Out of the Closet, into Housing Benefit.
Much anguished fluttering of the bent-to-the-left petticoats this morning. It seems that the government’s decision to make housing benefit a financial helping hand for adults, rather than a free for all, is unfairly targeting ‘gays’.
Young LGBT people in particular are already at much higher risk of homelessness than their straight and cisgender counterparts, with around 25% of the young homeless population in urban areas identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Parental rejection is still an issue for these young people; many face the prospect of losing their homes on coming out, or increasingly, in the age of social media, being outed. Still more are living with parents or family members who are openly hostile or even violent. For some, the price of staying at home includes attempts by family members to ‘cure’ them of their sexual or gender identities, through reparative therapy, religious ritual, torture, corrective rape or forced marriage. Is it reasonable to expect them to remain at this cost? Is it fair to withdraw the housing benefit that gives them somewhere else to go?
Who would have thought that staying at home with your parents would have resulted in ‘corrective rape’, eh? Even if that hysterical sentence was true in .00001% of cases, which I doubt, its not the actual ‘staying at home with your parents’ that causes the problem, is it? It’s failing to keep your mouth shut, in more ways than one, that results in Daddy showing you the door.
Let us take the hypothetical case of a young Obnoxio Clownius, who famously wishes to spend his life pleasuring himself with a gutted sardine. Mind you, if I was the Sardine, I’d be gutted too, but that is by the bye. What do you imagine would have been the reaction of Daddy Clownius upon being informed of this over the breakfast table? After beating the Sardine into a fish paste, I suspect he might have shown young Obnoxio the door, all ‘you’re no Clown of mine, begone’. We can assume that Obo had the good sense to keep his mouth shut until he was old enough to afford his own rent and his own blog….
In short, there is no other sexual passage of life that involves this ritual ‘Hey Daddy, guess what I’m going to screw’, breakfast table confession. Do we know if 25% of young homeless people are sleeping on the streets because they professed their love of dogging? Nope, but then despite the popularity of the occupation, there simply aren’t the writers or researchers dedicated to reducing every political decision to one of discrimination against Doggers.
What is really at stake here, is the Fabian desire to separate parents from children; to destroy families; to foster the illusion that you are all alone in the world apart from the caring hand of the State. They have already managed to ensure that the fastest route to a council house is either to get pregnant or be an immigrant. Getting pregnant by an immigrant is a win double, a fashion begun by Ronnie Biggs if I remember correctly.
Housing Benefit shouldn’t be there to help you move out of the home you are in, but to preserve the home you are at risk of losing, should misfortune befall you. It shouldn’t just be tied to age, but to proven ability to support yourself. Perhaps a year of having to pay the rent yourself, before you are offered help with it? Those with no ability to earn more than the basic wage might not be so keen on living in Bishop’s Avenue if that were the case.
Even the left wing creed is ‘To each according to his need’, not ‘to each according to his want’. Nothing illustrates the difference between ‘need’ and ‘want’ more clearly than the gulf between shopping in the UK and shopping in France. I dread the English visitor, asked what ‘they would like to do this afternoon’, who replies, ‘Ooh I’d like to look round the shops’. Especially if it is a Monday. Everything, including the banks, is closed on a Monday.
You see, in France (excluding Paris, which is another country) shopping is something you do because you need something. It is not unusual to find a shop in total darkness on say a Wednesday morning. The shop isn’t there to seduce you into wanting something, with delectable displays of things you never knew you wanted – it is there to supply you with that which you need, and when you go in and announce your particular need, providing it is the season for such needs, (God help you if you want to buy bottling jars when it isn’t fruit bottling season…) they will turn the lights on and spend hours explaining the difference between the three different types of bottling jars. They just don’t cater for people wandering round bankruptcy-inducing illuminated displays wondering what it is that they might want.
The fact that we don’t have credit cards, overdrafts have always been rarer than a smiling bank manager in the UK, and as for a bounced cheque for those high heeled trainers that were just so cute you had to have them – you don’t want to go there; instant closure of your bank account, and a five year wait before you are allowed to have another one. Consequently, cheques have much the same status as a Banker’s Draft here, we don’t need cheque cards. You can, and I have, write a car dealer a cheque for 30,000 Euros, and he will hand you the keys to the car with a smile on his face.
