Benefits v Defence Lord Robertson

[Wednesdayschild87]

Lord Robertson’s Speech… seriously does anyone care?? He’s laid out the fact that as a nation we can’t carry on like this… he said we can’t afford to keep throwing money at benefits whilst leaving our country defences I’m actually shocked no one has come out and spoken on this matter before. I’m incredulous.

When national taxation income is less than necessary national spend, the obvious solution is to cut national spend.

That's why we didn't create the National Health Service, equip hospitals, build millions of homes, and create thousands of schools when the country was in a hole 70 years ago.

Ooops, my mistake, we did.

Is the country poorer now than it was then?

We had debt to GDP of 250 to 270% in the late 1940s....

its around 98% today.... BUT the US gave a $4 billion loan & we believed in Keynesian economics, thats out of favour now...... mores the pity.

It is a choice - anxiety is highly treatable condition. It just doesn't pay to get help and get better. With all NHS waiting times one year max is still sufficient to get medication. And there is plenty of self help info available. CBT can be done on NHS as well. But this would mean no PIP and having to work.

I have anxiety bought on by a recent traumatic event.
The medication renders me so spaced I'm practically on another planet for a few hours a day, and thats the starting dose.
Fortunately I do not need to drive for work. Others with jobs operating machinery won't be so lucky and will not be able to work whilst taking it.
If I am unfortunate enough to need a higher dose, or be on for a longer time I will not be able to work on it at all.

It is not a choice to have anxiety though. And the PP who said it is a choice has OCD. Ask her if she chose to have that too. She looks down on anyone with MH conditions who need to claim benefits, because she has been lucky enough to not need to. The funny thing is, for all her rants about people on benefits.. she is not a even net contributor.

Temporarily. You might need to be off work for some time until you get better. Or you can do another job. Anxiety is not a lifelong condition. Of course people need time to recover, debate is not about this. It's about something treatable being classified as disability, assuming it's permanent, and people leaving workforce and moving on benefits forever.

As PP said, there is no point to discuss it. Some posters here have been living on benefits for ages, of course they will never agree that it's prime time to review and change the system. It's either Labour do it now in a more gentle way, or Reform in 2029 in American way. I know which option I prefer.

I knew a lad who had such severe severe anxiety at school. Couldn't come to class and lessons. Was often in tears. Thankfully only after he got the right medications he smashed his studies, did amazing at uni and is now doing postgraduate studies. He still has issues from time to time.

You need to support people with anxiety issues. I don't think it's entirely fair to just say "get over it".

Yes, it is like telling someone with asthma to just try and breath more.

For the umpteenth time, PIP is a non means-tested benefit, it is awarded regardless of one's employment status, someone starting work would not automatically mean stopping their PIP.
As I said above, I work full time and receive PIP. It helps to cover some, though by no means all, of the considerable expenses related to my disability. I outlined my circumstances in more detail in my previous post if you want to assess my eligibility for PIP since you seem to have positioned yourself as an expert on the subject.

I don’t think Labour will get it through due to backbenchers.

They have too many economically illiterate back benchers. Last time it was voted down one of them was overheard saying ‘I can’t see why we can’t just borrow more money’! How does someone this thick get dressed in the morning, let alone hold down a responsible job!!!

Overheard by who?

Lots of economic/financial illiterate people in all walks of life.

Let's not forget all the posters on here several years ago when interest rates were historically low saying we should borrow virtually unlimited amounts to "invest" in public spending etc because it was virtually "cost free". Completely ignoring the fact that unless that debt was repaid pretty quickly, we'd end up paying much higher interest in future years when interest rates rose again, as they have done now, hence us paying more in interest than on education! They didn't seem to grasp that the loans/debt doesn't just disappear - it's still there until it's repaid, and we've only paid down debt in 2 out of the last 30 years (surplus rather than deficit), even in the so-called "boom years" and that national debt now stands at a whopping £3 TRILLION!

Tbf a lot of the public think the same

If we had borrowed then instead of much later, we would have been issuing 10/30 etc year gilts, fixed at much lower rates, than borrowing now...

4.75% fixed for 10years, these Gilts are in great demand.

10 year gilts issued 10 years ago need replacing now at much higher interest rates. That's my point. Unless there was a serious plan to reduce the loans/pay off the gilts upon maturity, I think it was blatantly obvious they'd need to be replaced/renewed at a much higher cost.

Here we go, the above is just proving your point, these people are in Parliament and on this forum. Just borrow or increase taxes so my benefits are paid and I don't need to work.

My bet - May 7th will be carnage, Starmer will be forced to go, the next PM will be very leftie, so more taxes/borrowing/welfare spend. Then monumental crash in 2029 with ultra right getting in power and Austerity will seem like years of plenty.

It's funny that the same people who advocate more borrowing were frothing about Truss. What she proposed for higher earners was literally a few peanuts vs what Labour did with unions and welfare payments. And our interest became the same as in Truss' time.

The markets react too much to any more borrowing. The debt servicing will be even higher and could be a spiral reaction.

Some of them have been here years and remain incompatible.

I know I sound like a broken record but, given that you and many other posters on this thread seem to lack any understanding of the nature of PIP, despite all being vocally opposed to it, I will repeat one more time with feeling:
"Pip is not a means-tested benefit. One can claim while in full time work. One's employment status has no bearing on one's eligibility for PIP. PIP is not withdrawn if an unemployed disabled person starts work. Removing PIP for people like me would likely have the effect of making work financially untenable so I would probably lose my job and end up costing the sainted tax-payers, of whom I am one by the way, more money rather than less.""
There, hopefully this will finally get through to some of the tiresome PIP-bashers on this thread, though, based on experience of the usual suspects and their predictable anti-PIP comments on these threads, I sadly doubt it will.

Keynesian economics rights? Yes many labour posters here saying this as well. Say nobel prize winners backed them as well

I tried to avoid responding, but you keep on asking (and yes, sounding like a broken record). I do know that PIP is not means tested. It has nothing to do with this topic. PIP, UC, all kinds of welfare payments to working age adults need to be fundamentally reviewed.

Your individual case and how you spend your PIP is irrelevant in this context, the system is not sustainable.

UK was 28th in terms of GDP per capita in 2024, down from 14th in 2020. In the same time the number of benefit claimants increased 2.8m.

How many of those 2.8 million were people transferring from ESA to UC and from DLA to PIP?

None of them:

Benefit Combinations: Official Statistics to February 2025 - GOV.UK

I'm talking about total number of working age claimants - 2.8m are net new claimants.

Another stat is that only 30% of UC claimants are in any type of employment. Even 5 hours a week (or whatever random part time number) is included in this 30%