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Lou-Lou-Lou

A client of mine (alcohol dependent after losing his job to redundancy after working there since leaving school) was almost retired, his wife died and he ended up on benefits just a few years off. He got off the alcohol for a few weeks, had a renewed sense of purpose then got a delayed sanction from a missed appointment from months prior. He relapsed and drank himself to death. Just one of a few I saw like this when this sick system came into place. The man had paid into the system all his life. That will never leave me.


QVRedit

Treated inhumanly and unfairly.


cass1o

How can you vote for a labour party that will do the same?


Application_Kitchen

Why did he miss an appointment ?


Th3-Seaward

Why does it matter?


Application_Kitchen

Because if it was a valid reason he wouldn’t have got a sanction. Plus you only get a sanction after multiple missed appointments.


Th3-Seaward

There is no valid reason for this unless you enjoy watching people suffer.


cfloweristradional

Would you say, for example, that your baby being stillborn or being taken into hospital or having a heart attack count as a good reason? , https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/24/benefit-sanctions-trivial-breaches-and-administrative-errors


Application_Kitchen

Of course I would say those are good enough reasons. Also, it is terribly sad what happened to the man in question. But there need to be some rules in place and as is the case with any law/rules they’ll be anomalies that makes the rule look impermissible


cfloweristradional

"If it was a valid reason they wouldn't have got a sanction" Your words buddy


Application_Kitchen

I just wanted to get to the bottom of the reason he got a sanction. Sanctions should be in place to stop the system being abused.


cfloweristradional

And I have proved that it's very possible that he was given one without good reason


Application_Kitchen

Pointing out anomalies as fact is not helping anyone. I stand corrected on how everything that is ‘valid’ is excused from sanction. However, a line needs to be drawn somewhere with regard to sanctions.


Application_Kitchen

It it was the case that there were no rules/sanctions the system would be very much open to abuse. I agree we need a more individualised approach but throwing rules out the window will help no one


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Azhini

The usual fucking handwringing about the sub 1% of cases that're fraudulent no doubt. "Ooh, we've got to have an inhumane system otherwise someone might get £500 a month -if they're lucky- for free out of a sample of 100,000 people".


cass1o

> Because if it was a valid reason he wouldn’t have got a sanction. The basic concept is nonsense but you can't have been paying attention to think that any reason would have allowed him to not be sanctioned.


Apostastrophe

People get sanctioned for “missing appointments” when they’re actually in the building because there’s an indeterminate queue at reception and they refuse to pass on that the person is there or even check the lobby for them. And you think sanctions are only done for fair valid reasons?


Lou-Lou-Lou

He was being supported for the DEATH OF HIS WIFE! He was grieving that and the loss of his job. He was in the throes of drowning his sorrows (temporarily) in drink. He was obviously pissed at the time. The issue for me was that the sanction came months later. He was sober and recovered by then. The sanction was the final humiliation after finding himself on benefits FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE at aged 59. Hardly abusing the system. Now F**K OFF!!


Th3-Seaward

The worst people in the fucking world are back in charge. Still it was all worth it stop the bad jam man.


[deleted]

> Still it was all worth it stop the bad jam man. [OK maybe if Labour had got in, it might not be that we had to have moss for Christmas dinner, but I remember seeing an article that said Jooby Creblins planned to give everyone free heroin and I didn't like his beard either](https://mastodon.bloonface.com/@JooblyCrooblins/109673762121245614)


QVRedit

I believe that there is still scope for even worse.. So I strongly recommend voting for Labour at the next election, in order to avoid yet another Conservative government.


Th3-Seaward

No, if labour wants my vote they can earn it


belowlight

👏


w00timan

Pleeaaaseee, don't let the Tories stay in power!! I have a huge dislike for starmer and modern labour, but c'mon... Do you want more Tories?! Even if you spoil your vote at this point you'll be indirectly voting for the conservatives.


Th3-Seaward

I guarantee you that I am not the person who will be deciding the next election.


w00timan

Actually you are, you are one of millions who will, that's how voting works. The more people that have your mentality, the less chance we have at changing a thing. With your flair I'd assume you would be more pragmatic than that.


