Just over 27% of the year has gone by now and I am still amazed that I’m keeping this up.
Much of today was spent taking my dad to a diabetic retinal screening at Leeds General Infirmary. It’s the first time that such an appointment, where the patient isn’t allowed to drive afterwards, has fallen when I’ve been off school. Mum had a few of these done over the years but my sister generally had to meet her from work to help her home. The procedure consists of having some drops in the eyes to dilate the pupils, before digital photographs of the retina are taken. Dad found his eyes to be quite blurry afterwards.
Outside of that, I came across this diagram showing where this country’s welfare money is spent. I think it’s quite interesting.

This was shared by a friend of mine on Facebook (link).
Here’s the blurb that went with it (edited to remove swearing – I don’t swear online). These are the words of Jon Leighton (Find him on Twitter, @Welfare__Reform):
Ok, I can’t keep my gob shut any longer. I’m sick to death of seeing posts on Facebook about benefit scroungers. Do you know the figures? Because if you did you might see it in another light.
Did you know that only 3% of the benefits budget goes to people seeking work? 53% is pensions and other related old age benefits, 18% is Housing Benefit (which currently goes directly to landlords) 18% is working tax credits, and the rest disabled benefits and other bits and bobs. (And by the way, the Government figures say the fraud rate for disabled benefits is 0.3%).
In fact, the majority of folks claiming housing and council tax benefit ARE IN WORK.
I could write an essay on this because I deal with it everyday. Our benefits budget is not out of control. According to the OECD Britain’s benefit bill per head is nowhere near as generous as half the countries in Europe. (And unemployment benefit is particularly stingy compared to most).
The vast majority of folks just want to get on but minimum wage jobs are not paying enough. (This might explain why at work we’re seeing working people going to foodbanks every week.)
This government is turning people against each other. And it’s totally unwarranted. Yes, welfare needs reforming but you don’t do that by kicking people out of their homes, stigmatising them so that they get spat at in the street and driving them to suicide – these have all happened so far.
In the last two years 80% of people applying for housing benefit were all working. We can reform welfare by bringing in a living wage so that people don’t have to claim benefits to get by. At the moment the welfare budget is subsidising low pay and private landlords on a grand scale.
When you see a post that puts the boot into benefit claimants, think twice before you like it because let me tell you, we are ALL only three mortgage payments away from disaster.
(If anyone wants the sources of the figures I have quoted, I will only be too happy to provide them)
I’ve attached a pie chart from 2011 to give you an idea. Figures will have changed a bit.
Facts like this are freely available. It just goes to show that too many people allow their opinions to be formed by the media rather than hunting out the facts for themselves.
As another example, many facts and figures are available for schools in the UK – number of boys/girls, number of teaching staff, numbers of all kinds of things are available for people to look at. They make for interesting reading. However, nobody ever does.
Day 300: Sebastian Vettel: No Longer V3ttel, Now IVettel. Or Something. | ThomasJPitts' Blog
27th October 2013 @ 11:36 pm
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