THAT WELFARE CAP….

Been following the BBC coverage of the Coalition vote on the 1% cap on Welfare? What do you reckon, fair and balanced? I was on the BBC earlier today (BBC Brum) and the issue I was asked to debate was rather than have cuts to Welfare, why not just TAX THE RICH that little bit more? LOL  I was up against some Labour Councillor who naturally advocated this sort of spiteful class war so beloved of BBC types.

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42 Responses to THAT WELFARE CAP….

  1. Deborah says:

    Where has there been any reporting by the BBC which has not had the headline followed by the words, ‘Labour say it is an attack on the strivers not the shirkers’? And very little (if any) reporting how the increase in capital allowances reduces the effect.

       30 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      BBC CECUTT uses templates, so I think they can be deployed here.
      You have created a perfect one, with a few tweaks…
      ‘Where has there been any reporting by the BBC which has not had the headline followed by the words, ‘Labour say ..? And very little (if any) reporting on fact or realities in complement’
      Or.. BBC £4Bpa Labour re-election PR machine
      (I don’t want the others in their current form either, but the national broadcaster shunting me and my family’s future from a frying pan into a fire that suits their selfish monet-grubbing and social meddling ends better… no thanks).

         9 likes

      • Llew says:

        I do hope all these ‘Labour say…’ pieces are being saved up for after the next election when Labour are back and the “The Tories say….” bits fail to be said, because we know that from 1997 to 2010 “The Tories say…” was rarely, if ever, tagged onto the end of Government news reports.

           11 likes

      • Roland Deschain says:

        Actually, I thought they must have changed their name to But Labour. As in “But Labour say”, which I seem to hear an awful lot these days.

           13 likes

  2. fitzfitz says:

    Little Evan Davis told BBC R4 listeners just after 6am today that the relevant welfare rises would be “”a mere 1% “” …

       29 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      And welfare is a ‘mere’ 30% of all government spending. Even Two Eds on tonight’s news acknowledged that if any government wants to cut the deficit, welfare has to figure somewhere.

      And as for the notion that a £100 billion-plus annual deficit – let alone the debt – can be plugged by taxing the rich (as if they aren’t already the biggest contributors to the government’s coffers)………how are they allowed to repeatedly peddle such crap without the slightest challenge to their reasoning? Is this just slipshod, ignorant journalism by the BBC or something more sinister?

         40 likes

      • Scrappydoo says:

        We are told that we must become more competative to rise to the challenge of booming overseas markets, countries that do not have a 30% millstone around their necks. Labour’s dream of a socialist paradise is slipping away.

           8 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      Yep, heard something similar on radio2, news guy reports in loud author active tones that manufacturing is down, something else is down then almost as an afterthought adds but such and such was up but “only” by 0.7 percent or whatever it was.

         1 likes

  3. Alex says:

    Quote of the century by Labour’s Steven Timms on Newsnight: ‘We will get people back to work… at present this is not happening”. Incredulously, this mouthful of moonshine went unchallenged by motor mouth Gavin Estler – presumably because he was so absorbed in the sound of his own questions that he forgot to consult fact.

       51 likes

    • Dastardly Detective says:

      I did wonder what the heap of rubbish claiming to be an interviewer was called!!

         24 likes

  4. Alex says:

    Well, then. No doubts as to where the BBC’s views lie regards the prospect of a further eastern European tsunami to this country… A maudlin and gushing Newsnight package that didn’t cover the angle of what poor working-class Brits think about this. Mind you, since when did the trendy metro luvvies at the BBC care about white working class Brits?

       63 likes

    • Reed says:

      “since when did the trendy metro luvvies at the BBC care about white working class Brits?”

      Only when there’s the opportunity to bang an anti-Thatcher drum.

         42 likes

    • Mark says:

      Trendy metro luvvies are also not very keen on some of the Eastern Europeans (especially Poles), because they are not Muslim and also unlikely to vote Labour.

         34 likes

      • London Calling says:

        Poles I have met don’t support the Left perhaps because they suffered fifty years of Communism and they know where it leads. Herr Milliband needs the ethnic block vote – its what secured Francois Hollande the Presidency and Obama come to that. Easy fix: open door Britain, a Labour council flat is waiting. Just remember where to put that X.

           35 likes

    • JaneTracy says:

      Next they will be plugging the economics of Johnathan Portes at the NIESR. The same Johnathan Portes who forecast only 15,000 Eastern Europeans would come to the UK when he suggested to the Labour government that we should encourage them….how did that work out?

