Austerity

Like I said in an earlier post I have every sympathy with those who have fallen on hard times. If the same happened to me I doubt I would get anything as I've worked hard and own my home, I would probably have to sell up and spend everything I worked for before getting a penny of support.
My frustration is that there are tens of thousands who choose the benefit lifestyle and if people want to deny their existence then there is nothing I can do about that. There are people like yourself who have done the right thing and worked hard, paid their taxes and deserve support when required - that is what the benefit system is all about surely? Likewise, those with disabilities or illness deserve more support than they currently get - I mean genuine illness not obesity, fatigue, acne etc....

Unfortunately, the benefit system gets abused by those who choose it as a career choice rather than a valuable last resort. Btw I don't consider myself middle class (whatever that means?) having been brought up in a council house by a scaffolder father and hairdresser mother.

Every single day cases of benefit fraud are heard in the courts and reported on. I'm not spending my Friday night providing you with loads of links - search for them yourself. If you think that's false and everyone on benefit is in that situation through no fault of their own fair enough. Head in sand will never solve our disfunctional society. 

You criticised me the other day for providing an opinion based on my own experience of the NHS rather than "facts" or "evidence" yet here you are using the "real time experience" of someone else to support your opinion. You seem to change your own Gaschat rule book whenever it suits.

That made me laugh.🤣🤣🤣

Thanks, yeah it’s all sorted now - after complaining to everyone who would listen that I am a bloody hard worker if given the chance I eventually got a 6 month temp job doing basic admin in a stock brokers during tax year end last year. A contact from my old job was since able to make me an offer to be a junior web developer for him so I’ve made a comeback (of sorts!).

What was both a point of pride and absolutely maddening to the point of rage was when, on my last day at the stock brokers my boss told my colleagues that losing me would be like losing an arm. It was proof, for me, that my unemployment had very little to do with me and everything to do with the flawed process of finding a job which saw me constantly overlooked and rejected for jobs where I could have made a similar impact.

My point is: There are good people that find themselves out of work all the time. No-one is owed a job and we would all do well to remember that when we cast judgement on the unemployed thanks to the trash that they put on TV that tries to teach us all that anyone unemployed is unemployed through choice and part of some feckless generation of wastrels. They are out there, but I do not agree that the issue is anywhere near as big as these TV shows make out. Most people can’t survive on the dole, it was hard enough for me let alone if I had mouths to feed so all this people having the time of their lives stuff is either lies or they are substantially funding their dole lifestyle through (most likely) illegal means. For most honest citizens the dole is an endless nightmare of being one step away from sleeping on the streets and being in the most vulnerable position anyone can possibly find themselves in.

Austerity was just the code word for all the public spending cuts the Tories had been itching to make for decades.

They had never been able to do it before because it would have been too unpopular, but the global financial crisis originated by the USA gave them their long-awaited chance, and they were able to pin the blame on Gordon Brown whilst dabbing their eyes in mock sorrow.

Yes

Correct.
It was ideologically driven, based upon the economic theories of Friedrich Hayek, the same theories that Rees-Mogg embraces.

The actuality

Virgin Care sued the NHS last year after it lost out on an £82m contract to provide children’s health services across Surrey, citing concerns over “serious flaws” in the way the contract was awarded.

More Tory incompetence.

Yes