Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop’s attack of Government policy

Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop's attack of Gov policy, reports @wdjstraw http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop's attack of Gov policy, reports @wdjstraw http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

New polling shows 4-to-1 public support for Rowan Williams' attack on the Coalition's lack of a mandate http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

New polling shows 4-to-1 public support for Rowan Williams' attack on the Coalition's lack of a mandate http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop's attack of Gov policy, reports @wdjstraw http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

I agree with the ABC:Turns out 55% of people back Rowan Williams over 'policies no one voted for'. http://t.co/aHcfZ2N

RT @wdjstraw: New polling shows 4-to-1 public support for Rowan Williams' attack on the Coalition's lack of a mandate http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

New polling shows 4-to-1 public support for Rowan Williams' attack on the Coalition's lack of a mandate http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

RT @wdjstraw: New polling shows 4-to-1 public support for Rowan Williams' attack on the Coalition's lack of a mandate http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

Heh. 55% of the public agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury over "policies no one voted for"; just 15% disagree. http://bit.ly/iOrDBY

Heh. 55% of the public agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury over "policies no one voted for"; just 15% disagree. http://bit.ly/iOrDBY

Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop's attack of Gov policy, reports @wdjstraw http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop's attack of Gov policy, reports @wdjstraw http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop’s attack of Government policy http://bit.ly/mD0Yk8, inetresting from @leftfootfwd #turbulentpriests

Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop of Canterbury's attack of Government policy. http://bit.ly/jtQSlW

Public 4:1 in support for Archbishop's concerns over govt policy: http://bit.ly/mD0Yk8

New polling shows 4-to-1 public support for Rowan Williams' attack on the Coalition's lack of a mandate http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop’s attack of Government policy I Will Straw – http://j.mp/my2MuR

Populs poll shows public back Archbishop's attack on government http://bit.ly/iGVdfe (from @leftfootfwd)

Populs poll shows public back Archbishop's attack on government http://bit.ly/iGVdfe (from @leftfootfwd)

Public http://t.co/xqjvkzE

Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop’s attack of Government policy http://bit.ly/mD0Yk8, inetresting from @leftfootfwd #turbulentpriests

Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop’s attack of Government policy I Will Straw – http://j.mp/my2MuR

I'm sorry but this post http://bit.ly/mJxALQ is the nadir of @leftfootfwd's "Evidence-based blogging" (NB: #bannedlist @JohnRentoul)

"47% felt it was not his job to “criticise Government policies" – Of course it is his job. #RowanGate http://bit.ly/mD0Yk8

RT @wdjstraw New polling shows 4-to-1 public support for Rowan Williams' attack on the Coalition's lack of a mandate http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop’s attack of Government policy I Will Straw – http://j.mp/my2MuR

While I agree that the question asked wasn’t helpful, even if it had been phrased more dispassionately (e.g. ‘do you agree with George Osborne’s plan to cap annual household benefits at £26k?’) I am certain that the result in favour would also have been overwhelming.

The shock, in actual fact, is that with the question phrased as it was, 20% of respondents opposed taking payments away from those who cheat or abuse the system. That is an utterly indefensible attitude. Who are these people who believe it just and moral that cheats should prosper?

New polling shows 4-to-1 public support for Rowan Williams' attack on the Coalition's lack of a mandate http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

RT @leftfootfwd: Public support Archbishop of Canterbury #williams http://tinyurl.com/6e2n4tg

RT @leftfootfwd: Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop's attack of Gov policy, reports @wdjstraw: http://bit.ly/mJxALQ

Ed’s talking balls. How apt the name you have is. The amount lost to the exchequer through benefit fraud is small beer compared to the amount that is lost to the exchequer through tax avoidance and evasion perpetrated by rich individuals and multi national companies who abuse tax loopholes to pay less tax than their employees without whom they wouldn’t be making profits and by extension windfall bonuses paid to the senior executives while their empolyees are rewarded with pay freezes and redundancy. You seem to have accepted blindly the propaganda spouted by the likes of Murdoch et al which accuses benefit claimants of being cheats. This kind of attitude has recently seen an increase in attacks against disabled people.

