Benefits street

[viagrafalls]

Anyone watching ?

No. But i don't want to pay for others to either.

Err you dont really.

Well not as much as the media would have you believe.

it was only about one street i believe, and only a handful at that. the rest of the street were behind closed doors.
that dee seemed to be a good un as did that man selling door to door for 50 p.
the programme makers probably put the mattresses and three piece suite on the street themselves. I wouldnt put it passed them.

Tax money is wasted far more on other stuff than benefits. :/ Wish people would look up what it's actually spent on rather than just assuming it's all being wasted on benefits.

The estate across the road from my street is just like this. A row of ten shops all closed and boarded up because the local residents robbed and vandalised so often. Drug dealing going on quite openly, rubbish strewn everywhere within an hour of being cleared up by the Council (incl shitty nappies, needles etc) - looks like they just chuck their rubbish off their balconies.
IME it's not a minority of benefit claimants who live like this.

As regards the 50p man - surely he's making a huge profit actually? Esp if his stock has been shoplifted and he therefore buys at rock bottom prices?

of course he is making a profit, he is being an entrepreneur .your original lord sugar.

like this, for example

A clear case of fiddling the system (in its spirit if not its letter) if ever I read one. We could do with rejigging things so that these people can't get money for nothing.

and these people who do everything they can to find ways to avoid contributing to this country

There really should be a lot of changes. It's easy to go after the weak and vulnerable. They have no money or power and can do nothing to you. But they aren't the ones taking the majority of the money. Nothing much appears to be done about that lot.

And I am not even talking about benefit 'cheats'. I am talking about people on benefits who are being hammered. People who are claiming what they are entitled to claim and are seeing that being attacked and / or removed.

Tax breakdown for £25,500 salary
£2,080 Pensions and Benefits
(including £212 on Housing Benefit and £296 on Incapacity Benefits)
£1,094 on the NHS
£824 on Education
£339 on Defence
£160 on the Police
£44 on Prisons
£92 on Roads
£71 on Railways

For anyone that is interested.

Total budget of the DWP = $167 billion

Largest slice of the benefits budget? Pensions at nearly £74 billion - which is 47% of the budget

Slice of the budget taken up by Jobseeker's allowance and Income support (so people can sit home all day, drink beer and wear their PJ's - apparently) £11 billion.

Apart from Jobseekers, SSP and SMP have had the fastest growth in recent times - 55% more claims for those benefits.

So, while there are some people claiming benefits who do fit the profile of those portrayed in last night's horribly skewed and unrepresentative programme (by the sound's of it, I didn't bother watching), there are many many many more claimants that don't fit this profile at all.

Those of you who are bleating on about having to pay for others - I do hope you (or your partner if you stay at home) have the following:

A robust private pension plan
Insurance for critical and longterm illness and one for permenant disablement that wil cover you for the rest of your time until your private pension kicks in.
A fund for maternity leave or plans to return to work immediately
An emergency fund of 6-9 months expenses should the household income be lost due to job loss.

You wouldn't want to be a burden should something happen now would you?

Sources:

www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/08/uk-benefit-welfare-spending#

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16744819

Isee - you're BVVVVVVVVVU!!!! Lord Spendthrift has expenses, you see. As a peer you have expenses, you know, like entertaining! Plus this is all he does - very important being a Lord you know - you appear in Parliament a couple of times a year and look at a lot of post. The poor soul only has £12000 left after his expenses - how's he going to live?!!!!

I saw some of it and it repulsed me.

There were a lot of entitled people on the programme. Yes, there was rubbish littering the street. Why didnt the people living there pick it up!

They didnt seem to relate any type of work to earning money for themselves.

In our road if I see a can or Macdonalds wrappers in the hedges I pick it up and so do most of my neighbours. The two who had been fiddling their benefits and then becoming outraged when they were caught - well what did they expect to have happen.

Of course not all people on benefits are living like this but there are a growing number of streets like this in every city. Missing court dates, not turning up to appointments. What on earth did they think was going to happen.

No. But i don't want to pay for others to either.

Unless you dictate where your taxes go, it's unlikely you do.

