Tory plans for long term unemployed- really nasty stuff

Why should taxpayers buy f@gs & booze for people on welfare?

Certainly not the ones that have done little or no full time work.

Why should taxpayers buy f@gs & booze for people on welfare?

There's no good reason, other than economic and societal cost of doing it vs not doing it.

The question becomes: is it cheaper to buy cigarettes & booze for people on welfare, than not buy it for them.

How would this scheme work?

What is to stop a small off-licence selling someone a 4 pack of beer and ringing it through as a pack of nappies?

Not paying for it costs more than paying for it. That's loony leftie logic for you.

I'd have thought it would be pretty simple, provide them with loaded credit cards like the illegal immigrants get.

Not paying for it costs more than paying for it. That's loony leftie logic for you.

How much does each option cost?

I doubt someone of your intelligence even realises that there is a £cost of not paying money directly to the scrounger.

The cost would be the same if it's just restricting what can be bought.

There are already secondary meerkats for all sorts of stuff, and ways to convert things to cash.

Tories fighting hard to regain their nasty
party title back from refuk and restore.

Not really going to achieve much good by
starving kids and grannies, again.

Think of the kids and grannies, these poor people are going to starve from lack of booze and ****!

Sounds like an impractical and divisive idea where the country is a net loser to me.  I'd be more inclined to force healthy people to do a few hours voluntary work or national service to get their full benefits.

So there's a huge incentive to be 'unhealthy'. Which is incredibly easy to achieve. Which is already the case, as I alluded to. There are just too many ignorant people that have no interest in looking into the detail. Until they have the incentive to be found 'unhealthy' themselves.

Impractical? Nam just follow the illegal immigrant model.

Divisive? What does that mean in this context?

The welfare bill is becoming unmanageable not because it's all free f@gs & booze but because it is too easy to get on the gravy train.

It's absolutely divisive to have millions of people cadging off of those who work full time. Those millions who are currently cadging aren't likely to be happy about suggested policy changes that may threaten their gravy train.

Sep 24, 2026 -- 7:35AM, SirNorbertClarke wrote:

The welfare bill is becoming unmanageable not because it's all free f@gs & booze but because it is too easy to get on the gravy train.

It's not, but making it more difficult to casually waste public money would at least be a little progress.

There's no way to stop people trading on the black market, or working for cash, but that's the same for illegal immigrants currently.

How do you get 2.3 million workers off Benefits?


Raising the minimum wage is an obvious solution.

Is having more people with more money a benefit or a hindrance to a Country?

Is the inflation, caused by raising the minimum wage, a benefit or a hindrance to a country?

Do you know what the earnings limit is for UC, Escapee?

You demonstrate the ignorance that I touched on. If people have their (for example) £1200 pcm rent paid for by the taxpayer via UC, do you think they won't reduce their hours to still qualify? Or give the job up completely?

UC and PIP and ESA are effectively targets, and people simply adapt their circumstances to reach the targets. If there's a threshold of earnings where claimants no longer need to search for work, and only have one remote meeting with their work coach, claimants will earn what they need to, to qualify for that. If they earn more per hour and therefore get reduced UC, it's easy. Just pay into a pension or do less hours.

Another variable that can be traced back to noo labour, that has slowly but surely destroyed the country. The ludicrously daft concept of in work handouts. Masterfully perpetuated by the tory party.

It's entirely rational behaviour. If the choice is between working full time and paying for everything, or working 20 hours a week and have the 'government' give me cash top ups and pay my rent and pay for my scripts, I'm gonna choose to work 20 hours.

For every £1 you earn from working, your Universal Credit payment goes down by 55p. Your income will be your wages plus your new Universal Credit payment.

What kind of idiot is going to choose to work for say £100 extra (net) but lose £55 (net) in benefits

Is the inflation, caused by raising the minimum wage, a benefit or a hindrance to a country?


Saddo espousing a communist pay system.

donny, making things up because he's a bit thick, (lol)

Every major country run by communists has implemented a minimum wage system.

