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?

We ve record numbers of people IN work.

NHS (and all the other services you mention) of course is getting more than ever but its not when inflation is taken into account plus its even worse than this because medical inflation runs much higher than CPI.

Councils? Business rates have been cut and council tax has risen by 5% p.a or less in most areas, inflation has been 11% at times over the last 2 years.

Govt support has been cut to councils, its so bad now that my local uk council cannot fill some pot holes even when they are dangerous, yet when i go back to France, i have smooth roads and mtce is still being done.

Yes more people than ever, driven by a disastrous migration policy, where dependants of workers are higher than worker visas given out, we have a situation where migration is 3x higher than in 2010 but we still have worker shortages.....

Another problem is since Covid our economy has hardly grown, 1.8%, EU area has grown 3.7%, hence we have far less money.

Because you’re one of the few using benefits etc as help when it’s genuinely needed and wanting to then regain independence financially

No. @MistressoftheDarkSide is one of the majority "using benefits etc as help when it’s genuinely needed". Most benefit claimants are genuine.

We may have record numbers of people in work, but a significant proportion of them are either not paying tax (part time) or claiming benefits which negate their tax contribution. Direct tax receipts are largely paid by higher quantile earners
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8513/

Nearly half of all the money raised by income tax is paid out in benefits (excl pensions). Even if we assume that approx £45bn paid in disability benefits is all for genuine claimants, that still leaves nearly £90bn being paid to people who aren't working or are working part time. And then everyone wants the government (otherwise known as those taxpayers) to pay for more and more and more.

And let's not even mention the several hundred people arriving here every day being supported by those self-same taxpayers. And before we get in to the "process them quicker and let them work" argument; how many staff do you think it would take to process several hundred applications a day? Oh look, another bloated government department...

And before we get in to the "process them quicker and let them work" argument; how many staff do you think it would take to process several hundred applications a day? Oh look, another bloated government department...

How much is it costing to send a few of them to Rwanda? Many times more than processing applications I bet.

Well ok? It's still cheaper rent than private renting. I'm buying shared ownership soon btw and the other percent is owned by a housing association so the rent percent is cheaper. I'm very happy with this I know there's people out there with shared ownership and the other percent is owned by a private company and they're getting massively screwed over.

I think a lot of council tenants don't realise how chea their rent is compared to private renting I was talking to a friend a few months ago who was moaning about their council rent going up on their three bed house and it was still cheaper than the rent on my current one bed apartment 😂😭 (I have kids and i sleep on the sofa btw)

ChishiyaBat · Yesterday 23:05
@Noras Underclass? What the fuck?! Who do you mean by that?

It's a term which translates Marx's category 'lumpenproletariat', denoting people (emphatically NOT the working class) who are frequently unemployed, or have never been employed, may be semi-criminal and indulge in habitual anti-social behaviour: drug abuse, theft, vandalism, aggression towards people in the community etc etc. It's always been a headache for governments...oh, and the people they live amongst.

It may have been 'cancelled' as a sociological term, but it was definitely once used by academics trying to describe this phenomenon. You can check this if you don't believe me. People can virtue-signal all they like, but to deny the existence of this societal group would be very difficult indeed! By all means, find a trendier label!

If processing things is as easy and cheap as you’re making out now then why are so many posters in favour of removing means testing and doing UBI ‘because processing costs a fortune’? 🤔

I didn’t say it was easy or cheap. I said would cost less than the government’s current solution. Means testing and processing asylum seekers are two completely different things, you’re comparing chalk and cheese.

But then how do you provide care for your elderly relatives, which is also apparently expected - and pressure to do so will only increase with our aging population?

@usernamealreadytaken 24m work FT, 8m work PT.

People in FT employment but on a lower wage may well be claiming benefits of one type or another inc child benefit.
Many jobs are PT, the employer doesn't need a FT worker.

If the UK paid its workers more, they'd pay more tax but many UK companies would rather hike prices but keep wages low.

Why shouldn't the wealthy pay more tax? unearned income attracts just 20%, yet the investor could be earning v large amounts of money.

Low growth under this Govt is a huge problem, as i said, half the rates as our competitors in the EU but lets blame the migrant instead.

