Article by me at politics.co.uk today.
“You’ve got all the benefit porn on TV,” the officer says. “This whole idea of unemployment and benefit claimants being scroungers and getting the blame for having to bail the bankers out… that is coming into housing as well.”
The officer overturned one intentional homelessness finding made in the case of a woman who left her flat and local area because she’d been raped by a local man that she kept seeing around. She wanted to get away from him and the area they lived in, which was hardly surprising.
“Somebody found her intentionally homeless [for leaving her flat voluntarily],” the officer says. “They [the council officer who made the decision] were like, ‘I overheard her friend say, ‘You’ll come down here and you’ll live near me.’ They [officers] jump on this and say, ‘see – that means that they [the homeless person] tried to leave the place and it [the person’s story] is all contrived’.”
Kate.
The government don’t give a damn about homeless people & it’s mainly because of their policies why there are so many more people living on the streets than ever before!
Most politicians don’t live in the REAL World & have their heads so far up their arses they don’t have a bloody clue what’s going on!
I really hope I see the day where Theresa May & all the other idiots ruining this once great country actually spend time behind bars for their crimes against humanity!!
There is nothing at all “Great” about Britain anymore!
I think anyone who is responsible for people being street homeless in this weather in particular needs to be tied to a park bench in the snow for a fortnight. See how they like it.
…and pelted with snowballs.
then tasered
There is a large measure of unofficial support for a lot of these attitudes, often by the local management these people work for. It’s the same at the Jobcentre. You simply can’t do what has been done over the last 7 years to welfare, housing and disability payments without these harsh attitudes increasingly becoming the new ‘ normal’. As staff struggle with slashed budgets, impossible targets and continued government pressure.
Yep I see that. Councils are real fingerpointing places as well. There’s always someone further down the chain to blame for fuckups
This is what the Nazis did in WW2. First they set out to change people’s attitudes, in order to change society.
The fact that ‘benefit porn’ even exists is an indicator of how far society has travelled along the path of division, scape-goating and general cruelty. Is it right in any decent society for people to sit down in front of their TV and watch, for their own amusement, the desperate circumstances of others ?
This is another area where Labour are useless, homelessness. I don’t hear much from JC about it, or what they are going to do about it.
2yrs ago i was earning over £50k per yr, I had a lovely new Lexus parked on my drive & everything was looking Rosey.
For reasons I won’t go into, as i would be here forever, I now have nothing & all through no fault of my own, and was very nearly homeless myself not too long ago., I’ve been to hell & back the last 2yrs & couldn’t get any help as no one wanted to know.
Because of what I went through I desperately hate this government with a passion & what they are doing to this country & the people of this country, but they don’t have a bloody clue & don’t give a damn either!!
As long as they’re looking after themselves & their mega rich friends, that’s all they’re bothered about.
They don’t give a toss about how many people are living on the breadline day to day, worrying about not being able to buy their children anything for Christmas or the homeless out on the streets!!
My partner volunteers for one of the night shelters & it broke my heart when she came back the other night & said there were 2 new girls turned up needing a bed, they were the same age as my daughter, 18yrs old!!
WTF is wrong with these arseholes who don’t give a Shit about the people they’re supposed to be representing!
I really really do hope I see the day they all get sent down for what they’re doing!
They should hang their heads in shame………… but we all know that won’t happen don’t we!!!!
Half the country is only a couple of wage packets away from not being able to pay the mortgage. It only takes one slip, illness, lose your job, whatever and bang thats you homeless.
Could happen to anyone.
You’re so correct Matt B.
It could happen to absolutely anyone mate. And it very nearly happened to me after being on £50k plus per yr with no money worries at all with a brand new sporty Lexus on my drive!
I’m now ashamed to say I’m claiming benefits after working from the age of 14, I’m now 49 & was paying 40% tax for the last 4yrs after working my way up to Operations Manager after 27yrs with the same company before being forced to claim benefits through no fault of my own!
I even went 18months living off my whole life savings before having no money left at all before being forced to claim something as im very proud & hated the fact that i had no choice but to claim benefits!!
I now hate this country with a passion for what I’ve been through. But, I think Theresa May & all her knobhead cronies that we see falling asleep daily in the houses of Parliament need to spend a week homeless to see the Real world before they even start to think about the homeless of this country. Which, obviously we know the answer to that one!!!
