Benefit Street Where 90% Of The People Claim...

[trt]

If they are stupid enough to take part in a CH4 documentary about benefits they deserve to be belittled!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2534110/Theyve-just-tried-make-look-like-slums-Jobless-stars-Benefits-Street-documentary-accuse-Channel-4-manipulative-stitch-up.html

[flump1]

Naomi, spot on.

[Ric.ror]

I really admired the gent trying it make a living selling door to door until he met up with the woman benefits cheat
I then thought what a mug

[B00]

I liked him too Ric.ror, I found it telling that as well as some get up and go, he seemed to be the only one who could string a sentence together without swearing.

[naomi24]

Ric.ror - me too.

[sherrardk]

I haven't watched it yet (not in the right frame of mind). However, there is a flip side. I could claim money for being thing 2's carer and he could claim DLA in his own right because of his speech problems, bloody ridiculous. He's my boy, he's at school most of the time and I understand him perfectly, why should I (we) get money for his 'problem'? Makes me livid.

[hc4361]

It's easy to see how one street can have such a high proportion of unwaged people. The council, housing associations and private landlords buy cheap housing and rent them out to those on benefits. Those who are working and can afford it make the effort to move away, so another house becomes available for rent to the unwaged. It doesn't take many years for the area to become a ghetto

[anneasquith]

a ghetto indeed, and many around the country, I did think some of the residents sort of '' looked out'' for each other, strange the programme didn't show any family who were in employment.

[cassa333]

Sherrardk,

I agree with you on this one.

I know a few people that get carers and DLA for children that are at school and need no more 'help' than any other child.

In my (humble) opinion benefits should be scaled right back to encourage self reliance again.

It might be tough out there and jobs in some areas difficult to come by but the over reliance on benefits takes a lot of euntrapanorial (sorry about the crap spelling) spirit away from people.

Get on you bike and find a job is almost defunkt now. People now want a job round the corner that they don't have to bother traveling to. f it isn't convenient then they can't be bothered. Shame rreally but hay ho that's modern life .

[emmie]

best not to take part in programmes like this, nor watch them. the makers can spin this any way they want, and if you don't see the programme before it goes out, you could be made out to be the worse person on the planet.

[naomi24]

Emmie, I don't think there was any 'spinning' here. Did you watch it?

[Ken4155]

Naomi, in programmes of this type, editing is 'spinning'. Were we honestly supposed to believe that if the delivery man's door had been open, Fungi would have made off with the sat nav. Whilst being filmed? And weren't many of the residents 'playing up' before said cameras?

[emmie]

no, but i have seen programmes like it, they can and do edit them, and make the people into buffoons, one programme i watched was unemployed Brits going to work on a farm, see how they fared, not one black or Asian face amongst them, only whites, i stopped watching these sorts of programmes after that,

[emmie]

because it was not representative of the population as a whole, or perhaps that doesn't need an explanation. They made the Brits into caricatures, and quite frankly if it had been an honest and open discussion on tv about unemployment, it should include everyone, not a small selection.

[naomi24]

ken, I’m sure some of the residents were playing up to the cameras – their 15 minutes of fame – but that doesn’t detract from the fact that 90% of the residents of that street are on benefits – some of them clearly with no intention of working. That's not 'spin'.

[emmie]

no it's not, but you can't get the full story on these people in an hour long if that was what it was, programme. Some people don't really think how they will come across on tv, the classic is the street interview, BBC, ITV cameras pointing out some newsworthy item, the street interviewee will not be remotely be ready or competent, they will have a microphone, tv camera stuck in their face, and generally what happens is a proverbial car crash.

[Quizmonster]

Benefit fraud costs us about £2 billion per annum. Far too much, obviously, but consider this...that's about a quarter of the 'surplus' created by benefits NOT claimed by people fully entitled to have them!
Both these figures are, of course, dwarfed by the sums lost to the country by tax evasion perpetrated by the rich.
Perhaps there will be a follow-up programme based on the occupants of homes in the Surrey stockbroker-belt rather than those in an impoverished street in the Midlands. Just don't hold your breath waiting for it!

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-qa-benefit-fraud-perspective/15796

[emmie]

how about the massive benefit fraud on subletting, there was a programme on recently, people who sub let their council housing, which gets housing benefit, but own a home of their own elsewhere. They get a double bonus as they get housing benefits and the rent from the sub let property, and according to the programme, its a massive problem, costing the taxpayer many many millions. Often the person who is paying the rent, has no idea its a council property, so if the original keyholder is caught those who have paid rent to them, are out on their ears.

[naomi24]

Apart from one young couple who were caught fiddling benefits, this wasn't about benefit fraud. It was about people for whom benefits are a lifestyle.

[emmie]

as i said they can edit and make it out worse than it is, however for some
it seems it is a way of life, i had no intention of watching the programme, nor any more like it.

[Quizmonster]

Quite, Naomi, just as tax evasion is a "lifestyle" for some of the rich!