Shocking?

Apparently there has been a shocking rise in the number of people who are using food banks, though why this is shocking I don't quite know.
BBC.

A food bank charity says it has handed out 913,000 food parcels in the last year, up from 347,000 the year before.
The Trussell Trust said a third were given to repeat visitors but that there was a "shocking" 51% rise in clients to established food banks. It said benefit payment delays were the main cause.
In a letter to ministers, more than 500 clergy say the increase is "terrible".
The government said there was no evidence of a link between welfare reforms and the use of food banks.
However, the Trussell Trust, the largest food bank provider in the UK, said benefits payments had been a particular problem since welfare changes were introduced just over a year ago.
Some 83% of food banks reported that benefits sanctions - when payments are temporarily stopped - had resulted in more people being referred for emergency food.
And more than 30% of visits were put down to a delay in welfare payments.
The second biggest reason, given by 20% of food bank users, was low income.

To paraphrase the film 'Field of Dreams' if you offer it, they will come.
I've been on benefits before, I've even had difficulties with the benefits office over missing payments, yet never has my family gone hungry, I've always managed to find a way and never been tempted by charities. Still, if someone were to offer free food then yes I'd take it, but I'd spend the money saved on something else because I'd have some spare cash after doing it, granted it might cover fuel costs to getting to an interview, but there would have been savings.
So when a charity giving away free food tells me that there's been a shocking rise in 'customers' I'm not surprised, people will use it if it's available and people have less pride these days in doing so, owing to benefits dependency lifestyles.
Fact is, these charities don't realise or factor in whose pockets the money to pay benefits comes from, they seem to think its the governments. We who pay taxes fund benefits and the benefits budget is far too high owing to government incompetency and the fact that some people will not work no matter what.
There are an awful lot of things wrong  with the country and benefits lifestyle is one of them and the government is right to tackle it. However offering free food and then bitching about the fact that people take it is not helping, if anything it's prolonging the problem...

It's supposed to be a safety net

Far too many out there have chosen benefits dependency as a lifestyle choice, they've never had a job, don't want one and don't see why they should as they can play the system and pretty much have a decent life without ever needing to work. It becomes worse when some decide that they are going to have as many children as they want and then use the system to get larger houses and even more benefits, particularly when those who do work can't and then have to pay taxation to support those people's progeny.
Express.

HARD-working taxpayers are subsidising the rents of big jobless families to the tune of almost £1billion a year.
The full price of paying for unemployed parents who choose to have large broods but cannot meet the cost is laid bare in new statistics.
The Department for Work and Pensions figures reveal that keeping 140,000 households with four or more children in homes many workers would struggle to afford is costing the public purse £916million a year. And eight households are still getting an astonishing £1,100 a week to cover their rent despite the coalition Government phasing in a £500-a-week cap last year.

Benefits should be a safety net for the able, a necessity to the sick and disabled and a  comfort to the elderly in their twilight years, not a means to support those who want large families but not work to keep them. It should not be down to the state via the taxpayer to pay out to those who haven't paid in. If you have as the rest of the news article claims, eleven children then that's your problem if you don't work to support them, not mine. I'll grit my teeth and help support the first two (for population maintenance) but after that you're on your own if you choose to have any more, you can hand them over for adoption if you can't manage or get a job and get ancillary benefits by working to assist you that way (again only for your first two)
Being on basic benefits if you haven't paid in ought to be an incentive to get off them by working, if you've paid in, you should get more for the first six months then it's back to basic. Same for a pansioner who has never worked, they should get a basic pension whilst someone who has worked all their life gets the enhanced one.
Common sense would dictate that if you do pay in you get more and better, sadly when it comes to common sense, those at the top who lumbered us with the system don't ever appear to have had it.

397,000 reasons to leave

I'm not opposed to immigration (on my terms) nor am I opposed to the free movement of labour, what I am opposed to is the economic migration of immigrants to gain access to the UK's benefits system which under EU law we have to provide to EU citizens in exactly the same manner that we provide our own unemployed.
Express.

THE growing popularity of Britain as a haven for economic migrants has been exposed in figures showing the lives of almost 400,000 foreign-born residents are funded by the taxpayer.
New Home Office statistics reveal that 397,000 non-UK nationals received handouts in February 2013 – a rise of nearly 110,000 from 288,720 in the five years since 2008.
But the true number could be even greater as the details are not yet available for the past 12 months.
Ukip spokesman Tim Aker said: “This shows the Government has virtually no control over our borders.
“It shows how broken our migration system is – and the longer this is allowed to go on the more chaotic the situation will get.
“We need to be outside the EU in order to have full control over our borders so we know who is in the UK and who is deserving of benefits.”
It was revealed that net UK migration rose to 212,000 in the year to September 2013, pushing it further away from Prime Minister David Cameron’s target of below 100,000 by 2015.