Disgusted & demoralised is an understatement!!
Why are you ‘ashamed’ if it’s not your fault?
Because i was brought up to work hard for what i wanted in life & not to claim benefits as that was a last resort, which it was a last resort for me after spending my whole life savings before even attempting to claim a single penny!!!
You have got it so right they do not care a DAM
Cherry sweetheart, as long as they & their mega rich friends are ok, then that’s all they care about my mate!!!
Not you, me people working on zero hour contracts, people on less than minimum wage, disabled people who they have taken loads of money off which they should be jailed for!!!!!, people who would love to work but cannot due to their illness etc etc, they don’t give a shiny Shite about any of
Us matey. End Of!!!!
And unfortunately a lot of right-wing, Sun -reading working class keep voting them back in. Like turkeys voting for Christmas.
This is the age-old problem. Labour spend too much, and the Tories always go too far.
Very true John. A lot of that TV Benefits Street stuff is unpleasant. The whole attitude.
Same with the ones about immigrants etc.
And the more people watch this stuff, the more hardened they get to it.
The main problem with these Benefits tv programmes is they are only showing the scroungers on society. The knobheads that left school & couldn’t be arsed to ever go out & get a job & earn a living instead of scrounging off the taxpayers & society that they think they are owed a living from without ever getting their bone idle arses out of bed & even looking for a job, that’s why I never watch these programmes, as they really wind me up so much!!!
The main problem is, these Arseholes on these tv shows are giving the genuine people who are really struggling a very bad name, which is why this stupid government tar everyone on benefits with the same brush!!
This is why I say they don’t live in the REAL World because the idiots running this now useless country cannot see this. They only see exactly what they want to see & turn a complete blind eye to the people who are actually suffering with disability or health conditions which mean they’d love to work but cannot! & who are living on the breadline day to day & those living on the streets. Britain (I’m sorry but i can no longer call it “Great Britain”) is on its way down & will soon be a 3rd world country if these total clueless Arseholes continue to try to run it exactly how they are currently running it!!!!
Absofuckinlutelyclueless!!
Hi Ritchie, I understand where you are coming from, but have you considered that your comment “The main problem with these Benefits tv programmes is they are only showing the scroungers on society.” and “The main problem is, these Arseholes on these tv shows are giving the genuine people who are really struggling a very bad name, which is why this stupid government tar everyone on benefits with the same brush!!” just shows how well that propaganda is working, when even those of us who are also claiming distance themselves from the ‘other’ the ‘scroungers’.
It’s classic divide and rule, and let’s not forget that poverty porn is deliberately made to show all claimants in a bad light. There is something not nice about all ‘reality TV, which is part of a malaise that seems to also be part of corporate capitalism’s attempts to control what we think, or at least what we think about. Most popular media is full of ‘celebrity’ gossip, as if these things were of pressing importance, but they are mere distractions to take attention away from the real issues in life – and poverty porn is just the same. If people such as those genuinely exist, then they really are the 0.001% of the population, and thus pretty much irrelevant. Perhaps you would be better being far more angry with the top 0.001% of the population who have cost you a huge amount more than anyone claiming benefits. Remember, someone on UC gets £73.10 a week, a sum that would have been pretty insignificant, even to you, when you were earning £50k a year.
Great Britain was never called such because it was in any way ‘great’ in terms of how wonderful it was, (unless you were an exploiter of workers or slaves) but because it is bigger than Brittany, in France. In French, Brittany is called, Bretagne, thus Grande Bretagne, or ‘Great Britain’
The whole point of poverty porn is exactly to portray all benefits claimants as feckless scroungers deserving only of contempt.
I see the divide and rule tactics are working. With that attitude you’re part of the problem Ritchie, and you’re buying into the propaganda just like they want you to buy into it. Hell, they’ve even made you ‘ashamed’ to claim benefits. Time to WAKE UP and realise there is no ‘them and us’, it is all benefit claimants in the same boat, unemployed and working, it is all low paid people in the same boat, and it should be all working class people in the same boat. If only people realised that, and realised who the real enemy are (which despite your problems, you don’t appear to) the Tories would be out of power on the working class vote alone and they would never get back in.