         12 likes

  5. Dastardly Detective says:

    Stephen TIMMS on Newsnight-‘People in modestly paid work -An Army Second Lieutenant supporting his wife and three children – £550 a year worse off as a result of this bill’ – If you can find this man, then I will eat various head pieces – not even challenged!! If this man exists then he will be promoted very quickly, and his earnings will increase accordingly. Utter Trash.

       33 likes

    • Reed says:

      Labour MPs, feigning sympathy for the Armed Forces?
      Where’s my shovel, it’s getting deep in here.

      Where was this man when chancellor Gordon Brown was ‘guillotining’ the defense budget at a time when troops were in TWO war zones and there was still plenty of money sloshing around the treasury during that famous permanent boom he so constantly boasted about?

      Beneath contempt.

         37 likes

    • Demagogue says:

      Nobody mentions that the Army Second Lieutenant will get a non-contributory final pension after just 18 years of service, so they could be getting a full pension at the age of 40. Don’t forget, it’s all courtesy of us taxpayers.

         16 likes

  6. Reed says:

    “‘We will get people back to work…”

    To be fair, this is probably an example of a Labourite being honest up to a point, but leaving out the details. What he means is, once re-elected, they will restart the process bloating the public sector with make-work appointments and busybody bureaucrats that serve nobody but which will cost the nation money it doesn’t possess…and the cycle continues. It’s in their DNA.

       47 likes

  7. Peter says:

    No one made a fuss or cared when the Duncan-Smith reduced considerably or removed altogether my, and that of many other disabled people, Support for Mortgage Interest payments in November 2010. As little as this money was in my case – £100 per month – I then had to find that money from my only other income, my pension each month which has caused me severe financial difficulty these past two years, particularly with the rising cost of living, such that I can see no other choice but to sell my house at a low price in this presently depressed market in order to have at least a modicum of peace of mind instead of the continuous worry of how I can make ends meet. But there are about eight houses for sale on my little street all ready so fat chance. I’ve worked bloody hard for forty-five years in order to buy my house for some comfort in retirement before I became ill. Compare my situation with that of all those sodding MPs of all parties who have built property empires having their mortgage interest paid by the taxpayer. I’m a big boy and I know of others in worse straits then me, so I don’t ask for sympathy – just stating facts. But I hope to live long enough to see them tried for their treachery to the people of this once great nation.

       19 likes

    • John wood says:

      You have had a mortgage for 45 years? Interest only? Or did you re-mortgage before your disability (hope it’s not too serious) to release some extra equity and enjoy the boom times?

      It’s just that with inflation on house prices and earnings over the 2000s it is surprising that someone of your age (at least 60) who ‘bought’ their house a long time ago still has a substantial mortgage on it.

         10 likes

      • John Anderson says:

        I don’t think Peter is saying he has had a mortgage for 45 years – he is saying he has worked for 45 years

           11 likes

      • Peter says:

        I didn’t say I’d had a mortgage for forty-five years, but worked hard for forty-five years in order to buy a house having always paid my dues. Couldn’t afford a mortgage until well into my forties. The welfare bill does need to be trimmed, but my point is that I don’t recall any one in the media or politics making much of a fuss when SMI was removed by Duncan-Smith for many needy people in November 2010, and yet child benefit is removed for those on salaries I could only dream about, and it opens up an enormous debate, as does the benefit cap. But politicians of the three main political parties are responsible for the mess in which the country now finds itself, but they will be the least affected by any steps taken to reduce the welfare bill. A pox on them all.

           21 likes

  8. Dastardly Detective says:

    And … If a Second Lieutnant is getting benefits…It supports the idea of getting them out of the system,

       7 likes

  9. #88 says:

    Not one BBC report that I have seen / listened to today (on the BBC News Channel, News at Ten, Newsnight, Radio 5, Radio 4) has given people the whole picture about these so called ‘cuts’. The message is that more ‘strivers’ will be hit, the working population who will be £150 out of pocket.
    Had they given the whole picture, BBC analysts like Stephanie Two Ed’s would have said that this limit of increase to 1% would be more than offset by the increase in personal allowances – worth up to £267 in 2013/4 with more to come in successive years.

    Huw Edwards encouraged people to visit the BBC website to find out how the ‘cuts’ would affect people. And true enough, it’s all there, EXCEPT for any reference to the tax breaks basic rate tax payers will be getting.

    This is bias, pure and simple – willful omission. And the BBC know it; the IFS figures, that they continually refer to, and link to say this: ‘It is important to see the effects of this Bill alongside the other TAX and benefit changes’.
    So why, BBC do you not present the effects alongside those tax changes?

