Is Universal Credit the new poll tax?

[malificent7]

Everyone seems to hate it...even benefit bashers. Will universal credit be the undoing of the Tories ( apart from Brexot).
Why are we not making a fuss like the French? Not advocating violence at all but instead of moaning what are people doing to change it?

No, because even Labour are for the reform in principal just that the roll out has been a shit show.

Id love to say "Yes", but I don't think anything will get these cretins out.
As I've alluded to on other threads
The British public seem to love them and too many turkeys vote for Christmas.
Plus Labour are just Tory lites anyway. Most things the poor are worried about. Labour have the same view on as the Tories. They're all the same. It's not cliche, its true. Therefore I suppose when youre that down trodden. It's better the devil you know.

Why do people love them though??..i just don't get it. Brexit, austerity, tuition fees, trident. We are all worse off! Surely people want more money...not less? (Wracks brain....)

I think a reform was needed...but not to persecute the disabled.

Why do people love them, though

You tell me. I'm as non plussed as you are
It's the billion dollar, isn't it.

Because people who need benefits to survive are ‘scum’. That’s what’s pushed down our throats constantly through media, news articles, tv shows etc it’s propaganda.
They’re only one step up from foreigners coming to our country and stealing all our jobs and houses and school places and clogging up the NHS.

Irony is, these people who think this are the ones filming or bragging about donating to food banks and buying the homeless a coffee.

I don't think it will ever be "another poll tax" for all sorts of reasons.

It's being phased in gradually, for a start, whereas poll tax affected everyone at once. (Well, almost - it was trialled in Scotland first, then implelemented in rest of the country.)

The poll tax affected everyone, UC only affects people on low incomes.

UC is money people receive, not money they have to pay out.

UC doesn't have the same fundamental unfairness as the poll tax, whereby a multi-millionaire was expected to pay the same as someone on a low income.

There will never the same rage about anything benefit-related, because an awful lot of people regard benefits as "free money" rather than a way of bringing people on low incomes up to a minimum standard. There is a climate where there is a lack of sympathy for people who need to claim benefits.

And UC is not all bad. For many people, it will be easier to manage one payment, or 2 if they are working, than the complicated system under legacy benefits whereby money came in in dribs and drabs throughout the month.

It has been appallingly mismanaged, and for many will result in them being quite a lot worse off, especially those who are ill or disabled. But in Daily Mail world, they're all scroungers and skivers anyway, so Daily Mail-ites won't give a shit. But legacy benefits weren't without their problems either, and at least people are a lot less likely to be hit with big overpayment demands under UC.

So it's a "no" from me.

I think reform was needed but not to persecute the disabled.

See even you yourself are for it.
Don't persecute the disabled. I agree 1000%. However its not only the disabled who have been persecuted is it. Is it not every bit as bad to be persecuting a single mum with literally no family at all. While the father swans around having a fine time without a care in the world.
Is the 2 child policy fair. Yes I as a tax payer don't ask these people to have all these babies. I could argue, Why should I pay for them. However what ever you think of these people. The children don't ask to be born, do they.

No, because even Labour are for the reform in principal just that the roll out has been a shit show.

You do know that this “reform” has removed supplements from the disabled and chronically sick? “Sanctions” (stops payments to) people for attending job interviews or hospital appointments, even with notice?

I know a pretty politically mixed bunch of people and most of thm are shocked at what’s being reported.

90% of the population, at least - who would need the safety net if disaster struck - should be terrified. I know I am.

Brexit - the public voted against a metropolitan elite not Europe - in any event The Union will orobably be a dead duck in 10 years anyway and the uk will be ahead of the curve.

Austerity not one single one of us can spebd what's not in the kitty -personally or publicly.

Tuition fees: it is jyst not posdible for the state to fund publicly the numbers who go into HE nowadays and it is wrong to penalise those who do not have that opportunity.

Trident - it ensures we are defended against serious external threats.

Jam today has serious consequences tomorrow if harvests can't be guaranteed.

Of course everyone wants more. That is why everyone who can work should be in work and encouraged to be independent. That leaves a bigger slice for those who are the most vulnerable.

