AIBU to disagree with Burnham on social versus national security?

[PinkFruitbat]

Andy Welfare Burnham: Social Security is more important than National Security. Absolute madness. AIBU?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yw3223w1vo

I guess he hopes the Russians coming over the hill means it will no longer be his problem

In fairness, he didn’t say it was more important but that he can’t see that we have absolutely nothing if we don’t have national security is mind boggling and deeply concerning. He isn’t fit to be PM.

There will be no need for social
security without national security.

What is he on about!

It shouldn't be framed as an either or.

That's not quite what he said, was it? At least not in the way it's being interpreted. He doesn't believe social security trumps national security, he believes one cannot be at the expense of the other and the money must come from elsewhere.

We cannot cut £4bn from housing benefit without an unprecedented rise is homelessness, therefore we cannot use that money to fund NATO.

He is still committed to funding national security, just not by making thousands of families homeless.

Seems sensible to me and I don't even like the bloke.

With the CoL, I think I would welcome being killed by a nuclear bomb any day now.... Petrol went from £1.62 to £1.72 in literally less than 24h. I don't actually care anymore.
Seriously though, these are two very separate issues and I broadly agree that cutting welfare bill has to be done by looking at the core reasons of why people end up in the situation when they need it. So I absolutely support focusing on education, youth services, mh services and such. Tories are going on about cutting benefits as if they didn't spend over a decade doing exactly that as well as decimating services. How did that work out then? Shall we try for another decade or will we actually stop doing the same stupid shit which only makes things worse for everyone?
And for the record, I am politically homeless so don't throw your "leftie" and "snowflake" stuff at me. I am simply thinking in logical terms and drawing on my experience working in MH and community services and seeing first hand the long term impact of Tory policies.

This is one of the headlines were you need to read the article a bit more

Well you won’t have national security if you treat your population like vermin and leave them to die so you do need both - not a tricky idea to grasp

YANBU.

Burnham has clearly realised that there is zero chance of getting meaningful welfare cuts past his own backbenchers. In fairness to them, very few Labour MPs go into politics in order to (as they see it) make poor people poorer. On that basis, they view the enormous increase in the benefits bill since Covid as a good thing, not a crisis which destroys incentives to work, throws young people on the workless scrap heap, cripples economic growth & is going to bankrupt the country.

Given that government spending on defence has to rise significantly that means that yet more tax rises are inevitable. Big tax rises. So Burnham is ‘pitch rolling’, ie preparing the public for their taxes going up in the budget.

He didn't say 'social Security is more important than National Security', he said national security "can't come at the expense of social security".

Why are 95% of your posts about Andy Burnham? It's every thread.

England's school leavers are top 10 in the world in English and maths - big story yesterday. This suggests that perhaps Burnham's disaster flunkies should keep their hands off it. The solution to the benefits overspend is more people in work. Working / contributing is really good for human beings, and people should be included in the world of work even if they are not the best worker ever.

The first definite actions he has taken are to announce a boycott of Israel and that he doesn't care enough about the people in the UK to protect them. I thought he was only foolish, but now I think he is dangerously foolish.

Does education start and end with maths and English? How many skilled engineers does the UK produce? Or data analysts? Or Doctors? Or even plumbers and electricians?

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

I think the threat is overhyped anyway. Russia can’t make any progress in Ukraine and have been trying for 4 years, losing a million men that they don’t give a shit about. No way they are taking over Europe.

Really do agree unfortunately, theres people that are really really struggling. Everything is so expensive. I only have one kid and I am finding this month so hard.

Yabu.

It's not Putin we need to be worried about, it's the army of fighting age undocumented men coming in on boats we need to be worrying ourselves about.

It's a stealth invasion, that our Government is welcoming.

The Tories cut armed forces budgets and staffing to the bone
That cannot be turned round in two years since Labour were elected.
Some aspects of benefits need taken in hand but in a fair due process.
DWP methods with genuine cases leave a lot to be desired.

Recruitment and procurement of decent hardware fit for purpose takes time
No point signing multi million ££ contracts for useless gear.
And lastly Badenoch can shut her yap with the smart comments it was her lot that got us where we are now.

That’s pretty much what he said

At what cost?Have you not seen the NEET levels, huge numbers of kids aren’t even in school, teachers are leaving in their droves, we have a MH crisis in young people, our education system doesn’t cater for many or give them qualifications and SEND is in dire straits.

So

WhIch country is going to
invade us then? It’s not going to be Russia is it.

Faced with the choice of thousands and thousands more homeless added to the thousands there already…

Or buying some shiny new guns/missiles/planes

Seems pretty obvious which should be the priority. YMMV.

Our military should be maintained, ofc.
But it doesn’t need expanding imo.
Any (extremely unlikely) external military threat to the UK should be dealt with by allying with our neighbours and friends, ie the EU, and I believe it would be, if it came to it.

Between all of us there is more than enough capability, including nuclear obvs.

Kinda depends on getting on with your European neighbours though…

Fed up of billions being spaffed on hardware that essentially will never need deploying.

A eurofighter jet costs £150m per unit.
That’s an awful lot of hospitals, schools, libraries etc etc.

We have 107 of these planes already.
What have they been used for? I dunno, bombing some Palestinians?!? That’s just one type of armament of dozens.

But that’s just my opinion. You can have a go at me below, if you like, and explain to me why when this country is on its knees already, we need a large increase in military spending when we are already, imho, really quite reasonably armed as a nation, when things have long been falling apart internally in our country through lack of funding. .

English people are top 10 in English...hmmm. I'd be worried if this wasn't the case. Although, given that we routinely see posts which can't differentiate between their, they're and there as well as apostrophes used to indicate plurals and endless should of, would of, could of... I am very skeptical.
Also, what you present here is selective statistics. Where does UK rank for mental health provision for young people? Where does it rank for social mobility? Unemployment among young people?
UNICEF reports UK ranking 39th out of 39 countries in child poverty. We are literally the worst country in the developed world for child poverty. Interestingly, we were 37th in 2012-2014 so we are getting worse. Why do you think that is? And what do you think the effects of poverty are on health, education, employment, social mobility?
There is another interesting report which looked at short and medium term outcomes for children with access to Sure Start which shows those children had better educational attainment, better health outcomes and fewer episodes of depression and anxiety. Who cut Sure Start, I wonder...
While I appreciate the temptation to vilify benefits claimants, immigrants and whatever other disadvantaged group is the flavour of the month, perhaps we need to look more closely at inequality and wealth hoarding. Taking £50 off a single mother to to give to Trump isn't really going to make quite as much difference to our everyday lives as one might hope.

”Taking £50 off a single mother to to (sic) give to Trump”. I have missed this policy proposal.

@Catza not English per se - reading so obviously assessed in respective language of each country.

Figuratively speaking, this is exactly what Kemi Badenoch is suggesting. Did you genuinely need me to explain this to you?