Single Mothers Lose Legal Challenge To Benefit Cap

[porca misèria]

The government policy of curtailing legal aid is particularly appealing...

If it happens for real then yes indeed.

Unfortunately there's a lot more than legal aid that's wrong with the system. They should purge all the overpaid Professional Liars from the system.

Gosh, look how optimistic I was three years ago

It’s too early to tell whether they’ll have any success where previous governments have failed. But the current government’s announcements have once again impressed me. They’re taking on some of our richest and most powerful lobbies. More specifically, those who enrich themselves at great cost to the taxpayer and society. What’s more, they’re tackling sacred cows: money gifted to the parasitic rich in the name of good causes – “the poor”, and “access to justice”.

First came landlords, with the announcement that housing benefit will no longer rise without limit. This is a huge benefit to society at large. Most obviously the genuinely poor who are stuck with having to pay artificially inflated rents and who cannot reasonably compete with housing benefit in the market. But also first-time housebuyers who will in future face a little less competition from property pimps propped up by the public purse.

As against that, benefits reform looks far too limited. The principle that work should pay is good, so why will the lowest-paid still lose (apparently) 65% of their earnings through loss of benefit? Admittedly it’s a big improvement on what happened to me in 2003 when my effective tax rate compared to benefits was close to 300%[1], but it’s still hardly a great incentive to work.

This week they’ve impressed again, taking on an even more sacred cow, the bloated legal profession and the spiraling burden of legal aid. This is a more ‘respectable’ and long-established class than landlords (the old aristocracy being now secondary to a nouveau-riche spiv class in the open market), and if the government can tackle their taxpayer-trough I’ll be all the more impressed. Though having said that, if they really valued justice over ritual they’d disband the entire court system as we know it, and dispense entirely with the grossly overpaid adversarial advocates in its replacement.

At the same time, some of the government’s plans are alarming. I find the rising cost of higher education deeply disturbing. Not just because of the conflicting signals being sent to our young people and the terrible burden of debt for some, but also because the complexity of the new terms surrounding student finance look nightmareish (up with the worst of ex-chancellor Brown’s creations), full of perverse incentives, and designed to put social engineering ahead of academic excellence. Ugh.

[1] That’s due to cascading benefits. Earn £60/week, and lose not only income support (about £54/week), but also a host of other benefits given to those on income support – most notably ~£100/week in housing and council tax benefit.

[winkie]

The problem with those against the cap and think it should be removed is that the alternative they propose is to pay whatever the landlord proposes if it stops people having to move. However, this penalises those that don't rely on benefits who then not only have to pay their rent from their own working income but they have to compete with and are normally outpriced by those that claim LHA (who have the benefit of a subsidy which pushes up rents for all, not just those on benefits).

What those who are against the cap should be arguing for are rent controls/caps and massive house building rather than a lifting of the cap. Lifting of the does not address the problem and only benefits those on benefits and the landlords that are profiteering from said benefits.

The thing about the cap......is when the landlords think their property happens to be in a 'rising rents area' they up the anti, expecting and demanding more rent from the rent payer....that rent payer may be the state or it may be the tenant.....if it is the state they ask for more because they know state can pay it.....all the while the tenant is living their life trying to support their three kids on very little......anyway kids grow up and benefits and child allowance stops......so it is not always the easy life, nobody however rich or poor will have an easy life.....life is not like that.

[iamnumerate]

Maria is a refugee, having fled Poland to England after suffering persecution for being Roma and Roman Catholic.

Does anyone really believe that in Poland Catholics are persecuted? How can someone write such rubbish?

[The Knimbies who say No]

Does anyone really believe that in Poland Catholics are persecuted? How can someone write such rubbish?

Yes, that bit jumped out at me too. Perhaos she was persecuted by Polish for being Roma, and the Roma for being Catholic(but I've no idea if that is plausible).

[workingpoor]

As a taxpayer, do I really want to pay for other peoples kids? No I don't. The £500 per week cap is a lot more than I earn, therefore the cap needs to be a lot lower. It is not Reminiscent of a workhouse, I doubt they have ever been to one. This is just making a mockery of hard working single taxpayers like me making do.

