Where will the Welfare Reform Bill go from here?

Dennis Churchill

The first thing to accept is that the welfare bill has to be radically reduced, both for economic reasons and social-political one: the majority will no longer support a minority who choose a welfare lifestyle.
As we have become more diverse this reluctance has become more evident. Andrew Neather was wrong multi culturalism will not destroy the right but the left. It is equality or diversity.
The LibDems could position themselves as against these reforms and again go against popular opinion but Clegg’s primary purpose seems to be to be the EU’s representative in the UK’s cabinet so can he risk an election which would almost certainly result in a Eurosceptic Conservative majority government? I think he should ask the Franco-Germans what to do.

Jan Cosgrove

So you 'choose' a welfare 'lifestyle' if you are young and disabled, or your firm goes up the swannee, or your partner walks out leaving you with kids and debts, and all the other things people, you say, 'choose'?

'Most' people are appalled at what's being foisted on them by this coup-by-coalition, and very conscious it's the young, sick, poor and disabled who are being forced to pay the price for the system Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg insists must be propped up. Even Milliband wavers in that direction - must be prepared to accept more of same, slightly tempered.

The lesson of history - nothing remains stable with such huge an widening differences of wealth and well-being. England, once described as an oligarchy tempered by riot. The good old days, yes they are returning.

Ed P

Clegg is almost irrelevant now, caught between a rock & a hard place, his electoral fortunes are unlikely to recover. In fact, his standing with the public is now so low that I've heard in the pub, "show us your clegg", now common parlance for a you-know-what.

JR

Dennis - just a little reminder the cut in question only effects those who have worked for many years, have savings and then fall ill. Essentially it withdraws disability benefit after a year from those parties. Whether that is sensible or fair dependents on whether you believe benefits should be withdrawn from the middle classes and focused on the poorest. However one thing that is pretty clear is the people effected are the least likely to "choose" a welfare lifestyle.

TomTom

It is time that those on Welfare had a commitment to remain physically fit. It is time that nationally there be a Fitness Commitment tied in with The London Olympics so people had organised military exercise in public parks.

This piecemeal approach is simply financial, but it is frankly the kind of focus on physical fitness that only dictatorships seem to care about that instills purpose and motivation in place of the Inertia and Demotivation instilled in Schools and Society in Britain

Scotty

Like the call to riot - backed up by the spend more left campaign even if the spend goes to those who dont really need it because its easy to"defend" paying even more to the disabled and ill and the young and the old and the cold and the out of work and only partly out of work and I cant be bothered and its my human rigths not to work - in fact we should all be on benefits - no one wants to work do they.
Lets take our own money and pay it back to ourselves in benefits and everyones happy - we'd all be in poverty, but content with the fairness of it all!

Fergus Pickering

I do wonder, Tom Tom, how much NHS time and money is spent patching up fitness nuts with broken limbs etc sustained running and jumping and all those things you are suggesting we do. I want to sit comfortably improving my mind and costing nothing. Will you let me or must I march round public parks until I die of a heart attack.

Paul Smith - Atos Victims Group

The government is basically defying democracy by saying it will go ahead with it's plans anyway.

Penalising the vulnerable for the corruption of the rich and greedy is typical of the political elite, this is not an accusation i put just at the conservatives door but all the political parties.

New Labour are in my view just as guilty as Camerons lot, clegg is just a slimy toad trying to keep his tiny bit of power.

We are a rich nation, it's just the money goes to the wrong people, as for people saying living on welfare is a choice, they must be mad, i'm sure there are some people who choose to live on benefits but NOT disabled people or the terminally ill, if the political elite keep on pushing the vulnerable more and more then those vulnerable people in society may start to push back in any way they can, when you take everything away from people who already have nothing then there's only one thing left open for those people, fight back in any way they can.

Dennis Churchill

JR
January 12th, 2012 11:22am
I think this should be viewed as the first change rather than anything final. This group is one that can be tackled relatively easily but then you will see a move to another group.
Jan Cosgrove
January 12th, 2012 11:18am
This will be about the differential between life on welfare, regardless of why or how it occurred and life on the minimum wage.
One in three households in Liverpool now has no one working. Areas such as Tower Hamlets in London which borders on the City has welfare dependency rates that are similar to the most deprived areas of the country, it simply can’t continue.
In a recent post on immigration and unemployment I suggested we needed to consider whether the state was simply becoming a quasi-employer of the unemployed therefore making old economic theories such as the fallacy of the lump of labour redundant. Without a significant differential between welfare dependency and low paid work we will continue to need to import labour in a type of ponsi scheme.

Holly ......

Speaking as one who 'chooses' to be on welfare benefits, as opposed to not being on welfare benefits, due to Mr H having cancer, I can only add to the lefty hysterics by saying "People ARE NOT meant to be better off on benefits than those who work to pay me".

