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Rincewind

Benefits Street Two

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Started filming in Stocton-on-Tees. Many of the locals are against it as are the councilors and MP's Tory and Labour

 

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/26/benefits-street-series-two-channel-4-stockton-on-tees

 

There is also news on it on the Channel Four site. It is due to be aired next year. I wonder if they are planning to show it just before the election or whether they can even do that as it may be portrayed as bias by either party depending on the content of the show but many there are saying it will put the town in a bad light.

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I thought that the first series was quite good, but not sure that a second one will work well. As ADK says, people may play up to stereotypes as this time they'll know what the series is all about (not the case first time round).

 

Does everything have to be repeated, degenerating into docu-soaps and celebrities?

 

Might still be entertaining and/or informative in parts. I remember watching the first series of "Who do you think you are?" as I'm interested in researching family history. It used celebrities but was designed to show the viewer how they could research their own family history. Subsequent series have abandoned that and just concentrate on interesting discoveries about the featured celebrity. I still watch and enjoy it, but it has definitely dumbed down. I'd expect something similar from a second Benefits Street, but maybe they'll surprise us.

 

It would be good if they featured claimants' dealings with Job Centres, which seem to be completely dysfunctional, just doling out benefits and then lashing out sanctioning people, when what they should be doing is guiding / cajoling / compelling (where necessary) people into finding work where they're capable. Job centres have always been pretty poor at providing guidance, but seem to have got worse in the last 30 years. I spent some months signed on back then when I was 20. I genuinely wanted to work, was flexible about what I did and had some educational qualifications, but was pretty clueless about how to seek and obtain work....and got very little guidance. My nephew is in a similar position now (minus the qualifications and with a few attitude problems) but all they seem to do is dole out benefits for a period, then find a reason/excuse to sanction him - and provide no guidance.

 

An alternative second series could have taken them to "Tax Avoidance Street"! They could have featured an upmmarket accountant's office specialising in tax avoidance and could have talked to the accountants and to all the clients who came in to dodge paying their fair share to the Treasury...that would have been an eye-opener! Of course, the clients/accountants would mostly have been too smart to talk openly about what they did, but they could have used undercover filming and then glammed it up a bit, Benefits Street style, to reach a large audience....

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Would be great if they shone a big bright light on the benefits themselves, exposing just how many hand outs the people are given and why, showing them diligently fulfilling their obligations with regards to seeking work.

 

Many benefits don't come with any obligation to work, they just require you to be very old, sick, disabled or incapable, or to be providing care to children or to those who need care. Society is good like that, sometimes.

 

You're obsessed with work, mate! What do you do for a bit of fun? I can imagine you whipping your poor old Granny down the street to the Job Centre: [To the sound of accompanying whipcracks]: "Go on, Granny Moose!", "Never mind yer walking stick!" "Get down the Job Centre and get a job!" "The shareholders need some more dividends, you lazy old bat!"

 

A lot of other benefits (child benefit, housing benefit, tax credits, income support) are paid to people who are already in work, so they just need to diligently fulfil their obligations at work and/or looking after children, same as they always do.

 

Would make for an interesting and educational programme, though, I agree. 

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I've been out of the country for seven years so I've missed this whole insane, lynch-the-poor period that the UK has been going through. But going back to the motherland - especially the last 18 months - it seems like there's been quite a shift in public opinion. Certainly one of the biggest changes in my lifetime.

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Many benefits don't come with any obligation to work, they just require you to be very old, sick, disabled or incapable, or to be providing care to children or to those who need care. Society is good like that, sometimes.

You're obsessed with work, mate! What do you do for a bit of fun? I can imagine you whipping your poor old Granny down the street to the Job Centre: [To the sound of accompanying whipcracks]: "Go on, Granny Moose!", "Never mind yer walking stick!" "Get down the Job Centre and get a job!" "The shareholders need some more dividends, you lazy old bat!"

A lot of other benefits (child benefit, housing benefit, tax credits, income support) are paid to people who are already in work, so they just need to diligently fulfil their obligations at work and/or looking after children, same as they always do.

Would make for an interesting and educational programme, though, I agree.

I know, was just using that as an example. Would love to see a cool graphic analysing the benefits claimed by individual participants.

So it would say Mr Philpott, Housing Benefit on his three bed semi £700 monthly equivalent, Jsa for him, his wife and oldest son £820 monthly, child support allowance for his three young kids £600, disability support because he has a bad knee £900 monthly, disability support for his wife because she has depression £900 monthly, disability support for his oldest son because he has a headache £900 monthly. Total household income £5,720, hours worked: zero.

Then the show would really zoom in on those claims to see what they have to go through to get them, what their arguments are to say they deserve them, and then let the viewer decide whether or not they are justified.

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Great another chance to vent our fury and rage at a few poor individuals rather than addressing why they are legally entitled to live like this, why it is so easy to fall through the cracks in a developed country such as ours and so difficult for some to escape the benefits trap.

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I've been out of the country for seven years so I've missed this whole insane, lynch-the-poor period that the UK has been going through. But going back to the motherland - especially the last 18 months - it seems like there's been quite a shift in public opinion. Certainly one of the biggest changes in my lifetime.

The mainstream media has played its part in influencing public opinion.

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Great another chance to vent our fury and rage at a few poor individuals rather than addressing why they are legally entitled to live like this, why it is so easy to fall through the cracks in a developed country such as ours and so difficult for some to escape the benefits trap.

If only more people thought like you Captain.

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Bit melodramatic to pretend it's somehow lynching the poor. It's people stating their disagreement with people who choose to live on welfare. For all the ridiculous hyperbole nobody has a problem with people in short term difficulties or the genuinely sick.

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Bit melodramatic to pretend it's somehow lynching the poor. It's people stating their disagreement with people who choose to live on welfare. For all the ridiculous hyperbole nobody has a problem with people in short term difficulties or the genuinely sick.

 

Yet it's exactly those people who are hit the hardest by benefits stigma and sanctions.

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Because people who play the system aren't going to feel shame and they quickly suss out how to avoid sanctions.

That's a fair point but that doesn't mean everybody hates genuine claimants.

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