Welfare reforms

[Not_Fred_Honest]

Hmmm means words Kev

The truth is when I was at CAB.... I just wanted to give them all a good slap. Its why I don't do it anymore.

Its hard to show sympathy or any empathy for those who gave up on work at a young age. while the rest of us are forced to soldier on until late 60's. I'm sure that will be push up again soon to 75.

The state pension is £221.20 per week, £884.80 per month. You have to pay in for 35 years to get too.

My own pension pays 32k per year cos I took it at 55.

The gross is £615 per week
income tax is £74.73
NI is £37.37
The nets £503.29 per week.

Now dear heart Kev babe ........... you mite not understand why people lare f-u-c-k off with working for 35 years paying in 10% of their income into a private pension plan and being tax on it while others like River Sprit whose age is showing at 44... get almost double for doing nothing.

Who do you think is paying for welfare Kev? A man with a young family or single people over 50?

This should help Kev

• Total population: Around 67.6 million in 2022.
• Age 65 and over: 12.7 million people, or 19% of the population.
• Age 75 and over: 5.4 million
• Age 85 and over: 1.6 million
• Age 90 and over: Over 500,000
• Centenarians (100 years or older): 14,430

Over 1/2 of us don't make it to 75, but still were taxed. 7.5 million people never see there state pension. Its saves government 1.65 billion per week. And even when you die, the government still wants there cut. You cant even get a funeral without paying VAT on it and then death taxes.

Sympathy and empathy for the disable under 50? We cant afford it !

 

[Kev45]

Just totally ignore Fred when he plays google bingo.

A few days ago he claimed that he is overweight and on a diet and posted googled images of overpriced, expensive SlimFast shake products (meal replacement).

(Btw, you can buy "whey protein fortified with vitamins etc", which is what SlimFast is, online on eBay etc for a third of the price and better quality and all the gym lasses and lads will know this already.)

A few hours ago though, he posted a detailed list of a diet riddled with unhealthy processed saturated, cholesterol laden shite, calorie heavy with hidden sugars, that you wouldn't even feed your dog and that he claims he fuels his body with.

Feeds himself for less than £30 a week at Tesco, yeah seeing that list of unhealthy shite, he probably does.

Only spends £4 on fruit and veg for 7 days. Oh dearie me, Ha Ha Ha.

Despite claiming, he is a multi-millionaire who lives a healthy kayaking and surfing lifestyle living in an oceanfront million-pound condo, on an imaginary beach in Shoreham.

Let me hold my ribs while I laugh.

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

Kev you can laugh at me, I've been a fool and worked hard all my life.

What I should have done is move countries and gone on welfare in my 20's. I'm sure they'd house me too. And if they tried to change my hand outs, I'd moan like hell !!

Do you know anyone like that KEV

 

[Kev45]

Here is some sincere advice for Fred, who boasted a few days ago that his cholesterol is sky-high but it "hasn't killed him yet".

Stop scoffing white bread and other heavily processed shite. Switch to wholemeal whether it be cereal, bread, rice etc. You need to add more fibre in your diet, lots of it, and you need to eat at least five portions of fruit and veg a day.

Less heavily processed meat like bacon and more white meat such as skinless chicken breasts (not the frozen shite with added salt and water you buy from Iceland) and add more oily fish to your diet like mackerel etc.

Even if you don't thank me, your cardiologist certainly will.

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

And here is my recipes for bacon and potatoes hotpot

250g Cooking bacon
2 onions
4 good size potatoes
2 tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste.

Boil the potatoes for 15 mins, leave to cool for an hour.
Put the bacon, onions and tomatoes into a frying pan, sauteed for 5 mins or until the onions brown.
Remove the tomatoes and save for later.
Add the potatoes and fry for a few mins, then move to an oven dish.

Cook for 40 mins at 180C
Serve with the tomatoes

Oh wait you cant eat pork

 

[Kev45]

Oh wait you cant eat pork

I am not publicly boasting about dangerously high cholesterol, Fred, you are.

What on earth makes you assume that I can't eat pork, Fred?

Because you still believe that I am a Muslim, right, simply because I will defend Muslims against your aggrerssive Islamophobia?

