It’s a tough life for the posh poor. That’s not the posh who are poor, that’s the poor who are posh. They have a taxpayer out hard at work providing their daily bread for them, and an EU migrant doing their job for them – what we used to call ‘slaves’, or ‘servants’. The rich can’t afford them any longer.

Do not envy them too much, their life is not all it is cracked up to be. They have to undergo regular training for one thing, as the uncaring Tory Government changes the benefit rules. The latest is ‘learning to pay your rent’.

From October, the benefit will be paid to the tenant once a month instead of directly to the landlord.

The National Housing Federation said it expected rent arrears to increase by £245m a year as a result.

The Housing Federations are planning to provide ‘special support’ to explain to the deprived poor that when the nice man in the south of England has handed them the money to give to their landlord and keep a roof over their head, they are expected to, er, give it to the landlord. Perhaps housing benefit should come wrapped in a grubby note saying ’please give Kylie a receipt for her rent’.

It’s not as though they don’t know how to budget. They do. They walk past that enticing shop selling selling breakfast cereal for their children, muttering to themselves ‘mustn’t waste this hard earned taxpayers money, the school will give them breakfast’. They drive their disability scooter (we are the mobility capital of Europe with 300,000 of the pesky things) past the fresh fruit and veg shop, that is trying to ‘suck the lifeblood out of their community’ by ‘targeting residents already struggling to make ends meet’ in a bid ‘to maximise their profits, artificially inflating business rates’. Pausing only to call into MacDonald’s which everybody knows is the most economical way to eat, they head straight for the inanimate object preying on them.

That is, they do on benefit payday. The next day, and the five after that, they stop off at Paywonga.com – an organisation which employs strong arm men to reach out, grab them off their mobility scooter and force more money on them, happy in the knowledge that they will to repaid from the labours of the man down south.

Their troubles are not over even then, for on the corner of the high street, hidden in the depth of a shop with blacked out windows, there lurks an inanimate object just waiting to suck out the last penny from them before it can reach their children’s bellies. The caring Labour Government even passed a law in 2004 to ensure that those 300,000 mobility scooters glided over the doorway with never a moment’s hesitation. Bastards.

Yes, it is the Fixed Odds Betting Terminal. Or FOBT as it is known. Now the swinish Labour Government, that’s the same caring Government that wanted to introduce super-casinos, passed legislation in 2005 limiting each betting shop to four of these machines. Book-makers are law abiding folk – they do only have four machines in each shop – they just opened more shops. Voila! Today there are 73,683 machines in 4858 betting shops in Labour controlled areas. 50% more than in Conservative controlled areas. That’ll be because of the high unemployment in Labour controlled areas and them ‘aving more time to play on the pesky machines, I guess, or it could be a deliberate policy to prey on the poor and rob them of their housing benefit  whilst they are making their dutiful way to the rent office.

Of the top fifty unemployment blackspots, the profit from the terminals was more than £173m last year. By comparison in the 50 constituencies with the lowest levels of unemployment, the bookie’s made just £44m.

An astounding 5 billion quid was dropped into those machines last year, by people who imagine there is a better way to get money than working. Fixed odds should tell them something! But hark, there is something wrong with these figures designed to show how Tory Government actions (well, they’re in power now, so they get the blame!) are hurting the poor and deprived. Either that or Book-makers have suddenly come over all altruistic…

If a mere 84 machines in Angie Bray’s Ealing constituency can produce £124,338,153 why would a Book-maker go to the trouble of installing 124 machines in Edinburgh North and Leith to give him a measly £128, 937,293; hardly worth the trouble. The ’Conservative’ machines are considerably more profitable.

There must be a reason why Book-makers are targeting Labour strong holds. Can’t think what it is.

At least we now have the pleasant vision of a centrist statist Labour MP calling for power to be devolved to local councils and away from the Westminster politicians.

Clive Efford, Labour’s spokesman on gambling, called on the government to give local councils the power to decide on whether bookmakers could cluster on the high street.

Would we have had this proliferation of gambling dens if local councils had had the power to decide in the first place? I find it hard to believe that Birmingham Ladywood would have ended up with 157 inanimate gambling machines ‘sucking the life blood’ out of the local muslim community if the, er, ‘community leaders’ had had anything to do with it.