The government aided and abetted by the previous government  has no control whatsoever over immigration, just look at their pathetic attempts to remove illegal immigrant criminals. The floodgates were opened under Labour in an attempt to rub the 'rights' nose in multiculturalism the socialist wet dream that has proven to be a nightmare as taxpayers are becoming increasingly angry about paying for those who come here and do not work, indeed have no intentions of working. Every day it seems some bloody twat of a politician comes on the MSM declaring something has to be done about immigration knowing fine bloody well that owing to our EU membership there's absolutely sod all they can do without it. They talk the talk as opinion polls tell them it's a voter concern, but they cannot walk the walk as the leadership of their party are EUphiles to the bloody core.
Yes I know Ukip are not everyone's cup of tea and they do have a hell of a lot of oddballs who appear at times not to know how the EU actually works... or indeed real life.
But if not Ukip, then who?
There is no chance the Tories, Labour or especially the Lib Dems will ever allow us to leave the EU.
Vote for them and you vote to perpetuate the nightmare they've created for us...

Unaccountable cash grab

Seems the higher you go up in the EU the less grasp you have on the basic concept of just whose cash it is you're pronouncing on when it comes to telling national parliaments what to do... something that really they ought not to be able to do anyway...
Mail.

Eurocrats sparked fury last night by ordering the UK to double dole payments.
The Council of Europe claims the handouts given to Britain’s jobless are ‘manifestly inadequate’.
Ministers have been told they are in violation of the European Social Charter – potentially opening the door for claimants to take the Government to court to get more money.
But ministers say obeying the diktat from the Council, which oversees the controversial European Court of Human Rights, would cost the UK billions of pounds and plunge efforts to reduce the deficit into chaos.
To comply, Jobseeker’s Allow- ance (JSA) would have to be hiked by £71, from £67 to £138 a week.
Last night Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith accused the Council of Europe of ‘lunacy’.

So where's all this extra cash going to come from to pay more to those who don't work?
Oh yes, that's right it'll have to come from the taxpayer both individually and the business world.
All this is because the previous Labour Government signed us up to the Social Charter when they also signed us up to the Human Rights Act and now the ECHR has passed a judgement which will allow the UK courts to penalise the taxpayer by forcing the government to increase benefits.
The only way out of this is to withdraw from the Social Charter, the HRA and probably the EU as both sets of rights are built into the EU's mandate. Sure, no one wants people to live in poverty, but, the cost of all the benefits combined also make living on benefits a viable lifestyle choice and that is simply wrong. Being employed should vastly improve your finances and choices, at the moment it simply doesn't because once you go over a certain threshold you lose the housing benefits and health benefits and a benefitee life becomes an easy option.
It should never be easy to live on state benefits, save if you're ill, disabled or a pensioner, all others should be in the position where a job... any job is a desirable thing to have.
Instead we have the ECHR telling us we should be making it easier for those on benefits to remain there.

I think you may be forgetting something here...

Because of the current furore over EU immigration from the likes of Romania and Bulgaria along with the fear that somehow or other the EU will somehow get Turkey in by hook or by crook, the party which presided over the damaging uncontrolled immigration spate when last in power have a solution. They intend to make all benefit claimants pass a test in basic English, maths and computing skills.
BBC.

Unemployed people who lack basic English, maths and computing skills should be stripped of benefits unless they take up training, Labour will say.
Under the plans, all new claimants of Jobseeker's Allowance would have to sit a basic skills test within six weeks.
The move is set to be unveiled by MP Rachel Reeves in her first major speech as shadow work and pensions secretary.

I suspect Labour are forgetting that under their rule, education was dumbed down to the worst levels since Victorian times with 1 in 5 pupils leaving school struggling to read and write back in 2010.
So, I reckon that any test will leave a lot of people unhappy, never mind immigrants or the test will be so useless that it will be almost impossible to fail. In fact I suspect that this measure will have to be quietly shelved as it attacks Labour's core demographics when it comes to getting votes in.
Still it makes for good headlines and as an attempt to capture the public mood, it's not a bad one. The problems start with anyone with a bit of common sense realising that the people it will hit won't be a lot of immigrants who speak, read and write English generally better than a good few English, but that it will hit those badly let down by our poor education system and its politically motivated curriculum which has failed a generation of kids and left them unable to progress any further than the benefits queue.
The foul results of political correctness (all must have prizes) modern teaching practices (rather than using what worked) and endless tinkering with the examinations and curriculum to get ever higher results (rather than actual ability) has left many out there simply unprepared to pass any meaningful test on English, maths or computer skills (I doubt text speak is a computer skill or indeed an English one)
Still it makes for good headlines... which sums up political thinking these days.
Truly we are doomed.

Let's see if he actually does.

One of the biggest costs to the country today is translation services both at local and national level. It literally costs millions more to print pamphlets in various languages other than English (Yes there's a case for Welsh in Wales and Scot's Gael in Scotland) There's also the cost of providing state funded translators to those who use the benefits and health systems too.
Oddly enough if you tried this in France you'd have to deal with everything in French, no exceptions, so Cameron is looking at the problem here...
Mail.