I do occasionally enjoy gnawing on a thick juicy pork chop bought locally from a local farmers market, Fred, but I do not consume the heavily processed crap, every single week, that you have just revealed you consume.

Do you understand why your diet is so unhealthy, Fred?

Now explain how you buy 7 days worth of fruit and veg, at the recommended five portions a day, for just £4, Fred.

Happy Googling.

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

Do you understand why your diet is so unhealthy, Fred?

Now explain how you buy 7 days worth of fruit and veg, at the recommended five portions a day, for just £4, Fred.

Its not a unhealthy diet. I dont eat eggs, sauger or take caffeine. Bacon once a week wont do you much harm.

Kev I know your Mum takes care of your shopping needs and you have no idea how much food costs.

Frozen sweetcorn is £1.50 per kg.
2kg of potatoes are about the same.
Tomatoes, onions, oranges, apples, kiwis, pears are all around a pound pack.

Unlike your poor Mum, I'm only shopping for one person

 

[Kev45]

Fred, I am just letting other users know about your multi-millionaire status, calm down and keep your cheap wig on.

Fred, dieticians recommend an egg or two (boiled or scrambled or poached) in a diet, and they don't recommend heavily processed bacon and all the other processed shite you eat like white bread and heavily saturated processed butter.

Do you understand what causes the dangerously high cholesterol levels you keep boasting about, Fred?

What you typed makes no sense, Fred, like most of what you have typed on this thread, so you don't buy 7 days fruit and veg for £4 and what you do buy is 3 kilos of "frozen sweet corn" and "potatoes".

You, a multi-millionaire who claims that he owned the largest plumbing business in the SE employing 350 staff and now retired at just 62 years old. Living an imaginary life of privilege and luxury that the rest of us can only dream off, living on frozen sweet corn and spuds and bacon.

You would at least expect some humility or just a glimpse of human decency from Fred, right?

What sort of ghoul would constantly attack the disabled, the chronically sick, single mothers on benefits, or benefits claimants in general, after boasting that they have sold their imaginary Brighton town house for £5 million?

The man has more imaginary dosh than he can e-spend in this lifetime or the next. Unfortunately for Fred, he made a rod for his own back on this one, as far as I am concerned.



Btw, I am still laughing at your googled "recipes", earlier today, Fred.

The same bloke who drones on endlessly about cheap tat, ready meals, microwaves and the 34 air driers he purchased last year. Now "sautéing" his 'sophisticated and exotic' spud and bacon hotpot, and then excitedly clapping like a geriatric orangutan while he's explaining to the grown-ups how to cook a googled "recipes" a seven-year-old could prepare.

You believe "sautéed" is the STI you caught in Wigan in 1973, don't you, Fred?

Off you "sauté" now, and on ignore you go for the next 14 days.

In the meantime, keep grinding those dentures, sweetheart.

Hasta luego, for now.

Edited for typo's etc.

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

Kev's mum found him looking at naked pics again and taken away his internet for two weeks

'Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves'​

And what is wrong with eating low cost meals? Every take-a-away sells them for double the price. Ask that man your Mum told you to call "uncle" in his kebabs shop and he will tell you its true

 

[Kev45]

"The government’s plans to cut at least £5bn from disability benefits could end up driving more costs on to cash-strapped councils, according to campaigners and local government officials.

Critics warn that, without the financial support of Pip, some people’s physical condition or mental health could worsen to the point that they require council-funded care services, while their unpaid carers could become ineligible for the carer’s allowance benefit, meaning they would have to pass their care responsibilities to the local authority.

Last week, the Disability Policy Centre thinktank published analysis forecasting that the government’s cuts would lead to £1.2bn of extra costs for the NHS and social care services. “For every pound that someone loses in benefits, you know that – if a council has to step in to cover the shortfall – it’s about £1.50 additional impact,” said Arun Veerappan, the Disability Policy Centre’s interim director of research.

Let’s say you need social care support at home. In order for the council to find that funding and administrative support, that will cost more – especially when it comes to finding the right community therapist and care. There’s not the resources for that … there’s not enough resources in the system to deal with that extra demand.

