Benefit Cheats

[Guest louis wu]

I'm with Foucault on punishment. Let them do something useful, rather than locking them up.

 

 

I do agree that this is an acceptable form of punishment for the lower end of criminality.

 

In my local area, young adults (I couldn't tell the exact ages teens to early twenties I think) painted a cenetry fence, about half a mile in length. I know it may appear useless to some, but the whole area looked better, and generally local people saw it as a benefit.

 

The other upside to this, was that the 'painters' were forced to were bright orange jumpsuits, so anyone seeing them knew it was a punishment for them to do this work.

 

I would like to think that the shame of this may make them think twice about their behaviour, and perhaps give them a sense of pride in the finished job.

 

louis

[setmefree]

Well said louis,placing convicted people on courses such as bricklaying,carpentry etc etc would give them a positive outlook on life,i think prison isn't the answer and certainly doesn't solve anything long term,whereas using these same people to train in courses followed by putting their training to use such as building units for the homeless or building soup kitchens or even for assisting in the construction of new houses for housing associations etc etc.

[Jeanjaquessmoothie]

I agree. ASBO's clearly don't work, as they're just a badge of honour. The prisons are full, so thats not going to happen. Most probably don't pay fines, so warrants end up being issued for them, wasting police time.

 

Community service, complete with orange jump suits or something similar would be a good way to go to punish the lower end of the criminal spectrum.

[Hippy-chick]

Make the girls wear Laura Ashley drippy skirts and a twin set and put the boys in speedos and a hand knitted jumper. Then we can all have a laugh.

 

Sorry, not meaning to hijack - my point is to agree - make them look uncool.

[Hippy-chick]

 

Could we NOT bring back deportation of our criminals to our Colonies??

As Scotland is the nearest one, what about sending them there, before it fills up with Poles?!

 

There MUST be lots of spare room up there currently, as every Scot that I know, seems to love it down in England + shows a marked reluctance towards repatriation!

 

It just has to be the ULTIMATE deterrent to Benefit Cheats?!

 

 

...lol...

 

LOL Milky

 

There's lots of us exiles up here already - although I am occasionally allowed back into England.

[bazak1]

you'll have the big yin after ya', you will LOL.

[SOD'EM]

But why should tax payers pay to get an institution such as Northern Rock out of trouble? If it had been allowed to go down the loosers would have been the shareholders - that's what happens when a public company goes bust! But because this was a bank and the investors were mainly insurance companies, pension funds, hedge funds (ie big City names who made big noises) HMG decided to intervene. And now HMG is caught between a rock and a hard place as the shareholders will refuse to let it be sold for a price that reduces the value of their shareholding and if it's allowed to go bust now HMG will have lost in excess of £24billion of tax payers' money.

 

Ditto the missing CDs fiasco. You're a victim of identity fraud and you sue HMRC under the Data Protection Act. The tax payer will have to pay. Your bank account is emptied. Why should the banks (for once I am on their side) have to pay for this when the reason the fraudsters got the

information was the loss of the CDs. So who will reimburse you? The tax payer.

 

The whole thing is set up so the tax payer ends up having to pay to sort out messes caused by other's incompetence.

 

I may be (as usual) wrong, but it was the government/taxpayer that got Northern Rock out of the proverbial. I, for one was queuing up to open account at that time. Got refused.

 

Why should the tax payer keep a bank (that they don't bank with) in the clear.

 

I guarantee you that we will never get an answer. (we will have to assume)

But it is still open for business. And there are more crooks in the finance world than anywhere on earth.

[Jeanjaquessmoothie]

Northern Rock is a different issue, but yes, I'm sure there are plenty of crooks in the financial world, they're everywhere nowadays.

 

Anyway there's talk of Virgin taking over NR, and repaying 1/2 (better than nothing) of the banks debt to the government.

 

I think the government bailed NR out mainly because of the amount of money it [NR] owed to other UK banks, to avoid the knock on effect that NR going bust would have on the other banks. Correct me if I'm wrong though

[dave]

Well, if 800 million (the Govt. say, so I guess we can halve that for the real figure) is 'lost' on benefit cheats each year, then how come they don't spend as much time and effort keeping banks from making dubious business decisions?

 

If each time one of them cocks up and it costs us 24 billion, surely there should be more stringent controls in place. At least half of the effort spent on TV ads etc... for benefit 'cheats'.

[PriorityOne]

Nice one Dave... !

[Jeanjaquessmoothie]

Stringent controls to what end?

