More Conservative Vision an Innovation....

[teamsaint]

To lead by example in the Beef Oven household, I am not taking alcohol for a whole year to prove that just as much enjoyment can be had in life without it. My children, having enormous faith in me have bet me £500 I can't do it. Seven weeks in, I'm not sure whether to use the money on upgrading to an iPhone 5s, or get a Genelec sub-woofer. The kids are gutted sensing impending financial loss (I'll be taking the money).

Needless to say, the last raki I tasted is merely a memory now!

its a great plan.Good luck !!(especially with getting money off the kids!!)

I shall be proposing something similar to mrs TS.

[eighthobstruction]

That is true and I can sympathise to a certain extent. But this has nothing to do with people who cheat the system. How can I put it any simpler? Someone who self-employs himself, say, and earns a good whack and yet claims unemployment benefit. That is called theft. Surely you're not going to turn round to me and say that it is not?

The other point that I don't think has been mentioned is that they are looking especially to target middle-class and professional benefit fraudsters or those who are in a position, for whatever reason, to abuse the system.

Yes, since the OP a little more has been squeezed out via media re why the govt want this action....and if indeed it is as your 2nd para, well that seems fair....but laws often have other end products than their intent, when the prosecutor finds the 'easy' option to pursue and convict, and once again the bigger fish swim free....i hope not

....I still make my earlier point ref Libor and no prosecution...

[Beef Oven!]

its a great plan.Good luck !!(especially with getting money off the kids!!)

I shall be proposing something similar to mrs TS.

Cheers ts, but no luck involved, when I make up my mind to do something, I just do it. My problem is that I so rarely make up my mind!

Have to say, I feel sooo much better. What does that stuff do to us!!!!???

[amateur51]

That is true and I can sympathise to a certain extent. But this has nothing to do with people who cheat the system. How can I put it any simpler? Someone who self-employs himself, say, and earns a good whack and yet claims unemployment benefit. That is called theft. Surely you're not going to turn round to me and say that it is not?

The other point that I don't think has been mentioned is that they are looking especially to target middle-class and professional benefit fraudsters or those who are in a position, for whatever reason, to abuse the system.

I'm not arguing against that point. I'm arguing for the evidence that teamsaint has linked to here http://www.cas.org.uk/features/myth-...-benefit-fraud.

I've just been put through hell & back (tight time-frames for me to complete and return a 21 page questionnaire form, but no time-scale for them to come back to me with a decision), like many other disabled claimants, by the DWP and ATOS to ensure that I'm not a scrounger. Is it really necessary to insist that a man who has difficulty walking and staying upright without a stick to lean on should abandon his stick and then proceed to jump in the air? Or have his blood pressure taken by someone who clearly doesn't know how to do it, i.e., is pretending to do it? No joke, both those happened to me.

I'm arguing that rumours of this sort of experience might put other people off claiming benefits that they're entitled to, as they did during the 1930s-50s when my Taid worked for the National Assistance Board.

[amateur51]

To lead by example in the Beef Oven household, I am not taking alcohol for a whole year to prove that just as much enjoyment can be had in life without it. My children, having enormous faith in me have bet me £500 I can't do it. Seven weeks in, I'm not sure whether to use the money on upgrading to an iPhone 5s, or get a Genelec sub-woofer. The kids are gutted sensing impending financial loss (I'll be taking the money).

Needless to say, the last raki I tasted is merely a memory now!

Best of luck then, Beefo. For all our sakes I hope that you make it.

[ahinton]

That is true and I can sympathise to a certain extent. But this has nothing to do with people who cheat the system. How can I put it any simpler? Someone who self-employs himself, say, and earns a good whack and yet claims unemployment benefit. That is called theft. Surely you're not going to turn round to me and say that it is not?