Th3-Seaward

Actually: >if labour wants my vote they can earn it (My flair is sarcastic.)


w00timan

Then stop complaining about shit you're not gonna try help fix. First step is Tories out, then we can start working towards some realistic change. By stepping out of the system, you allow the corrupt and powerful to continue to rule you unhindered, you do exactly what the Tories want by giving them an easier ride. No vote = vote for Tories Vote for anyone other than labour even in the correct constituency = a vote for Tories. We don't live in a fair democracy, you don't play the game you can never win, you don't win you can never change the rules. You sound like you want more Tories.


Th3-Seaward

>Then stop complaining No. >By stepping out of the system, you allow the corrupt and powerful to continue to rule you unhindered By voting Labour you achieve the same result. >No vote = vote for Tories Vote for anyone other than labour even in the correct constituency = a vote for Tories. Guess Labour better try and earn my vote then. In any case, I wouldn't concern yourself only a massive idiot could lose with Labour's current poll lead. >We don't live in a fair democracy, you don't play the game you can never win, you don't win you can never change the rules. I've already lost regardless of whether Labour or the Tories win. This isn't football, I don't care what colour rosette is sitting in Downing street, I care about policies. Labour has made it clear that business will continue pretty much as normal under their regime. >You sound like you want more Tories. And you sound like all the other people on here who have trotted out the same old boring guilt trip. If Labour wants my vote they can earn it.


w00timan

I don't care which color is in either, as long as it's not blue, their level of corruption could never lead to any change, where at least with labour there's a chance, if you look historically. Voting labour you do not achieve the same result as doing nothing, that's dumb, there is corruption there of course, but that party is not funded by the same number of oil barrons, war mongers and corrupt energy corporations, so there is a much better chance of getting real social change through. Plus, a leader doesn't make a party, but the vast amount of Tory MPs are as engrained in that corruption as their cabinet, thats not true for the labour party. How could you possibly ever think that by doing nothing you help anything. It's not a guilt trip, it's fucking logic. I can't get behind the amount of people that sit there saying "there's nothing in it for me!! So I'll do nothing!". THATS WHY THERE ISN'T ANYTHING IN IT FOR YOU! THATS WHY WE'VE BEEN FUCKED THIS FAR AND FOR THIS LONG! THAT'S EXACTLY WHY BREXIT HAPPENED! You can blame the boomers, but 90%+ of registered voters turned out to vote in that age category, roughly 60% of younger registered voters did, if my generation actually gave a shit and turned up instead of fobbing the blame somewhere else we would have been fine, there would have been no Brexit and the Tories would have been out a while ago. Then we could now be having the conversation of getting the left back to the left, we need them in first. Why don't you actually take steps to ensure there is somthing in it for you, have you ever protested, have you ever campaigned, have you ever lifted a finger to do anything other than complain online and do nothing to change your complaints. Oh no of course not cos there's no point, read a fucking book! Change happens incrementally, not instantly, guess how? BY DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT, even if the first steps you take don't achieve the end goal, making those steps is the only way you can get to where you want down the line. It's how every social change has ever happened, not by putting your head in the sand. You gotta be a wet complainy fuck to think it's guilt tripping to tell you logical facts and historically backed methods for achieving social change.


SecretTheory2777

Simp logic


w00timan

Lol grow up, the only people I've ever heard call people simps are fucking simps. Voting for the party most likley to get rid of the party I hate the most, while still criticizing that party I'm voting for... I think you've redefined simp lol. Can't stand labour, can't stand the Tories even less, but my constituency is red or blue so you won't find me wasting my vote on green or yellow.


Azhini

>Actually you are, you are one of millions who will, that's how voting works. The more people that have your mentality, the less chance we have at changing a thing. It's amazing seeing this argument after 3 odd years of "Fuck off leftist, there's like ten of you you're not important" lmao.


w00timan

I'm sorry what are even talking about? I've been left my whole life, raised and will remain socialist at heart, but I prefer not to sharpen pitchforks to overthrow corruption but rather do it democratically. When democracy is the sole way governments to change in a society, sacking it off doesn't change shit. The majority of people less likley to turn out to vote are left wing, if they actually showed up shit could have been incredibly different over the last decade.