£163 million quids worth of good islamic non-gambling lifeblood at that…

Observor January 28, 2013 at 05:25

I said all this would happen when Margaret Thatcher shoved the housing of
the homeless onto local councils and started selling off council housing at
cut rate prices.
No-one listened to me.
ps : In my day a “property
developer” wasn’t invited into polite society.

Small Town
Man January 25, 2013 at 17:25

I’m not exactly sure how paying the rent to the tenant rather than the
landlord is going to help – other than providing more work for bailiffs after
the landlord doesn’t get paid and has to go for an eviction order?

Of course, we don’t have a problem with that sort of thing here because we
are all scrupulously honest and straightforward. People who are not get
ferrets set on them – or worse: the Smalltown Society

Saul January 25, 2013 at 15:23

The health minister Anna Soubry reckons that poor people are fat, not like
the poor people in her day who were skinny runts! Tory MP’s, don’t you just
love ‘em!

A kindred spirit?

Malmesbury
January 28, 2013 at 11:23

Except that it is true, of course – the well off are getting thinner, the
poor are the over welling majority of the obesity issue in this country.

A couple of years ago, there was a hilarious piece (in the
laughing-while-you-scream kind of way) in the Guardian, from a very left
wing sociologist who went to live on vertical slum estate. It was written
(apparently without irony) in a completely Saunders-Of-The-River manner –
describing how she felt she had to drop “fake, bourgeois” behavior, such as
not smoking, eating salad, jogging and not smoking so that she could fit
in.

Anthony
Harrison January 28, 2013 at 12:09

I enjoyed this, nearly spluttering into my coffee, as a sort of
ur-Guardian piece that could hang on the wall and be pointed out if anyone
were to ask what that newspaper represented.
Evidently I’m very “fake
bourgeois” since I stopped working in factories long ago, gave up smoking
shortly after, eat quite a lot of sald (in addition to the red meat every
growing boy needs) and take lots of exercise.
The Guardian’s readership
would argue passionately that the “slum estate” tenants lived there,
alternating puffs at a fag with stuffing their ugly gobs with junk food,
through the wickedness of capitalist society which discriminated against
them in all sorts of ways; I, on the other hand, tend to think from long
and sometimes too intimate observation that these people are impoverished,
fat, ugly, unhealthy, dishonest and debased because they are thick or in
some way just crap human beings.
I don’t read The Guardian – though on
those rare occasions I buy a newspaper it tends to be the Indy, same crap
politics but it has good feature articles…

Doreen January 25, 2013 at 09:32

My Dad used to put his bets on with the ‘bookies runner’ when it wasn’t
legal. Sixpence each way on on a nag running at Aintree. Then came the betting
shops to make it legal. We used to ‘go to the dogs’ at Warrington dog track.
Really enjoyed that as a kid. Found a lovely white, crisp ten pound note
once…..gave it back to the bookie and got a pound back! My dad was a
‘contained’ gambler. Only what he could afford. As for those pesky Mobility
scooters Anna. I went on a church coach trip some time ago to Llandudno. The
place was infested with them, even then. They get larger and larger. Some of
them whiz about at their full 8 miles an hour. Enough to give me 2 broken hips
and inside out knees! I predicted they would be misused. I prefere a sedately
ridden cycle. They are hated machines as well. Can’t win I’m afraid.

Moor
Larkin January 25, 2013 at 10:02

@ Some of them whiz about at their full 8 miles an hour. @

And sometimes beeping and in reverse…..
I
cannot understand why they are not limited to normal walking pace as a
maximum …. say 2mph, since most of us are not capable of full Yomping
Velocity anyway. It might also discourage fat people getting lazier and even
more disabled, limiting their necessity to those with a more genuine
disability. I would guess the batteries would also last longer.

Mudplugger
January 25, 2013 at 10:05

My ‘Del-Boy’ grandfather was an illicit bookie’s runner in pre-war days,
taking bets from his fellow workers in an engineering works. If he thought
any particular bet was a no-hoper, he would pocket the stake and not pass it
on to the bookie – occasionally he got it wrong ! Great entrepreneurial
spirit, I say.

Saul January 25, 2013 at 11:27

A friend of mine calls them Asbo Scooters!