In the UK, by contrast, there is a five mile queue on the M25 to get into Bluewater Shopping nirvana on a Sunday morning. Cambridge High Street is a hive of activity. Heavens, you might suddenly be overwhelmed by a desire to purchase a hunting, fishing, t-shirt outside of the shooting season, and they are there, staff on double pay, shop rents readjusted to take account of the seven day sales opportunity, fluorescent lights burning a hole in their pocket – just in case…
The UK has lost the ability to see the difference between want and need. 18 year olds may want to upset Daddy over the breakfast table, and have the rent on a flat paid for them, but Taxpayers shouldn’t feel the need to oblige them. Welfare Benefits are supposed to be a safety net, not the answer to all your desires.
What say you? Housing Benefit for the under 25s or not?
June 27, 2012 at 22:06
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Very late to the party (as usual). Shurely ‘The Powers That Be’ have got
‘us’ arguing/fighting amongst ourseleves again.
If there really had been a “Bonfire of the Quangos” (& an incineration
of fake charities, plus a reduction/scrapping in foriegn aid, etc), then
proposals such as this could be deferred (so as to be looked at in a calm
measured way).
- June 26, 2012 at 18:08
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Your reasoning is backwards, Anna.
Plenty of gay people do not voluntarily come out, nor are they expecting a
vast audience to be there to applaud them when they do. More often than not
they are forced out, not least by nosy and intolerant family members or
acquaintances who demand to know about their private life/ inclinations, when
they are going to get married, that ‘you’re not queer, are you?’ etc. And as
soon as they admit it, it tends to be the same prurient people who huff and
puff about not wanting to know about it, “not wanting it rammed down our
throats (geddit!)”, etc etc.
You and others are suggesting that no one really cares anymore whether
anyone is gay, and that it’s just that gays who insist on going on and on
about it etc. Well if you are really concerned about families being broken up
and individuals becoming dependent on the state, then you should be arguing
for parents not to be so nosy and intolerant when it comes to their children’s
perfectly legal private lives and to get on with their own. That way, fewer
young gay people would get kicked out home and ask for housing benefit.
Everyone wins.
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June 26, 2012 at 17:27
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That was indeed my safety net at age 16 back in 1996 having being cast out
by my own mother with a serious personality disorder…. I was still studying at
college and had no other alternative back then. If it is scrapped what do we
put in it’s place for all those under 25′s in genuine need… do we get Tesco /
Serco involved to build large HMO’s to house these poor unfortunates such as
myself where every move of the under 25 can then be documented by some Social
Worker in ‘Young Adult Homes of Scorn’…. unworkable… the longer the Tories
stay in power the more I despise them…..
- June 26, 2012 at 17:31
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I forgot to add… Short sight-est government targeting the Symptom because
targeting the actual problem is too difficult….
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June 26, 2012 at 18:05
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This possible new rule isn’t designed to attack those in real need. In
fact I doubt that it will even be retrospective. It’s to stop it going on
for the rest of the century, and into the next one.
What was ever wrong
with getting a job and paying your own rent? And don’t tell me that there
are no jobs because I simply do not believe it. Cleaning Companies have a
terrible hard time finding people to clean Toilets. And yes, I have done
that myself. I had children to support, so I did whatever I had to.
- June 26,
2012 at 13:57
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Sorry to appear judgemental but I consider Obnoxio pleasuring himself with
a gutted sardine quite perverted. Normal people like me use a Yarmouth bloater
instead, the cold-smoking aof the herring nd retention of its innards
providing a much more satisfying experience. Skate wings left me cold before I
was introduced to beurre noir.
- June 26, 2012 at 14:12
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Such capers you can have with skate wings and beurre noir……
- June 26,
2012 at 17:46
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Mrs Raccoon, my knees are buckling at the very thought …..
- June 26, 2012 at 11:03
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It is too late now but there was a way proposed in the 60s that would have
solved the problem we have today, well at least most of it – Negative income
tax.
It has been pulled out and look at several times since then but always
quickly pushed back under the carpet mainly by the civil service because it
would do away with a complete department and we can’t have that now can
we.