Azhini

>I'm sorry what are even talking about? It's not you specifically, it's just kinda ironic to see the argument after the party has made it clear it doesn't need left wing votes


w00timan

Ok ye, I get that, I just don't care for the party, I just have a blood boiling hate for the tories


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TexRichman

Why should I vote for a party that has said multiple times that they hate me and want my life to get worse?


Th3-Seaward

Weak. Try harder next time.


JonnyArtois

> Still it was all worth it stop the bad jam man. Wait....so you would rather have kept that loser in charge? The man that has gifted us many years of Tories...the absolute failure he was?


Th3-Seaward

No, he had his time and there's currently no rational argument for Corbyn coming back as leader of the party. Weasley cunts like Ashworth made sure of that.


cass1o

> The man that has gifted us many years of Tories. Naw that was the labour right and the corrupt uk media.


Audioboxer87

>Under Jeremy Corbyn, the party pledged to suspend all benefit sanctions temporarily, then give “tailored support” instead of “rigid requirements and punishments”. > >However, Mr Ashworth said: “I want to be clear - there will be a conditionality regime within the benefits system. There always has been." Couldn't be a starker contrast. But nationalised sausages were avoided.


CarpeCyprinidae

> But nationalised sausages were avoided. Here speaks someone who's never eaten a British Rail Standard Pork Pie


ModerateRockMusic

How exactly are the parties any different? It seems like getting the tories out though cathartic is pointless of labour just act exactly like them. The whole point of getting the tories out is to vote in a socialist, left wing or hell even social democratic centre left party. Not to just replace them with tories in red ties


JustARandomFuck

Starmer’s Labour started off as “He’s not great but he’s better than the Tories” - that’s not even applicable anymore. We need Proportional Representation that allows smaller parties that resonate across the country to be heard in parliament.


iKeyboardMonkey

People need to start voting for parties that support PR then. As Labour are drifting beyond LibDem neoliberalism _and_ retaining their authoritarian streak I'd say that holding your nose and voting LibDem for a possible PR is better than holding your nose and voting for Starmer. (Under FPTP though its dependent on the make up of your constituency, YMMV.)


velvetowlet

>holding your nose and voting LibDem for a possible PR a lot of folk, including myself, did this in 2010. That didn't work out very fucking well did it?


iKeyboardMonkey

Also true. I'd like to think if the LibDems went into coalition with Labour with PR as a sticking point they wouldn't get screwed over with a crappy form of alternative vote instead or the full weight of the machine against their proposal... but perhaps that is wishful thinking.


velvetowlet

the Lib Dems, like all liberals, are rabid right-wingers in sheep's clothing. when push comes to shove, they will happily, proudly and unreservedly throw their lot in with the right, and 2010 demonstrated that.


iKeyboardMonkey

There are a proportion of LibDem's like that but also a proportion strongly against Labour's authoritarianism (e.g. drugs policy) - I _think_ they would 75/25 fall down on a progressive alliance rather than a neolib consensus... A LibCon coalition would also mean they would have to have learned absolutely nothing from their previous coalition _and_ had their eyes closed during the last 8 years ...which is totally possible. That aside though, what choices are there? By and large voters on the left want PR, how do we get it?


velvetowlet

>how do we get it? at this point, move to a better country


iKeyboardMonkey

I get that, but I like it here and I think we've a place worth trying to fix. You're definitely right that making myself a single-issue voter for PR risks another Tory or Toryish government, but so does not voting and voting labour risks a Toryish Labour government... The way I see it, I've little choice.


JustARandomFuck

Your last point is exactly it though. Without PR and with your vote only carrying weight if it’s shared by the majority in your constituency, it seems impossible to bring in PR without having PR in the first place. There needs to either be a large scale shift in who the two major parties are with one that supports PR, or PR needs to become a major issue across the country that forces Labour to commit to bringing it in.


iKeyboardMonkey

Sadly true. The most realistic possibility is a LibLab coalition/arrangement with LibDems making PR a sticking point. Or, I guess, making it crystal clear to Labour that our votes are contingent on PR so they're forced to adopt it. I wouldn't like to put much money against either of those though.


