Is it preposterous to think that the gov't had plans long ago to make these changes to welfare/benefits and somehow commissioned people to do these programs to get public sentiment behind them? Is there an election looming by chance?
That girl screeching in her mother's face in a clip of next week's show was like a cry for help. Kids like their parents to be their parents, set ground rules, have proper discipline, teach them to be respectful not be their chums and laugh and joke about everything with them. The result will be a complete breakdown of barriers, confusion, anger etc etc.
I'm not sure they "like" it, but it's probably better if the parent do discipline them and set clear boundaries.
Is it preposterous to think that the gov't had plans long ago to make these changes to welfare/benefits and somehow commissioned people to do these programs to get public sentiment behind them? Is there an election looming by chance?
British scum and non British scum,all in one tv show !
This is the reality of modern Britain.
The British featured,however they ended up on benefits,have no manners,no standards and no sense of personal responsibility.
The non British unskilled should never have been allowed into the country in the first place.
These two reasons are exactly why they is a massive social divide between the decent working classes and the non working classes
Is it preposterous to think that the gov't had plans long ago to make these changes to welfare/benefits and somehow commissioned people to do these programs to get public sentiment behind them? Is there an election looming by chance?
I like the 'somehow commissioned people'. It's almost as if even you find the entire proposition ridiculous and can't think of a way they could do it. Face it, channel 4 commissioned the programme themselves, nothing to do with anyone else. And there isn't an election looming, not until 2015.
I like the 'somehow commissioned people'. It's almost as if even you find the entire proposition ridiculous and can't think of a way they could do it. Face it, channel 4 commissioned the programme themselves, nothing to do with anyone else. And there isn't an election looming, not until 2015.
My wording was to point out that I know nothing about how programs get made or who comes up with the concepts. Many people have hinted at a kind of conspiracy between certain sections of the gov't and the media. At higher levels there is always talk about those in charge being in one another's pockets, so I don't think it's that inconceivable.
The next election is May 2015. If this was set up to be some Tory propaganda, and given the fact the average voter has a very short memory, it would be rather stupid.
And would the Tories pay for the production too? Or merely order Channel 4 to make it and hope to recover the cost through advertising?
Finally, how does the party ensure nobody grasses on them? Especially when I doubt everyone working for the channel is conservative...
Suddenly it doesn't sound plausible one little bit.
The next election is May 2015. If this was set up to be some Tory propaganda, and given the fact the average voter has a very short memory, it would be rather stupid.
And would the Tories pay for the production too? Or merely order Channel 4 to make it and hope to recover the cost through advertising?
Finally, how does the party ensure nobody grasses on them? Especially when I doubt everyone working for the channel is conservative...
Suddenly it doesn't sound plausible one little bit.
There has been a drip drip of propaganda since the coalition has been in government.
I'm pretty sure they'll be able to carry on with it for the next year. A programme here, a programme there. The little digs about 'hard working families' and 'hard working tax payers' in the news, along with 'strivers and skivers'.
And just wait for the attack on the unemployed when the Election broadcasts start, along with the plants in the audience during the Leaders Debates.
The unemployed will be the scapegoat during the next election as it worked so well last time too.
The next election is May 2015. If this was set up to be some Tory propaganda, and given the fact the average voter has a very short memory, it would be rather stupid.
And would the Tories pay for the production too? Or merely order Channel 4 to make it and hope to recover the cost through advertising?
Finally, how does the party ensure nobody grasses on them? Especially when I doubt everyone working for the channel is conservative...
Suddenly it doesn't sound plausible one little bit.
Yes, I suppose in general people are bad at keeping secrets, especially when they can gain some benefit by telling all they know.
There has been a drip drip of propaganda since the coalition has been in government.
I'm pretty sure they'll be able to carry on with it for the next year. A programme here, a programme there. The little digs about 'hard working families' and 'hard working tax payers' in the news, along with 'strivers and skivers'.
And just wait for the attack on the unemployed when the Election broadcasts start, along with the plants in the audience during the Leaders Debates.
The unemployed will be the scapegoat during the next election as it worked so well last time too.
So there is a vast conspiracy between the government and (by the sounds of it) a large part of the media to attack the unemployed? And anyone who attacks them is a part of this conspiracy?
My wording was to point out that I know nothing about how programs get made or who comes up with the concepts. Many people have hinted at a kind of conspiracy between certain sections of the gov't and the media. At higher levels there is always talk about those in charge being in one another's pockets, so I don't think it's that inconceivable.