With NIT everyone has a basic minimum income – you want more you go out and
earn more. Tax is paid on a reduction factor but the main thing is that the
minimum income is all those that don’t want to work get – no special handouts
unless you can prove you are genuinely disabled like our soldiers that have
lost limbs etc. It also does not apply to those entering the country until
they have worked and paid taxes for a set number of years.
If by some strange quirk it ever did get introduced it would reduce the
size of government infrastructure as well as removing all the identity groups
that cascadian mentions. It would also reduce overall government spending on
welfare.
- June 25,
2012 at 20:43
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The Welfare State shouldn’t be a safety net but a trampoline to bounce
people out of poverty (and I use that word in its widest definition, not
merely economic). The Wisconsin Works idea of maximum two years’ continuous
state benefits and five years in a lifetime is good for the majority but the
there’s always a problem for people on the margin who don’t fit into the clear
categories the policy makers foresee. A fair division of responsibilities
would be for taxpayers’ money to provide emergency assistance and charities to
provide ongoing, tough-love mentoring. But even that wouldn’t work for
everyone on every occasion. In truth there isn’t a panacea – the Good
Samaritan parable ended with him giving the innkeeper two denarii and saying
he’d reimburse any extra charges on his next visit, but the assumption was
that the injured traveller would recuperate and continue his journey and not
stay permanently at the inn with a partner, three kids, dog, Sky subscription
and drug habit for the Samaritan to pay for.
- June 25, 2012 at 21:00
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Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s a question of what the Welfare State
should be, any more. It’s a question of what we can do with very little
money. It won’t be enough, because we can no longer afford to do enough.
Country’s skint. Simple as that.
- June 25, 2012 at 20:23
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I doubt many of todays youngsters would live the way we did in the 60s in
London, a really grotty bedsit where the snow came in the window and we lived
on milk and chips – had to keep our money for going out. Still we had a great
time though I sometimes wonder how we survived! I don’t even know if these
sort of places are still available, certainly not in the areas of London we
lived in which are all gentrified now. There was no housing benefit then and
we couldn’t have gone home after a taste of freedom. The one thing we did have
though was plenty of work.
- June 25, 2012 at 19:44
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I don’t agree on setting an age limit for housing benefit.
For instance my daughter has worked since she left school at 16 paying NI
and tax into the system (bar 1 yr off maternity leave), her fella has worked
the same but lost his job 4 months ago. They are 23 and 24 and pay nearly £600
month rent for a (private rent) tiny terraced house on what was a council
estate until buy-to-letters bought all the council houses at a knock down
price (denying all our youngsters a chance of a council house) so at the
moment they get some help with the rent as her wage is barely above minimum
wage. So with this suggestion she would lose that help whilst our neighbours
both in their 30s, never worked a day in their lives, never paid a single
penny into the system, brought up 4 children on the state would continue to
receive full housing benefit. How is that fair? I know the pot is nearly empty
and I know cuts must be made but there must be fairer ways of doing it.
Why not disallow anyone from drawing from the pot unless they have made a
minimum contribution?
Sort of connected to this, my grandaughter (aged 11) came home from school
today and announced to her mother she’d had a lesson today about how to claim
benefits if she had a baby ???? Needless to say her mother’s spitting feathers
and is off up the school tomorrow…. Gawd help ‘em
- June 25, 2012 at 20:56
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Callie – with great respect, the pot is not ‘nearly empty’. The pot has
been empty since before the 2008 crash. Even in the ‘good years’, a deficit
was being run – the government spent more than took in tax. It lived on
tick, if you will. The 2008 crash greatly reduced the government’s tax
revenues, but spending did not reduce to match.
We’d all like to see economic growth so that tax revenues would rise to
match, even exceed, public spending. But it’s not happening, and
realistically, it’s not going to happen, at least until the Euro crisis
plays out and some stability returns; that may take a year, it may take a
decade. So the only option the government has to avoid interest charges on
National Debt becoming sufficient to spook the already jittery markets, and
thus drive up interest rates making the situation far worse (see Greece,
Italy, Portugal, Spain and Ireland for details) is to cut spending. It’s
been trying to do so slowly so that the expansion of the private sector
balances contraction of public, but it isn’t working. Public spending is
still rising – making matters worse. Sadly, there is no option but to reduce
public spending. A lot. The only remaining question is how.
