Re mansion tax, we not in it together

[BreakingDad77]

AIBU to think it's only the poor, infirm and elderly getting squeezed, to cut government spending and reduce the deficit.

Divide and conquer. They are pitting the middle classes against the working classes, so that the do not see what is coming. Look over here. Don't look there. Look over here where we tell you to look. The middle classes are going to be stripped of their wealth. They will lose their pension pots, their savings, their portfolios, and when all is said and done, we will likely discover that a home owned by a bank, and a car owned by a finance company, are not all that different from a rented council home and a two grand runaround. Except of course, it's a lot easier to deal with poverty if you're used to spaghetti hoops and instant noodles, instead of Waitrose finest. This is a game. You can't do anything about it, but at least if you know how it is played and why, you can anticipate and protect family.

Ellie, I mean this in the nicest way, but how is your mental health? You sound just a tad paranoid.

If the Tories stripped the middle classes of their wealth they would lose their core voting support and never be voted in again. Surely you can't think that the Tories haven't thought of that.

I find it disgusting that this government uses food banks to prop up the most vulnerable people in society after they have forced them into new depths of poverty.

Food banks have increased by their thousands over the past few years and the trussell trust charity is now the governments answer to their cuts. Been sanctioned because you're homeless and couldn't apply for jobs? Go to a food bank. Paying bedroom tax on a property you can't move out of? Go to a food bank. On a zero hours contract and got no work this week? Go to a food bank. You get the picture.

Why does this government think it's ok to allow this to go on. To have nothing in place but the support of a charity which relies on volunteer and on public donations?

What if the trussell trust cannot keep up with the demand following whatever cuts are to be announced. There are so many hungry people and these MP's wouldn't even be able to tell you the price of a loaf of bread. Makes me sick.

EllieFAntspoo A little perspective here. The poorest person in Britain today is richer than half the people on the planet.

I volunteer in a soup kitchen for rough sleepers, most of our customers own nothing but a few stinking clothes and a filthy sleeping bag, I was told once they have a life expectancey 30 years lower than the average. I think they're pretty impoverished

What will the Tories do if there was a mass influx of people wanting to go to jail so they are at least fed and have a roof over their head?

Why do people seem to think that all unemployed people sit at home watching shite TV?

What about those who have small children to look after? I shouldn't imagine they have much time for stuff like that even if they wanted to watch it. But they get lumped in with this image of lazy, unwilling, entitled knobs all the bloody time.

If the Tories stripped the middle classes of their wealth they would lose their core voting support and never be voted in again. Surely you can't think that the Tories haven't thought of that. read the post. I didn't say the Tories were doing anything. What I said was, government's job (any government) is to manage and frame the electorates thinking. Their job is the manage us, and insofar as it is possible, manage what we think about our environment and the rest of the world. For this reason we (on the whole) hate the people we are told to hate, support the side of the conflics we are supports to support, and continue, despite all the evidence to the contrary, to believe the system of governance and control that we have is the very best we can achieve. We do not create dissent and we do not try to change the status quo.

As regards the economy, and the loss of wealth in the middle classes, this is a macro-economic issue. It is happening in all developed nations on the planet. It is a transfer of wealth upwards. The middle classes are the ones who have most to lose, and it cannot be stopped. Every single country is devaluing its currency in tandem. Every single country is concealing the inflation figures and misrepresenting its underemployment issue. The economy of the planet is changing and it affects people. It has been known about, planned for and written about in white papers for decades. But what you think might happen, and what you know about, is fed to you buy news media, advisors, and politicians.

Whether you believe society is getting poorer or not is moot. Whether you believe you are being distracted by this issue of the day or that for a purpose, or not, is also moot. You are focussing on what you are being encouraged to focus on. The vilification of the poor justifies further empoverishment to the middle classes and likewise justifies further taxation of the middle classes to the poor. Both are stripped of money, and both feel satisfied that the other are suffering.

Now that may not be specifically what you or I think, but it is the encouraged narrative and the established tone of the country, and neither you, nor I, nor anyone we know set that agenda. If that is not propoganda, what is it?

Ellie I can barely follow you. You are blinding me with science. I am by no means stupid but you sound as though you are writing a thesis .. Not talking to the masses on mumsnet

Ellie

Divide and conquer. They are pitting the middle classes against the working classes, so that the do not see what is coming. Look over here. Don't look there. Look over here where we tell you to look. The middle classes are going to be stripped of their wealth. They will lose their pension pots, their savings, their portfolios,

I'm totally not following you. I could have sworn what you said copied above is that the Middle classes are going to be stripped of their wealth.

Had a very long day at my middle class job so I'm off to bed now. Perhaps I will read what you said again tomorrow

Ellie is talking paranoid bollocks

Every fortnight DH and I read Private Eye, open mouthed. I think Ellie speaks a lot of sense, actually.

I do agree with Ellie. Look around you at the propaganda that is spouted. Benefits street and the like is released pretty much all at once Less than a year later the country is facing 12 billion in welfare cuts.... so much shit is being spouted and the actions reflect that. Surely I'm not the only one that can see something is going on?

Yudo
Are you actually trying to suggest that Benefit Street was made and broadcast in order to prep the public for cuts to welfare?

