I read this article today and thought
it would be interesting to follow, I then found
another one which has thrown the
gauntlet down, even if you are not affected , sign up if you want to see if the folks that dictate the rules can actually live by them.
Votes have been going nuts, over 50k in just 4 hours... Be worth watching even if you dont sign.
Can they balls, it won't be discussed and nothing will come of it as usual. I can't live on £53 a week and all I do is go to my horrible job I should be thankful for (I'm not) and have no other life outside of it.
Signed
He said he can do it, So prove it....
He lives rent free and if you have a good look on the web you'll see some of the things he has claimed for in expenses 
and We've all paid for 
Don't condome folks living off the state and taking the p*ss
but this 'un-elected government' have gone too far this time...
You can spin that a lot of ways though. I'm fairly sure that if I didn't have to pay rent and bills, and I didn't run a car, and didn't have to go out each day to earn my money, and I didn't have dependents, I could live on that much.
That £53 figure is a load of bollocks. The guy says he works 50 hour weeks to take home £2700 quid. Well, he needs to go f**k himself and get a proper
job then. Why should the taxpayer prop him up so he can keep on with a failed business?
And FWIW, you can easily live on £53 after rent and bills. You buy food and fook all else, and if that doesnt seem fun, well do something about it.
Honestly, ive had it up to my eyeballs with people moaning about these benefit cuts.
The market trader maintains he can live on the money with tax credits etc, no reason why IDS cannot either, what's the grizzle?
@ £2,700 p.a which is far below the minimum wage it must be his choice to be a market trader, benefits are to keep you going not to improve your life,
that's your own responsibility.
Maybe that makes me a bastard, from 12 I had a paper round, added mowing neighbours lawns at 14 and have never been out of work.
Could I live on £53 a week after bills are paid, yes I could easily feed myself on that.
quote:
Originally posted by JoelP
The guy says he works 50 hour weeks to take home £2700 quid. Well, he needs to go f**k himself and get a proper job then.
quote:
Originally posted by Ninehigh
quote:
Originally posted by JoelP
The guy says he works 50 hour weeks to take home £2700 quid. Well, he needs to go f**k himself and get a proper job then.
Well he can have my job and I'll have his and earn this mythical "living" I hear so much about. I work 50 hour weeks and take "home" half that
quote:
Originally posted by Ninehigh
quote:
Originally posted by JoelP
The guy says he works 50 hour weeks to take home £2700 quid. Well, he needs to go f**k himself and get a proper job then.
Well he can have my job and I'll have his and earn this mythical "living" I hear so much about. I work 50 hour weeks and take "home" half that
quote:
Originally posted by JoelP
quote:
Originally posted by Ninehigh
quote:
Originally posted by JoelP
The guy says he works 50 hour weeks to take home £2700 quid. Well, he needs to go f**k himself and get a proper job then.
Well he can have my job and I'll have his and earn this mythical "living" I hear so much about. I work 50 hour weeks and take "home" half that
You must be kidding, he says he has £2.5k a YEAR spare, no way you can be left with half that.
Id point out that i have been there a few years back, i did a year of 60 hour weeks and my tax return that year showed £11k earned. It was a bad year for business, but i never scrounged a penny and worked my way out of it. It honestly boils my wee these people wanting my money.
You are kind of missing the point. IDS stated he could live on £53 a week ( to live - from that I conclude all costs involved in a daily life are included, ie rent/morgage food , energy etc etc., that was the reason for posting, not the fact that the trader worked at all.
David Bennett said he earned around £2,700 last year - around £50 a week - and has had to borrow money after his housing benefit was cut to £57 a
week.
It later emerged that Mr Bennett also gets tax credits, which can be worth between £37 and £50 from the Government. However, he is left with just £53
a week after paying rent and bills.
All that's not clear is if he counts food as bills or not, most market traders have vans, mobile phones which all get spun into bills.
It could be he has £53 a week for fags and beer...
benefits are to keep you going, you are responsible for improving your own life !
So what's the point of the poll, IDS does not need to prove anything, there are millions of people already doing it, I would suggest that he
works long hard hours, at some point has gained a decent education, okay he may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth but everyone can
improve their education.
