We're All In This Together .....

[teamsaint]

for once Polly has it right.

I would despair of this country...only I am too busy right now, and what's more I have decided that despair is the wrong way to go.

Talking to people, discussing these and other issues is my way forward, and I am constantly amazed at the progressive reaction I receive from what I think are unlikely sources.

(apart from my reactionary piano tuner, and HE isn't getting another appointment any time soon !!)



Perhaps one day, one day soon, the camerons and osbornes and the bankers who pull their .....er.... strings will go too far.

Maybe this "something for nothing " thing will REALLY backfire. only if it does, lets hope it isn't more bankers poodles like milliband and blair coming to fix the mess.

PS, I think Polly did pretty well for herself after she left Fawlty Towers, all things considered.

[Beef Oven]

An excellent article from Polly Toynbee about the benefits cuts present and proposed and the housing crisis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/25/cameron-benefit-cut-will-backfire

Where does this government get the data upon which it bases its social policy? It's almost as though it has a different agenda :whistle:

Polly Toynbee is talking bollocks as usual.

The fundamental issue is how to ensure welfare policies focus on 'outcomes', not 'intentions'.

We all agree with the welfare intentions (even a baby-eating right-wing sexist pig like me). We have managed to create a dependency culture that is far more expensive than providing support to those who need it, particularly vulnerable adults and children.

I wish the Toynbees of this world would get help for their middle-class guilty conscience syndrome.

That way they might add something valuable to the issues, rather than just insincerely ventilating to help them sleep better.

Toynbee wouldn't know hardship if it fell on her head from a tall tree.

[Panjandrum]

Toynbee wouldn't know hardship if it fell on her head from a tall tree.

That's probably true

[Beef Oven]

That's probably true

Interesting link - thanks

This is my favourite bit:

"Eagleman says that many people survive shots to the head because bullets are relatively small and travel at high velocity. When shot just right, a bullet can quickly enter and exit the skull without inflicting too much damage."

Nice to know!

[amateur51]

Polly Toynbee is talking bollocks as usual.

I'd ask you to explain why exactly, except I don't think I could bear the answer :smiley:

[Beef Oven]

I'd ask you to explain why exactly, except I don't think I could bear the answer :smiley:

It's the bit about 'intentions' and 'outcomes' Tiddles. She doesn't get it because she's a well-heeled middle-class bint with a guilty conscience.

Why do people only quote my rude bits?

[amateur51]

It's the bit about 'intentions' and 'outcomes' Tiddles. She doesn't get it because she's a well-heeled middle-class bint with a guilty conscience.

Why do people only quote my rude bits?

You're expecting me to source your argument, huh Beefy?

Get a grip! :yikes::biggrin:

[Flosshilde]

We have managed to create a dependency culture that is far more expensive than providing support to those who need it, particularly vulnerable adults and children.

The only people who have created a 'dependency culture' (if such a thing exists) are the employers who pay below the living wage (http://www.livingwage.org.uk/about-living-wage) & make it neccessary for low-paid workers to depend on benefits. Apparently David Cameron called it "an idea whose time had come" - in 2010. So why, two years later, hasn't he increased the minimum wage to living wage levels?

[Flosshilde]

Why do people only quote my rude bits?

Are there any other bits?

[amateur51]

We all agree with the welfare intentions (even a baby-eating right-wing sexist pig like me). We have managed to create a dependency culture that is far more expensive than providing support to those who need it, particularly vulnerable adults and children.

Who is this 'we' of whom you speak, Beefy? :erm:

[Beef Oven]

You're expecting me to source your argument, huh Beefy?

Get a grip! :yikes::biggrin:

I've never had much of a grip on anything :sadface: You hit below the belt :yikes:

[Beef Oven]

Who is this 'we' of whom you speak, Beefy? :erm:

hang on, you bin on the turps again? You're not normally as agressive as this. Bit early for a supper with yer mates. Woss got into ya? :biggrin:

[amateur51]

hang on, you bin on the turps again? You're not normally as agressive as this. Bit early for a supper with yer mates. Woss got into ya? :biggrin:

Low blood sugar, Beefy. I'm diabetic and it's time for me dinner so I must away & fix some veggie cheesy tomatoey pasta.

But I didn't think I was being aggressive so much as persistent :smiley:

[Beef Oven]

Low blood sugar, Beefy. I'm diabetic and it's time for me dinner so I must away & fix some veggie cheesy tomatoey pasta.

But I didn't think I was being aggressive so much as persistent :smiley:

Derek Chisora is a very persistent man :laugh:

[Lateralthinking1]

The fundamental issue is how to ensure welfare policies focus on 'outcomes', not 'intentions'.....
we all agree with the welfare intentions

I agree with the first sentence. I would like to think that the second is true but, taking this Government and its cronies as an example, it isn't at all clear to me that is the case. IDS says one thing and Francis Maude does another. Lynne Featherstone is the antithesis of George Osborne. Can you see what it is yet?* Is it Big Society Ken Clarke or slash welfare to the bone David Laws?

(Yeovil as a constituency is a first - I would vote Conservative because their candidate is likely to be less right wing - let's hope for a Tory victory there in 2015 although of course if he loses he will just be kicked up to the barely reformed Lords.)

Savings quotas are ideological. To tackle the way in which some take advantage of the system, you would do it another way and have greater or fewer savings. I am not sure that any of them have devised a way of identifying the needy and the not needy. The Mail has examples daily of the latter but the axe appears to be missing them and targeted at the obviously vulnerable.

What sickens is that the clampdown on those who have jetted in with a dozen kids to live forever on benefits has been spoken about at length for 30 odd years. Only now when more people are in genuine need is anything being done - and wrongly.