Benefit Street on Channel 4

[Blue Til Death]

Like you say, maybe there are good look stories around. The 50p guy giving washing powder to the woman would make me shameful if I was in charge of this country's purse strings. And I also agree that their shouldn't be a cash bonanza, but if we are all in this together it would be easier if we met in the middle rather than the benefits system being demonized without actually creating any asperational jobs.

The 50p guy trying to make something of himself and showing kindness giving things away he could probably hardly afford to was heartwarming...However the reason that woman was struggling and had her benefits suspended was because they were fraudulently claiming £1500 a month in benefits !! Still smoking tho!

I was wondering when some clown would point this out.
'Look at these poor folk - all on benefits, yet they can afford to smoke and drink'.
Of course they fucking do - if I had a God-awful life like these people then I would be mainlining crack into my fucking eyeballs to cope.
But then, that is all part of the not-so-subtle subtext of shite programmes like these - 'let's judge these folk, find them guilty of profligacy, and blame them for the mess they're in, rather than the selfish, uncaring society that spawned them'.
A simple conclusion for simple folk.

Yes blame it on society NF, alas despite your good intentions of always sticking up for the underdog, when people steal from the state and local retailers (and god forbid the local drug cartel) they make rods for their own backs. TV programmes like the one in question tend to lump the good with the bad, therefore the comments tend to be one dimensional also.
Being in abject poverty land is a horrible place to be, many of us on here suffered it as kids living in Manchester and the surrounding area, that said we didn't all go and steal or ruin our lives like many on the programme seemed to have done. On a lighter note, the Python 4 Yorkshire men sketch should have been played in the adverts.

 

[Mustard Dave]

Like you say, maybe there are good look stories around. The 50p guy giving washing powder to the woman would make me shameful if I was in charge of this country's purse strings. And I also agree that their shouldn't be a cash bonanza, but if we are all in this together it would be easier if we met in the middle rather than the benefits system being demonized without actually creating any asperational jobs.

The 50p guy trying to make something of himself and showing kindness giving things away he could probably hardly afford to was heartwarming...However the reason that woman was struggling and had her benefits suspended was because they were fraudulently claiming £1500 a month in benefits !! Still smoking tho!

I was wondering when some clown would point this out.
'Look at these poor folk - all on benefits, yet they can afford to smoke and drink'.
Of course they fucking do - if I had a God-awful life like these people then I would be mainlining crack into my fucking eyeballs to cope.
But then, that is all part of the not-so-subtle subtext of shite programmes like these - 'let's judge these folk, find them guilty of profligacy, and blame them for the mess they're in, rather than the selfish, uncaring society that spawned them'.
A simple conclusion for simple folk.

Well, that's you. Personally I'd be out looking for work.

 

[nijinsky's fetlocks]

The 50p guy trying to make something of himself and showing kindness giving things away he could probably hardly afford to was heartwarming...However the reason that woman was struggling and had her benefits suspended was because they were fraudulently claiming £1500 a month in benefits !! Still smoking tho!

I was wondering when some clown would point this out.
'Look at these poor folk - all on benefits, yet they can afford to smoke and drink'.
Of course they fucking do - if I had a God-awful life like these people then I would be mainlining crack into my fucking eyeballs to cope.
But then, that is all part of the not-so-subtle subtext of shite programmes like these - 'let's judge these folk, find them guilty of profligacy, and blame them for the mess they're in, rather than the selfish, uncaring society that spawned them'.
A simple conclusion for simple folk.

Well, that's you. Personally I'd be out looking for work.

In fairness so would I if I lived in fucking Audenshaw.

 

[Mustard Dave]

If you get the opportunity to re-watch it, Channel 4 news last night had a landlord from Maidstone called Fergus Wilson on regarding housing. He is kicking out tenants on housing benefit as they are the ones in arrears - as is his right as a private landlord (probably a separate debate altogether to this).

Anyway, the point is - watch his interview. A real eye opener.

*edit*

In fact, here it is…. not my post on youtube, so any slant/bias in the title or ensuing comments are not mine, just simply want you to have a watch of him and tell me what you think (from about 1m 10s onwards):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdRS8ghUo7o[/youtube]

Personally I think the worst thing the government ever did was to pay housing benefit direct to the claimant, rather than it going directly to the landlord as was formerly the case.
A lot of folk in private rented accommodation have problems with substance misuse, alcoholism, debt to loan sharks, or a sad combination of all three.
So a cheque for £500 comes through the letterbox - is a heroin addict going to;

a) Put it in the bank to pay his landlord, or,
b) Pop round to his dealer?

