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I'm sorry Bezzymate but change your statement to an 'I' not a 'we'.
who are the 'we'?? Certainly not a wiki collective!!

I thought the programme was quite good ! It made some good points about
absent fathers and the crazy benefit system that we have at the moment. It was
NOT showing rubbish tips and tinned-up houses . I saw Holt Hill with nicely
painted houses and Argyle Street South and one or two other Tranmere roads.
It also had a piece about a father living in South London so it was not just
concentrating on this area or criticising Birkenhead people . Good short ,well
made film . Someone on here has very thin skin!
Tranmere Methodist has been doing a great job for the local community for many
years. Yet again, Wirral Borough Council has failed and Housing Market Renewal
has ground to a halt . All their promises to residents have been broken!

now silence

I always wonder what this type of programme is really about, if its about feckless fathers as they seem to call them, then why is there a need to raise what benefits the girls and their children are receiving, are they suggesting if an absent father coughs up £200 a week then he is relieved of any fatherly duties, there are plenty in the upper echelon bracket that do that.
Are they suggesting the benefit system pays out to much to single parent families, or is it only to families who have developed out of wedlock, are we now going down a road of treating certain members of society, unmarried mothers different from widows etc, They all have children and its the innocents we are supposedly protecting. Maybe some people would be happier if we went back to workhouses and institutions for the single parent families who claim off the state.
Obviously we would rather see them supported by the fathers, nothing wrong with that, Frank Field mentioned 3 million jobs in recent times have gone to people from outside this country, why are successive governments allowing this to happen, Where's the look after your own gone, its all so politicians can sit around a table in Europe and say were playing the game.

Flattering or unflattering to Birkenhead, its going on everywhere in the country, and plenty of women go out purposely to get pregnant, because they see it as a meal ticket, the benefits system rewards them too greatly for popping out a kid, whilst we stupid people who decide to go to work and make a decent, honest, living, get shafted for tax etc...

The problem with the benefits system, is it is such a great scheme for those who don't want to work, and have not intention of ever working, that it is now seen by many as a viable, long-term alternative to a job, a way of life.

I believe they should make those on long-term unemployment benefits (2 or 3+ years) be paid in vouchers instead of cash - lets see how many Plasma TV's and Xbox games they can purchase with a £2 per week eletrical voucher, lets see how much weed they can purchase with £20 per week food vouchers, lets see how many cars they can afford to run with a £7 per week electric and gas vouchers... Obviously, these figures are just random, and have no basis on what living requirements actually are, but its a hypothetical idea.

The system is able to work out how much a person requires to live on and how much they should be entitled to, on the basis of some calculation so it should work, and begin to push the long-term unemployed towards doing something with their lives instead of sitting idle for decade after decade being supported by mine, and every other workers tax. Of course, im all for people being able to spend their money how they like, and they free to do so, there would be just one catch, they would have to get of their arses and earn the money instead of taking it out of the system.

Another idea I had would be to decrease the benefit for those who have never contributed, by 10% year on year, after they have been claiming for 12 months, maybe even less. And for those who have worked, they should work out a timeframe for the reductions to start, based on how long they have contributed (note - not how much they have contributed, but how long - otherwise lower-paid workers who find themselves out of work could be disadvantaged). And reduce their housing and council tax benefit by 5% per year too! Im all for the governments new idea of people never being better off out of work, than in work, but in reality, do we honestly believe that the average weed-smoking, good for nothing scally, who has ZERO interest in working (or indeed a middle aged person, who has become of the same attitude), is going to get out bed every day and do some hard graft for a few miserly quid? I don't for one minute think working to earn £10 a week more than on benefits will make a blind bit of difference to them - lets start making life gradually harder and harder - and I also agree with getting the long-term unemployed onto "community payback" style shcemes etc...

It may seem harsh, but I, and I am sure most people, are getting sick and tired of watching lowlife ... being paid to sit on the feckin arses, smoking weed and playing Xbox games. Not everyone on the dole has no interest in getting themselves back into employment, but the sad truth of the matter is, many do, the system is out of control and action needs to be taken, and swiftly.

