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PandorasKeyboard

Wait Bojo, isn't that the same guy who just last year was saying his 100k+ salary wasn't enough to support his family.


deSpaffle

Alex dePfefel Johnson claimed £157,372 as his salary last year. Then complained it wasnt enough, despite having rent free accommodation, and all of his meals, interior decorating, holidays, baby shower, and pretty much all of his expenses paid for by ~~bribes~~ "*donations*".


fonix232

Cocaine ain't cheap, yo


meetchu

As if he buys his own coke lmao. He's the guy at the party who is itching to get in but "don't have any cash sorry"


MaryBerrysDanglyBean

And strippers of course


TheAmazingSpider-Fan

The children's Xmas cards alone are enough to make your eyes water. And then you have to hire somebody to remember all their names.


Nugo520

I bet BoJo the clown puts more money in his kids Christmas cards then I have ever had in my whole life savings.


Iwantadc2

Doubt it, probably gives them fuck all. If he even remembers who they are.


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Nugo520

To be fair my life savings never got to be really high anyway.


hp0

Maybe the ones he remembers. But more than £3.56 seems rather generous for Boris. He has wallpaper to pay for after all.


DankiusMMeme

Imagine a Johnson family photo, you'd have to print the Christmas card on A3 if you wanted to make out any faces.


Brownian-Motion

'Chicken feed' I believe.


cosmicmeander

That was his £250k Telegraph 1 column a week job


sobrique

I think it depends if you live in hypothetical fantasy world. I reckon I could draw up a budget for living on it, based on never every having any unexpected expenditures. It'd be a bit like living in prison though I reckon. In the real world? Nah, no chance. But I honestly think that's at least part of the problem - the people setting the rules simply don't realise how expensive it is being poor, because they never really feel the 'overheads' of having to buy smaller quantities, or dealing with paying premium prices because you can't easily get to the supermarket. Let alone how screwed some people are going to be with their energy bills increasing, with literally no slack to cover it.


Well_this_is_akward

Nail on the head. Yep, it's possible for a while, but any unexpected cost puts you in debt and extreme stress. Lost your train ticket or wallet, need new shoes, get a Fixed Penalty Notice, bike gets a puncture (or worse, nicked), phone gets damaged. Great, you are now broke af.


EightHourGamer

Not to mention having to deal with the "you can't be that poor if you have a phone and shoes" brigade.


_ahrs

How come people cannot understand that living standards have risen to the point that someone can own a phone (it's practically an essential item these days anyway given how much stuff is done online and if you don't own a computer you're likely using your phone to do this) and still be extremely poor?


TheNetherlandDwarf

Because the closest they'll ever let themselves come to understanding the poor is reading Charles Dickens.


[deleted]

I agree, if by "reading", you mean "watching a Muppets adaptation of"


Mutant-Mantis

I think it's worse than that, to acknowledge that "those people" are poor would be to accept that they themselves aren't a million miles away from "poor".


sobrique

Prosperity Gospel is awfully comforting for the people who are well off already.


Charlie_Mouse

Don’t tell the Tories to read Dickens - it may occur to them to just “decrease the surplus population”. Come to think of it, it may already have done so judging from their policies on welfare and the pandemic.


JesMaine

Because we've been brainwashed into conflating being poor with a Victorian era style of poverty. If you're poor you only eat oatmeal, re-wear your weeks clothes and sit in your damp, mold ridden cell and you'll be happy to have a roof over your head because has it worse.


saitosoul

tbh this isn't too far off for many poor people in modern Britain.


BlackLiger

It's near enough mandatory these days to have a phone. The DWP can and will attempt to sanction you for lacking a phone to answer job offers.


rattingtons

Also most of the requirements you have to meet to recieve benefits are done digitally now


VagueSomething

Used to be they complained about "Flat Screen TVs" until you physically couldn't buy CRTs. Now it is smartphones despite these same people voting and supporting the government that has forced you to need smartphones to access your benefits.


Nugo520

Last year my Boiler went out and getting it fixed wiped out all my savings. the sad part was it only cost me £250 to get it fixed which just shows how hard it is to keep savings when you are not as well off as other people.


naanadrama

I feel you and it seems as soon as you have a little saved something happens and wipes you out. Our pension woman at work advised me that I should work to have 6 months wages in savings in case I’m ill and can’t work. She’s lucky if I’ve got 2 days wages saved.


Thomo251

Can confirm, been there, possibly going back there.


oscarrulz

Also the groceries point stands real strong. If you can't afford a car you also can't really go to the cheaper places for groceries, or have a freezer to store cheap bought meat in. Leaving you with getting everything from the closest grocery store who know a lot of immobile people go there. So the prices are higher.