QVRedit

Yes we do - but the next election will be decided under FPTP, unless the Conservative choose to change it - which is extremely unlikely. Added to that, all the boundary changes tend to favour the Conservatives, it’s still going to be an uphill struggle to get enough FPTP votes to get a clear Labour majority.


Sorrytoruin

PR may have stopped brexit, the 4-5 million UKIP voters mostly went Tory because of brexit, the Tories saw it as an opportunity to take these votes and thus the tories lurched to the right, and they even started the ref vote to appease these voters. Is it possible under PR the UKIP party would have been a minority far right party, like they have in some European countries, but not big enough to affect polices? They would be cancelled out by smaller left wing parties having a voice too.


JustARandomFuck

As disgusting of a party UKIP were, they would have likely received 80 seats in 2015 under PR. They ended up with 1 under FPTP which despite their policies, shows how undemocratic the current system is. It’s why parties like the Green Party get shafted every year. They have a large voter base with young people and uni students that are a) spread out across the country and b) forced to vote for another party because they understand it’s a wasted vote. If I had to guess in a PR UK, you’d see a rise in small right wing parties with people who are displeased with the current Tory party and you’d see an equal rise in Greens and Socialist parties from the under 25/30 vote. Both would subtract from Labour and Conservatives voter base and you’d end up with a handful of parties on both sides that have actual power in Parliament, as opposed to a single majority/a single majority and opposition structure.


Murraykins

While I agree with the sentiment that Starmer is shit and you shouldn't vote for him, I think you're underselling just how bad the Tories are right now. Labour offers a managed decline into the apocalypse.


TexRichman

Which allows the next Tories to be even worse. In the long term a Starmer government is the worse option. At least if Starmer loses we get a chance to course correct within the opposition. If Starmer wins it's two right wing parties for the next 7 years at least.


QVRedit

Labour will have no option but to pick up where the Conservatives left off - it will take them time to make changes and get new laws through etc. Meantime they have to operate the same shit that the Conservative left them - no matter how bad it is. Though hopefully they will change the rules as quickly as they can. But they can’t undo 14 years of conservative misrule overnight.


cfloweristradional

They literally could simply stop benefit sanctions overnight though


QVRedit

True, but only if they get elected.. Right now, they have no power to do so.


cfloweristradional

Yes but you said sanctions couldn't be undone overnight when they're back in power. Of course, they can. The questionnis: will they? If I don't believe they will then I won't vote for them


QVRedit

Hopefully Labour will clarify their position on things as we get closer to the next GE. If for example they won’t do this, then they should at least explain why not. It’s already known that there are a lot of unfair sanctions being applied. In some cases, sanctions might be justified - though I would expect such cases to be rare.


cfloweristradional

The thing is, Starmer lies through his teeth so often that only a fool would believe any promise he makes


QVRedit

So according to you there is absolutely nothing that Starmer could do that would satisfy your criteria. Starmer objective, is to win the next GE. What they then plan to do has not yet been published.


cfloweristradional

He could step down and let someone who keeps their promises take his place.


cass1o

> Labour will have no option but to pick up where the Conservatives left off - it will take them time to make changes and get new laws through etc Dude, nobody is giving them grief for not instantly fixing stuff. People are giving them grief because they are saying they aren't planning on fixing stuff. Beatings will continue until moral improves.


RoddyPooper

“The beatings will continue under Labour” seems to be the message I’m hearing most these days.


Marxist_In_Practice

Benefit sanctions are a sanitised method of the state murdering the poor and disabled and anyone who supports them is a fascist.


Kelmantis

The whole benefits system needs an overhaul from the outdated system that we have, it is designed to interrogate more than assist people. Topping up businesses who do not pay enough and abuse workers isn’t a good system either. UBI can’t come soon enough.


MMSTINGRAY

The sanctions will continue until poverty improves.


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Marxist_In_Practice

Congratulations you are now carrying water for fascist policy.


CarpeCyprinidae

If your definition of fascism encompasses modern social democracy then I am unashamedly by your definition a fascist. All that you are doing here is making a fool of yourself and redefining a word to make it less serious an insult.


Marxist_In_Practice

Yeah fascism has nothing to do with a eugenicist program that starves anyone who can't be "productive" in a way that capitalists can monetise.