Consequently, landlords won't touch such folk with a very long shitty stick.
This notwithstanding, Fergus Wilson is still an utter **** with the compassion of a breeze block, and I wouldn't lose any sleep if he was hit by a bus.

My mate's dad had two shops with ten flats above them. All the tenants were on benefits and all well enough to work (most of them did on the sly). He told me when they stopped paying the rent to him direct, he had to round up as many as he could in the morning and walk them to the post office before they got to the pub/bookie's/drug dealers. He would then have to go on a tour of the pubs and bookmakers to round up the ones that gave him the slip. Some would get away and then he would have the choice of taking expensive legal action or just writing it off as a bad debt. This was the reason he decided to sell up in the end.

 

[nijinsky's fetlocks]

If you get the opportunity to re-watch it, Channel 4 news last night had a landlord from Maidstone called Fergus Wilson on regarding housing. He is kicking out tenants on housing benefit as they are the ones in arrears - as is his right as a private landlord (probably a separate debate altogether to this).

Anyway, the point is - watch his interview. A real eye opener.

*edit*

In fact, here it is…. not my post on youtube, so any slant/bias in the title or ensuing comments are not mine, just simply want you to have a watch of him and tell me what you think (from about 1m 10s onwards):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdRS8ghUo7o[/youtube]

Personally I think the worst thing the government ever did was to pay housing benefit direct to the claimant, rather than it going directly to the landlord as was formerly the case.
A lot of folk in private rented accommodation have problems with substance misuse, alcoholism, debt to loan sharks, or a sad combination of all three.
So a cheque for £500 comes through the letterbox - is a heroin addict going to;

a) Put it in the bank to pay his landlord, or,
b) Pop round to his dealer?

Consequently, landlords won't touch such folk with a very long shitty stick.
This notwithstanding, Fergus Wilson is still an utter **** with the compassion of a breeze block, and I wouldn't lose any sleep if he was hit by a bus.

My mate's dad had two shops with ten flats above them. All the tenants were on benefits and all well enough to work (most of them did on the sly). He told me when they stopped paying the rent to him direct, he had to round up as many as he could in the morning and walk them to the post office before they got to the pub/bookie's/drug dealers. He would then have to go on a tour of the pubs and bookmakers to round up the ones that gave him the slip. Some would get away and then he would have the choice of taking expensive legal action or just writing it off as a bad debt. This was the reason he decided to sell up in the end.

This is what happens when you give folk a housing benefit cheque.
For the life of me, I just can't see what the government were hoping to achieve here - a blind man with a stick could see that many claimants would either piss it up the wall, or blow it on a drug binge.
Then they get evicted, and they accrue arrears, then the local authority won't house them either.
It was an act of sheer fucking lunacy.

 

[Blue Coop]

The benefits system needs a revamp so money is used in the right way in the majority. Obviously we are no experts, but why is it not providing housing benefits straight to landlords, benefits paid in food stamps and supermarket vouchers, and a little cash direct for misc (alchohol & drugs most likely, but some misc expense has to be accounted for incase of emergencies).

 

[Blue Hefner]

The benefits system needs a revamp so money is used in the right way in the majority. Obviously we are no experts, but why is it not providing housing benefits straight to landlords, benefits paid in food stamps and supermarket vouchers, and a little cash direct for misc (alchohol & drugs most likely, but some misc expense has to be accounted for incase of emergencies).

Surely that would stigmatize those unfortunate enough to need them even more, also it would suggest that the claimant is not trusted by the state to spend money. As for the argument that it would stop addicts from buying drugs, alcohol etc. It won't, I work with, they'll steel it. Addiction is very strong force

 

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

 

[bobmcfc]

I was wondering when some clown would point this out.
'Look at these poor folk - all on benefits, yet they can afford to smoke and drink'.
Of course they fucking do - if I had a God-awful life like these people then I would be mainlining crack into my fucking eyeballs to cope.
But then, that is all part of the not-so-subtle subtext of shite programmes like these - 'let's judge these folk, find them guilty of profligacy, and blame them for the mess they're in, rather than the selfish, uncaring society that spawned them'.
A simple conclusion for simple folk.

Well, that's you. Personally I'd be out looking for work.

In fairness so would I if I lived in fucking Audenshaw.

I can only dream of climbing the social ladder and one day find myself living in the Utopia that is Audenshaw

 

[Bluemoon dan]

I do wonder how staged a lot of these programmes are. The scene with the bloke with the ASBO preventing him from entering the city centre who had 4 coppers on bikes surrounding him the second he did seem very convenient. How recognisable is he really to every single policeman in the centre of Birmingham that 4 of them would clock him and know the exact conditions of his ASBO pretty much straight away?