[Closed] So Mr Cameron

Bwaarp +1.

Have you read 'The Jilted Generation'?

So they've paid the tax, but you've decided that they don't need the benifits?

You assume that you'll pay the tax too, but you haven't done yet.

And this "[i]senile old codgers[/i]" suggests that what you really need is a lesson in how to treat old people with some respect and dignity.

Those 'senile old codgers' are the people who worked all their lives, the majority in hard, low paid jobs to give you the society you sit back and criticise on the internet.

My mum would kick your sorry arse...

...and sit up straight, turn your music down and tidy your bedroom.

With respect crikey, your response is basically to say 'respect your elders', and this doesn't address the point that the young generation are being shafted by the older generation. One of the basic premises of a civilised society is to pass on the opportunities that you were afforded onto the next generation. The current younger generation certainly don't get the same level of education, employment, or housing opportunities that the current older generation or 'boomers' were afforded. So I think that the youth have a right be be a bit annoyed. Your argument of respect your elders is a bit of a red rag to a bull IMHO.

@bwaarp - of course an older person (middle class pensioner) has more money than an under 25, they've worked an entire lifetime to build that wealth. An under 25 is in debt to the nation, they've benefitted from free education and the health service for most of their life whilst contributing very little. That's fine of course, the state has invested in them.

The young generation are absolutely not being "shafted" by the elder generation, to the contrary the elder generation have been paying for the young throughout their lives.

The older generation got free education, grants for university and anyone who got a 2:1 or better could do a PhD ...what do we give those under 25 now?

the pensions crisis is a result of these retired now not having paid enough to cover what they will take - they are living much longer than expected and apparently the only solution is for us to pay more to pay for their pension and accept less ourselves ...because they have "earned it".

Many, many pensioners are very well off, no mortgage, huge increase in house prices and we give them winter fuel allowance. my dad spent the winter in Porrtugal in his 100 k camper van he bought when he retired...he got the winter fuel allowance. They should be mean tested IMHO

The young they paid for were their own children and grandchildren and most of the pension issues are the result of them taking more than they paid for. We now pay for the young and the old because they did not pay enough

To expect those currently less well off than them[ i am in cash terms worse of than my dad and I get above the average wage for example and have a mortgage and he does not] to pay for this and to expect us to then have worse pensions than they did and to expect their grandkids to have an even harder time is a tad selfish of these old folk who could contribute far more and take a little less.
their benefits are no untouchable for some reason lost on me.

@junkyard - the old vote, the young don't bother (bit if a generalisation but I think you get my point)

Yeah i dont disagree and I know why they are doing it but it is not "fair".
if i was a politician I would not mess with either pensioners or car drivers either...even democracy has it's weaknesses

the pensions crisis is a result of these retired now not having paid enough to cover what they will take

What they paid was spent on the pensions of prior generations. There is no government 'pension scheme', they take tax from tax payers and pay it to pensioners.

The pension crisis is the result of the onion shaped population, i.e. people having less and less kids since the second world war so there are less taxpayers in each subsequent generation. Namely moving from more taxpayers than pensioners to more pensioners than taxpayers.

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The fault if there is any is the politicians in a succession of government's for not actually setting up a a sustainable pension scheme.

Can't wait til I'm 80, look how many surplus chicks there are...

Lolz.

That was for you youngsters.

It seems that the scheming old bastards have taken all you young fellas for a ride, robbing you blind from before you were even born.
I'm sorry you won't have a land of milk and honey, I'm sorry the world didn't automatically make sure you earned vast sums of money and that you haven't inherited a planet without any problems.

But then, no one ever does.

...and to reuse an old cliché, no one ever said that life would be fair.

...and I'll tell you something rather less frivolous. Everyone of those pensioners, every single last sodding one of them would trade all that for the chance to be 25 again.

Seems so many are whinging against the tories yet so many on here no doubt would of voted for them at the last election.
😯

We as a country are low tax low wages.

Look to Germany - there you pay more in tax and then you pay for your healthcare on top. Same with many other countries.

If we wer taxed at german levels the exchequer would have around 10% more to play with

The people who are doing the shafting is us - the current voting generation.