When Liam Byrne left his famous note after the last General Election,
“Sorry, there’s no money left” he wasn’t joking. Sadly, it was a
considerable understatement. Not only was there no money left, but the
credit cards debts were being stacked up like no tomorrow.
Now it’s time to pay up, and it won’t be easy – and that’s just paying
the interest, never mind the debt itself.
- June 25, 2012 at 18:17
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Country spending more than it’s earning, year after year. Economic outlook
not too bright, going on pitch black. Can’t afford everything. Something’s got
to go. Simple as that, really.
Anyway, where’s all this discrimination against Doggers? They’ve even got
their own Bank. Albeit a slightly damp one.
- June 25, 2012 at 18:41
- June 26, 2012 at 07:02
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Dogger Bank… a good place to “sleep with the fishes”?
- June 26, 2012 at 07:39
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But there’s Germans who bite
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June 26, 2012 at 10:09
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…and a Viking called Utsire…
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June 25, 2012 at 16:45
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Did you know that when this Housing Benefit lark all kicked off, Mrs. next
door would house your son or daughter while you housed her’s. It was a good
ruse, and they all went home for dinner. And then shared out the benefits.
Although I doubt that anyone actually changed bedrooms.
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June 25, 2012 at 16:37
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That’s why French Banks don’t have Bank Charges. Bounce a cheque? Don’t
even think about it. I once wrote a cheque to EDF knowing that I would have
£2,000 going in to my bank in two days time. Unfortunately EDF presented the
cheque on the same day that the money arrived, but Banks always deal with
outgoing cheques before they deal with incoming money. [This could be a
conspiracy, but we won’t go into that] The upshot was that they bounced my
cheque for about ten minutes. This cost me approximately £100 in bank charges,
a rescinding of the right to use my cheque book and my bank card. And a demand
that I get an Attestation from EDF that I had met their Bill.
I had been an
exemplary customer of The Bank and EDF for five years at the time, but when I
complained to The Bank I was informed that I had written the cheque when there
were insufficient funds to meet it. And I couldn’t argue with that because I
had done what they accused me of.
I have since changed my Bank. But that
wasn’t easy either. You can’t just go into any old bank and open an account.
They all talk to each other. And I really can’t fault them.
- June 25,
2012 at 16:09
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“The UK has lost the ability to see the difference between want and
need. 18 year olds may want to upset Daddy over the breakfast table, and have
the rent on a flat paid for them, but Taxpayers shouldn’t feel the need to
oblige them. Welfare Benefits are supposed to be a safety net, not the answer
to all your desires.”
This, I think, really gets to the crux of the matter – we’ve lost the art
of self-denial and delayed gratification. Even more so when the taxpayer’s on
the hook for the bill. Look at the recent revelation of the expenses racked up
by Essex County Council in paying for ‘needs’ of children in care. Some of the
things reclaimed (social networking apps, medieval war gaming, Alton Towers
trips) beggared belief.
- June 25, 2012 at 15:16
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No policy is perfect. In this case we should just accept that there might
be a very, very small number of people for whom the policy doesn’t work. But
however small,, it will be a lot smaller once the policy is implemented.
- June 25, 2012 at 15:01
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When I lived in London, one thing I noticed is that the local councils bent
over backwards (no pun instended) to help homosexuals. Not just the fact that
homosexual get housed in far cheaper council accommodation, there are also
hundreds of homosexual housing organisations to help them. Both will charge
around £80 (and less) a week for a single bedroom flat, compared to £180
private rent. London is minority heaven. If you’re white and heterosexual then
you’re on the bottom of every list and if you move up that list then recent
minority members to that list will always be moved ahead of you.
This statement really brings it home and is 100% self explanatory:
“What is really at stake here, is the Fabian desire to separate parents
from children; to destroy families; to foster the illusion that you are all
alone in the world apart from the caring hand of the State.”
I would also add that it’s also about destroying the elder-child
relationship and having this insane belief that children know more about life
than their elders. In other words – ‘fuck wisdom’.
- June 25, 2012 at 14:36
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I also think the gay thing is a distraction. Maybe not so 20 years
ago.
On the need and want thing, I’ve generally found that when I can
afford it, I don’t want it. As a child of the real austerity, I do find it
hard to imagine anybody today in real need, but that’s the problem with the
views of the older. But as it’s my money being taken…..
