Seriously?

The benefit is there to enable them to get around, not to help satisfy their desire for a "nicer" car.

Right im off to bed ive been working in leeds all day, then ive come home to do my second job, so that one day i might have enough money to have children and try to give them the best start possible in life.
Some people are just happy to sit on there ar$e and wait for money off others, that have had to work damn hard for!!

Id rather say no thanks i did it on my own.

The Last Word!

Margaret Thatcher, 1987.
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I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand "I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!" or "I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!" "I am homeless, the Government must house me!" and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations.

Seeing as the number of unemployed rose and the social welfare bill also rose under Margaret Thatcher, her fine speech was up there with Gordon Brown saying no more boom and bust.

Why did she not get the lazy into work and reduce the burden of welfare being shouldered by the taxpayer?

I agree with the sentiment of what she said, Tony Blair talked on similar grounds ten years later, when he was going on about responsibilities as well as rights, a hand up rather than a hand out. And unlike Thatcher he actually got Britain back into work and the economy on track.

No it isn't.

Child benefit is a universal benefit available to all. To include child benefit in the calculations for capping benefits, is effectively punishing some children simply for being born.

They've capped it at 25k, and why not anyway? I've come to the conclusion that people who spout venom regarding the motability scheme are jealous. Well I can tell you "matey", take my "30k" car but take my disability as well lets see if the venom is still coming from your mouth then.

Just for you information not that its none of your business but I'll tell you anyway to educate you a little. I drive a Citroen Berlingo. I chose the Berlingo because its high enough for me to be able to get in and out of due to my bi lateral hip replacements, knee replacement and foot fusion and I can fit my wheelchair and ramp or motbility scooter in the boot. Its not a 30k car, its a van with windows. Still jealous of my 30k car and want one?

How do you propose they do that then?

If they require a bigger vehicle, they can always be provided with a 1964 Commer van couldn't they? Or as you previously stated, we could always go back to providing those nice, light-blue, three-wheelers that we used to see on the roads. Then everyone would be able to instantly recognise all the sponging benefits cheats.

Or maybe we could just leave them to fester in their own homes? After all, they're of absolutely no use to society, so why should we be providing them with the means to gambol around the country, clogging up the roads ('cos they're all crap drivers) and causing further inconvenience and cost to the British taxpayer?

Nowt like a bit of stigma in times of austerity eh?

I agree. Let's get those 2.8 million people forced into those 800,000 jobs.

Coddy what Brett Kenny (not the real one I hope!) doesn't realise is that as long as I could get my equipment into it and it was ok for me to get in and out of this would do me nicely, I don't care about prices and looks (I drive a Berlingo ffs!!) - he just reckons I want to show off my shiny 30k car!! Maybe he should look up The Daily Mail's apology they had to print over their damn right lies over the Motability Scheme, but he won't because its easier for him to believe their propaganda.

Yes, seriously.

Do you know what each and every person has to do to adapt to their disability? Do you know someone who can adapt cars on the cheap instead?

HWS sets out her disability so you can understand a bit better - she hasn't got a bog standard car bought from a dealer. If the adaptations required mean it costs £30k, whats the issue?

Or are you saying stuff them, they don't need to get around?

rlThis one?rl

Yep, thats the one, thanks Rock God.

You and Coach don't know what you are talking about re child benefit.

It was first introduced as the Family Allowance after WWII when the Welfare State was created based on Beverage's recommendations. One of the main reasons it was introduced was to ensure money was paid to the mother to ensure the father didn't get his hands on it and spend it down the pub (still as good a reason today as back then). The other main reason was to try and make sure children were not raised in poverty. The reason it is a universal benefit (so well off people get it as well as the less well off) with no means testing was also down to Beverage who thought all benefits should be universal as means testing always introduces a very high marginal tax rate for those who earn just enough to lose the entire benefit.

Now no doubt the pair of you think child benefit and perhaps other benefits should not exist at all but if you do that is because not only do you not understand child benefit you don't understand the concept of the Welfare State either. It is not, as the Daily mail would have you believe, designed to be some sort of spongers paradise but something we all contribute to and will all benefit from at different stages in our lives. This is also why Beverage wanted any benefits available to be free from means testing. The logic being if you receive a benefit, such as child benefit, it should not decrease or vanish once get a job that earns X amount because if it did then why bother getting a job that hits you with a stupendous rate of marginal tax? This idea is based on the key fact that the Welfare Sate is something everyone takes out of as well as pays into throughout their lives. It gives you a stake in the system because it is not as you seem to believe something you alone pay for just for the benefit of others. You too will benefit from it at some stage (if the Tories do not succeed in wrecking it completely). Maybe not via child benefit if you do not have kids but through the NHS or help if unemployed etc.

What the Welfare State is not supposed to be is a means tested safety net. No doubt that alternative appeals to the greedy and selfish "I am all right jack" brigade but if they only thought about it for a minute they would realise they are part of the system (in a beneficial way at some point) as much as anyone else.

So what the government is doing by including child benefit in the proposed benefits cap is completely undermining the principles under which it, as part of the Welfare State, was conceived. Less well off people are gong to lose it while a family on a joint income of £80K will keep it. You could not get further away from what Beverage envisaged if you tried.

As to child benefit being a benefit at all in that why pay people for having kids, it is there to help prevent child poverty (which goes out of the window with the benefits cap) and also to enable people to afford to have kids (a good thing with an ageing population). The fact well off people get it is because as I said, they are also part of the Welfare State and so are getting a little bit back for their contributions as is only right and proper.

It is a triumph of right wing propaganda that people get so incensed about benefits and benefit fraud when by the governments own figures it (benefit fraud) is exactly 1/10th of the amount of money lost to uncollected taxes (£1.5bn compared to £15bn per year). That is tax actually owed to the tax man but not collected, not tax legally avoided due to clever tax lawyers.

Yeah, let's punish the kids, it's their own fault for having crap parents.