Saw people on my Facebook saying they thought it had all been exaggerated etc...I can assure you that half of my street live like this. Have posted many stories about what goes on in my street before. Not everyone on benefits is like that absolutely not. But to say that it is exaggerated or untrue is imo to be in denial.

Saw people on my Facebook saying they thought it had all been exaggerated etc...I can assure you that half of my street live like this. Have posted many stories about what goes on in my street before. Not everyone on benefits is like that absolutely not. But to say that it is exaggerated or untrue is imo to be in denial.

Oh and some one said the mattresses and suites etc prob put there by tv show. . Well they are on my street too . Happy to provide pics to anyone who doesn't believe streets really look like this

There are some people who refuse to believe that benefit fraud goes on and constantly state that it is tiny - how do they know! In fact - perhaps they are actors and no one lives like this. It is clear that they do. In fact I have driven through areas that look worse than this. if the sofas were planted (and perhaps the rubbish!) why didnt the tennats ask for them to be removed and clear up their street. Perhaps because they cannot be bothered or think thats something for the council to do!

There are hundreds of streets like this (in many towns and cities) in the UK where poverty, crime and rubbish strewn everywhere are rife. It's sad and I don't know what the solution is.

well, it is just like the housign association estate i used to live on. not everybody there was on benefits. although if you include child benefit then i shoudl imagine most were tbh.

it is just snobbery.
point and look at the poor.

The big lady is the one capable of exercising some authority. I did wonder if CH4 TV were wise toshow some scenes. Ch4 are usually more critical of government. This is partly a fun thing. But real people are involved

Happy - not sure what your argument is, people living on benefite still benefit from having their pensions paid, NHS paid, roads paid for etc. Comes from the same pot that we pay into whilst they don't.

sorry - 'they' is an awful, sweeping term. I don't mean people who are on benefits whilst they get back on their feet or claim for medical reasons (which is what the system is for, surely?) I mean those who choose not to seek work and openly and shamelessly milk the system.

The other Dee was terrible. Real sense of entitlement about what she felt she deserved apart from when she was in the car saying that she wanted to better herself. Problem is with an attitude like hers nothing really will change.

To give a bit of background to my views on this show, I grew up on a street not a million miles away in terms of poverty and disenchantment with the system (not a million miles away in distance either!)

I can understand the mindset of a lot of the characters portrayed in the show. It's almost a form of anarchism. And thinking about it, if all you'd ever known was that kind of lifestyle, and all you'd had was that level of financial aspiration, you would want to "milk the system" for all it was worth too.

It's almost like they blame the system for their dependence on the system, so they try and get the most out of the system as possible while they're stuck in the endless cycle. There was a hint of that when Fungi got the employment interview letter - both Big Dee and Fungi seemed incredulous at the thought of "the system" ever providing Fungi with decent employment. The most the system would ever provide them with was the benefits so of course they kicked off when those were under threat.

Personally I thought the sense of community on the street was wonderful. And if they didn't want to tidy up their houses, then so what? I'm sure putting the laundry away is the last thing they are worried about. I got angry when the people gave Fungi money for those magazines though - I didn't understand why they didn't just offer to buy him lunch or something.

peking I absolutely agree with you re the sense of the community shown. I actually grew up in this area just round the corner, it has always been a deprived, low employment area even in the days before tax credits etc. - however it reminded me of my childhood days when we all played in the street and our doors were open to the whole street no matter what, compared to the leafy suburb of Birmingham I live in now where community is non-existent and I know less than a handful of my neighbours.

Poverty and its relation to crime and misuse of drink/drugs is nothing new related to benefits, the educated only need to look back in history to Victorian times or read a Dickens book (or watch it in your teeny tiny tv that you are unable afford as you are not on benefits) to see that.

I hope somebody watching this could look at offering some kind of employment to the 50p man - he seemed really polite and hardworking and clearly wanted to dig himself out and upwards.

"White" Dee was awful, such a busy body! I bet she feels that she's doing some kind of public service by offering people crap advice on things she clearly didn't understand either.

The couple sanctioned for benefit fraud were a disgrace. How they had a nerve to get cross about this was beyond me...and the fact that they actually found it funny. Absolutely disgusting.