Sorry to disappoint all those who think the ill, the single, the young and the elderly are some sort of seperate species who need more money than everyone else.

Labour MADE DAMNED SURE that anyone getting benefits were going to suffer when the s***
hit the fan and cuts HAD to be made...Just to make the Tories appear evil.

A crock and well they know it!
They are the evil ones....from the leader to the core!

We are a hell of a lot worse off now than we were when we both worked, but a hell of a lot better off than we would be if there were no benefits at all.

STOP! fricking moaning and be grateful that the benefit system is there at all.
We certainly are...VERY VERY grateful.
And just because it is there DOES NOT mean it should be better than working, it is a safety net so people do not end up destitute. Poorer is par for the course, or at least it should be.
The disabled have loads of seperate benefits
and help for both the individual and their carers.
They just have to face the cuts like the rest of the population.

Before the crash we were fine, but I reckon we would be just as 'poor' if not 'poorer' if we had been working during the crash.
My thoughts are with those who are REALLY finding the going tough.

Dennis Churchill

This really is about the concept of relative rather than absolute poverty.
Whether someone has a ‘Right’ to a holiday, broadband, TV, a bedroom for each child etc or just enough to cloth and feed themselves together with basic accommodation is a matter of opinion rather than fact. Just as the young woman claiming making her take a job in a shop or lose her benefits is a breach of her Human Rights is a matter of opinion.
When the manual working class were portrayed as the Salt of the Earth and we were a culturally homogenous society people were prepared to pay high taxes to support the less fortunate. The manual working class are now portrayed as Chavs and as can be seen from the BBC we are multi racial and multicultural sharing, it would seem, very little in common so we are not prepared to pay high taxes to support those we don’t identify with.

DavidDP

"this coup-by-coalition"

I'd be most interested, Ms Cosgrove, as to the constitutional arguments behind this comment.

DavidDP

"We are a rich nation"

A point which doesn't mean we can as a nation afford to pay for everything under the sun.

Further, there is nothing undemocratic about a democratically elected government pursuing a lawful policy.

Radford NG

The clue is in the word WELFARE...an alien American concept.WE have the welfare-state.This was promised to us in 1944 as an official War Aim by the National Government...but we don't have 'WELFARE'.That is an hostile American concept;people on Welfare:something neo-cons and the T-Party are against.We speak of people on Social Security or particular benefits(or even the dole).The term 'Welfare' is used,if at all,to apply to the social services.~~~I believe this cabinet of millionaires are using the economic recession ,which they(like Salmond)sponsered ,to surreptitiously introduce the alien(un-British)& socially hostile American welfare concepts,and attitudes,into our social-democratic welfare-state promised us by Churchill & the Coalition Government of 1944.

Dennis Churchill

Radford NG
January 12th, 2012 2:48pm
Yes, but it is inevitable as we move towards a multi racial and multi ethnic society similar to the USA.
The war aims were designed for those Salt of the Earth stoics carrying their possessions in wheelbarrows from their bombed homes not the multi ethnic rioters we saw recently carrying TV sets from looted shops.

Herr Kartoffelkopf

Paul Smith - "The government is basically defying democracy by saying it will go ahead with it's plans anyway".

It was the democratically elected HoC that decided the plans - the unelected HoL has blocked them. How's that for democracy?

WIlliam Blakes Ghost

When I was receiving my Grammar School Education an English Teacher for O-Level once rightly admonished us as a class for using the word 'nice' in essays because he pointed out it was a word of now real meaning. How apt that the Libdems want to be the meaningless part of the Coalition.

This is yet another domestration of how unfit for Government the Libdems are and how unsuitable and weak Clegg is as a leader of a governing party (if he cannot control his Lords).

The worst feature of this increasingly irrelevent Government are the atrocious Libdems whose hysteria, economic illiteracy and overall irrelevence of their pet policies has become a threat to the future prosperity of this country.

More and more it seems to me that Cameron's 'Chamberlain moment' has nothing to do with the EU but was in fact the signing of the Coalition Agreement.

The sooner we can get the Libdems out of Whitehall the better!

William Blakes Ghost

And what is really not "fair" is that a party who at best can boast the support of 1 in 7 voters (and probably half that currently) has the arrogance to perpetually meddle with the agreed approach of Government in a desperate act of attention seeking and do so by using unelected members who they wish to get rid of. Such hypocrisy is disgusting.

The Libdems are a disgrace to politics and the epitome of the Westminster Freakshow.

Cynic

It's the "we are all victims" mentality allied to the "I've got my rights" culture. The long and the short of it is that the current benefits bill is unsustainable. It's already been shown that immigration has done the indigenous out of jobs, so it's crackers paying local people who can work not to do so and importing others to fill the gap. The welfare state should provide a safety net, not a feather bed. Without incentives to improve and an ethos of aspiration (all completely lacking during Labour's tenure) why wouldn't people wallow in idleness?