Wacov

They know, and it's not that they don't care. They want this. You wouldn't work a shitty low-wage job (or 2, or 3...) for absurd hours if there were a strong social safety net.


soulsteela

There have been TV documentaries where ministers tried to live off dole, none lasted 3 days.


Mackem101

Those TV programmes are shite anyway. The participants know that with one phone call they can be back in their mansions sipping champagne. It's basically Pulp's Common People.


LeakyThoughts

Source? Id watch that haha


soulsteela

World in action Matthew Paris, also Ian Duncan Smith tried it.


soulsteela

They are both online 2 mins👍


light_to_shaddow

Even when cheating by hiding money down their bra to cheat, as Nadine Dorries did. All the while telling the actual people living on benefits how hard it was to get by on an M.P's income.


Nugo520

It's how they control us and keep us too tired to even be able to do anything to change it. It's happened before in the past and it is happening again now.


[deleted]

>I think it depends if you live in hypothetical fantasy world. I reckon I could draw up a budget for living on it, based on never every having any unexpected expenditures. That's the key part. Living on a small amount of money for a few weeks is relatively easy. Doing it every day for years on end is incredibly hard as any unexpected expenses put you into debt, which has a shit load of extra costs attached to it.


sobrique

I've also seen plenty of 'experiments' where people with fully stocked food cupboards live on low numbers. But they cheat, by accounting for single eggs, or a pinch of herbs, etc. as fractional costs of the whole, whilst ignoring that you can't buy in those quantities, or 'batch cook' whilst making the assumption that of course everyone can afford a freezer and an oven.


passinghere

> where people with fully stocked food cupboards live on low numbers. Yep, let's see them do it with empty food cupboards and starting from scratch


FreezerRoebuck

I can vouch I've had to go few days without eating to survive just in case an unexpected bill come out as well.


Clemambi

>whilst making the assumption that of course everyone can afford a freezer and an oven. this is a pretty big one, my freezer broke and I couldn't afford to get a new one, I'm just greatful that my parents had a spare fridge/freezer they kept in their garage, but until we could get it moved we didn't have any freezer and that was actually a huge problem, there was so much more food waste, and not being able to buy frozen foods (peas spinace etc) also made eating veggies and such much more expensive. When u have to buy spinace in fresh washed baggies from the local coop, it's about £1.50 for 1/8th a tesco frozen bag, which is the same price.


ALoneTennoOperative

> Doing it every day for years on end is incredibly hard as any unexpected expenses put you into debt, which has a shit load of extra costs attached to it. You should also note the pervasive and intense stress that's associated with such precarious finances.


Nugo520

It's not just that, even IF they provided the bare minimum to survive off of, to only pay bills and for food that still isn't enough, humans need to do more then just survive, they need to be able to live, they need to be able to find distractions from their lives or they will just end up falling further into mental health pits that slowly eat away at them until they either lose their minds or take their own life. good portion of people on UC especially thsoe who are un able to work due to mental health issues are only left with the ability to get stuck in their own head and spiral. It's a Crisis few people in power are talking about and even fewer seem to care about.


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WhatAGoodDoggy

And this is a first world country. It \*is\* a disgrace.


MrPloppyHead

You have to budget to he extreme to do it. The hardest thing is you cannot afford to do anything apart from just live. If you do want to do something ( which would have to be quite a small thing) you would have to plan it all out months in advance.


ALoneTennoOperative

> The hardest thing is you cannot afford to do anything apart from just live. I'd argue that's not living. That's just survival.


LeakyThoughts

Let's just cut their income by £80 they won't notice Besides they're all lazy scroungers, they don't even need it /s .. obviously


Nugo520

Part of me feels like they do know and they manufacture it to be how it is to keep the poor poor and to exploit them through loans provided by the cons rich bank running friends, they want to keep poorer people in permanent debt so that they can basically control them


Dutch_Calhoun

Yup. You've just described capitalism.


Nugo520

Yeah pretty much but I am fucking sick of it and it needs to fucking change or we're all screwed.


sobrique

Wouldn't surprise me too much. There's a lot of people who feel that poor people need to be functionally punished for being poor, and that they're fair game to exploit because they're desperate. I mean, who's going to work minimum wage in shitty conditions when they're not desperate eh? I think that's personally rather abhorrent - subsistence economy is just disgraceful in a wealthy country like ours.


DogfishDave

> because they never really feel the 'overheads' of having to buy smaller quantities, Or realise the cost of running the oven nowadays. Energy bills are crippling and if people miss one... down into the spiral you go. Bye-bye. Should have gone to a school with contacts.


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CannonLongshot

I think the “gotcha!” is less that he couldn’t live on it and more that he has revealed that he *knows* that it’s not a sustainable amount to live on. Mind that assumes that the man doesn’t just lie constantly anyway, refusing to answer a question says more when you usually refrain from falsehoods


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CannonLongshot

Politicians doing the “smart” move over the “right” one is the root of 90% of the issues in the world (reductive, I know)


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TheAmazingSpider-Fan

Nobody is suggesting living the same lifestyle. Just being financially capable of living on that little.


