panorama

Anyone watching? I have little sympathy really. Still being offered free accomodation. One chap was taking home more in benefits than the wife and i earn.
Anyone would think birmingham is like somali

Yep amazing how many people think they are everyone else should look after them, might of course be skewed for good mailesque telly. I’ve been fairly impressed with the Brent staff though, seem to be able tread the fine line between heartless gits and falling for the sob stories.

Hmm. And becoming a human commodity is also rather dehumanising.

It reinforces the fact that those claiming are blamed for their situation, but the impact of unregulated private rents goes unchallenged.

Ironically uncapped housing benefits have allowed rents to get out of control. Will be interresting to see ifrents come down in time. If they do it will validate the cap, if they don’t it shows there is demand there for the housing from those who can find the money.

We’re in the current mess because society hasn’t faced up to the fact that some people do not take responsibility for themselves. Most people do support themselves, why should they also have to support those who won’t. In a civilised society we have a duty to make sure peoples basic needs of housing, food and utilities etc. are covered, if they want more control over their lives, such as choosing where they live, they need to take that responsibility themselves. Some of that responsibility is about finding work, some of it is not getting yourself in that situation in the first place.

Why should private rents be regulated? The market sets the rate, that’s the way it should always be

Meanwhile the government and associated arse lickers are patting themselves on the back for another housing price boom that also affects (un)realistic rental pricing as working folk on minimum wage or thereabouts cannot afford to pay for housing, but ship them up north………keep the poor people out of london.

The sooner we (scotland) become independent of london and it’s political elite the better.

Well if you work you have to make decisions on where you live and how many kids you have so why if you don’t work can you stay where you want and not bother to ‘keep it in your troosers’ to coin a phrase.

Somafunk, agree with you there, they are fuelling yet another boom because they haven’t got the balls to do something about the credit on offer. Worse still they are actively encouraging it with help to buy. The trouble is property prices need to drop 40% or possibly more. Brown and Blair should have acted but were too busy riding the global credit bubble patting themselves on the back (or possibly back stabbing each other).

At the tender age of 42,I live in a modest 2 bedroom flat in Torquay with my wife and 2 young children.
They are young as we decided to wait until we could afford to have children.
I would like to live in a nice 3 bedroom house with a view of the sea.
Our current financial situation means that I can not.
So I carry on living in my flat ( lucky I have 2 boys so they will be able to share a bedroom when the 9 month is old enough.
If I want to move, I have to work more hours to be able to pay bigger mortgage… Yadda yadda.
There is a couple up the road , who have 6 children. Neither of them work and she is now pregnant with her 7th.
My wife overheard her down the park telling her friend that she has demanded a bigger house and they are sorting it out for her.
Why do we allow this to happen ?
I know people who I went to school with who live in 3 bedroom town houses on new estates, who have never had a job in their lives. They have a lot of children though and feel that all this is owed to them ??
I want to emigrate to Canada. Wife does not…….I’m working on her

but ship them up north………keep the poor people out of london.

Sounds like a form of ethnic cleansing by the Government to me

They aren’t “shipping” them anywhere. I have to choose where to live based on what I can afford on my wage, people on benefits should have to have the same dilemma. One chap had £3800 per month in benefits, that’s just wrong. As a supposed high earner I can’t afford london, why on earth should people on benefits get a better deal?

I just watched this and am gobsmacked. A single mother working 16 hrs a week on minimum wage can receive over £800 quid a week in benefits!!!!

All these families who don’t work with 7 kids complaining that they can’t live in London. I couldn’t afford to live in London, that’s with a decent job and a wife with a good job and two kids. I couldn’t get near being able to afford London living.

Unbelievable.

The sooner we (scotland) become independent of london and it’s political elite the better.

Can pretty much the rest of England and Wales join you? It’s a London ting.

I couldn’t help but have a bit of sympathy for the people involved though. Although some were drawing about 3 times what I pay in a mortgage, it’s just what they have always been given.. not sure they see it as earning £2K rather having a house paid for, where they’ve always lived. The numbers were there to maybe illustrate the lunacy of living in London.. I wouldn’t live in Brent if you DID pay me 3800 a month.

It is galling some peoples attitudes and expectations, and perhaps the cap will go some way to changing attitudes in an entitlement culture, but I can’t say I’m 100% comfortable with it either. They will always be collateral damage along with those who ‘deserve’ it (and I’m not the one who could make that judgement).