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Re: The TV show that's GRIPPED the British....
Meg, I thought you were referring to Downton Abbey.
(Never knew the British Uppers were so in touch with their inner Downstairs . . .
)
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Re: The TV show that's GRIPPED the British....
Originally posted by Mega View PostBenefits Street exposed: The street where 9 out of 10 households are on welfare
BROKEN Britain’s reliance on welfare is exposed tonight in a series about a street where nine out of 10 people live on benefits.
By: Giles Sheldrick
56Comments
Father-of-three James Clarke said that 90 per cent of people living on his street don't work [NEWSTEAM]
The shocking documentary series charts the lives of residents of James Turner Street in Birmingham’s rundown Winson Green area – where some claim monthly handouts of up to £900.
Others living in one of the street’s 137 houses receive £400 to £500 a month.
One “star” of Channel 4’s Benefits Street boasted last night about their new-found fame, saying: “It was my idea to come up with the name.”
The series opens with father-of-three James Clarke, 44, known to his friends as “Fungi”.
He is seen bragging about pocketing £400 a month and spending most of it on drink.
The self-confessed alcoholic said: “Ten per cent of the street work and 90 per cent don’t. We all claim benefits and we’re not ashamed to do so.
“What else can we do? We are all entitled to buy food and have a roof over our heads.”
James Turner Street is situated in a rundown area of Birmingham called Winson Green [NEWSTEAM]
The series is the latest evidence of the way work-shy Britons have milked a system that continues to pay out like a limitless cash machine – as exposed last year by the Daily Express.
For years, the claims of those trapped on benefits went unchallenged, helping to create a £208billion annual welfare bill, or £1 of each £3 raised in taxes.
Millions of hard-working, tax-paying Britons were appalled by the level of this burden.
The figures prompted Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to embark on the most radical reforms to the welfare state in 70 years, saying: “Britain’s something-for-nothing culture has ended.”
Unemployed Mark Thomas and Becky Howe, both 23, live on Benefits Street with their son Callum, four, and two-year-old daughter Casey.
Mark Thomas and Becky Howe claim £750 a month for them and their two small children [NEWSTEAM]
They pick up £750 a month in child tax credits, child benefits and jobseekers’ allowance. “We might be on benefits but everyone has got to start somewhere,” said Becky.
Polish mother-of-two Anna Korzen, 28, has lived on the street for four years. She rakes in £900-a-month in tax credits, child and housing benefits.
She said: “I’m looking for work. Most of the people on the street live on benefits. Some of them say they are sick and can’t work but most are scroungers.
“I’m not; I need the money to support my children.”
Anna Korzen said she is looking for work while claiming £900 a month in benefits [NEWSTEAM]
The show has divided the street, with some blasting Channel 4 for “betraying” them. However, a spokesperson for the programme insisted: “It is a sympathetic, humane and objective portrayal of how people are coping with continuing austerity and cuts in benefits.”
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: “Our reforms are fixing the broken welfare system and restoring fairness to benefits. We’re ensuring people are better off in work than on benefits and have already seen the number of people in work reach record levels.
“If you can work, you must make every effort to find a job.”
Last year jobless mother-of-11 Heather Frost sparked outrage after appearing on the Channel 5 documentary On Benefits And Proud.
She boasted about her £60,000 lifestyle, funded by taxpayers.
Couldn't get your video...Mega, but I found this for others that can't.
I do not object to benefits for people who cannot work...No one does, except the few anarchists that would have the broken, elderly and orphaned die rather than pay for their shelter, food, medicine, and clothing.
I have been receiving Social Security benefits since I was forty years old, but a broken neck will do that to you. My benefits are based on what I earned from fifteen to forty. I liked working…I never expected to not work, but I planned to never have to work. My plans were interrupted. It happens.
I know my circumstances…I paid into the system…I receive benefits. I can point to the broken neck and the head injury and the PTSD that enlivens my days to get my poverty maintaining benefits check...until I can close the bank account that the benefits are paid into, stand in the midst of my still to be completed greenhouses, and dare the world to take it away from me again, knowing that the world will try to. I am grateful that my Dad passed down an inheritance to me, and that I will be able to survive on my own…for a time. In ten years…what then? I have no idea, but I plan to have every inch of workable soil on this property growing something by then, and be able to produce enough for someone else to harvest the crops.
