Skint Britain: Friends without Benefits on C4

[amrscot]

Is anybody else watching this?

One of the couples take their dog out to hunt rabbits and squirrels that they can eat.

They've just shown him with a dead rabbit he has caught skinning it in the kitchen

Horrendous..

*userxx Wed 13-Feb-19 23:11:50
I'm with @Aprilshowersarecomingsoon, smoking is an expensive habit and fucking insane if you have cancer. Giving up is hard but so worth the benefits to health and money in the bank.

I didn't watch the whole program but just saw the lad getting money out of the cash point then ordering a load of take away food. What the fuck 🙈*

I suggest you rewind and see it was a friend that ordered the takeaway.

WTF indeed

I work with people who are on UC every day of the week.
What is on the camera is the case and it’s fucking desperate.

I would love some of you to end up on UC and be in their shoes .

And don't bother to correct my spelling error, you pedant's , I saw it as I clicked send !!

I didn't watch the whole program but just saw the lad getting money out of the cash point then ordering a load of take away food

I'll admit I raised an eyebrow at the lad ordering the kebabs but he was starving and it was midnight. He could have walked to Tesco but maybe they didn't have gas on the meter. There's no where around there you can get gas from at that time of night. Or maybe he was hungry, fed up and wanted a treat and a £5.50 kebab wrap big enough to do him two meals was what he fancied.

These people live on my doorstep. They have shitty lives with zero chance of ever doing better for themselves. I can't bring myself to begrudge them a donner wrap and chips.

Do people actually believe what they see on TV
Its all for the CAMERA. I despair

Oh yes, I agree...

I mean I spent 6 weeks with no money, living on the smallest amount of food I possibly could to make sure my daughter was fed, did all that for the cameras... There weren't any cameras but still.

I tell you what, when you dish up your child's tea and they say,
"Are you having yours later?"
And you too them yes, knowing full well you haven't anything for later, you tell me it's for the cameras. Hoping to god she leaves some so you can eat it.
A grown, 40 year old man, eating 1 slice of bread and a hand full of pasta a day ..

It's awesome but all for the cameras... At least I've only lost 3 stone, could have been worse..

I'm curious what changes people think need to be made

Changes needed to be made because my relative was on benefits for 11 plus years because she had children. There was no consequence to her not job searching and she was on benefits for years when she was perfectly able just couldn't be bothered and to be fair had a lot of help from parents.

Working in the NHS I see people whose lives are so appalling they make decisions such as drinking/smoking above anything else because that's the one little pleasure in such a shit life they have - there but for the grace etc

Smug people saying should have/would have thank your lucky stars you aren't where they are

Having a relative with cancer who smokes I spoke to a nurse and her words were ‘whatever gets you through!’ People aren’t stupid and they know smoking is expensive and awful for their health but it’s s serious addiction that is usually their prop in times of stress. Giving up isn’t always easy, I have seen my relative go through trying and failing for several years.

I can't believe people actually fall for the "undeserving" poor crap spouted by right wing rag mags. Let's not forget that many benefit recipients are in employment.

*Frequency Wed 13-Feb-19 23:19:59
I didn't watch the whole program but just saw the lad getting money out of the cash point then ordering a load of take away food

I'll admit I raised an eyebrow at the lad ordering the kebabs but he was starving and it was midnight. He could have walked to Tesco but maybe they didn't have gas on the meter. There's no where around there you can get gas from at that time of night. Or maybe he was hungry, fed up and wanted a treat and a £5.50 kebab wrap big enough to do him two meals was what he fancied.

These people live on my doorstep. They have shitty lives with zero chance of ever doing better for themselves. I can't bring myself to begrudge them a donner wrap and chips*

I'm the same - how bloody vile could you begrudge people on the lowest level of society being so bloody extragavant to order a takeaway after they've been starving for weeks - I really hope their kale turns curly - pfft!

Changes needed to be made because my relative was on benefits for 11 plus years because she had children. There was no consequence to her not job searching and she was on benefits for years when she was perfectly able just couldn't be bothered and to be fair had a lot of help from parents

I agree but I also know in certain pockets of the country, such as the town this was filmed in, the work isn't there for people to take. Not too long ago some of these people would have worked in the crisp factory, the biscuit factory or other local manufacturing work. All of that is gone from Hartlepool now. There's literally nothing but care work or a few hours of shop work.

And there's little to no support for people like those filmed to better themselves. The LEA do what they can setting up funded courses etc for people on low incomes but it's not enough. There's no addiction support and no real prospect to work your way out of poverty even if you do complete the courses offered.

Hartlepool needs massive investment if the lives of these people are to change.

