Independent artice: "White Dee backs benefit cuts"
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Article in today's Independent:
White Dee backs benefit cuts: 'I've always kind of supported it'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/white-dee-backs-government-benefit-cuts-ive-always-kind-of-supported-it-9837936.html
Fans of Channel 4 ‘poverty porn’ series Benefits Street might be surprised to learn about where it’s biggest star, Deirdre 'White Dee' Kelly, stands on the issue of government welfare cuts.
“I've always kind of supported it,” the former Celebrity Big * told Total Politics magazine when asked about what she thought of the Coalition’s £18billion cuts on benefits spending.
*yep, that's what it said
White Dee backs benefit cuts: 'I've always kind of supported it'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/white-dee-backs-government-benefit-cuts-ive-always-kind-of-supported-it-9837936.html
Fans of Channel 4 ‘poverty porn’ series Benefits Street might be surprised to learn about where it’s biggest star, Deirdre 'White Dee' Kelly, stands on the issue of government welfare cuts.
“I've always kind of supported it,” the former Celebrity Big * told Total Politics magazine when asked about what she thought of the Coalition’s £18billion cuts on benefits spending.
*yep, that's what it said
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Comments
hypocritical b!tch
no doubt she doesn't want 'her taxes' going to greedy disabled people
Glad you do Wonkey - I worked for The Independent from it's launch until I retired - and you are quite right -it is "less silly than other papers". Just the odd employee who might be.
Thanks for keeping me in a job.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11204133/Widow-of-NHS-chief-wrongly-claimed-27000-in-benefits.html.
Get back to Strictly Come Prancing!!!
>:( Bah!!! >:(>:(
Once upon a time, a case like that would have simply been a requirement to repay, as it's an overpayment that isn't the DWP's fault. Would never have gone near a Court.
Hmmm. >:( I'm sure as a magistrate she regularly accepted the excuse that "I didn't realize it was wrong."
My view of The Independent is that if often has a good front page, but in the rest, there's usually less that I find interesting, or want to read, than in the Guardian. So if I'm picking up a paper to read with my coffee, I'm as happy to choose The Telegraph, Financial Times, or The Times (or certain more regionally-based papers) as The Independent.
Anyway, it;'s interesting that Dee, "a life-long Labour voted" [sic] has defected to Ukip, rather than to the Tories.
Quite. I thought ignorance of the law was no defence. One would expect that someone who served as a magistrate and could be said to have sat in judgement of others would have some knowledge of the law.
One would further expect that someone considered suitable to be a magistrate would not be the sort of person who would read the documentation given to her when her benefit started. It beggars belief that her defence was that she didn't read the rules in her possession and this was accepted.
Finally I wonder why someone who was married to a very successful businessman and lives in a very select area would need such financial support. Not judging as such but wondering.
Maybe its different if you have a title.
If your husband paid sufficient NI, you are getting Child Benefit, you are widowed, not co-habiting or re-married, and under pension age, you're entitled whether your stinking rich or gutter poor.
As to need, she didn't have to claim it, but she was entitled to it until her new fella moved in.
Its like having a stalker!
As for this I accept she was entitled to the money but given her wealth it seems ..oh I don't know... greedy I suppose to take it.
Any way that was a minor point.. more of a musing. But that an ex magistrate that didn't read documentation properly and then successfully uses ignorance as her defence is irksome.
Eek at the Financial Times.
I think someone who defects from Labour to UKIP is not a very political voter. And Farage seems to do some kind of mental sleight of hand. People think, hey! He's one of us! Not like those smooth, over-privileged millionaires who lead the other parties! - which is not bad going for a man who went to a top public school and became a broker, compared with the comprehensive school boy who is a part-Polish part-Belgian son of Jewish immigrants
Of people who spend ages watching people who can't dance dancing, and then argue about it
Not my natural habitat, I tend to migrate to calmer climes
As I said before, once upon a time that would have been an overpayment without any fault on the part of the relevant Department, and she would have been required to repay it somehow - no question. There was absolutely no question of letting someone off because they didn't realise or forgot. Totally clear cut.
No idea how it happens now, but either they've changed the rules - which is stupid as it worked before - or she refused to pay and it ended up in Court.
Later thought - it could of course be that the DWP automatically goes for Court over a certain amount now.
I know Dee bangs on about benefits being paid to people who don't deserve it (and despite the incongruence of the messenger, she's right of course), but there's at least as much mileage in broadcasting the money wasted by the DWP and their predecessors in benefits overpayments due to their mistakes or not clawing back fraud.
I'm really going to have to work on the one-liners before the next CBB ;-):D
Speaking of The Independent and Nigel Farage, I read The Times and The Independent today with my coffee, and I was a bit shocked to page through The Independent and find he'd written a column for them. :eek:
Is it every day, every week, every month, a one-off?
Anyway, there he was in populist mode, with some praise or Russell Brand and the Guy Fawkes protesters and saying:
"Everywhere you look there is discontent with the mainstream, the establishment, with the corporatist politics that we've been spoon-fed for the past few decades. Never more so was this evident than this week in the mid-term elections in the United States, and in the Parliament Square protests that took place on Wednesday evening in London."
Slight of hand indeed! Somehow the Rebublican (! :eek:
Meanwhile, in The Times, there was a column praising Barack Obma. To be sure, it wasn't done without some digs at the Clintons and even JFK, but still.
Nonetheless, The Independent came out slightly ahead in the amount of interestingly readable content, with even the Farage column counting in its favour. I think it was the review section that tipped the balance, though.