I would rather be independent of other people's money and other people's control to the extent that I can be...but none of us are independent of the system. Those people who say they cannot work for whatever reason seem to have it made...just like I do. I want to do more than I can, and tomorrow I will, or if not tomorrow, next month, or when the remainder of my inheritance is released to me.
Will they do anything for their future? I doubt it.
I sincerely do not know how these people can be able bodied, and not do something that would earn them the amount they get from their benefits. Why at least are they not volunteering the hours they are being paid for? Why do they fill out those humiliating forms if they do not have to, and lie the lies they must be telling to get those benefits? And are they lies?
They can point to a broken world that provides no jobs and offers no prospects, and feel justified by this to take their “free” money. They have gotten used to something for nothing, but it will not last, and when they are set on their feet by themselves they will fall. Even if a rifle is held to their heads most of them will do nothing except what they are told to.
I have a walker to hold to and yes, I use it to get to my plastic wrapped raised garden beds despite my limited movement, and dig out still producing green peppers from the mass of celery that wants to over grow it. If my potatoes have died back…well, they are supposed to, and the taters will hold in the cold damp ground. And despite the lack of heated air, my tomatoes are growing.
What do the Benefits Street people have to hold to? A system and a society that is dying…alcohol and the TV set?
I hate it. You hate it. I wish they hated it enough to do something about it.
They have nothing now, and will have less later.Comment
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Re: The TV show that's GRIPPED the British....
Update:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...one-house.htmlComment
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Re: The TV show that's GRIPPED the British....
Well, I can't help admiring the Romanians, child bride or not...they at least are willing to do something, even if it only to mine the trash heaps.
As for the others...are they making this show to embarress the non-workers, or to teach people how to make good by screwing over the system?Comment
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Re: The TV show that's GRIPPED the British....
Update:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ines-week.htmlComment
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Re: The TV show that's GRIPPED the British....
Yes, the Romanians are undoubtedly an industrious lot,Originally posted by Forrest View Post
HALF of all convicted pickpockets on the Tube are Romanian
Police hunt Romanian ATM thieves who are behind 90% of UK cashpoint fraud
Romanian gangs 'drive increase in metal theft' as cost of plunder hits £770m a year
Romanian gang who caused travel chaos after stealing FOUR MILES of railway cable worth £500,000 are jailed for 23 years
95+% of the non workers won't get embarrassed as they believe they are entitled to the benefits as their great aunt, second cousin once removed (or similar) once had a job and paid some tax.As for the others...are they making this show to embarress the non-workers, or to teach people how to make good by screwing over the system?
To be honest they probably believe that they could launch celebrity careers off the back of the program and be rich and famous.Comment
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Re: The TV show that's GRIPPED the British....
To be honest these are MILD by Liverpool standards!
The Buy 2 let scum get houses in nice areas then ship SCUM like this or even scum right out of prison in to get the welfare rent money. The plan is they make little money on the houses but as the house prices rise they can re-mortage or sell off said houses.........
"Sadly" things not good right now, house lost 20-30% from 2007 peek.....but the Banks will not margin call them because they know what is next.
I lie in the bath dreaming of the day "They" can no longer control it & we return to the mean..........its going to be awesomely BAD!
MikeComment
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Re: The TV show that's GRIPPED the British....
To me, I think the growing acceptability of such behavior and lifestyles, to the point of folks openly bragging about such antisocial/illegal behavior is like a "wisdom of crowds" mirroring response to the lack of accountability for behavior at the top of the economic pyramid.
The folks at the bottom of the economic pyramid will never take leadership of a movement for social equity.
But they are useful as pawns for the folks at the top of the economic pyramid to distract from industrial scale corruption and theft(The City) by marketing individual examples of corruption and theft(The Poor).
What those welfare lifestylers are doing is wrong.......but it's hard to hold them accountable if:
political/economic leadership is not held accountable
nothing of substance is being done to reform and break the welfare lifestyle dependency
I think shows like this are a battle for the middle:
The working, middle, and even the affluent(particularly their children) classes of indentured servants
To divide, distract, and shape them.
A "2 minute hate" Orwellian intermission in the middle of the digital Circus MaximusComment
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