Perhaps Mr Balls the 20% were people who would like to see the evidence of the crime, and also who would not think that failure to fill in a complex and long, detailed and in some parts very intrusive form should class someone as being a benefit cheat. Many peole especialy the beloved war wounded, and aged who fought for this country find such forms both frustrating and intrusive. But hay they must be cheats right cos they did not fill in the form correctly!

I think you’ve missed your own point, Ed.

The 20% were not disagreeing with the question, but more likely disagreeing with it’s clear and obvious bias.
Although no doubt a number were also opposed to the way they expect that ‘targeting’ to be carried out/enforced.

David’s absolutely right about this. It’s a no brainer to crack down on benefit cheats but fraud only makes up a tiny proportion of the total bill. Getting people back to work is a noble goal but only if (a) they can work, and (b) there are jobs to go to. The greatest mockery of the Government’s plans is made by the fact that half of the cuts will actually affect people who are already in work. If the public were confronted with these facts, they might think again about supporting IDS’ measures.

Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop’s attack of Government policy I Will Straw – http://j.mp/my2MuR

Stop spending on foriegn aid. Stop letting foriegn RELIGIONS build their “mosques” in our CHRISTIAN country. Charity begins at home and we have MORE than enough poor to help without looking for more.

The bishop is correct 100%

Will; Quite, on the people in work. Especially given the several million more people only working part-time since the start of this recession, and the way they will next year be dumped on the same benefit, and usually facing the same conditions, as someone entirely unemployed (and will see less money as a result, in many cases, given inflation rates).

I almost got penalised by the jobcentre last year, because I didn’t apply for a job, during a brief period between contracts, which was an out-and-out scam (and which I reported as such, TO the Jobcentre). Was that “Fraud”?

Tremendous exercise in obfuscation there, David.

What makes you assume that I condone either tax evasion or avoidance, or that I don’t see them as a problem? Further, what makes you think that I have failed to read the figures with regard to benefit fraud? Even though, in the context of overall government spending £1bn might seem trivial, I could never bring myself to describe it as ‘small beer’ and, besides, principle doesn’t rely on amounts: I would want fraud stopped if it only cost £1.

But this is all a smokescreen: I didn’t say anything about benefit fraud, less still about tax revenues, in my comment.

What I did say, however, is that I expect the vast majority of the public will support a benefits cap of £26k, after tax. Certainly, the people to whom I have spoken about it are overwhelmingly in favour of the policy.

I also said that I found it disgraceful that, on the wording of the question posed in the survey, 20% of people disagreed with taking payments away from those who cheat or benefit the system. Logically, this must mean that this 20% see no problem in giving away taxpayers’ money to those who neither need, nor deserve it. I think that is a despicable attitude to have. Irrespective of the sums involved, fraud should be stopped.

But again, I must not fall into your trap of being sidetracked and moved onto a discussion about fraud. Again, I did’t mention it. I merely expressed confidence that the public want to see a cut in benefits (particularly housing benefits) and my disgust that there are people (20%, in fact) who see nothing wrong in giving money to fraudsters.

What’s objectionable in what I have actually said, as I opposed to what I didn’t?

George,

I didn’t think the facts were in dispute. There is £1bn worth of fraud, according to Will’s article, so I’m not going to dispute that. I would have thought that everyone was united in thinking that that should be stopped. As Will said, it’s a no-brainer.

Of course I have sympathy with those who fill out complicated forms incorrectly: it’s happened to me enough times. But I would have thought that the system wouldn’t punish, criminally, simple mistakes. At least, I would hope not.

It’s not a “no-brainer” of any sort. Additional resources thrown at it have not brought down the actual, low, rate, increasing spending on it at this time is quite literally throwing money away. Especially when it’s diverted from the revenue-generating business of moving against tax avoidance and evasion!

Moreover, there is over four times as much wasted in inefficiency and poor decision making by the system, which is also something which is easier and more profitable to address.

As it is, minor mistakes /are/ harshly punished, and those punishments are going up and up. The Tories, if you hadn’t noticed, plan to fine tens of thousands of claimants (who often have no money) £50-300 a time for errors in long, complex forms. As a revenue-generating exercise, which is going to leave many people quite literally hungry!