Wrt the young immigrants who are prepared to knuckle down and rough it,
instead of scrounging off their mums like our own limp letuces; I suppose we
get the best, the ones with the drive to make something of themselves. Perhaps
we should have a one in one out rule?
- June 25,
2012 at 14:25
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The real problem is Housing Benefit as a whole, essentially a system of
massive subsidies for rents generally. The real answer to much of this is to
abolish Housing Benefit and let the markets adjust to economic and social
reality.
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June 25, 2012 at 13:25
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Gladiolys: As you know, the ‘mostly wrong’ was my idea of humour, such as
it is.
I think you have hit the nail on the head when you say the world has
changed since some of us here were younger (I’m 59) and while technology has
gone forward in leaps and bounds, socially we are nowhere near to catching up.
I think part (maybe a big part) is people coming up and seeing what us oldies
have and wanting it all right now, forgetting or possibly not knowing that we
had to work hard, sometimes for many years, to get it.
What say you?
- June 25, 2012 at 13:37
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The burden of being wrong was an attempt to be humorous too.
I’m 54 and I think you’re right about how we had to earn and save for
what we wanted – credit was not as available and work ethics were different.
But I also think you hit on something else. The jobs that we took as
youngsters (clothes shop, busing tables in cafes, moving furniture, working
on the Tesco cheese counter) are now really poorly paid and there is such a
lot of competition for them anyway. Technology has automated a lot of other
work – e.g. supermarket check outs. It is also marketed to the young – they
want an ipod, iphone, ipad NOW… when they weren’t even an idea in our youths
and we were not targeted as a market for them.
I’m glad we have found something we can agree on..
- June 25, 2012 at 12:48
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There is a risk of this thread being hi-jacked under the ‘gay’ umbrella –
that would be a shame because it’s a valid argument that, over the past couple
of generations, we have lost the ability to define between ‘need’ and ‘want’ –
a condition which has fuelled the benefits dependency culture and the
profligate State more than any other.
Interesting that one high-profile ‘charity’ operates under the name “War on
Want” – the price of alliteration perhaps, but War On Need would certainly be
more valid.
Keep it up, Anna – don’t let the blinkered sub-agenda types get you
down.
- June 25, 2012 at 12:33
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OT – but just came back on the off-chance and – Huzzah! – the best blogger
in town is back and writing the good stuff !
- June 25, 2012 at 11:28
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Anna, I think you have this completely wrong. You expect Obnoxio Clownius
not to come out… but they will be continually asked about his life… when are
you going to get a girlfriend? You are using contraception aren’t you? When
are we going to meet your friends?
Or are you expecting everyone to put their life on hold until they are 25?
Or are you encouraging dishonesty?
My parents wanted me out of the house at 18… not because I had come out, or
even upset them. They just didn’t want me around…. not the most loving of
people to my sister and me, and we do wonder why they ever bothered having
us.
Luckily for me, this was the 70s when I already had a job for 3 days a week
(two evenings and all day Saturday) because my mother wanted me to pay rent
from 16 while I stayed on at school to get A levels. Those qualifications
subsequently allowed me to get the job I wanted and move into shared
accommodation, which was life-enhancinge and set me up for the rest of my
life. I didn’t need housing benefit – jobs were available (I worked in
clothing retail until the job I really wanted came along), and wages were
adequate – and so were the rents.
Now, jobs are scarcer, more poorly paid and rents are higher so even people
in work sometimes claim housing benefit.
On the one hand you criticise young people for having no drive or ambition
and on the other you want those who do to have restricted circumstances placed
upon them. I believe that once you become an adult, you should have all the
same rights and responsibilities that all other adults have – including
housing, jobs, health treatments and benefits.
If we had more housing, drove rents down, then we’d start cutting the
housing benefit bill. But we won’t do that, will we? Got to protect those
property owning voters!
- June 25, 2012 at 11:35
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Victim bingo ahead – I was out the house at 13, and narry a sign of
homosexuality…..
“on the other you want those who do to have restricted circumstances
placed upon them”
It’s called a hostel, or even a flat share, or kipping on a friend sofa,
if that is restricted circumstances in your book, then no wonder the country
is broke – not ‘everybody’ has to have ‘everything’ all the time regardless
of whether they are working or not.