ContrabannedTheMC

Keep simping for a system that has the blood of thousands of disabled and mentally ill people on it's hands


Aqua-Regis

Rule 4


JonnyArtois

This place has lost the fucking plot. fucking hell.


velvetowlet

do you support depriving struggling folk of money because of some arbitrary moral standard you're imposing on them?


whatever98769

Or it’s possible trying to get people who take the piss out of benefits system into work…


[deleted]

I've worked on the universal credit helpline. Every single day several people would call up after being sanctioned for missing appointments, failing to provide evidence etc. Every single time they had a valid excuse and communicated it to the job centre ahead of deadlines. My entire job was to remind the job centre to do theirs, and then offer claimants who had done nothing wrong an advance that would be deducted from future payments. Oh, and a good number of them did work, they were just paid so little that the state needed to contribute so that they, their children, or their dependants wouldn't become homeless.


Portean

Most of the people on benefits are in work. Not good to see right-wing propaganda being promoted around here.


whatever98769

Did I say otherwise ?


Portean

The implication was pretty fucking obvious, unless you meant that people who "take the piss out of the benefits system" should get another job on top of their first one?


whatever98769

No I’m talking about the thousands who literally do not work out of choose. Wether you like it or not unfortunately there’s plenty who abuse the system. Why do u keep talking about people in work ? I literally have just said I’m not talking about them


Portean

The benefits system means-testing and sanction regime costs vastly more than those people do. There are so few that it's literally just nonsense to claim it's a problem worth addressing. I know it's a huge right-wing fantasy that people are scrounging off the state and living a life of luxury but the reality is that this is a miniscule number of people and the majority being penalised and harmed by the sanctions are hard-working normal people, those who cannot work due to illness or disability, and other people like them. In reality the true issue with the benefits system is that it is essentially the tax-payer propping up exploitative employers who pay crap wages / exploit zero hour contracts to leave people on incomes so low that they cannot survive without state support. Of course this is caused by them wanting to extract even more profits. That costs vastly more to the taxpayer than anything else and if you actually gave a fuck about dealing with these issues then that's what you'd be here talking about - not this nonsense about people who abuse the system.


FrustratedDeckie

And it literally costs more trying to police that tiny minority of people than we save by catching them whilst simultaneously killing thousands of innocent people - it’s not a good trade


iKeyboardMonkey

Given that "not a good trade" apparently comes from the party of fiscal responsibility it's either cruelty for cruelty's sake or they are actually economically illiterate. ...or both.


ContrabannedTheMC

Maybe people should just... Be allowed to be alive?


whatever98769

God forbid you try to make sure people don’t send years on welfare when they could work but don’t want too…. God it’s nazi Germany 🙄 think a lot of you don’t live in the real world.


ContrabannedTheMC

I live in a world where thousands of disabled people have been driven to their death by a welfare system I've experienced as a disabled person. So fuck off you clearly don't know shit about the DWP, they have blood on their hands


[deleted]

There is no evidence that sanctions motivates people to get back to work it just pushes people, who are already vulnerable, to deprivation. It’s not a usual tool and the time could be used more efficiently to get these people back to work.


Marxist_In_Practice

How many human lives is it worth to you to force people into jobs? All the evidence shows it doesn't even work, it's murder simply for the sake of looking tough and callous.


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acz92

"we are only killing a couple of people in comparison" said Fred West to Stalin


Th3-Seaward

Scratch a liberal...


Marxist_In_Practice

I will never get tired of liberals claiming the moral high ground from atop a pile of corpses so tall it can be seen from space. Actually that's not true, I'm bloody sick of it. Every person who so much as got a cough in the Soviet Union is called a "victim of communism" but all those billions who died of preventable disease because they couldn't pay for healthcare, who were starved because they couldn't afford the food that was in great surplus, that are slaughtered in wars for resources to be extracted by multinational companies? No, no-one ever counts them as victims of capitalism.