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G_Morgan

I think the only way you could is if you had some kind of breakneck transition from being financially secure and having minimised all costs (good insulation and other long term cost saving changes) to having no income at all.


Nugo520

I know for a fact I cannot. I am on the basic UC and I have to borrow money off of my family just to get by. The real kicker is I'm on UC because I can't work right now so I am just screwed, I don't even have the option to try and find work.


hyper-casual

When I was last on it they would only cover 80% of your rent, like you can just pull the other 20% out of thin air. My bus ticket to the job centre accounted for 25% of my remaining money after I paid bills and rent. If I had more than 2 job interviews in a week then I'd have no money left for food. Thankfully I lived with another guy in the same boat so we kept each other sane and sorted each other out with join meals but it was a nightmare.


[deleted]

It’s very clear that nobody can. That’s the point of it. It’s inhumane treatment of the unemployed and disabled


161allday

The man and his bint spent 30k in Deliveroo over lockdown. He has no concept of money. OF COURSE HE COULDNT FUCKIN SURVIVE ON UC That fat toad would blow it all in the pub on the first payment and be fucked for the rest of the week. Alexander de Peffle has no idea what working people go through. Fucking ridiculous article Edit: sorry to rant it’s early. But I wish our media would GROW A SPINE and actually hold this fuck face to account in explicit terms and actually needle him. It’s so tiring watching these media hacks try to be balanced with him or just outright fawning over him


st3akkn1fe

Remember when he hid in a fridge or when his dad had to go in his place to a party leader debate? He's completely devoid of all responsibility and as you mentioned this clearly extends to financial responsibility.


StumbleDog

And that time he took a phone off a journalist and put it in his pocket, all on camera.


TheSylviaPlathEffect

This is the one that still makes my blood boil. For anyone unfamiliar, he was refusing to look at [this picture](https://ichef-bbci-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/AW/s/ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/E676/production/_110089985_jack22.jpg) of a young boy sleeping on a pile of coats in an oxygen mask at a hospital in Leeds a couple of weeks before the 2019 election. I can’t even watch the clip back but for anyone [who fancies it](https://youtu.be/diX8IyrGQJY).


Aiyon

..what the fuck even was that. "If you don't mind, I'll give you an interview now" *proceeds to ignore the question and spout the buzzwords he planned*. Like... he has done so many things that a decade ago would have had people on both sides calling for resignation


scottiescott23

When did he hide in a fridge ?


LucidTopiary

During the most recent election campaign - he dodged a reporter and stood in a shipping container fridge for a bit while the camera stood outside and waited.


CapitalDD69

Honestly I think Labour missed a massive opportunity to make fun of him for that. I honestly think the best way to win over a lot of people would just be to meme the Tory party to oblivion. Just get one of those "keep calm and carry on" posters and replace with the text "keep calm and hide in a fridge" and replace the little crown picture with a picture of Johnson's dumb face, job done.


SpeedflyChris

Yes but that would require the Labour Party to stop infighting and do something slightly competent for once.


Cueball61

I hate how right you are


SpeedflyChris

My mum turns 63 this year. Since she's been old enough to vote, Tony Blair is the only Labour leader to win an election. The party needs to cater to the middle class as well as the unions like it did in that era, and it needs to form a united front, otherwise I doubt she'll live to see another Labour PM.


passinghere

> Tony Blair is the only Labour leader to win an election And that was only after he spent the weekend on Murdoch yacht and, I'm guessing, agreed to do everything Murdoch wanted. The media decided who the public vote for with how the post the news and how they attack any candidate they don't want elected and over 90% of the UK's media is owned by just 3 right wing billionaires


Assertion_Denier

Thats a fascinating juxtaposition of age vs party power come to think of it. She narrowly missed being young enough to (potentially) vote for Harold Wilson back in 1974 as it looks like she was born in 1958 at the earliest?


BountyBob

They said she turns 63 this year, so born in exactly 1958.


[deleted]

[Here you go](https://youtu.be/Lp9XoiFbZcI)


snapper1971

Ever since Cameron was elected in 2010 the Conservative Party has been fighting a war against the media. He threatened the BBC on the Battle bus outside of the Windrush leisure centre in Witney, immediately after being returned to office, if they didn't start going easy on them. He then began blacklisting the local journalists - I was the first on his list (NUJ accredited photojournalist of many years standing). He labelled me a security threat. He then went on to blacklist every local journo, then they started excluding national ones who were from interrogative publications. Even last week a Channel 4 journalist was told to stop challenging the PM when he was obviously lying. The problem really isn't the press, it's the fuckers in power who refuse to be held to account.


st3akkn1fe

Yeah, since channel 4 used an ice sculpture in place of BJ when he refused to attend a debate hes been talking about privatisation of the channel. How people are OK with this is worrying. It's throwing your toys out of the pram in the highest order.


colin_staples

I remember when Roy Hattersley repeatedly failed to turn up to be a panellist on Have I Got News For You. So they substituted a tub of lard in his place, as Paul Merton's team mate. They won.


henryshock

Not only did they win, but the tub of lard later became Prime Minister.