Could the market trader do IDS's job, infact could anyone on the forum ?
The poll then is just a waste of time.....
[Edited on 1/4/13 by mark chandler]
It 'could' be yes, in which case I live on less - much less, although you dont want at my house if you dont like beans 
, as I say the
point was that IDS said he could manage . for someoone that lives the high life, it would be nice to see if he could, this was not meant to provoke
attacks on those who cant work..
quote:
Originally posted by mark chandler
So what's the point of the poll, IDS does not need to prove anything, there are millions of people already doing it, I would suggest that he works long hard hours, at some point has gained a decent education, okay he may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth but everyone can improve their education.
Could the market trader do IDS's job, infact could anyone on the forum ?
The poll then is just a waste of time.....
[Edited on 1/4/13 by mark chandler]
^^ Thank you, I dont think folks are reading the second link i gave, or not reading it correctly..
I doubt anything will come it either, but folks should watch what they say on 'Live' radio because 94 1/2 thousand folks want him to carry
out his pledge. ( As at 11pm)
[Edited on 1/4/13 by Westy1994]
unfortunately I cant remember the name but i'm sure a Tory MP did a life swap program a couple of years back and managed fine living on JSA. a bit more googeling and im sure I will find the link
I did ok on £25 A WEEK back in my student days even had money for beer
I've signed .... ..... He should stand by what he's said, although I doubt he will , put up or shut up so to speak
Best way to challenge the goverment is to vote UKIP! Simple.
I did as well, back when it was at 20K, I am astounded its past 100K now, I wonder what will happen... Hate to be him in the morning, back at work after the Easter break.
The last time they tried to get MPs to live on what they would get in benefits, one went off with his week's money and came back two hours later
for "the rest of his money", as he thought the money that he had been given was for his lunch!
quote:
Originally posted by JoelP
Honestly, ive had it up to my eyeballs with people moaning about these benefit cuts.
Well if you count Mortgage, rates, electric, water, heating and car costs as 'the bills', then I have about 500 per month to live on, -
there are 3 of us though, so thats about £42 per week each (food, clothes,cleaning materials, alcohol,the dogs, dental, glasses etc ...), and I think
I have a decent lifestyle from that, so £53, IF thats what its for is more than enough. My figure is a bit of a cheat as my missus also earns - we
just use all her money for holidays/luxurys so its not 'normal' income if you like, and we could live without it.
I met a retired guy in morissons a couple of years ago and we were chatting in the queue at the till - he recons he gets food for him and his missus
for £10 per week - he has just learnt what time they put the food into the 'sell today' discounted shelves and buys everything from there.
He had decent food in his basket - a lot of fish and fruit/veg/milk etc only last a day or so, so its on there at the end of the day that you would
have bought it 'fresh' in the morning (no drink though)
Regards
Hugh
Food prices are rocketing initially it was hidden by stealth changes to pack sizes and down grading on quality.
We thank to the Thatcher era have destroyed our industrial base, now we also destroyed whole swathes of highly productive efficient agricultural
and are dependant on food from eastern Europe and Asia.
At the same time the country is facing excessive immigration which is distorting the jobs market from the low end up, it used to be if you were
stuck in a dirty smelly pleasant job at least you got paid a decent enough wage to live on.
quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident it used to be if you were stuck in a dirty smelly pleasant job at least you got paid a decent enough wage to live on.
There are a few food related factories round here processing chickens and they only seem to employ
itinerant immigrants. The owner of one of them was prosecuted last year for importing illegal immigrants and paying them just enough for their
accommodation and cigarettes. They don't seem to need food you can go past any time of day and see a crowd of them outside smoking and on the
phone. It's jobs no-one wants to do, there are plenty of young ones round here who are better off on dole than they were on pocket money and seem
to make enough to get to the pub to the betting shop.
Well the petition is now in excess of 250.000 people, most of which will be voters
I think Mr Duncan Smith might just be paying a bit more attention to what he says in future....
Like i said before though, there finished at the next election and senior members of the Tory party have already said that unless they turn it around
they'll be giving after dinner speeches instead of ******* us up for good & proper.