They'll have been planning this kind of programme out for a longggg time. It took a year of filming and months of editing. Would they really do ALL that because the government asked them to? No, they'd want an end product that would make them money by getting good ratings. People claiming that the media are part of some kind of conspiracy seem to forget that these production companies are based on the concept of producing something the people want to watch. If people didn't want to watch Benefits street, putting it on telly wouldn't make them do so.
Would you expect anything less from C4 who seems hell bent on demonising everyone on benefits
I am surprised at them frankly, but perhaps I retain too much of the image of them as a broadcaster which had a fair view of all walks of as life they were more like in the early years.
I actually felt sorry for the Romanian lads who came here wanting to work to support their families back home. It's disgraceful that the 'boss' was allowed to get away with what he was doing & all I can hope is that behind the scenes, information was passed to the police that would lead to his slave labour scheme being ended.
The Romanian family that collected the scrap metal I also felt for, yes the house was a pigsty & they clearly felt sorry for themselves & had the attitude that their landlord should help them but they were trying to work & they said that all the hours they spent scrap metaling only netted them around £130 a week. I doubt they had much left after paying the rent to the slum landlord.
As for them going home, with what? How are they going to afford the fare home with nothing? They probably spent everything they had coming to this country thinking it would lead to a better life.
Black Dee I find scary. She's so angry about everything & yet does nothing to try to help herself at all, everything is always everyone elses fault but her own. She has a 'the world owes me a living' attitude & always seems to be teetering on the edge of inciting a riot or something.
The rubbish situation made me shake my head in disbelief. It had sat there for weeks strewn all over the path & road & yet Black Dee's answer to the problem was to bag it all up neatly (not for collection by the refuse services on a normal collection day therefore ending the stalemate calmly) but to blockade the road, giving her a chance to yell & use a threatening manner. I can't have been the only person hoping that the refuse collectors would chuck her in the back of their truck when she got inside that bin liner?!
The benefit fraud couple are awful, all they seem to do is sit on the wall outside their house complaining about everyone else & doing nothing to help themselves.
I'm a tax payer & I have no problem with my tax money going towards paying benefits. we are lucky enough to have a decent welfare system that helps those genuinely in need & I'm thankful we do. It's the few people who refuse to help themselves & just want to sit back & take what they can for nothing thinking that they're somehow owed a life of benefits money that irritate me.
I'm pretty sure they'll be able to carry on with it for the next year. A programme here, a programme there. The little digs about 'hard working families' and 'hard working tax payers' in the news, along with 'strivers and skivers'.
Oh im sure there will be more programs like this, not only from channel 4 bit some of tje other channels
I actually felt sorry for the Romanian lads who came here wanting to work to support their families back home. It's disgraceful that the 'boss' was allowed to get away with what he was doing & all I can hope is that behind the scenes, information was passed to the police that would lead to his slave labour scheme being ended.
The Romanian family that collected the scrap metal I also felt for, yes the house was a pigsty & they clearly felt sorry for themselves & had the attitude that their landlord should help them but they were trying to work & they said that all the hours they spent scrap metaling only netted them around £130 a week. I doubt they had much left after paying the rent to the slum landlord.
As for them going home, with what? How are they going to afford the fare home with nothing? They probably spent everything they had coming to this country thinking it would lead to a better life.
Black Dee I find scary. She's so angry about everything & yet does nothing to try to help herself at all, everything is always everyone elses fault but her own. She has a 'the world owes me a living' attitude & always seems to be teetering on the edge of inciting a riot or something.
The rubbish situation made me shake my head in disbelief. It had sat there for weeks strewn all over the path & road & yet Black Dee's answer to the problem was to bag it all up neatly (not for collection by the refuse services on a normal collection day therefore ending the stalemate calmly) but to blockade the road, giving her a chance to yell & use a threatening manner. I can't have been the only person hoping that the refuse collectors would chuck her in the back of their truck when she got inside that bin liner?!
The benefit fraud couple are awful, all they seem to do is sit on the wall outside their house complaining about everyone else & doing nothing to help themselves.
I'm a tax payer & I have no problem with my tax money going towards paying benefits. we are lucky enough to have a decent welfare system that helps those genuinely in need & I'm thankful we do. It's the few people who refuse to help themselves & just want to sit back & take what they can for nothing thinking that they're somehow owed a life of benefits money that irritate me.
The Romanian Embassy in London can help them and provide a passage back there
They infuriate me because I resent my taxes paying for their scummy lives, and they should infuriate you because they tarnish your reputation by association, and if they were kicked off benefit then there would be more to go around for the genuine cases.