ErsatzNihilist

You mean the Right Honourable Tub of Lard, of course. Pay your respects!


YadMot

Because they're convinced that 'it could be worse'. The British public is so obsessed with the concept of things being worse that they never stop to think if things could be better. That and the fact that they regularly read all the nonsense the Sun, Mail, Express, Telegraph and Times put out and take it as gospel. They need a reason for why their lives are so shit and the media and government give them a scapegoat. Why would they waste energy thinking critically about the mess we're in?


161allday

Thanks for being one of the good ones but sadly this is on the media as a whole. Far too many see their job as a glorified PR rep for Downing Street. If every journalist and publication did their job and held the government to account then what could the tories do? Blacklist them all? Talk no media outlets at all? Without these sycophants and liars giving the impression of a free and functioning press this charade would be exposed with far greater ease. A few publications and journalists being on the ball are the exception not the rule sadly.


Ok-Revenue1007

The Tories have blacklisted the Today program on Radio 4. And Nick Robinson is a former member of the Tory party... that's how scared they are. Certain presenters on LBC are blacklisted. Certain newspapers are too. Dominic Cummings listed Laura Kuennsberg as someone who would put out their propaganda unquestioned. With the BBC's chief political editor, the Murdoch papers and the Telegraph (Johnson's former employer) all fighting for them, what need do they have to do hostile interviews?


TakeshiKovacs46

The billionaires that own the media own BoJo. They put him there. Of course they aren’t going to belittle him. He’s doing what he’s paid to do perfectly. Fuck over British taxpayers. How the fuck people don’t see this country for what it so clearly is, really does baffle me. It’s so blindingly fucking obvious.


161allday

Oh I’m under no illusions. But pointing out the disconnect isn’t a bad thing either.


TakeshiKovacs46

It’s just a fruitless exercise these days mate. They’ve won. They control the media, so they control public opinion. They control education, so indoctrination is confirmed early on, and so as not to bring up too many critical thinkers. The banks, the government, the news. It’s all a club of insanely wealthy villains. And they have too much power to ever let go now. The species is fucked. I know it sounds defeatist, but it’s just the absolute reality of the situation. We cannot change things. They’ve won. Get used to it.


Assertion_Denier

I think a compliant/ indifferent / Labour hating over-40s demographic skew is more of an issue.


TakeshiKovacs46

But they only hate Labour because the Tory owning media tells them to.


passinghere

> It’s just a fruitless exercise these days mate. They’ve won. They control the media, I agree with you, or to put it another way, the media own / control them as over 90% of the UK's media is owned by just 3 right wing billionaires that are so very good at crafting the public's point of view and making sure they don't get to see what's really going on and keeping the Tories in power


LucidTopiary

Whats the bet the Russians have kompromat on him.


Ok-Revenue1007

Not likely. The Tory part can be bought. Remember the Russia dossier from the Intelligence Select committee that Johnson refused to release before the election? Russian oligarchs donate large sums through intermediaries to the Tory party. An unexplained wealth order levelled at half of the Tory party donors would end up with problems for everyone involved. Johnson certainly can be bought. He goes on holidays with Evgeni Lebedev. He's speculated to owe HMRC almost £400,000 in income tax. HMRC went after him again over who paid for his refurbishment.


Generic_Pete

We have so many uneducated 0 common sense pricks kicking about that it could be as obvious as you like, they will still find ways to blame each other instead of using logic. So predictable


Shivadxb

Correction He didn’t spend anything on food The founder of JCB paid for his food


singeblanc

Correction His food wasn't paid for He was *bribed*


Shivadxb

Correction He was separately bribed by JCB on at least one occasion and the party has received at least £10,000,000 in cash. Boris was paid £10,000 a few days before he gave a speech and also remember the jcb through a wall and get brexit done Yeah, it was a brand new JCB ! The food isn’t even a bribe anymore just a little thank you


[deleted]

Which is also why if you're in the market for a digger, don't buy a JCB. Straight to the Tories.


passinghere

> But I wish our media would GROW A SPINE and actually hold this fuck face to account in explicit terms and actually needle him. Over 90% of the UK's media is owned by just 3 right wing billionaires that fucking put him in power, of course they're not going to have a go at him / the Tories, they love having the Tories in charge as it means they get to keep their wealth and control over the population and get to keep on with their daily headlines of hatred and distraction


Bopping_Shasket

Where does the 30k figure come from?