There goes 300 thousand, I can see this getting half a million at this rate, its only been running for just over 30 hours.
Agreed , they won't get in again, or at least I would like to hope they don't. We never voted either of them in anyway, last election was a
farce - I do hope the rules have changed for such outcomes.
I know where my X is going next polling day
I grew up in an era where the Conservative party had moderate social policies but believed in defending the country. Then somehow under Mrs Thatcher
the class war adopted a scorched earth policy creating an industrial waste land, then for a while a sanity if grey lacklustre returned. Then
Labour took over for while with Tony Blair acting like a Thatcher clone while the Conservative party stabbed each other in the back.
In the era of Labour rule the Conservative party while they had an excellent selection of potential electable leadership candidates seemingly
deliberately chose leaders that the voters of this country could never elect.
But now we have a Conservative party with Lord Snooty Dave and the Eton massif running country backed up by Liberal party that is more
spineless than an earth worm God help us all.
We have country that can't feed itself, can't make anything and can't even defend our shores unless we go nuclear.
If I lived south of the border I would be very worried about next years coming Scottish referendum, if Scotland chooses independence the
English political scene will lurch so far to the right it will make Czarist Russia look like a meeting of a play group mothers.
[Edited on 2/4/13 by britishtrident]
Kind of moved off topic, however....
If we had stayed under labour where would we be now, like Greece ?
Gordon Brown flogged all the gold at a knock down price, when the new government asked where all the money was they were given a blank sheet of paper
and told its all gone.
We are in a global recession, labour strikes, poor quality products and failure to move with the times have killed the industry whatever government
was in power would have suffered with this.
Labour/liberal ultimately leads to recession
Conservative comes to power and things turn around, at least we are stable now.
Have a look at a graph of boom and bust against governments in power for the last 100 years, I'm glad we do not have the useless labour in power
now or things would be much much worse...
[Edited on 2/4/13 by mark chandler]
@ BT
Again agreed, I have never bothered with politics much in the past, I guess because when you are young it seems of no interest, but the older I get
the more it starts to be a real concern. I perhaps wish I had taken more notice of this back in my 20's and 30's and not simply been
herded about like everyone else .
[Edited on 2/4/13 by Westy1994]
Having read a lot on here I think that many have got it wrong. My parents remember when people really had nothing. The NHS was formed and women with
prolapsed wombs were waiting in lines for the chance to have free medical care. And when benifits came in they were all happy as at last no one
starved but there was a distinction. People in work were better off than those who could not work, there was no expectation that those not in work had
the same as those who worked.
Fast forward to now and people are making a career out of benefits, not what the system was ever designed for or capable of sustaining. Now if people
read the article carefully what IDS said was that after all the bills were paid he could manage on £53 per week. This is supported by some on here who
after paying their own bills have similar amounts left after working 40 hours and many others that report the same, but why let facts get in the
way!
There are jobs about, take for example Linconshire and East Anglia, there are hunderds of jobs but the locals refuse to do them instead they have
Poles and many others who have moved here willing to do them, if those locals had less generous benefits they would take the jobs, yes I know it is
hard work in the fields but there are many fit and capable of doing that work.
The big problem is that people are brought up to expect cars, TV, sky holidays even if they do not work. Until this cycle is broken the country is on
a down hill course.
Labour spent more than we had it is simple economics and have jumped onto blaming the bankers for all the woes of the world. True they share the blame
but the regulators employed by Labour did not work and whilst the banks were doing well they took the glory as well as the massive tax the bankers
paid. Remember on a Million pound bonus over £500k went straight to the tax man, we need more of that sort of tax take not less.
I hear too many times Thatcher being blamed but she was in power 23 years ago plenty time for others to take a share of the blame and to change
things.
Unless you all want to see the UK decsend like Greece, Cyprus,italy and France were the answer was to tax the rich, so much so they are leaving and
the tax take has dropped by a huge amount, we have to have hard times to get things on an even keel.
I am old enough to have seen this many times before, The Conservatives make cuts to balance the books, everyone gets fed up Labour get back in and
spend like crazy and the cycle goes around only interuppted by Wars and the inevitable recession that comes from spending to excess.