Hi Paddi & KJ
Thank you for your comments, but, saying I’m part of the problem, I’m sorry I just don’t get that at all!!!, as i speak from my own experiences & not from what is portrayed by the Shite media in this country!!!
I left school in 1984 after working every single weekend for 2years, prior to that, getting a grilling from my P.E teacher asking why I wouldn’t play football for the school at weekends, it was because i had a job every weekend from the age of 14!!
As i said, I don’t watch any of these benefit programmes purely because they just wind me up after working damned hard all my life.
And, I speak from experience, as i know of people who left school when I did, and to this day, have yet to work a full day in their lives believing society will take care of them etc.
So, saying I’m adding to the “Problem” im sorry but i dont buy that at all!!!
I was brought up to work hard for what I wanted in life, unfortunately, I know of many who just play the system & cannot be arsed to do a days work as they are purely just bone idle, and that is speaking from experience & NOT from a made up tv programme!!
Yeah but Richie thats just a minority. Its like those newspaper articles about skydiving skivers etc. When they catch some guy jumping out of a plane when he should have been in bed sick. The Tories have deliberately made benefit claimants a target in order to get the working-class to go along with these changes.
Tom D.
That’s my point my mate!! It is the minority!!!
But, unfortunately this arsehole useless government use the minority & tar everyone else with the same brush!!!!
JK & Paddi believe I’m obviously part of the problem as they say!!
But, all I can say is that I’ve worked since I was 14, worked my way up to ops manager after working for same company for 26 plus yrs, and then my health went downhill & i was forced to give up work etc etc.
My point was, this can happen to absolutely anyone, as it did to me, that thought I would happily work to & past retirement age and it’s in my blood to work hard for what you want!!
What I was trying to say is that I know of bone idle Arseholes that just will not work for a living. Paddi & KJ think ive got this from watching tv etc!! I haven’t, as i hate watching these things on tv as they wind me up by just showing idiots who know how to play the system etc!
This government are trying to get even those who are unable back into work no matter what!!
I was recently told i was fit to work even though my GP said i wasn’t! I appealed & i beat the Bastards at a tribunal which I was more pleased about proving the so called “Healthcare proffesional” blatantly lied at my assessment!!
This useless government is wasting millions trying to prove people with no legs & arms are fit to work instead of clamping down on those that take the Piss who should be In work that are just to bone idle to get a job. They are giving the genuine ones a bad name, and it needs to stop!!!!
You say you hate the Government, but you’re still buying into Tory ideas and the concept of divide and rule, and the scrounger rhetoric and the concept of a ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor. The owner of this blog, Kate Belgrave, consistently states that she is against this, and that everyone deserves a roof over their heads and food on the table, whoever they are or whatever they do.
Of course you’re not obliged to agree with her, but hers is the right attitude. Don’t you realise that the Tories do not care whether you have worked all your life or not, if you claim benefits you are a scrounger, full stop.
You say you get wound up about ‘poverty porn’ because of the people that appear in these programmes, when the reason you should be getting wound up about them is because they are Tory propaganda designed to stir up hatred. If you don’t reject this propaganda and reject the message these programmes are trying to put forward, this Government has you exactly where they want you.
The reason the Government ‘tar everyone with the same brush’ is because you’re providing them with the brush. If you’re going to be wound up at tv programmes, you should be getting wound up that this shit is even being produced, not at the people who feature in these programmes who at the end of the day have absolutely no effect on your life whatsoever.
Do you really think that if so called scroungers didn’t exist and these programmes weren’t made the Tories would change their attitude towards you? Because they wouldn’t.
Theres so much of this TV stuff around, Benefits Street about so-called scroungers, Border Agency about refugees trying to get into the UK. Then that one about the bailiffs called something like Thats It We’re Taking The Lot. I don’t think theres been one about about homelessness yet, but how long can it be before we see TV reporters following homeless people around and interviewing them too ?
There is an upcoming series about homlessness in Cardiff, called ‘Cardiff: Living on the Streets’ which will be shown on BBC1 Wales, but will be available on iPlayer all over the UK. However the format is completely different, and doesn’t seek to undermine the people taking part, and is more to show how people manage to live their lives in such circumstances. It doesn’t judge, but seeks to show the rest of us how hard it is living on the streets.
There have been previous series made by this team, and though I seem to remember a previous series about Cardiff, a few years ago the same team made, I think, three series about the homeless of Swansea.