Over the past few decades, politicians OF ALL PERSUASION have allowed an unparalleled build up of public debt (which cannot be blamed on war this time) to support their own positions and our current lifestyles. As the historian Niall Ferguson put it in the recent Reith Lecture, [b]this public debt has allowed the current generation of voters to live at the expense of those as yet too young to vote or as yet unborn ie, we are mortgaging the futures of younger generations to support our current lifetyles.[/b]

Makes you proud, doesn't it!?!

You've got a generation raised on the welfare state,
Enjoyed all it's benefits and did just great,
But as soon as they were settled as the richest of the rich,
They kicked away the ladder, told the rest of us that life's a bitch.
And it's no surprise that all the *-ups
Didn't show up until the kids had grown up.
But when no one ever smiles or ever helps a stranger,
Is it any * wonder our society's in danger of collapse?

So all the kids are bastards,
But don't blame them, yeah, they learn by example.
Blame the folks who sold the future for the highest bid:
[s]Thatcher[/s] [s]Blair [/s] Cameron *ed the kids.

To be honest I think it's fair enough. My lad is hopeless at tidying his own room, so I feel no great distress at mortgaging his future. That'll teach the lazy sod.

grum - Member
So when he talks about the culture of entitlement is he referring to him and his rich tax-avoiding chums or people on benefits?

Cut taxes for the rich, let the banks/finance industry get off scot-free, then blame everything on the poor. Classic.

POSTED 13 HOURS AGO #
binners - Member
Am I the only one who thinks its a bit rich (no pun intended) listening to one of a group of multimillionaires, who inherited all their wealth from mummy and daddy, telling us they're stamping out a 'culture of entitlement'?

Its incredible that their collective eye-wateringly expensive educations allow them to make statements like this without a hint of irony. If it wasn't so serious, it'd be laughable

Totally agree with these two comments from page one of this thread.

So how about a completely radical approach instead? For example, one where we actively encourage the creation of wealth, one where we seek out the best of our young people and give them the best possible education and fast track them, as opposed to pissing that opportunity up against the wall by squandering it on thick twunts like Cameron/Gove/Duncan-Smith and Osborne who have no idea what a days work is and whose only solution to any problem is to attack those who are already disadvantaged and who did not create it, and then wonder why we have increasingly levels of social problems, which in turns costs us fortunes.

(Same principle applies to pretty much all of their polices just insert the appropriate wording as suits).

As the historian Niall Ferguson put it in the recent Reith Lecture, this public debt has allowed the current generation of voters to live at the expense of those as yet too young to vote or as yet unborn ie, we are mortgaging the futures of younger generations to support our current lifetyles.

The public debt that got Niall Ferguson and many others like him a free Oxbridge education (that now costs how much?)

Berm Bandit, I'd love to see you try and run rings round the "thick twunts". It's easy to fall for the rich stupid toffs portrayal that Labour have been pushing for some time, but I'll wager that Cameron, Gove, Duncan-Smith and Osborne would probably run rings round both of us when it comes to intellect or capability. You don't rise to the top of anything by being stupid and lazy.

I'd also stake quite a lot of money on IDS having thought more deeply about welfare reform (detailed analysis and working with all sorts of different community leaders over the last 12 years across the political divide) than most people think about anything at any point in their lives.

The community activist credited with opening Iain Duncan Smith's eyes to poverty and inspiring him to embrace compassionate conservatism has called on the minister to resign...

Since becoming minister, Holman believes Duncan Smith's analysis of the causes of poverty and the best way to tackle it have been constrained by the pressure to make cuts. "Within two years he was claiming that poverty was not directly due to a lack of money but was the result of bad parenting, drug and alcohol addiction, laziness, and the breakup of families," Holman writes.

"When I went to Westminster last year to challenge him, he acknowledged that he was under pressure and had to make trade-offs and compromises. My understanding is that to divert blame away from his policy failures he directed it at the poor themselves."

Pity these proposals show absolutely zero understanding of the reality.

Say you are 23, yo have done uni, got your degree, got a good job, paying back your student grant as wellas your rent when you are made redundant. thenyou have to lose your house as well and go and live with your parents?