I have a friend who is very close to a Labour politician, they were happy to loose the last election as many of the cuts that are taking place were
planned by them and they knew they would hurt. This way the Tories may well become unelectable for may years to come but Labour will not reverse any
of the things that have happened. They did not reopen mines, they did not renationalised any of the utilites they objected to when in opposition, they
did nothing about immigration, the railways were still being subsidized by them etc etc.
The bottom line is we need the cuts and yes it will be hard for many, but for many that is what is needed to get them off the dole. Don't get
sucked in by the headlines read widely and try to base action on facts not fiction. As the economy grows, which it will, jobs will be created.
+1 to spaximus.
America, due to their daft political system, had not managed any serious austerity, and their debt has reached 17 trillion dollars. This is totally
unpayable.
There are some of the opinion that world debt is beyond what can be worked off and mass default is how it may end. Obviously no one wants to be the
first to admit that.
spaximus, may I ask how you would react to , say for example, that due ill heath you hadn't worked for sometime ( could be years if you like) and despite having sent more job applications out than you had had hot dinners you never even got an interview, you have applied for jobs that you were overqualified for as well, how would you cope on seeing your income drop every year. I understand your points, but for the folks that are unable to even get considered in the first place for work, its tough I imagine.
Having good benefits is a by product of having a strong industry, the welfare state was bought in by conservatives when England was at its high
point.
For industry to blossom we need stable government and fiscal policies that encourage growth, not strangle those that do well and then the work will
come and unemployment will drop.
Mark, what's your take on my made up scenario above, I'm sure those folks exist out there.
quote:
Originally posted by Westy1994
spaximus, may I ask how you would react to , say for example, that due ill heath you hadn't worked for sometime ( could be years if you like) and despite having sent more job applications out than you had had hot dinners you never even got an interview, you have applied for jobs that you were overqualified for as well, how would you cope on seeing your income drop every year. I understand your points, but for the folks that are unable to even get considered in the first place for work, its tough I imagine.
quote:
After the second miner strike I move to Bristol from Yorkshire to find work, which I did
quote:
Originally posted by whitestu
quote:
After the second miner strike I move to Bristol from Yorkshire to find work, which I did
Isn't that the wrong direction? Yorkshire wasn't exactly a jobs hotspot after the miners strike!
Stu
quote:
Originally posted by Westy1994
Mark, what's your take on my made up scenario above, I'm sure those folks exist out there.
The press love to pick on the worst cases and make out it's the norm and unfortunately the unemployed never seem to be given a voice to
answer.
Company takeovers, reorgs, negative cashflow, tough ecconomic operating conditions; there are many reasons why working people through no fault of
their own can find themselves no longer working.
Add to that the disapearance of whole types of occupations and the way many employers are now looking for graduates to fill jobs that 20 years ago
would have gone to someone with 3 O'levels.
Add to that the fact that so many employers seem unusually biased against the long term unemployed.
It is many years since i went through a time of unemployment but i can still remember it very well - can remember the effort i had to put in to dig
myself out of it and how lucky i was that it all came together because it just doesnt happen that way for everyone however hard they try and however
much the deserve it.
No, unemployemnt should certainly not be a way of life- but to me that just means the government needs to focus much more of it's energy on
finding ways to create more jobs. We cannot criticise people for claiming benefits when there is no viable alternative for them. I certainly dont
regard myself fit to judge them.
Personally I would look at making it obligatory for all large companies that operate in the UK to be made to employ a certain number of permanent
staff for every £ 1M of their pbt.
Some of these companies have very effective ways of wriggling out of paying corporation tax so lets look seriously at reducing the obligation on tax
and scaling up their obligation to create jobs.
quote:
Originally posted by mark chandler
the welfare state was bought in by conservatives when England was at its high point.
quote:
What !
You funny.
The modern idea of a Welfare State (which originated with the much earlier 'Poor Laws'was started by the Liberals and came to fruition after Labour won the 1945 General Election.
Do you seriously believe that the Conservatives give a toss about the average working man and his family?