Welfarisation has made people utterly entitled and unable to take responsibility for themselves and their families.

[hagchic]

I grew up in a working class family. The values I was taught were that you stood on your own two feet and it was no one else's job to do what you could do for yourself.

If you were hurt, you were expected to get up and go and clean yourself up - and stop whining about it unless it was actually serious. If you were ill, you went to bed and if you were lucky some magic lucozade appeared.

If you were sad, then you were sad. If life was unfair then that was just how life was and you needed to deal with it.

You never ever sought charity or took benefits when you were able to work or put up with less. You lived to your own means, not to what you saw on TV or at school - and if you wanted that lifestyle it was up to you to get it.

Today everyone has the expectation that someone must help them, that they are obliged to help them - even before they have made any attempt to actually do the work of helping themselves. They expect luxuries like holidays, pets, new clothes and treats when they do nothing to earn this.

I think self sufficiency is a value that needs to return to our society.

I think it would be an entirely different conversation if these things were put in place - especially wages being enough to live on and decent affordable housing being available to all.

What is happening in the US should serve as a warning to anyone considering voting Reform/Restore; unfortunately, it doesn't seem like people are heeding the warning.

This.

The fact that a not insignificant chunk of the welfare bill goes towards propping up the wage bill for the likes of Amazon/Starbucks/Walmart, et al is disgusting.

There should be concessions made for SMB who would go under if their wage bill got much higher, but companies making profits of billions per year should not have their wage bill subsidised by the taxpayer.

And I wholly disagree that these businesses would suffer if they had to pay a living wage; far smaller businesses manage it without kicking up a stink. There is no reason why Amazon et al couldn't.

Most of my good choices were largely due to impulse + luck rather than employing good judgement. One of them was an opportunity to leave Britain in the 80s just as I entered my 20s.

Between the (then undiagnosed) ADHD and the implosion of my previously happy enough home I was not doing well. Ploughed my O levels, refused to stay in education, on and off the dole due to not being fabulous on my YTS and other menial jobs. Spent some time homeless trying to be somewhere where there was more work, but was exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally so always ended back in my “safe space” of poor, cold, hungry on dole, but at least things would stay reliably crap, rather than spontaneously crap.

Leaving the country meant leaving the safety net (albeit very holey) of the dole. As I said, more luck than judgement, but because I didn’t have the siren song of curling up in a ball under a blanket living of a government pittance, I built my resilience at getting, keeping and even getting promoted at work.

By no means a one size fits all kind of solution, but I can see both the need for a safety net, and how it can become a trapping net, particularly for people who are feeling battered by the cards they got dealt and the life weather they had to endure.

Because I can’t do anything in moderation (like drinking, it’s either drink till I black out or completely tee-total) I just stayed away from Britain. Like I have to make a clear choice between keeping myself balanced on a tight rope up high, or being tangled forever in the safety net. Because I don’t really trust myself not to fall off accidentally on purpose as soon as things get rocky. Do I don’t ever want to be in the place again that whispered of allowing me to rest my weary head, and then closed around me like a bear trap.

I think the benefit of some of the systems I’ve seen in countries I lived and worked in is they are less “smothering” than the British system. They are capped. By contribution, by time, by being required to participate in community renewal projects etc. You can fall, and be caught. But perhaps less chance of the siren song I was seduced by, cos alternative systems seem quite “poke you with a stick until you get up again”. I’m very averse to being poked with a stick.

Karl Marx viewed the welfare state not as a solution to inequality, but as a mechanism that sustains capitalism by softening its harshest edges and preventing working-class rebellion

I do accept that there is truth in every thing you've listed here. I'm not commenting to disagree but to say how I've seen things change in 60 years.

• Health & Mental health services could be accessed at an earlier stage and not when things can no longer be reversed/cured

there was no mental health treatment for eating disorders, women were given "mother's little helpers", tranquillisers, because there was no proper treatment for depression, men wouldn't be allowed to admit they were depressed, "social anxiety" was never heard of still less accepted as a reason not to go to work. A work refuser would either be supported by their own family or pushed by their own family to get out and earn some money.

• There was decent and affordable public transport systems everywhere up to a reasonable time so that people can actually get to work

This is true but those disappeared when the population in general became wealthy enough to have their own cars and the public transport services no longer paid their way.

• There was cheap/affordable daycare 24/7 so that those without family help can do all the random shifts that they get assigned instead of not being able to work due to a lack of childcare

A lot of this has been caused by the public calling for more and more safety and bureaucracy in the provision of childcare. When I was a child there was an "aunt" up every street who looked after kids for a bit of money. You can't even legally do that for a dog without a council inspection and a licence these days.

• Jobs actually gave a living wage

They didn't, though. Many women did jobs for "pin money".

• If housing was actually affordable so that you weren't trapped in places where there isn't work

There are other huge factors like family, fear, familiarity, the expense of moving, that have always trapped people in areas with fewer jobs. Back in the 80s Tebbit was famous for lambasting people for not "getting on their bikes" to look for work.

And how many people will actually put themselves through that disruption, cost and stress if they can stay near their friends and family and claim enough benefits to survive on?

Women did jobs for "pin money" because the men earned enough working in factories/labouring jobs, etc., to support the family without women having to work. The pin money was for luxuries, not necessities, that is literally the meaning of pin money - money to buy frivolties like fancy pins.

Why are adult children being thrown out? I have made it clear to mine that they are in education or working, preferably both. I won't be funding them 100% whilst they do nothing. They will need to make their own way in the world. I have 3 late teens/early 20s and we live in one of the UKs most deprived towns. All 3 work. One of them has 2 jobs and is also at college.

I don't think it unreasonable that I say you work or you're out. I wouldn't judge anyone for taking the same stance. I can't afford it. They had a parent who worked her proverbial bollox off to provide. I have done everything I can. They either step up or out. Thankfully they have stepped up.