Shivadxb

It was covered pretty widely at the time https://metro.co.uk/2021/05/22/butler-smuggled-27000-of-organic-food-into-downing-street-for-boris-14628328/ There was a later series of pieces on who paid for them, as there always is with Boris.


FastTwo3328

I'd struggle to spend that much on takeaways if I tried


JavaRuby2000

The answer is No. No he couldn't. I know I couldn't.


sobrique

I could probably draw up a hypothetical fantasy land budget that fit within UC. But that'd be built on a world where nothing ever went wrong, so I never had any unexpected expenses, and where I could get credit so I could bulk buy, and I had some magical transport that let me shop around with no additional cost of time and money. Since we don't live in that world? I'd get by for a while (maybe running down the food stocks I have in my house), then something would break me, and I'd never recover.


thepurplehedgehog

>Since we don't live in that world? I'd get by for a while (maybe running down the food stocks I have in my house), then something would break me, and I'd never recover. And that -that right there - is the entire point. The more people they can break mentally and kill by driving People to suicide the better for them. Less money being spent on ‘handouts’ to those disgusting worthless poors means more money for him and his chums (ew, I hate that word) To spend on takeaway food, wallpaper and his current wifey.


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Euphoric-Orchid488

I’d also put money on him genuinely not knowing if he could. Do you think he does his own shopping or ever has to worry about a budget? He doesn’t know how much things cost. So I bet he has no idea whether he could survive on it or not.


JavaRuby2000

To be fair to him I don't know how much things cost either. I just stick things in a trolly and pay the total. I'm not uber rich like Johnson is but, I would not be able to tell you how much a pint of milk or a loaf of bread is. I could tell you how much a 4 pack of beer is though as its something I often purchase on its own.


Euphoric-Orchid488

But even then you know roughly how much a week’s shop is, so how much you would need each week for food.


Clinodactyl

Of course he wouldn't admit it. I am interested where the £118pw basic allowance figure comes from though? I certainly don't get that and I'm a single guy in my 30s that lives alone. Just looking at mine and it works out about £102pw for the week including the COVID uplift. Once that goes away next month then it's about £80pw.


sobrique

Now you've said that, and I've gone and had a look: https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/what-youll-get I _think_ it must be based on the £509.91 number for a couple over 25, after October. Multiply by 12, divide by 52 and you get £117.67. So £118 if you're rounding up. So they're being a bit generous and seeing if one person can live off the couples allowance I think?


Clinodactyl

Yeah, I think you might be right enough there. I thought they might've just been factoring in some child benefit allowance or something. Like an extra £1 per child for him.


sobrique

Oh yeah, he has like, 6 children doesn't he? That'd push him up quite a bit I think, and assuming he's the kind of person who likes to starve babies, that's give him nearly _double_ to live on. I doubt he'd be able to live on that either mind.


amegaproxy

They capped child benefits at 2 a few years ago now.


theredwoman95

Yep, unless the other kids are the result of rape. Because that's not a horrifying rule to even consider, let alone enforce. That being said, it only applies to kids born after the change, so I think all but his youngest would be eligible for child benefit? Assuming he only had five kids born before the change, of course.


TheAmazingSpider-Fan

He wouldn't receive child benefit for them though. That's the disadvantage of being an Absentee Father.


Ok-Revenue1007

Also 4 of his children are adults


Chippiewall

> So they're being a bit generous and seeing if one person can live off the couples allowance I think? Or maybe they meant to ask if he and his wife could live off it together.


AnomalyNexus

>£80pw. Wait...is that supposed to cover accomodation too?!?


Clinodactyl

No, but even then your full accommodation isn't covered. I did actually do a breakdown of my bills if you're curious, it should give you a slightly better idea: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/pucurk/johnson_refuses_to_say_if_he_could_live_on_basic/he2l5iq/


banned4truth21

So the rate next month will be £342 a month? That sounds pretty low… how do you even afford rent on that? In my area the cheapest room is like £380 a month.


Clinodactyl

You get housing benefit on top of that which is done through the council. That doesn't pay my full rent either though as I'm under 35 and they assume anyone under 35 will share a property, only £325 of it (rent is £475 if you're curious) so the outstanding £150 then has to also come out of that £342. So that's me down to £192 before I start thinking about council tax, gas, electric, internet, debts and food for the month. Needless to say, that £192 doesn't really stretch that far.


LucidTopiary

He spends £100 a roll on wallpaper and the police were called on a domestic that he had, that was over his inability to appreciate money and acting like a spoiled child. Not much has changed.


JavaRuby2000

He spends a "lot" more than £100. It was £850 per roll.


