Should BRITISH Welfare State be actually abolished?

Yes, and poor people should be abolished as well--they are an eyesore, have no conversation and often have an unpleasant smell.

No it should not be abolished. As for making it for disabled people only? People might chop their arm off to get this money and there are people out there who will actually do such a thing.

What a ridiculous idea.

There is such a thing as white noise.That's black noise.

Badboy, I would assume that you are from the UK, so I would ask you to do some serious research on the living conditions of ordinary British folk at around the turn of the 20th Century (1890 - 1910 will do).

No National Health Service, no welfare to speak of, and grinding poverty for anyone who could not make a living for whatever reason.

If you were able to meet one of your ancestors from that time, and told him about our standard of living today and how everyone is fed and cared for, he would be amazed.
If anyone suggested to him that such a wondrous civilized thing should be removed, he would probably bat them round the head repeatedly, in an attempt to help them realise just what their Country has achieved.

There are always people that will abuse Welfare. There will always be loopholes in the Welfare set up, so that it can be abused.
But on the whole, it is a marvellous thing and provides a basic safety net that our forefathers would have never thought possible.

One should try being poor in America for a while, then decide if the British welfare state should be abolished. No health care and a minimum wage that's impossible to live on.

BB

And note that His Worship and myself are both double-dyed Tories.

The envy of the world.

We take great pride in our Welfare State, and we all donate pro-rata.

Members of the Saviour Sect(Muslims extremists who condone terrorism) believe that living off the state is a obligation,as well as not having drivers licences/insurance.

Being a parasite off the system they abhor.

This should be in politics.

TTF

It should be in the waste disposal.

Well it's staying here...

Please excuse my ignorance, but what sort of state is the British welfare system in, in 2005? Living as I do with an extreme right wing government in my own country, I would not be at all surprised if the original welfare ideal was not tampered with during those ruthless Thatcher years. I'll be delighted if I'm wrong. Here in Oz there's quite a bit of nibbling away at the edges of anything that suggests financial support for the riff raff.

Let it stay here Ray.

It won't make any difference.Only people who understand a welfare state are allowed anywhere near the business end of it.

I see there is approxiametly £3Billion a year wasted either through fraud or error.

And?

My guess would be that the military over there probably wastes more than that every year. Should you eliminate that?

The military is the largest pit of waste and fraud in the US. They can lose 3 billion in a couple of weeks.

.

How naive can you get?Do you count on your fingers?

I would like to correct what may have caused a false impression of my position.

I wrote

Unfortunately this post appeared on the top of a page and may have led some threaders to think I am in favour of binning our wonderful welfare state.

I was referring to the previous post and meant that this thread should be in the waste disposal on the grounds of its utter fatuity,general all round pointlessness and abject ignorance.

Thank you for bearing with me.

got you loud and clear spendiman

The national health service is just about the only civilised thing left in this coutry. Even if it does exist sometimes more as a theoretical idea than practise.

On the other hand I saw my doctor without delay recently (10 minutes walk). There is "national health direct" phone service where you can speak to a health care professional. The emergency 999 service still works. There is a "NHS walk in" or as I like call it "limp in" centre only a few minutes away where you can see a nurse or doctor without appointment. The main general hospital is about 1 mile from here. Its all free at the point of delivery. It really does amuse me when some Americans think that our NHS must be one step away from communist dictatorship. Speaking of which Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the United States.