David Cameron plans to strip welfare handouts from immigrants who cannot speak English.
In a radical bid to slash Britain’s benefits bill, the Prime Minister intends to stop printing welfare paperwork in foreign languages and prevent claimants using taxpayer-funded translators at benefits offices.
The move – which would also hit British residents who cannot speak English – was due to be announced tomorrow, but has been delayed following a row with Nick Clegg.
Tories hope that axeing foreign-language versions of documents explaining how to claim benefits would make it harder for immigrants such as newly arrived Romanians and Bulgarians to cash in on the UK’s benefits system, encourage others already here to learn English – and save money spent on translators.
Referring to the controversial Channel 4 programme, one Conservative aide said: ‘The Benefits Street culture must end. Period.’

OK, it's been announced, let's see if he can carry it through, it does seem unlikely considering the Lib Dem part of the coagulation will probably oppose it along with the leftard drones of the Labour Party. After all, they see benefits for all as a right for all, not as a safety net for those who either were born here or have contributed via taxation to the system.
It should never have been the responsibility of the taxpayer to fund translators and translations, that should have been the job of those trying to use the system, you either spoke English or brought someone along (paid by yourself) to translate for you. It would also have been an incentive to learn the language of the country you were living in as well.
Anyway, this might be a start to saving millions, I have my doubts that it's anything but a media headline grab, but at least they are thinking along the right lines.

You don't say?

Once again the government seems to have (rather like the previous government) a flawed grasp of good housekeeping where it comes to budgetting. It like Labour appears to believe that the best and most efficient way to do anything is to tax us all to the hilt and then distribute what's left of the proceeds to various groups deemed 'worthy' by them.
Telegraph.

A scheme to “bribe” new mothers to breastfeed with shopping vouchers is flawed because there is no way to check the recipients are breastfeeding their babies, an MP has warned.
Researchers said the trial scheme is an attempt to tackle “stubbornly low” rates of breastfeeding in parts of the UK. From this week, new mothers living in parts of Yorkshire and Derbyshire will be offered £120 in vouchers for high-street chain stores such as Argos, Debenhams and Poundstretcher and supermarkets Tesco, Asda and Morrisons, if they sign forms declaring that they have breast-fed their child for six weeks, with a further £80 at six months. Researchers admitted there is nothing to stop the women who enrol in the scheme from using the vouchers to buy cigarettes or alcohol.

Gosh, researchers have found that people will behave like people when given vouchers or cash and spend them on stuff they want, rather than what the health fascists believe they should spend it on.
Bribing a woman to breast feed is probably a waste of time anyway, they'll either do it because they want to or simply not, but if you throw in a taxpayer bribe, well hey, they'll agree to breastfeed whether they actually do or not and simply pocket the cash. It's exactly this sort of government profligacy that irritates the hell out of taxpayers because it's simply not necessary, same with green taxation and family tax credits.
Just lower the bloody taxes and stop funding enviroloonies, quango's health Nazis, fake charities and give us all a break from those who hector us from the public purse!
You know it makes sense.

This shouldn't be our problem.

A woman with nine children who is getting £38,000 a year in benefits is demanding a bigger council house. Now granted she and her partner work part time, but, it really ought not to be the problem of a council or the taxpayer if she can't keep her legs closed.
Express.

A MOTHER-of-nine who pockets £38,000 a year in handouts is demanding a bigger council house – after accusing benefit slobs of giving big families a “bad name”.
Cheryl Prudham and ­husband Robert rake in the equivalent of an £80,000 salary, of which 70 per cent comes from benefits and tax credits and the rest from their part-time work.
But despite pocketing the huge sum the couple claim it’s “cruel” to keep them “like animals” in their three-bedroom property.
Mrs Prudham, 31, whose children are aged between nine months and 13 years, said: “I see other people in the paper and it makes me sick. They shouldn’t just get a new home handed to them on a plate.
“It gives people with big families a bad name. I don’t want people to judge us because we have so many children.”
The part-time carer, who works 20 hours a week, added: “If I sat on my a*** I would understand people would have something to say.
“You wouldn’t keep animals in the confined space we live in. It’s cruel and I don’t think we’re getting the help we’re entitled to.”
She added: “I know it’s possible to have two houses knocked through into one big house because I’ve read they do that for people.
“Even an extra bedroom would make the world of difference.”

It should also be noted that the woman's children come from three different partners too...
Now I do admire the fact that they have part time jobs, but raking in £80k in kind from the various benefits they qualify for does seem a tad excessive, particularly as the choice of having children was hers. After all, her body, her rules as the feminists constantly tell us males when we question what women do.
Personally I'm of the opinion that you should only have kids if you can afford them and whilst I'm sympathetic to the government assisting with the first two to encourage a stable population, after that it ought to be your problem, not the states. Not that I blame them for taking everything that they can get, perhaps in a similar position we all would. However it is the fault of the state which allows this to happen in the first place by not capping benefits above a certain level
Personally I believe that the benefit system as a whole ought to simply be a short term safety net for the healthy at least, for the elderly and the disabled alone it ought to be a means of comfort for them. All others... if you want a family of nine, you'd better be able to pay for them, it's not my job as a taxpayer and it shouldn't be the states either.

