I think that Labour created a dependency/entitlement culture that let down lower socioeconomic groups badly, and patronised them. I also think that the current cuts are too brutal. Why on earth can't there be a happy medium?

Capping pensioner benefits (including state pension) for wealthy pensioners would be a start, but would never happen because most over-65s vote!

I suspect that the 2-children benefit cap will emerge at some point. There is plenty of public support. I just hope it doesn't apply to existing families, that would be catastrophic.

But old farticus what about the society which allowed you to succeed? All the things that are in place and provided to help you and protect. You got out and claimed non dom ASAP.You are technically worse than any benefit scrounger cause you took the benefits of living here while you could, and got out when it suited you to stop contributing.

You are utterly despicable.

Can we cut the tax relief on your btl houses please? That would save a good few of the billions needed, oh but you don't want that bit, cause it doesn't suit you.

ttwk i did not even go to a mainstream school. why you betting you had a worse start in life than i did. you dont know what life i have had.

what about the victims of rapist/child abuse etc it could effect how their lifes have turned out or would that be an excuse.

people do the best with the cards they are dealt

I don't know what the upper limit for tax credits is, but I doubt that (for example) a newly qualified teacher or nurse working in London/ the SE could raise a family without them.

I think a lot of the scroungers rhetoric comes from people who either live in relatively cheap areas where it's possible to get by on a low income, or from people on good private sector salaries who have no idea how little some people - including qualified people doing professional jobs - have to live on.

Good for you TTWK,you did well and you deserved it too. I came from an equally poor background and also studied. I have a degree, I was in a really well paid job for nearly 30 years before a series of disasters saw me having to literally start again. Yes I had savings and they saw me through a year but following that I had to rely on the benefits system.

Now at nearly 50 I am supporting a disabled child who is struggling in mainstream to the extent it prevents me working as I am often needed. Part of the reason for this is that cuts to the education system mean the support my son gets is spread between several children. I am now fighting the local authority for a more appropriate placement as without this I can see myself out of work for the next 5-6 years.

I don't blame my past, I blame a set of unforseen circumstances that nobody is immune from....not even you. It takes ONE disaster sometimes for the nice life you've built to come tumbling down, it's worth remembering that in case it should happen to you.

I'm tired of this debate to be honest. The snarking I'm alright Jack attitudes of the Tory voting populace, smug and complacent in their comfortable situations are disgusting.

We all benefit from the society we live in, we all have to contribute. The rule of law including protection of property, provision of infrastructure, policing, fire, health and yes the safety net that protects the weakest in society need to be provided to enable this society to work.

There is no "culture of dependency" , less than 100,000 families have parents who have never worked, less than 30,000 where no one has worked in a generation, these are tiny numbers in the population less than 1 % . It is a media creation, if we look to see where there is a culture of dependency it is in "wealth creators" where they are dependent on the state for much of what they need and do not contribute enough back.

Some on here would only be happy with the return of the workhouse, inherently selfish victorian values are back.

"Plenty of people do climb out of poverty, and plenty of kids move from middle class childhoods into drugs and skid row. We all have choices."

By definition, we can't all have the best jobs, because if we did then there wouldn't be any 'best jobs'. There will always be a need for people who are willing to clear away our rubbish, wash the dishes we eat from in restaurants, sweep the floor that we walk on. Those people who do that will always be the worst paid and have the least choices.

To suggest that 'we all have choices' when there is a correlation between IQ and ability to learn, is beyond naive. My DD1 is the hardest worker I know. She is still going to have moderate learning difficulties as an adult and she won't be a lawyer no matter how hard she works.

lougle your post spot on. thankyou

Agree with youlongtimelurker, some on this thread express their smug, sad, selfish "I'm alright Jack" attitudes a little too much. Have seen them doing the same on other threads and the bitch in me wishes massive disaster upon them so they might actually learn some compassion and humility.

It's probably too much to hope that it might happen though....and probably very nasty of me. Unfortunately it's the ONLY way some people actually learn the reality of life.

Excellent posts, BathtimeFunkster.

Interesting, reading the one or two examples of people who've dragged themselves up by their bootstraps, so to speak, and got a good job that pays extremely well despite growing up as extremely disadvantaged. I'd like to ask:

1. How many other working class people do you know who are in the same situation, despite possibly being more hard-working/talented/intelligent than many of your colleagues?
2. If you're the only one, does that make you the "token workie"?
3. If you're the only one and your highly paid colleagues are overwhelmingly from more, shall we say, advantaged backgrounds, then doesn't that reinforce the concept that we absolutely do not live in a meritocracy? Using the current Chancellor as an example - is a man who, despite having the best education money can buy, scraped a 2nd in History and was pretty much unable to obtain or hold down any other job until his contacts got him into the Conservative party really the best person in the country for his job?

Also pretty annoyed by the insinuation that richer people are subsidising poorer working people when I think that in some ways it may be the other way around. Do you pay so much tax that if you kept the money instead you could afford someone to empty your bins, someone to clean around your hospital ward, your own nurse, someone to personally fetch your shopping from manufacturers' warehouses, a police officer or fire fighter for emergencies? These are all often low paid jobs, despite the fact that they are utterly indispensable to society, and the people may well require tax credits to top up their wages. Using a supermarket worker as an example, the price of goods in Asda can be lower because wages are so low, meaning that your shopping is cheaper than it should be i.e. subsided.

TTWK- you were able to educate yourself because you were born with the ability to do so.

longtime I didn't get out "asap", I worked for 20 years! DH still works and pays income tax in the UK. I think I have made a more than fair contribution towards the pot and I have never claimed a single penny. It isn't wrong to want a better life - we all do.

And we don't get any tax relief on our btl houses either. DH has his allowance but it's already used up by his salary so the rent we receive is taxable (as it should be).
I don't know how you can conclude that someone is "despicable" when all you know is that I am a Tory voter who has nondom status and is married to a UK tax resident? That is the part that I really take issue with. There is a genuine debate over how best to tackle inequalities in society and neither the left or right approach is "wrong" or deserving of the type of name calling on this thread.

You paid in your fair share? Utter drivel. Even the highest contributors are in tax deficit by the time of their death. Did you know that? You vote tory cause it suits you not to contribute, but you gain all the benefits of living here. Non-dom status should be abolished, its amoral. Your BTL houses all have street lighting, protection of the law, infrastructure provided around them, if you had to pay for all of that individually, or contribute your "fair share" you would be paying out a lot more. Because you are part of a collective you pay less. You benefit, but don't contribute, my point stands.

TTWK you're calling me an idiot are you?
Early on in this thread I was actively pointing out that calling people cunts wasn't helping. Perhaps that was me being an idiot?