Monday 13 June 2011

Welfare Scroungers

Here's the full transcript of Ed Miliband's speech about "scroungers"

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2011/06/13/ed-miliband-responsibility-speech-in-full

I'm off to London to hear what Liam Byrne and Frank Field have to say.

I'll blog about this tomorrow when I can stop crying long enough.

21 comments:

  1. Are they tears of frustration, tears of anger, tears of laughter or a combination Sue

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  2. I'm looking at my Labour membership card and wondering about cutting it up and returning it. When Ed M starts to sound like Westminster Council, maybe it's time to leave !

    Ed Cowling

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  3. not sure what to make of the speech, even not sure if he knows what to do either

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  4. Good luck!
    Can you please ask if Cameron has private shares in GlaxoSmithKline?

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  5. peter i think they would be tears of frustration. Ed saying that he met a man on incapacity benefit for ten years and although genuine feels he should be working.

    Well Ed your not him you don't know anything about him other then what he's told you your not living in his body so don't presume he could be working he may be in a lot of pain in which you cant see
    As for the rest of the speech i have heard it all before so not much new there

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  6. Hang in there Sue, you aren't alone, even if it feels like it right now *hugs*. I am truly shocked, and I didn't think much could shock me within politics these days.

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  7. My initial reaction is that he's playing to his favoured 'squeezed middle' (which is where the votes are). Not enough about tax avoiders and not enough understanding of the plight of seriously ill and disabled people.
    And of course he has to be very careful what he says because he was a member of the last government.

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  8. Labour believe that they lost the last election for not being hard on benefits claims, Miliband said last year we did not go far enough, we should have done more, but people thought he was saying he was wrong, which he did, but not wrong for welfare reforms but wrong for not going further.

    Labour has to compete with the Tories now, both are fighting along the same lines, the war ended 60 odd years ago and now we live in a new world. Of course employers do not want you or do not care about you, but in Miliband and Cameron's world that means you getting JSA not IB or ESA.

    This has sod all to do about me or you working it has everything to do with lower benefits JSA to be exact.

    JSA would mean in three years time DLA going to PIps and possible not being paid to people who work or are placed onto JSA we do not know yet, what we do know only the most severely disabled will get it, how to define the most severe, I have no idea.

    But for anyone who doubted the Tories and labour had not been working together on welfare here it is.


    Robert

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  9. could they have been working together its possible i guess. Its the end for sure. i am so very angry at the moment because i know my whole working life has been for nothing. i never asked for this fxxxx illness i have nor did i want my family to suffer because of it. I hate all the fxxxxx politicians. Masters of War Bob sang and he was so right.

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  10. "I do not accept the Conservative characterisation of those on benefits as being feckless and worthless." - Ed Milibland"

    OH YES YOU DO!

    His mouth must be worn out after talking out of both sides of it.

    Fuck that ineffectual, spineless, cynical opportunist nasal, depraved, bland, dishonourable boring, power hungry, loathsome bastard and all who support him.

    "Gordon Brown was so "obsessed" with trying to win the support of Rupert Murdoch while he was Prime Minister that he drew up his tax policies to appeal to the media magnate, according to a book published tomorrow.

    Lance Price, who was Alastair Campbell’s deputy at Downing Street during Tony Blair’s first term, discloses Mr Brown’s remarkable preoccupation with Mr Murdoch in a new edition of his book “Where Power Lies” published tomorrow.

    It says Mr Brown’s disastrous decision to abolish the 10p starting rate of tax, which alienated many working class Labour supporters, stemmed from his desire to pander to Mr Murdoch. The money saved was used to cut the basic rate from 22p to 20p in the pound, and Mr Brown insisted there would be no losers.

    The book reveals that No 10 aides would take bets on how long it would take Mr Brown to mention the Murdoch empire at meetings on unrelated subjects – often just a few minutes.

    “He was obsessed with News International, completely obsessed,” said Patrick Loughran, a former Downing Street aide who was special adviser to Lord Mandelson. “We would go into meetings on election strategy or the pre-Budget report or some big announcement we were doing and within a minute Gordon would turn it into News International and Rebekah Brooks [the company’s chief executive].

