Let's help Duncan Smith - how would YOU improve the benefits system?

Pete111

bendix wrote: »

As I said, totally humourless.

Equalities minister?

bendix

Pete111 wrote: »

Good plan. What could possibly go wrong?

Is there a role for marklv in this cabinet Pete?



Be careful how you answer this. It could be a trick question. Your future career prospects could hinge on your answer.

Pete111

I refer you to my last post Bendix.

Apparently the ability to be offended by almost anything is a pre-requistite assuming Harriet Harperson is the benchmark.

bendix

Pete111 wrote: »

I refer you to my last post Bendix.

Apparently the ability to be offended by almost anything is a pre-requistite assuming Harriet Harperson is the benchmark.

Yes, I like the suggestion.

He actually shows promise. I like his one child for the poor policy, for example. I think it's consistent with our general approach. If we could reign that promise in and shape it more along our general anti-tubby, pro-beautiful philosophical approach, then I'm sure we could work together.

Of course, he'd need to buy a suit, and we'd have to ban him from coming to cabinet in his cardigan, but . . . i dunno . . I see merit there.

The_White_Horse

bendix wrote: »

Is there a role for marklv in this cabinet Pete?



Be careful how you answer this. It could be a trick question. Your future career prospects could hinge on your answer.

Of course there should be. My cabinet (if I had one) would have a chief lefty that I would consult on all matters. Whatever the chief lefty says, you do the opposite. That way, you will never make a mistake.

Malcolm.

The_White_Horse wrote: »

Of course there should be. My cabinet (if I had one) would have a chief lefty that I would consult on all matters. Whatever the chief lefty says, you do the opposite. That way, you will never make a mistake.

Hopefully this chief lefty won't be a master of reverse psychology, eh?

bendix

The_White_Horse wrote: »

Of course there should be. My cabinet (if I had one) would have a chief lefty that I would consult on all matters. Whatever the chief lefty says, you do the opposite. That way, you will never make a mistake.

Good thinking, although I'm not sure marklv is the man for that role.

His radical 'one kid for the underclass' policy can hardly be called leftie - it's ideologically on point and very consistent with our thinking, Minister White Horse. In fact, it almost out-White Horse's White Horse. I need more of that kind of thinking from you, good sir.

I suspect there are better candidates for the Aunt Sally role you propose.

I like ninky for that role. She's so well-meaning and right on that she couldn't bring herself to use the reverse psychology tactic. If she tried to verbalise something politically incorrect in a dastardly ruse to throw us off course, she'd likely vomit first. It would be a bit of a giveaway.

dktreesea

lemonjelly wrote: »

Abolish the fraud ridden nonsense which is tax credits. In particular, this system is abused in a massive way by the self employed - I see people who's parents allegedly earn £7k a year between them, & get a massive wad of tax credits, yet the family has 5 bmw's on the drive!

Most self employed people I know are struggling to keep their businesses afloat. And indeed, many of those who are struggling have been forced down the path of self employment because they can't get a job and it's then the only way to stay working. Some of the people we know employ staff who earn more nowadays than the owners.

Having said that, I would like to see some limit to the support for the self employed, say for the first five years, gradually tapering away and then no more after that. And that's in spite of the recession. One or two years may not be, but surely five years is long enough to give someone support to set up a business sufficiently profitable for the person(s) to be earning enough not to qualify for benefits?

The other thing I would like to see is a different approach to social housing. Like market rentals for those who are working and matching the housing to the number of people in the household. The number of people living alone in two and three bedroom apartments and even in a couple of cases four bedroom houses, around where I live beggers belief. So what if they qualified for large homes when they were bringing up their children? Why do they still qualify for them now? Surely they could be downsized to a smaller flat in the same area so that a family can move into the larger flat/house? That's how social housing works in places like Australia and New Zealand.

bendix

dktreesea wrote: »

The other thing I would like to see is a different approach to social housing. Like market rentals for those who are working and matching the housing to the number of people in the household. The number of people living alone in two and three bedroom apartments and even in a couple of cases four bedroom houses, around where I live beggers belief. So what if they qualified for large homes when they were bringing up their children? Why do they still qualify for them now? Surely they could be downsized to a smaller flat in the same area so that a family can move into the larger flat/house? That's how social housing works in places like Australia and New Zealand.

I've already outlined our policy for social housing in another thread:


All social housing units will be the same size, irrespective of family size.

This will bring the laws of Darwinian evolution into play - the size of the inhabitants of these houses will naturally diminish to suit the size of the house, rather like goldfish only grow to the size of their goldfish bowl.

The more kids a family has, the smaller the entire family gets. It's inevitable - it can't be refuted.

This has a wonderful side effect - obesity is reduced in a stroke because, let's face it, those welfare families who breed like rabbits are generally tubbier than most.

Jennifer_Jane

Thanks, carolt, what have you started!

Brilliant thread, and to think I've been missing mewbie....

Made my day. Thanks chaps.