Tories would prevent long-term jobless spending benefits on alcohol and cigarettes
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c920vy2jxle8o
Posted by Tartan_Samurai
Tories would prevent long-term jobless spending benefits on alcohol and cigarettes
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c920vy2jxle8o
Posted by Tartan_Samurai
28 Comments
Uhhhh…. Ok? But how lol. They gonna monitor spending of people on benefits or something? Watch the bank account? Sounds a bit 1984ish
> Every two years a claimant has previously worked would buy an extra year on the full rate of Universal Credit – but those who have not contributed enough would drop to a new “Subsistence Allowance”, worth 70% of the full rate.
That’s mad. The current full rate couldn’t even be called a subsistence allowance. 70% is a fuck off and die allowance.
A better system would be generous to those coming out of long-term work (e.g. 2x the base rate and tapering down) not cartoonishly evil and punitive for those in long-term unemployment.
These are just kneejerk policies to appeal to idiots who have no understanding of how the world works. People would just turn to the underground economy to trade other items for cigarettes or booze or whatever, so criminal gangs would thrive and nothing else would change.
There’s some weird thing going on where huge numbers of people are taking delight in watching poor people suffer and want to watch them suffer more.
I would like to point out to the idiot party there is currently an AI job destruction process in beginning phases.
They could not stop some of them from buying crack and heroin when they were in power, what has suddenly changed.
They tried this years ago in Australia and it failed
The price of take away alcohol is 30-70% tax and cigarettes are over 80% tax. Is this really the problem she thinks it is?
Trying to imitate Thatcher
Demonise the unemployed working class that the Tories always shamelessly victomise
= ignorant voters for Kemi
She sent this to the press while smoking a £100 cigar and drinking 25-year-old whisky.
Easy to circumnavigate, friend who works buys cigarettes swaps for food shop from benefits claimant 🤷🏼 bartering
Same old shit from the Heritage Foundation Tories. Always punching down. How about closing offshore tax loopholes exploited by rich people who pay less tax than we do? Now there’s an idea…
How about doing something about the system, rather than labeling people as drug addicts and drunks
Is it just me or does the government controlling what people can and can’t spend their money on sound more like a communist authoritarian state than the free-market utopia the Tories aspire to?
There’s so many people walking into shops everyday in the UK buying counterfeit or untaxed cigarettes with their debit card every single day. I imagine people on long term benefits who smoke will already make up a chunk of those people. Even in more above board shops will just put cigarettes and booze through as something else.
There is so nobody going round enforcing rules at these shops. There seems to be the odd raid by trading standards since the publicity from recent TV programmes about what’s being sold in mini mart’s etc but they still exist and I don’t see that changing
Typical punish the poors Tory mentality. Would end up costing the country so much. Even just the increased strain on the NHS due to addiction treatment and managed withdrawal. Sudden cessation after chronic alcohol abuse can kill, although I’m certain the Tories would view that as a feature and not a bug.
It should be legal to burgle and steal in Tory constituencies then. Just start robbing them and breaking into their houses.
There is a class war and the Tories continually start it and then complain about class war because they are a bunch of cowards.
Fight fire with fire. Target their constituencies. Steal their money.
“Tories want to create black market for booze and cigs”
And they wonder how they lost power…
OK. But I hate to break it to you Kemmi-baby, but in about a decade or so ***everyone*** is going to be long-term unemployed. And booze & tobacco companies are major Conservative Party donors.
Conservatives: Haven’t had a job in 6 months? Well why don’t we help you cut down on your eating by taking some of your money away.
This is the American model and it is is to make people poor, humiliated and desperate to force them into work. Essentially if you can make life bad enough then they’ll have to contribute to the economy.
The English it seems to me have alwaysl tried to act as though people who were out of work had some dignity And we’re trying to find work. There are always a few scroungers but on the whole most people just use the system to help them when they were in need and then went back to having a job and the joys of having an income as soon as they could.
The current crop of conservatives practise performative cruelty instead of performing economic competence.
The UK conservative way In my experience has been to portray the unemployed as lazy and scrounging and to look at things through an American lens where instead of having a safety net, You have a flaming pit to encourage people back into work.
Why can’t people on benefits spend their money how they want? As long as the rent and bills are paid (which I think happens through universal credit) then surely they can decide how to spend the rest
Which impoverished minority group do politicians want to demonise today?!
Yes I’m sure the economy where anyone who smokes buys the £4.50 special cigarettes from the Bossman will definitely make this a winning policy
Everyone relax. This clown has as much chance of being in government as one of my anal warts
Remember the state pension is a benefit so this applies to that too right?
They really are desperately short of ideas aren’t they?
People would just buy nice steaks and other goods and sell them half price for cash or a bottle of vodka.
And what about alcoholics who then go through withdrawal? Is the NHS able to bed that many people?
People would turn to drinking white spirit, hanging about with undesirables and end up on harder stuff.
Crime would go through the roof.
This is an idea that’s came from someone who has no real concept of the real world and how normal people struggle, yes it could help some but we’re not all the same.
14 years you lot had and all you did is make things much much worse, these clowns should NEVER be listened to!
Had 13 years to do it if they really believed in it!