       37 likes

  10. Alex says:

    Sorry DV, off topic again. If a cat (an SNP cat, that is) got stuck up a tree, it would be headline news on ‘News’-night Scotland. Every edition orbits around Scottish independence in the most hideously biased manner. But, viewing figures must be declining as BBC Reporting Scotland have resorted to regularly reminding viewers to tune in on the nightly farce, both on the lunchtime and Six ‘News’ lol.

       13 likes

  11. chrisH says:

    I know I keep on saying this-but would the BBC please tell us how they always manage to find those same few deserving poor.
    Inevitably single mums working very hard on a pittance, kids in uniforms for school and not a dad in sight-but not the parasitic druggie or criminal that usually make up most of the “client base” from the last Labour Government…created by them, for perpetual re-elections for Labour in return.
    Thankfully they got the independent bloke from “The Independent” to give us a balanced perspective…some shy and sensitive genius called…Owen Jones, I believe!
    Suppose Qutada wasn`t available for a quote…how are these savage cuts going to play down on the Arab Street?…or is that just another way of describing Wood Lane these days?
    Poor Abu!

       31 likes

    • Roland Deschain says:

      I think you’ll find that anyone with a grievance that they want more taxpayers’ money for knows exactly who to contact for maximum sympathetic coverage and publicity.

         7 likes

  12. Barry says:

    I listened to Morning reports 8-1-2013 at 0500 and I never realised that UK had descended into Dickensian poverty. Young mothers who couldn’t feed their offspring, children going to school hungry because parents were out at work( mother probably scrubbing flagstones and father mucking out sewers) and siblings not able to provide a nourishing breakfast. Only more government money could save the nation.

       27 likes

    • Beeboidal says:

      Yep. It can’t be long before the BBC attempts to substitute ‘Cameronian’ for Dickensian. Curiously, in our poverty stricken times obesity stalks the land, usually wearing track suits and £150 trainers.

         25 likes

      • Mark says:

        And those who are not obese are smoking cigs at £8 a pack and carting chav babies in buggies.

           9 likes

        • harryurz says:

          …wearing their 50 quid England football shirts while flicking through the cable channels on their wall mounted 42 inch flat screen TV.

             14 likes

  13. PhilO'TheWisp says:

    The BBC folk don’t give a monkeys about the 1% cap other than as a stick to beat Tories with. The thing that DOES chime with them however is the removal of child benefit on £60,000+ because the journos are all paid at well above this level and seem to breed several children each. The child benefit was a decent figure to top up the ski holiday fund or the account at the wine merchants after all.

       27 likes

  14. davews says:

    And nobody seems to point out that a 1% cap is NOT a cut, nobody will be getting less as a result of these changes. The increases may well be less than inflation but they are still increases. I am saddened by the media (not just the BBC) trying to give the image that everybody is on these benefits and will be out of pocket. I have never claimed a penny of benefit in my life (apart from the winter fuel allowance they now generously give me..) and have never seen the need. (mind you I don’t have six children…).

       20 likes

    • JaneTracy says:

      You will have to expalin that to Stephanie Flounders at the BBC! I notice that several of the comments to her latest blog are suggesting she has her numbers wrong.

      So dates, numbers,inflation……..

         14 likes

  15. George R says:

    -Couldn’t find this on BBC-NUJ:-

    ‘Daily Mail’:-
    Iraqi ‘benefit cheat refused to declare £36,000 in savings from father claiming it would have broken Sharia Law’

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2259661/Iraqi-benefit-cheat-refused-declare-36-000-savings-father-claiming-broken-Sharia-Law.html#ixzz2HVc8S0ll
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

       4 likes

  16. chrisH says:

    The Today 8am bulletin today led with something that the Coalition are NOT doing….strange angle on a news story, but there you go.
    Their ONS will not be changing the way that they calculate RPI-in the cause of continuity. This now means that pensions will now NOT be attacked or slyly fiddled…so unlike what Labour did by instinct for those thirteen years.
    Ah, but this is the BBC remember-so our BBC mouthpieces then tell us that this will unduly cost something to those who depend on those who rely on people whose ratings and payments come from those who have not had their payments from those who ARE now-er “unaffected” by the RPI not being altered…see?…got that?
    If The Tories do nothing-then it affects those whose money hasn`t changed, because they buy things from people whose money may well be changed now that the Tories aren`t changing things…does that help?
    Ah to hell with it…f***in Tories are there-when Labour ought to be-so just shut the f*** up…it`s ALL the Tories fault…and always will be…alright?
    You know something?…Stanley Unwin is truly the voice of the BBC…but at least he was funny and a genius. The BBC are desperate and ignorant…

       2 likes