To think Toby Young deserves scorn for this article?

[BowieFan]

Apologies for linking to the Daily Mail, but I've used a service that denies them advertising revenue: <a class="break-all" href="https://anonym.to/?www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3869182/Why-Lefties-misty-eyed-movie-romanticises-Benefits-Britain-says-TOBY-YOUNG.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">anonym.to/?www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3869182/Why-Lefties-misty-eyed-movie-romanticises-Benefits-Britain-says-TOBY-YOUNG.html

Aside from the basic errors (it's 100minutes long, not nearly 3 hours), it's just an awful article. The fact that Toby Young thinks everyone claiming benefits is a smoking/gambling/drinking loudmouth is just offensive. I'm shocked - not that it was published - but that he thinks his opinion is the opinion of everyone.

I'd love to see him survive on benefits. I wonder if he'd be saying the same things then?

"it can't be the North if you think that false benefit claims and multigenerational benefit claiming drinking-smoking-drug using families are "anecdotal" and "tiny minority". "

Well your anecdotal evidence doesn't trump the Joseph Rowentree foundation data that shows that it is a tiny minority, in fact less than 1% of families where two generations have never worked.

Iona, as I said, an anecdote does not evidence make. I'd suggest you'd try looking at the evidence, you know, proper, peer reviewed research rather along the lines of The Joseph Rowntree Foundation who could find very little evidence of multi generational benefit scrounging. You are however somewhat entrenched in your ideas, you choose not to be disabused of your notions via the medium of evidence. Your choice, but it would be so much nicer if you didn't drag it through for the viewing of polite society.
Included in the discussion Iona are those claiming ESA and PiP. That would mean people with disabilities. It also includes people with disabilities that are forced back onto JSA. So, of the 0.05% of fraudulent claims with regard to DSA and the 1.2% (combined fraud and dwp error) you think everyone claiming benefit should be tarred by the same brush?

user1471446905

Yes but the point is he has massive support. In terms of people paying their subs and becoming active members of the party, that means the party is better funded and can campaign more. It also means that party members can have an effect on the way MPs vote on policies.

A huge membership means that Corbyn could very possibly have a million people out pounding the streets, knocking on doors and telling people why they should vote for him. That is more valuable than any political broadcast on TV.

Sorry DLA and PiP. I'm dealing with DSA for other stuff at the moment!

IonaNE

I live 15 minutes from where I grew up. I'm in the North, I grew up on a council estate.

I know there are some families where nobody works, but they are in the minority. Usually at least one person works - usually the dad. Families where more than one generation has never worked makes up less than 1% of claimants.

Fraudulent claiming of PIP/DLA is absolutely tiny. Even the government said there was no realistic expectation that they could get the fraud rate lower (about 0.5%) without hurting genuine disabled people. They still tried to make cuts though.

To many posts to read them all.

smallfox2002 Toby Young also stepped down from running his school, and admitted that the job was far more difficult than he had imagined. Your implication is factually incorrect.

BowieFan
Did I read correctly that your a HOY at a school and only work 30 hours a week?
If that is true your being paid to work a lot more than that but are short changing your pupils to work for charities, shame on you. In effect your bring paid to work in food banks by tax payers. I work twice as long in my non tax payer funded job and haven't a second in the day left to do charity work. WTF?

What your posts never seem to acknowledge is that tax payers raise the money to give to vulnerable people, their isn't a magical pot of unlimited money that is being withheld from those in need.

bowiefan - we'll see I guess at the next election. As for the party pressuring individual MPs personally I think MPs should endeavour to represent their constituents as best they can, not simply those constituents who are party members.

Bowie , Donna et al. giving a hard time to Hiros: the age of feudalism has passed, everyone is free to live where they wish, and she and her DH are right to have left. Moving to another country shows initiative, a spirit of enterprise (and, often, knowledge of foreign language(s)), all of which are praiseworthy imo.

Please tell me you are joking. She said they left because they didn't want to support benefit scroungers. FFS.

In other words those fucking parasitic poor, disabled down and outers. Those bothersome children living in poverty. They are just so fucking inconvenient aren't they?

Fraudulent claiming of PIP/DLA is absolutely tiny

So are you saying we shouldn't try and stop it? 0.5% of a very large amount is still a LARGE amount.

If the rule is no anecdata then that really needs to go for everyone!

Quornflakes

I am deputy head-of-year, yes. I am on flexi-time because I had a nervous breakdown last year and the school were very supportive of me. They offered to lower my hours even further, seeing as I basically jobshare with someone else. I said I would be happy with 30 hours, which they were too.