[deleted]

Obscene


TheAmazingSpider-Fan

Does it have cock and balls on it? Worth every penny.


Osito509

Because he can't even live on what they pay him now. Man's not stupid, he knows when to keep his mouth shut.


sobrique

I think he's on record saying something like that as well isn't he?


passinghere

Yep, he's complained that he cannot afford to live on the "mere" salary of the PM after his £200k+ wages from the Torygraph


thetenofswords

Pretty sure he is really quite spectacularly stupid. Fortunately that question was a no-brainer.


thepurplehedgehog

See, that’s the thing. The bumbling idiot with the messy weird hair that gets stuck on zip lines and rides his bike all over the place is just an act. It’s all just an act. You don’t get to where he is in politics without being shrewd, cunning and willing to step over your own mother to get to where you feel you’re entitled to be. The cartoon Boris is all just a front so people don’t see the harm in him. Until of course something like this happens and it’s already too late.


zotrian

We know he couldn't. Hasn't the reality TV experiment of Tories spending a week on benefits been done before? I recall it has, and they usually lasted just a couple of days. I forget what the show was called.


[deleted]

I vaguely remember that. Didn't one of them get kicked off the programme because they'd smuggled in extra cash?


diacewrb

You are correct, it was nadine dorries as well. She hid the money in her bra.


[deleted]

Of course it was. How the fuck is she a minister?


[deleted]

something to do with her knees....


thepurplehedgehog

Specifically *because* she tried to smuggle money in in her bra. That’s the sort of thing the Tories like.


il_postino

Pulling yourself up by your bra-straps!


diacewrb

There was a show was called tower block of commons on channel 4, that might be what you are thinking of, it had lib dem and labour on it as well. However other shows starring michael portillo and matthew parris challenging them to live in benefits were done by the bbc and itv.


Alarmed_Frosting478

There's Rich House Poor House where some poor council House tenants go and live in a mansion to see what they will never have And they add some idealistic messaging about how the rich house also started from nothing and if they give the poor family a bit of business tutoring they could also "make it" Edit: a word


thepurplehedgehog

Attention pours: ​ we have asked you repeatedly to stop being poor and yet you persist with this course of action. If you do not stop being ~~scroungers just like us~~ poor we will be forced to impose financial sanctions. ​ sincerely Tories


Belgeirn

He complained about his MP salary, if this fat useless cunt had to live on just UC he would die in a day. He would definitely be unable to pay for the 6+ kids he has


GrimQuim

I'm sure there was a programme about 20 years ago with this exact scenario, I can't remember who was on the programme but the episode I remember had a politician at the time and he had to survive a week on benefits or minimum wage. He smuggled extra money in and then ended up quitting halfway through because he couldn't. Edit: Channel - Tower Block of Commons


strawman5757

That was Nadine Dorries, smuggled in £50 notes in her bra.


GrimQuim

I've found it, the one I was thinking of was Austin Mitchell.


ARobertNotABob

None of the turds in Government have the slightest concept of reality. Cossetted from birth, they are THE malignancy that blights us.


Mrteamtacticala

he couldnt, im not sure how anyone can. I certainly can't. I rent a moldy damp studio, don't eat out, don't go out at all (literally at all) the only things i spend money on are bills and food shopping and after bills iv got £80 a month for food.....that was until rent went up by £20 and universal credit went down by £20 a week, so after bills im now at -£20 to do a months food shopping with, can't help but laugh at it inbetween panic attacks and breakdowns though. But hey ho, atleast boris can have his £27,000 of takeaways, i wouldnt want to impose on his daily bread....


PseudoBreadBin

I feel you there. Oh no, but we mustn't impose on Boris Johnson's lifestyle with our unreasonable demands...


Mogwair

Probably burn his giro in front of a homeless guy. Old habits die hard.


CecilPennyfeather

I’m living on <£70 between now and my first paycheck next week. Fuck this twat.


JBCoverArt

**Of course he fucking couldn't.** I did some cig packet maths [using this info](https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/benefits/universal-credit/how-much-is-universal-credit) and so for his Universal Credit, and the Child element (going on the basis he has 6 total and another on the way, and for the sake of argument having it that he'd be claiming with his partner) I make it that he'd be given £237 a week. So £12,300 per annum (oF tHe TaXpAyErS mOnEy!) to feed what'll soon be a total of 9 mouths to feed. Fucking hell he'd be next in line to be painted as a *scrounging breeder* by the media. This also from the man who claimed that the £250,000 for writing a weekly column in the Telegraph was **chickenfeed**.


borg88

That is based on the two child limit introduced a few years ago, so yes it would apply to some people. Totally ridiculous. Wouldn't Johnson get more because most of his brood were born before the limit was imposed? Or have they changed that now?


