Nanny State

[Flanker8]

Why does Labour hate us looking after ourselves?

 

For those that do want to look after themselves, comrade Brown tries to discourage this by plundering personal and company pensions of �5 Billion a year (my father in law's pension has been more or less wiped out), and those that can't be bothered to look after themselves are almost encouraged to stay at home because of the wealth of benefits they can receive.

[Flanker8]

Yes, I am unashamedly mid right of centre.

[smudge]

BENEFITS 

When on a 14 day holiday in Tenerife last year, a middle aged couple wanted to make friends with us. They seemed to be quite 'well off' as they were also paying for their two married daughters & Grandson to stay in our upmarket, expensive Hotel. As the days went by, the husband told us he hadn't worked for 15 years, due to a problem with his back & was on incapacity benefit. This man went on to join in volley ball & all the other excerting games. As the days went on, I couldn't even look at this man, who was living off my husband's & my tax contributions. His wife was very nice & had a little cleaning job to get them by! Not bad for someone living in a large private detached house & holidays twice a year - All On Benefits! 

Before the flak, I am not saying that all people on benefits fit into his category.

[WaldoMcFroog]

Did you have enough details to report him to the DSS?

[smudge]

Hi Waldo - before this couple left the Hotel, they gave us their home address & asked us for ours, as they really liked us & wanted to keep in touch & exchange Christmas cards (which we won't)!

As I'm a bit of a softie (to a degree), I wouldn't like to report him. His wife was a really nice lady, perhaps that's what's stopping me.

What would you or others do?

[El D]

So you complain but fail to take any personal action? I am afraid as long as this stance is taken people will screw the system.

[WaldoMcFroog]

I'm sorry, but I'd have no problem with reporting some one. The welfare state is not supposed to provide a life of luxury for someone who has decided to defraud the system.

If you're really bothered about shopping this person, why not drop them an anonymous letter saying you know they are defrauding the benefits system and you will shop them if they don't stop it immediately. Post it from somewhere well away from where you live though.

[Miss Zippy]

Who�s to say that the people Smudge befriended are defrauding the system? The problem is with the system � allowing people who are clearly capable of working to get away with claiming they are too ill/incapacitated to work. We all know that GPs sign off people as sick willy-nilly. I know someone who is an alcoholic who hasn�t worked for 15 years but his doctor continues to sign him off a being incapable of working. His wife also gets a carers allowance for looking after him. Our benefits system is too generous and, therefore, there is often no incentive for people to get back to work.  This person  and his wife live very comfortably, affording a nice car and foreign holidays (such as South America and China, so not even your average package holiday) but I know for a fact he is not defrauding the system.  

[smudge]

Yes I know it's wrong not to shop him & that it is why so many scroungers are getting away with it. I'll have to have another think about it.

[Flanker8]

I've shopped somebody before - I knew of a council tenant who was renting out his council house whilst living with his mother: he was investigated and evicted - I had no qualms about doing this whatsoever, and would do it again without hesitation.

[Quizmonster]

What Brown did to pension funds was to cancel a Dividend Tax Credit that they had been taking advantage of for years. You may not be aware of it, Flanker, but a 'dividend' is unearned income. Why on earth should people get away with paying tax on unearned income when everyone who has an earned income has to pay tax on it?

Fund managers invest money where they think it will produce most income...tin, let's say. So wretched little people in Malaysia and Bolivia plunge into stinking holes in the ground to dig tin out. If the world market is favourable, the manager's investment will pay off handsomely...without it making the slightest difference to the hole-in-the-ground people's earnings, of course.

That handsome payout is the pension fund's unearned income, if the manager then sells the tin-mining shares at the hoped-for profit. That's what Brown taxes - and perfectly rightly so - thus any notion of "plundering" is just a mantra of the demented right-wing press.

[OBonio]

Hmm, me thinks Quizmonster is as misguided as Mr Brown is ;o)

[Flanker8]

OK, what about the increase in NI (a tax by any other name): I try to look after myself by having private medical insurance and permanent health insurance - surely I'm entitled to an NI refund??? No, instead I'm P11D'd on them. Outrageous.