Johnnydub January 24, 2013 at 22:25

I’m going to make a point that no politician will ever make:

Do poor people make bad decisions.. or do bad decisions make people poor
(or fat for example….)

Engineer January 25, 2013 at 12:16

Very non-PC, but observation over many years leads me to believe that
some poor people are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. (By the way, I
also know people who would freely claim to be rather non-academic, but still
manage to lead honest, decent and productive lives, so it’s not just down to
IQ.) Poor parenting and less than impressive schooling, perhaps combined
with influence from sharper but less scrupulous ‘local characters’ does lead
some into making poor decisions. At which point the Grauniadistas leap up
and shout loudly that the State must protect them from themselves. Others
think that a safety-net, and encouragement – perhaps by voluntary
organisations – to point them in better directions might have better
long-term results.

Andy January 25, 2013 at 12:22

The poor are usually the ones most exploited too by unscrupulous
employers and landlords.

Moor Larkin January 25, 2013 at 12:32

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent
lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to
breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send
these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the
golden door!”

I guess we’ve run out of places to send ‘em …….

Engineer
January 25, 2013 at 17:31

Andy – we also observe from other posts on this thread that there are
decent landlords taken for a ride by scumbag tenants. There ain’t no
hard and fast certainties in this matter.

Mark January 24, 2013 at 19:34

To prevent the undeserving poor from squandering their social security
benefits on alcohol and cigarettes perhaps the next Labour Government could
arrange for them to be paid by means of gaming machine tokens. These could be
used in any of the UK’s benevolent Betting shop chains who would be happy to
provide them with a few hours of precious gaming time and pleasure.

Don Cox January 24, 2013 at 18:45

There’s nothing new about tenants not paying rent and disappearing. This
song is nearly 100 years old:

“We had to move away, ‘cos the rent we couldn’t pay,
The moving van came
round just after dark;
There was me and my old man, shoving things inside
the van,
Which we’d often done before let me remark.
We packed all that
could be packed in the van and that’s a fact;
And we got inside all we
could get inside,
Then we packed all we could pack on the tailboard at the
back,
Till there wasn’t any room for me to ride.

cho: My old man said, “Follow the van, don’t dilly dally on the
way!”
Off went the cart with the home packed in it,
I walked behind with
me old cock linnet.
But I dillied and dallied, dallied and dillied,
Lost
the van and don’t know where to roam.”

Ed P January 24, 2013 at 21:26

Won’t some kind man tell me where I am
‘cos I can’t find my way
home.

Andy ZE January 24, 2013 at 15:57

I was rather hoping that this thread would just attract the good little
nazis. Seems there are proper people on here too!

m.barnes January 24, 2013 at 15:10

I live in a distinctly posh part of the South East and there are 3 – 3! –
gambling shops. The rents around here can’t be cheap so I guess they make a
tidy sum. That’s the same number of shops that are in my home town oop north.
People gamble. I get why but it doesn’t turn me on so I am immune. To suggest
that someones relative earnings means they have no business spending money on
things not necessary to survival like food, rent, utility bills – is to ignore
one of the great predictable things about human beings. We all need some kind
of release – some frivolity. A rich mans frivolity may be some obscenely
overpriced watch that adds 3 Kg to his weight while ignoring his children to
socialise with people useful to his business. A poor mans might be a pack of
fags and ignoring his children to go to the pub to watch the footie. This
story struck me as an invented MORAL PANIC and I havn’t changed my pov. It
also struck me as particularly snobbish – I dislike gambling that leads to a
family neglected as I dislike alcoholism but something about anti-gambling
campaigners gets my goat.

I love the BBC
January 24, 2013 at 19:12

Gambling is a vice, and anyone who disagrees should watch the Chinese.
They have the gambling bug as if it were a communicable disease, as well it
might be.
While we cannot outlaw vices and much silliness and wasted
money comes from trying to do so, we don’t have to encourage them either. I
think we lost the plot when legislation was amended with the idea that we
were merely allowing people to be adults, when what really happened was that
people were encouraged to think it was all harmless fun and there were no
bad consequences to worry about.

Gambling is exploding in this country, not just on the high street but
lately on the internet. Bingo, poker, online slotties. It WILL have serious
repercussions and it’s not just the poor or people on benefits who will
suffer. (I would also make a plea here – remember that many people in
receipt of benefits in the UK are actually working, but for pitiful wages
that most of your readership would not deign to get out of bed for).

