[Politics] Tory meltdown finally arrived [was: incoming]...

[The Clamp]

They had to do something fast initially (fair enough), but they also should have applied more checks and balances and made people aware abuse would have severe penalties. Its benefit fraud, nothing else

I know tradespeople that took furlough and never stopped working

My neighbour, a carpenter, claimed thousands and never missed a day’s work. Even staying overnight at jobs in private homes when lockdown was in full swing.

He has always been an absolute **** as well, which makes it even more annoying. One of the most idiotic human beings I have ever met. Sort of bloke who claimed a parking spot for himself, even though it is first come first served in our car park, and then would block people in and go out for the night if they dared use “his space”.

The only comfort is he would frequently find his tyres deflated on a Monday morning.

 

[Is it PotG?]

They had to do something fast initially (fair enough), but they also should have applied more checks and balances and made people aware abuse would have severe penalties. Its benefit fraud, nothing else

I know tradespeople that took furlough and never stopped working

If time was taken, folks would have been on the tellybox saying they couldn't eat and the govt should act NOW.

If only there was a champion of hindsight we could look to.....

 

[Lenny Rider]

This is all beginning look even more dodgy, with the way the UK is heading is the next General Election the best one to lose for the Tories?

 

[nicko31]

If time was taken, folks would have been on the tellybox saying they couldn't eat and the govt should act NOW.

If only there was a champion of hindsight we could look to.....

You didn't read my post...

 

[WATFORD zero]

This is all beginning look even more dodgy, with the way the UK is heading is the next General Election the best one to lose for the Tories?

It's just occurred to you that this Government is beginning to look 'dodgy' ? I think you had better sit down before I break the news to you about the religion of the Pope and where Bears defecate

 

[Is it PotG?]

You didn't read my post...

Yes, I did.

How long do YOU think thorough checks would have taken for those millions claiming?

 

[Audax]

Yes, did.

Clearly not closely enough, as your reply indicates you didn't comprehend fully what was written.

 

[Is it PotG?]

Clearly not closely enough, as your reply indicates you didn't comprehend fully what was written.

How?

I'll ask you the same.

How long do YOU think thorough checks would have taken for the millions of claimants?

 

[nicko31]

This is all beginning look even more dodgy, with the way the UK is heading is the next General Election the best one to lose for the Tories?

Yeap I know what you mean. There will be 2 countries bottom in the G20 league next year for economic growth.

One country started a war and had trade sanctions imposed trade sanctions by the whole world

Another started its own culture war and imposed trade sanctions on itself

 

[Hugo Rune]

This is all beginning look even more dodgy, with the way the UK is heading is the next General Election the best one to lose for the Tories?

I’m worried that the traditional Tory ideology of taking personal responsibility has all but been lost. This was always central to Thatcherism. ‘Taking responsibility’ now means saying ‘sorry’. You won’t even need to get a job now to buy a house (despite record employment levels) as Boris’ new ‘benefits for bricks’ will give you the property you live in eventually.

Government policy is solely based on what Boris thinks will make him popular. If it’s him you want to get rid of, I’d suggest you look to your Tory party to remove him otherwise your party will loose the next election and will probably find the voting system changed for 2029 meaning that 37% of the vote will only get them 37% of the seats in Parliament.

 

[The Clamp]

Tory’s claiming they are using the billions of units of useless PPE to CREATE ENERGY….by burning it.

Best bit of spin since Alan Partridge reframed his book pulping as “a fascinating day out”.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

How?

I'll ask you the same.

How long do YOU think thorough checks would have taken for the millions of claimants?

Over here, from memory, all freelance employees were entitled to 5k. A simple form and the cash was in your bank a few days later. The only check was whether you were a freelancer or not. They didn’t worry if you were working or not. Simple system without abuse.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I’m worried that the traditional Tory ideology of taking personal responsibility has all but been lost. This was always central to Thatcherism. ‘Taking responsibility’ now means saying ‘sorry’. You won’t even need to get a job now to buy a house (despite record employment levels) as Boris’ new ‘benefits for bricks’ will give you the property you live in eventually.

Government policy is solely based on what Boris thinks will make him popular. If it’s him you want to get rid of, I’d suggest you look to your Tory party to remove him otherwise your party will loose the next election and will probably find the voting system changed for 2029 meaning that 37% of the vote will only get them 37% of the seats in Parliament.

On selling the houses to tenants

[tweet]1534917117035827201[/tweet]

[tweet]1535006032195379228[/tweet]

 

[Audax]

How?

I'll ask you the same.

How long do YOU think thorough checks would have taken for the millions of claimants?

It's actually fairly simple:

1. It was absolutely fine when they launched furlough that they did so rapidly and with minimum checks, to get that money into the hands of the people who needed it urgently.