Getting it, but unable to do anything about it

A judge got it about the benefits system and those who defraud it today. Unfortunately for the judge he can't do a damned thing about it...
Express.

BRITAIN’S scrounger culture came under fire yesterday after a judge heard how a benefit cheat will repay almost £100,000 – using taxpayers’ money.
Judge Beverley Lunt was astonished to learn that mother-of-seven Cleo Embley can carry on claiming £237 a week even though she fiddled the welfare system for four years.
When Embley’s barrister said she “knows she is going to have to pay the money back”, Judge Lunt replied: “But she isn’t. The taxpayer is going to have to pay it back.
She has defrauded all this money but is entitled, from the state, for more money. So the state will receive the money – from the money the state is giving her.
Embley, 37, from Rishton, near Blackburn, illegally received more than £94,000 by claiming that her handyman boyfriend Paul Harwood did not live with her.

This is something those of us on the so called right of the political compass have been railing about for years, the fact that the unemployed (and oft times the unemployable) if indulging in criminal behaviour are rarely penalised in a manner which affects them. The state simply coughs up the cash and a small decrease in their benefits often results.
Even prison isn't really a viable option in that it costs more to lock up someone than for the taxpayer to pay the fine.
There was a time when crime and punishment went hand in hand with the institution of what was known as hard labour, unfortunately the reformers (mostly libtards and leftards) got the thing abolished and a nice comfy regime installed which meant that prison was no longer something to be feared. Lately there have been calls to release even more criminals as prisons are too crowded, sadly building more prisons seems not to have occurred to anyone in power.
So we have fines which are not fines and prison which other than keeping people locked away isn't really prison at all, simply a bit boring at times.
Perhaps it's time we got rid of the reforms and put a bit more bite into justice, make appearing in court something to really fear for the guilty.
Then again, i doubt anything will be done, too many people willing to bleat and cry about human rights... whilst the rest of us believe that criminals should only get very basic rights...

Or we could just sterilise you and put your kids into care

Just joking...
Though it's not funny...
Express.

A "SUPER-FERTILE" unemployed mum-of-six and her jobless husband are demanding a four-bedroom council house for their family.
Maggie Flisher, 26, and husband Gavin, 30, currently live in a cramped one-bedroom flat while claiming £27,000 in benefits.
Mrs Flisher, who does not work as she is depressed, said the reason she has six children under the age of eight is because contraception is no match for her fertility.

Yes I sort of sympathise with the woman, all my kids were conceived whilst contraception was in use. However after the third I decided that a vasectomy would 'cure' the problem of any more sprogs turning up.
It also meant that I could work and support my family.
I believe everyone has a right to have as many babies as they like, but, other than a bit of support for the first two, no one has the right to expect to be paid for them. You should have them only if you can afford them and you shouldn't expect the taxpayer to stump up for your mistakes/lifestyle choice.

Mrs Flisher, who does not work as she is depressed.

Clearly not 'that' depressed if she has a sex life... or perhaps that's why she's depressed, the pic of her man gives another possible reason too...
The most depressing thing of all is that the leftards in the Labour party are discussing enshrining the right to steal from taxpayers social benefits as part of the reviled Human Rights Act.
God help England...
God help us all.

Scaremongering

The government have accused Labour of scaremongering over the so called bedroom tax, I say so called as it isn't actually a tax, more a clawback of benefits to do with under occupancy (as the government see it)
Problem being, Labour don't actually have to do much in the way of scaremongering as anyone who has come into contact with the benefits system will tell you...
Telegraph.

The Work and Pensions Secretary has attacked Labour for scaremongering with claims of a new “bedroom tax” on social housing tenants. Under Government welfare reforms that will take effect in April, tenants in council houses and social housing will have their housing benefit reduced if they have empty rooms in their homes. Ministers say the “under occupancy penalty” is intended to ensure that the best use is made of social housing and reduce the housing benefit bill, currently more than £20 billion a year.
The DWP estimates that the change will save taxpayers £480 million a year and affect around 600,000 people. The average loss for a single empty bedroom will be £14 per week, the department says.