Belsay Bugle
January 24, 2013 at 15:04

Which part of the north do you come from Saul?

In the North East another form of gambling, the National Lottery, is very
popular.
In our local shop recently, a far from thin young woman, whom I
know is a single mother, unemployed and ‘disabled’, with a mobility wagon and
three very naughty ‘disabled’ children was spending £30 on the lottery. She
told me she spends £30 each week. “Have you ever won anything?” “The odd
hundred quid, nothing much.”
When I suggested she would be better off
putting it into a savings account – £120 a month, £1,500 a year – she replied
“Where’s the fun in that?”

Saul January 24, 2013 at 15:05

Middlesbrough.

JuliaM January
25, 2013 at 07:30

Key part there being ‘Middle’…

Mudplugger
January 25, 2013 at 10:00

Glad it’s not Scunthorpe !

Saul January 25, 2013 at 11:24

You’ve got me there, I’ve looked several times but I don’t get
it.

gladiolys
January 25, 2013 at 12:13

sCUNThorpe – pointed out me by a person with learning difficulties,
who could not access information about the town because of a very
strict filter applied to his computer to stop him accessing
inappropriate sites.

Saul
January 25, 2013 at 12:25

I might be a bit thick but I got that one, it was the Julia m one I
couldn’t grasp.

Saul January 24, 2013 at 14:31

It’s about time all these bloody northerners learnt their place again. Any
workshy, flat capped, Whippet owning soap dodger, who doesn’t learn to doff
their cap and touch their forelock to their southern superiors should be taken
out and horsewhipped!

Anna
Raccoon January 24, 2013 at 14:37

You might consider turning the record over yourself, Saul.

Saul January 24, 2013 at 14:48

Then I suggest you get a new playlist.

Jonathan Mason
January 24, 2013 at 14:11

“An astounding 5 billion quid was dropped into those machines last year,
by people who imagine there is a better way to get money than
working.”

That is a lot of money, but what is the payout percentage on these
machines?

PJH January 24, 2013 at 13:50

“An astounding 5 billion quid was dropped into those machines last year,
by people who imagine there is a better way to get money than
working.”

Scary numbers!!!

Of which little/some/most of which will have been recycled through that
machine.

e.g. Someone walks into one of those shops with £100, sticks it in one of
those machines, gets (say) £95 back. Puts it all back in. Gets £90.25 back
(95% again). Puts that all back in, gets £84.75 (95% again) back.

I’ll stop the calculation there, but you see the series. The 5% is for
illustration, and is probably wrong. As is the assumption that our punter will
only run through the cycle 3 times and walk out with money in their
pocket.

Now – on the figures above, the punter walks in with £100, and has put in
(in total, recycled cash) £100+£95+£90.25 £285.25 into the machine during
their stay, walking out with £84.75, losing in total £15.25.

Newspapers are reporting the £285.25 figure cycled through the machine, not
the £15.25 lost out of the customer’s pocket.

(Someone recycling winnings until they got down to a fiver would
[simplistically] have put in £1,900 through the machine assuming the 5% loss,
yet only lost £95.

–

Not that I disagree with the premise that these machines shouldn’t exist.
Just that the MSM is, as usual, resorting to statistical hyperbole to scare
the horses.

Anna
Raccoon January 24, 2013 at 13:53

If you look at the article I linked to, it links to the pdf which gives
the original figures, rather than newspaper hyperbole.

PJH January 24, 2013 at 14:09

This one?: Spreadsheet

Total Gross Gambling Yield (my £15.25 lost) = £1.23bn
Total Gambled
(my £285.25) = £39.4bn

Sadly no context provided to indicate over what period this was over,
but I’m generously assuming a year. Assuming a population of 60m for the
UK, that’s £656.50 gambled per person with a loss of £20.48 lost. (Yes, I
know not even a majority of those 60m will be using these machines)

Can’t find a £5bn figure anywhere. Even on the 2nd sheet where there’s
a breakdown by constituency party. Again, I’m not disagreeing that these
machines are a blight; just pointing out that the numbers are being
misused.