X

i sympathise too, not only that but the government are about to re-socialise water bills! (announcement due this week)

I was perfectly happy with water meters as a single person I pay for what I use I DO NOT want to pay a PENNY for someone else's water use based on their life choices, a five person household should pay for the amount of water a die person household uses, not give them a social tarrif whilst every other single person has to pay for what they use.

all in here:

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24814831

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

Cue articles from Boris Johnson and the CBI tomorrow highlighting the folly of such policies as all the talented babymakers will move to Switzerland

Edited November 5, 2013 by Maria Gorska

[winkie]

I hate to break it to you but famililes on certain benefits with 3 or more children already have a special deal when it comes to water which means everyone else is paying for their desire to have children they can't afford;

But isn't it the children they are in fact investing in, it is the home grown children, well cared for healthy and educated who will be our future....or we could import them once they have already been paid for by someone else educated by someone else ready and willing to work and pay taxes here....just saying.

[iamnumerate]

But isn't it the children they are in fact investing in, it is the home grown children, well cared for healthy and educated who will be our future....or we could import them once they have already been paid for by someone else educated by someone else ready and willing to work and pay taxes here....just saying.

I think the children of pro single mums are not our future in any positive sense.

[iamnumerate]

According to the article in the Guardian, Maria is a Roma from Poland who fled persecution for being a Roman Catholic (aren't most Poles RC?) and has been here for over 16 years, hasn't learnt the language and needed a translator in court, hasn't got a job in that time, has been given a social housing flat (albeit at £400 per week rent), her husband left her apparently 5 years ago, has had 5 children since she arrived in the UK and has a 12 month old (presumably from the same absent father and while already living in a flat she couldn't afford). Doesn't make you very sympathetic towards her. Why does she have to live in Fulham ffs!

http://www.theguardi...jects-challenge

The Guardian believe everything that refugees tell them.

[winkie]

I think the children of pro single mums are not our future in any positive sense.

...you may have a point there.....but a child can't choose their parents like a parent can't choose their kids, every child should be given the best chance possible in the home they were born into.

[Frank Hovis]

...you may have a point there.....but a child can't choose their parents like a parent can't choose their kids, every child should be given the best chance possible in the home they were born into.

By the people responsible for bringing them into the world.

Though I don't begrudge free schools and hospitals.

[winkie]

By the people responsible for bringing them into the world.

Though I don't begrudge free schools and hospitals.

Yep, I agree, but you get irresponsible people in all walks of life, especially if they know there will be others out there who will fork out and pay for their irresponsibility.......from the very top right down to the bottom.

Edit: to say that not every single parent be it mother or father are feckless parents, some are in the situation through no fault of their own, say escaping violent relationships or desertion for example.

Edited November 6, 2013 by winkie

[pjw]

I saw that horrible gypsy video - and the worse thing is that once they're here the authorities will describe them as "British" - part of the new multicultural population who lord it over us here.

[SickofRenting]

But isn't it the children they are in fact investing in, it is the home grown children, well cared for healthy and educated who will be our future....or we could import them once they have already been paid for by someone else educated by someone else ready and willing to work and pay taxes here....just saying.

I think a lot of kids choose to carry on the way their (single) parents lived (monkey see, monkey do) so when they leave school they expect the state to look after them financially, then the cycle begins again. Just saying.

Edited November 6, 2013 by SickofRenting

[iamnumerate]

...you may have a point there.....but a child can't choose their parents like a parent can't choose their kids, every child should be given the best chance possible in the home they were born into.

I agree but financial incentives for their parents to split up, is not doing that.

[Executive Sadman]

The Guardian believe everything that refugees tell them.

Most the guardian commenters dont!

I think they head over to the Daily mail comments to agitate the readers there...

[SHERWICK]

Does anyone really believe that in Poland Catholics are persecuted? How can someone write such rubbish?

Probably because whoever wrote it has no knowledge of Christianity.

[awaytogo]

According to the article in the Guardian, Maria is a Roma from Poland who fled persecution for being a Roman Catholic (aren't most Poles RC?) and has been here for over 16 years, hasn't learnt the language and needed a translator in court, hasn't got a job in that time, has been given a social housing flat (albeit at £400 per week rent), her husband left her apparently 5 years ago, has had 5 children since she arrived in the UK and has a 12 month old (presumably from the same absent father and while already living in a flat she couldn't afford). Doesn't make you very sympathetic towards her. Why does she have to live in Fulham ffs!

http://www.theguardi...jects-challenge

This why they are queuing up to get here, and the reason we will eventually sink.

Its a Fiddlers paradise.

[interestrateripoff]

They should have asked for free flying lessons. Apparently that can be paid for...