You can't means test it in the true terms of 'means testing'.

The State Pension has a number of elements to it. The basic element is based on NI contributions only. For anyone reaching State Pension age after 06/04/10 this would mean needing 30 qualifying years to get the full basic element (new rules). Anyone reaching State Pension age prior to this date needed 46 years (male) & 39 years (female) - (old rules). The basic pension with a full record is currently £107.45 p/w, pro-rated down as a fraction (i.e. 25 qualifying years would get 25/30 of a full basic element) for new rules, and a percentage for old rules.

Other elements - known as additional state pension based on earnings in excess of the minimum amount needed to gain a qualifying year have conditions attached related to having a private/workplace pension. The rules related to this is available on numerous websites, and are far too involved to go into any great detail here. The basic jist though is if you've got your own arrangement, you're not likely to get much of the additional state pension, if any. There are four different versions in operation though - one that ran from 1961-1975, another from 1978-1997, another from 1997-2002, and lastly from 2002 onwards. What you do get though is a reduced rate of NI you pay (1.4% less) on your earnings if you are part of an employers pension scheme.

So in effect those with large private pension pots are already penalised by the state. Also, the state pension is a taxable benefit - along with any private pensions, so if anyone is getting £40k+ per year in combined pensions then they should be paying tax at the appropriate rate with it.

Those with no other source of income are currently supported by Pension Credit - where if a person is in reciept of this they are exempt from council tax and usually live rent free. There is assistence with mortgage interest payments, and a disregard on the first £10k of savings. People with other sources of income can also claim this, but those sources are taken into account against the payable amount.

What I said was for someone who has a job can you not understand the frustration of those i.e. me who pay taxes against those who simply do not want to work - I was speaking only of myself - I would be surprised if I were a lone voice.

As has been pointed out on numerous threads on here corporation tax is a relatively small tax revenue stream - even if it were collected properly and assuming there will losses in other countries who would be far more stringent on UK companies operating in their countries - it will not cover a potentially huge deficit. Your suggestion makes you look silly.

Comparing a deficit now to the deficit after WW11 is also very silly - you cannot seriously suggest the two things are even comparable. The sad thing is you think they are!!

Equilibrium between the sexes will happen when? not in your lifetime - so to say it is happening is like saying oil is running out!!

It would be interesting for someone to look at how many threads include your self righteous diatribe.

You’re falling into the classic trap of moaning about something that you can’t do anything about. Even if benefits stopped going towards those who ‘don’t want to work’ then it would not mean paying out less tax for the likes of yourself. These taxes will just go on other things that you wouldn’t want your money going towards. Still you highlight the unemployed more than any other group which are financed by taxpayers.

From my experience I discovered that there’s a whole story behind why people don’t want to work anymore. An elderly relative of mine for example got forced to go on Job Seekers Allowance one year before she could collect her pension. She was a carer for many years but lost her job due to public cuts and only had a year left till she could officially retire. Is this the type of person you don’t want your taxes going towards?

Another example would be male relative in my family who has had at least two periods in his life where he was unemployed for five long years but he’s worked full time most of his life. At times he wouldn’t fill in any application form or bother looking for work. But he’s now working full time and will probably do so till retirement. Is this the kind of person you don’t want your taxes going towards?

Then there’s my mate who was unemployed for seven years after he finished university but he’s now working for one of the top technology companies in Leeds and is getting more freelance work than what he can handle. Before all of this he was in a right state and was wondering what he could do with his life. Is this the kind of person you don’t want your taxes going towards?

That’s just three examples and I could come up with loads.

Now let’s look at this from a slightly different prospective. Mozart came from a broken family which were similar to the ones you probably resent today. Now let’s pretend that Mozart was born in the same circumstances today as he was born into back in the day. Let’s pretend he was born in Britain where the government is looking to cut benefits for Family’s that have more than two children. He would be absolutely doomed and when he grows up he’d probably be sent to stack shelves at the local supermarket for £0 an hour. But hey that’s ok because he comes from a broken family and they on benefits – too right they should work. What a great talent we would have lost.

Now I could give examples of numerous artists in Leeds that are going to waste because society has invested in them the wrong way. Not too long back I was on the verge of becoming a manager for a big artist in Leeds in order to help him progress with his acting career. I put his name out there to agents and there’s a good chance that as a result Emmerdale chose to film in one of his club nights. Ok it didn’t quite work out because I didn’t really have the best of resources and he wasn’t paying me to go out and get them. He tried to get me a job with one of his partners but that didn’t work out but we’re still sound with each other today.

However things are on the verge of working out very well indeed for me. Am I the kind of person you don’t want your taxes going towards?

Personally I’ve concluded that too many people have took me for granted (which we all do with anyone if they’ve been around for a while) and I’ve had to take my abilities elsewhere. I was on the verge of working with channel four until I had an argument with a simpleton jobs worth.

Watch this space and I highly recommend you channel your frustrations into something more constructive than those who are unemployed.

No we wouldn't, he'd have gone on X Factor, ended up in Gary Barlows group and would by now be leading the community singing jump up and down and clap your hands while I sing a Gary Barlow nursery rhyme at a venue near you - in other words he'd have replaced Robbie Williams.