They do a bit, but then I learn that benefit fraud is 31 times lower than MP expenses fraud (http://politicalscrapbook.net/2011/05/mps-expenses-vs-benefit-fraud/) and that we lose £290m per day to tax avoidance & evasion. That makes me reconsider who my 'fury' should be directed at.
Yes, Benefits Street is about real people but the cases are in no way representative of the majority of people claiming benefits. Viewers will go away with a very negative and distorted perception of benefit claimants and this plays right into the current government's hands.
I fail to see why people need to try and say something else is worse, as if it makes a real problem somehow less important. And not every company, banker or MP is up to no good either - so it's funny how it seems fine to generalise when talking about them!
It's like cyclists that ride on pavements, jump red lights and go the wrong way down one way streets in the face of oncoming traffic saying 'but motorists commit far more offences'. Yes, and? Doesn't make it okay to do any of those things, even if statistically you make up a smaller number of offenders.
I hope that a lot of people can see that not everyone is like the people living on this street - I know I don't, and the episode this week did show a little more of a positive side (like people trying hard to work and earn a crust, as well as keep the street looking nice).
Presumably this shows that originally the production crew perhaps DID intend to make a show about community spirit, but after getting all the footage and editing, both it and Channel 4 realised that renaming it to Benefits Street and showing more of the bad sides would get the ratings (which it clearly has).
I now hope in the coming weeks we'll see a bit more balance. But, let's not pretend that these people don't still exist all over the UK - even if it's a small percentage of the overall number of people on benefits quite legitimately.
I fail to see why people need to try and say something else is worse, as if it makes a real problem somehow less important. And not every company, banker or MP is up to no good either - so it's funny how easy it is to generalise with them!
It's like cyclists that ride on pavements, jump red lights and go the wrong way down one way streets in the face of oncoming traffic saying 'but motorists commit far more offences'. Yes, and? Doesn't make it okay to do any of those things, even if statistically you make up a smaller number of offenders.
I hope that a lot of people can see that not everyone is like the people living on this street - I know I don't, and the episode this week did show a little more of a positive side (like people trying hard to work and earn a crust, as well as keep the street looking nice).
Presumably this shows that originally the production crew perhaps DID intend to make a show about community spirit, but after getting all the footage and editing, both it and Channel 4 realised that renaming it to Benefits Street and showing more of the bad sides would get the ratings (which it clearly has).
I now hope in the coming weeks we'll see a bit more balance. But, let's not pretend that these people don't still exist all over the UK - even if it's a small percentage of the overall number of people on benefits quite legitimately.
It's not about pretending abuse of the benefits system doesn't happen or unfairly generalising about other groups (like MPs). It's about perspective and how a disproportionate amount of anger seems to be leveled at one set of people when others are getting away with and costing us a lot more.
But that's how this government and the media operates isn't it? Whip people up into a frenzy about migrants and benefit claimants, they're easy targets. It's a convenient way to misdirect public anger and distract from other issues.
Comments
By being 'self-employed' - same as the Big Issue sellers.
Great idea.:D. They wouldn't have to bother distressing the furniture would they?;-)
Is it preposterous to think that the gov't had plans long ago to make these changes to welfare/benefits and somehow commissioned people to do these programs to get public sentiment behind them? Is there an election looming by chance?
I'm not sure they "like" it, but it's probably better if the parent do discipline them and set clear boundaries.
I wouldn't put it past them ;-)
This is the reality of modern Britain.
The British featured,however they ended up on benefits,have no manners,no standards and no sense of personal responsibility.
The non British unskilled should never have been allowed into the country in the first place.
These two reasons are exactly why they is a massive social divide between the decent working classes and the non working classes
I like the 'somehow commissioned people'. It's almost as if even you find the entire proposition ridiculous and can't think of a way they could do it. Face it, channel 4 commissioned the programme themselves, nothing to do with anyone else. And there isn't an election looming, not until 2015.
My wording was to point out that I know nothing about how programs get made or who comes up with the concepts. Many people have hinted at a kind of conspiracy between certain sections of the gov't and the media. At higher levels there is always talk about those in charge being in one another's pockets, so I don't think it's that inconceivable.
And would the Tories pay for the production too? Or merely order Channel 4 to make it and hope to recover the cost through advertising?
Finally, how does the party ensure nobody grasses on them? Especially when I doubt everyone working for the channel is conservative...
Suddenly it doesn't sound plausible one little bit.
There has been a drip drip of propaganda since the coalition has been in government.
I'm pretty sure they'll be able to carry on with it for the next year. A programme here, a programme there. The little digs about 'hard working families' and 'hard working tax payers' in the news, along with 'strivers and skivers'.
And just wait for the attack on the unemployed when the Election broadcasts start, along with the plants in the audience during the Leaders Debates.
