OK, “the country” is not directly synonymous with the state. But you appear to imagine they are completely separate. What do you mean by “the country” in context? If you don’t define it, your statement is meaningless. Do you mean the people? The majority of them pay tax. When the Treasury loses out because of tax dodging, the shortfall is made up by taking more from those who do pay. So, yes, tax dodging costs the country

Absolutely. “The country” is what you live in if you consider yourself rich enough not to live in “the state”. Or in other words, more worthless libertarians crying tears from their arses…

Well, admitting that a problem exists is normally considered a good first step towards finding a solution.

And they generally don’t hurt the “rest of us”.
Not even slumming Oxford graduates.
They hurt other poor people.

Does it improve the conditions that led to they’re being evil?

Of course it’s not their fault. We force them into their bad behaviour.

Still, regardless of her reasons for saying it, she is right: demonising the bad elements of the poor doesn’t help. Let’s not romanticise them: you wouldn’t want the people Night Jack talks about on your street. But lets work out what we can do to solve the underlying issues. Someone like Night Jack always has to deal with the shit at the end of the process: not the beginning. Politicians first, then social workers, then police: that is the order of things.

Eh? This statistical drivel is from an Oxford graduate? You mean the real one, not Oxford Brookes?

That’s actuallymaking meangry. I thought the whole point of the place was to enable you to think, to evaluate evidence. Rather than emoting over vaguely misreported statistics.

What the hell is the point of providing one of the finest educations known to man or woman if the recipients won’t use it?

What she is saying is, let’s not demonise the poor, or even some of them, it doesn’t stop them being poor, it doesn’t stop crime, it doesn’t actually achieve anything and might in fact make it worse.

What PC Jackboots is saying, some poor people are evil. Yes. So what? Does pointing it out achieve anything in stopping those people from being evil? Does it improve the conditions that led to they’re being evil? Does it stop them from hurting the rest of us?

It is? Now I feel guilty – all that money spunked on records, clothes, booze and drugs when I could’ve been building hospitals and schools.

Anyway, since I’m reading D&O in paris & london, it strikes me that Orwell might have agreed that some of those guys were pretty evil (though i can’t see the much evidence there of the moral decline caused by benefits…)

Also, the working class smell, as any fule Orwell scholar kno.

Would you use that same argument to excuse benefit fraud? The money gets paid back into the economy one way or another after all.

I’m guessing that Laurie does, in fact, pay tax in that she probably goes to the shops and buys stuff.

It’s also pretty depressing to read a comment from someone who appears to believe the only kind of support that one person can offer another is financial.

No Laurie, you’ve already said you do not earn enough to pay tax therefore I, and others who do pay tax, are the ones supporting your housemates on benefits.

It is just that the rich don’t like it when the poor fight back.

Brilliant, Sally, but both you and I know you’re a Tory troll and one of thee days I’m going to prove it.

My parents became wealthy towards the end of my teenage years

In all of this debate, I haven’t noticed anyone stupid enough to float the notion that, if someone is poor, they might consider the possibility of trying to change their circumstances in some way to become a little less poor?

Get a job perhaps?

Or get a better job?

Just a thought………..

> Tax dodging costs the State money, yes, costs the Treasury, but not the country

OK, “the country” is not directly synonymous with the state. But you appear to imagine they are completely separate. What do you mean by “the country” in context? If you don’t define it, your statement is meaningless. Do you mean the people? The majority of them pay tax. When the Treasury loses out because of tax dodging, the shortfall is made up by taking more from those who do pay. So, yes, tax dodging costs the country.

“The 400,000 ‘homeless households’ will (Laurie can correct me if wrong) have come from Crisis’ research. They estimate about 700 rough sleepers, but define homelessness not just as those sleeping rough but also those people who:

*meet the legal definition of homelessness : either there is no accommodation they are entitled to occupy or it is not reasonable for people to continue to occupy their accommodation; and

*have not been provided with accommodation by their local authority, either because they have not applied to be classified as homeless or because they have applied and been judged to be ‘not in priority’ need.

The largest group are people who are living in overcrowded accommodation in places which they neither rent nor own (e.g. are sleeping on a friend’s sofa and therefore at risk of being evicted at any time).”

Crisis does use those figures. But others use much lower ones even with that wide definition. However, as I said:

“More realistic numbers of homeless are a few hundred to a few thousand possibly on any given night in the metropolis of London. And the number of those who are without shelter for reasons other than either alcohol or mental illness problems is smaller again. You are more likely referring to those in temporary accomodation (67,000 households in London from one Mayor of London report). It’s statistical manipulation of the highest order to equate “having been provided with not very good housing by the State” with “homeless”.”

Even if it is indeed the legal definition that those living in not very good housing are “homeless” that’s still a shameful statistical manipulation. It’s waving the bloody shirt of those martyrs sleeping rough to gain support for teenage children not to have to share a bedroom (which I believe is one of the tests that leads to housing being described as inadequate and thus being defined as “homeless”).

I don’t like it when people describe “poverty” as “less than 60% of median income”, even if it is a legal definition for the same reason.

There are plenty prizes given out for that style of literature but they are for fiction and advertising not journalism.

I look forward to buying her novels.

The 400,000 ‘homeless households’ will (Laurie can correct me if wrong) have come from Crisis’ research. They estimate about 700 rough sleepers, but define homelessness not just as those sleeping rough but also those people who:

*meet the legal definition of homelessness : either there is no accommodation they are entitled to occupy or it is not reasonable for people to continue to occupy their accommodation; and

*have not been provided with accommodation by their local authority, either because they have not applied to be classified as homeless or because they have applied and been judged to be ‘not in priority’ need.

The largest group are people who are living in overcrowded accommodation in places which they neither rent nor own (e.g. are sleeping on a friend’s sofa and therefore at risk of being evicted at any time).

http://www.crisis.org.uk/policywatch/pages/hidden_homeless.html

I must confess I am developing a soft spot for her.

“Laurie should be a candidate for the Orwell prize – her writing is always beautifuuly crafted.”

I’d second that, even though I usually disagree with her.

Laurie should be a candidate for the Orwell prize – her writing is always beautifuuly crafted.

But on this occasion she and Night Jack seem to be talking at completely cross purposes.

Perhaps worth pointing out that the victims of the “evil” poor are the “good” poor who are their neighbours.
The rich can simply avoid them altogether.