Why do I vote Conservative? Because Labour wrecks the economy every single time. Callaghan and Wilson bankrupted the nation and Healey had to go to the IMF with a begging bowl. Blair and Brown did it and its PFI that has crushed the NHS. The success of their early years was because they inherited a thriving economy.

I could say to my DC yes of course you can have everything you want, we could wrack up debt and credit on holidays and cars and smart furniture and then there would be foreclosure and the house would go.

Sometimes the I wants have to get real.

I dont agree with the two child policy. Plenty of women have lots of kids with a husband then he buggers off with the secretary.
I meant reform as in...money given in 1 lump sum instead of fiddly bits= good.
Less money in all= bad.
Irony is that everyone benefits when people have more to spend; landlords, retailers, budget stores etc....

I dont think people claim benefits to go on holiday and have lots of i wants....mostly it's because of i needs....food, fuel, rent etc.

I wouldnt actually be surprised if there was an exodus of the low-paid to Ireland soon. Then we’d be stuffed.

My DH is of the the opinion that it was sold as a nice, neat solution to a complex, muddled benefits situation that had grown organically over the years, by those with commercial interests at heart and was then happily taken up as a political tool. He is deeply cynical about the record of the ability of IT suppliers to sell huge governmental projects that they then can't deliver on, though

@ViragoKnows

I am not making a comment on the rights and wrongs of UC, the OP is trying to equate UC to the poll tax!

The reform of benefits had full cross party support, Labour etc are not going to bring back the old system as it is about the roll out, nit UC itself.

Thats why there isn't going to be riots, this is just a periodic faux innocence "aren't the tories" evil thread that the OP likes to make.
attempt at

The government have used Brexit as an excuse and a screen to shove any other issues into the background. As long as the media keep latest Brexit negotiations on the front page, we won't be seeing any uprising about far more serious matters because they are not known about widely enough. Only the people affected know and we are the very people least able to fight the system.

I am not making a comment on the rights and wrongs of UC, the OP is trying to equate UC to the poll tax!

Well we do all pay stinking great NICs to be covered by this so-called social insurance system.

We've all got a stake in it.

I don't think a comparison to poll tax is so very far fetched.

Why do people love them though??..i just don't get it. Brexit, austerity, tuition fees, trident. We are all worse off! Surely people want more money...not less? (Wracks brain....)*

If people want more money, they need to get out there and earn it. It’s the only way it ever works. If everyone tried to be as independent as possible and live within their means, there’d be more pie for the people who genuinely can’t look after themselves and need our help. But this country is massively in debt, there’s an enormous amount of public and private debt that can never be paid off. Wanting isn’t getting.

I don't think a comparison to poll tax is so very far fetched.

You may not, if it was just tory policy change and not had the general cross party support you may be able to make a comparison, as it is, the issues raised by Labour are about the rollout not UC in general.

They need to go out and earn it.

It's not peoples faults If Employers pay a pittance though is it. That's whyno one has a pot to piss in
My mum worked some times a many as 16 hours a day as a care worker. No fucker is going to tell Me she was deservedly poor. 16 hours a day. What more do you want.!!!!!.
Theyve already got her blood. She died age 61. doesn't even begin to cover it.

You may not, if it was just tory policy change and not had the general cross party support you may be able to make a comparison, as it is, the issues raised by Labour are about the rollout not UC in general.

Thats a symptom of the smoke and mirrors around UC, though. About twelve policy changes are being presented as ine policy change. The slow incremental creep from IDS’s original vision to this mess has been invisible to the casual obsever.

Labour will have to change their stance before too long. Probably after the second wave of deaths. Already, many of their backbenchers are unhappy,

Awwlook

Thanks Viragro.
I'm okay most of the time. Its just when people pick on the poor.
It surges so much bloody anger.

If people want more money, they need to get out there and earn it

People are getting out there and earning it. The biggest issue with poverty today is that the majority of those in poverty are workers. The work is not paying enough and is not stable enough. People on zero hours contracts don't have a regular salary, through no fault of their own. Because of the way the UC system is mismanaged, they are often left with nothing during the weeks when they aren't offered enough hours via their contract.

I dont blame you Aww.