Anna
Raccoon January 24, 2013 at
14:33

You don’t happen to know the population fo Bethnall Green do you –
they seem to have spent an extraordinary amount per head of population
for such a small area!

PJH
January 24, 2013 at 14:48

Pikiweedia: 25,440 as of the 2001 census (different page gives 1961 pop as 47,000, but I’ll use the
former)
Spreadsheet: £7.59m lost, £2.43m gambled
per-capita:
£298 lost, £9,560 gambled.

Ouch.

But this presumes that Wiki’s boundarys are the same as ‘Bethnal
Green and Bow’ – which I have no particular reason to assume it isn’t,
though the population numbers might have gone up, I doubt they have
(for example) suddenly multiplied by 10 in the past 10 or so
years…

Anna
Raccoon January 24, 2013 at
14:35

The 5bn figure came from a different page on the Fairer Gambling web
site.

This link:

PJH
January 24, 2013 at 14:50

Yup – that’s the page linking to the spreadsheet I’m messing with.
I can’t see where they get the £5bn number from.

(And would you fix that unclosed link in my other post in reply to
your query about Bethnal Green when you get round to moderating it
please?)

Moor Larkin January 24, 2013 at 17:26

The £5B is probably a sort of bullshit. I spent some time in the
gaming business many moons ago and fruit machines generally have a
very high payout percentage to entertain the punter. I’m well out of
touch with current finessing, but in my day they would commonly pay
out 80% plus. Thus, if the punter started with £10, the machine will
allow him to win £8… (on average) then if you stake that £8 again you
will win ~£6. Then, when you put that back in, you will win ~£5, then
you stake that and you win ~£4….. and so on….. So you can see that
“statistically” that punter will spend £38 or so…. but he hasn’t, he’s
really just spent his tenner.

Inanimate Objects? We used to call them One-Armed Bandits……..

Saul January 24, 2013 at 13:13

Nasty workshy Northerners supported by hard working Southerners.

For goodness sake Anna, turn the record over.

Anna
Raccoon January 24, 2013 at 13:54

Can’t help the result of the research Saul. Deprived areas in the north
with high unemployment DO account for most of the turnover of these
machines.

Saul January 24, 2013 at 14:27

So does that mean that all the money put in is from unemployment
benefit?

Anna
Raccoon January 24, 2013 at
14:31

Nope, not all – but the inference from my favourite left wingers is
that an unfair proportion is – that these machines are in place
precisely to seduce those on benefits and particularly deprived – though
as I have shown, the actual figures show that those in areas of low
unemployment are actually more profitable per machine!

Saul
January 24, 2013 at 14:38

“An astounding 5 billion quid was dropped into those machines last
year, by people who imagine there is a better way to get money than
working.”

Your words Anna, 5 billion from people not working.

Anna Raccoon January 24, 2013 at 15:30

Ah, but I didn’t say ‘not working’ did I Saul – I said ‘a better
way […] than working’ – there is a difference.

JuliaM January 25, 2013 at 07:29

Saul, that phrase isn’t the killer you think it is – I read it as
‘People who might be working boring, dead-end jobs and dream of
getting ‘free’ by gambling’…

Moor
Larkin January 24, 2013 at 12:31

@ I guess this is just one way to throttle the buy-to-let mortgage
industry. @

Given the prediliction of State Authorities to just pay whatever is asked
for, it seems quite possible that the rental market has been distorted.
Certainly the rents I see advertised in my area seem ludicrously high for the
accomodation. You could literally get a mortgage cheaper….

macheath January
24, 2013 at 12:51

Nothing new, I’m afraid.

Twenty years ago, I briefly worked in the Housing Benefit department of a
seaside local authority. Almost without exception, the local landlords used
the going rate for holiday accommodation to calculate rents, even if no
tourist would ever have chosen to stay in the property.