If you lose carer’s allowance, you’re going to just push more people into the formal [council-funded] care system."

Source today's Guardian, link isn't working.


If you think your council tax is too high now, and it is, just wait until council are forced to take on responsibility for the real time consequences of this Draconian PIP cut.

 

[DurhamLad]

In the end, politics and government exists for the purpose of a harmonious and prosperous society. I'm confident that our elected officials have been a barrier to that over a long period of time. 'Welfare reform' is chipping away at the bits and pieces 'round the edges.

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

Kev's losing his hand outs, Kev's will have to go in the UC office......... and he's not happy

 

[Kev45]

My neighbour might live in excruciating pain all day and all night long, barely walk to the end of his front garden, but he bought a new 32-inch smart TV last month, I saw it with my own eyes when I peeped through the curtains, the bastard.

"Arbeit Macht Frei" (work sets you free).

So on a positive note, at least the disability benefit cuts will save the treasury £1bn a year until 2030, and that means more money in the pot for public spending elsewhere, right?

Totally ignore, UK government borrowing rose by much more than expected last month to £10.7bn.

Errr, no, Rache, it really doesn't mean that at all, and you already know that it doesn't mean that, don't you hun?

The treasury might save £1bn a year on paper, but in reality these Draconian PIP cuts will potentially cost local councils upwards of £1.5bn. No matter how much it is, without a real term increase in central government funding this year and onwards, we will all pay any extra cost incurred by those local councils, by another above inflation rise in our council tax next April, and the year after and the year after that.

Positive and negative externalities.

Do you get it yet?

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

Oh Kev's still at it

The councils are out of cash, so no help there.

For 2025-26, the government is letting six areas bypass the 4.99% cap.

Bradford Council will be allowed a 10% increase, while Newham and Windsor and Maidenhead can both implement a 9% rise.

Birmingham, Somerset and Trafford can put bills up by 7.5%.

Several councils were not given permission to impose larger increases, including Hampshire, which had asked for a 15% rise.

What is council tax and how much is it going up?

Council tax bills are set to rise for millions of households in England, Scotland and Wales in April.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Kev45]

There are currently 1.4 million unpaid carers, looking after a chronically sick or disabled relative (or friend) for 35 hours a week.

Unpaid carers receive an allowance worth (a measly) £2.34p an hour from the DWP.

Home care workers, employed by local councils, are paid a starting salary of £12.21 an hour.

According to Carers UK, the PIP cuts might lead to an estimated 650,000 unpaid carers losing their allowance.

1.2 million unpaid carers in the UK are already living in poverty, and with 400,000 living in deep poverty.

Carers UK also estimates that there are 11.5 million people in total across the UK who give unpaid support to someone who is elderly, seriously ill or disabled; it estimates that, and by doing so, unpaid carers are saving the Government £193 billion a year.

£193 billion.

This bit is just an experiment, but you get the picture. If cash strapped local councils have to fill the void after these allowance cuts and provide home care themselves (as the law states) from their existing budgets, it will cost the taxpayer (- the carers' hourly allowance) £9.87 an hour x 35 hours, and so £345.45p a week for each chronically sick or disabled person.

650,000 x £345,45p (wage) = £22,454,250,000

650,000 x £81.90 (careers allowance) = £5,323,500,000

Do you see that unpaid carers on the allowance currently save the taxpayer just over £17 billion a year?

Not even taking into account the cost of how many new carers would have to be employed and then trained by local councils.

Or the overall cost to the NHS, Mental Health Services, GPs, etc.

To put it into context, the existing social care bill is currently around £32 billion, and which includes support for older people.

Rachel Reeves wants to save a measly £1 billion a year from these PIP cuts for the next five years, and a total of just £5 billion by 2030.

Labour also claims that they did NOT carry out a risk assessment, and which would have given us far more detail.

It's even more ghoulish than that, read this article to see the lengths this Starmer regime will go to, to bypass possible legal challenges in court.

Labour risks PIP cuts vote in order to breach claimants’ human rights

Get the benefits you're entitled to: help with personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA),disability living allowance (DLA). Claims, assessments, reviews, appeals.

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk

Do you get it yet?