Expand on your idea, taking into consideration all those earning above minimum wage and their influence on inflation.

Tick tock...

Every major country run by communists has implemented a minimum wage system.

Yeah, like the USA!

We just need a government that welcomes people requiring 40k a year handouts, while simultaneously telling
wealthy people they're welcome to bugger with their money off if they don't like it here. Oh...........hang on

You'd be forgiven for thinking it's deliberate.

The minimum wage is high enough. Raise it and you'll force businesses to close. The bigger issue is the cost of power, rent and housing.  I say bigger.  The birth rate and the environment are the ticking time bombs

Yet the population is already growing rapidly, and has been since the late 1990s

Using up vastly more scarce resources.

You don't need to be Adam Smith to work out what that means.

You'd be forgiven for thinking it's deliberate.

781 new arrivals yesterday, that's about 312 million quid a year for just one day.
We can't give it away fast enough.

And that's just the first hand in the till. 148 'family' members to follow.

The arrivals are doing very well if they are getting circa half a mill a year (6.08pm)

my bad lapsy, decimal point went missing, it's around 31.2 m a year, gone in one day.

A lot less of them but they shouldn't be any really.
Everything under the microscope now,cut cut cut,we said we weren't raising taxes except sneaky ones we can get away with.
I agree with Ciders point re human nature why the f eck should you if you can get away with it(20 hours etc).
The triple lock is wrong as full time workers aren't getting those rises, the pensioners for the good of the country will have to make sacrifices in that they should only accept what is 'fair'..

In 2000 over 65s accounted for 16% of the population.  Now it's 19-19.7%.  It's projected to be over 25% in 10 years time. 

Pensioners account for half the welfare budget.  That'll increase by over 25% in the next ten years (and will get progressively worse after that)

That's just the welfare budget.  There's going to be increased demand on the NHS too. 

Also it's not just the increase in pensioners.  There will be less workers to pay for it.

That's just the 10 year forecast.  In 2000 the birth rate was 1.7.  Now it's under 1.39.  It's going to get worse at a much faster rate in 10-30 years

And what impact do you feel population increase will have on those numbers?

I'm not sure why your intelligence eludes you when debating this type of stuff. If you're claiming a huge increase in the birth rate will help, then any impact from that is over 20 years away.

We could stop mass immigration tomorrow.

More people = more demand from the same limited resources. Believe it or not, babies use up a lot of resources, including benefit handouts and the NHS.

Stop the babies.... Ffs cider on one.

Absolute basic common sense, import millions of people now and they will be pensioners of the future. What can you do about that. Oh that's right, we need yet more people. aka, ponzi

Burying your head in the hands and not thinking about the future in 20 years time is like a UK playbook for the crumbling infrastructure and environmental damage of the last 70 years.  Bit we have 2005-2026 with an average birth rate of about 1.5 .  That's the hear and now.

here and now

Yes Clydebank,in a normal scenario contingency planning would be well underway but not so it seems.
That isn't just a UK problem but given the level of borrowing and interest stymies that and makes it currently can kicking epically down the road, that just seems to be the mantra but surely will be a day when the road ends.
In theory a bigger population isn't necessarily a bad thing if the calibre of immigrants is 'mostly' right. It is at a cost to ones indigenous soul which can never be taken back but a lot of that is rose tinted.

The birth rate needs to increase but only once the failed mass immigration project is completely abandoned. ie, the overall population should be stable or falling, then yes, replace newly dead people with new babies.

It's estimated that a pensioner costs the health service 4 times as much as a newborn.  Looked it up, but it was pretty obvious.

That's a choice. The completely broken NHS system is a whole other debate entirely.

We are fooked without immigration.  But it needs to be managed much better than it is and illegal immigrants need to be sent straight back.  Obv not as easy as that else it would be done already.

We are fooked because of mass immigration. And nothing will improve until the root course of the issue is addressed.

The US health system is completely broken.  Three times more expensive than here and they live 4 to 5 years less.