As for single mums and benefits relating to children, how the hell we change it, is anyones guess, because cutting benefits towards children, would possibly be a bad thing for those children - however one could argue that a signficant cut in the amount of benefits the parents recieve could increase the amount of young girls who see it as easy alternative to working? You could say make all fathers ineligable for benefits if they have a child, but then the girl just uses the old "I don't know who the father is" loophole. I guess the only way to change it, is, short of removing every child that is born to parents who do not want to work to support them from the parents, is to change attitudes - something which may take two or more generations to happen, if it is even possible. In other countries, to have a child before you are financially and mentally secure and stable to look after it, is seen as a social taboo, in this country the young girls (and lads) who pop these kids out every couple of years, with the sole intention of living off the state for life, don't give a damn what we hard-working folk and politicians say about them, because all their peers are doing the same thing - how do you even begin to change that attitude?

Benefit payments should be relative to the amount that the individual has put into the government over the years in their Tax and NI. When the pot runs dry, then the individual has to act.

Sorry for any offence caused,I meant in general and that he felt at home here meaning Wallasey. There was no reference to Wiki members I would never assume I could speak for others.

The way i see benefits and have always been under the opinion, the benefit levels in this country are set by the powers to be, whoever they may be, to be at a level where people in need can live a life of existence, free from starvation and going cold, etc and having some quality of life. The so called experts are supposedly able to work this out.If the benefits are at such a level,where a person or family can only achieve this where is the incentive to find work,if the level of pay is lower, as i see it, if the powers to be have set the correct rates for benefits and if we leave the so called ... bags out of it for a moment, and ask the opinion of the decent people on benefits, they will tell you its not easy and can be a struggle.
Once again i would ask, if we put an extremely high figure on it and say there are 1million scumbags on the dole who should be working, why haven't the other 2 million plus decent people on the dole been offered these jobs.
What certainly needs looking at is, if 3 million jobs went to foreigners, how do we stop it.

It amazes me all the money the single mothers recieve - I'm sure it does not always go onto necessary items for their children. A coupon system would see this change - stipulating what they are to spend it on eg nappies, baby food, baby clothes. Wonder if they will think twice about having a kid if they only end up with the same amount of £benefits as they would have if there were no offspring. Afterall, the money is for the childrens' needs.

By blowing up the EU haha!

Right behind you Matt, tin hat at the ready.

Bert - out of interest, because you always give a sensible and informitive answer (though I may not always agree), what are your opinions on a coupon-style system for the long-term unemployed (maybe 3+ years)?

And how about long-term unemployment benefit being graudally decreased over a period years, to make it harder and harder for "scroungers" to live, based upon how "long" they have contributed to society previous to being on benefits (through working).

We could do it covertly - if we refuse to bail out the EU countries any further, get our "special neighbours" over the pond to do the same, we could watch the EU economy fall (unless China find it in their hearts to lend them a hand). Once they are all skint and bankrupt, we can be the only EU superpower, and thus we may as well progress without being a part of the EU, require all non-UK workers to have work permits, thus send all the EU workers home when one considers the cap they introducing lol, and thus problem solved.

Yep, ive lost track of my opinion too!

Matt, on the coupon system like most systems, it is open to abuse, coupons can for example be sold on at a loss to gain cash for drugs etc, it would have to be pretty foolproof for it to work, even if they had to line up for food with id cards, unless it was eaten on the spot, that could be sold. While i can see the reasoning behind it, actually putting it in to force and for it to work as meant would be a nightmare.

National insurance is supposed to be our way of paying for our benefits, and i suppose future generations also, if we can't as a country provide enough jobs, how can scumbags or otherwise accrue some sort of pot. i can't see how we can sort out scumbags and force them into labour (jobs) if there aren't enough jobs to go around.
We would have to get pretty barbaric to sort out what that programme was about, i can't see a country like this going down that line.

Yep, I have to accept we are maybe 10 years too late with the idea's... one thing the last Labour government has to be considered guilty of, is not cracking down on the "scroungers" abusing the system, when we had the economical conditions and jobs to do it. I was quite amazed, when they announced their plans to reform the system, and get the long-term unemployed back into work, in about 2008, just as the economy was starting to drown, and jobless figures were rising rapidly.

It seems as though the long-term unemployed were not a priority or even an afterthought for Labour, whilst the finances were (apparently) good, but only became an issue once the finances dried up, by which time it was too late in so many respects.

Any system such as the voucher system, as you say, is open to abuse and could affect some innocent, genuine claimants, but we certainly need to do something radical to actually get the idea that working is good, morally, financially, physically and emotionally, into the heads of some of these scroungers. If they could even contepmlate giving it a try, for a few months, im sure a lot of them could turn their lives around and realise the positive aspects of working for a living, but whilst there is no pressure or reason for them to try, there is no way they are going to bother.