To think the level of state involvement many posters expect is bonkers?

[FaeryRing]

It seems like there is nothing the state shouldn’t be responsible for any more! Feeding your kids, getting them to school, hiring ‘behaviour specialists’ for every classroom because parents don’t want to discipline their own children, giving you money towards virtually anything you ask for because it’s not fair you have to pay for anything yourself.. I find it absolutely wild and don’t think it’s at all realistic or representative of what most adults believe?

Just guide me to your truth @MistressoftheDarkSide .

Face the facts @MistressoftheDarkSide . There are many people who are not competent to cope with a complex world and too few to pay for all of them to be feather-bedded. I think you should be grateful to be alive now rather than in any previous century.

This. Years ago my ex used to volunteer with disadvantaged families in a deprived area. He went into it with the attitude that there's loads of feckless people having kids but had his eyes opened. There were no opportunities for people.

The only option that seemed feasible for many was having kids (to get housing, because the few jobs available were low paid and wouldn't be enough to get housing) and claiming benefits (whether out of work or in work but on low pay).

With early intervention schemes and support for older people, the communities he worked with had more hope, ambition, and opportunity.

It might seem 'wrong' to teach people how to parent or spend on other support services but it helps break cycles of 'fecklessness' and disadvantage, and people are healthier so need less NHS care.

It also prevents people who do 'take personal responsibility' but get caught by Shit Happens from falling into worse circumstances and being state dependant for longer periods of time

Sadly I think that the dream of building new, properly planned, built and run mixed estates like this would probably not be viable for any local authority today, either in terms of building or running costs.

I think it would be cheaper than not doing it. Doesn't temporary accommodation cost loads of money? Also loads of people need benefits for private rentals even if they're working. Housing issues also cost the NHS and other services loads.

People here are talking about forced sterilisation. A housing system that penalises child free people can't be ignored for the role it plays in sometimes encouraging people, who might be unable or unwilling to parent well, to have kids. Good public services and support schemes will also help tackle the issue of 'bad' parenting but housing is part of the problem.

And I'm far too polite to say what I think about the neo-fascist attitudes emboldened by the government's relentless pursuit of the vulnerable and disadvantaged for political point scoring when they are reaping what they've sown by years of austerity and asset stripping and cronyism.

Do you want mayonnaise with that?

In a less long winded way, what I'm trying to say is that spending money (on good public services, support schemes, work, education, and training opportunities) gives people the help they need. So then they're less state dependant. It also helps prevent the decline of our towns, cities, and villages.

@Againname I was signing on in the 90s just before minimum wage came in and there were jobs paying £50 a WEEK. My rent then was £48 a week for a one bedroom flat. Nothing else available. If i had had a job paying that i would have had £2 left to pay for everything else except rent. No top up because "you dont have kids"

But @MistressoftheDarkSide I am also far too polite to say that you are probably too young to recall what really extreme politics really brought: fascism and communism looked alike. Twin cheeks of one arse describes it neatly.

And you maybe even too young to know people once took sides, sometimes violently. Some, given power, persecuted whole populations.

Honey, I'm 55. If you're Methuselah, congratulations on your technical prowess. But shucks, thanks for the compliment. Those Bathory Salts are apparently paying off.

What the fuck do you think 2020/21 was? Or are you trying to gaslight

Sorry @JenniferBooth . Recollections of any moment in time vary. I seem to remember Brexit negotiations (big time) and the advent of Covid, which was also a very big deal. What or who am I trying to gas light? It was frightening for everyone; nobody understood the reality of the threat we were facing, and there was little understanding of how best to treat the thousands of ill people. If you sent for an oximeter from Amazon, you were well-informed. It's not a period I recall fondly as I was diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer, with surgery and radiotherapy that year, very well and very kindly, and I was selfishly a little self-obsessed.

I don’t have an ideology as such but I know we can’t continue throwing money at people who are a black hole

Wow. What a way to describe your fellow human beings.

Dehumanisation of particular groups of people never ends well. I know it is a favourite trick of the current incarnation of the Tory Party, but it has no place in a decent society.

I think that people have to walk in the shoes of others before confining tranches of the population to the waste bin. We can and we do have to do more with the underclass. People need hope and dreams plus aspiration.
It’s easy to cook healthy food when you know how to cook, have been taught by parents and are surrounded by peers who eat healthily. As more money has been spent on education fewer girls have had early pregnancies and the average age of mums for first births is increased to late 20’s.

If you want to see what goes wrong look at the prisons and the crazy amounts spent there to keep people imprisoned. Better to spend more on education ans welfare at an earlier age.

Redistribution of wealth, more spending on welfare does work to make the population better educated and more participants. There are a few who can’t be reached because they need far more support not less to realise that there is a better way. Education is key to all this.

I think people matter.
But simply financially early intervention and support makes sense.