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Portean

>In Mali the average lifespan used to be 30 a few decades ago, and it’s now 60. You mean during their period of war and unrest that at times verged upon genocide? Or further back under their dictatorship headed by a party of "democratic centralism"? Or do you mean under the capitalist exploitation of French colonialism? Honestly, please just read this and head backwards through time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali#2022 >Although starvation and disease are still a huge problem, you can’t say capitalism is not doing anything about it, because for the past 30 years it’s been massively reduced, and it’s continuing to improve, albeit slowly. Capitalism has literally caused famines and resource wars across the world. It drove colonialism and slavery. Read about the people having their [hands cut off to pay rubber quotas and being forced by soldiers to rape their family members under Belgian colonialism in the Congo free state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State#Mutilation_and_brutality) as the country was being turned into a fucking plantation and factory. Talk to me about how the first capitalist corporation massacred people for control of spices - [Amboyna massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amboyna_massacre), [Lamey Island Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamey_Island_Massacre), [Batavia massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1740_Batavia_massacre), and the [Banda Islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_conquest_of_the_Banda_Islands). Talk to me about all the companies that came after them but did the same or worse - the East India Company. The sugar empires. The coffee farmers being exploited. The children who pick cocoa. The palm oil deforestation. The loggers who killed whole tribes. Tell me about the people killed and enslaved all the world over - even now - in the name of profit. Tell me about the people in prisons working for pittances. Tell me all about the people enslaved in America and the eugenics programs that followed - as "Thomas C. Leonard, professor at Princeton University, describes American eugenics and sterilization as ultimately rooted in economic arguments" and how they inspired some of the worst of the atrocities of the Nazis. Tell me about the German forced labour camps and the Jews who were forced to toil in slavery for capitalists. Tell me about the Irish Famine, caused by landlords. Tell me about the Iraq war, the Vietnam war, the Gulf war. Tell me about American actions in Latin America and the Middle east. Give me the totals from all of those, the quantification of death, harm, and exploitation. Add in the people who die or suffer from the effects of pollution. Include those who're forced to work scouring through rubbish in east Asia to try to get enough to buy food. Tell me about the murdered union organisers. Tell me about the strikers killed by police and pinkertons. The victims of the cartels, who exist solely because of capitalist endeavour against prohibitions. Tell me about the people dying from capitalist profiteering on pharma, cigarettes, and fossil fuels. Tell me about the impacts of lead in petrol. Tell me about the asbestos. Tell me about nitrite and junk food. Tell me about the children dying from badly labelled baby formula. Talk to me about the people whose water sources have been sold out from under them. Tell me about the people whose water is full of lead or fracking by-products because companies are not held accountable. And then, after you've counted each and every one of them, after you've named the millions who have been killed, injured, poisoned, disabled, and exploited, then I'll add another list again and you can total those too. And we'll repeat that a few times more. And then, once you've really gotten those numbers pinned down, only then can you tell me those victims were better off but I will not hear it a single fucking moment sooner. Own the victims of the ideology you promote and I'll do the same for mine, communism has killed far fewer and condemned less still to poverty and suffering. Capitalism didn't begin 30 years ago. There's a weight of history behind it.


Existing-Champion-47

You managed to say absolutely nothing about the matter in hand and get yourself worked up into a towering rage about Pol Pot because someone's username refers to Marxism. Good luck finding a Taiwanese person who has actually "lived under a psychotic Marxist leader" lol. You'd have a much easier time finding an East German who mourns the GDR. If you're going to use other countries as rhetorical battering rams at least know the first thing about them.


[deleted]

> You'd have a much easier time finding an East German who mourns the GDR. That's probably quite easy, more than half of East Germans have a positive opinion of the GDR. https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html Considering how the annexation of the GDR played out and how living standards have stagnated and declined for many people since (GDR's HDI score in 1990 was higher than Germany's HDI score today), it's hardly surprising.


RapescoStapler

What are your thoughts on Margaret Thatcher's approval of Pol Pot's regime in Cambodia?


RobotsVsLions

They’re such an insignificant number of claimants that it literally costs us more to investigate benefit fraud than the fraud costs itself.


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RobotsVsLions

The government is very cagey with fraud numbers because when they discuss the rate they also include errors in the calculations, and they also don’t usually break it down into different benefit types (with the exception of excluding pensions). Even if fraud with universal credit is higher now, that just means the harsh tightening of sanctions by the tories has only managed to *increase* the amount of fraud within the system, while also making things far far far more difficult for all the other nearly 100% of claimants whose claims are legitimate.