I'm not short-changing my school of anything. I took a pay cut to when I reduced my hours. You're not subsidising me to work in a food bank at all. Presumably you think you're subsidising my DP as well because he works in the RAF?

I used to work 50 hour weeks. I now work 30 hours (although it's more like 50 once meetings and marking is factored in) and took the according pay cut. I'm sorry that this bothers you.

and yet there is a magical pot to reduce Corporate Tax, Quorn.

As for tax payers paying for Bowie's charity work, do fuck off dear. A)That's a nonsense. and B)So what if it were the case.
Tax payers pay may ESA. I too have paid into that fund. I do not doff my cap to you, or anybody else. I do not justify my existence to you or anybody else, well, not anymore. I'm sitting here without the heating on though, that welfare pot is so much smaller than the let's get the rich a tad richer pot..

their isn't a magical pot of unlimited money that is being withheld from those in need.

Oh but there is, it is certainly unlimited when it comes to bailing out the bankers who cause the crisis and then walk away with impunity.

Sadly the pot of benefits is really only available for the rich.

Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.

Quornflakes

0.5% is tiny. Sorry, but it is. You're always going to get some people gaming the system. 0.5% is far lower than the fraud amount for JSA. 0.5% of a large number is large, yes, but there is no way to stop that without hurting actual disabled people. And by the way, most of that fraud prediction is only based on things like some people might be getting slightly more than they should, or a couple of people have been caught claiming things they shouldn't, and they have extrapolated that into a figure for the whole amount of claimants.

These are difficult issues. More peoplel than not in the UK support the benefit cuts which are popular with both Labour and Tory voters and are one reason the Tories won the last election.

We will see in 2020 how the people vote.

I am also from the NE and I see what I see and know what I know.

So are you saying we shouldn't try and stop it? 0.5% of a very large amount is still a LARGE amount.
I think we should sort out Starbucks, Amazon et al, first.
I accept that it's still a large amount, however penalising those in need isn't perhaps the best way to go about things. People are dying.

Quorn it appears I'm not:

www.standard.co.uk/news/education/toby-young-running-free-school-was-harder-than-i-thought-a3241746.html

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/toby-young-admits-running-a-school-was-harder-than-i-thought-as-he-backs-down-as-free-school-ceo-a7017651.html

Try fact checking yourself.

More peoplel than not in the UK support the benefit cuts which are popular with both Labour and Tory voters and are one reason the Tories won the last election.
That would be because of the way it was put to the electorate, scrounger/hard working families etc. The language of the election was misleading. When you put things in different terms, the electorate consistently states that it doesn't want disability benefits cut.

DawnDonnaagain

Apparently my DP paying 40-odd% tax for 20 years, me paying tax since I left school and being a higher rate tax payer for the past 10 years and then cutting my hours due to my health means the tax payer is funding me doing charity work! Who knew?

Frankly, I don't care if that is the case (which it isn't). Me and DP have paid more than enough tax over the years, which we are fine with, and I have only cut my hours down due to my health. I still did all the same charity work when I did 50 hour weeks. I just had less time to myself.

Bowie, detention it is then!

Oh and Quorn, more benefits go unclaimed than are claimed fraudulently.

Tell you what why don't we crack down on tax avoidance, which is a far higher amount, rather than picking on the poor?

Me2017

Yes, because people bought into the scroungers vs. hard working families shit. The Tories won because they got people to believe that the poor are to blame for everything.

2 million people read The Sun everyday - that doesn't mean everyone in the country is a racist bigot who likes looking at tits.

As the saying goes, popularity is not a mark of quality. Just because the public supports benefit cuts, it doesn't mean it's right. I'm sure if they actually did three seconds of research they'd realise the cuts are wrong.

Think of how much money could be saved by not giving wealthy pensioners the winter fuel allowance? Or by not giving it to people so they can heat their pool in Benidorm? Ah wait, they won't touch pensioners because they vote Tory. Most disabled people who rely on benefits will not vote for the Tories, so they see no reason to keep them happy.

I am also from the NE and I see what I see and know what I know.

I'm from wealthy central London and I see what I see and know what I know.

I know the bankers who gamble freely with our economy and who pay no price but to walk away with enough money to secure their families future for a few generations while the poor pay the price.

Toby Young is just a dick.
Massive ego and horribly extreme.

bowie -
'As the saying goes, popularity is not a mark of quality. Just because the public supports benefit cuts, it doesn't mean it's right' but that is kind of how democracy works!