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brown-scrapped-10p-tax-band-to-woo-murdoch-2256732.html

    Well that worked well for Gordon didn't it.

    These grovelling bastards never learn.

    Where's the fucking democracy?!

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  11. Its really depressing that someone think that it carrys votes to identify someone he met once as fit for work and on the fiddle. I do hope that man is found and gives his side of the story. Will we all have to feel like if we ever meet an MP who point out what is wrong with is, and why we cant work incase they make the same assumption????
    Shame on you Ed
    If labour dont want to fight for us, who is there left for us to vote for?

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  12. Completely off subject,about a programme Saints and scroungers. They mentioned shock, horror ,that a man on dialysis ,very ill waiting for a new kidney , was deemed fit to work by the dwp...if only more programmess could go into more detail about this.

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  13. The government don't watch that programme spirit so they say
    I have watched it for 50 years but nothing has changed in that time the programme just goes round and round in a loop and never gets the injustices resolved whatever the topic

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  14. Ed Milliband is a total waste of space all the time we have him as head of the labour party we will never win another election. And after reading this I hope I'm right. I think maybe there should be a new political party formed maybe from people made up from Ukuncut/ Broken of Britian/38 Degrees. Sue Don't cry! Rage Rage Rage.

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  15. Chill. It's not as bad as it sounds.

    He's not sincere about the benefit thing. And if he is, he won't be for long. It's just a political football. Political ju-jitsu in fact - he's using an issue beloved of the Tory scum to crowbar in an attack on big business and inequality.

    The thing is, they can't give the Daily Hate the slave society they want because it doesn't work. There just aren't enough vacancies. Even if they forced people to work, they'd only fill a very small percentage of the jobs available.

    If you accept the right wing dogma that everyone on Incap is a scrounger, then you've got around 4 million unemployed. There are only at most 400,000 vacancies - that's ten people for each job. So unless you're going to do some sort of Soviet-style compulsory job-sharing it's just not mathematically possible for them to force everyone to work. And of course it gets worse because a lot of those jobs will require a level of skill that a workfare slave cannot and will not give away.

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  16. spirit= I saw that how can they do a programme on the deserving 'saints'that need help then be blaize over fact that he wasnt given any??? Thought they were going to find someone to help him but had to rush to loo so think in end he only got help because friend give him kidney.... they call this the 21st century

    I did find it funny that only benefit fraud could find was hospital manager using nhs budget surely thats not what most people call scroungers/benefit fraud (the whole point of programme)Thats just business fruad.

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  17. Sue,

    This is NOT over.

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  18. I've only seen Saints And Scroungers once and I really didn't like it. Total benefit fraud in the system: a little over 4%. Number of eligible people who do not claim any benefits: unknown exactly but around 20-30% more than the current number of claimants.

    Saints And Scroungers screen-time for frauds against eligible claimants: 80% against 20%, a ratio of 5:1. From what I heard it's just one case of an eligible claimant in need per episode versus about two or three cases of fraud.

    Is this programme fair and balanced? Hell no.

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  19. I bloody HATE programmes like that.

    NewsThump nails it:

    http://newsthump.com/2011/06/13/miliband-uses-speech-to-acknowledge-importance-of-the-moron-vote/

    Troubled Labour leader, Ed Miliband has attempted to bolster support for his party and leadership by reaching out to the nation’s morons who blame everything on benefit claimants.

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  20. We will have to step up to the table and make the fight more interesting, we are going to have to do and say things so that everyone will here our voice. We need to organize ourselves better in order to get the point across. So lets get the idea's started on how to fight back. It's like 'V'

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  21. It's all to do with Blue Labour - "a very conservative socialism" as Maurice Glasman calls it. But once you start playing the Daily Mail's game it's never enough. See: http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/blue-labour-the-labour-tradition-and-the-politics-of-paradox-a-very-conservative-socialism/

    Andrew Coates.

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