What’s with this ‘coming out’ business – gaydom seems to be the only
sexual proclivity that involves a public statement as to how you intend to
conduct your sexual life. Do you think those who prefer bondage ‘come out’
to their parents?
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June 25, 2012 at 12:04
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“What say you?” Are you interested or do you just want hear people
agreeing with you? And there’s me thinking I’d put a different perspective
in a debate, just to get an ad hominem from the person who asked what we
thought. Who’s playing victim bingo? You use your history to illustrate
your points – I was using mine. As I said, my sexuality (and you don’t
know what that is) was not the issue. My parents desire to have the house
to themselves was the issue. My comment made it clear that house-sharing
is ok by me, and was a positive experience… but it’s not available to
everybody. I have worked with some young people and, believe me, not many
people wanted to live with them because of their personalities/habits etc.
What should we do with them? Put them in an institution?
And people are gay. Just a fact of life. Nothing special. A bit like
being blond, or tall, or whatever. So, I don’t understand why anyone gay
should have to hide it. Sometimes you don’t have to come out, because it’s
bleedin’ obvious. Sometimes you don’t often have a choice about coming out
– other people will out you if you’re seen being affectionate with a
partner of the same sex, or going into a gay bar etc.
But this is still a distraction. I’ll repeat: Now, jobs are scarcer,
more poorly paid and rents are higher so even people in work sometimes
claim housing benefit. If we had more housing, drove rents down, then we’d
start cutting the housing benefit bill. But we won’t do that, will we? Got
to protect those property owning voters!
- June 25, 2012 at
12:21
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“So, I don’t understand why anyone gay should have to hide it.”
I don’t understand why anybody should have to declare it either. My
point remains, it is the only sexual proclivity that demands ‘outing’.
We don’t have activist Doggers demanding that other Doggers ‘come
out’ so what is so special about being gay?
I am happy to debate.
You say some young people have personalities/habits that make people
not want to live with them – isn’t that part of the problem of
individualism, that there is no longer any drive to fashion yourself in
a manner that doesn’t bring you into conflict with others. ‘Ring through
your nose’ – its your right, innit. Makes you unemployable? That’s the
taxpayers responsibility!
No, we shouldn’t be putting people in an institution, but nor should
we be raping the taxpayer in order to pay for lifestyles that do bring
you into conflict with those nearest and dearest to you. If you are
financially viable, can support yourself, then you can choose your
lifestyle – we seem to have got it the wrong way round; chose your
lifestyle then demand that someone else pay for it.
I have a burning desire to own a Sunseeker power boat; not doing so
is inhibiting my true self, I am a repressed power boat owner – would
you like to pay for it for me? Why not?
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June 25, 2012 at 12:35
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Ooh, this could get long! People started to come out, I believe,
following legalisation of homosexuality in the 60s. Before, when it
was prosecuted, people were obviously closeted. It was used as a
tactic to say gay people had no need to feel shame about who they
were. It also pre-empted those who would have outed them. As I said
previously: Sometimes you don’t have to come out, because it’s
bleedin’ obvious. Sometimes you don’t often have a choice about coming
out – other people will out you if you’re seen being affectionate with
a partner of the same sex, or going into a gay bar etc.
It depends on whether you see it as a “sexual proclivity” or a
bifurcation of identiy – like male/female, so straight/gay. If you
don’t need to hide being female, why should have to hide being gay? I
think it all goes back to that issue of illegality – and coming out as
a reaction to that. Can you imagine what it would be like to be told
it is illegal to be a woman – and then suddenly it’s ok? You’d be out
there relishing it (I would be out there relishing it!)
Sorry about the power boat… try getting one second hand! I’m trying
hard, but I can’t see the analogy between what you want to own and
what you are.
- June 25, 2012 at 13:14
- June 25, 2012 at 12:46
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As a rather hairy bearded biker, I have long had experience with
the problems a chosen lifestyle brings; Social exclusion, employment
issues, housing and all the rest. I had to pay my own way even before
I left home what with a contribution towards rent and meals etc., such
is life.
Anna is quite right, lifestyle choices (and being
flamboyantly and outwardly gay is definitely one such) should not be a
reason to pick my pocket.
