Good post.

I am wondering what type of set up would enable a family to claim £500 non taxable. I know for a fact that "single" mothers in council properties with kid/s under 7 are laughing.

And no I'm not "cocoman", they really are. Vast majority of the time they have an unsolicited male there, usually working while they get their full rent paid, council tax and I think it's £50-70 per week per child on top of their £65 jobseekers.

A lot do not pay utility bills as bailiffs are far harder to call in if there is a child involved, and for the above reason cutting off supplies is also a no goer.

How do I know this? I live above one.

Assuming the guy who unoffically lives there brings home £250-300 per week, that is well over £300 per week jangling around disposable income if you count the "single" mothers dole. Not bad work if you can get it, a lot do hence the prevalence of pushchairs in Aberdare.

My point is, it's not just people claiming lots of benefits that are the problem it's people playing and abusing the system who need to have the rug pulled from underneath them. I am marginally better off working a typical 40hr minimum wage job than if I am on jobseekers.

Also, I agree with the comment on low wages long hours.

£200 a week each on Incapacity Benefit? As usual Cocoprat your talking out of your arse.

because the assembly governement is soft in the head

The 'blue badge' scheme includes those who are in poverty as many are held by the disabled elderly who do not drive but use their badge for transport in relatives or friends cars. For example blind people can apply for blue badges. There are of course some quite wealthy holders of blue badges. The issue is that to distinguish between the two would involve an expensive means testing administration, a complete waste of money. It was therefore made 'free'. The costs of the scheme will not be at any expense to the taxpayer and will be funded from the abolition of the statutory requirement for Highways Agency Wales to advertise road works in local press. Obviously, major road works are now advertised online, on the roads effected by signs which informs regular users of that section of road. I think it's an eminently sensible idea to find blue badges instead of adverts in the Cynon Valley Leader, although newspapers are not happy about it. Cocoman is an idiot.

I as a disabled person,none smoker, none drinker would like to know where are these people getting their figures from as I don't get anywhere near £200 a week, but I bloody wish I did, and I don't apologise for receiving my nearer £100 per week, I worked from the age of 15 until my 50's only taking time out to have my 2 children,I scrubbed and did what ever work I could and wish I could work today. So please would u tell me where u got your figures from so I can go and claim the same as these other disabled people oh and by the way yes I have a blue badge and had to pay £2 admin charges

no offence taken it just makes my blood boil that these lazy gits get away with everything and people who really need anything don't get it, and the gov always,always targets the real disable and leave the lazy git as they know the trouble they will cause to keep hold of their illegally got benefits x

Not having a go at anyone, where I live in aberdare you see the kids havin a hearty breakfast of wotsits and pop, then throwing packets on side of road as fat mam and drunk dad do the same. They have a pet dog that shits in the pavement and they stay up watching SKY TV on Their large plasma screen tv whilst the kids eat chinky or frozen pizza again.

Fruit and veg and a bit of reading will get people off their fat arses and make some of them take the minimum wage but offer some support to wean them off benefits.
I have a neighbour who has never done a days work in 12 years and now her and his kids are doingt he same thing. SOD ALL and getting paid for it.

If a person is genuine, I have no problems but the job markets does go further than abercynon or hirwaun ind estate

cocoman when your facts and figures are challenged you resort to nonsencial rants.

russel; i prefer to focus my attention on the plight of those sick and disabled people being denied benefits, i would rather rant about the wrongs done to these people rather rather than rant the wrongs being done by those fiddling the system.

to me it seems more worth while trying to help those who need help rather than belate those who do not, waste of time and energy.

visit the macmillan, stoke society, parkinson society, ms society, mind web site and read the condemnation of the governments welfare reform in realation to those sick and disabled i am sure you will be disamayed at what i happening to these people in the name of welfare reform.

and understand why i get peved when people on benefits are berated by the gutter press and others, i understand you are talking about certain elements in society but please do a little research and find out the truth and we can rant in harmony.

My cousin was diagnosed with MS 5 years ago at the age of 26 since this diagnosis she has had a number of relapses which means that she has no use of her legs for a good few weeks. She cant get any help from the government and is told to survive on her partners minimum wage job and she has 2 children to feed and clothe out of that wage. Social have told her that she has to get a job as her illness doesnt warrant some benefits. Every time she has applied for a job she has been turned down because of her sickness record and the amount of time she has had to spend in hospital. She eventually got a job but this time didnt tell her new employers the full extent of her illness but within weeks she was back in hospital with 5 weeks off work. When is this government going to realise that something like MS is a terminal illness, from being a carer I know that it shortens your life by hell of a lot of years and before long she wont be able to use her arms to give her children cwtches, she might never see grandchildren and by giving her the stress of money worries is not helping the MS one bit. Yet free methadone and needles are handed out to people all day every day, paid for by us...... I would rather see my taxes going to someone with an illness rather than an addiction.