The unemployed will be the scapegoat during the next election as it worked so well last time too.
Yes, I suppose in general people are bad at keeping secrets, especially when they can gain some benefit by telling all they know.
So there is a vast conspiracy between the government and (by the sounds of it) a large part of the media to attack the unemployed? And anyone who attacks them is a part of this conspiracy?
They'll have been planning this kind of programme out for a longggg time. It took a year of filming and months of editing. Would they really do ALL that because the government asked them to? No, they'd want an end product that would make them money by getting good ratings. People claiming that the media are part of some kind of conspiracy seem to forget that these production companies are based on the concept of producing something the people want to watch. If people didn't want to watch Benefits street, putting it on telly wouldn't make them do so.
I am surprised at them frankly, but perhaps I retain too much of the image of them as a broadcaster which had a fair view of all walks of as life they were more like in the early years.
The Romanian family that collected the scrap metal I also felt for, yes the house was a pigsty & they clearly felt sorry for themselves & had the attitude that their landlord should help them but they were trying to work & they said that all the hours they spent scrap metaling only netted them around £130 a week. I doubt they had much left after paying the rent to the slum landlord.
As for them going home, with what? How are they going to afford the fare home with nothing? They probably spent everything they had coming to this country thinking it would lead to a better life.
Black Dee I find scary. She's so angry about everything & yet does nothing to try to help herself at all, everything is always everyone elses fault but her own. She has a 'the world owes me a living' attitude & always seems to be teetering on the edge of inciting a riot or something.
The rubbish situation made me shake my head in disbelief. It had sat there for weeks strewn all over the path & road & yet Black Dee's answer to the problem was to bag it all up neatly (not for collection by the refuse services on a normal collection day therefore ending the stalemate calmly) but to blockade the road, giving her a chance to yell & use a threatening manner. I can't have been the only person hoping that the refuse collectors would chuck her in the back of their truck when she got inside that bin liner?!
The benefit fraud couple are awful, all they seem to do is sit on the wall outside their house complaining about everyone else & doing nothing to help themselves.
I'm a tax payer & I have no problem with my tax money going towards paying benefits. we are lucky enough to have a decent welfare system that helps those genuinely in need & I'm thankful we do. It's the few people who refuse to help themselves & just want to sit back & take what they can for nothing thinking that they're somehow owed a life of benefits money that irritate me.
Having watched Benefits Street, it's not much different to Sesame Street.
Both have a big bird, a bloke living out of a bin, and people trying to learn the alphabet.
Oh im sure there will be more programs like this, not only from channel 4 bit some of tje other channels
The Romanian Embassy in London can help them and provide a passage back there
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gloating-tories-dont-care-people-3022783
I also admired the Britain in Bloom lady's optimism and enthusiasm. Every neighbourhood needs someone like her.
They do a bit, but then I learn that benefit fraud is 31 times lower than MP expenses fraud (http://politicalscrapbook.net/2011/05/mps-expenses-vs-benefit-fraud/) and that we lose £290m per day to tax avoidance & evasion. That makes me reconsider who my 'fury' should be directed at.
Yes, Benefits Street is about real people but the cases are in no way representative of the majority of people claiming benefits. Viewers will go away with a very negative and distorted perception of benefit claimants and this plays right into the current government's hands.
It's like cyclists that ride on pavements, jump red lights and go the wrong way down one way streets in the face of oncoming traffic saying 'but motorists commit far more offences'. Yes, and? Doesn't make it okay to do any of those things, even if statistically you make up a smaller number of offenders.
I hope that a lot of people can see that not everyone is like the people living on this street - I know I don't, and the episode this week did show a little more of a positive side (like people trying hard to work and earn a crust, as well as keep the street looking nice).
Presumably this shows that originally the production crew perhaps DID intend to make a show about community spirit, but after getting all the footage and editing, both it and Channel 4 realised that renaming it to Benefits Street and showing more of the bad sides would get the ratings (which it clearly has).
I now hope in the coming weeks we'll see a bit more balance. But, let's not pretend that these people don't still exist all over the UK - even if it's a small percentage of the overall number of people on benefits quite legitimately.
It's not about pretending abuse of the benefits system doesn't happen or unfairly generalising about other groups (like MPs). It's about perspective and how a disproportionate amount of anger seems to be leveled at one set of people when others are getting away with and costing us a lot more.
But that's how this government and the media operates isn't it? Whip people up into a frenzy about migrants and benefit claimants, they're easy targets. It's a convenient way to misdirect public anger and distract from other issues.
I wouldn't put money on it