Sunny,

You do realise that these figures reflect the general popularity of the parties and the way the person feels when asked, rather than the views of the actual voters when presented with the evidence.

If you rely on this sort of polling (which is normally bad for governments compared to their subsequent election results) to justify a political position, then frankly you will get what you deserve.

If Labour want to stand a chance on attracting more support over welfare, they need to have real ideas and messages, which is certainly something Mr Duncan-Smith has in spades (like them or not). At the moment, a 10 year old could probably come up with a decent campaign to expose Labour over welfare (OK – a gifted and talented 10 year old perhaps…).

“Mr Duncan-Smith has in spades”

IDS is over-selling his universal credit. It really isn’t the radical change proponents of it are saying it is. It is more an administrative change to simplify the system, save money on administration costs, and make it easier to adopt the policy changes such as reducing the taper rate. Most of which has been advocated for years by groups working in the field.

The really nasty stuff (withdrawing Disabled related stuff, reducing housing allowances) is largely coming from Osbourne and is about the actual value of the payment, or on the deep technicalities rather than ideas. If Osbourne had got his way, we wouldn’t even be getting the carrot of reduced taper rates to go along with it. That’s not to defend IDS though, who managed to take some sensible ideas from the sector and ruin it by adding his own nasty rhetoric and schemes for forced labour.

Don ,obviously i haven’t got a link to show you, but Laobur weren’t as popular as the Tories on the NHS and the only issues laobur was more popualr than the tories on were Law and Order and pensioners benefits, In April 2010

I have to agree with Watchman on this one: people’s general opinion of a party affects how they rate it on specific issues. It’s a fairly normal kind of cognitive bias, apparently, and I imagine it’s exacerbated when you ask people their opinions about things they don’t know much about (how many people have a well-researched opinion on the relative merits of different parties regarding welfare?).

None of this detracts from the fact that Labour should fight the Tories on this with everything they’ve got, of course.

Welfare 100% of what is wrong with welfare is the New WCA medical or Work capability test.

It says a person without legs who can use a wheelchair is now mobile as if they have legs.

A person who has stumps ” no hands” who can move an item on a table by using his stumps will be treated as if they have hands.

All this is labours, Labour also wanted to end DLA , the Tories have come up with PIP’s.

I see no reason what so ever to cheer for Labour at all.

I have just had my first benefits rise under the Tories, it’s the highest for fourteen years, says about all I think

‘Alexander began to recover Labour’s position as shadow DWP secretary. Liam Byrne seeks to complete this journey’

Hmm….both rather ineffectual tossers.

@Robert – good stuff. I’ve only dealt with benefits in an advisory capacity and it’s an absolute monolith with quite terrible contingency arrangements. They don’t give either an office phone number or a way of contacting some random ‘decision maker’! Are they taking the absolute piss? You should see the HQ in Leeds, it’s exactly the same dodgy architect who designed the MI5 building in Vauxhall but twice as big; known as the Kremlin for good reason.

How about not paying Muslim men benefits (and only Muslim men, another Islamic perk we hand out against the basic law of the land for everyone else) for their multiple wives.
How about that bit of welfare reform??

Or is that too ‘illiberal’ for you fools? Too ‘right wing’?

@7 Dave

“How about not paying Muslim men benefits (and only Muslim men, another Islamic perk we hand out against the basic law of the land for everyone else) for their multiple wives.
How about that bit of welfare reform??”

First off, I suspect the benefits would not be paid to the man for having the wives, but rather to the women themselves. Benefits are generally personal when it comes to adults. Secondly, I’d like to see the text of the law that says that only Muslims are allowed to claim.

Thirdly, and most importantly, according to this source: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/submission-to-sos-091106.pdf (page 4), refusing to recognise polygamous relationships would probably lead to those families receiving MORE benefits, not less, as people would qualify for benefits as singletons. Admittedly that’s from 2006, but it’s the best source I can get my hands on. How would you resolve that issue?

“First off, I suspect the benefits would not be paid to the man for having the wives, but rather to the women themselves.”

Bet it’s not. Different cultural practises which we must understand, tolerate, incorporate into our welfare system, and all that.

Proof?
It’s against the law for everyone other than Muslims to have more than one wife!!
Let alone claim for them!

YOU try!

And LOL LOL LOL. YOu think for ONE SECOND that the ‘wives’ get to keep the money for themselves? Really!!??

How to stop it?
What you mean how to spend as little as possible on extra wives for Muslim men in 21st century, non-Islamic, UK???

Well here’s a fucking idea….DON’T ALLOW ANY OF THESE EXTRA WIVES TO EVEN EXIST IN THE UK!

Jesus wept!

@10 Even Charlie Sheen?

Well fuck me, “Dave”, you’ve really won me over there. Your visit to this site wasn’t a waste after all.

@7 – Dave, you are an absolute shithead. Mistakes just happen.

A court stated a man with two wives who are legally married in another country who them emigrates to this country must be given benefits for each wife and children.

The person who then comes here and is legally within this country cannot then marry again or leave to marry if he returns he would be charged.

But this rules does not go just for Muslims, Mormons or anyone else who can legally marry in another country.

Payments of benefits special rules do apply to Muslim men and women not to break rules on receiving charities funding or benefits.

@ 10 Dave

“Proof?
It’s against the law for everyone other than Muslims to have more than one wife!!
Let alone claim for them!”

Um, you’d have to prove that too. You telling me dodgy facts is not proof. Got a link to a government source on this law?

“And LOL LOL LOL. YOu think for ONE SECOND that the ‘wives’ get to keep the money for themselves? Really!!??”

Probably not, but you were making out as if we paid the men some kind of “having lots of wives bonus”. Which is a different kettle of fish.