Thing is, it doesn't just affect those in social housing, it affects anyone paying rent or receiving council tax benefits including those who own their own property yet have become unemployed. As for the average loss, well that's just an average, the clawback will be 14% for a single room and 25% for two or more. The government hope it will make people consider downgrading into properties with fewer rooms thus freeing up under occupied houses for those with families where there's a shortage. It's one of the consequences of mass immigration and the selling off of social housing in the Thatcher years without building anything to replace the sold off stock. What it means is there are simply not enough houses to go around, well houses for growing families that is. So what will happen is that anyone who hasn't got enough income will be forced to move out to something smaller, possibly to somewhere they don't want to be and the place they considered their home (not just a house) that they've cared for will go to someone else, possibly more deserving, possibly not.
I can't think of a better plan to lose votes assuming those losing their homes choose to vote, other than forced evictions that is.
Thing is, for all Labour are making a fuss over this can anyone see them rescinding it? I have my doubts as whatever comes in tends to remain, it just gets replaced, not axed.
What we need is to stop mass immigration and start a program of social housing building. Sadly that's not going to happen, well, not any time soon, the government would far rather waste our money on foreign aid, foreign wars, subsidising bird mincers and keeping ministers and civil servants in gold plated pensions.
It strikes me that who ever gets in, they all have their priorities totally wrong. We need a better system of checks and balances (referism) to stop governments both national and local from simply wasting taxpayers money and we need it to force them to do what we want them to do rather than the idiocy that is party policy and dogma.
Politicians are meant to represent us, not their party and not some failed economic or social dogma.
Until that happens, this is what we end up with, attempted savings in all the wrong areas...

Come and see the madness inherent in the system

You'd think that having cheated the system you'd face some sort of penalty if you were on benefits. Then again judging by the amount of tales coming around you might not be all that surprised.
Express.

Britain's farcical benefits system was exposed yesterday after a cheating mother was told she can now claim twice as much rather than go to jail.
Joanne Gibbons, 23, fiddled £3,140 in income support while holding down two jobs, a court was told.
But after she was caught it was revealed the shop assistant mother-of-one was entitled to claim £130 a week – £64 a week more than the amount she was swindling the taxpayer.

Yes, that's right, she was actually saving us money till she got caught. Now, no prison and extra cash because she's entitled to more in the way of benefits.
No wonder that there are some out there who are quite happy making only a partial attempt to even look for work and not trying to get any. Yes, I realise that there are some out there who would simply just love to have a job, any job as it's a form of self respect. Yet the madness of the system means that in many cases they are actually better off not having a job. Whilst this woman might well have tried to keep on with her work whilst claiming extra benefits had she known they were available it does beggar belief that she could simply have given up the jobs and been on more money had she known to apply for it.
Something clearly needs to be done, but it won't, politicians will tinker, but they won't actually solve things.
They never do.

Entitlement

Interesting article in the Mail this morning reporting on the ITV This Morning programme with a young couple on who believe that because their parents pay tax they are entitled to live on benefits in a two bedroom flat. Note that they have worked and paid into the system though certainly not steadily or regularly and believe because their family members do, they are 'entitled' as will be their daughter when she grows up.
Mail. (usual caveats)

A young couple who receive more than £17,000 a year in benefits appeared on ITV's This Morning to defend their taxpayer-funded lifestyle.
Danny Creamer, 21, and Gina Allen, 18, who live in a comfortable two-bedroom flat in Portsmouth with their four month old daughter, Talulah Rose, say they are better off on £17k benefits and argue that unless they are able to find jobs that pay £18,000 a year or more, there's no point in working.
The couple also hit back at those who describe them as scroungers, arguing that because their hard-working parents have paid tax all their lives, they are entitled to claim some of the money back.

Now this is definitely a lifestyle choice, though it can be argued that the minimum wage at the lower levels of employment has also become the maximum wage too. However it's the sense of entitlement that really gets my goat. There are people out there unemployed who would love any kind of job and have been left on the scrapheap by age, illness and sometimes sheer bad luck, but they are often those who have worked in the past and would work in the future given a chance and they don't see living off the state as a healthy option. Yet this young couple do as the state itself has made it easy for them to do so. They simply don't have to work, they can go through the motions with the jobcentre, but really they are quite comfortable where they are and that's the rub. Unemployment benefit after a certain period of time if you haven't paid in should not be a comfortable area. If you've paid in all your life fair enough there should be some benefit to this, but if you've paid in nothing then perhaps it should not be a comfort zone.
Claiming that because your parents pay in gives you entitlement though should surely be a non-starter?
Life is tough for the genuinely unemployed who are really seeking work, this couple are truly taking the piss here.

And they wonder why we protest

Can you imagine a situation where your income jumps twice as fast as your paymasters? Well you can if you live on benefits in the UK...


Mail. (usual caveats)

• Benefits rising twice as fast as salaries: Payments to unemployed jump by 20% in five years
• Jobseeker's Allowance up 20 per cent from £59.15 a week in 2007/08 to £71
• In the same five-year period wages only rose by 12 per cent

Welfare handouts to those languishing on the dole have risen almost twice as fast as average wages over the past five years.
Out-of-work benefits have jumped in value by an astonishing 20 per cent since 2007 while wages have crept up by just 12 per cent, official figures released last night reveal.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said the figures proved that automatically increasing benefits by the rate of inflation, as has previously been the case, was ‘not fair’ on working people whose taxes fund the handouts.

