cassandra Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 At last it looks like the Government is getting tough:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/27/nwork127.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weedon Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 Imagine having your "benefits sliced"? Would you then be entitled to incapacity benefit?Did you use to have a column in the Daily Mirror many years ago Cassandra? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cat Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 Welcome to the forum Cassandra, you sound very familiar, have you posted before? [6] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindog Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 [quote user="Cat"]Welcome to the forum Cassandra, you sound very familiar, have you posted before? [6][/quote]Cat - you mean you can recognise someone just by reading " At last it looks like the Government is getting tough:"? [:)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 I think cassandra's been here before.Just look at the title of the thread. Whoever they are they're pretty sure of the response they're trying to incite from genuine benefit claimants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cat Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 Cassandra is a first time poster, and perhaps has no idea how extensively this issue has been discussed here in the past, and how it sometimes provokes strong reactions. If you ever believe that anything has been posted purely to provoke a negative response, you are of course free to report it, or to ignore it, or to reply it. Just remember to stay within the code of conduct when replying.It might give pleasure to a very few others elsewhere to see these kinds of threads descend into argument, let's not let that happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 If it is the original Cassandra of Daily Mirror fame, AKA Sir William Neil Connor, he'd probably need some benefit support, after he cost his paper £1 million in libel damages (he suggested that Liberace the notedly "dress the wrongside" entertainer, er, well dressed the wrong side. Like Lord Archer and many others Liberace committed perjury).I guess his pension fund's a bit short after Maxwell nicked most of it!Actually I doubt it as Connor died in 1967! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russethouse Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 I think he used to live in Fingest.......long gone, as you say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 That was when the Mirror was a newspaper...I suspect that Connor's views may be rather left of centre for today's tabloid readers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weedon Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 But far more interesting than discussing slicing off scroungers wotsits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tressy Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 [quote user="cassandra"]At last it looks like the Government is getting tough:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/27/nwork127.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox[/quote]And giving their friends (and friends of friends) lots of money while they do it. Some of the prosals mentioned would be likely to create a Scam-a-Thon, but from a better class of scammer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patf Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 Just from interest, looked up how much people can get for Incapacity Benefit. Between £60 and £80 per week. The benefit is dependent on sufficient NI contributions. This takes the place of statutory sick pay at £72.55 per week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 [quote user="Patf"]Just from interest, looked up how much people can get for Incapacity Benefit. Between £60 and £80 per week. The benefit is dependent on sufficient NI contributions. This takes the place of statutory sick pay at £72.55 per week.[/quote]You would go white and need a serious lie down if you knew what Mrs Benjamin was earning before she was forced to quit working in 1991 and move on to IB. That's what always gets me about this type of thread. People seem to assume that only low life and swindlers ever manage to qualify for IB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gluestick Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 I become very fed up with scroungers: and government wasting our hard earned cash.At the same time, I become probably even more angry when government acts as if it's doing claimants a favour!Wilson's government introduced the Social Security System in the early 60s. The whole concept was that contributions AND BENEFITS would be earnings related.It was not charity: it was insurance.Meanwhile Thatcher cancelled many of the benefits, removed the true cost-based linkage: and changed the contributions system. You paid more for less.Since then, NIC (National Insurance Contributions) have become simply another tier of taxation. There is no National Insurance Fund: government have wasted all the cash. NIC has gone up and up and upo: and anyone employing people in the UK knows how damned costly employer's NIC is. And how onerous the task of running PAYE (for no remuneration, just as an unpaid tax collector for the government!) has become: and how costly with SSP and SMP and SMP for men now as well as women!As a self employed person I also have to pay Class IV NIC: for which I receive no benefit whatsoever! And this is not cheap: it's thousands each and every year. Another wonderful scam from Thatcher!If this story was about a Private Sector Insurance Comnpany who had taken billions in premiums from policy holders and were now refusing to pay out: and had increased the premiums but kept on reducing the sum insured, then most people would be steaming!And the company directors, hopefully, would be looking at long prison sentances.Call Me Dave has simply rattled Brown's cage: and thus NuLab want to be seen to actually be doing something.It is political posturing; that's all.Of course there are cheats: I wouldn't call Porky Lawson pretending to live in France and claiming his second home in London as essential for House of Lords business as exactly honest! Nor just paying just £15K/annum on his income straight, either.Unfortunately, when Thatcher weakened Unemployment Benefit and destroyed whole industrial communities with little chance of many mature men ever working again, GPs signed men of sick.This added hugely to SB/IB.The whole benefit and contributions system as well as the taxation laws need urgent scrapping and starting from scratch. Successive governments simply meddle with bits: and make it yet more arcane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 [quote user="Will"]That was when the Mirror was a newspaper...I suspect that Connor's views may be rather left of centre for today's tabloid readers.