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Bedroom tax blamed for gran's death
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Amnesia10
Legend
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:02 am Posts: 29240 Location: Guantanamo Bay (thanks bobbdobbs)
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_________________Do concentrate, 007... "You are gifted. Mine is bordering on seven seconds." https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTg5MzczNTkhttp://astore.amazon.co.uk/wwwx404couk-21
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Mon May 13, 2013 8:49 am |
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l3v1ck
What's a life?
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:21 am Posts: 12700 Location: The Right Side of the Pennines (metaphorically & geographically)
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Sorry, but what a crock of [LIFTED]. She could have moved to a smaller council house. Social housing should be based on need. There's a huge backlog of families needing homes and an old granny does not need a three bedroom house. She might want it, like it or be accustomed to it, but she doesn't need it. You want a larger house? But one or pay full private rent, but don't expect the tax payer to pay for waste.
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Mon May 13, 2013 2:31 pm |
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jonbwfc
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:26 pm Posts: 17040
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There are few if any available smaller council houses. One of the problems with the 'bedroom tax' is that it's shifted demand from large houses to smaller ones at short notice and the smaller houses simply don't exist. The demand for 1/2 bed council houses was massively outstripping the available supply already, which was short because (for effectively at least the last decade, it's not just the current administration's fault) building of social housing hasn't been keeping up. This was one of the known problems it was predicted that the change would have, but they went and did it anyway. Thousands of people in houses they suddenly cannot afford to keep but with no alternative available to them. They were told this was going to happen, but they ignored it. Wow. Not a single ounce of human compassion. Well done. There probably is a family that will be grateful for the new home they will soon get. I wonder what their reaction would be if you told them it took an old woman's suicide to get them in there?
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Mon May 13, 2013 3:34 pm |
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paulzolo
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:27 pm Posts: 12251
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That's where we are now. There is no compassion in any of these changes, and the "Nudge Unit" is making sure that this becomes the normal way of thinking. It's the typical point, blame, demonise methodology that right wing politics uses as its tool of choice.
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Mon May 13, 2013 3:44 pm |
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Amnesia10
Legend
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:02 am Posts: 29240 Location: Guantanamo Bay (thanks bobbdobbs)
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If they had waited a good few years to build enough smaller homes then this would have been easy to sell, as people could move much more easily, though this woman was effectively being forced out of an area where her friends had lived.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk.
_________________Do concentrate, 007... "You are gifted. Mine is bordering on seven seconds." https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTg5MzczNTkhttp://astore.amazon.co.uk/wwwx404couk-21
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Mon May 13, 2013 4:32 pm |
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ShockWaffle
Doesn't have much of a life
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2009 6:50 am Posts: 1911
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That is tragically hypocritical.
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Mon May 13, 2013 5:10 pm |
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jonbwfc
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:26 pm Posts: 17040
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I don't know about the right wing specifically and I'd argue that it's a tactic used often in politics generally - it's discussed in 1984 after all - but this administration has been particularly brazen in it's use of 'bogeyman' tactics to push it's agenda, 'strivers' versus 'shirkers' and such. Interestingly, they only seem to have taken to it after "we're all in this together" turned out to be a level of patent cobblers as even they couldn't sustain with a straight face. Do governments of all stripes try to accentuate threats to attempt to make the majority of the electorate more malleable? Quite likely. But I can't remember any previous UK government in my lifetime at least doing it quite so viciously against some of it's own electorate. Jon
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Mon May 13, 2013 6:02 pm |
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belchingmatt
I haven't seen my friends in so long
Joined: Fri May 15, 2009 3:16 am Posts: 6146 Location: Middle Earth
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She could also have rented out one or two rooms and been on to a nice little earner, not forgetting that she would have had someone to talk to, mow the lawns and do a spot of gardening for her.
There should be some compassion of course, but this case is certainly not the norm, I hope.
_________________ Dive like a fish, drink like a fish!
><(((º>`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸><(((º> •.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸><(((º>`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸><(((º>
If one is diving so close to the limits that +/- 1% will make a difference then the error has already been made.
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Mon May 13, 2013 11:03 pm |
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Amnesia10
Legend
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:02 am Posts: 29240 Location: Guantanamo Bay (thanks bobbdobbs)
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Yes but that might have impacted her other benefits. Also you need approval from insurers if you are letting rooms to strangers. As for having someone to talk to she already had friends in the area. She went to hug them all the night before, it was in the article, so she did not need friends, it was being moved away from them that was the final straw. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk.