Oh thanks TJ.

I've got 2 at or going to Uni, let me believe for a wee while longer..

Most of Cameron's proposals are based on utter nonsense eg The Smith Institute reports that 95% of the £1bn rise in housing benefit this year is paid to people in work ie not the ****less unemployed....

It's easy to fall for the rich stupid toffs portrayal that Labour have been pushing for some time

Nah, I kinda made up my own mind about that. But there is more to being "stupid" than getting your apostrophes wrong, not being able to add up and misquoting your classics.

Junkyard - Member

a tad selfish of these old folk who could contribute far more and take a little less.
their benefits are no untouchable for some reason lost on me.

go for the houses not the benefits. or accept the value of the houses is passed on to the next generation, Its why I have no great issue with the principle of using old folks house to pay for nursing home care. Its incredibly expensive nursing home care and the only folk who benefit from not using the value of the homes are the children of middle class oldies. To the old folk themselves it makes little practical diffference

However cutting benefits or means testing all of them causes problems - better to tax them in some ways. That way only poor pensioners actually end up with the money

You don't rise to the top of anything by being stupid and lazy

Ronald Reagan, George Bush ....

However, moving on swiftly, the point is that idiotically simplistic Tory knee jerk solutions to complex problems cost you and me fortunes. To actually come out and start wittering on about benefits as the root of all financial evil is not only inaccurate, it is also a VERY expensive dogmatic mistake along similar lines to the cuts they always make to the NHS during their terms in office, which subsequently then cost fortunes to rectify. Note today they are talking about declaring an NHS trust Bankrupt..... that may or may not be right regarding the finances, but it kind of skims over the impact that that has on those people whose lives depend on that clinically very successful hospital.

The actual fact of what they are doing is that in times of cuts the bills actually go up and not down. Its not like domestic home management. Tax revenues reduce and outgoings in things like unemployment benefits rise, as does pressure on Health services and pretty much all other social provision of any description. So their antidote to that is to cynically attack those benefits and health services before that happens, which is what they have been doing since they came in. That does not make those problems go away, they are just transfered to someone else..... i.e. you and me, and whoever comes behind them as the next Government.

A simple example: Lets cut benefits to people who are drug dependant. Seems sensible, stop funding their habit right? In actual fact their habit will be funded by crime of one sort or another, if you cut their benefits they will just do more crime, which actually costs huge amounts more than either their benfits or their habit. The obvious sensible thing to do is to actually invest in realistic programs to deal with the underlying problems. This is proven fact...... but of course that won't go down with the rabid and frankly stupid Tory electorate, so we won't do that now will we!!

Or you could legalise the drugs and remove the need for them to commit crime and plunge money into a black market economy, whilst also having a safe controlled supply and source?

I suppose its just the rabid, stupid tory electorate that are against that is it?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/31/david-nutt-drugs-adviser-sacked

I suppose its just the rabid, stupid tory electorate that are against that is it?

Unfortunatley the average voter seems to view drug legalisation as a direct attempt to get school children addicted to heroin instead of a grown up solution to the unwinnable war on drugs, making it safer for users and taking the control of a very lucrative market away from criminals.

hey ho.

I'm rather surprised some people are in agreement with me. This is a first on here.

How does legalising drugs solve the problem? You still have people addicted to a drug that they need so bad. They won't go to work and call in at the corner shop on their way home for some government approved heroin with a health warning "may cause addiction and death". They'll still go out and rob to feed their addiction. The government will start to tax the drug (or cut it for more for more profit) to help the problems caused to the users and give them support so the price rises. A black market is created for cheaper heroin which isn't taxed in other words smuggled in. The criminals will then sell their smuggled heroin again at a greater mark up than before but still cheaper than the government approved drug and you know which the addict will buy.