[/quote]Right, let's get back off topic.I had several splendid lunches in the dining room in the old Mirror building in Bouverie Street.On one memorable occassion we were joined by the larger than life (especially in the dental and cigarette holder departments) by Marje Proops and Cap'n Bob himself shortly before he did his infamous belly flop.I don't think any labour politician new/old/or whatever could have kept up with the hard left views being expressed that day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cassandra Posted February 27, 2008 Author Share Posted February 27, 2008 I wasn`t thinking of a journalist, more of the original, when I chose my nick... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 "She who will not be believed"Which I tried to post about right at the beginning of the thread but the bloody forum software kept timing out, so I gave up, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cat Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 I don`t know why, but I always think of Cassandra (the original, not the poster) as a kind of "I told you so" type gal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Katie Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 I don't know why this kind of topic gets people's backs up myself. I know of loads of social security scroungers. You see them jiving down the club on a saturday night then you know they have a board coming up because they don a surgical collar for a day or two, or they may stop shaving and wear a suit with just a vest and trainers. Then they are back in the pub, backing horses and smoking 40 a day and laughing over it. It goes on and everyone knows it.On the other hand of course, we have the genuine claimants who cannot work. You dont need to be a doctor to distinguish a genuine claimant from a scrounger, you just need to live in the same locality. The doctors however have the harder task to distinguish and that is where it become sticky and very upsetting for the genuine guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 Most of the genuinely disabled people I know work - they seem to be able to find something that fits in with whatever restrictions they have, or their employers are able to provide facilities to allow them to do their job. They don't bother with benefits, or only claim those that they really need. On the other hand I too know people who milk the system for all they can get out of it - not necessarily for their own 'disabilities' but for imagined or wildly exaggerated things concerning their children. I don't get up tight about it, unfortunately it just seems to be part of life and the general greed culture.Of course there should be benefits available for those in genuine need of them. It just appears that too many benefits are being misdirected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pads Posted February 27, 2008 Share Posted February 27, 2008 I work with 2 deaf peole and 2 people who have cancer, all of whom carry on working because they have children, and feel they have to carry on for their sakes, they have all told me that they have been pushed by their doctors to go on the sick. I also after a bad car accident mangled my leg and was told I would not be going back to work by my doctor who urged me to go on benifits. It took me a year of hard work with my phisotherepist(sp) and going to the pool and gym every day just to walk with out sticks 6 months later I was back to work. The trouble I have found is with the doctors who are to happy to just sign you off, and dont give you any support to get back to work. He was more than happy to write to my company to have me pensioned off on my company disability pension.[:(] PS I also suffer memory probs since my accident , Some days I cant even remember my friends names, when I mentioned to my doctor I was learning french, he just smiled at me . boy I hope I can prove him wrong in that one too[6] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperlola Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 Crikey, Pads, I'm doubly impressed by your French learning now - I think you're well on the way to proving him wrong already. You go, girl! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patf Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 There are probably many people who have some kind of health problems and have to take a few months off sick, but are longing to get back to work. I was one of them. I loved my job, and the money came in useful too. As Benjamin said, the IB is so much less than the wage, I find it hard to believe people would choose this unless they're forced to. It just never occurred to me to leave for ever. My doctor didn't suggest it either. Another aspect - I think I heard G. Brown saying on PM's questions yesterday that there were 300,000 drug addicts on IB. Or did I imagine it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judith Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 [quote user="cooperlola"]Crikey, Pads, I'm doubly impressed by your French learning now - I think you're well on the way to proving him wrong already. You go, girl![/quote]Couldn't have said it better - indeed, you put us all to shame! And with that spirit, you WILL prove him wrong! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patf Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 Pads , I didn't intend to diminish your efforts by my reply. Sorry if it sounds like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now