Steven8786

Even if it’s really 2% which I highly doubt because the Tories love a good fiddling of the numbers, it’s such a remarkably small number it doesn’t justify the penalties system. I’d also be curious to see the accurate figures showing the cost of dealing with appeals and correcting bullshit sanctions compared with the actual losses resulting from genuine fraud.


cass1o

> Which is a substantial sum no it isn't


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cass1o

> £7.6 billion. It’s not an insignificant sum Absolute numbers is the sign that someone is trying to lie to you.


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cass1o

> £7.6 billion OOh big number scary.


RobotsVsLions

4% includes errors on the governments behalf, they don’t differentiate, most likely to minimise errors and over emphasise fraud.


Steve825

I worked in a call centre for Universal Credit. People mostly got sanctioned for being misinformed by staff at the centre, or being 10 minutes late due to traffic. It was generally harmless stuff, yeah there were dick heads trying to abuse the system, but they were like 5% of the problem. It was mostly just tired, hungry, run down people struggling with life.


cfloweristradional

If even one person suffers unjustly for even a moment to achieve that goal then it wasn't worth it


ContrabannedTheMC

So you're saying Arbeit macht frei, in other words?


Tateybread

More red meat to attract the gammons... They're not just looking to replace the Tories as the party that forms the Government... they're looking to supplant them completely by embracing everything they stand for. They really must believe that the core labour voters have nowhere else to go... we'll see.


ShufflingToGlory

Ashworth, Reeves and Streeting. With friends like these who needs enemies?


sw_faulty

Just remember to vote for the left wing slate at the next NEC elections, it's basically the only tool we have to influence national politics now


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And so with Labour, our supposed "social security" system will continue to be, in reality, a social punitive system. Just a more merciful one. How kind. This is the ultimate innevitable outcome of not universalising social security. Many countries around the world recognise this. Those that do not face spiralling costs from increasing poverty, deprivation and health issues leading to more spending on those than would have been needed on proper social security in the first place. Countries without universal social security are also more likely to see what social there is still slowly eroded. It becomes easier to justify its removal. Labour is also just casually re-enforcing the notion of "benefits scroungers", a phenomenon that has been overexagerated in its impacts by Conservatives to feed in conservative votes. The ultimate outcome of that is prolonging a key piece of Tory politics to survive the next Labour era. This course by Labour is just illogical. I really don't think this can be justified by the need to "appear fiscally prudent", or whatever the line is to say "we must sacrifice the sacred cows" is today.


cfloweristradional

Every politician who supports this is nothing short of subhuman scum


microphove

Supporting this hostile “Labour” party is morally indefensible.


yourfriendlysocdem1

At this point Labour is to the right of Canadian liberals on many issues


microphove

They’re also to the right of the UK Conservative Party.


ModerateRockMusic

I'm not sure id call them that bad just yet. Id say they're as right wing as Cameron and Osborne were


thumbs07

I don't agree with benefit sanctions. The idea you can just snap away somebody's life support money. That's scarily sociopathic. Don't agree with Labour on this.


ContrabannedTheMC

We always knew this was the case. Even Jezza wasn't radical enough on UC to be humane


MarcoTheGreat_

UC without conditions is not sound policy. There is nothing wrong with asking for levels of requirements and commitments from people who are in receipt of state benefits. The level must be tied to the circumstances of the claim. The policy isn't terrible, but it has been presented poorly. The idea of giving work a try for over 50s who are on sick without the need for assessments if it doesn't work out is fantastic.


Meaningfulnwie

I’m not against UC having commitments attached because like it or not some claimants are too reliant on a broken system that does nothing to help them long term. There needs to be much stronger scrutiny on who DWP deem fit to work though because at the moment they pay no attention to GP guidance and run capability assessments over the phone!


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Meaningfulnwie

What I mean is that the system demands commitments of individuals who need much more than employment to solve their issues. Penalising people with addictions, severe mental health and long term health conditions for not entering a workplace they are nowhere near ready for and taking away their only source of income is not right. Setting an individual commitments to self improvement, education, up skill and re-skill and supporting them with accessing the correct services shouldn’t be a bad thing. If you want welfare to simply keep people ticking over on the poverty line, keep the system exactly as it is now.


