Moan number 1

This is television. This is not real life.

Distortion exaggeration and extremes are the stuff of TV journalism.

The truth about the 'typical' benefits claimant is dull and would make poor telly.

Switch it off.

Bruce

We are talking extreme cases here and yes it does go on but I will pay scant attention to it whilst corporate businesses can get away with paying little or no tax, millions nay billions of pounds that should go to the taxman is not being paid because of 'loopholes' in the system. why don't we have investigative documentaries regarding this? Hmmm the mind boggles. Divide and conquer.

I will say one thing:

BRIGHTHOUSE

Discuss

In my past I worked for the DHSS for 16.5 years on the front line of the benefit system. I can confirm that the percentage of claimants in such a position are VERY VERY small.The majority, by a very large margin, of claimants were over pension age and were of the generation who had little or no contributory pension entitlement. Most of them were also widows.

The programme was obviously made in the name of sensationalism and a deliberate attempt to wind up Daily Mail readers by pandering to their prejudices.

steve

steve

Steve,

   Working that long for DHSS must have been tough. One of my relatives has worked in benefits office their whole life and it has been soul destroying for them, with the levels of abuse they have taken from across the counter

A tough job indeed

And given that most Mail readers appear to be bigoted morons, that is not very hard to achieve.

I love the Daily Mail,wont have anything else. Oh and the Sun on the sabeth.

Mista H

See, they cannot spell either.

I think these programmes, like many Daily Mail headlines, are crafted to elicit exactly the reaction you describe, MistaH. I'm not saying the case studies aren't true but, like others, they are not remotely representative.  Though I can feel part of me tempted to adopt the same reaction (probably something I've inherited from my late father who loved to have a good rant at stuff he had read in the DM) I resist.  This sort of thing is nothing more than an attempt to stigmatise those who find themselves in the unfortunate position of having to claim benefits. Some of our politicians unfortunately connive in this.

MDS

No, hang on Marky Mark. The state pension is a contributory benefit which people (and their employers) pay for through National Insurance contributions during the whole of their working lives. Here again it suits some of our politicians to group the state pension with non-contributory benefits but it is fundamentally different. We all pay for our state pensions, and should not be made to feel that the government 'gives' it to us.

MDS 

Oh, and one more point on the state pension. The National Insurance Fund (NIF) has been in surplus for some years. In other words the total of the NI contributions going into it is less than the total paid out in state pensions.  

MDS 

In that case, the NIF must be in deficit! More expenditure than income does lead to a deficit.

And I am prepared to believe it.

ATB from George

I'm not claiming one. I'm simply drawing a distinction between payments made by the State which are geared to one's NI contributions and those that aren't. Your dig at MistaH about him giving up his State Pension is misplaced as he has paid for it. 

MDS

George - the payments out, predominately State Pensions, are less than the NI contributions being paid in. Hence a surplus. The fuss about affordability is in part (the other being politics) about forecasting for future years where the number of those in retirement and drawing State Pension are growing which those in employment, and paying NI in, are forecast to shrink. Hence the worry about a deficit in the future.

MDS     

Dear Mark,

I missed the boat then! I left school at sixteen in spite of very fine O-level results, and was given no chance to gain a free A-level and University education.

Till nineteen I worked on my father's farmer - as for eighteen months sole labourer till my brother joined me in the task. This was what Sir Edward Elgar would have referred to as an unpaid commission. Not paid even pence, but living with free board as it were in the bachelor family home, my mother having the sense to leave when I was eight.

Unfortunately when I was nineteen, my father's pursuit of fast cars, faster women, [and the od fast boy - he was not fussy] ruined the business. He went bust in 1980.

Since then I have worked hard for a small wage in food related industries. I never raised the necessary to put down a deposit, and thus the property boom [bad news in any case] also eluded me.

I face working in physical labour for another fifteen years and seven weeks. Yes I am ticking off the weeks by now. I was in the position of short term employment for eighteen months about six years ago, and because I was living in an unofficial arrangement of a multiple occupancy house I survive a month and a half on basic unemployment benefit without housing benefit!

I anticipate that the pension that 'Ill get at sixty-seven will just about pay the rent. I am not giving up smoking and beer [and once or twice a year Vodka] in the hope that mortality will overtake me before retirement!

I have no expectation of a long and happy "Indian Summer" during retirement.

That is my sense of entitlement, before you start assuming what it might be. There is no argument from me on this. The people who know the system and get a fair kick-off in life will do okay, but millions will be in my situation, and even we poor old will be far better off than billions on the world stage when it comes.

ATB from George

Marky Mark

I think you're conflating a number of different arguments here. Arguably those who have been paying their NI for several decades could legitimately argue that shortfalls in NI contributions in the future is not their fault and they should not have to suffer erosion of the real value of the state pension because of it. Moreover they might argue that this and the previous government have abused the NIF by using NI as a means of general taxation eg the NHS levy introduced under the previous government. In other words that surplus could have been much bigger and sustained higher value State Pensions for longer. 

Your other arguments about the sale of state assets and the introduction of fees for university education are quite separate.    

If your broader argument is that we should avoid being sucked into 'benefit scroungers' prejudice I would agree with you, as I think my first post on this thread makes clear, but that argument isn't made by sweeping together a whole host of unrelated issues. 

MDS

Millions of people in retirement will have a Naim hi-fi and a Mac mini. There are a lot of people looking forward to being poor enough to afford that and then to be considering auditioning a NAP 300.  Looks like MistaH might have point. Cannot believe I just said that.

Andy

I very much doubt that millions of people own Naim systems. A few tens of thousands perhaps!

ATB from George

Quite!

ATB from George

Apparently so Mark, to the poor downtrodden proletariat anyway.  The projected surge in future sales figures will undoubtedly reassure Focal of the sagacity of their acquistion.

Andy 

Consider the serial numbers. It is going to take decades for them to pass the million mark ....

ATB from George

Yes but we've only got 15 years and a bit. Naim will just have to ramp up production

Andy

Or drop the prices!

ATB from George

Mark,

Classic! Made me smile anyway.

ATB from George

MM

TBH what i get in pension from HM Govt is a total frigging joke and if i were to give it up(which i wont) i dont think i would miss it that much. How people on a basic pension can survive is beyond me.

Mista h