_________________Do concentrate, 007... "You are gifted. Mine is bordering on seven seconds." https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTg5MzczNTkhttp://astore.amazon.co.uk/wwwx404couk-21
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Tue May 14, 2013 3:25 am |
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ShockWaffle
Doesn't have much of a life
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2009 6:50 am Posts: 1911
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The previous government expanded spending without increasing the tax base. So they never had to engage with bogeymen, either the sort that gets taxed more aggressively, or the other kind who has to be paid less than before. I'm not sure this has proved to be to its credit. Be it left or right, when a government wants to do something nasty or unreasonable, they start by expressing disgust for the victim. When the Socialist French president wanted to squeeze the rich with an insanely high income tax (so high that his communist challenger in the last election denounced it as vicious) he said he hated the rich. Demonisation is a necessary component of modern democratic politics. It comes about because everyone wants a say in the government of their affairs, but few want to actually look at evidence for things, and fewer still are willing or able to contemplate issues in which competing viewpoints can have morally equal merit, while being based on fundamentally opposed definitions of justice. We have a democracy where millions vote, but 90% of those people have no earthly idea what the difference is between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, and it seems to be in nobody's interest for them to really think about that. It's much easier to marshal them if they can be summoned into action with a Pavlovian soundbite. And better still if they can be easily trained to reject opposing views on the basis of visceral disgust rather than honest evaluation of data, arguments and perspectives. Don't fool yourself that you are any better than the other guys on the assumption that hold a monopoly of such malpractice though. If you've ever said a policy must be bad because it was Gideon's idea, you are no better than them at all.
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Tue May 14, 2013 8:19 am |
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jonbwfc
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 7:26 pm Posts: 17040
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You might want to consider on the notion that not all ideas are equal.
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Tue May 14, 2013 9:12 am |
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cloaked_wolf
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:46 pm Posts: 10022
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How very true. Has anyone noticed the vilification campaign against the NHS and GPs in particular? Rubbish it and add in media spin and suddenly everyone wants to dismantle the NHS.
_________________ He fights for the users.
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Tue May 14, 2013 9:38 am |
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Amnesia10
Legend
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:02 am Posts: 29240 Location: Guantanamo Bay (thanks bobbdobbs)
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It is not stopping the Tories getting ahead of public opinion already. They are imposing reforms that are completely untested and will deliberately create huge conflicts of interest for GP's and so sowing the seeds of dismantling the whole NHS.
_________________Do concentrate, 007... "You are gifted. Mine is bordering on seven seconds." https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTg5MzczNTkhttp://astore.amazon.co.uk/wwwx404couk-21
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Tue May 14, 2013 10:04 am |
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ShockWaffle
Doesn't have much of a life
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2009 6:50 am Posts: 1911
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Well, obviously not all ideas are equal. But I would argue that competing interpretations of what is the good life (in the Eudaimonia sense) are morally equivalent. The view that human life reaches its greatest value as an expression of individual will and action, and that freedom from interference is vital to the pursuit of human dignity, is not inferior to a competing view that collective action and communal support are essential to achieve the same ends. Both propositions are true, and the fact that they conflict implies that true social justice depends on an impossible balance of bitterly competing objectives. So the competing political creeds each tend to stress one side of the equation and force the other into a subordinate role, and each is equally to be criticised when they push that too far, which is unavoidable. But be honest, if a Tory idea was good, and based on sensible reasoning etc. you wouldn't always notice would you? I know you wouldn't, your enthusiasm for disagreeing with them just overpowers you sometimes. And Amnesia is worse than you. He would immediately say it was all about appeasing their paymasters, they would never do it anyway, and it would make houses too expensive if they did (whatever it was - even if it was a u-turn from another policy that had that effect), so we will all have to die in misery, eating rats and living in holes. But in light of the above, I would like you every now and then to consider that they are often honest people who genuinely intend to do good. They happen to disagree with you about what is the best thing to be done, but I wish you guys wouldn't assume they are evil and stupid for that*. * this offer excludes the obviously stupid and evil ones. I am not defending arguments like 'gay marriage should be banned because then we have to allow men to marry goats too.' Some ideas do suck because the people wielding them are idiots.
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Tue May 14, 2013 7:10 pm |
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ShockWaffle
Doesn't have much of a life
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2009 6:50 am Posts: 1911
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A perfect example of my point. Every Tory knows that the NHS provides Britain with a competitive edge in the global economy, and they do think that's important. They do think the NHS is a public good and they do intend to keep it. Anyone with a basic grasp of numbers and simple to research facts can tell you that healthcare spending is a massive drag on US economic performance and that only their stellar industrial productivity has made it possible for them to persist with their current methods of funding thus far. An economy with our rather more average productivity levels could never sustain the same kind of indulgence in the modern world. The Tories know this perfectly well - I am less certain about you.
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Tue May 14, 2013 7:20 pm |
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