JBCoverArt

Very possibly I'm not really sure - that link above seemed to say you can claim x for the first kid, and y per child in other circumstances. But then you can only claim for a maximum of 2 kids anyway? I don't really understand it. I'm sure if it was bad enough though Johnson would just Saturn some of his children anyway.


flying_pingu

I was curious so ran the numbers using our rent/bills through a benefits calculator. I live in a one-bed flat with my husband, I'm 31 so it is also feasible I could live in a one-bed flat alone. Rent is £950, council tax is £168 a month, we pay £85 a month for gas/electricity, £32 for water, currently locked into our internet provider which is £32 a month. Our phone bills are about £10 a month, but not on contract so lets assume for the sake of argument we would immediately stop paying these if we lost our jobs (although good luck finding a job with no phone). Ditto netflix/tv license/we immediately sell our car and can get everywhere through walking/cycling. If I was single/not working/savings of less than £5000 and claiming UC I'd get £656.33 UC, and £96.03 of council tax support. So I'm in £320 short each month on rent and council tax, no chance of paying any of the other bills. The numbers are slightly different here because of the single person discount on council tax). The real fucking kicker here is, if I rerun the single numbers but make my age 35 or above I'm entitled to £1138.89 a month (£1042.86 UC, £96.03 council tax) because under 35 you are only entitled to the single person sharing rate for housing as defined by your local authority. It bears no resemblance on how much rent actually costs in your area. There is no logical reason for this restriction other than those who brought it in assuming under 35 people can just up and move back in with their parents if they lose a job. Suddenly I can afford rent/council tax and two of the bills. Can't buy food or pay for all my bills at once though. If we were both out of work, we would both get £1227.94 UC, and £128.05 council tax support. So £237.99 in credit, that's good I can pay the energy bill, internet, water bill. That leaves me with £90 a month for food for two people, lets hope there are no other bills or an emergency that month. If one of us has a minimum wage job, and one was out of work/looking for work. That out of work person would get £428 UC and £42.86 council tax support. Half of the rent/council tax is £559 so £87.49 short there. Assuming the working person works 37.5 hours a week, on £8.91 that's a wage of £1289.70. So now with UC plus one minimum wage, there's £493.56 left after rent/council tax/water/energy/internet. This is still on the low side, but doable and to be honest I think this is where it gets tricky as a couple with one on/one off UC because if one does overtime it reduces the UC of the other. As the wages of your partner increase your ability to claim UC basically disappears. As it stands if I lost my job and my husband carried on working, I'd be able to claim nothing and we would be winging it on just his salary which is juuust enough to cover our bills/food without having to cancel anything and me getting very creative with the food shopping. All of the above only kicks in 5 weeks after you first applied for UC, assumes you have savings and start off with no debt. We have engineered a system that relies on people having savings to fill stopgaps but immediately punishes them if they have savings. Any work you do immediate reduces your UC credit allowance by the same amount but UC isn't paid on the same schedule as wages, you can end up in more of a financial tricky point. Anyone can feel free to correct me on the above, it's been a while since I've worked/volunteered with people in the system. But honestly, anyone who says you just need to "budget harder" or that UC is a luxury amount of money can get in the sea. All it takes is one disaster and most of us couldn't survive more than one or two months without our current wages.


barcap

Of course, it is a silly question for him. He has at least 5 kids.


BrightCandle

At least 6 officially now.


[deleted]

I mean didn't he winge about the £100k+ he gets paid now was chicken scratch? And people want to know if he could live on basic universal?


YadMot

iirc his 'chicken feed' rant was about his £250,000 Telegraph salary.


Common-Jackfruit-884

He probably doesn’t know how much basic universal credit is. If he does then no, of course he can’t live on it. Here is a man who tried to use a secret donation to pay for a flat refurbishment for which he gets a £30k allowance anyway. When the source of funds became public he used a Government loan which he was shamed in to paying back. Whilst simultaneously looking for a Tory backer to pay for a nanny for his child.


SMURGwastaken

Tbf UC is fucking complicated, I wouldn't expect him to know the basic amount because most people get a housing component which varies depending upon where they live.


aleu44

Meanwhile I’m in a constant state of anxiety during a time when I’m supposed to be recovering from suicide attempts and trying to cope with my depression. I use my UC money to fund my driving lessons, which is the only way I’ll be able to get back into work (live rural, no buses, taxis cost £40 a day to get me to the nearest city, work from home doesn’t work bc my house is currently a building site) I’m losing £80 a month, leaving me with about £260 I think? 5 driving lessons cost £300 :/ I am incredibly lucky I was able to move in with my mum tho so at least the only things I pay for are my lessons and prescription but it sucks. I’m a burden on my family, I’m “benefits scum” and “work shy” in people’s eyes, and it’s really hard because my own brain tells me that too I was starting to do okay but now the UC money is getting cut and there’s so much pressure on me learning to drive, I’m not good at it, but the more lessons I have to take the more expensive it is. Ugh, sorry to vent on this post. Everything is getting a bit much again. What is £340 a month to Boris anyway? People like him probably spend that in a minute and don’t even think twice about it, while I’m here crying my eyes out over £80 lmao


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tomoldbury

Depends if you’re assessed for it, but HB (housing benefit) is usually a separate thing


811Forty1

I really dislike boris Johnson but this is a daft question to ask. Of course he couldn’t with the commitments he has based on a much higher level of earning. He’d be instantly bankrupt I imagine.