 

[Kev45]

"The “daily living” or “care” element of people’s Pip payments is often – and controversially – used by councils to fund their care provision. If they lose these, councils will have to meet more of the costs themselves."

The plot thickens.

Councils and NHS could face millions in extra costs due to disability benefit cuts

Government plans for Pip cuts will drive up costs for local authority social care services and NHS, campaigners warn

www.theguardian.com

 

[Not_Fred_Honest]

I cant wait for Kev to get a job, he wont be online in the dead of nite posting crap

 

[Kev45]

So, let's whittle this down.

If unpaid carers lose their allowance under these proposed cuts, a % of chronically sick and disabled people (including under 22s) will then automatically become entitled to social care (by law) provided by local councils.

Or does this government believe unpaid carers, already among the poorest groups in the UK, will continue providing care without the allowance?

The cost to local economies etc.

NHS, MHS, GPs and a host of other 'hidden' costs.

To save the government £5bn a year by 2030?

Without getting into it, we already know coalition "reform" from 2010 onwards (DLA to PIP) was not cost-effective, was hugely detrimental to the economy and including local economies, and studies have shown 14 years of austerity may have been responsible for the deaths of 300,000 people.

• If 5% of those losing DLA become eligible for social care then the cost in a typical authority will be £1.1 million.
• If 25% become eligible then the extra cost for a local authority could be £5.6 million.
• If 33% become eligible then the increased cost to social care will be exactly equal to planned savings.

Citizen Network: Impact of PIP on Social Care

This analysis was carried out on behalf of We Are Spartacus and estimates how the end of DLA will hit local government.

citizen-network.org

"...an additional 335,000 deaths were observed across Scotland, England & Wales between 2012 and 2019."

University of Glasgow - University news - Archive of news - 2022 - October - Over 300,000 ‘excess’ deaths in Great Britain attributed to UK Government auster

www.gla.ac.uk

Ideological austerity demonstrably does NOT work.


Do you get it yet?

 

[Kev45]

Question AI Chatbot.

Did coalition reform to disability benefits from 2010 save the money the coalition said it would?

Answer AI Chatbot.

The Conservative government's reforms to disability benefits in the UK, particularly those initiated in 2010 under the Coalition government, aimed to reduce spending and improve the efficiency of the benefits system. The key changes included the introduction of Personal Independence Payments (PIP) to replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and stricter eligibility assessments.

While the government projected significant savings from these reforms, the actual financial outcomes have been mixed and complex. Some reports indicated that while there may have been initial savings, the reforms also led to increased administrative costs, appeals, and legal challenges. Moreover, changes to assessments and the resulting impact on claimants' benefits led to criticism, highlighting the human cost of the reforms.

Analyses from various think tanks, advocacy groups, and government departments have shown that while budgetary savings may have been achieved, they often did not align with the initial estimates. Further, the social ramifications, including negative impacts on vulnerable individuals, have prompted a reevaluation of the effectiveness and consequences of these reforms.

In summary, while some financial savings were achieved, the extent to which they matched the government's initial projections remains debated, with significant concerns raised about the impact on disabled individuals and their well-being.


Do you get it yet?

 

[Kev45]

Question AI Chatbot.

Will Labour PIP cuts save money?

Answer AI Chatbot.

The issue of cuts to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) or any other welfare program can be complex. Supporters might argue that reducing benefits could save government money, while critics often point out the potential negative consequences for individuals who rely on these benefits for their daily living and quality of life.

In the case of PIP, which is designed to assist those with disabilities, cuts may lead to:

1. Short-term Savings: The government may see immediate savings by reducing the amount spent on welfare.
2. Long-term Costs: If individuals lose access to necessary support, it could lead to increased healthcare costs or a greater need for other forms of government assistance, ultimately negating any initial savings.
3. Impact on Quality of Life: Cuts can lead to greater financial hardship for vulnerable populations, potentially affecting their overall well-being and ability to participate in society.
4. Public Response: Potential backlash from voters and advocacy groups can also influence the political landscape regarding welfare cuts.

Overall, while there may be some immediate budgetary savings, the broader societal implications and potential long-term costs complicate the assessment of whether such cuts are beneficial or justified.

Do you get it yet?