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..

@ReanimatedSGB (will you run for PM please?)

Thank god, there is another person who sees these things.

It is truly like living in a parallel universe, where only a few can see the truth. What will it take for the rest to catch up?

That poor woman who was a carer for her dd and then her dh and got cancer for the second time. This whole system has let her down.

Reanimated: amen! Well said!

Thanks for clarifying @Gilead, I didn't think it could be about calories, which is confirmed by your link.

If you are living in a bedsit with nowhere to store, prepare or cook food, what choice do you have but to buy takeaways?
If you pay more for your gas and electricity than rich people, and you can't afford to buy in bulk and batch cook, how can you make your money go further?
Public transport is very expensive and many rural areas have only a couple of buses a day. How can people in those areas get to interviews?
I agree 100% with SGB, it is the obscenely rich tax evaders that society should be demonising, not the disadvantaged, the sick and the disabled.
If you take away the funding for health and education it isn't surprising that people end up with poor health and no qualifications.

People will vote Tory though, and there is thread after thread about what a cunt Corbyn is.
As for rabbit it is only a problem as a sole good source as it’s mainly just protein. Fry it in oil and it will be fine.

I'm almost 64 years old, was working 16 hrs a week in a very manual job, catering assistant, heavy lifting, pushing heavy trolleys that sort of thing, I had open heart surgery two years previously, anyway, things went wrong and I ended up having a cardiac arrest and a second emergency open heart surgery procedure, was off work on sick pay for months and finally had to give up that job because it was too much, went job centre to inform them my sick pay had ended and I was now unemployed, fair enough they said, they would give me sick pay but I wouldn't receive my first payment for four weeks and I couldn't have a loan but they could refer me to a food bank, on the way home I had a dizzy spell getting off the bus, fell and fractured my shoulder, so I've been living with no money, all of my NI contributions are paid up, I've always worked, was in the British Army when I was younger, fall on hard times and get zero help, I'm worried I'll end up being evicted and in debt, but I'm labelled a lazy so and so who doesn't want or won't look for work, by people who have no idea.

Welcome to Tory Britain, look to the people who voted these people in to power.

Lol, nothing to do with nuLabour and Tony Blair importing millions of workless and unskilled migrants who the poor working class now have to compete with for jobs, housing and schooling.

Nothing to do with NuLabour championing Buy to Let private landlords whilst not building any new homes, pricing out a whole generation from home ownership or even renting a property.

Nothing to do with NuLabour putting everything on expensive PFI deals so our kids and grandkids will have to pay for his economic stupidity and bailing out the banks, giving them billions of taxpayers money (which mostly hasn't been paid back) whilst raising taxes on middle and lower income workers.

The Tories and Labour are different sides of the same coin and they are both responsible for this mess.

Corbyn is most definitely a cunt, but I still won't vote tory.
Also, what SGB said. ^^

Look, it's true to an extent that there is some learned helplessness in some people. There is a small minority who just want their arses wiped and rely very heavily on the benefits system, BUT there are always background reasons fior this.
The vast majority of people who have suffered in this country since 2008 have been trying really hard, but the dice is being relentlessly stacked against them, over and over.
Let's just examine one thing people have mentioned: Public transport is really expensive.
Wait, what??
We just say this now, like it's a fact of life, not a decision made by those at the top. They privatised our buses, and now private companies decide what routes to run and how much to charge. It costs more to travel by bus than to go by car. Even as councils have slogans about bring "green" and the government pledges to reduce carbon emissions..Where I live the bus is only used by the very old and the very poor. Public transport should be effective and cheap. It should be a public service (like it was before they privatised it). Getting about, getting to work and shops should be possible for everyone and it's utterly disgusting how we just accept that it no longer is.
And yy to benefit income being WAY less than it was 10 years ago. My child benefit is the same as 2007. My food costs have nearly doubled ( and they will soon go up more).
We scrabble around for pennies while the rich award themselves fat bonuses and avoid tax. The poor have been shafted over and over ESPECIALLY poor women.

mismo Thats awful.I'm so sorry you have been treated like that.

It’s too easy to criticise whilst sitting in a position of relative privilege.

Yes some people make bad choices. Yes some people put in a lack of effort. Yes some people are untrustworthy. Not everyone is a Victim.

However this situation doesn’t occur in isolation.

The only way to break the cycle is with massive investment in education, support, and job prospects for the current generation of children.

Provide them with the opportunity of a better life, help push them, and equip them with the educational attainment and life skills to achieve this.

However that is expensive (in the short term, probably cheaper in the long term) and it isn’t popular because people don’t like to see the ‘undeserving’ being ‘given’ things.

Look at the US cities that have lost their industry. Do we really want to end up with places like Detroit?

It isn’t in anyone’s interests to kick people down and create an underclass.

Lol, nothing to do with nuLabour and Tony Blair importing millions of workless and unskilled migrants who the poor working class now have to compete with for jobs, housing and schooling

Nice try but there is scarcely any immigrants in Hartlepool. The few who are here either create jobs (shop and takeaway owners) or came here under the Tories through no fault of their own (Syrian refugees).

When I was growing up in Hartlepool people worked in factories. I was massively jealous of the kid whose dad worked in the sticker and mum worked in the crisp factory. There was also a manufacturing plant, the name of it escapes me, but it would take people on temp contracts when it had work and let them go when it didn't. It almost always had work and it employed lads like the ones shown last night. It's closed now like the crisp factory and the sticker factory.