Wouldn't it have been nice to have had a 20% increase in your income over the last five years? A 4% increase per annum? I certainly never managed anything like it, I even had a pay freeze two years in a row, though thankfully the company's financial situation has improved somewhat and we will be getting a pay rise this year. I doubt it will be 4% though.
Thing is if you check the comments not many actually 'get it' that the money paid out in benefits comes from workers and businesses. There's far too much of the 20% of nothing is nothing nonsense going on. They don't get it that taking something from someone who has to give to someone who hasn't by the state is strictly speaking theft, particularly if those who have are tightening their belts because of the economic situation.
Sure you can play about with percentages, but the facts remain, those who have are getting the shitty end of the stick by a previous Labour government who have created a welfare dependent class and a public service administration who rely on the states largesse. The same state who takes from us to give to them and doesn't give a damn about us...

Giving away our money Europe style

Why is it that politicians and apparatchiks of the EU are so determined to tell us how to live our lives and pay out our wealth on projects and scams most of us have little interest in?
Telegraph.

European immigrants should be able to claim handouts and pensions without first having to pass a test proving that they have settled in Britain, the European Union has said.
The demand is the latest response in a continuing row after Iain Duncan Smith said that such a system would mean immigrants could get benefits on the first day of entering Britain.
The Work and Pensions Secretary said last month that it would cost taxpayers £155 million a year if the UK was forced to get rid of the “habitual resident test”.
The test makes sure that foreigners have genuinely lived and paid taxes in the country before they can claim welfare payments.
His department has been holding talks with the European Commission for months in an effort to find a solution, but sources said on Thursday that Brussels was preparing to sue Britain by the end of this year unless the test is scrapped.

The European Commission seems to have a little bit of bother over deciding what's theirs and what's ours, though if I had my way I'd make getting access to what's ours a great deal harder to get at than it currently is. The fact that you live here as an immigrant should under any reasonable circumstances mean that you are not entitled to anything at all from our benefits system unless you've paid into the system, it should also (though currently it doesn't) mean that you get nothing at all out unless you've paid a fixed amount in, either by way of a deposit or bond to settle or by having paid in 10 years worth of taxation in order to gain full citizens rights.
What we shouldn't be doing is allowing those who are elected and unelected to simply hand over this countries wealth to those who have simply come here to get their hands on our (over) generous welfare payments. The European Commission ought to have no say over our wealth, that it has is down to our own idiot politicians handing over that right, though sadly the voters here in the UK keep electing the corrupt mendacious thieving sods.
It really is becoming very simple, if we want control over our finances, immigration, production and laws we need to leave the EU.
The first steps to that are to vote for any party that says it will take us out.

Only likely?

Seems the UK is only likely to cut the amount of aid sent to the spacefaring nation of India, rather than say definitely cut it too zero, after all if they can afford a space program and nuclear weapons, they clearly don't need aid.
Telegraph.

Justine Greening, who took on the post of Development Secretary last month, said she wants to see Britains's links to richer developing nations become about business, rather than hand-outs.
The Minister is under pressure to get better value for money from Britain's £12 billion per year spending on countries including China and India, which has its own space programme.
Speaking at the Tory Party conference in Birmingham, Ms Greening signalled India will be a target for cuts.
"We should recognise that as countries get richer, we need to be responsible about how we transition in our relationship with them from aid to trade," she said.
"Those are the discussions that I am having with the Indian government at the moment."

This is the same aid budget that will rise to £14.5 billion by the year 2014.
I really fail to see why we're in discussions with the Indian government, they didn't by our products (Jet fighters) yet are still sucking at the teat of our aid packages. Perhaps we should be more like the USA and state that aid comes at a price, you buy our stuff, we give you bribes give you aid. Then again, I am a firm believer of any government aid being spent at home, leave the rest to our consciences when it comes to funding foreign aid schemes.
I really don't know where the Tories got the idea from that ring fencing and even expanding the foreign aid budget was a good idea. Perhaps it was simply an attempt to move away from the 'nasty party' tag that the hard of thinking on the left seem to have stuck them with. After all, it appears to make common sense to me that what socialists believe to be worth spending on should be subject to extreme scrutiny as it's probably funding something detrimental to the country as a whole. After all that's where the inefficiencies in the NHS come from, the use of full time union reps paid for by the taxpayers, the complex benefits system which has moved from a safety net to somewhere a person can live comfortably for the rest of their lives (in some cases) because taking on a job leaves them worse off. To the foreign aid budget which funds kleptocracies in Africa and nuclear powers in Asia.
There is so much this (or any) government could have done to reduce the cost of the state to the taxpayer. Yet year in year out costs (and government) increases.
Yet still some people out there keep voting for them.
That I believe is where we have to start changing things, so long as the political parties continue to take our votes for granted, the more they take advantage of us.
This more than anything else needs to stop, and only we can do that...

