Ian Duncan Smith

[Papaumau]

Caminito said:

William Beveridge, who during the Second World War wrote the blueprint for our post-war welfare state, would be shocked but not altogether surprised at the appalling state of affairs facing the Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith.

Beveridge was no fool. He warned in a memorable phrase that unemployment benefits would have to be time limited ‘lest men become habituated to idleness’.

Nor did he believe that those he called ‘boys and girls’ – in 21st Century speak, ‘young people’ – should get any benefit at all until they had contributed to the national insurance fund. If they were not working they should, he maintained, be in full-time training

And while you are right about this we have to consider what is well known as "the poverty trap". This phenomenon was generated whereby because of the very poor levels of wages in the work market many people who were on benefit were at a loss if they chose to go out and work instead of receiving benefits. This situation is exacerbated when the person out of work is a single parent as once they go out to work much of the money earned goes to pay for child care. This is a TRUE "trap" and it is the system that is at fault here not the benefit-receiver.

Surely families have a responsibility to each other?  I've seen kids kicked out of their home at 16, for all sorts of reasons.  Child benefit stops if they leave school, don't go to college or haven't got a job.  Mum may have yet another boyfriend who doesn't want a moody teenager living with them.  Broken and dysfunctional families who see the benefits agency and the council as their rightful means of support.   Whilst I know quite a few single parents who are responsible parents, there are many more who have never worked, and whilst they get benefits, and 'free' housing, probably never will.  So many young men father children without any consideration for their welfare or their financial support.

Is it our fault, we who were young in the 60s?  They gave us more freedom than our parents had, but they didn't realise how much those freedoms would be abused.  Freedom not to work, freedom to be entitled (not aspire) to a council house, and freedom to have as many children as we want, with different partners without worrying about the cost.  Its all about rights, but with rights should come responsibilities.  I don't want to go back to the days when it was shameful to have a child 'out of wedlock', but I think if a young girl gets pregnant, her family should play a part in looking after her and the child.  Or, if the family won't or can't, we could have a return of mother and baby hostels rather than automatically give them a house or flat.  In a hostel, childcare wouldn't be an issue, and young mums could study, or work and support themselves and their child, only moving out when they were self sufficient.  It used to work.

GrannyMac, I do realise what you are getting at here and while those situations certainly do arise it is patently unfair to tar every benefit-claimant with this particular brush. These are obvious examples of it as wrong as it can be but we simply cannot stereotype all benefit recipients in this way.

This is a typically right-wing argument that cynically tries to make all benefit claiments look like cheats and wasters and frauds when generally this IS NOT the case.

[Hugh]

I agree with GrannyMac Papa, and I am pretty sure you would if you could see for your self how serious the problem is getting in England. I know two girls who have two babies each from Four different men. This is quite common, and they are milking the welfare system for all its worth. This is abuse of the welfare system and genuine cases in the future will be tarred with the same brush.

And I think your Wise Old Gran Papa would agree with her as well.

[caminito]

About £1.1billion was lost to benefit fraud last year alone   

[Ivanhoe]

/////About £1.1billion was lost to benefit fraud last year alone   ////////

I think the welfare State should be abolished, this way benefit fraud would not exist.  If you dont work, you dont eat.

By the same token I think that MP's should be made to live on the State pension, and be means tested for handouts.

[Ivanhoe]

///////This is a typically right-wing argument that cynically tries to make all benefit claiments look like cheats and wasters and frauds when generally this IS NOT the case.  ///////

Oh but it is Pap.   I mean your not actually implying that readers of the Mail actually believe what they read are you ?
 

[caminito]

At the end of 2009-10, the real national debt stood at £7.9 trillion

This is a typically left wing incompetent government financial mess .

[Ivanhoe]

/////This is a typically left wing incompetent government financial mess . /////

When we stop giving foreign aid in the billions, then we will be in a financial mess, until then you carry on believing
what the papers churn out.
 
 
 

[GrannyMac]

GrannyMac, I do realise what you are getting at here and while those situations certainly do arise it is patently unfair to tar every benefit-claimant with this particular brush. These are obvious examples of it as wrong as it can be but we simply cannot stereotype all benefit recipients in this way.
This is a typically right-wing argument that cynically tries to make all benefit claiments look like cheats and wasters and frauds when generally this IS NOT the case.

I don't tar every benefit claimant with the same brush, but I'm not blind to what has happened in many instances.   I'm not right or left wing, just realistic.  Other colleagues who've worked in the public services for years have seen the decline in decent behaviour, gradual worsening of parenting standards, and the 'rights without responsibililties' attitudes that have escalated over the last 20+ years.  Teachers who can't teach because they are terrorised and threatened by teenage pupils; decent people who are driven almost to suicide by anti-social/criminal neighbours; public sector staff who are abused verbally and physically by those who aren't getting what they have decided they should get. Just ask nurses who work in A&E!    Should we just ignore the problems in case we offend someone?   

