Litter picking + Incarceration....the Conservative Way....

[Richard Barrett]

making the unemployed work for their JSA

This has the stink of the workhouse about it.

[teamsaint]

This has the stink of the workhouse about it.

and seems to me to be only a step away from the penal system in The Land of the Free where huge swathes of the population are locked up and then produce a profit for other people through their work.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289

where they go we follow.
So watch out if you work in the probation service.....and that will just be for starters.

[scottycelt]

It is slightly amusing how pensioners are now portrayed in some quarters as being 'well-off'. It doesn't seem that long ago Labour people like Milburn might well have been crying how badly-off this group were in comparison to others and it was the Tories wot was to blame.

Pensioners are just like any other group, where you find rich and poor but most just lie somewhere in between. Obviously billionaires/millionaires who retire will still be stinking rich but there will be many others who have to live on the state pension plus benefits.

Of course free bus-passes for rich pensioners is ridiculous. But how many rich pensioners actually travel by bus? The money saved by excluding rich pensioners would be almost negligible. Means-testing could actually be more expensive. Even modestly-paid pensioners tend to have access to private transport these days so it's really the worse-off pensioners who tend to benefit anyway, and rightly so. If pensioners are taxed in exactly the same way as others I don't see where any unfairness lies. Winter fuel-allowance for all the over 60s is silly too and could easily be scrapped and the benefit directed towards those genuinely in need. Most pensioners I know agree with that themselves and some return or donate the money to charity. The politicians are responsible for this absurdity not the pensioners!

Certainly free tv licences for the over-75's might be looked at, as folk now tend, generally, to live longer and the fee could be reduced to, say, half-price, or the benefit scrapped altogether for those pensioners earning over a certain amount. However, just how much real money would be saved here to transfer significant help to the more needy is debatable.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

watching Robinson reminds me of Gatto who makes reference to the fundamental compulsion of modern education and its roots, not in the enlightenment, but the Napoleonic and Prussian needs for military citizens for their armies and sees education as a form of state control ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ogCc8ObiwQ

[Anna]

It is slightly amusing how pensioners are now portrayed in some quarters as being 'well-off'. It doesn't seem that long ago Labour people like Milburn might well have been crying how badly-off this group were in comparison to others and it was the Tories wot was to blame.
Pensioners are just like any other group, where you find rich and poor but most just lie somewhere in between. Obviously billionaires/millionaires who retire will still be stinking rich but there will be many others who have to live on the state pension plus benefits.

Exactly. I know quite a few pensioners who only have the state pension and very small savings. In fact this is from a BBC report in response to Alan Milburn plan to withhold benefits from them:
Poverty is defined as having a household income that is less than 60% of the national median income. The latest government figures, released in June, show the median UK household income for 2011/2012 was £427 a week - 60% of that figure was £256 a week
In that year, 17% of children, or 2.3 million, were classed as being in poverty while 15% of working-age adults, or 5.6 million, were in poverty.
For pensioners, meanwhile, that figures was 16% - or 1.9 million.
Now, talking with my pensioner friends they agree totally that the fuel allowance shouldn't be given to ex-pats or wealthy pensioners and would willingly be means tested, but as for the bus passes, No. To many this is their lifeline, taking away the bus pass would mean living in isolaton, not to mention having to get taxis you cannot afford to the surgery, over 60s clubs, etc. And, one point, you have to apply for a bus pass, it's not automatically given to you.

[scottycelt]

To many this is their lifeline, taking away the bus pass would mean living in isolaton, not to mention having to get taxis you cannot afford to the surgery, over 60s clubs, etc. And, one point, you have to apply for a bus pass, it's not automatically given to you.

Yes, our local bus goes directly to the nearest hospital which is about ten miles away. The most requested destination for the elderly is that same hospital. Some may even have to travel there daily, some on wheelchairs or crutches. The fare would probably cost around £25 a week there and back if payment was required. Impossible for most of them who probably already find it difficult to make ends meet. For some the free bus pass is not just a benefit, it is an absolute necessity. Yes you are right, you have to apply for it so I doubt many rich pensioners or all those others who have cars are going to bother applying anyway so, as I say, in reality this benefit, unlike the fuel allowance, will get to the very people who need the benefit the most.

Leave it well alone, politicians!

[Sydney Grew]

. . . Impossible for most of them who probably already find it difficult to make ends meet. For some the free bus pass is not just a benefit, it is an absolute necessity. . . .

Memorandum to whinging (or whingeing) pensioners: the ordinary pension is amply sufficient. Allow ten pounds daily for luncheon in a decent restaurant and a little shopping, and what is left will suffice for the purchase and running of a C-class Benz.