can someone please tell me how to claim £500 benefit, and as for children bringing home £450 pw. what land does coco live in NOT WALES THATS FOR SURE, If you want to shout coco shout at this and previous governments for destroying industry in Wales and the UK in general. Stop the green brigade for demonstration against any industry planned for the valleys, stop demonstrating every time housing estates are planned on useless land that could create jobs even in the short term its employment. Fine the employers that shirk pension funds and leave FSA to pay and don't forget when you have employers that remain claiming !!!! Also heavily fine the EMPLOYER as more often than not its the only employment they offer as they don't even have to pay the minimum wage and get away lightly as there is always another to take the place and the EMPLOYER LAUGHS ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK.

Today Cameron announced that bills will be harder to pay in 2012 "but this will put the country back on its feet" "There are fears about jobs and paying the bills. The search for work has become difficult, particularly for young people. And rising prices have hit household budgets"

How can people struggling to pay mortgages, facing redundancy, having homes taken away from them make this a better country or put it back on its feet. Yes we have the people that don't want employment but there are many more out there would work given the choice.

nice one budugs, I missed your reply first read, after reading though, how true it is, thankfully someone understand, I know of similar stories

I have had MS for 6 years now, I motivate myself everyday to get out of bed and earn a crust because that is the way I was brought up, if you want something you earn it. As for claiming benefits ...no... I can't because at the moment i can walk more than 400 yards unaided ----- WTF like ! ! !

The system is mad, if someone has MS they deserve some support, a mate of mines wife had MS and it damn nearly killed him as well. He had a full time job and had to care for his poor wife as well. Old merchant navy man and it made him bitter at the system and I dont blame him.

MS is a cruel disease and needs support

Ha, Thatcher and Cameron. It conjures up images of a two-headed ogre. Shove on Coco's head, that'll make a three-headed version.

I'm reading some remarks, some said in fun others with a hint of truth. We can join in and laugh argue or agree. My heart breaks when I see feeble jokes about workhouses though. Ok I was born Welsh to a family who's father worked every shift God sent, yet still we struggled. But I am proud to say that I was taught never to look down on others less fortunate. Always share whatever little we had. Yes my Dad often disagreed with the few that didn't want work, but felt great pity for those unfortunate enough to be unable to work, and never, never condemned them.

My grandfather and I'm sure yours too fought to get rid of the atrocities of the workhouses that separated families from children, starved them and worked them to death, many deaths went unrecorded for the greedy people that ran them to keep the subsidy for themselves.

Iron and coal were the main industries where families/ children worked for a pittance, died young to keep the already wealthy in more wealth. Indeed Crawshay himself requested his gravestone to bear the epitaph "GOD FORGIVE ME"

It would do it good to remember that when the bread winner of a home today refuses to work, others at home suffer (mainly the children) Others that can do nothing about it. Those who suffer domestic violence wont have the chance to walk away with their children if homes are denied them.

I think this conversation is a little misguided if you dont mind me saying so. Everyone will know someone who has benefited from the benefits scheme, all of us know a lazy sod etc etc....but shouldnt you be thinkking of those REAL cheats to the system, The REAL threat to working people's lives, and that would be the big boys who earn the billions and millions on top as bonuses.
As long as the working class can have an enemy in the non working class then they will keep on getting away with it. Thats what the anti capitalist demonstrations were about. If Cocoman is genuinely incensed at injustice, lets here his proposals for the overthrowing of that system.

Wocoman...Are you a banker?

What I cannot get into my head is this figure of £26,000 a year in benefits paid to certain families. Where does that come from? Most people I know of in RCT don't earn anywhere near that sum, even if they are working.

Now if it's true that Cameron's gang of brigands wants to cap that figure, then who is actually receiving it? I'll bet nobody in RCT is enjoying the luxury of such a sum.

What I do know though is that I retired just before Christmas, and am now on a pension of about £600 a month. I must confess that I feel lucky, because I've no mortgage anymore, and no debt of loans or credit cards. However, it's taken me over 40 years to get into that position.

What is galling to me is that come October I'll be eligible for state pension as well, and then I'll be liable for tax on my pensions and my meagre investments. So what it means is that I'm going to be subsidising the lifestyles of people like Sir Phillip Green, the billionaire owner of TopShop and other retail outlets.

This is a man who pays himself hundreds of millions in bonuses, but pays no tax whatsoever upon any of it. Now there's an example of the real parasites and social scroungers who should be the target of Cocoman's vitriol.

These are the guys who milk the system for all it's worth and then try to blame our economic ills on the people on benefits like single mothers or the disabled. What they get paid is a pittance compared to the top honcho parasites who are going to take tax from me to subsidise their profligate lifestyles. And knowing the tax office, they'll pursue me to the bitter end for every damn penny, because I'm a little man, with no power to fight back.