No one is suggesting that cheating the system is in any sense defensible. Having been self-employed since the age of 13, I have found that it's hard to "self-employ" anoyone other than oneself and, yes, there no doubt are some people who are below state retirement age who receive state benefits while working not only for themselves but for an employer (how and why would a small foreign employer care about such matters?) and that is indeed theft, but the vast majority of benefit claimants do no such thing; the legitimate exception here is that some employed people on low incomes and self-employed sole traders whose net profits are low claim benefits to which they are actually entitled, so the do indeed receive payments for work as well as benefits, but this says more about low pay problems than it does about benefit abuse.

The other point that I don't think has been mentioned is that they are looking especially to target middle-class and professional benefit fraudsters or those who are in a position, for whatever reason, to abuse the system.

No, I don't think that it has yet been mentioned here but, if indeed that is the intention, I would ask why they've not been targeting such people previously and how and why increasing prison sentences for convicted "middle-class and professional benefit fraudsters" is thought (and by whom?) to be likely to impact materially uponm the problem? Also, might too much promotion of such intent risk offering some encouragement to potential and actual benefit fraudsters who happen not to fall into the middle-class prefessional sector of that market?

[Beef Oven!]

Best of luck then, Beefo. For all our sakes I hope that you make it.

I'll ignore the insult.

[ahinton]

Yes, since the OP a little more has been squeezed out via media re why the govt want this action....and if indeed it is as your 2nd para, well that seems fair....but laws often have other end products than their intent, when the prosecutor finds the 'easy' option to pursue and convict, and once again the bigger fish swim free....i hope not

....I still make my earlier point ref Libor and no prosecution...

And a very valid point in is in the context and the circumstances; that was another financial fraud - no more, no less - perpetrated upon tens of millions of victims (not just in UK, of course), the sheer scale of which makes the worst year's figures for UK benefit fraud losses look like a drop in the ocean by comparison.

[ahinton]

I'll ignore the insult.

It's easy to ignore what's not there - even for you, evidently; I, too, wish you luck of this though I do not envy you in it!

[amateur51]

I'll ignore the insult.

Which is where?

[eighthobstruction]

A High proportion of Beefs Group 1) post#42....>>>>
1) Those that genuinely need some help to get back on their feet or people who have long-term disabilities and don't earn/have not earned, or perhaps saved enough money, to pay their own way (especially for those poor souls whose needs are complex and multiple and don't get nearly enough support).<<<<

....are actually hounded in order to get their right ££ by a Commercial Firm (Atos) with shareholders to pay and future contracts to seek to obtain....and you only need to look at any Atos thread on this forum to understand that....'those who are genuinely in need', do not necessarily get those needs without recourse to thribunal which takes 9-12mths last time I looked and that is a significant number of people ....often inarticulate etc....and the Govt keeps singing their praises....

....meanwhile Libor fraudsters....zilch!!

[Beef Oven!]

It's easy to ignore what's not there - even for you, evidently; I, too, wish you luck of this though I do not envy you in it!

Get out his head. If he wants to make a little passive aggressive swipe in a pretend well-wish, he will.

[Beef Oven!]

A High proportion of Beefs Group 1) post#42....>>>>
1) Those that genuinely need some help to get back on their feet or people who have long-term disabilities and don't earn/have not earned, or perhaps saved enough money, to pay their own way (especially for those poor souls whose needs are complex and multiple and don't get nearly enough support).<<<<

....are actually hounded in order to get their right ££ by a Commercial Firm (Atos) with shareholders to pay and future contracts to seek to obtain....and you only need to look at any Atos thread on this forum to understand that....'those who are genuinely in need', do not necessarily get those needs without recourse to thribunal which takes 9-12mths last time I looked and that is a significant number of people ....often inarticulate etc....and the Govt keeps singing their praises....

What has this emotional outburst got to do with my helpful post #42?

[Beef Oven!]

Which is where?

'For all our sakes'

[ahinton]

Get out his head. If he wants to make a little passive aggressive swipe in a pretend well-wish, he will.

Whose head? I'm in no-one's head. I cannot see the insult either and, having effectively echoed am51's remark, I can't see one in mine either. But it's not for us or anyone else to dictate how you might choose to interpret anything, of course.