The problem with the north has never been immigration. That's a lie peddled to you by right wing press. The problem with the North is the death of industry and lack of investment into employment and education.

mothertruck3r

I have no idea what you're blathering about... The benefit system that's being used to beat the poor into submission has nothing to do with any of the bollocks you mentioned.

Or, to put it another way:
If your boss left, a new boss came in and decided to change how much work you do, how much pay you get, what you hours are.
Would you blame the old boss for leaving or the new boss making the decisions?

Every shitty politician in history has blamed the previous government for the shit they're pulling in the current government.

Universal Credit doesn't work and isn't cheaper and isn't helping. Nulbour and Tony Blair and gandalf the grey can't do a fuck thing about it, the Tories can, right now, but won't. So don't blame.people what can't do a damn thing, blame this who can and won't.

PFI deals were invented in 1992 by the Conservative government led by Sir John Major, but became widespread under Labour after 1997. The schemes usually involved large scale buildings such as new schools and hospitals, or infrastructure projects which would previously have been publicly funded by the Treasury.22 Sep 2011

You're right mother, nothing to do with any of those things...

Family are all from Hartlepool and surrounding area. In years gone by there was mining, steel works, shipbuilding, ICI, GEC, thousands of well paid skilled jobs, good apprenticeships, money to spare. Then the industry went - coal mines closed down, cheaper to make steel and build ships in Asia. People lose their dignity and self esteem when they lose their careers.

There are now 2 generations in the town where many have never been able to find a decent well paid job, whose options are basically a job in a shop or as a carer (if they can find a job at all).

Agree with SGB entirely - you're looking in the wrong place to blame - look at the bankers with their multi million pound bonuses. Look at the Philip Greens and Mike Ashleys who sit in their penthouses or on their yachts while their staff are expected to work like automata for minimum wage. Look at the billionaires who hide their money in offshore accounts to avoid tax.

There are a few people who manage to cheat the benefit system. But they're not sitting in Monaco quaffing Cristal, they're buying single fags and watching daytime TV - do I begrudge them? Nope.

I didn't watch it quite frankly because I'm sticking my head in the sand over what will happen when we switch over to uc.

As for people saying care work. Have you ever worked in care? Let me tell you there are 2 types of people who do that job. Those that care and those that see it as just a job. You don't want people who don't care looking after vulnerable people.

I think they're focusing on care work because care work is pretty much the only fulltime work available in Hartlepool unless you are university educated and then you're limited to teacher, retail manager or something higher up in care. There are no employers and no opportunities. I don't think anyone is assuming care work is easy or for everyone.

Even this thread has massively shocked me and reminded me how lucky I am. Been moaning about public sector pay as compared to exhs private sector for the same skill set, but frankly I have no problems compared to these people.

Thanks for starting this thread.

exSGB, you saved me writing that post, it's exactly what I've been saying for years but unfortunately people seem very resistant to it, nearly as resistant as they are to the idea of doing anything about Climate Change.

The rules of uc credit is that you have to be lookin for work x amount of hours per week.

If you live in an area like hartlepool and don't drive there will only be a certain amount of jobs you can apply for.

So what happens when you have applied for every job avaliable and suitable to you and you still have no job?

The employers must be fed up of getting applications from unsuitable candidates just so they can for fill their uc obligations.

I'm not sure what's worse actually, watching people coping with this level of poverty and completely at the mercy of the Kafkaesque benefit system, or listening the comfortable right wing feral fuckers, so entrenched in their narrative of self determination which affords them the excuse not to care, point at these people and say that they brought it on themselves.

I can't believe you have to spend 35 hours looking for a job. Makes me so glad I've got one

This thread makes me very sad that there are still people in this country judging our most vulnerable in society from their position of privilege on this thread.

Watch the film 'IDaniel Blake', it shows the true horror of what has happened in this country.

As well as the 35 hours a week job hunting .. which is horrible when you have no pc or internet at home .. they also expect you to look within 90 minutes travelling time.
So people of Hartlepool would be expected to apply for jobs in Alnwick and Leeds.

So, people of Hartlepool, get a bus you can't afford to a library that he computers , queue fmup for the next open computer and spend 8 hours looking for jobs and applying for all of them within a 90 minute travel radius.
Then if you get one, you'll need childcare.
Your job starts at 9am, but it's 1.5hours away, so that's childcare from 7.30am job finished at 5pm so you'll need that child are until 6.30pm.

But you find all that, well done you, you book the child in to childcare from 1st march till 30th march. But that childcare needs paying for. Well that's okay right cause Universal Credit pays a bit towards it yes?.... NOPE....

Universal Credit pays 85% of childcare cost... In arrears.. which means the newly employed person from.hartlepool that's travelling to Leeds everyday for a job will have to pay for the whole childcare bill themselves in march and then claim it back in April.

so now person of Hartlepool. You've covered you rent, gas, electric and food and have £0 left, your new job starts...
You need bus fare / fuel for the month to travel 3 hours a day.
You need to pay for 3 hours of child care every day.

What is £0 - fuel and childcare costs? I'm not good at maths...

@WeeTinkerMonkey

The system is so insane that we have to assume its designed for these people to fail.

Once they have all starves to death the benefit bill will be much lower