Are we close to neighbours

[garinda]

Originally Posted by flashy

My 66 year old neighbour is a complete NIGHTMARE, he has me bathing his dogs, sweeping and mopping his house, polishing and hoovering for him, i know he can cope on his own, he's just a lazy bum and would rather get someone else to do it for him whilst he wanders about from town to town in his car...eee i don't know, the pensioners of today eh, they don't know their born

How long ya known him?

[flashy]

Ermmmm, 35 years, 9 months and 8 days

[garinda]

Originally Posted by flashy

Ermmmm, 35 years, 9 months and 8 days

[Eric]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Mancie, if the last government had not allowed so many people to come into the country.......there may have been a job for this man. And, if they had not given benefits to those coming in from other countries(benefits which they then send back to their own country to improve that country's economy) there may have been a bit more money to dole out to the really needy.

The welfare state was envisaged to help those in genuine need....not as a career option....who made it a career option.......well, I am sure you know the answer to that.
And before you go on and say this is a tory view, why don't you look at some of the other threads which criticise the current government.
I am for NO party...the only party I will vote for will be the one who can get us out of this unholy mess.


This thread was not originally about politics......it should not be about politics....it should be about caring. Looking out for those who live near us......especially those who are old or in need.

I can't really comment on the first paragraph, as it is stuff that happened after I left. But ... the thread is about politics; the couple felt abandoned by social services, not by their neighbours. For one reason or another, some folks just fall through the cracks in a fallible system ... Or the "system", being based on "numbers" rather than on compassion, and being operated by routinized civil servants didn't work in this case. These isolated cases happen. And when they do, they make headlines. But, they are not the norm.

And I can't agree that your "welfare system was envisaged to help those in need." It was fought for by the people. It was based on the belief that in a wealthy country, no one should be left behind ... there should be pensions, free education, unemployment insurance, etc. And to say that welfare is a "career option" is, in most cases, wrong. When govts. routinely spend millions bailing out corporations, giving them tax breaks, allowing them to avoid taxes in offshore havens, it is wrong to put all the blame on the poor ... it is the corporate welfare bums who drain the coffers of the state. And when the crunch comes, who suffers?

Maybe the thread is about caring ... but neighbourliness, or lack of it, is difficult to consider in isolation .... and it's not something you can legislate or enforce.

This is a sad case, no doubt about it. But I don't see it as evidence of a massive moral decline. It's an isolated incident.

And here's a question, more or less rhetorical: How many of you would have allowed this to happen to you and to your family? How many of you would have thrown in the towel, whatever the circumstances?

[Margaret Pilkington]

Well Eric, I take your point...in the end everything does boil down to politics.......but the thread was about neighbourliness first and foremost....the story about the couple who committed suicide was (I think) there for illustration.

As for benefits being a career option..which you don't think it is, then why have we got families where no-one works? Where three generations have lived without contributing to the NI system....the only way they pay any tax is on the stuff they buy.

I take your point about large companies evading their responsibilities...and this is wrong too. governments bail out companies in the hope of saving jobs...and it doesn't happen often. The banks were a diferent ball game.

I don't blame the poor for being poor, (i have been there - read my blogs) but you do not have to remain poor.....and you have a responsibility to try and do something for yourself......no-one has a right to live off the state forever.

[jaysay]

My neighbours have change quite a lot over the last few years there's only my immediate neighbour across who I know, the two upstairs are new and I've never met, but the one who lived in one of the upstairs flats previously was a pain in the backside, was an alcy and made out lives a misery for 18 months

[Margaret Pilkington]

times were tough when I was growing up...we had no welfare...what there was, was means tested.....and we didn't qualify for anything other than orange juice, cod liver oil and later we did get free school dinners.


I'm still here. We managed by not having things that we could not afford.
that has always been my lifes financial rule...if you can't afford you can't have it...work until you have made the money to pay for it.
In essence, this is what governments have failed to do.

[claytonx]

My post was not intended to be political

That can be left to others.

[Eric]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

times were tough when I was growing up...we had no welfare...what there was, was means tested.....and we didn't qualify for anything other than orange juice, cod liver oil and later we did get free school dinners.


I'm still here. We managed by not having things that we could not afford.
that has always been my lifes financial rule...if you can't afford you can't have it...work until you have made the money to pay for it.
In essence, this is what governments have failed to do.

I agree ... And if govts. saved in the good times, so that they had funds for the bad, things would be better. But no: when times are good, spend, spend, spend. And when times are bad, there's nothing left to help ease the economic pain.

And times were tough back in our day; but as the saying goes: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going".