I was a bit baffled at the timing of the programme, immediately after Phil and Kirstie's "Love it or List it". A couple in an £800k house with a swimming pool spending another £150k to tart it up to sell. I know it's meant to be lighthearted, but still distasteful in view of what was to follow.

@EwItsAHooman bus travel is reduced price or free for jobseekers in most areas as they get a pass from the jobcentre. The bus companies advertise this on the bus posters above the seats inside the bus.

Jobcentres can also pay for the travel to the job interview and in some cases will pay for clothing to make you look presentable. I know this because my ex husband was unemployed after he had a brain tumour removed so was obviously expecting to struggle to find work. What he actually discovered is that a lot of people only turn up to the job interview so their benefits continue. No one else was properly dressed or had anything with them such as a CV - they were in tracksuit bottoms and had zero interest in the jobs.

I also regularly overhear on my bus what half the claimants spend their money on and it ain't food. They're listing the drugs they're going to buy at the weekend - I have zero sympathy for those types of people but it's rife in the area where I live. They think they're hard done to because they're expected to work to pay for their cigs, drink and drugs.

I live in tonight's town, and there are LOTS of "tab houses" where you can get smuggled cigarettes or tobacco cheap. There are also lots of people with tattoo guns who will do them cheap or even free in their homes.
We have two Aldi, neither of which are central or particularly easy to get to without a car.
As for the takeaway, imagine you have lived on beans or plain pasta for a week. Then you finally get some money all at once. You're cold, hungry, and hopeless. A takeaway makes no rational sense, but it's filling, hot, comforting... Would you really be able to resist?

@sassysec It's not being vile, I genuinely don't understand why people with so little money would spunk it up the wall on takeaway food. It just doesn't make sense to me. I shop at Aldi and watch every penny, clearly my priorities are very different.

The main problem with Hartlepool and the surrounding areas is the massive loss of traditional industries, and the families that went into these industries are lost. Summer 2017 was the latest, 250 jobs gone in the area, older workers, with jobs that had very few transferrable skills. That's 250 families on benefits in one go, because even if another adult in the family is working, chances are they don't earn enough with one wage. There's a massive employment gap, you have minimum wage, zero hours in care or hospitality/retail and then high tech business, teaching etc that need university education. The manual jobs like steel making are gone, and that's what the area relied on. Add to that the cuts to everything and a generation down we have people who don't give a shit about society and paying in and being part of a society because they feel like they've been, and continue to be, screwed over.
I see it every day, I don't know what the answer is but someone needs to find one and universal credit is not it.

Let's not forget that many benefit recipients are in employment.

14 million people in the UK live in poverty, 60% of them live in a household where at least one person is employed.

whatamidoing Well when I asked at the job centre when unemployed, I was told they only give help with travel in exceptional circumstances. So yes I had to pay for travel out of my small benefits. And on a compulsory course, another woman I was talking to who was a single woman getting £73,10 a week, was saying she was really struggling as she lived in a village and the travel was expensive.

I live in tonight's town

Snap, Pom. I've just moved back here after giving up on ever finding work in Redcar without a car or expecting my ex to actually pay maintenance. It was filmed on and around Oxford Rd. They could have walked to Aldi, but that Aldi is vile and filthy and I'm convinced they improperly store the food before putting it out on the shelves because it's always half rotten before you even get it home.

Myxomatosis is a disease that was used to contaminate the rabbit population by a fucking wicked, vile and evil Tory Government because all the poor people kept stealing the rabbits that belonged to the rich people.
Seriously myxomatosis was used to bring the rabbit population down. The animals end up being hideously deformed and they die. It was advised that people shouldn't eat rabbits because of myxomatosis.
That's probably why there is a stigma linked to eating rabbit.

I genuinely don't understand why people with so little money would spunk it up the wall on takeaway food. It just doesn't make sense to me. I shop at Aldi and watch every penny, clearly my priorities are very different.
Because they are in a hole with no visible way out! And it's ENDLESS. It's very different, being poor like that, to being "frugal" and shopping at Aldi so you can afford nice holidays.
I have been dirt poor and still smoked. It's fucking stressful.

whatamidoing I have never seen adverts on buses like that. It sounds as if your area has a different system.

Changes needed to be made because my relative was on benefits for 11 plus years because she had children.

It probably worked out cheaper for the DWP that she didn't work.
Dependant on her situation the DWP could either giver her £1000 to stay home or pay £1000 to childcare provider and £700 in working tax credit to her + housing benefit + child benefit + council tax benefit.

Unless you know of jobs that you can work between 9-3 and make more than enough not to need DWP assistance?

UrbanDecay
Not saying people are not affected by UC, just saying that what you see on the MSM is not necessarily the truth. TV channels regularly 'edit' reality to gain ratings, the truth was a causality a long time ago.