I must say Gladiolys that I think you are
getting a little hot under the collar about this; I have always found
you a most excellent and trenchant debater (even though you’re mostly
wrong of course
) Surely we can agree to disagree on this.
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June 25, 2012 at 13:08
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Thank you for that backhand Robert! Being wrong is sometimes, but
rarely, a burden I just have to bear.
I’m not hot under the collar – just putting an alternative point of
view I strongly believe in. As I have said 3 times already, I think
the gay thing is a distraction. And I still don’t think that your
pocket is being picked to fund a lifestyle. The issue is, I think, the
huge difference between the world you, Anna and I knew as young
people, where we were able to make our way, and the one that young
people find themselves in today, That’s all.
- June 25, 2012 at 13:20
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That is a fair point gladiolys, the world has changed. However,
thousands of young Ukrainians, Poles, and Estonians still seem to be
able to come to the UK and live the same lifestyle we enjoyed when
we were young – grotty shared accommodation, appalling diet, lousy
wages, and a feeling that the rest of the world resents your
presence. It was a rite of passage for us, it is a rite of passage
for them – but one that taxpayers must fund to avoid it being a rite
of passage for young Britons?
- June 25, 2012 at 13:27
-
Fair point Anna… and as I said, housesharing made me. And I did
it again when I lived in USA as a thirtysomething (in a walk-in
wardrobe…).
I still worry about young people that nobody wants to be with,
whether they are schizophrenic, have personality disorder, are
autistic, a bit thick – or gay.
I’ll leave it there – but all the best and thanks for the
engagement.
- June 25, 2012 at 13:31
-
Ah well, now you’re straying into mental health issues –
don’t get me started on care in the community, a total disaster
as far as I’m concerned.
I love you too, you know. xxxx
- June 25, 2012 at 13:37
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You soppy old racoon you! X
- June 25, 2012 at 19:54
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“It was a rite of passage for us, it is a rite of passage
for them – but one that taxpayers must fund to avoid it
being a rite of passage for young Britons?”
The workhouse was good enough in my day, should be good
enough for them……..
Hang on, I feel an urge to find a
small child to clean my chimney.
- June 25, 2012 at 19:59
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Everything gladiolys said. The voice of common sense.
Keep it up, I know it can get tiresome sometimes, but
someone has to keep this lot honest.
-
June 25, 2012 at 19:01
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I support Anna on this one and think that the ‘must have now’ culture
that pervades all young people should not extend to us taxpayers paying
for accomodation for people who have chosen to follow an alternative
sexual persuasion.
If you choose to ‘come out’ or cannot control your urges in public
then, there may be consequences. This could simply mean a young girl
being a raving nypmphomaniac and her parents not liking the fact that
their daughter is acting like a tart. Life, is a series of acts, for
which there are consequences. It is a sad fact that sometimes, and
despite all that has been done to make being homosexual more accepted,
there are still many people who find it abhorrent. Such is life. Why oh
why do people who are gay NEED to trumpet the fact from the rooftops? In
these enlightened times there is no need to be ashamed of being of that
persuasion, but does the person really need to advertise it to one and
all? Of course not and, as Anna points out, if perhaps bestiality was
your particular vice, you would certainly not choose to advertise the
fact.
I think there is a class of people to whom being gay equates to being
‘special’ and thereby ‘entitled’ but surely it is something entirely
natural (or unnatural depending upon your point of view); a question of
DNA.
-
June 25, 2012 at 19:28
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I think you need to google “dogging”. It ain’t bestiality, which is
illegal.
-
June 25, 2012 at 20:28
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.. but coincidentally, I just read this:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/man-denies-sex-with-familys-bull-mastiff-7880912.html
- June 25, 2012 at 22:09
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“And people are gay. Just a fact of life. Nothing special. A bit like
being blond, or tall, or whatever.”
I’d respectfully disagree with that
comment. People are born male and female, the world screws us up.
-
June 26, 2012 at 06:55
-
Respectfully: Doesn’t that depend on whether you think it’s a
nature/nurture issue? And doesn’t that depend on whether one agrees that
being gay equals being screwed up? And on that latter question, is that
not a subjective, rather than objective, issue?
