Black Market Britain: Undercover Sting
 

Anybody been watching this excellent and informative series on Channel 5?

Did anyone see this week's episode where investigative reporter Paul Connolly goes undercover to expose Benefit Cheats?

I try not to watch propaganda telly with such explicit political agendas, kirk. It's bad for the soul.

Aah - All is clear now T.S. why you have the attitudes and opinions you have, and why you - a very, very, intelligent man - exist in a state of almost total denial when it comes to certain subjects. :laugh:

I'm not in denial, I accept that benefits cheats exist (as cheats exist in any large system) and are an issue. However, I reject the notion that Channel 5 trash telly is a good resource for informing oneself of the objective facts. It's designed to be entertaining for simple minds and is therefore sensationalised, by default.

It's just another part of the Tory media's slow and steady drip-feed of misdirection and scapegoatery.

"Blrrrrgh benefits cheats, Blrrrrgh dole scum, bllllrrrrggghhhh immigrants all ruining our economy don't you know?"

..I don't think that anything is a good source in objectivity as such though, it all has it's slants and the angles it wants to choose as perspectives, it still provides discussions ..(as we see in most serious debates news stories ..)...it's just realising that it's not a balance, which I would say that we do...

...but no, sorry I haven't been watching it Kirk...I suspect it's aired after 8pm which is my sleep time...

...well actually, I do stay up late to watch The Great British Bake-Off, I have to say...

Record it Ammi. It is a very good program.

I watch just about every documentary screened by diverse Channels - including Sky - and I find plenty to enrage me, but nothing shocking, because it merely reinforces my own direct experiences moving around in my world; the REAL one.

Oh, I see T.S. - these program makers are all part of the great Tory Party propaganda machine. No time for comprehensive argument (work calls) but later eh?

No these program makers are mercenaries, who know that these "benefit porn" shows masquerading as journalism will sell well to trashy TV channels, owned by natural born Tories (I am not taking about the actual Tory party having a hand in the actual show).

They sell well because there's a public sat on their fat arses at home, baying for blood and tuning into these shows for something to gnash their teeth at when their faces aren't full of Doritos. Fuelled by a divisionist Tory mindset rolled out over the last 5 years by a scapegoating Tory government.


...

I've not much more to say on the subject. Enjoy your tellybox show, though.

I think that you have a very low and misguided opinion of the intelligence of the Great British Public T.S, but please do not underestimate my intelligence and I do not eat Doritos, and as I do not possess a 'fat arse' I cannot be guilty of sitting on it. In addition, as I work long hours, it is in the wee small hours while most people are sleeping, that I watch programs which I have recorded.

My own personal opinions and 'mindset' are fuelled primarily by my own direct and very real experiences of the past 30 years, and secondary information gleaned from documentaries and other media merely confirms those direct experiences.

I agree to a point with the comments made by T.S but the fact remains that our current system is open to a vast number of frauds, from people who have come to rely on handouts as a way of life.

The Welfare system was set up to help families in extreme poverty to offer a safety net so individuals did not have to feed from bins and rubbish dumps,so children could go to school and not have to climb up chimneys for a living.

It was never meant to pay thousands of pounds in rent to house huge families of lazy idle scroungers who have never done a days work in their lives.

Now the system is even being exploited by people who don't even live in this country and have no connection to it. It is sheer madness

It is way past time for the Government of the day to say enough .

Reform of the welfare state is long overdue as we must try and change this strange mindset millions of people have where they think the govt must house,clothe and feed them for absolutely nothing in return.

Programs like this can focus on the more extreme examples but the fact remains this is a major issue that must be dealt with or the country will never get out of debt as the welfare bill forces govt to borrow money from the IMF or World Bank to balance our books.

The national debt is in the Trillions and we struggle to pay off the interest alone whilst the Golightly family live in a six bedroom house with plasma TVs in every room receiving thousands of pounds a year free money whilst the hardest work they have to do is drag their fat arses down to the dole office every fortnight to sign for more free money .

Shocking really.....

I do and don't, there are plenty of people whose intelligence I respect, but they don't watch "Benefits Scandle 2.0 More Babies For Cash Where's My Pitchfork 7" on Channel 5.

But if you enjoy sitting at 2am jeering at the colosseum-in-the-corner, if that somehow makes you feel better about the world, I guess that's entirely your business.

I can't say all that much about peoples TV choices. I do still watch big brother after all.

:clap1: :clap1: :clap1:

Yes TS
but it still would be made
if Labour had power



Viacom/Ch5HD
gets funding to make these Public interests
Docus.


Watch Them TS
they can be Shocking and Fun.
But you can handle that

Funding for propaganda? how novel.

No all channels get funding for public interest
Docu's.


They Do not see it like that.

'Public' interest? We are interested in whatever they make programmes and tell us we're interested in.
If for instance C5 made one of these 'documentaries' about flaws in the banking system that cost the taxpayer billions...or the falsifying of information in governmental literature... or the failure of a govt to regulate a water company to ensure potentially fatal bacteria isn't found in drinking water, we may be 'interested in those issues perhaps?