So it's cheap to process asylum seekers but too expensive to means test state pensions or free prescriptions or winter fuel allowances for OAPs as you've have said several times in other threads. Can't quite work out how the cost can be so different when it's a virtually identical admin task.

Me too 🤔

The UK allows such high immigration because it keeps wages low as there's more competition for jobs, that's also one of the reasons rent is so high. That's not "blaming " the migrants because of course there will always be millions of people in other countries looking to move somewhere better can't blame them but it is blaming the government because they allow such high immigration despite it obviously not being good for the country.
Also for the posters saying more houses should be built that only goes so far where I live towns are literally joining up because of the houses being built. There will be no countryside round here soon

The two aren’t comparable. But thanks for supporting my argument that processing asylum claims would be considerably cheaper than shipping a few people off to Rwanda.

Tbf any country that sees higher numbers will struggle. Wherever the end of the line is, which seems to be shifting to Ireland and maybe NI after court decision

Same will be true for entry points to EU, ie mostly Italy atm

I just wish more people understood the economic situation in the UK. The title of this thread refers to entitlement. There is such entitlement from some people who think it is the Government's job or their LA's job to sort out their life. Many councils are now facing bankruptcy. There is a scary documentary about Havering Council and the overwhelming problem of the huge increase in the number of people needing social care. It means budgets for Early Year provision, Sure Start Centres, Libraries etc disappear. It isn't fair and neither is it sustainable.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001xgql/panorama-paying-more-for-less-councils-in-crisis

@MistressoftheDarkSide
The majority of parents are happy to have more support, whether it be with dental care or literacy or whatever. However, as previously mentioned, health visitors and social workers used to do that; now what they seem to do is visit people to curtail abuse. Most of us pay little attention to exactly what social workers do because most of us have nothing to do with them. The time that social workers are noticed is when a child dies, and then they are vilified.

The linked thread is typical of the naive entitlement of many people

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/other_subjects/5072066-council-forcing-to-private-rent-when-homeless

None of the political parties can magically provide the catch all in terms of housing and benefit support that increasing numbers of people in the UK are demanding.

Any country facing higher numbers who processes quickly will become more attractive and find it politically and socially straining.

Even if Ireland speed up processing it’ll be tough in those ways

This. The 'deserving' and 'undeserving' thing gets me every time. It's all luck, of birth, of personality, of neurodiversities. Rich people make as many bad decisions as anyone trust me but they have the money and support to mean it doesn't ruin their lives. Or they don't need to make bad decisions in the first place because they are rich and privileged. Some people really need to read Katriona O' Sullivan's 'Poor' - her story shows how easy it would have been for her to end up destitute and addicted instead of the lecturer in Trinity university she became. And she's intelligent enough to know that choice and free will is a very small part of her journey compared to the societal forces at work.

But not as cheap as means testing OAP benefits which really would be very cheap and easy, especially as HMRC already have most of the data such as state pensions and income details of those with property rentals, large investment portfolios etc who will already been submitting self assessment tax returns each year!! After all, it's clearly cheap and easy enough for them to means test child benefit for those earning over £50k, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it!

Damn I need to retrain as a brikie then!

If Sure Start centres were so good, why do we still have ever increasing numbers of parents who seem completely incapable of looking after their children, after all, today's young parents should have enjoyed the benefits of the sure start centres of 15-25 years ago!

£200 per day is actually not that much for someone self employed who won't be getting paid holidays, employer pension contributions, sick pay, nor other benefits of employment such as security of hours, redundancy rights, etc.

EilonwyWithRedGoldHair · Today 09:49

Not being deliberately obtuse, but I don't see the connection. I'm only suggesting that social housing in central London should be prioritised for key-workers - not elsewhere. London is eye-wateringly expensive and way beyond the means of many health, refuse and other vital staff. I'm not suggesting people should be forcibly removed from their homes - just that it should be phased in as people move out or...pass away.

I don't think other UK cities have the same problem. When low-paid key-workers have to commute long distances into central London, it would seem daft to allocate homes to people who don't really need to be there. And these people don't need to move to Siberia...just a less central zone of the capital.