Elena
‘andcart January 24, 2013 at 18:33

This is simply not true of most Landlords. although bearing in mind the
amount of damage some tenants manage to do in the process of getting
themselves rehomed in Council Accommodation because the their rented
accommodation is no longer habitable, I can see the point of high
rents.
I briefly let my next door house here to a French Tenant. And
she did pay her rent. But it cost me nearly as much as I earned to repair
the appalling damage she did. Absolutely no point in pursuing her through
The Court because she didn’t have any money. The house now stands
empty.
There is only one answer. Don’t let to people who claim Housing
Benefit. They can live in a tent for all I care.

carol42
January 24, 2013 at 19:46

I had a similar experience, cost me nearly £5,000 to put my house
into saleable condition. You wouldn’t believe the state of filth and
damage it was left in. This had been my home for 12 years and was let
newly decorated and with new carpets. After that I sold for whatever I
could get and will never let a house again and certainly not to benefit
claiments who are to be ‘trusted’ to pay the rent.

Elena
‘andcart January 24, 2013 at
22:04

I would believe it, Carol 42. Well, almost. You have to see it to
believe it. And they even sell the bloody furniture, and then report
you because they haven’t got a cooker or any light fittings because
they sold them. But do try proving it. You are the Landlord so you
must be a crook.
I sometimes even feel sorry for Rachman if this is
what he had to put up with.

Moor Larkin January 25, 2013 at 09:10

@ And they even sell the bloody furniture, and then report you
because they haven’t got a cooker or any light fittings because they
sold them. But do try proving it. @

When I rented in my younger days, I had to pay about three months
up front and then that formed a “deposit”. I also had to sign an
“inventory” detailing all the fixtures and fittings. If you have a
nasty tenant I can see that merely having the law on your side will
not be enough however, because the law is so expensive to
“mobilise”.

On another tack of “distorting the market”, I recall a friend who
did “buy to let” and she had more than one tenant over time who was a
“company let”. This was where a person had their rent paid for by a
company, the company would just set such “relocation costs” off
against tax or something and didn’t seem bothered what it cost, so
this also would push up the rental expectations. One of her favourite
tenants was a senior police officer who was on some kind of secondment
and the whole family was relocated and paid for by Her Maj. for about
two years.

One answer would seem to be “council housing” projects for the
people without capital resources to buy, but again the authorities
seem incapable of building them economically. I was reading a year or
three back of a project in Scotland where “council houses” were being
built and the council proudly said each one was “only” costing
£200,000 to build.. 8-0 ….. The guys around me are building houses,
selling them for £200,000, servicing the loan for the period of
building, paying all their workers wages for the “build”, and making
tens of thousands profit for their business on top!!

I love the
BBC January 24, 2013 at 18:58

The housing benefits system is partly responsible for the enormous
increase in rents, particularly in London. An unforseen effect I’m sure,
but the only people who actually benefit are landlords. The taxpayer is
fleeced and everyone trying to own their own place is impacted by the
knock-on increase in house prices.
Which are still totally
ludicrous.

Tatty January 24, 2013 at 12:12

“From October, the benefit will be paid to the tenant once a month instead
of directly to the landlord.”

Funny that this is news since I thought it always had been this way.

At least 5 scum families were “de-homed” in my street in the last 5 years
or so for non-payment of rent money that they had received directly from
council. Thousands in rent each time was skipped and they all managed
perfectly well to do a moonlight flit before the landlords could even begin to
try and collect their owings.

I guess this is just one way to throttle the buy-to-let mortgage
industry.

Andy January 24, 2013 at 12:12

Bring back the gas chambers perhaps?

Bill
Sticker January 24, 2013 at 16:32

So long as you sell lottery tickets and gambling machines inside, I have
the awful feeling that no-one would complain. Least of all the victims.
Isn’t human nature fascinating?

Elena ‘andcart
January 24, 2013 at 11:58

It must have been the late 70s, early 80s when I became one of the Posh
Poor. I had obtained a mortgage to buy two Properties for Rent which I
renovated and let to Housing Benefit Claiments. And then The Local Councils
changed the rules and paid the rents directly to the tenants, with no right on
my part to object. In fact, they didn’t even inform me. So in a short period
of time The Rent Arrears rocketed. And since at the time it was taking over a
year to get these non rent paying tenants into Court, I became unable to pay
the mortgage or pay for the repairs, and had to sell the houses.
I won’t go
into the amount of damage that these non rent paying tenants did. Suffice to
say that they rendered the properties uninhabitable, and I ceased to be a
Landlord with barely the shirt left on my back. It was a nightmare which I
will never forget.
I gather that the rules were changed again at a later
date. But the powers that be seem to have very short memories.