[Miss Zippy]

Agree with you Flanker 8, it�s crazy that you�re taxed on PMI premiums as a benefit in kind when having such insurance in place is potentially relieving the NHS.  Just don�t get me going on fiscal drag!

[smudge]

Flanker & Miss Zippy -This always used to get me too! My boss used to pay my PMI, but I was taxed on this 'benefit in kind' , along with all my other 'perks'. So, why shouldn't we have a NI 'refund in kind' for relieving the NHS of 'some' of its services?

[Quizmonster]

When it was proposed that the NI contribution was to be increased, the funds going to improve the NHS, many polls were held around the country and invariably about 9 out of 10 people asked said :"Great idea. Go for it!"

I presume those of you now whingeing about it were among the 1 out of 10 who didn't like the idea? Ah, the power of the majority!

[Oneeyedvic]

QM - wonder how that question was asked........do you think it was along the lines of....would you like to pay another tax of 1% even though we promised not to raise taxes......or was it....despite the fact that you pay for private medical insurance, do you mind being taxed so that others can use the NHS?.........or was it.....would you be prepared to spend 1p in every �1 if you knew that all the money was to go into the NHS which would run perfectly and we could quarter all waiting times.

Ask 10 labour supporters in various parts of the country, and guess what the response is?

 

Labour spin.....of course not.

 

The secret to living in a Labour government is to make sure you are not prudent, don't have any savings and don't bother working. You can then rape the state for all its worth.

 

And Smudge, sometimes, you have to put away personal feelings and just report someone.....phone them up....its all done annonymously

 

Miss Zippy - if someone goes to their doctor and can play the system (playing volleyball with back problems) they are defrauding the system.

I reported my cousin who was working whilst on benefits. I stood up for my principles and don't talk to my family.

[El D]

A dividend is the result of investing in the potentially risky field of stocks and shares. Unless the government wishes to kill growth then the dividend is a legitimate method to encourage investment. I find it bizarre that people think the govt are entitled to tax every form of income . . .

[El D]

The point is quiz - how much of those increased and naively given funds have gone to slashing waiting lists by statistical manipulation? And how much to actual NHS improvement. If the government was to judge itself by the same criteria as it had done previously and was to commit to performance related results, how do you think they would have done? My guess is, not enough to justify the increase in taxation we suffer every year. The govt is a fat pig, and until the private consumer votes with their wallet they won't listen.

[Quizmonster]

Vic, I can't remember what exact question was put but the fact remains that the vast majority of the public was in favour of the NI increase. Remember, these were not government-sponsored polls, but polls organised by the major polling organisations such as MORI etc. There was no question of Labour spin.

El D, taxing income may well be 'bizarre', but it has been the norm in Britain - under whatever hue of government - for about two centuries. Why one should be able to evade tax on money got by doing nothing and not evade it on money got by doing something is even more bizarre, surely.

Re NHS improvement, there is a problem of perception involved. The fact is that, when people are asked what their own experience of improvement is, they almost invariably say: "Oh, it's much better at Rugby Royal Infirmary nowadays! I got my knee replacement after waiting just three months." (I made up the name, but it could be any name anywhere in the UK.)

When the same person is asked about NHS improvement in general, across the land, they almost equally invariably say: "Things are still bad. Waiting lists are too long. Old ladies are left lying on stretchers in corridors for hours"...and on and on.

In other words, they cannot see improvements in Coventry, Lincoln or wherever and just take the word of biassed newspapers and politicians who constantly tell them that's what's happening. 

[Flanker8]

Really? 90% of people agreed with the removal of the NI cap/increase in NI?

 

Blimey - where did they ask? The Bolton Trades & Labour Club? The Doncaster Trotsky Ballroom Dancers?

 

Flippant? possibly, but I no of no one who agreed with it, and having just done a straw poll in the office, an office with a reasonable cross section, our percentage is the exact opposite with 90% disagreeing - but perhaps that's because most of us have private medical insurance (interestingly, the two that were happy with it are left of central and do not have PMI - hmmm, speaks volumes me thinks!).