[garinda]

Originally Posted by Eric

I can't really comment on the first paragraph, as it is stuff that happened after I left. But ... the thread is about politics; the couple felt abandoned by social services, not by their neighbours. For one reason or another, some folks just fall through the cracks in a fallible system ... Or the "system", being based on "numbers" rather than on compassion, and being operated by routinized civil servants didn't work in this case. These isolated cases happen. And when they do, they make headlines. But, they are not the norm.

And I can't agree that your "welfare system was envisaged to help those in need." It was fought for by the people. It was based on the belief that in a wealthy country, no one should be left behind ... there should be pensions, free education, unemployment insurance, etc. And to say that welfare is a "career option" is, in most cases, wrong. When govts. routinely spend millions bailing out corporations, giving them tax breaks, allowing them to avoid taxes in offshore havens, it is wrong to put all the blame on the poor ... it is the corporate welfare bums who drain the coffers of the state. And when the crunch comes, who suffers?

Maybe the thread is about caring ... but neighbourliness, or lack of it, is difficult to consider in isolation .... and it's not something you can legislate or enforce.

This is a sad case, no doubt about it. But I don't see it as evidence of a massive moral decline. It's an isolated incident.

And here's a question, more or less rhetorical: How many of you would have allowed this to happen to you and to your family? How many of you would have thrown in the towel, whatever the circumstances?

Eric, some of what you say, I take.

Though without wishing to appear too much like a copywriter for the Daily Mail, on some points you're wrong.

In recent years we have had a situation in which people chose to live on state funded benefits, because it meant they were better off doing that, than working for a living. For this, the system was wrong. Not necessarily the people who took advantage of the situation, who wanted as much money as possible, to fund their family's living costs.

The jobs some people are no longer prepared to do, are now being done by eastern Europeans. Who can work here, thanks to the E.U.'s open borders policy.

State benefits should be there for people, who through no fault of their own, need them. They should not be an option, a choice. Which for some, it was. Long term we can't afford that option as a society.

This programme showed people helped back into the jobs market, who then decided they couldn't afford the loss in income, so who chose to go back to living off benefits.

'Yvette, who, with four kids, finds that a minimum wage from Poundland is no match for the benefits she was getting before. Even Hayley doesn't blame Yvette for quitting, which is out of character for Hayley, and means that there must be something wrong with the system.'
Benefit Busters | Last night's TV | Television & radio | The Guardian

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by Eric

I agree ... And if govts. saved in the good times, so that they had funds for the bad, things would be better. But no: when times are good, spend, spend, spend. And when times are bad, there's nothing left to help ease the economic pain.

And times were tough back in our day; but as the saying goes: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going".

We had a lovely cache of gold as a buffer against the bad times.....a bit like my Ma's Rainy day tin.(Only to be dipped into in the direst of dire emergencies) Things were good in this land...but we had a daft Chancellor who had the idea to sell off the gold reserve...that stuff in the governments rainy day tin.
Now let me think for a minute...who was it?
Ah, yes it is coming back to me now.......Gordon Brown.......and which party did he belong to?....er, that would be the Labour party then......or should I perhaps clarify that and call them New Labour.....they certainly weren't the socialist of days gone by...they were as close as it is possible to be, to a tory without actually having that name.
But they bamboozled lots and lots of the true Labour supporters....those who only look at the colour of the rosette.

[claytonx]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

We had a lovely cache of gold as a buffer against the bad times.....a bit like my Ma's Rainy day tin.(Only to be dipped into in the direst of dire emergencies) Things were good in this land...but we had a daft Chancellor who had the idea to sell off the gold reserve...that stuff in the governments rainy day tin.
Now let me think for a minute...who was it?
Ah, yes it is coming back to me now.......Gordon Brown.......and which party did he belong to?....er, that would be the Labour party then......or should I perhaps clarify that and call them New Labour.....they certainly weren't the socialist of days gone by...they were as close as it is possible to be, to a tory without actually having that name.
But they bamboozled lots and lots of the true Labour supporters....those who only look at the colour of the rosette.

I still think the post is being hijacked by peoples political ideas this was not intended.

[garinda]

Originally Posted by claytonx

I still think the post is being hijacked by peoples political ideas this was not intended.

Think of it as virtual neighbours, just having a little natter, over the garden fence.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Yes it is,Claytonx...but that is sometimes how it goes........my post, which you quoted was only to answer what Eric had said.
It was Mancie who started the political stuff...yes, name and blame!

[garinda]

Originally Posted by garinda

Think of it as virtual neighbours, just having a little natter, over the garden fence.

The conversation may stop on the subject of the relatively mild weather.

Or it might veer off slightly.

Especially if her at No. 6, the one with more front than Blackpool, has just hung out her non-liberty bodice type underwear on the line.