I totally agree with you Jasper T but, that will never happen as it would actually speak the truth about what’s going on in this country. And that’s something that this Shite government won’t want to know about! THE TRUTH!!!!!!
They daren’t let the real truth out. Thats why you get all these cover stories about what they are doing. Making disabled people work becomes helping them. Selling off the NHS is turned into making it more efficient.
Its like two levels of truth. The one they give out in the press, and the real truth behind the words. What they really want to do.
How the Tories have got away with what they have, I’ll never know.
Look at the mess they’ve made, homelessness, the welfare state almost gone, the NHS in pieces. Its been like a wrecking ball cracking through society.
And yet they carry on as if they are doing something wonderful.
Its all negative, and yet they spin it to pretend that the country has never had it so good. And still they keep getting away with it.
Pete. 100% right mate. They all deserve to spend time behind bars for they are doing & have done to this country & the people of this country!!!
When you think about it Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn do have something in common, they’re both struggling to be Prime Minister, and neither of them is any good at it.
Shows how much things have changed, round about now people on benefits would have been getting their extra £10 Christmas Bonus.
Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end….
As the song has it.
Kind of makes you nostalgic for the old DSS days doesn’t it ? Two applications a week, no conditionality. Two weeks holiday from JSA if you put the form in.
Christmas bonus, two weeks rent paid if you started a job, then 100 quid thank you money to see you off. New clothes and shoes from the fund, travel expenses paid.
That was when claiming was claiming, not like today.
You come back to a system like Universal Credit which was designed for absolute command and control of the unemployed. Ken Loach has said quite correctly that the DWP is using hunger as a weapon against claimants. But by extension, they are also using the threat of destitution, inability to pay rent, and homelessness.
And the councils increasingly are out of it, with the DWP now controlling not only the unemployment benefit but the housing costs as well.
There’s not a court in the land that is able to take food from people as a punishment. Yet the DWP can.
There’s not a court can punish the innocent families of someone.
But the DWP can.
The DWP need to be taken down a peg or two. Its wrong the way they carry on as if they own the country. In the end of the day they just do benefits, not run the government.
The tv shows mentioned above deliberately set out to portray unfortunate people as being “feckless”, “idle”, “scroungers”, etc. That’s how divide & rule works. Portray people as transgressors & marginalize them. Create a scapegoat – the poor, the unemployed (use words like “worklessness”), or immigrants, & then particular groups of immigrants, the Romanians, the Jews – is this beginning to sound familiar? Notice how they use editorial devices to depict people in a bad
Grrr..damned phone!
….in a bad light. Interview an unemployed person but zoom in close up to the ciggy between their fingers. Interview a woman in debt & zoom in on thetv in corner of room. Infer blame. Pass judgement.
Then make it look worse with some crafty editing, and bingo a nice profit for the Tv company !
Why don’t they do one called Grasping Landlords ?
A TV series where we follow a group of would-be property entrepreneurs through buying-to-let some wretched dump. Then trying to patch it up and push it onto the market with dangerous electrics and gas.
Broken heating, cockroaches and mould.
Then interviewing the tenants with a load of false promises abour repairs. We could watch astonished at the rent, and then perhaps look in on a no-fault eviction later on.
The DWP should be forced to publish the full business case for Universal Credit.
The full details of what it has cost, and the projected ‘savings’ it will make.
Of course there aren’t any real savings, because it will take years to show even the smallest savings. This is why they have so far refused to publish the business case, even to MPs . Who do they think they are ?
If they did Nigel it would soon make them look foolish. With no financial reason for doing it, whats left but deliberate cruelty ?
Universal Credit is not simply a benefits system, its more like a Trojan Horse directed at the whole concept of the welfare state.
It contains within it the seeds of a very nasty change in how welfare and benefits are seen and administered in this country.
They could just as easily put back all the cuts that Osbourne made to Tax Credits, if they want to ‘make work pay.’
But they don’t care if it pays or not, just as long as they drag everybody even disabled, off benefits.
Universal Credit is about ‘whipping’ the unemployed, just the same as they do in Westminster.
The Department Without Pity, that’s who, going by their recent record.
Its a disgrace the way they are allowed to carry on, treating people like criminals just because they need to claim benefits.