We need immigrants because of the birth rate.  It's not rocket science.

We might have too many and the wrong type but don't be under any illusion that we need them

how many of them work full time with no benefits?

and will continue to need them for the foreseeable future

Cider it is immigrants on basically minimum pay doing the jobs no one wants to do for the most part.
Take the whole lot of them out of the equation and where are you?

It's complete hogwash. Pretty much everything the state runs is failing as there are too many people. Name something that the state (or pseudo state) runs that is functional?

I'm not advocating kicking out immigrants working full time that are legally here, lapsy.

You aren't wrong in parts as prisons,health,schooling,housing all have come under pressure. However and i am saying it from experience,an immigrant has no choice but to work,for a roof over their head and food on the table as they are basically alone without family in a different country.
Glad you said that (8.21pm) because others seem to and that is so wrong on every level.

That was the case a few decades ago, but absolutely not now. I knew the answer that I posed to CB earlier, perhaps he does too as he didn't respond. 25% of immigration visas issued are for work.

Obviously, plenty of them will either be lying, stupid jobs or only done for a few months to get in.

Apart from the fact it cant work due to either the recipient buying allowed food and selling it for cash or the shopkeeper simply ringing up allowed food and giving them cigarettes or alcohol , the admin will cost millions for no gain .

That's the case now for the illegal immigrant credit card. There are ways around it for sure, but it's a lot more awkward than the cash simply being dropped into your bank account.

If they spend it on cigarettes the government get most of it straight back...

Lol indeed ^ a nice day trip if you were a smoker and a drinker,a cross channel boat trip (legit) and fill up with your smokes and cheap drink for a fraction of the price.
Brexiteers were against this and now are paying bigly to the exchequer as twas sovereignty but an almighty hit on their pockets,eejits.

too many migrant spotters these days

an almighty hit on their pockets,eejits.


Crikey lapsy, how much do you think the average day tripper did/does bring back  ?  You still have an allowance and most people i know are quite happy with that as they never used to bring more than that back anyway.  The ones who used to fill their vans up used to pretend they were for their own consumption but flogged most of the stuff in the pub

You can still get most spirits cheaper here than in duty free, as the supermarkets or Amazon always have something with a hefty discount. I buy single malts regularly and often get them a lot cheaper for instance on Tesco Clubcard prices - they have Jura @ £23 and Auchentoshan @ £22 at the moment.

And do Remainers not smoke or drink ?

Very selective Dixie and you know well where i'm going to come at you.
50g of Golden Virginia Tescos UK, £46.40, 50g of Golden Virginia Belgium £18.07/
50 packets is the bones of £1400 and yes that is for a day.

And yes also i did do it years ago but personal use.

I did it because i could.

What a perverse argument. That's nothing to do with brexit, deliberate choice to put people off purchasing tobacco via tax. Vastly more is spent on weed these days, no tax involved.

Delicious really how people are forced to turn their arguments inside out to maintain an ideology. All of a sudden, excessive tax is bad and smoking is good

It is everything Cider because no brexit you could head off to the smoky village on the French/Belgian border and buy your product and to boot as much as you wanted for yourself for 18 notes,that choice was there,you could do it legally but now you have to go to Tesco and pay 46 notes,that's brexit in rollie terms.

It's not the 1970s, weed and vaping has replaced tobacco.

In 2024, 10.6% of adults aged 18 years or over (5.3 million people) were current smokers, according to APS data.

This is a decrease from 2023 (11.1% of the population), which follows a long-term downward trend. The proportion of current smokers has fallen by 9.6 percentage points since 2011 (20.2% of the population).

The APS provides the official measure of smoking prevalence in England. It is used to monitor progress towards the UK government's target of achieving a smokefree England by 2030, with smoking prevalence at 5% or lower

What you should be asking Cider is the very point YHTL brought up,why threaten people with what is actually an 'asset' to the threatening tory party, they are getting minted by smokers?