This is the true nature of the corrupt system we live under, where the weak and vulnerable are singled out and made scapegoats of the true scroungers and thieves who run the system for their own benefits.

So, perhaps Cocoman would be so good as to explain to us all how it is that people on benefits are a drain on our economy, but the tax dodgers and the top dog bankers with their massive bonuses, that they get even if the bank collapses due to their bungling, are not singled out by him and the rest of the clowns who can't see further than their own noses.

Y ddraenen How I wish we could vote thumbs up or down for comments on this site because Y ddraenen would get 100% thumbs up for his reply. Exceptional

I think most people would agree that something needs to be done about "fraudulent" claims....Oh yeah, and cockoman, that means the wealthy commiting tax fraud also as it amounts to the same thing mate. However, I was listening to the radio in the car on the way home from work one day this week, and a listener called in who was on disability benefit, and admitted he was not that far away from the £26,000 being mentioned. Now, read on before passing jugment on this........he is in his 40s, and has diabetes. Unfortunately for him, he has had to have both legs amputated due to the diabetes, and has also suffered a heart attack. You cannot pretend to have no legs, and although you can pretend to have a heart attack, ECG readings will pick it up. He has to pay for care which obviously comes out of his benefits, and this care is not cheap. He obviously cannot work, and even if he could, I doubt any employer out there would want to take him on due to frequent hospital visits, care required and any risks involved. So, yes, filter out the shirkers by all means, BUT don't be so judgemental and arrogant to think that there is nobody out there that requires this help, because it might just come and bite you in the arse one day. Nobody is immune from the sort of things that can hit you in life.

Or as they would say RESULT, kerching in the back of the net

Once again, Cocoprat is talking out of his arse. If both claimed IB at £95 per week that would put the household well over the threshold for Council tax relief. The only way they could possibly get CT relief is that the house has been adapted for a disabled person who lives there. Which means in essence that there are severly disabled people living in that house and social services are involved.

Perhaps, instead of getting into a 'debate' with this clown the next time he starts a new thread we should all put 'I fully agree with you'. Perhaps then he will disappear and people can get on with serious discussion.

And what facts might they be then, Cocoman? That the collapse of the world's economy has been brought about by single mothers, the disabled, benefits claimants (false or otherwise), the unemployed, the sick, the lame, and the wounded?

My, my, I never knew that all those people had so much influence over American sub-prime mortgages, bent bankers and financiers, and similarly bent MPs, AMs and local councillors. Not even mentioning the overpaid corporate and public service bosses, the tax dodgers and the rip off merchants in the pension funds.

What an illusion I've been under, when all the time the truth was staring me in the face and I didn't see it. So next time I see a person in a wheelchair, or a young mother pushing a buggy along the street, I'll be quite justified in abusing them for causing my pension to be whittled away and my taxes having to increase to pay for their profligate ways.

It's surprising what you learn by logging on to Aberdare On Line isn't it?

Cocoman, and others of the same persuasion, are right in their assessment, and in the remdies they propose. The problem is that they're ahead of their times.

We'll get around to sorting out the lead swingers on benefits and invalidity payments, or the unemployed and the single mothers, after we've sorted out the bent bankers, the tax dodgers and the corporate bosses with their unearned, parasitical bonuses.

These people are costing us far more than the vulnerable people that cocoman seems to blame for all our ills. Our taxes are high, and our pensions are low, or don't exist at all, because the majority of us are subsidising the super-rich.

Now it could be argued that these people deserve their wealth because they're so damn good at their jobs, and to a point I'd agree. Unfortunately, they get paid their obscene bonuses and salaries even when they screw things up, even when they cost the country billions in lost revenues through their incompetence. Not only that, but in some cases the worst culprits are given knighthoods for their efforts.

Then we should look at the criminal waste that successive governments have been guilty of due to non-accountability. How many heads roll when some scandal of waste is publicised by the media, when zillions of taxpayers' money is lost through some ministry totally fouling up, or being conned by the corporates, or even colluding because there's a nice little job ready for the ministers when they leave office? Lubbly, jubbly!

It's easy for the these companies to rip off the government because they know how incompetent the ministries who hold the purse strings are. You just gotta know the ropes, that's all there is to it, and you also know there's no comeback, so every day is jackpot day.

Now, when Cocoman and the rest of the Daily Express fraternity can tell us how to deal with the scandals of corporate theft and tax dodging, MPs' and councillors' grossly over-inflated payouts, and all the other scandals that infest our country and create so much needless poverty and suffering, I'll go along with their proposals to build more workhouses to accomodate the workshy and the lead swingers.

So, first things first, eh cocoman, and then I'm with you all the way.

Just out of interest cocoman, would you be prepared to give the chap I mentioned in a previous post, who has diabetes, and has both legs amputated a job? He could do admin work for you.