The rest of your post has some validity but has one fatal flaw, it assumes that musical or artistic people have to sit around waiting for their time to come while the state pays a subsistence to them, rather than the musician or artist funding their own way through life via totally unrelated jobs and practising their skills in the other 16 hours of the day when they aren't doing the day job. <holds hands up - me here >

If Mozart won the X Factor then Simon Cowell and co would absolutely stifle the creativity out of the bloke. The best classical thing Simon came up with was IL Divo and they certainly are forgettable and will be forgotten in a century’s time. Despite that jot of criticism, I’m a big fan of Simon Cowell because he’s made stars out of artist from working class backgrounds and sure that has had a trickle down affect for their family and friends which brings me onto your next point.

[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/7398407/Tom-Jones-at-the-job-centre-singers-employment-record-unearthed.htmlTry telling Tom Jones that he needed to do unrelated jobs to fund his music career[/url because he like many other artist before and after him spent time pursuing a career in entertainment rather than look for shift work at the local factory. However what Tom Jones needed to succeed was the unrelated work of others to fund his benefits whilst he pursued a career in music. He’s probably paid more taxes than the likes of Sal ever will now he’s a worldwide mega star.


With regards to you having to do unrelated work in order to progress with your career as an artist, your circumstances are lot different to every other artist out they and circumstance is something every ten a penny ‘kick them out of bed and get them stacking shelves’ brigade fail to comprehend when putting an argument forward. This country is not a utopia where everyone works nor is it a utopia where every sits in front of the TV everyday eating cake. It’s a fantastic mix of both because as a society we haven’t figured out a system yet that keeps everyone happy. Well everyone happy apart from North Korean Dictators or Sal.

Between the article that you link to and the Wiki article on Mr Jones AND reading between the lines, I think you'll find that Mr Jones did enough from the age of 16 when he had a child to support and his mid-20s when he started to be noticed - according to Wiki that included working in factories and building sites, according to the Telegraph article that included singing in a band and earning enough money for the staff to remark on his smart clothing for one who was "signing on".

What he did have going for him, and for many others like him of those times, is that there was a hugely lucrative social club circuit to gain entertainment employment in, and to be paid in cash on the night, no accounts, no invoices, sign the receipt with your stage name and goodnight.

Thats not quite the same as drawing unemployment benefit and waiting for your boat to come in, thousands of "club turns" good and bad have followed his route in the past fifty years, most of them didn't get the lucky break but did make a living at it.

You don't have that opportunity any longer.

It is often people who have never been unemployed or made redundant that make comments about the unemployed being lazy, dole-scrounging scum. Perhaps if they lost their own jobs then they would have a different view on the subject. The stress that you endure worrying about the mortgage, bills etc is incredible. Having been made redundant myself at the end of 2007 I would not wish it on anyone (Osborne, Clegg and Cameron excepted). I fortunately found work in my chosen field(chemical industry) almost immediately but doubt that would be the case at the moment. I have a friend, who is currently unemployed, who is a Ph.D. qualified Chemist in his early 50s. He is currently looking into becoming a bus driver!

You are so right Dr F. I get it too being disabled......well surley you can do [isome[/i work? Yes I probably could.....for a while, then I need to go and rest and probably fall asleep because the fatigue (which is a cause of my illness) is so bad, so if you wouldn't mind providing me with a bed or sofa at work??? And how about that day once a month where I won't be in work because I have to be at the hospital having my body infused with drugs, or when I'll be in late because I have to go for blood tests, or the extra long lunches I have to take to go and pick up one of my 9 prescriptions I take every day. People who have never been there themselves have no idea, but the problem is, these people listen to the propaganda given by the Tory boys and the media that they have made up their minds that we are lying. I always try and tell them you are only a heartbeat away from having an illness, being disabled or made redundant yourselves and unless it happens to you then you can't possibly comment on what I can or can't do.

We can speculate and read between all the lines we want but the truth is Tom Jones was on the dole. For all we know his smart clothes could have been bankrolled from a wealthy family member or he could have simply just saved up for them. Alternatively Tom Jones could have earned his money to buy nice clothes from the gigs he did on that lucrative social club circuit but I’m assuming that pay was split between all the band members. That pay would have gone towards the expenses of getting to the Gig as well surely?

I couldn’t tell you if he spent more time on the dole or more time working in the factories and on building sites because I do not have that information. However the fact that he needed out-of-work benefits to get by is the important point in all this because it provided him with a stable income when the working world couldn’t. This is the type of income that some taxpayers want taken away from people less capable than Tom Jones to make something of themselves in this world and that to me is not on but it would be boring if we all had the same opinions in the world!

Finally my generation might not have a lucrative social club circuit but your generation didn’t have much left of the old variety show theatres and music halls which provided a good living for entertainers as well. Having watched a brilliant BBC documentary a couple of years back on about variety show performers, most of them got away with doing the same thing for twenty years and it provided an alright living for them. You wouldn’t get away with that today because the audience expects new stuff all the time. My generation still has venues to perform in but the standards have risen and therefore it’s a lot harder than it used to be to earn a living in this industry these days.