Gimmers

[CusworthRovers]

Did anybody watch Dispatches earlier.

It looked into the benefit system and the old gimmers.

There are old folk who are coining it in on benefits, who live abroad, spend the winter abroad, who are ex bankers, who are investing in property and land etc etc. when asked, they believe they are entitled to it. They admit they spend all the fuel allowance and other benefits on nice claret and other luxuries.

Peter Stringfellow is getting loads of money given to him, but has returned it, saying it needs to go back to the ones who actually need it.

It really is a messed up process and costing billions. It needs to go to the ones that need it surely

[BillyStubbsTears]

Did anybody watch Dispatches earlier.

It looked into the benefit system and the old gimmers.

There are old folk who are coining it in on benefits, who live abroad, spend the winter abroad, who are ex bankers, who are investing in property and land etc etc. when asked, they believe they are entitled to it. They admit they spend all the fuel allowance and other benefits on nice claret and other luxuries.

Peter Stringfellow is getting loads of money given to him, but has returned it, saying it needs to go back to the ones who actually need it.

It really is a messed up process and costing billions. It needs to go to the ones that need it surely

Cussy

The problem is, once you stop universality of benefits, you are on a slippery slope to a means test in which hundreds of thousands slip through the net. This Govt and their media friends want us all to get in a strop about how awful it is that millionaires get free bus passes. They want to do that so that they can start stripping back benefits to "those who need them". But the problem is that once you means test benefits, the most vulnerable (the old lass with no family, who has never heard of the internet, or the old war vet widower who is too proud to fill in a claim for something, because the Daily Mail has been telling him for years that only scroungers take benefits) THEY are the ones who end up losing out.

If someone shows me figures to convince me that the amount of money wasted on free bus passes and free winter fuel to millionaire pensioners is worth having hundred of thousands of genuinely needy old folk losing out, I'll change my mind. Otherwise, I'll go on believing that this is cynical politics at it's worst, setting up these "tut-tut" stories as a smokescreen for tearing down the Welfare State.

[moses]

Heard on the Radio this morning that one of the "millionaire pensioners" said they were right to take the money as otherwise it would go to scroungers!

The irony...

[keith79]

£1 billion per year on free bus passes for oaps. waste of money if you ask me

[Glyn_Wigley]

Free bus passes are only a cost when they're used - by people who don;t have an alternative. I doubt whether many of the people on Despatches use the bus.

[RobTheRover]

Did anybody watch Dispatches earlier.

It looked into the benefit system and the old gimmers.

There are old folk who are coining it in on benefits, who live abroad, spend the winter abroad, who are ex bankers, who are investing in property and land etc etc. when asked, they believe they are entitled to it. They admit they spend all the fuel allowance and other benefits on nice claret and other luxuries.

Peter Stringfellow is getting loads of money given to him, but has returned it, saying it needs to go back to the ones who actually need it.

It really is a messed up process and costing billions. It needs to go to the ones that need it surely

Cussy

The problem is, once you stop universality of benefits, you are on a slippery slope to a means test in which hundreds of thousands slip through the net. This Govt and their media friends want us all to get in a strop about how awful it is that millionaires get free bus passes. They want to do that so that they can start stripping back benefits to "those who need them". But the problem is that once you means test benefits, the most vulnerable (the old lass with no family, who has never heard of the internet, or the old war vet widower who is too proud to fill in a claim for something, because the Daily Mail has been telling him for years that only scroungers take benefits) THEY are the ones who end up losing out.

If someone shows me figures to convince me that the amount of money wasted on free bus passes and free winter fuel to millionaire pensioners is worth having hundred of thousands of genuinely needy old folk losing out, I'll change my mind. Otherwise, I'll go on believing that this is cynical politics at it's worst, setting up these "tut-tut" stories as a smokescreen for tearing down the Welfare State.

Spot on, BST.  There was a similar thing about Cameron getting child benefit.  He's entitled to it.  The fact he's minted shouldnt come into it under the current rules there for the benefit of all.  Dont give the buggers the ammo to say, "You know, you are right.  I dont need this child benefit..... and I bet there are millions of others who dont either", then concoct some half-arsed scheme to withdraw the money from working families already feeling the pinch thanks to Gideon's bloody mindedness and reluctance to do the right thing and U-turn because it will make him look like he didnt ever have the first clue about this running the treasury lark.

And breathe.....

[CusworthRovers]

I think they were intimating it would cost more to means test or investigate loads of cases, than it would to simply pay every biddy.

It's massively unjust and I'm not convinced this cannot be sorted without all the hassle