Pensioners (those over state pension age) have seen their incomes increase more quickly than those of working age over the last fifteen years. This has come about partly because more recent cohorts of pensioners have received higher levels of income from state and private pensions as these schemes have come to maturity. Also, tax and benefit changes introduced under the Labour government of 1997–2010 favoured pensioners, particularly those with lower levels of income. Furthermore, pensioners will lose less on average than those
of working age from the tax and benefit changes being introduced by the
current government as it deals with the fiscal deficit. On average, these measures will reduce incomes by 1.8% or £316 per year for pensioners compared to 4.7% on average or £1,781 per year for households with children and 2.3% or £751 per year for working-age households without children

Unfortunatley the average voter seems to view drug legalisation as a direct attempt to get school children addicted to heroin instead of a grown up solution to the unwinnable war on drugs, making it safer for users and taking the control of a very lucrative market away from criminals.

most sensible realise this si the only solution but they spent so long selling the drugs ar bad/dangerous message that tyhey cannot undo the harm of that BS message....look up alcohol and cigareette related deaths for example and have alook at how succesful prohibition was in the US...stupid pointless war that helps criminals make money.

I suppose its just the rabid, stupid tory electorate that are against that is it?

No idea Zulu Old chum, but then I didn't suggest that it was. Out of interest I so see precisely where the legalise argument is coming from, however I'm not sure it is actually the solution, and although I think it might be one step in a positive direction I would still say that proper programs to assist addicts with their behaviours is more likely to be a success in the long term.

Or you could legalise the drugs

or stop supporting addicts and let them die out before they can reproduce.

Darwinian evolution and all that - standards of education are high enough that they should know enough to not get addicted in the first place.

It's the only way forward...

How does legalising drugs solve the problem? You still have people addicted to a drug that they need so bad. They won't go to work and call in at the corner shop on their way home for some government approved heroin with a health warning "may cause addiction and death". They'll still go out and rob to feed their addiction. The government will start to tax the drug (or cut it for more for more profit) to help the problems caused to the users and give them support so the price rises. A black market is created for cheaper heroin which isn't taxed in other words smuggled in. The criminals will then sell their smuggled heroin again at a greater mark up than before but still cheaper than the government approved drug and you know which the addict will buy.

Drug policy liberalisation has been highly successful in Portugal I believe. Usage and harm etc has reduced considerably.

Dont confuse them with the evidence Grum...they are just BAD dude

or stop supporting addicts and let them die out before they can reproduce.

Tory by any chance?

Why do dogs have cold noses?

Portugal decrimanlised drug use. They didn't legalise drugs, dealers are still prosecuted with much harsher terms than the UK in some of Europes worst prisons.
Instead of jailing addicts in Portugal they were sent in front of a commission who put them on a drug programme. Portugal had its greatest success in reducing HIV/AIDS rates through free syringes and drug related deaths through supervision of users. Drug usage hasn't really reduced but successful treatment to keep users off drugs has. Those in treatment increased nearly four fold instead of been in prison. Some go back to drugs but others kick the habit for good so having more users getting treatment increases Portugals success rates. Unfortunately they are still getting more new drug addicts to replace those that leave the drugs behind as evident by the percentage of the population drug users not decreasing. Their real success will come when this figure drops too.
If it was up to me I would follow Portugals policy in seeing the drug addict as the victim but also take it one step further and with the Far East's approach to drug dealers that are sentenced to death.

with the Far East's approach to drug dealers that are sentenced to death.

Unfortunately the "dealers" are also users, just using that form of criminality to fund their addicition instead of theft or prostitution. All along the line its just not that simple.

True. Those that are bringing drugs into the country or producing it themselves for financial profit at the cost of the misery it brings, then death.
If it's an addict, then treatment. If the user goes back to using drugs more treatment but if they start to deal drugs again then why should they be treated any different? It's not for their drugs then as if we are following the Portugese policy the addict would be supplied by the state for their own controlled usage so no need to steal or deal.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-old-get-richer-and-the-young-get-poorer-7881201.html

work done by the Institute has shown that in terms of employment, income and consumption it is the under-30s who have really borne the brunt of the recession."

A pensioner with a gross income of £50,000 now loses only 20 per cent of that in direct taxes, while a working-age person with the same income loses 29 per cent. This is due to cuts in the rate of income tax that pensioners pay along with rises in national insurance, which they don't.

Benefits for the elderly account for £110bn of the total welfare bill – more than half the £207bn total. The growing gulf between pensioners and the working population has led some in Government to question whether pensioners are getting an unfair deal.