Both are stripped of money, and both feel satisfied that the other are suffering.

I think a lot of what Ellie has posted is bollocks, but this is spot on.
Mansion tax (to get back to the thread's title) was never about improving public finances at all. It was a jealously tax to make sure that those perceived as having 'too much' were being hit where it would hurt them. Equally, the support for welfare reforms comes largely from those not with 'thousands in the bank' but from the squeezed middle who feel like others are getting something for nothing.

Just after the election, I was reading something about how post-recession, there tends to be a move to the right. The theory behind this is that the majority of people have tightened their belts, cut back and worked harder to get through it. Those people therefore have less sympathy for those who they think have a cushy number on benefits and didn't have to make those sorts of sacrifices, so support plans to cut benefits. The attitude is 'if I had to go through it, why shouldn't they', hence the Tories get a clear mandate from the electorate to push through their reforms

Spare change it's no surprise Rupert Murdoch was a producer responsible for programs such as benefits St and everyone knows his loyalty to the Tories and it's in his interests to back the Tories.
He also doesn't like the poor much .

Of course programs were made to rile people up giving an unrealistic picture of life on benefits just before the cuts so people back the Tories and think the poor deserve it

In fact I think a certain nasty columnist was hired by Cameron or Murdoch before the election to spout off and rile people up about scroungers just before the election

it's no surprise Rupert Murdoch was a producer responsible for programs such as benefits St
Oh dear, the chinese whispers rumour mill strikes again.

Firstly, Rupert Murdoch is not a producer of Benefits Street. To my knowledge, he isn't a producer of any programme. Producing is long hours and difficult work, and he is far too rich to have to do that.

I think where you are getting confused is that BSkyB (part-owned by Murdoch) bought a 70% stake in the Love Productions, which makes Benefit Street.
However, they bought them at the end of 2014, long after the first series was made and broadcast, and after the second series was filmed.

So adjust that tinfoil helmet because I'm afraid your theory that Murdoch made the programme is nothing but conspiracy theorist nonsense.

By the way, the same production company also makes GBBO. Maybe Mary Berry is transmitting subliminal messages about austerity through the bunting...

Are you actually trying to suggest that Benefit Street was made and broadcast in order to prep the public for cuts to welfare?

No. To shape your opinion. 95% of the population act as a herd. They form opinions and take actions based on external stimulus, and this is very predictable. It has been studied for almost a century now. If you control the information they consume, you can control their opinions.

So you think there was some plot or collusion or plan to make the programmes in order to turn people against benefit claimants? And that would allow the government to push through reforms?

Personally, I don't, but I can see how some might go that far. The reality is far more subtle than that. You do not need to 'turn people against benefits claimants' or 'turn poeple against the rich'. These are natural human instincts, just as compassion, empathy, and sharing are natural human instincts. All that needs to be done is cause the herd to focus on one natural instinct in lieu of another. Benefits Street is just one program, but when you add in Don't Pay, We'll Take it Away, On Benifits & Proud, Life on the Dole, Britains Benifits Tenants, Too Fat to Work, Saints and Scroungers, and the mirriad of other television programmes, a rhetoric is being planted in the public psyche. And it works.

Myself, I couldn't give too hoots, because I know that those 95% will do exactly what their televisions and newspapers tell them to. I am merely highlighting that world around us works differently from the way you have been taught to believe it does. I have no horse in this race, no benefits to protect, and no mansion to be taxed. But watching what is happening, and asking ourselves, 'why?' is a very good beginning.

Spare change so is it just a coincidence all these programs have suddenly appeared on TV?
At one point there was a benefit program on every night!
What about hate crimes against the disabled or people on benefits , ask yourself why these have increased ?
The reason is people are being manipulated.

Fantasyland Playing the pointy finger game is pointless. Saying its David Cameron, or Rupert Murdoch, or Ian Duncan Smith, or whoever, serves no purpose. These are people like you and I (all be it somewhat wealthier, and with different career structures) who merely work together to achieve a common goal. The individuals are irrelevant, and focussing on them merely distracts from focusing on the underlying dynamic that is at work. You are meant to focus on the individuals, and the media does its damnedest to ensure that you do focus on them, but by ignoring them and focusing on what is actually happening, and why it is happening, you see the the bigger picture. This has nothing to do with Rupert Murdoch or David Cameron per se. They are powerful people, but they are also just distracting you.

Spare change so is it just a coincidence all these programs have suddenly appeared on TV?
No, it isn't coincidence.
A production company made Benefits Street. It fits well with the sort of 'real life' programmes they make and that are popular so it isn't any real surprise it was made.
When it was broadcast, it got the highest viewing figures achieved on Channel 4 since the paralympics. That meant two things.

Firstly, it showed the public were really interested in the programme and similar programmes would very likely command similar viewing figures.

Secondly, it meant they could charge more for the advertising shown in the breaks, because advertisers knew many millions of people would be watching.

So, take a guess why lots of copy-cat programmes sprung up afterwards... It is for commercial reasons, not because there is some illuminati meeting for MPs and TV execs trying to come up with ways of controlling the masses' attitudes to benefit claimants by showing them up to be feckless on TV. If that were the case, you should be pointing the finger of blame at Jeremy Kyle, which has done that for far longer than C4 has been