[dave]

To keep them in check. If they can spend the time and effort chasing people nicking a few quid, then surely they can spend the same effort making sure that banks don't get themselves into this sort of mess and then come running cap in hand to us again.

[bottomburp]

Northern Rock was over extended plain and simple.

 

Its business model relied entirely on interest rates staying put - didn't they realise that interest rates can move upwards - and fast? Where were these people in the 80s and 90s?

 

Part of the problem is that banks class "loans" and "deposits" as "assets".

If I lend someone £100 I don't reckon it's an asset till I get that money back...

 

They were allowed to borrow far too much in relation to the value of the company - it seems UK rules are too lax.

 

Personally I think it should have gone bust. It was only a tiny player in the British banking market - only 5% or 6% - might have knocked the others' profits but would it really have done more than that?

 

As it now stands these banks have a precedent in place whereby they can trade foolishly/badly and get bailed out by the taxpayer - but perhaps the banks will now start reviewing their policy and pass on that "benefit" to their customers - no more credit checks etc!

 

Apologies for going off at a tangent!

[Jeanjaquessmoothie]

Would've suited me if they'd have gone bust, my mortgage is with them, paperwork might've got lost

 

Personally I think they should've been allowed to go bust, regardless of my financial position with them, as it's not fair to allow the government to bail out a failing business. They wouldn't do it for anyone else, so why should a bank be any different.

[setmefree]

Well, if 800 million (the Govt. say, so I guess we can halve that for the real figure) is 'lost' on benefit cheats each year, then how come they don't spend as much time and effort keeping banks from making dubious business decisions?

 

If each time one of them cocks up and it costs us 24 billion, surely there should be more stringent controls in place. At least half of the effort spent on TV ads etc... for benefit 'cheats'.

 

Once again changing the subject of the question asked:rolleyes:

[dave]

That's what the bear garden is for!

[Jeanjaquessmoothie]

Can this thread be moved to "general consumer issues" then?

[dave]

Nah - it's a general rant, and therefore belongs here.

[setmefree]

That's what the bear garden is for!

So let me get this right your saying that anyone's thread in the Bear Garden can be distracted from the original question by anyone at any time..

[dave]

Yeah, pretty much.

[setmefree]

If they can spend the time and effort chasing people nicking a few quid

 

Peter Labazzi wanted to know if stories about Winston Churchill having visited his house in Essex were true. So he appealed for help by giving an interview to his local paper, the Ongar and North Weald Gazette, and proudly posed in front of his home. But pride came before a fall. The interview and picture were further confirmation for officials investigating his lavish lifestyle that he had illegally claimed £65,000 in housing and council tax benefits. Now Labazzi and his wife, Stephanie Tinworth, have been jailed for 21 months for benefits fraud

 

 

Sixty-one year old Margaret Tougher of Bernard Shaw Court, NW1 was found guilty of ten charges under the Theft Act 1968. She claimed around £25,000 in Housing Benefit while working for Westminster Council under the name of Margaret Byrne. She was sentenced today at Highbury Magistrates Court to a two year Community Rehabilitation Order. She was also ordered to pay £75 costs and to continue repaying the falsely claimed cash

 

Richard King, age 56, of 33 Compton Road, Croydon, CR0 7JB , pleaded guilty to dishonestly failing to notify the council's benefits department and the DWP that he had capital of over £26,000. Over a period of 19 months, between 2004 and 2006, Mr King had held this money, whilst in receipt of council tax benefit and income support. The fraud was exposed as a result of a data matching exercise carried out in a joint investigation by the council and the DWP. Mr King's deception resulted in a total overpayment of benefits amounting to £8,301.96 from the period August 2004 to March 2006.

 

I would hardly class these as nicking a few quid:o

[dave]

In comparison with 24 billion it is.

[Jeanjaquessmoothie]

I think the state of the fishing industry is disgraceful, I was reading the other day about cod fisherman having to dump dead fish over the side because of EU fishing quotas.

[setmefree]

IMO Northern rock shouldn't have been given a single penny to bail them out,why should the tax payer have the bill for it,and so the same applies to Benefit cheats why should the tax payer bail them out.

I know where your coming from dave,and i agree with you with Northern rock and it stinks,but ain't you glad the media made us aware of the fact,same as i would be happy with the media telling us who the fraudsters are.

[dave]

I see the point, but benefit cheats, regardless of morals, are generally just people who are 'normal' - they are not high ranking bank officials who will walk away with nice big golden handshakes.