I’m dyslexic, and you can be sure I’ll be asking for aid to fill in ANY form after the change, in case someone makes a mistake reading my bad handwriting (which, no, isn’t an issue in any of the jobs I work in, my typing is entirely acceptable)

I’ve once had to “pay back” (subtracted from the next week’s) £2.50 in housing benefit once because the *council* had a processing delay. That kind of thing will also, as I’m reading it, attract fines under “Universal Credit”.

I’d be receptive to the argument that *serious* benefit fraud (I certainly don’t mean the common sub-£100 cases where a minor mistake was made by someone!) should be more harshly punished, but that’s a different issue, no?

Rowan Williams is a complete waste of space and his leadership ability is crap to say the least. He is selling the C of E out by bending over backwards to Marxists and Islamic fascists. His churches are empty and are often sold on to become mosques or Islamic learning centers. His clergy is been regularily beaten in the East End and does he stick up for them does he ****. The majority of British Christians are embarrassed to admit they are C of E and even Bliar was so impressed he became a Catholic. To say the Tories are foisting policies on us which are radical is a laugh. They are soft as feta cheese. Labour turned this country upside down by selling its soul to the City and Bankers and flooding the country with third world immigrants and Islamic nut jobs. Coming from a working class background I would like to spit in the face of most of its treasonous and thieving MPs including the foreign Millibands. Tories are the ugly twin sister of Labour and their relationship is cosy to say the least. Disgusted with political class in Londonistan.

"47% felt it was not his job to “criticise Government policies" – Of course it is his job. #RowanGate http://bit.ly/mD0Yk8

Bob – I dread to think what kind of a place I’d be living in if everyone had your attitude to people with different beliefs, backgrounds, ….faces(?)

On chasing benefit fraud i think it is a “no-brainer” of one sort – culturally. I think it’s a crucial component of British culture that cheats don’t prosper. Even if it costs us a few quid to stop them, its still cheap in terms of what really matters. If I understood Ed Milliband’s speech correctly, I think he was making a similar point too. He said “We cannot lecture people on benefits about responsibility if we do not also address the problem at the top in the public and private sectors”.

I think the Bishop has the right to speak, and he was entirely right in what he says.

Unfortunatly Mr Balls your own admitted lack of working knowledge in terms of not knowing that the elderly and infirm can and will be punished, treated as benefit cheats by the system (Much simpler to call everyone benefit cheats as it keeps the stats and the remedies so much easier to explain.) as amply explained by Leon and this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12506273 (Many more are availible via google)So if your lack of knowledge of the sytem prevents you from knowing that to be labeld a cheat it could be that an elerly lady might tick the wrong box when asked about her need for help getting dressed, or the help she needs to sit on the loo. Perhaps then the 20% may know more than you do and were as I said waiting to see the evidence, or even showing compassion to these wicked old and disabled people who thought dignity and respect were things to be valued, not disposod of in a form that they may not comprehend or in fact want to fill in at all.

To clarify, I know you will be wondering Mr Balls, what I meant by not wanting to fill the form in at all is that 16bn of benefits are unclaimed. Lets be clear this is money already set aside so it is not a extra drain it is in the dwp account, and people are not claiming it. http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/press_office201022 Traditionaly out of a sense of self respect and self relience it is older people who do not claim, diffrent generation diffrent values you may argue. I will not argue, what I do say though is that as cuts to councils up and down the land take effect, the jobs of the very people who could help these elderly and proud people claim the money that they are entitled to. Although it might be a small weekly amount, an extra tin of bins per week or the fire going on for longer each day maybe even both might be the diffrence between life and death. Ah but then with out the help of social workers, domestic helps, wardens, of shelterd homes, welfare rights advisers, the proud elderly will stand a good chance of making a mistake on the form being refused benefit and labeld scum and cheat for good measure. NOW MR BALLS DO YOU GET THE PICTURE.

“There is £1bn worth of fraud, according to Will’s article, so I’m not going to dispute that.”

And if it costs £5bn to halve it, is that worth it?