Entitlement

Every so often a story rears its head that beggars belief, most of them are how the native population are being treated by those in power who seem to believe our views can be either taken for granted or run over roughshod by their current pets in the name of diversity and multiculturalism. Object and you're more or less labelled a racist, fascist or bigot by the powers that be and the various legions of the damned twitterati (that well known socialist media format will hound you and expose you to the world. Yet every so often one of their protected species simply goes too far...
Mail.

‘I am entitled to live in a house like this’: Jobless mother-of-seven insists her family ‘deserve’ £1.25MILLION taxpayer-funded home they 'trashed'

• Manal Mahmoud moved into the Fulham address following a £76,000 refit
• 'I deserve to live in a nice house and get benefits,' she said.
• Council says the family's behaviour has been 'appalling' and it must improve
• Claims doors are missing, wallpaper has been ripped off, driveway tiles have been smashed and furniture has been left strewn in the garden
• Mrs Mahmoud insists she has 'right to live in a nice house and claim benefits'

An unemployed refugee on benefits who has allegedly wrecked her £1.25million townhouse paid for by the taxpayer says she is 'entitled' to live there.
Mother-of-seven Manal Mahmoud moved into the upmarket Fulham address almost three years ago, but have since been branded the 'family from hell'.
'I deserve to live in a nice house and get benefits. I deserve this house because I am human. In this country, it is our right to live here. It is important for my kids to have space to play,' she said.
Ms Cummings, who agreed to let council tenants live in her home in the leafy street close to the River Thames, apparently found doors missing or hanging off and walls written on.
The driveway had also been smashed up, wallpaper was off and carpet worn through, the Sun said.
Outside, the lawn was overgrown, furniture left in the front garden and rubbish and motorbike parts strewn around.
However, Mrs Mahmoud, who has five young daughters and two teenage sons, insisted she had the right to live in the house - which only underwent a £76,000 refit - half of which was paid for by public money - three years ago.
All of her children live at the address apart from her oldest son who is in prison for drug dealing.
She told Sun reporters: 'I deserve to live in a nice house and get benefits. In this country, it is our right to live here.'

There are people who were born here, work here and who contribute to society whom I would say had more right to have a chance to live in a house like that. Sadly though the fact that they do work and do contribute pretty much makes them ineligible to be housed in a property like that. Sadly that sort of chance only seems to go to the feckless and workshy, those who have either come here to sponge from abroad.
Again and again bloggers on the right of the political system have stated that if you come from abroad unless you have contributed to the system you should get nothing from the system. No housing, social or health benefits at all either for a fixed period of time or until you have contributed a fixed sum to the system. Sadly those on the liberal left have yet to acknowledge this wisdom, indeed they accuse those who object as bigots, racists and fascists.
So in my view Mrs Mahmoud isn't entitled to anything at all, no house, no benefits no nothing, she's taken shameless advantage of the system like many others and it needs to come to a halt. Immigrants and refugee status seekers should pay their way before they get anything at all back, it's only fair.

Bigamy pays!

Bigamy is a crime in this country, for someone to have more than one legal partner is illegal and can end up with the offender being thrown in jail. Not that it stops certain religions from trying it on at times, though in the past it had to be done discreetly, or abroad, even then there was no benefit to be had for doing it, save now...
Express.

IMMIGRANTS with multiple wives could claim higher benefit payments thanks to a loophole in the Govern-ment’s welfare shake-up, it emerged yesterday.
Under current rules, husbands in polygamous marriages are able to apply for income support and other handouts for their extra spouses. Ministers decided to scrap the rules when the new Universal Benefit system comes in next year to end the “absurd” situation where the state effectively recognises polygamy.
But now officials are concerned that multiple wives will claim full single person’s benefits instead, rather than lower-rate payments designed for “couples”.
Some immigrants could see their weekly handouts almost double from £40 to £71 a week.
The emergence of the loophole triggered fresh concerns about why families in some minority religious groups are permitted to indulge in polygamy while bigamy is illegal and punishable by up to seven years in jail.
At present, polygamous families on jobseeker’s allowance could claim £111.45 a week for the initial couple and £40 for each additional wife. Once they are treated as individuals, the wives could claim £71 a week.

Now it does strike me that any potential immigrant with more than one wife should automatically be disqualified from immigrating to this country unless they are prepared to divorce their extra wives and only bring one with them. If they aren't prepared to do that then we won't miss them. What we shouldn't be doing is encouraging an activity which breaks the laws of this land by making it pay.
The practice was allowed under the previous administration (surprise, surprise) and has carried on into the current one. There are plans to change it according to ministers, but you know how bureaucratic inertia works. Plus expect a raft of cases using the HRA to try and prevent it.
One country, one law?
Apparently not.

This is why you shouldn't encourage them...

In the past I had my run ins with the Child Support Agency, I disputed every claim against me they made, not because I wanted to get out of supporting my kids, but because after a couple of colossal blunders (one of them requiring an ombudsman to sort out) I no longer trusted the people at the ground level to do their jobs properly, relying on what appeared to be tick box taxation to justify what were some outrageous claims to my income. In the end they had me marked down as a "difficult" customer and I believe went out of their way at times to be difficult too, but that might just be my creative paranoia at work.
yet I was also well aware of the problems elsewhere in the system...
Express.

