Cameron and cutting housing benefits for under 25s

[David Johnson]

Now I freely admit that I have seen idiot legislative ideas come out of governments of all descriptions.

However, Cameron's suggestion that housing benefits should be scrapped for under 25's, thus saving about ?1.8 bn. just about takes the biscuit for the most stupid, cruel, ill-thought out, contradictory idea I have heard a government come out with in recent times.

Cameron said working age welfare should principally be for people with no other means of support who have "fallen on hard times" - and that doesn't necessarily include under-25s being subsidised to live independently when they could move back into the family home.

Ok, Dave what about those who:

Have been in and out of care for most of their childhoods and have a chaotic relationship with chaotic parents?
Kids who's parents have had enough of them and don't want them in their house.
Parents who have downsized to get some cash and/or whose houses are hopelessly overcrowded as it is.
Parents who are abusive to their children.
Have actually left home because there are no jobs in their area and gone to London to get a job and need housing benefit to help support them pay the rent whilst they work.
All those people who are doing piss poor pay jobs which do not cover the private landlord rents which have soared. etc etc etc.

This strikes me as an insane idea.

And another thing Dave, you heavily moisturised arsehole, why are we in this situation in the first place with a spiralling housing benefit bill?

1. Your predecessors, Thatcher and Major presided over a huge sell-off of council housing which the subsequent Labour government did little to change. The privatisation of council housing was one of the most shameful measures that Thatcher introduced. Selling our assets at knockdown prices.
2. The building of affordable social housing has almost come to a complete halt.
3. The result of this enormous reduction in the availability of state owned social housing is that people are thrown into the not so caring arms of the private sector where buy to letters etc are creaming it with ever increasing rents so that the majority of people in London who get housing benefit in London are actually working.
4. And needless to say, successive governments have done nothing to cap private rents.

If just for a millisecond I forget how much I despise this Eton educated Bullingdon boy, extremely wealthy though not from any of his own efforts, who has never ever had to scrape around to find where the next few quid are going to come from and then has the brass neck to lecture the less well off on their culture of "entitlement", I just have to think about this completely, fucking insane idea and the hatred comes flooding back.

[Sam Slater]

1. Make unemployment high.
2. Slash benefits and make it harder to claim them.
3. Deny housing benefits to the under-25s.
4. Create a system where there are more would-be-workers than jobs.


I wonder if there's more profit to be had from an army of unemployed, desperate, homeless people? Will it lower wages over time? Will it put more power into the employers' hands over the workers'? Will workers be so afraid to lose their jobs due to the consequences, they'll put up with worse conditions, more hours, less money and fewer holidays? Will all this mean higher profits for the very rich who run large companies?

I think 'yes' to all my questions.

[David Johnson]

It seems to me that what summarises the Tories is their use of the "politics of fear and envy".

I remember all that blah years ago that Cameron was going to re-define the image of the Tory party so that it was no longer the "nasty party" and we had all of this "We will be the greenest party of all time" "the NHS is safe in my hands" blah blah.

What we have got instead is a Tory party which is nastier than ever. At least with Thatcher it was perfectly clear what you were voting for. What you saw is what you got.

Examples of this politics of fear and envy include:

1. Telling the public in May 2010 that we are just like Greece and on the brink of collapse in order to push through their cuts. Even though over two years later, the economy is now in a far, far worse shape than it was in May 2010 and Osborne is borrowing more money than the Alistair Darling plan, hey presto, we haven't collapsed.

2. We haven't got the money. Trotted out for every cut in benefits which anyone might oppose. Tory, Winston Churchill said the same about the NHS after the Second World War when Britain was in as big a debt, if not bigger proportionally, as we are now. He opposed the setting up of the NHS on the grounds that the country could not support it.

3. Setting one set of people against other. "How can it be fair if your son is staying at home to save for a mortgage when a 22 year old can just rent a bedsit and get it paid for by the state?" "How can it be fair that you private sector workers get a piss poor pension because their company directors are more concerned about offshoring all the profits to avoid tax so they can hugely increase their own wages and pensions, whilst public sector workers get a decent pension" "Surely it can only be fair when all workers are pissed on re. their pensions?"

