Don't be poor, disabled, sick or elderly . .

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/apr/19/rishi-sunak-sicknote-culture-welfare-reform-post-office-horizon-conservatives-labour-uk-politics-lastest-updates

So this is a big part of the next Tory strategy to get elected.

I hope the buggers don't get in

Don't be ridiculous. Plenty of people enjoy spending the day on MN arguing with strangers. It breaks up the routine of cleaning, food shopping, cuddling the cats etc. Yep, speaking from experience. You don't know how every human being on the planet likes to spend their free time.

I agree with him, there too many work shy people raking in benefits, that doesn’t mean I don’t think some people are genuinely ill I’m sure they are, but it needs tackling whether you like it or not.
Virtually everyone knows someone who could be working but chooses to live off benefits instead.

If a person is too unwell for any type of work then the will be assessed as that.

What do people fear about that assessment?

They lie, that have been proven to lie. They get commission for finding people fit for work.

The NHS takes one of the largest percentages of GDP out of all countries in the developed world, and yet it's one of the worst performing.

The issue is the system, not funding.

Polishedshoesalways what profession I am in is neither of consequence nor any your business. As for being a commie, what a cop out response. If you polished your brain cells as much as your shoes you might have given me a response worth considering.

No one is saying you can't be unwell. Of course if you need the benefit it's there.

This is for those who've become accustomed to not working.

I bet a large proportion would feel much better if they were forced up and out to work to earn their own crust and weren't living hand to mouth of the benefits system being a drop out.

"Millions and millions" of extra people as a result of uncontrolled immigration, eh?
Can you offer a more exact figure for these bogeymen?

Can you offer any evidence to back your assertion that immigrants have tanked the NHS?
That was a trick question.
All the evidence for the impact of immigration on healthcare in the UK points in the opposite direction.

FYI, medical staff in the NHS are often immigrants, and the issues in housing and staffing in the NHS are a direct consequence of government policy wrt social housing, immigration (note the irony), training opportunities/ cost, working conditions in healthcare, and pay.

Problem in, whilst there ARE some workshy people raking in benefits when they don't deserve them, this type know how to work the system. This new law appears to be targeting people who have mental health issues. And these people who struggle so badly in life - and struggle to work/hold down a job - and who genuinely need these benefits, will be the ones ending up being booted off their benefits.

It's a cruel thing they are proposing to do, but it's typical Tory behaviour.

As has been said, FAR more money is 'lost' in tax frauds. WAY more.

You obviously do not have a clue so before you post and make yourself look a bit silly, check the fraud figures for PiP. They are significantly lower than those for people who should be claiming but don’t.
The forms are very difficult and passing the interview is hell.
You agree with him, it’s people like me that suffer. Real people not same made up ogre.

MumblesParty is telling us from her experience what is really happening. I have friends who are GPs who say the same. It doesn't mean there are not genuinely sick people - but everyone????

If we had to work to survive, if we really had no choice but to work in order to eat I wouldn't be surprised to see all these sick people toiling away with the best of them.

I do think the work culture is poor and life is expensive and employers are often awful but someone has got to do the work>

(People still want their shopping delivered, their hair cut, their car fixed. They still want to get a bus or a taxi home from the pub. They still want their electricity to work and their shower fixed, a doctor/ nurse/dentist to make them better.... they just don't think they should have to do any of it.)

You presumably only get that little though because you have a partner or you have significant assets or savings that rule you out of means tested benefits? most people do not live on that little.

This is all that needs to be said, this is the entire thread. Just repeat this post over and over again.

So you are unemployed

So, what employer is going to take on someone who has been out of the workforce for possibly decades?
And what should happen to someone who can not get a job because of a cavernous gap on their CV? Stop/reduce their benefits?

@Gilead were you really responding to me rather than to @Polishedshoesalways ? Because I'm not one of the benfits bashers on this thread.

Saltyswee that is my exact point. The person I was replying to said 'jobs save lives'. In that scenario, ie covid, they quiet literally didn't. Many health workers died because they weren't adequately protected by the NHS / government. Sunak's speech is merely an attempt to bolster the UK's position within the global marketplace. The party always attacks those who can be easily cast as the scapegoats, ie immigrants, ethnic minorities, the poor, the disabled etc as it obscures the real culprits. Didn't one of the pile contracts during covid go to somone connected to the conservatives? In addition, look at the profit Michelle Mone made - but those in the upper echelons of society won't be examined as it's hurts their demographic.

With that kind of jumping to conclusions ability, you need to be in the Olympics!

1.2 million in just one year - I am sure you can do the maths and work out the numbers in the last five - ten - fifteen - twenty years.

We do not have the infrastructure
We do not have the housing
We do not have the capacity in the NHS

We can’t afford the added welfare burden.

You seem to think everyone that arrives is a NHS surgeon but most statistically are unskilled. As you will know.

We need to get the jobless working
We then won’t need migrants to make up the shortfall.

Shame you won’t be doing anything of the sort.

Polishedshoesasalways you could give Clinton Baptiste from Phoenix Nights a run for his money. Guess again, or maybe consult the cards.

I've spent most of today feeling so very angry about what this person is suggesting.

The shit on the crap cake is suggesting people with mental health issues sell a portion of their benefits for treatment of their condition.

It beggars belief, it really does

Well i did say several times on here that once they had finished using disabled/ill/vulnerable people as an emotional blackmail tool to bully get the rest of the public to obey Covid restrictions and lockdowns that it would be back to the default setting of treating them like shit. Same principle with long Covid sufferers

@XenoBitch there's plenty of work. You sound full of what ifs and buts, hypothetical scenarios. When they get off benefits and are forced to find work they might find a new lease of life and the rest of us can stop paying for them.

And the people who can't afford babies but keep having them to get more money.

I'm sick of it. I pay 45%!! FORTY FIVE percent tax.

My mum is on incapacity benefit and is a depressed alcoholic who barely leaves the house. I wonder if 30 years ago it wasn't an option what her life may be now. The saddest thing with her is we will never have known her potential.

Yes that is correct. If your household income is over something like 22k you get nothing, thus forcing the ill person to become dependent on their partner (dont even start me off on discussing that dynamic for increasing Domestic Abuse scenario's).

ESA Contributions based is not a public purse benefit. I want to make that clear.

The belief that people are raking it in on tax payer funded benefits is absolutely misguided. I've been shafted by ill health and been shafted by our politicians. So to put it lightly Rishi Sunak can fuck off and I hope he gets severe ME/CFS and has to live with an unrecognisable life. What a twat he is.

Waves red card over here ....

Actually no, communism doesn't work in any of the ways it's been historically implemented. Neither does capitalism in its current form. (See my previous post on the subject).

Many people have posted on this thread pointing out the evidence based reasons why we're in the shitshow we're in, and it includes pure greed from the top, dangerous extreme ideologies in both directions, and psychological tactics designed to keep the pawns on the chessboard too insecure to get involved in trying to help themselves or change things due to structural barriers actively designed to benefit the few over the many.

An equitable society is surely the goal? Not extremes in either direction. It's not as if we don't have the lessons if history to guide us.