THOUSANDS of absentee fathers are getting away with paying next to nothing for the care of their children, shock new figures reveal.
One in three – a total of 314,000 – pay £5 a week out of their weekly benefits of £100.
If they have several children by different women, the situation is even worse, as shown by the case of serial love rat Keith Macdonald.
The 25-year-old, from Washington, Tyne and Wear, has fathered 15 children with 14 mothers. One former girlfriend, Danielle Little, gave birth to twins. His £5 weekly contributions means each child will get just 33p.
Another 240,000 fathers pay nothing because they can’t be traced. In total £3.8billion is owed by absent parents, a scandal highlighting the role of the Child Support Agency, which is overseen by the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, the source of the staggering statistics.
The Department for Work and Pensions said: “It is a deeply flawed system. That’s why we are overhauling it.”

Initially my first thoughts on Keith MacDonald was that after the third child he perhaps should have been forcibly sterilised, but of course it does take two to tango as it were and perhaps the silly (or easily charmed) women he got pregnant should also share some of the blame too, contraception after all is fairly easy to get.
Yet this in a sense is a problem of our own making, years ago if a girl (or woman) got pregnant out of wedlock there was a shame factor and/or her family went round to the "father" of the unborn child's house and remonstrated with him right into a shotgun wedding if necessary. If he were already married he's be in for the hiding of his life, unless rich in which case he'd be out of pocket for a long time. These days with housing benefit and other perks of the benefits system it actually can be quite a good move for a young "lady" with no other prospects to get her own place and have it all paid for by you and I. The very ineffectiveness of the CSA system means that the only people really out of pocket are the taxpayers. The system we have encourages a feral underclass system and maintains a bread and circuses attitude towards them, perhaps out of fear for what might happen if they ever did break loose and made the recent riots look like a cakewalk. They don't work, wont work and can't be made to work under the present system, the government even encourages mass immigration to do the jobs they wont do. Yet sooner or later it will break, if only by the taxpayers saying enough is enough and voting for a party who will do something, however unpleasant their other policies are..
As it is, none of the mainstream political parties are interested in fixing it, merely tinkering with it, that's why we should never vote for them, ever.

Living with Mum

The government seem keen to close down a good few benefits available to people, yet as ever they seem to target the wrong groups and do it in a hamfisted way (natural talent I think) Their latest wheeze is to tell young people to live with Mum or as the MSM put it, force them to live with Mum...
Express.

UNEMPLOYED young people could be forced to live with their parents rather than rent homes at taxpayers’ expense, it emerged yesterday.
Many working young people have no choice but to stay living with their families because they cannot afford to move out.
But under-25s earning below a certain level and those on Jobseekers’ Allowance may qualify for housing benefit help towards renting a room or bedsit.
The Government is keen to close the loophole.
It is considering plans that would mean youngsters on benefits should also be expected to stay with relatives until they can afford to move out.
No immediate announcement is expected and discussions are at an early stage.
But Downing Street is determined to ensure that people are always better off in work than on the dole.
But even supporters admit the policy could be difficult to enact. Emma Boon, campaign director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It will be hard to tell whether or not a young person has somewhere else appropriate where they can live.

I suspect we'd see a massive rise in the number of homeless people sleeping rough on the streets as the government seem to have forgotten the other part of the equation, Mum herself. There are a lot of families out there who struggled to bring up their kids and for all they love their kids don't particularly like them at any given time, late teens and early twenties being difficult years, that plus the cost of feeding them and keeping them usually exceeds the amount of rent they get from the jobseekers allowance, assuming Mummy's little darling actually tips something up. We've just managed to rid ourselves here of both the kids and frankly we don't want them back, though fortunately there's no danger of that with my stepdaughter and granddaughter, unfortunately my stepson is right in the governments crosshairs for this policy, he has a place of his own (rented) but if he loses the benefits necessary to stay there it's doubtful we'd have him back. I know it sounds cruel, but you lot don't and have never had to live with him.
Most parents strive to see their kids do well, unfortunately not all kids do and the options for them to break out on their own have been severely limited, those not academically inclined have been marginalised to the edges of society, by mass immigration and ridiculous academic requirements for what is essentially unskilled labour (try getting a job at McD's without some form of GCSE and you'll fail) Most agencies are stuffed full with immigrant groups looking for work and often enough they get priority as they can work longer and live cheaper before they return home with a decent wad of cash for their labours. I don't blame them for doing this, but it does cause a problem here by keeping wages low for our own young and prevents a few of them from gaining work related skills.
I personally think a government policy along those lines would have dire consequences for some young people, I'd rather they targeted their cost savings elsewhere, such as removing child benefit after the second or third kid and having a lower cap on benefits.
Sadly though, they remain completely out of touch with real life.