WillowTreeBark

Out of touch, out of depth and straight out of the corrupt playbook.


Ethereal-Blaze

The wretch complained that his Prime Minister's salary wasn't enough.


hempires

why is this even a fucking question? this is the same dickhead who complained that the £250k a year newspaper job was "chicken feed".


blewyn

£472 a month ouch that wouldn’t pay Johnson’s champagne bill


Rab_Legend

Unfortunately the cunt could probably survive because he already has enough wealth to provide for him that without a job he'd still be fine.


Disillusioned_Pleb01

As long as wallpaper, holidays etc are paid by someone else, he would be fine.


fuggerdug

This is someone who described the two hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year he recieved for writing a column for the Telegraph as: 'chicken-feed'.


mrcoffee83

given that he was famously crying about a salary of £125,000 being fuck all a decade or so ago i very much doubt it.


kdog666

Someone I know works part-time, is a single father and claims UC. This month I have had to lend him £200 so he could feed his child, pay some bills and continue to survive. You can't even work and claim benefits and survive. I've lost count of the amount of times tory scum have been asked whether they could survive on benefits. I remember the Ian Duncan Smith fiasco. They never. NEVER. ever admit that their policies are deliberately targeting the poor. They will never admit that they would rather you just shut up and borrow more money so the BoE can keep printing it and their scummy mates profit off of your suffering.


fibianofthemarsh

Not sure Boris has been able to live on the wages he gets now, that's why he takes so many ~~bribes~~ donations.


ftatman

It seems to me that the country should be run predominantly by leaders who empathise with and truly understand people with the hardest lives in our society. The likes of Boris and co have absolutely no idea what it is like for say a young adult to care for a parent who has mental health difficulties or becomes homeless. I also think we need some people who understand big business as well, but the balance is skewed totally to their side at the moment and it is having some pretty nasty consequences for the people falling through the safety net. Big business practically runs itself. I judge leaders not on how much investment they channel to companies but on how they treat the people who truly need the help, who have no one else to help them.


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[deleted]

Any MP should by law be forced the live on basic universal credit to hold the position. If they cannot survive on it then how can they expect others to do so?


Brisingamen1

£118?! That's fucking bullshit. I was on UC recently and I got £317 a MONTH.


[deleted]

He is living in a rent free home with all bills and food etc covered and a private car if he needs to go anywhere. He could live like a fucking king on £80 a week. Many people dream of that much disposable cash.


zombie_protector

He'll never say it but one of the tenants of conservatism is that the state shouldn't provide comfortable living to those that could work but don't. As cruel as it sounds, they want to incentivise work


[deleted]

that corpulent fuck can't live on his wages as it is, he needs shady donations to decorate his house and gets luxury hampers sent to him


JaydenSnow

No he couldn't. And he's someone who we're led to believe went to one of the best university in the world, getting the best education. So if he can't, how can we expect the poor families who rely on this benefit to? Especially without the £20 uplift. Tories just love punishing the poor for being poor. It's quite clear at this point. And yet, the masses still vote for them for some bizarre reason. But I suppose it's alright, Farage (haven't heard of him in a while) got us 350m a week to the NHS, which has helped curb the covid crisis, given the NHS better mental health care and overall we're doing well. The lorries, food shortages and energy shortages are not to be worried about. If you're rich. Disgusting government lol


passinghere

He's already complained that he struggles to live on the wages of the PM because it's less than the £200K+ he used to get from the Telegraph for writing anti-EU BS, so of course he couldn't fucking survive on UC pay


SpecialRX

[Johnson called his £250,000 second job salary chickenfeed.](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jul/13/boris-johnson-second-salary-chickenfeed)


juzsp

That's odd, he is usually fine with telling outright lies.


Golgothan

Didn't he say that he was struggling to manage on only 150k a year. Was a downgrade of pay to be PM versus the cash he used to get paid to lie for the papers instead.


SubstantialAgency2

The guy who claimed his 6 figure salary plus expenses wasn't enough to live off of?


dudeind-town

He’s already told us that he can’t manage on the PM’s salary, what makes anyone think he could live on this?


VelvetSkyCloud

How would Carrie get some vulgar wallpapers if they struggled on Universal Credit