more welfare cuts what do people predict?

[mrshess]

In the news that there is to be an extra 4 billion cuts on top of the 11 billion cuts to be announced in Oct to target long term claimants. What do people think they are going to cut and how?

agree with expatinscotland, it's unlikely that there will be riots here. there is a much greater apathy here than in a country like France. Riots are usually organised by small bands of Marxists, not by the normal populace.

Let's wait and see. I will be very very happy to be wrong, but I'm feeling gloomy.

No comment on the marxist stuff, don't know enough about it.

I've heard Frank Field speak of a semi-serious proposal to pay everyone over the age of 18 a fixed amount from the government.....say £10,000 a year... and then dispense with benefit claiming all together. No housing benefit, no tax credits, no unemployment etc. Those who earn their own money can keep their 'free' 10k, invest it in something or give it away to charity or to a less well-off family member. Someone wants to waste their £10k on drugs & booze or have a massive family... fine... but there are no extra hand-outs. I think the total cost would be lower than the current welfare bill.

In idle moments, I think it's not such a daft idea. Give someone a fixed budget and treat them like adults for a change.

I agree with you ISNT I think there will be unrest.We have seen it before and tbh there were rumblings about this on the news a few years ago before gordon et al 'rescued' the economy with QE and ridiculous interest rates.This time there is no safety net after all this is the tories we are talking about.We can all get on our bikes and stp moaning!

I said to dh the other day the Govt may as well start handing out 'How to Riot' leaflets because that's the way we're going. I remember the Toxteth/Moss Side/Brixton etc riots of the 80's v well.

I'll be really surprised to see rioting as an effective tactic here.

This place has, sadly, the poorest sense of national pride I've seen.

Who said it would be effective

I don't think people will riot because of national pride.

I think that it is possible that there will be riots when people realise that they haven't got any money and that it's only going to get worse for them.

rioting was effective in putting a stop to Poll Tax in the early 1990's, it was spring 1990 when london had roits in disgust at the tax - a tax that was supposed to be a fair tax but hit people for 6 in a ressesion

And council tax is so fair.

Seriously, this is a dog eat dog place. Rioting involves an organised collective.

There's too much 'I'm alright Jack' around here.

I may be wrong, but I can't imagine there will be riots over any of this.

People already overwhelmingly think people on welfare are scroungers.

Did you think poll tax was fair?

I didn't live here then, ivy.

No one's protested council tax it doesn't strike me as particularly fair.

Poll tax was much fairer than council tax as it was the same rate per adult and not based on house value. The value of your house doesnt mean you use any of the council services more than others.

If the Lib-Dems withdrew from the Coalition would there have to be an election?

[Feeling a bit thick today]

Surely the Lib-Dems can't have signed this off - I even read their manifesto and it didn't say they were going to screw everyone but the top 10%.

I predict they will cut back on paying mortgage interest for the unemployed. I like the idea of everyone receiving £10k in place of the benefit system if the sums truly add up.

But it wasn't the same per person all through the country - there where some council where the cost was £300 per person - so 5 adults in a house over 18 and the cost was £1500

But in some counties the price was £500 or £650 per person and that was why it was widely unpopular

for me it was £400 and the same for my parents each

But in my grandparents county it was £600 each so they paid the same for two as we did for all three of us

Where as if it is roughly the same per house for bands of house - then people seem to think they are paying the same

Boiled egg, mortgage assistance for those on JSA is already going after two years and I suspect other means tested benefits will follow suit and only be paid for the same period.

the demise of rent and rates system into poll tax also meant that if renting you now paid direct to the council, it was the person not the property that was taxed, ergo the landlord does not pay but the tennants - depending on how many of them

agree and disagree expat .. apathy rules the waves in britan as you say but there was toxteth and brixton riots, riots too in st pauls in bristol all around thatcher time here in the uk

the poll tax riot i was part of it and very scary it was too

in scotland there was massive public resistance to poindings led with tommy sheridan as figurehead
the miners strike was a bloody battle too

but yes i do agree, its gonna take a lot a real rocket up the ass for anything like this to happen
we do let ourselves get treated like trash

that anyone should regard the poll tax as fair.

Its architect, Nicholas Ridley, said its great virtue was that "a duke would pay the same as his gardener".

This wasn't a figure of speech. It was literally true. Everyone paid exactly the same, regardless of income, though there were huge variations between different areas.

If you think this is a sound basis on which to construct a taxation system, you are going to enjoy the next few years.

'contribution-based JSA can be (and is) paid to people with a high-earning partner.' Why shouldn't it be, if you've paid the NI contributions? If you want to go back to joint rather than individual incomes, then you'll have to go back and repeal independent taxation of married women (introduced by Mrs Thatcher's government).

I liked Community Charge and I thought it fairer than rates and Council Tax. I was a Community Charge Officer. What everyone fails to realise is that there hadn't been a general domestic uprating since 1973. Therefore, if there had been, and all the RVs had been revised to the level they should have been, then you would have been paying more in rates than you did in Community Charge. The only problem with CC and why it went was that it is easier to tax and track bricks and mortar than individuals, and CTAX was easier to collect as there is a strict hierarchy of liability, so the proper person can be billed.

Yes, there were variations in the Community Charge just as there were in rate poundage and in Council Tax where you may pay less for your band D house in Plymouth than you do over the Tamar in Caradon (before it got subsumed into the new Cornwall Unitary Authority). How much was charged depended on the amount of funding received from Central Government and therefore how much the LA needed to raise to fuflfil it's obligations when what was received from central Govt wasn't enough. It still happens every year, and is why CTAX levels can't be set until the Standard Spending Assessment (amount of dosh received from central Govt) is known and budgets can be set for the following year.

So fundamentally it is fair that a duke pay the same as his gardener?

What happened when people had more than one property? Did they pay anything on their other properties?

ITV news just mentioned school nursery places as being under threat...not sure how much that is fact or just scaremongering.

I will look for a link for that. Around here there is not much state nursery provision/or school nurseries and the money can be spent on private provision - which makes it much easier to cut I suspect.

Can't find any links at the mo.

If you only use the same amount of services then why should you pay more than someone else because of the size of your house? You could have a big house, but recycle lots and put out less rubbish than a smaller house with two occupants; you paid less under CC, but more because your house is worth more under CTAX.

CC also meant that the elderly who wanted to stay in their homes could, as they only paid for themselves if they lived alone, rather than a large charge reduced by 25% for CTAX, and no benefit if they had savings/pension income over a certain level.