[ahinton]

Memorandum to whinging (or whingeing) pensioners: the ordinary pension is amply sufficient. Allow ten pounds daily for luncheon in a decent restaurant and a little shopping, and what is left will suffice for the purchase and running of a C-class Benz.

In what year would that be?! How much do you reckon it would cost to purchase a Merc C Class? And how much to run it? Road tax alone would be c. £0.61 per day, insurance some £2.20 per day and MOT some £0.12 per day, so almost £ per day's gone before putting any petrol in the tank; add in a reasonable sum for service/maintenance and you can see where this is going. And what do you mean by the "ordinary" pension? If you refer to state retirement benefit, this, for most people, is not much more than half of what someone would be paid for working at the national minimum wage in Britain.

[scottycelt]

Memorandum to whinging (or whingeing) pensioners: the ordinary pension is amply sufficient. Allow ten pounds daily for luncheon in a decent restaurant and a little shopping, and what is left will suffice for the purchase and running of a C-class Benz.

On the contrary, Mr Grew, it is not pensioners who appear to be doing the whinging (or whingeing), rather it is others including 'socialist' politicians like Alan Milburn.

Are luncheons in decent restaurants and a 'C-class Benz' now the items of choice for homosexualist Marxist pensioners before a house, heating and clothing, perhaps ... ?

[amateur51]

On the contrary, Mr Grew, it is not pensioners who appear to be doing the whinging (or whingeing), rather it is others including 'socialist' politicians like Alan Milburn.

Surely you're not suggesting that Milburn's report was not informed by comments from pensioners, scotty? Do you live on the State pension, I wonder?

[ahinton]

That whole argument could be repeated almost word for word and turned into a defence of "slavery." Now it is my turn to cry "nonsense"!

Only if you can somehow contrive by whatever perverse means to convince yourself that working equates to slavery as thought they are each by nature synonymous. Yes, too many people work at jobs that they'd far rather do without and in which they are unhappy - there's no defending that, in principle, of course - but what else would they do unless they can find sufficiently well paid work that they enjoy? How would they support themselves otherwise. It's an unpleasant truth, to be sure, but you've not offered any viable alternative. That said, as I observed earlier, if no one did any work, society would collapse; how else would it support itself? And where in what passes for your argument are the self-employed? Do you see them as both master and slave?

[scottycelt]

Surely you're not suggesting that Milburn's report was not informed by comments from pensioners, scotty? Do you live on the State pension, I wonder?

I certainly couldn't 'live' on the State pension alone, amsey ... and I don't know how correctly 'informed' was Milburn's report.

In addition pensioners lost out in that 'granny tax' budget, if you remember, when unlike other groups, their tax allowance was frozen which, in effect, was a tax-hike. The billionaires and millionaires, on the other hand, received a nice little tax reduction and everybody else got their allowances increased.

That didn't seem particularly fair to pensioners , when the average pension income is reckoned to be virtually half the national average salary.

The suggestion in some quarters that pensioners can now afford to lose their free bus passes is outrageous and grossly unfair, not to say downright cruel to some.

Look at the winter-fuel allowance by all means but leave that vital (for many) free bus-pass alone!

[ahinton]

I certainly couldn't 'live' on the State pension alone, amsey ... and I don't know how correctly 'informed' was Milburn's report.

In addition pensioners lost out in that 'granny tax' budget, if you remember, when unlike other groups, their tax allowance was frozen which, in effect, was a tax-hike. The billionaires and millionaires, on the other hand, received a nice little tax reduction and everybody else got their allowances increased.

That didn't seem particularly fair to pensioners , when the average pension income is reckoned to be virtually half the national average salary.

The suggestion in some quarters that pensioners can now afford to lose their free bus passes is outrageous and grossly unfair, not to say downright cruel to some.

Look at the winter-fuel allowance by all means but leave that vital (for many) free bus-pass alone!

I'm not sure that I quite agree with your emphases here. Free bus passes are of no use to anyone where there are no buses nearby, whereas everyone needs heating and hot water.

[jean]

I don't see the point in making the distinction.

Of course there are pensioners who can afford to pay for both as much bus travel and as much heating as they need. Buit a properly punitive tax regime would claw back the surplus, without all the problems associated with means testing - not least of which is the proud reluctance of some to take what they are entitled to.

[ahinton]

I don't see the point in making the distinction.

Of course there are pensioners who can afford to pay for both as much bus travel and as much heating as they need. Buit a properly punitive tax regime would claw back the surplus, without all the problems associated with means testing - not least of which is the proud reluctance of some to take what they are entitled to.

I agree; withdrawing these kinds of benefit would inevitably be unfair to those who most need them and means-testing them would almost certinly be so expensive that the net cost to the government would be greater than by leaving them as they are.