1949 benefits programme on C4 now..who is watching?

[Allthingspretty]

anyone?

[usualsuspect]

Typical wind up them benefit bashers and watch them go ,media tosh.

[PolkadotsAndMoonbeams]

I don't know, I think the 1949 system worked for Craig, didn't really work that well for Melvyn (yes, he liked the home, but not the bit that came before it!) and I don't think we can really count Karen as it's unlikely somebody in 1949 would act like that.

[FlouncyMcFlouncer]

I'm not presuming to declare whether or not she was capable of work. I'm merely pointing out that she was in a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't ' situation. Attempt the work, and take the risk of someone saying 'Aha, so you CAN work (even if she had been in pain and putting a brave face on)', or refusing and looking as though she was a shirker.

That said, her angry attitude did nothing to endear her to me.

[Faverolles]

I agree with usual. We've had a steady drip feed of propaganda in the last few months, focusing on the feckless benefit claimants

[Bruthastortoise]

Ah maybe I took it differently then. I thought the fact that Melvin had to pawn his stuff and move into a nursing home, that Craig wasn't entitled to any immediate help etc was scandalous. Even Karen, who admittedly didn't come across well, I felt was badly served by the 1949 system. I mean you'd expect that most people would realise that unless the gov't was going to plumb billions in to the welfare system there no way the level of personal service could be matched in 2013.

[Wonderstuff]

I think it's very sad that Craig has never felt able to work, but wanted too. We do need to raise aspirations.

I can't believe there are many people able to work who just don't want to.

Fact remains that it isn't the cost of the welfare state that has put up the deficit, it's the lost revenue from the collapse of the financial sector.

[Bruthastortoise]

And that should read pumb billions! Silly iPhone

[Itsjustafleshwound]

I think the programme raised some valid points and just dismissing the programme as propaganda without elaborating just adds to what a hugely contentious issue discussing any benefit has become.

[MrsHelsBels74]

I personally think the benefits system needs a radical overhaul...but I'm very glad I'm not the one who has to do it!

[GobbySadcase]

I had my own mother crowing this week about how she'd been loudly illustrating all the nice things you can have if you WORK in earshot of her neighbours, who are on benefits.

When I responded that if anyone said that to me I'd tell them to fuck off she was really shocked and said "oh but you're different".

Funny that. I'm not different in the eyes of people on here, in the eyes of people in real life and I'm not different legislatively (some of the reductions are affecting us as we need top ups from benefits not classed as disability or Carer benefits).

So the govt can say they're not reducing disability benefits yet are still taking money away from my family and those like us.

Smoke and mirrors. Propaganda, the lot of it.

[ImNotBloody14]

"We've had a steady drip feed of propaganda in the last few months, focusing on the feckless benefit claimants hmm"

I totally agree with this- it's almost funny how obvious they are being about it, if it were'nt so fucking damaging.

[ImNotBloody14]

or maybe weren't?

[timidviper]

The problem is that, even if people like Karen are classed as able to work, she is never going to make the effort and there are loads of people who will make that effort already competing for far too few jobs. Karen has come across as dreadfully rude and entitled. I do wonder if benefits should be used somehow to discourage people like her

I am so pleased for Craig that he got a job offer!

[usualsuspect]

Really?

The comments on this thresd branding Karen as a feckless scrounger, who could work if she wanted to proves that people fall for the propaganda every time.

She was in constant pain,she had several health issues that were invisible. But posters chose to ignore that.

Nothing to debate really is there?

[GobbySadcase]

Wonderstuff I had all the aspirations in the world when I was a school leaver. Didn't stop my first boss cutting my wages from £140 a week to £100 a week when he found out I had a disability and telling me I was lucky he did that rather than sack me.

It didn't stop the company 'relocating the position' that had already been offered to me when they found out about my disability, either.

Those thinking all it takes is for people with disability to aspire more are deluded.

[alemci]

yes but karen had a bad attitude and one of entitlement. a bit of humility and gratitude for the system we now have would be a step in the right direction.

the young guy in the wheelchair probably is in pain and struggles but has a different mindset

[MaryBateman]

I didn't watch it but if the programme followed the actual rules from the National Assistance Board which started in 1948 you were expected to sell everything you didn't need before you could get any help.

When you put in a claim for assistance an assessor would visit your house and inspect everything you owned. Two people in a household and you had three chairs. Sell a chair. Two adults sharing a bed and a single bed in a spare room. Sell it. Until you did so you got no help. I started working for the DHSS in the mid 80s and some of my older colleagues were former NAB assessors and even they said it was tragic to ask that people sold stuff before they could claim the pittance of help they were entitled to. They even asked men to sell tools that they would've needed to have got a job that they were qualified to do. Joiners, carpenters, plumbers etc.

The NAB was better than anything that went before it - the workhouse - but it was brutal and lacked any intelligence or foresight. Do not wish for those days back.

[Itsjustafleshwound]

But usual - she was a willing participant and there was only an edited snap shot of her situation.

As you chose to see her pain so others saw her reticence to work. You have decided to brand other posters as incapable of seeing through the propaganda. What is to say that your response is not the programme makers desired response?

[usualsuspect]

Oh come on, we all know what the programmes required response was.

Read this thread. It's all here.

[GobbySadcase]

Oh, and to add, before I had to give up work to be a Carer my disability didn't prevent me from reaching management level in two positions I held.

Nothing wrong with mindset or aspiration there.

Didn't stop two employers treating me as lesser because of my disability. It affected my employment prospects and each time it was done so cleverly as to evade the DDA.

[Bruthastortoise]

I think we're heading in a bad direction if we're expecting humility and gratitude from people who claim benefit. People who claim benefit whether it be JSA, ESA , CTC or whatever are entitled under the current legislation (barring cases of fraud obviously). Gratitude doesn't come in to it.

[usualsuspect]

Desired not required *

[alemci]

also she has alot to lose if she did work. she may not have any qualifications and she couldn't go back to being a carer and could she still keep that car. the welfare state has trapped her in some ways

[flowery]

"Flowery what doesn't make sense?"

Nothing, all makes sense to me thanks.

"Benefits would have been very small amounts in 1949."

Er, yes, that's exactly my point. Much less than now, not five times as much!

[GobbySadcase]

Fleshwound - you used the word - edited.

Karen may have participated hoping to illustrate what life was like living with invisible disability and been edited so as to be unrecognisable.

Just because she wasn't sackcloth and ashes humble makes her a bad person?

I'm combatitive and bolshy too. Because cuts ARE being made to disabled families, people ARE suffering but people are either going around with their fingers in their ears going la la la OR swallowing the government propaganda wholesale.

I have done some media work about the cuts but each time was terrified they'd misrepresent me. I was fortunate in that Polly Toynbee, BBC News and Channel 4 news were sensitive to my situation and reported accurately. I know others who haven't been so lucky.