“How to stop it?
What you mean how to spend as little as possible on extra wives for Muslim men in 21st century, non-Islamic, UK???

Well here’s a fucking idea….DON’T ALLOW ANY OF THESE EXTRA WIVES TO EVEN EXIST IN THE UK!”

If you’d bothered to read the link I gave you, you’d see that the government believes that they’d pay out MORE to these families if the marriages weren’t recognised. They’d still live together, but we’d pay out more because each wife after the first would be treated as a singleton.

So: do you have an idea that would actually resolve this issue? Instead of wishing people into non-existence, I mean?

Jesus! Slow today are we Chaise?

“”They’d still live together””

No, they would not!
Because we should not allow them into the country in the first place!

THAT is the solution I gave you!

They should not be allowed into the country.
They would not need any of our money, because they would not exist in the country.
Because they would, SHOULD, never be allowed in!
Being an extra fuck bucket in a fundamentalist’s harem is a legitimate reason to be allowed into the UK for you is it!?
Is it!??

Typical liberal sop aren’t you!?
You just can’t fathom the idea that EXTRA WIVES should quite simply not even be allowed into 21st century, secular run, non-Islamic, Britain!

You want a fucking harem that goes along with your medieval supernatural belief and 1000 year old desert sprouted cultural backwater mentality?
FINE.
Stay or go to any one of the many countries that agree with said medieval supernatural belief and 1000 year old desert sprouted cultural backwater mentality..and no one will miss you!

The UK. In 2011. Should not be one of those countries!

And if BNP members said they wanted to have extra wives and for the tax payer to keep them…you’d have a fucking problem with it!
But a tan and a book of medieval fairy tales always perverts the logic and morals of pseudo-liberal sops like you lot.

Poeple like YOU feed the BNP and the EDL.
False-liberals who excuse, appease and apologise for an entity that goes against any and all remotely liberal, EVOLVED, thinking.

Never mind.
When the next old, worthless, non-Muslim, English woman (who, with that demographic, is obviously not worth a damn in the eyes of you ‘liberal’ lot) dies in a corridor because of hospital budget cuts…you can smile with the knowledge that at least ‘Muslim Man X’ from the Swat Valley is still picking up his precious Harem Benefit from the good old UK tax payer.

Thank goodness!
At least YOU can sleep at night with that knowledge.

You’re not worth my time. Fuck this website and all who sail on her.

@ 16 Dave.

Breathe.

If we stopped letting people in on the basis that they were in a polygamous relationship, they would either a) lie about their relationship or b) not get legally married anywhere, but instead get a religious wedding then officially live in the UK as “friends”.

If you’d stopped to think for a second instead of throwing your insults, false accusations and pointless hyperbole around, you might have realised that for yourself. But far be it from me to suggest you should let rational thought get in the way of a good rant.

@ 16 Dave

Oh, and I’m still waiting for your evidence of there being a special law that specifically allows Muslims and only Muslims to get benefits for polygamous relationships in the UK. It’s starting to look like, y’know, you just made that up to justify your seething resentment. Proper evidence, please, not tabloid articles or unsourced blogs.

@16 Dave

“You’re not worth my time. Fuck this website and all who sail on her.”

Aren’t you the same waste of DNA who has posted similar rantings in the past?

Can’t you at least abide by your sentiments and not come back? I’m sure you’ve been told not to let the door hit you in the arse on your (hopefully permanent) way out.

God almight it’s only against the law to marriy more women in a courty which out laws it, we in my small town have two mUlism men that have three wives, they did not marry them here, and we have no laws which say we can do anything about it. so long as they do not marry while in the UK if they are British citizens we can do sod all about it.

Ministers have decided that, even though bigamy is a crime in Britain, polygamous marriages can be recognised formally by the state – provided they took place overseas, in countries where they are legal.

The outcome will chiefly benefit Muslim men with more than one wife.

Ministers estimate that up to a thousand polygamous partnerships exist in Britain, although they admit there is no exact record.

Potentially, the benefits bill for income support could reach £10m.

New guidelines on income support from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) state: “Where there is a valid polygamous marriage the claimant and one spouse will be paid the couple rate (£92.80).

“The amount payable for each additional spouse is presently £33.65.”

Income support for all of the wives may be paid directly into the husband’s bank account, if the family so choose.

It is a competely fucker when you come out of the pub wasted and the rant has to stop, eh? Still if you can still manage to type, you can wake up the next morning and convince yourself you have managed to get your point across.

So, Dave, one of life’s sad misfits,well done, and people wonder we think the BNP are fucking halfwits?

Sound like Dave is one of the BNP brigade, poor old lady dying is a hospital corridor, what happens if she is a Muslim lady, should we kick her our, labour did a bit of that.

Law and Order was the only issue labour was more popular with the public than the tories were at the last elelctionWhether the Falklands war could have been stopped by having our Fleet near by Despite the cuts to the Navy the previous year or once the Islands had been invade that a peacefull deal could have been found ,it was an established fact that as soon as war had been declared the Ship the Belgrano would have been a legitimate target even if it was in Argentinean docks,When the Belgrano was sunk it was of course sailing away form the falklands ,not in a straight line but at an angle, it also could have turned around in 25 minutes, several cases have been cleared up due to comparing DNA, what the country has to decide is what level of crime clear up do we want innocent people having their DNA kept ,cctv if you have aproblem with CCTV looking at you when you go in a department store ,don’t go in that department store id cards were voluntary, Are we to give up on the mantle that it took years to gain that Labour were the real party of law and order ,a tag that when crime doubled in the 80’s we threw opposing the Tories for the sake of it were distancing ourselves from our traditional working class voters who wanted labour to be the party of law and order,-