Maggie

All last night's vote proves is that Labour and the Lib Dems are still keen to hand over large wads of taxpayers' cash to anyone who asks for them without finding out first whether they are needed or justified. If support of their argument they, and the BBC, will produce some quadriplegics and cancer victims on their deathbeds and invite us to suppose that all claimants fall into these same categories.

Amanda

The 'nice' and 'nasty' thing drives me bonkers.

A mere appeal to feelings and sentiment without reference to facts, arguments, the needs of freedom and democracy, and the ineluctable truth that some people are undeserving or ought to do more to help themselves.

Colin Cumner

I have previously commented on this and other forums that the 'Welfare State' was originally created to address the ills of prewar society when poverty among the poorest of the community was endemic and cruel. Its proponents, both on the Right and Left of politics, never intended it to provide an alternative lifestyle for those who chose not to work or make a useful contribution to society. Over the years, under differing administrations, it has grown like Topsy, not only financing the 'wants' rather than the 'needs' of the indigenous population but extending generous State-funded benefits to those flooding in from overseas who have never contributed a penny towards the various schemes sheltering under the umbrella of 'welfare'. Now the vast cost of all this craziness has to be reigned in and of course, like all vested interests, there are those who will howl 'unjust'. Remember, too, that if we reduce the benefits to those who frankly do not deserve them, there will be more money available to those who do.

Jacqueline Hill

So people supposedly educated by the governments of this country are choosing a welfare life style are they? Whose fault is, dear governing body, (seeing as it is you who have supplied the standard of education down through the years!) That these people are on welfare in the first place? HOW DARE YOU!

Evan

"the majority will no longer support a minority who choose a welfare lifestyle." what a meaningless phrase just think about it. catchy, sounds good, sounds strong, can't be argued with because it's not precise enough, means nothing, could apply to any group that receives governent money from "big busliness" to the "dole scrounger" sorry but you'll have to do better, who are you talking about?

Harry

lets not get welfare confused with just unemployment, about 10% goes on the unemployed, the vast majority goes on children, the elderly and the disabled and don't forget welfare only makes up about 10% of the budget anyway. This is a red herring.

Martin

I wonder how many of the Tories know how frightening they appear to anyone who is in anyway in receipt of any government money for whatever reason; let’s forget the unemployed for a moment. If you have long term health problems and you see a man on TV let’s call him Chris, ranting raving getting red in the face about worthless unproductive people who need to be taught a lesson, then it is extremely frightening. Chris of course doesn't see it that way he is merely stating fact. But as a great man once said simple decisions in an office can translate to screaming death in a foreign land. Chris doesn't see himself as bad and can't imagine that anything bad can come of what he does. Simple fact is he won't be personally enforcing anything that will be left to the army of functionaries. they may make mistakes, cut corner,s misunderstand their orders or interpret them wrongly. Yes to many people what a government minister says can cause true fear and this to the people they serve and that is not good in any time or country. For the first time in my life a in this country governemt is causing me to feel actual fear, not anger or resentment but actual fear of what they may do to all of us.

Jan Cosgrove

DavidDP

Coup-by-Coalition.

The idea is that parties parade their manifestos to the electorate and then gain a majority, the pre-requisite for democracy. If none can, then none can have a mandate to govern. The proper, democratic course is for a further election with the existing government performing a caretaker role, even inviting people from other parties into the Cabinet to ensure business can carry on at a minimum until a new government is elected on a mandate.

For 2 parties now to usurp the right of the electorate to choose a government by cobbling together a cosy agreement the electorate has not voted for is a coup. For power not based on majority of any one party or pre-election-declared coalition with a united programme is not democratic. Cameron did not win in 2010, nor Labour nor Clegg. People have not voted for this austerity or in this form, it is being foisted upon them. Thatcher did not attempt what Cameron is doing, at least she was democratic.

A coalition should be a statement of intent before an election not a bundle after the event. What constitutional precedent is there for this cobbled-coup? What democratic justification? If you argue e.g. wartime analogy, urgency of situation, it means a National Coalition, not a Tory Cavalry Charge with Clegg clinging to Cameron's shirt-tails. You may be applauding but it ain't democracy. Indeed it's downright dangerous, cynical and abusive.

The LDs have dealt themselves what may be a mortal blow for seeking power without principle. I don't feel sorry for their activists - they've had a chance to chuck Clegg, but I do feel sorry for life-long LD supporters who've had their basic anti-Toryism thrown back in their faces.

The coup-by-coalition - a gadarene stampede to get their feet under the tables of power. May they rot.