The problem with benefits is a few people rip the piss out and everyone else gets tarred with the same brush and the tories and the daily mail are only happy to do it . They have even started stigmatizing people who work hard but get tax credits.
I certainly think its wrong for them to use the courts to prevent figures being released about deaths from benefit cuts. I thought we were a democratic forward thinking open national.
I asked the question because I was curious to know your answer. The answer was approximately £70 a week and out of that you may well have to pay part of your housing and part of your council tax leaving you approximately £50 , and of course if your claiming jsa you have to buy newspapers, stamps, make phone calls etc to look for work.So that doesn't exactly leave much does to make cuts from.
Completely agree with most of this post, we aren't that far apart except on a few points.
You make a good point about some cheating the benefits and everyone being tarred by it.
Let me turn it around a mo. In the same way as a few companies don't pay their whack in taxes and the banks were bailed out. A lot of the left persuasion immediately start generalising that ALL companies don't pay taxes and ALL companies if they get into trouble will get bailed out with taxpayer money. Which is quite frankly bollocks. I can tell you we pay all our taxes, paye, vat etc and if my company gets into trouble the government will do nothing to help me, and quite right, its a private limited company.
The trouble with the right and the left is we generalise. Look here, both you and MR mention the Daily Mail as if anything that appears in those papers is wrong because you are not of that political persuasion.
My own view is that we are crippled in this country at the moment by both the right and the left trying to push their one version of the truth on us, like a quasi religion. The truth and the way forward is usually a combo of both political wings, but of course when a government does this if it is a Tory one it is automatically "wet and liberal" and if a Labour on it is "red tory". And so we stamp our feet while other countries just get on with it.
Wow I've written far too much here. Ok to end, I agree that jobseekers allowance is low, but in the end it is meant to be temporary, and yes much more needs doing in training and apprenticeships. Nothing is perfect, in a decade I could be penniless or well off or dead, who the hell knows all we can do is be as positive as we can, realise we can do things to improve ourselves (everyone has something, that is what makes us unique), and realise we ain't got long until we are stardust again.