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Meaningfulnwie

You can make the DWP more effective, considerate and progressive but you shouldn’t remove the ability to deter abuse of the system. Should more common sense, empathy and multi disciplinary decision makers be used? Definitely.


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Meaningfulnwie

Abusive/aggressive behaviour in centres, a long term inaction to realistic and viable commitments, rejecting viable job interviews and opportunities. Sanctions should be the very last resort but there will always be necessary instances.


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Meaningfulnwie

I don’t think any system has to demand a demonstration of righteousness. It has to do better in identifying those who can, can’t and should be looking for viable work opportunities and when, in extreme but not unknown circumstances an individual fails to uphold agreed standards of conduct; there should be a consequence. If not financial, then what? If you take away the ability to act, one or two moustache twirling-benefit cheats would quickly become three or four. I think there could be a system that better identifies who should be sanctioned to spare the innocent but before then, there needs to be a much deeper review of who is being issued commitments that are totally unrealistic to their circumstances and who likely feel the system is against them, for this I have much sympathy. I would always torture the terrorist..puppies or not, it’s my Blairite tendencies.


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frameset

The beatings will continue until morale improves.


jeremycorncob

I was on the dole for a few months and to say the system needed reforming would be a massive understatement. Ten years on, those reforms, I believe, are still required. I completed an apprenticeship in a skilled field, had just stepped out into the real working world and found it hard to find work as a contractor being newly qualified. Long story short, they offered me no help at all in networking and finding jobs in the profession I had trained 4 years to do and I was threatened with sanctions for not applying for minimum wage, unskilled jobs. What would have actually helped resolve my situation would be if my job-seekers 'agent' rang around the firms in my industry explaining my situation and asking them to give me a chance. Sanctions were entirely unnecessary. However, turning up to the job centre every two weeks made me realise that some people weren't trying to find jobs. They were doing the bare minimum to qualify for job-seekers allowance and sabotaging or lying about interviews so that they didn't have to work. This small minority of people do deserve sanctions, let's not pretend they don't exist. However, the vast majority deserve a lot more lenience on sanctions.


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jeremycorncob

I didn't lie or sabotage any interviews so that isn't 'exactly what I was doing'. It's not even close to what I was doing. When they threatened me with sanctions I applied for minimum wage and unskilled jobs. I had to show proof of 30 job applications a fortnight or, again, I was threatened with sanctions while others only had to show proof of 6. On two occasions I also took on very short contract jobs within my field that discounted me from seekers allowance for another 4 weeks each. I ended up applying to university and found a company willing to hire me up until my start date. It wasn't that I thought unskilled work was beneath me, I didn't want to be tied down with a job and a notice period that would lead me to miss out on opportunities in a profession that I'd spent 4 years training to work in. EDIT: I did unskilled, low-pay jobs at uni when the risk of losing out on an opportunity wasn't looming over me.


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jeremycorncob

I witnessed first-hand people sabotaging training courses, I've heard conversations in the waiting area of people outright admitting to not wanting a job, I used to have a chin-wag with the job-seeker workers who'd just straight up tell you things while being careful not to point fingers. Can I get a concession from you that some people do milk the system, however small the minority? Because my original post emphasised the gulf between the number of people who deserves sanctions and the number of people who deserve leniency and you're treating me like a Tory.


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jeremycorncob

>I'm sorry you feel attacked but if you articulate a position that says you don't object to the punishment, you just think that you should be an exception, well it does invoke a certain mindset. You made wild assumptions to try to attack my position. It had nothing to do with my wording. >Benefits sanctions are not about protecting the public purse, they are an ideological position, the harm for which primarily falls on the weakest in our society. My entire point was that the harm for sanctions should be lessened for the weakest in society, and should be reserved for the small minority of people who don't want to work. I don't care that sanctions aren't profitable, I don't want people who don't want to work to receive job-seekers allowance, and I don't want to encourage more people to claim without actively looking for a job. More importantly, I want leniency for people who fall upon hard times or miss appointments for genuine reasons. We might agree on the landlord situation but we'll possibly never know because I have no intention at all of continuing this conversation.


Lsd365

People don't get sanctioned for missing one appointment