Woman on a Raft
January 24, 2013 at 13:02

S’obvious. Cut out the middleman. Put council-owned FOBTs in the foyers
of the local council offices where people claim for benefits. They can play
there and we’ll get their bennies back directly. Most foyers have toilets,
baby change rooms, comfy chairs and internet access. Add coffee sales, maybe
a 1-stop shop for things such as disposable nappies, t-shirts and
trackybums.

Extend this idea to hospitals. That way many who use the NHS will be
directly funding the services if they haven’t already paid tax. Also job
centres and libraries, if not too noisy.

We’ll still be paying them benefits – I’m sure many of them quite rightly
should be paid – but this way some of the money will be directly recovered
on behalf of the taxpayer. Furthermore, some people will accept payment in
direct gambling credits, possibly at an incentive level i.e. the number of
tries can exceed the face value, giving local authorities the ability to
print their own local currency secured very favourably against their ability
to pay out the winning tickets. You could have £100 real cash and then £50
gambling credits which gets you £100-worth of tries on the FOBT, and you
keep what you win. The gambling credits don’t even have to be raised from
the taxpayer; they’ll only have to shell out a fraction of the face value,
so they should be thrilled with the idea.

Woman on a
Raft January 24, 2013 at 13:03

I don’t know why this comment appears here. I thought I had put it at
the bottom. Sorry.

Anna
Raccoon January 24, 2013 at
13:11

WOAR,

What a superb idea. A little like the Lottery grants but without the
overfed middle men….!

The NHS can even keep an eye on the problem gamblers without setting
foot off the premises.

bunny January 24, 2013 at 13:58

Perfect piece of business placement in Preston is the Weatherspoons
next to the ‘Job Centre Plus’, a stroke of genius.

Anthony
Harrison January 25, 2013 at 21:57

I like this idea, very creative. Extending it somewhat, I forsee a kind
of mall attached to NHS hospitals – especially the A&E where so many
of our less well endowed fellow citizens end up on a Saturday night. In
addition to the FOBTs there could be a variety of gaming machines, plus
PAYG X-Boxes; a MacDonalds franchise; and (this is where I get really
entrepreneurial) a sell-your-body-parts-for-cash booth, with decent prices
(it’s only fair) on offer for kidneys, limbs, eyeballs,
skin….
Depending on the hospital in question this could be a winner,
with fresh bits for transplant, and many of those fellow citizens getting
a shower of gold in place of the kidney (etc) that really doesn’t interest
them very much and which is probably superfluous to their crap low-brow
lifestyles anyway.

Bill
Sticker January 24, 2013 at 16:22

My family has rental property, but benefit claimants don’t get past the
first step in the landlord negotiation process nowadays (Been there, done
that, got fingers burned, won’t accept them as tenants). Proper shorthold
rental agreements, direct debits, all that jazz. Only way to go. Regular
cashflow allows regular maintenance. Everyone’s happy. I think.

Moor
Larkin January 24, 2013 at 11:54

The answer to this and many other questions may be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kAhChC_qxU

bunny January 24, 2013 at 11:08

Anna,

I went to school in the North West of England, Merseyside to be precise.
The area I went to school in lost most of its heavy industry, which had
produced products as diverse as tanks and biscuit making machines. The mines
closed, the super pit at Parkside went in the 1990s, admittedly it was a
stupid place to site a ‘super pit’ as the Lancashire Fault meant that they
could not tunnel for seams of coal to the North. This dear gentle reader may
sound like an apologia for myself and my fellow classmate’s failure to find
work, it isn’t.

I no longer live near where I went to school, however due to the modern
communications phenomenon that is ‘Facebook’ I am aware of what myself and my
fellow pupils are doing. Bizzarely enough I know one or two that are not
working, but on the whole, they are. We adapted and got on with life. Life is
only grim in certain parts of the North due to the people their abdicating
their responsibilities and lives to the politicians. Actually this helps
depress property prices and keeps the cost of living low, so when I am back in
the UK I benefit from it too.

It is only grim up North where people let it happen, and where they don’t
it is far from grim, besides Blackpool because even in the good times,
Blackpool is a dump (and also the home of paywonga).

Joe Public January 24, 2013 at 10:58

I bet there’s money to be made by investing (?gambling?) in shares in
bookmakers.