-
June 25, 2012 at 10:41
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Wonderful piece Anna. If you had to identify the point when British society
started to disintegrate, it would probably be the moment in the ’60′s , when
the right of a single teenage girl with a sprog to an automatic council flat,
was instituted.
From those humble beginings, the three generation feckless
dysfunctional no father ‘families’, so beloved of the Jeremy Kyle show
grew.
- June 25, 2012 at 10:26
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“religious ritual, torture, corrective rape or forced marriage” are ALL
matters for the police….not the council.
- June 25, 2012 at 09:53
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No need to rent a flat for Clownius junior: a bed in a LHA hostel can be
had for £25 per night, a price which includes breakfast & three course
meal. This is easily affordable even on the adult National Minimum Wage. Of
course Clownius junior may find the hostel rules stricter and more
consistently enforced that those of Daddy Clownius.
-
June 25, 2012 at 09:34
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Gee, all these threatened ‘coorective rapes’, ‘forced marriage’ and ‘family
violence’ couldn’t be mostly down to our beloved and so well assimilated
bretheren of the Religion of Peace? Myself, I couldn’t care less what bit you
use on whomever, but I do have a sriousl large problem whith you expecting me
to fund it.
- June 25, 2012 at 10:12
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Damn it all, spelling gone to hell today; corrective, seriously.
- June 25, 2012 at 10:21
- June 25, 2012 at 11:16
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No. The pressure and violence is there in good old fashioned white Anglo
Saxon families too (although I have never heard of anyone from this
background using “corrective” rape – and that is a tactic I have read about
more in reports of sub-Saharan Africa than in Muslim countries). No-one is
asking you to fund people being gay. You are being asked to help keep people
safe.
- June 25, 2012 at 11:29
-
If what you say is correct, why is this not being phrased as ‘keeping
people safe’, why, yet again, is it so phrased as to appeal to the well
oiled persecution complex which SOME gays have.
Just a minor point, but
both Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia and Kenya have heavy muslim presences and are
all sub-saharan.
-
June 25, 2012 at 12:10
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Personally Robert, I think the gay issue is a complete distraction.
But it was the New Statesman who raised this point, around safety for
young homeless gays, and Anna, who took it up. I haven’t seen any other
reports about this which use this as an issue. You are right about the
countries you identify as sub-Saharan, but I was (obviously unclearly)
referring to places like Zimbabwe (where “gays are pigs”, according to
Mugabe), Congo, Uganda and South Africa.
-
June 25, 2012 at 09:20
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Anna,
Very good piece, the concept of a “safety net” to tide you over a bad patch
has long disappeared unfortunately.
Regards
David
- June 25, 2012 at 08:51
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Even assuming the victim is at fault, this is nothing to do with Housing
Benefit.
Social Services don’t give Mayfair flats to 3 year olds whose parents
neglect them, they take them into care (or, just as often, don’t – but that’s
another story). If someone is in genuine danger of being ‘Correctively Raped’
then that is something to address directly, not indirectly by subsidising the
lifestyle of anyone who fancies living on their own (i.e. every teenager) but
can’t afford it.
- June 25, 2012 at 21:02
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…..and balance the books?
I know it’s boring, but look what happens if you don’t.
- June 26, 2012 at 06:58
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What is tiresome are socialists ignoring that there could be any defect in
the glorious welfare state, and therefore the need for a sensible discussion
about wants and needs.
The system of benefits arguably emanated from Beveridge’ s recommendations
to reduce the five great evils-want (there’s that word again), disease,
ignorance, squalor and idleness. While governments have made progress against
disease and squalor it is debatable whether ignorance and idleness have been
reduced and want (presumably improving nutrition in quality and quantity) is
essentially unknown in modern times. Of course Beveridge and Bevin would be
aghast at the able-bodied not working except to “work” the system to their own
benefit and never contributing as occurs too frequently.
Since the concept of the able contributing to offset for the unfortunate in
society has been totally lost, and as this discussion has illustrated that
social services are now a mess of various identity groups all grasping only
for themselves one assumes that a major overhaul is due. Perhaps with some
overdue shocks to the non-contributory groups in society.
There are plenty of groups that need to be “kept honest”, though I don’t
see them represented here.
{ 62 comments }