2. The system should then have been actively monitored for potential fraud taking place. Firstly, so they could immediately launch recovery action on any fraud spotted, and secondly so they could learn how to more rapidly detect and prevent fraud in the future.

3. Use what they learned from 2. above to refine the system in a way that reduced (eliminating would have been impossible, but reducing it should have been a goal) the risk of fraud succeeding while not unnecessarily delaying the processing of applications.

Unfortunately, the approach it appears they took was to completely ignore steps 2 and 3 until after the amount of fraud had gone into the billions, then throwing their hands up in the air and saying "the problem's too big, we won't bother trying to recover it", before finally being forced into at least announcing they would be trying to recover some of it (although I've not seen any updates since on whether or not they actually are trying).

It is completely unacceptable that they left the system vulnerable to organised crime fraud throughout. A fraction of the money that went out due to fraud could and should have been spent on preventing that fraud before it happened.

 

[Is it PotG?]

It's actually fairly simple:

1. It was absolutely fine when they launched furlough that they did so rapidly and with minimum checks, to get that money into the hands of the people who needed it urgently.

2. The system should then have been actively monitored for potential fraud taking place. Firstly, so they could immediately launch recovery action on any fraud spotted, and secondly so they could learn how to more rapidly detect that fraud in the future.

3. Use what they learned from 2. above to refine the system in a way that reduced (eliminating would have been impossible, but reducing it should have been a goal) the risk of fraud succeeding while not delaying the processing of applications.

Unfortunately, the approach it appears they took was to completely ignore steps 2 and 3 until after the amount of fraud had gone into the billions, then throwing their hands up in the air and saying "the problem's too big, we won't bother trying to recover it", before finally being forced into at least announcing they would be trying to recover some of it (although I've not seen any updates since on whether or not they actually are trying).

It is completely unacceptable that they left the system vulnerable to organised crime fraud throughout. A fraction of the money that went out due to fraud could and should have been spent on preventing that fraud before it happened.

Did you mention any time frames in there?

I seriously admire how simple it could have been done. Is this your field of expertise?

 

[studio150]

Tory’s claiming they are using the billions of units of useless PPE to CREATE ENERGY….by burning it.

Best bit of spin since Alan Partridge reframed his book pulping as “a fascinating day out”.

But you're missing the main opportunity of this approach. Having given billions to their mates in PPE contracts, the Tories can now provide more money making contracts to another set of mates to offload the unusable PPE, no doubt via VIP lanes as previously.

I fully expect that once theses contracts have been given out that we will be having bigger bonfires around the country on 5th November.

But the spin will be a green message of resusing

 

[The Clamp]

Plus one can’t “create”’energy. One can release it.

Burning tyres does the same thing but nobody claims it’s a positive.

 

[The Clamp]

Did you mention any time frames in there?

I seriously admire how simple it could have been done. Is this your field of expertise?

He’s just told you. Pay attention man instead of scrabbling to defend the indefensible. Again.

 

[beorhthelm]

They had to do something fast initially (fair enough), but they also should have applied more checks and balances and made people aware abuse would have severe penalties. Its benefit fraud, nothing else

I know tradespeople that took furlough and never stopped working

yep, i know businesses where running like that, and lots of grants went to expanding business, improving equipment and premises. point is its aftertiming to complain about this when everyone was calling for more assistance and assitance now, and there was broad political support. the only complaint were for more support, or to cover wider groups. those that did call out for some controls needed got shouted down at the time. this was the policy the country demanded.

 

[WATFORD zero]

It's actually fairly simple:

1. It was absolutely fine when they launched furlough that they did so rapidly and with minimum checks, to get that money into the hands of the people who needed it urgently.

2. The system should then have been actively monitored for potential fraud taking place. Firstly, so they could immediately launch recovery action on any fraud spotted, and secondly so they could learn how to more rapidly detect and prevent fraud in the future.

3. Use what they learned from 2. above to refine the system in a way that reduced (eliminating would have been impossible, but reducing it should have been a goal) the risk of fraud succeeding while not unnecessarily delaying the processing of applications.

Unfortunately, the approach it appears they took was to completely ignore steps 2 and 3 until after the amount of fraud had gone into the billions, then throwing their hands up in the air and saying "the problem's too big, we won't bother trying to recover it", before finally being forced into at least announcing they would be trying to recover some of it (although I've not seen any updates since on whether or not they actually are trying).

It is completely unacceptable that they left the system vulnerable to organised crime fraud throughout. A fraction of the money that went out due to fraud could and should have been spent on preventing that fraud before it happened.

You're not suggesting that this Government and PM ineptly stumbles from one crisis to the next, making announcements, introducing policies and laws in desperation and then simply stumbles into the next set of crises giving no thought whatsoever to how effective or what problems their changes may have