Armchair politics

Mercan English with a whiney strine. So many levels of Rong™ :roll_eyes:

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Thick as mince.

Pennance comes to mind, too

If you’ve already done this , do please tell me to do one … the bloody Beeb

S’bad enough that Farage always gets on QT, or that Dan Hamman has lied on TV more than any single individual (inc. DJT) and yet still gets wheeled out as though he were a normal human, always having to counterbalance an ‘expert’ with a nutjob, failing to ask follow up “how the fuck would you do that …” questions to clear babbelfish nonesense…

Given the current allegations about Isabel how on earth is this OK?

I don’t think she should go on, frankly. It just so happens, to boot, that Mrs Craig is away for a long weekend, and I have a variety of other activities to which I think she would be rather well suited.

(There are’nt any AA #metoo jihadists, are there?)

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Jeez … you’ll be saying you’ve got the hots for Louise Mensch next :roll_eyes:.

VB

God no, not Mensch. I’d be scared witless

Universal Credit is being criticised again.

It strikes me as a good idea in principle - unify the benefits and remove the cliff-edges that end up becoming a real disincentive to work.

The issues appears to be in the implementation: some people are paid really late (I cannot actually understand why this is) and others have huge changes made to their benefits if they get paid a day early, or get some overtime.

It strikes me that it would make more sense to give people more control. I think that an app would make sense, where people could simply input what they earn and what period it covers. The app would report what benefits they would get and when they would be paid. Naturally there would be regular sweep-up adjustments to make sure that it tallies with actual income. The app would notify about these and give you a chance to challenge and correct.

I think that the benefits system infantilises people - it’s a monolithic demonisation of authority, where you get trapped in bureaucratic absurdities. This in itself will prevent people from trying to find work, as they know everything will get cocked up. Giving them control of their benefits will help many to take more control of their lives, I think.

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Way too much sense in this ^^^^^ for it ever to be implemented by civil servants

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An IDS design, so while the principal might be sensible, the execution was doomed to failure, particularly after the budgetary savaging UC received. Osbourne’s cuts to work allowances were/are particularly regressive as they impact entirely on the lowest income families/workers. Also, why is it necessary for the system to be so user-unfriendly at best and hostile at worst?

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I have a lot of sympathy with the idea in general. The real-world problem though is designing a system that can cope with the very wide variety of its users. There are hard-working folks whose lives are complex because they’re trying to squeeze the best possible outcome from a set of difficult circumstances - they might have several jobs and/or caring responsibilities and/or sickness to deal with and/or accommodation issues and an IT product might very well help them cope. Then there are folks whose lives include substance abuse, antisocial behaviour, crime (petty and not so petty) and an outright wish to defraud the system to the maximum possible extent. They can be irresponsible. I recall hearing someone saying that they were in financial trouble because the system was clawing back an overpayment and that in this case (I know it’s not true in every such case - variety again) they’d known they weren’t entitled to the money but they’d spent it anyway. Making one system that works really flexibly across the whole range is never going to be easy.

VB

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1: Yeah IDS is a fucking moron

2: Yeah Osborne is a fucking cunt

3: Yeah DWP bureaucracy sucks fucking arse

On 2, I don’t like the principle of work allowances, as it’s an implicit subsidy of low wage paying companies, but I recognise the need in our society. I guess that the Tories stopped and the point of principle and have never had the capacity to make a human decision.

At least by being inclusive of the middle class benefits, UC gets some media attention now and then.

I agree, but most of the hard work is in codifying the complex range of possibilities. This has been achieved - they have the computer system working. All an app would do is provide the claimant with the ability to update the inputs. It’s just a front end to the existing database.

There will always be people who try it on, but it’s quite a small fraction. The principle of giving people control still stands - you will need some system that prevents unusual changes to benefit payments, or restricts the changes people can make if they are found to be consistently trying to game the system.

Because everyone knows how to use “apps” (also: when the fuck did people start calling anything on a compter an “app”).

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Since somebody decided that Application had too many syllables and “App” sounds cool and trendy :roll_eyes:

Why ? There are honest people who are having significant trouble with UC precisely because their life is unusual. If you can single out a behavioural identifier of the crooked then I think DWP would really like to hear from you. It’s the old, old story - ‘blunt instrument’ benefits are unfair (the rich get child benefit and winter fuel allowance) but the admin costs, both financial and also human (when there are cock-ups) are negligible. Complex, tailored, individualised benefits can in principle be fairer and more capable of driving behaviours. But you’ll need to decide where you want to sit on the (cost) spectrum between employing enough people (and that’ll be a lot) to make them work almost perfectly and employing not nearly enough people, in which case you will get some level of fraud and of error which drives claimants into crime and/or prostitution and/or suicide. It always comes down to money. Always.

VB

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It seems all parties bunked off on this day at school

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“… you might be poor. Be poor ! Who cares ? …”

We were poor when I was young. My mum cried. That was shit.

VB

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Being poor and being fulfilled is different to suffering. His talk was on staying true to your innate talent. In this context it is possible to be content and poor. Artists and dealer scumbags have been doing it for years.

:face_with_monocle:

Suffering is the pathway to a higher existence.

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