The Benefits Cap : is it working ? BBC 1 , anyone watching ?

[HalfShellHero]

I'm preparing to feel quite depressed by it all,

The guy with spending 40 a week on booze and fags? He says the kids get food first, but he's happy to see his wife go to a food bank? Wrong wrong!!

A SAHM is not a luxury ,it's not a fucking spa treatment!.. not everyone can afford /have childcare on tap to enable it around school hours. A lot if the initiativesame to help pay towards childcare that were around 7,8 years ago have been knocked on the head also.

It's sad that the responses on this thread seem to reflect the aim of this programme

Funding an SAHP is quite a juggle for a lot of people. Even if it's only a temporary measure. I really don't think SAHP's should be state funded for an indefinite amount of time. Why should they be. It's a choice people make by working out their finances to see if they can afford it.

It's sad that the responses on this thread seem to reflect the aim of this programme

Why is it sad OP? Do you really, honestly think that giving a family £20k and expecting them to manage is unreasonable, when that's what the average working family makes?

The families featured (who were a ghastly array of claimants, I agree, bar the single dad), were clearly used to living on benefits and being able to afford a pretty nice lifestyle before this cap came in. Now they're supposed to live within reasonable means they're all bitching and whining, but they chose to have large families while the state was supporting them (which is totally unreasonable by any self-respecting person's standards), and it wasn't that they couldn't afford their rent, bills and food - it was because they were spending the money on luxuries! They honestly seem to think it was their right to not work and to live a comfortable life off the taxpayer. The sooner these kind of people are disabused of that notion the better off this country will be.

With the man spending £40 on booze and fags..............he was being financially abusive to his family. This programme had a chance to highlight the issue of financial abuse and glossed over it like they did with the HA boiler repair.

And his kids need more than just food. What about school uniforms and winter coats.

The grandmother who thought the benfits she recieved should be for jollies

Why on earth did the 'professionals' that were apparently fighting their cases not tell them these things though?!

That's what I couldn't understand - the grandmother should have been told that she was allowed to use that money for household costs, and the people 'supporting' the woman who was being threatened with eviction from the HA house should have been addressing the broken hearing issue with the eviction-threatening LL (and surely any number of people could have told her that her washing machine uses cold water, not hot).

*heating, not hearing...

I'm not convinced the program is focusing on the most "extreme cases", I'm afraid that this is a true representation of those claiming handouts.

Living is a GF Seen them on other threads.

So whats the excuse for cutting widowed parents allowance.

The Scouser Dad was quick to say 'he made sure the kids got their food first, before buying his fags and beer'.

Except he didn't of course. He just sent his wife down to the food bank to get several bags of free food, while he popped to the offy to spend £40 on fags and booze.

And, when the interviewer tackled him about spending this £40, he riposted with 'Well, other people spend that on fags and booze.'

Yes, that would be people with jobs and earnings.

Thank God, thank God they have finally capped benefits. It's going to come as a short, sharp shock to a lot of people who treat living on benefits as a lifestyle choice.

I get that it's going to be hard for their poor children, but it has to stop sometime. Otherwise, the next generation of these kids, and the next after that are going to ALSO see living on benefits as a lifestyle choice.

@SuperFlyHigh, can I just share I have M.E. I am severely affected and have been fully bedridden for four years, totally housebound for seven years altogether. (I can transfer on to a chemical toilet by my bed and that is the extent of my mobility). I thankfully now can manage to get online some days and type a little, though must be carefully paced. Only those mildly affected can perhaps, with a struggle due to fluctuating symptoms and exertion over limits worsening functioning, manage work.

There is a high rate of misdiagnosis, but it is not true that most people with genuine ME can work. Younger people with M.E have a higher chance of making a full recovery or signficant recovery, although not all young people. Many people with ME remain too ill to work. Everyone I know with M.E would love to not have the illness and work, including me.

luggie HES A FINANCIAL ABUSER. And he would still be a financial abuser on a fucking wage.

This is why there needs to be a campaign on the wider issues of financial abuse because ppl do not seem to see it even when its glaringly obvious on a tv screen right in front of them.

the grandmother should have been told that she was allowed to use that money for household costs

you don't know that she hadn't been. She was clearly pursuing her own agenda, which was that she was hard done by and impoverished as the £29k money was for ice skating and holidays.

And when they are transferred over to UC all the money will go into his account (which could have already happened in that area) which will make financial abuse even more possible for him and others like him.

This programme annoyed me so much I've complained to the BBC!

Totally not representative of the real picture.

Food stamps, rent paid direct, heating paid direct and no spare cash.
I'm convinced these people are too thick:entitled to budget.
And soon there will be more of them than tax payers if they procreate at the rates shown on last night's programme.
I am very tired of being the squeezed middle!

No spare cash? How draconian and cruel! What about new coats and shoes are poor children to live in bin bags? It's all the ..it's not the minority! ...there not extreme cases! Of course there extreme cases otherwise they wouldn't be television worthy

Why on Earth can't the rent be paid direct to the landlord? It's quite clear that too many of these people are feckless and blowing their rent money on necessities such as iPhones, fags, hair extensions, fancy prams.

They are clearly too childlike in their attitude to behave responsibly, and therefore need to be treated like irresponsible children.

I, too am sick to death of being the squeezed middle. We would dearly have loved a third child, but realistically we couldn't comfortably afford one. So we didn't have one. An absolutely groundbreaking concept, obviously

Housing benefit did used to get paid directly to LL, the Tories have changed it.

luggie Im childfree by choice but you dont see me complaining about others receiving Child Benefit.

Agree with luggie why can't the rent be paid straight to the landlord? Instead of them getting their normal money for other things, but only 50p a week Housing Benefit? It's the wrong way round. Of course if they were sensible they'd prioritise rent, but a lot of them don't seem to take this on board.

What a ridiculous way to administer it. Children can't be allowed to live on the streets, obviously, so it's going to cost local authorities a hell of a lot in terms of emergency housing, legal help, etc. What are the government playing at?

Agree that the Minister they interviewed (Caroline something?) was devious, keep repeating the party line and carefully avoiding questions.

Some of the people featured did have a bad attitude, yes (the dad who spends £40 a week on beer and cigarettes, and seems to think everyone should be able to) but I agree the families were picked for a reason, and probably the quotes they gave carefully edited, to paint a bad picture of benefit claimants. It wasn't a balanced programme at all, shame on the BBC.