I have no idea what he posts, but Tory's won't be in power to make these changes. It is however a topic I know a bit about.

As I alluded to right at the top, they have skipped the difficult bit anyway (people on benefits that don't need to look for work).

Not advocating smoking in any form but it is the threads topic, brexit has cost smokers bigly, if you are arguing smoking is on the wane and thankfully is surely the tories are full of sheet so and should shut their mouths?

Benefit Britain is all about incentives. One of the biggest incentives is to get yourself on benefits with no job searching commitments (only around 1 million people on benefits currently have job searching commitments).

Out of I believe, over 8 million claimants. Far more people than the whole of the Southern Irish population

It's a beautiful thing to have a safety net, most people have a stage in their life things go wrong, purely with that in it shouldn't be abused,i am on that page.

The current incentives are nothing to do with a safety net.

I'll dig out a post I read the other day, one mo.

I'm over 25, claim UC with housing costs and LCWRA and PIP and am in England.

I'm considering studying part-time with the Open Uni. If I've understood correctly, I would be entitled to a tuition fees loan and potentially a part-time maintenance loan.

I know maintenance loans are taken off UC £ for £, and there is a disregard of £110 with this.

So at a 50% part-time intensity, according to the information on the SFE website, it looks like I'd near enough keep 94.75 of my maintenance loan after the disregard (£2457 per year.)

Part time at the open university

Housing plus PIP plus LCWRA plus 'maintenance' plus tuition fees

This person will never work. Ever.

I said i agree with your point why full time when i'm getting next to the same for 20 hours,i can see that,i am really against the triple lock as workers are getting rode.
A time and place maybe 10 years or so ago these wouldn't be a huge deal but the real problem is the situation isn't looking at all good.

Lapsy , how many people do you think used to take vans to fill up on DF's ?  It's negligible. That kind of thing had been on the wane for years.

Only about 1 in 8 people smoke in the UK now, many of whom would find it uneconomical to travel to ports for day trips to restock anyway, just not worth it.

Quite amusing that you accuse me of being selective then you go in to detail over Golden Virginia . No mention of spirits i see.

And i can give you dozens of examples of heavily discounted spirits available at supermarkets and online if you want me to prove i'm not in fact being selective.
The two whiskies i mentioned above just happened to be the first ones that came to mind.

That is quite scandalous, 5 stars for inventiveness and if it was the so called 'rich' doing it would it get the same scrutiny? The loopholes were never for ordinary Joe.

There's just a huge incentive to be on UC which is tax free. Plus obviously, PIP.

Most regular people working full time don't have much left after paying priority bills, travel expenses etc. If they are on UC however they pay no tax or NI with housing costs and other extras, they are financially better off as well as enjoying a leisurely life.

Who can blame them for making logical choices. If the government provides the incentives, enough people will grab them.

Oh Dixie i could have talked about cutters,flandria or any of the other fine virginian blends,the trip was about tobacco,not the slabs or the sheety choc seashells or washing powder(lol).
2 nice malts indeed,i stick to chivas generally though aldis highland black i rate highly.

Thread goes from tory policy, that is ridiculous to general hate of folk on
benefits whilst counting pensioners and
young kids as on benefits, whilst having
a go at necessary migration whilst saying
it's required, but failing to recalculate
figures and an odd intervention to have
a go at an individual who wants to study
at Open university.

A normal day for the ranters.

The Government not only creates loopholes it removes tax liabilities for everyone. I still fill out a tax return. I can earn £1000 in fixed interest outside an ISA and unlimited interest/dividends inside an ISA. £500 in dividends from ordinary shares outside of an ISA and unlimited inside and now this year for the first time, I can earn £1000 from furnished holiday property lettings free of tax and as my wife and I share the holiday let, that means £1000 each. Why when the country is so desperately short of revenue have they changed this, in our case costing HMRC £400. The allowances above are available to everyone who has any savings at all. Their reasoning seems to be that they can't be bothered with small amounts but as it is all computerised, it does not cost them much in staff time. 5 million people getting £2500 tax free outside of ISAs is £12.5 billion. At 20% income tax they are losing £2.5 billion from these "trivial" allowances and it might well be more like 20 million people so £10 billion. Hope they don't read this Forum

It's to encourage folk to save, and benefit from small lets.