[Ivanhoe]

////I don't tar every benefit claimant with the same brush, but I'm not blind to what has happened in many instances.   I'm not right or left wing, just realistic.  Other colleagues who've worked in the public services for years have seen the decline in decent behaviour, gradual worsening of parenting standards, and the 'rights without responsibililties' attitudes that have escalated over the last 20+ years.  Teachers who can't teach because they are terrorised and threatened by teenage pupils; decent people who are driven almost to suicide by anti-social/criminal neighbours; public sector staff who are abused verbally and physically by those who aren't getting what they have decided they should get. Just ask nurses who work in A&E!    Should we just ignore the problems in case we offend someone?   ////////

G/M, and you blame all this on the British welfare State do you ?

[Ivanhoe]

///////I agree with GrannyMac Papa, and I am pretty sure you would if you could see for your self how serious the problem is getting in England. I know two girls who have two babies each from Four different men. This is quite common, and they are milking the welfare system for all its worth. This is abuse of the welfare system and genuine cases in the future will be tarred with the same brush./////

Frankly, ive never read such bigoted judgemental rubbish, and sadly you dont even realise it.

"You "know two girls", well whoopie.  Frankly I know young people with more intelligents.

Your posting comes across like Ed Begly's character in the 1957 version of 12 Angry Men.

[caminito]

A report by the   Social Justice Policy Group, a think tank committed to tackling poverty

Stable two-parent families are becoming the exception; where individual rights have blunted our sense of duty and responsibility; and where successive generations of children face a life devoid of hope or dignity.

There is an underclass, he believes, that wields a disproportionate influence in terms of the crime it spawns and the huge amount of public money it soaks up – mostly in welfare benefits and funding for the criminal justice system. (Over the past 10 years the cost of policing has risen by 40 per cent and that of working-age benefits by 25 per cent.) And, despite Gordon Brown's much-vaunted ambition to create a more equal society, Britain's underclass has grown since Labour came to power.

The Centre for Social Justice estimates there are one million more people living in ''severe poverty'' (defined as earning 40 per cent of the average national wage) than in 1997.

"Young kids in many cities are running riot. There's been a rise in gang culture and in drug culture We have 30,000 children every year leaving school with no educational qualifications. We also have the highest levels of teenage pregnancy in Europe."

According to the centre, there are five poverty ''drivers'': family breakdown; welfare dependency; educational failure; addiction to drugs and alcohol; and serious personal debt. But the key problem is the breakdown in marriage over the past 40 years.

[Hugh]

///////I agree with GrannyMac Papa, and I am pretty sure you would if you could see for your self how serious the problem is getting in England. I know two girls who have two babies each from Four different men. This is quite common, and they are milking the welfare system for all its worth. This is abuse of the welfare system and genuine cases in the future will be tarred with the same brush./////

Frankly, ive never read such bigoted judgemental rubbish, and sadly you dont even realise it.

"You "know two girls", well whoopie.  Frankly I know young people with more intelligents.

Your posting comes across like Ed Begly's character in the 1957 version of 12 Angry Men

And you come across as a very rude, and a complete utter fool MICHAEL THOMPSON (Ivanhoe)

[Hugh]

I agree with GrannyMac Papa, and I am pretty sure you would if you could see for your self how serious the problem is getting in England. I know two girls who have two babies each from Four different men. This is quite common, and they are milking the welfare system for all its worth. This is abuse of the welfare system and genuine cases in the future will be tarred with the same brush.

And I think your Wise Old Gran Papa would agree with her as well.

I certainly hope from the more intelligent members of this forum that I don't come across as an angry man because I am a very happy contented pensioner. Just hope the labour party never get back in to spoill it and I hope Cameron is as good as Margaret Thatcher and gets things done..

[avalonmpk]

I see that Ivanhoe is still the self appointed spokesman for the Soviet Socialist Scotland - two socialist parties up there both to left of Papa Joe Stalin, no wonder he is so miserable, someone should tell him that an honest days work does every single person in these islands good and a single day's sponging the opposite!

[GrannyMac]

G/M, and you blame all this on the British welfare State do you ?

Of course not.  But it has certainly contributed to the breakdown of families.   Have you visited some of the less affluent areas of the UK recently?  Have you listened to many of the residents who have lived there a long time and asked them what life is like now?    Of course we need a welfare state, but it should never be a lifestyle choice.

Its accepted that there have been many jobs created over the last government's tenure, but the majority of them seem to have been filled by people who have come a long way to do them.  These jobs may be low paid, but they still need doing.  And, low paid jobs can lead to better paid jobs, and even careers.  There are lots of people who are evidence of that being the case.

Even through the affluent years, we've seen many able bodied people not working even in areas where there were jobs.  I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on why this is, and what the government (any govt) should do about it.