Iain Duncan Smith and foreign Big Issue sellers...

[max_tranmere]

Iain Duncan Smith said today (Thursday) that he thinks it is wrong that people from the EU - mainly Romanians - come to Britain, sell the 'Big Issue', and claim working tax-credits. I have to say I agree and I'm glad someone in Government has finally talked about this. Putting aside the tax-credit thing and just addressing the fact foreigners, mainly from Romania, come here, are unable to support themselves, and a charity has to keep them, I think just that itself is wrong.

I've lived abroad twice and if I ran out of money I would have gone home. Most 'Big Issue' sellers you see in London are Romanian gypsy's, they stand outside Tesco's with their headscarves uttering "Beeg Ees-u, Beeg Ees-u...". The reality is that none of them are homeless anyway, they arrive about 9 or 10am and leave about 5 or 6pm, and likely live 10 or 20 to a house, crammed into bedrooms in a semi- in Acton or Ealing, and give their earnings to a Fagin-like gangmaster who gets rich off of it.

Here is an article where Iain Duncan Smith talks about it, there was a feature on Channel 4 news earlier aswell. People's views please. The tax-credits thing and the Benefits-tourism thing is irritating, but I'm annoyed that foreigners are here doing it at all.

Article:

[Essex Lad]

John Bird, the founder of The Big Issue, has also been critical of the way benefits are distributed.

[T]he current system isn?t working either. Far from helping the disadvantaged, it traps its clients in poverty.
For newspaper commentators such as Owen Jones of The Independent and Polly Toynbee of The Guardian, the claimants are seen as victims, lacking any self-reliance or autonomy, to be endlessly pitied rather than encouraged to work.
The fundamental problem that protectors of the status quo must face is that the welfare system is a vast engine of poverty.
It actually provides perverse incentives towards idleness.
It infantalises its users while robbing them of dignity. It promotes crime, family breakdown and ill-health.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z33opNA0Rj
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[Robches]

I totally agree Max. The Big Issue has jumped the shark over this. Selling the Big Issue gives you access to benefits. Well thanks a lot, that's it for me, I don't buy it any more, certainly not from the Roma woman who sells it outside my local Tesco. What the fuck is someone like her doing in Britain, apart from draining the welfare state which she has never put a penny into?

[max_tranmere]

John Bird was on Channel 4 News talking about this last night, and I've heard him say before about how the Benefits system traps people in poverty. Some of them are better off on Benefit than if they worked, so I disagree with him about how people are trapped in poverty. Trapped on Benefits maybe, but then millions of people are trapped in a life of work. Having one or the other as your lifetime means of income means you rely on that source of revenue for an indefiante period. Being trapped on Benefit, as he puts it, means you can rely on the Benefit. What would he rather happen, see a situation where people couldn't rely on Benefits, not know month to month whether the Benefits would end, and have the insecurity of that?

Back to Romanians thing: hopefully now Iain Duncan Smith has talked about this then others will also and with a bit of luck the Romanian 'Big Issue' sellers will disappear from our high streets. I find them VERY annoying.

[max_tranmere]

I also agree with Farage about how we should be able to control our borders. It amazes me that we ever ended up unable to control them. I think it was John Major's government in the 1990's who, as part of taking us further and further into Europe, gave away control of our borders.

[max_tranmere]

As I said at the top, I've lived abroad twice and if I had no way to support myself I would have gone home. These headscarf-clad Romanians peddling the 'Big Issue' in high streets across Britain do it as a job, aren't homeless in the first place, and even if they were shouldn't be doing it because we have no obligation to help foreigners who have nowhere to live. John Bird, the Big Issue's founder, said on TV on Thursday that 10% of their sellers are Romanian, the interviewer said it was 25%. I would think it was more like 75%. Most of them in London are Romanians. Come to Britain and have a means of supporting yourself, or f**k off back to where you came from!

[David Johnson]

What's the problem here, really?

1. Is it with Rumanians?

2. Is it with the Big Issue as a business model?

3. Is it with self-employed people getting working tax credits?

4. Is it with the Big Issue being a charity?

In the article you provide a link to, the DWP states that you have to have an income of more than ?153 a week to get working tax credits.

The business model of the Big Issue is that you buy copies for a ?1 and sell them for ?2. You have to make ?153 a week and be registered as self employed with a National Insurance number etc. etc to get tax credits.

The overwhelming majority of jobs the coalition government "has created" are self-employed jobs. Without these safety nets, the self employed who in many cases are only doing it because they can't get an employee job, would starve.

[Robches]

The point being made is that we don't need Roma gaming the system courtesy of the Big Issue so as to enjoy British welfare payments which they have never contributed towards. The welfare state and uncontrolled immigration from very poor countries are two incompatible things. Most British people would prefer the welfare state to Roma Big Issue vendors.

[David Johnson]

"The point being made is that we don't need Roma gaming the system courtesy of the Big Issue so as to enjoy British welfare payments which they have never contributed towards."

How are they "gaming the system" if they need to make ?153 a week minimum to get tax credits in exactly the same way as a British kid leaving school and ending up "self employed?

So the problem is with Roma then. Most of the Big Issue sales people I see are British in origin. Presumably a portion of the British Big Issue sellers are "gaming" the system.

The welfare state and uncontrolled immigration from very poor countries are two incompatible things.

Well clearly they are not incompatible in the sense of "incapable of co-existing".

Ask the British building workers who went over to Germany in the eighties or those that went to Scandinavia and took advantage of a very helpful welfare system available in those countries.