@JenniferBooth I just read through the thread you posted a few pages back.
Fucking hell, what a way to lose any sort of faith in our fellow person. It is "your fault" for still being in a cramped flat for decades with a disabled mid 70s DH who sleeps on the sofa. Fucking hell, my cousin slept on his parent's sofa, and that bumped him up the list for social housing. He now had a new build flat.

And the PP who said that childless single people would be fine in a bedsit..... I know single and childless men in their 70s who are in HMOs. They have problems with alcohol because they spend all day in the pub instead of in a tiny sweatbox.

What do you mean by "support and intervention"? Because there seems to be two versions on this thread, and one is very sinister!

I mean Sure Start, early intervention with problematic use of alcohol and drugs, early help with mental health issues.

Imagine living in a bedsit in your fifties and older. Bloody awful. You can never have people round for a meal or drinks.
And if a bedsit is fine for childless people, why not people with adult children?

Well don’t complain when theres no money for anything bar propping up people in self inflicted chaos then

Phew. I agree.

So we. Had surestart. So if it was so helpful in educating people then why are the next generation down more ignorant than before then? Surestart was abouth when today's younger parents were kids so surely THEIR parents should've learned stuff to pass on if it works

@Againname
"Sadly I think that the dream of building new, properly planned, built and run mixed estates like this would probably not be viable for any local authority today, either in terms of building or running costs."
I think it would be cheaper than not doing it. Doesn't temporary accommodation cost loads of money? Also loads of people need benefits for private rentals even if they're working. Housing issues also cost the NHS and other services loads.
I agree with the principle of what your are saying, but there is quite simply not any public entity that could even remotely afford it. Our estate was built by the Greater London Council and during the building they went bust. And it isn't just the bricks and mortar, the cost of maintaining any estate has become stupendously high. All property owners here own a share of the freehold but, as an example, a four bedroomed flat has a service charge of more than £5k p.a., and that is obviously without the cost of financing the land purchase and the build. Can this be paid in addition to all the other benefits that a family may need?
Personally I think that social housing cannot now be provided for people unless they are in dire need and nobody should stay in social housing for longer than they absolutely have to, nor in property is larger than they need. It is not the job of us, the taxpayers, to provide anybody in this country with a permanent home of their own. That is up to them.
People are going to have to move out of large, expensive southern cities to less expensive places so that they can afford to live. I'm not saying that this is right, just that it is what has to happen. It will become less and less tenable for "normal" people to live in London as many key workers will not be able to live close enough to work here. Schools and the NHS already have recruitment problems and it will only get worse.
Unless government funding is provided for a huge scheme for social housing this can never improve. Perhaps this is where all the money for so-called Smart Motorways and HS2 should have gone rather than being wasted.

This.

Bedsits should be temp thing. For students, or contract workers....not a way of living.

Personally, I don't think they should exist at all. A tiny room that is your bedroom/lounge/kitchen/WFH space all at once, with a bathroom you share with bicycles... no thanks.

I lived in a bedsit when young. It was fine because I knew it was temporary and because I was young, I was out most nights anyway.

Well I won't complain, because that is just pure hyperbole which is rather reminiscent of a particular ideology.

I'm currently state dependent. It's complicated. Very very complicated. But I'm confident that if I can secure a flat I've been offered - I can move in next Monday if all goes to plan - my dependency will be short term. 6 months to a year perhaps, to sort out debts from my collapsed business, get some counselling for complicated grief due to suddenly being widowed two years ago, and keep half an eye on my elderly parents who ate both in poor health - one mental, the other physically.... as I say, it's very very complicated.

So I know about asking the state / local council / social care for assistance. I know about bureaucracy. And I'm experiencing in real time the effects of bloated bureaucracy, lack of communication, poor record keeping and being passed around like a hot potato both on my own account and as advocate for my parents who are in their 80s.

I have dealt with about 8 different people in housing. I have dealt with dozens of doctors, nurses, HCPs and social workers with regard to my parents. I have had to provide the same information over and over again. We are just trying to stabilise ourselves and be a minimal strain on the state, also get out from under its bloody eye and in a position where we can reclaim "personal responsibility".

We are deep in "shit happens" territory. Multiple shit, all at the same time.that is exhausting on every level. I can't even trust myself to have one drink, because if I start, I might not stop.

So. There you have it. I'm biased. I'm also lucky that I'm articulate, with no dependents (other than my cat) and in real terms have nothing much left to lose - unless my Dad's bunch of health issues that have steadily worsened over 5 months is his lymphoma kicking off again. Or heart problems. Or something else. We'll find out tomorrow hopefully as he's been summoned to the GP unexpectedly after a raft if tests last week. He's 84. He's a nuclear test Veteran, but we mustn't attach any significance to that because radiation from UK tests in Austealua us magical, and doesn't impact health The MOD have spent millions disputing it in court.

So as the state has and continues to regularly shaft me and mine, (because there's more, much more) I will take what I need from it to get out from under it.

And I'll fight for every other fucker being shafted too, because like many posting here, it's soul destroying in the extreme. And it shouldn't be this way.