Also, what’s your attitude to the fact that about 15 times that level remains unclaimed because the benefits process is so intimidating and incomprehensible – PRECISELY because of attitudes like yours, it must be said – that horrifying numbers of people refuse or fail to claim their full entitlements? I’m guessing “collateral damage” sums it up, because you’re a silly little troll who thinks people disagreeing with you is “disgusting”, but I’d love to be proved wrong.

RT @leftfootfwd: Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop's attack of Government policy http://t.co/Ckab0cq

As I’ve said here before, all these reforms are ill thought out and cost so much.

The fact is that there are already systems in place to deal with fraud and so called ‘mistakes’ whereby people suddenly forget that they should have informed various authorities about changes. Currently, under labour’s previous reforms, agencies like the inland revenue and universities shared information for that very purpose. I was investigated last year. I had a knock on the door from someone from the housing benefit office to ask why I was claiming housing benefit whilst doing an M.A. The university provided the information to them. I had not in fact done anything wrong since I was only studying part time and therefore I was still entitled to housing benefit. Nevertheless, I had a year’s bank statements photographed along with all of my personal information. The year before that, I had a housing benefit check where they do the same; it is a regular occurance in my area.

Also, you are already fined by having to pay back all monies that are overpaid if you ‘forget’ to inform the DWP about any changes in circumstances, and all claimnats are prosecuted when claimants have commited serious fraud in this respect along with those who commit fraud on a mass scale.

Taking all of this together, it is total lunacy to then spend more on seeking out further fraud than is defrauded.

As for the 20% who thought that it wasn’t a good idea to remove benefits from people who commit fraud, perhaps they understand that it is a complicated concept. I was talking to a friend today about how successive governments should have addressed long term benefit dependancy but failed, and also that before this government now further impoverish the working poor, the genuinely unemployed and the disabled, they should target those who have avoided work for the whole of their lives.

It’s not that simple though. There are a great many of those who are alcholics and drug addicts who will never be able to ‘get it together’ to be able to work, and in fact, who would want to employ them? Additionally, if you start removing benefits long term from these sorts of people it is very likely that they will turn to crime to make ends meet. In fact, there are going to be so many cuts accross the board to everyone with such dire consequences that could potentially see many hundreds of thousands if not millions made homeless, that we will have a genuine crisis on our hands in this country, apart from the prospect of ‘fines’. Analysts have warned the government to expect civil unrest.

As I have commented on here before, what could work is to make benefits a wage and have people engaged in community work a couple of days a week; similar to work, if you haven’t got a good reason for turning up, then you don’t get paid. Even then, I know of some hopeless cases, people who are so damaged and at rock bottom that they will never be useful members of society again; removing benefits will only lead them to further despair. For those who could do something, being engaged in community work, feeling that they are actually doing something for the income provided from the government will restore their dignity and might lead to permanent work if we get out of recession. These programmes could be self funding. For example, I’m chronically disabled and housebound now, but I have a good education and I would be happy to work a few hours a week from home organising something like that; I’m sure there are many others who would love to feel that they could contribute like that too, and in doing so they would feel that they are doing something in return for benefits.

It is only right therefore that The Archbishop of Canterbury spoke out about this issue. He is a religious leader and he should demonstrate that he is concerned with regard to the consequences of welfare reform; if he did not then people would critisise him all the more for keeping silent.

Clare – Self-funding? That means they’ll be used to replace what would otherwise be properly-paid jobs. And it creates a perverse incentive to keep a certain level of “jobseekers” for underpaid labour. Workfare is a boon for private companies, in the main, and nobody else.

More, you’re slashing the time people – especially those who are short-term claimants – have to LOOK for jobs. I’d point you at Flexisecurity again, where you set an activity schedule and then do it – after a period, this can involve training (and it IS avaliable!) or charity work, for example.

Public overwhelmingly support Archbishop's attack on government policy http://t.co/GUDoPY9 #ConDemNation

[...] homeless families, and comes after the head of the Church of England, Dr Rowan Williams, spoke out against the coalition’s [...]

[...] follows that of the head of the Church of England, Dr Rowan Williams, who last month spoke out against the coalition’s [...]