Stinks!

[Jonone]

For some reason these kinds of proposals related to benefits are publicised on Sundays. This was originally in the news a week ago. It's a bit of a non-story because it's a proposal, it's a 'might' and it wouldn't be effective until after the next election and a lot can happen before then. However it does serve to reinforce their ideology and I dare say it's gone down well with the people it was intended to go down well with.

Haven't they got more important things to be concerning themselves with ?

[Hugh6821]

If enacted it will force a lot of young women into different areas of sex work.

Now I do enjoy young women doing porn, but I do prefer them to do it for other reasons than being forced into it by having their benefits cut.

[David Johnson]

"This was originally in the news a week ago. It's a bit of a non-story because it's a proposal, it's a 'might'

I realise it is a proposal which is why I used the phrases "legislative ideas" and "Cameron's suggestion" in my post

I don't think it is a "non-story" because:

As you say it indicates a direction of travel or "ideology" to use your term.

It fits in generally with other measures which have already been passed into law.

And thirdly Osborne indicated in his March Budget that the welfare bill should be cut by another ?10bn between 2015 - the expected year of the next election - and 2017. This was mainly due to Osborne doing a piss poor job on meeting his own targets. And this level of welfare bill cuts was supported by the Lib Dems. So heaven forbid if this lot gets in again.

[max_tranmere]

I wonder what will happen to these under-25's. I've never been on Benefit but those under 25 who have no choice, through genuinely not being able to get a job or because they are disabled, are now really going to struggle. I agree with what you say that Cameron and co have no idea what it is like to be one of these people, but politicians of whatever background never really seem to acknowledge the difficulty some people in society have. John Major, for example, was a Tory but had really experienced hardship when younger. He grew up poor and was on the Dole as a youngster - the only Prime Minister we've ever had who was on the Dole. Yet he was as much an ivory-tower merchant as David Cameron.

George Osbourne has no clue either. I read that his family own the largest interior furnishings company in Britain and they give him a salary of ?500 a week from the family firm for doing nothing. So he gets that on top of his MP's salary, ministerial salary, and perks. Anyone who takes an extra ?500 a week is stating though their actions that the more money a person has the easier their life will be - otherwise why does Osbourne take the ?500? Cameron is of course a multi-millionaire and his wife is set to inherit a fortune of billions. So Osbourne and Cameron like money, like as much as possible, yet want to deny people much much poorer than them money for themselves - money these people need not just desire. Hypocritical, and quite nasty too.

[Porn Baron]

They also suggested that scroungers receiving benefits in parts of the country where the cost of living is cheaper could receive less in Jobseekers? Allowance, housing benefit and disability benefits than those in more expensive areas like Cameroons Oxfordshire. Bloody northerners wasting their benefits on beer fags and ferrets down trousers.

All these suggestions seem crazy. Those Tory MP's Oop north will be worried for their jobs.

[David Johnson]

"I wonder what will happen to these under-25's."

Well, if, and it is a big if, the measure is introduced, many kids will be homeless and either dependent on charities or end up living rough.

I agree Max that there are far too many politicians from all parties who have no experience of scraping a living and come from wealthy backgrounds. Or alternatively there are too many politicians who go to private school, study Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford or wherever, become a special adviser to some politician and end up as an MP without having done anything else.

Obviously there are exceptions. Major as you say did not have a wealthy background. And Attlee came from a wealthy background but was Prime Minister during the great Labour reforming government of 45-51 which set up the welfare state and NHS.

However, I do think it would provide more balance in political life if you had more politicians like Alan Johnson who started off as a postie, Dennis Skinner who was a miner and John Prescott who was a steward on cruise ships as opposed to having a bunch of kids who have done nothing but politics.

[David Johnson]

Wot. Have you seen the price of ferret feed? Gone through the roof it has.

Mind, I can see the point of the cost of living being cheaper in the north and therefore you should get less in benefits. You can go to the pictures t'up north in Blackpool for a fiver and still have enough change to buy a terraced house.

There's young lads round our way who are using their ?67 a week jobseekers allowance to buy flash clothes and jet off to Ibiza and Tenerife every other week.

Its not right you know!!!!