Folk with savings need less benefits

They know where your savings are too.

For many people, savings interest only maintains the value of cash. It's not real income.

A massive amount of peoples' capital has already been taxed, ie at the point it was income before becoming capital.

A MONUMEMTAL amount of cash sits in dormant savings accounts / current accounts, attracting either no interest, or jokes rates under 1%.

lapsy pa 24 Sep 26 22:15 
It's a beautiful thing to have a safety net

......................

Aye, until you haven't got four people left to hold the corners.

People were going to Europe to bring Back BACCI a long time before Brexit

Don’t really know the actual finances but with “cost of living crisis “ I doubt there would be much left for gambling, drink and tobacco,I thought people were struggling to survive, using volunteer food banks and soup kitchens.
Not an expert but think right wing politics are so out of touch with reality.

Won't be a bother. Welcome to the new idea of tobacco/alcohol banks!

Hi everyone, I’m wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation and can give me an idea of how long this normally takes.

I currently receive Universal Credit with LCWRA and I have also been receiving PIP since 2018. My LCWRA was originally established in 2019, and I had another Work Capability Assessment in 2025 which confirmed LCWRA again.

I started a full-time Master’s course on 14 September 2026, so both my PIP and LCWRA were already in place before I started the course. I’ve provided UC with my course details and academic-year end date.

My case manager has now told me:

“I am now waiting for authority to proceed further with your claim - this is basically confirmation that you qualify to receive Universal Credit whilst in full time study.”

I normally receive part of my UC payment on the 30th, but at the moment no payment has been scheduled because this check is still outstanding.

I completely understand that they need to confirm my eligibility, I’m mainly wondering whether anyone with PIP + LCWRA before starting university has had their claim sent for this kind of authorisation/decision.

I’m particularly nervous about the delay because I had significant problems with Universal Credit during my undergraduate studies. My student status and student finance were handled incorrectly on previous claims, which eventually resulted in decisions having to be reviewed and corrected by DWP. I also had issues with my LCWRA not being carried across correctly at one point. Because of that history, seeing my payment held while another student-eligibility decision is being made is bringing back a lot of the same anxiety, even though my PIP and LCWRA were both already established before I started this Master’s.

I've heard nobody talking about this on the media, or from any political party. But someone who manages to get themselves on PIP can 'go' to uni, obtain a student 'loan' for fees and maintenance (not a penny will be repaid, so effectively a huge cash bung called maintenance), all whilst remaining on elevated UC and PIP. Some UC will be disregarded, but if they rent as well, looking at £2k+ a month of handouts.

It's a massive ruse and a significant incentive to get DLA then converted to PIP.

If the individuals were taken off benefits after graduation, that would be partially sensible. But that's not going to happen, it's just abused to extract more cash from the broken system.

We have too many people who see benefits as something to be exploited to the hilt. The idea of refusing to take state handouts because of personal pride is long gone.

It's certainly the other way around now, getting 'awarded' is seen as beating the system, and celebrated. Plenty of middle class families doing it too, as I noted, to get their child on DLA. All the cherished MH conditions also get them advantages in education, sympathetic marking, extensions and so on.

I suspect plenty of valid potential claimants miss out too, as they play it straight and don't understand exactly how the scoring works and what gets the points.

literally now a 'fit note' is now seen by GPs as an admin task. 99% of people asking for them will get them, in most cases without even having a consultation. I was reading an example the other day that someone had been signed off for over 6 months, only on the next request did the GP ask to see them. which posed a problem for this claimant, as the gp had no regular appointments and it led to a gap in their fit notes

My surgery is like that, you can't get an appointment with a specific doctor, but any doctor can assess a fit note.