I'm not the only one to feel that there is a distinct pernicious drive to pit those hovering anywhere above the bottom against those who for whatever reason find themselves in poverty.
No matter how many times it's said that the percentage of claimants that are found to be fraudulent is inflated many times in the minds of the public due to the amount of programming dedicated to it... so it begs the question what's the real story, what's the real issue and the reason for the subterfuge?
Society is faced with a mirror but presented with a distorted image, if we held that same mirror to our govt/ media/ police what would we see... good, honest, decent people with no flaws or questions to answer?
' Take the log from your own eye'

[C5 made one of these 'documentaries' about flaws in the banking system that cost the taxpayer billions]


No Kizzy
thats Paul Masons job Ch4HD Docu's

So you agree that the 'povery porn' angle is propaganda in which C5 targets benefit claimants for scrutiny to the exclusion of many other societal issues?

Ch5HD/Viacom
must get alternate viewers,


Poverty Porn
is also a Ch4HD project.

On that series of that street

The Lady Boss of Ch5
rushed to make a Live debate
on the Ch4 show.

I give Credit to that lady.

Lots of things are subject to C4 documentaries then? Yes I get that, so again why is the C5 lens so narrow?

It's all very you poking fun at this issue but all of the above are causing problems for this Country and need to be examined.

Especially the uncontrolled migration issue which is an absolute scandal... Or perhaps it something you don't think is a problem in which case there is nothing more to say.

But its not
it changing all the time,
Much of what is on now was done months back.


Ch4HD is pushing boundaries
on Monday 10PM "Muslim Dag Queens"
could start trouble

I specifically said that it obviously is an issue. Acknowledging that it's an issue whilst also pointing out that these crap TV shows are sensationalism is not contradictory.

It's an issue, so reasonable, objectively thought out solutions need to be found.

Bob and Betty Couch Potato snarling and booing at their television is going to accomplish precisely **** all.

I am so bored of people abusing benefits and these shows. yes it goes on but what about the other people doing wrong ? if you have allot of money does that make it less important if you commit fraud or any crime ? or is it just harder to investigate so these journalist go after the easy picking?

I don't actually think that C5 are that one sided.I've watched some of those benefit programmes which actually made me feel sorry for and gave me more understanding of the hardship some people on benefits face.I think it does actually show the good,bad and the ugly of benefits Britain.These shows do actually show the success stories too where people get jobs in the end.They are'nt as bad as people make out imo.
Not seen this one though Kirk.I'll have a look.

I beg you to watch it. Then I will post my thoughts and see if you agree.

If it is the one I watched then I can tell you I was gobsmacked at how easy they made it look to get disability of whatever the heck if is called now..pip I thnk.
OMG at the woman that said she squeezed a bottle of water over her nether regions and the seat at the doctors and then said she had piddled her pants and had no control, and the lad that said his finger still hurt and couldn't work..he had broken it ages ago.
The buying of sick notes for a tenner as well..such a shame when there are many genuine people out there that get the knock back, yet the people who know how to work the system get away with it.

I just watched one but it was different to that.It had a scouse toe rag who claimed for PTSD and anxiety whilst going out knicking cars and a load of foreigners claiming housing benefit and renting out rooms to like 15 people.

the black market in the war was alot more bigger than it is now, my grand mother got alot of things that the shops never had because of shortages, today its sicknotes, mad world it is today,

That's the one Paul.

The Scouse in question brags of making thousands of pounds in illicit scams ranging from stealing cars to false insurance claims, whilst being on over £1,500 per month benefits, but admits that he is fit and could work. In fact at the end of the program when he is told he has been filmed and Paul Connolly identifies himself as an undercover reporter, Scouse sprints away faster than Hussein Bolt.

The program is peppered with the usual low-life scumbags who claim benefits whilst enjoying regular incomes from shoplifting - some of whom admit that they do not want work but could work if they wanted - but it is when the accent switches to Housing Benefit where the program confirms my own direct experiences and endorses what I have -- controversially -- said on these forums.

Every single case of Housing Benefit Fraud highlighted was being perpetrated by FOREIGNERS - IMMIGRANTS.

Council/Social Housing in London is - without a doubt - one of the scarcest, hardest to find commodities there is, but here we have examples of immigrants on benefits who are lucky enough to have secured such accommodation, letting out 15 bunk beds to other immigrants at £60.00 per week each (That's an illicit tax-free income of almost £50,000 per year - ON TOP OF THE BENEFITS WHICH THE BASTARDS OBVIOUSLY SHOULD NOT BE CLAIMING) and others on benefits illegally letting out single rooms in their council housing.

This is only one of DOZENS of documentaries over the years made by different companies for different channels which expose the same facts; Housing Benefit fraud on the larger scale is almost exclusively being perpetrated by immigrants/foreign born nationals.

Far from being 'Tory Propaganda' as some on here childishly and ridiculously claim, these programs are factual, and as such, the results of these undercover investigations should be shocking and alarming to those viewers whose own direct experiences have not already educated them to the abuses being exposed, because they are the tip of a very large iceberg.

The program makers quote that 'Benefit fraudsters' cost the country more than 1 billion pounds per year, and because that figure stems from 'official' sources, we can comfortably DOUBLE it.

I feel it's tory propaganda yes, I don't feel my concerns are childish either.
Where do the programme makers get their 'official' statistics? Why are only foreigners shown as being housing benefit fraudsters... would anyone in their right mind believe that or is is yet another way to set UK citizens against immigrants?

Yep that is true.There's another programme about bailiffs and every single one of these people renting rooms out to sometimes up to 30 plus immigrants is an immigrant themselves.Some of them charge £200 for a mattress in a hallway or to share a bedroom with 4 other people.

The show was repeated tonight.
A fair few people won't be quite so cocky now, the cheek of some people.
I had to laugh at the explanation for all those bUnk beds..what a charitable person he was..not.

Anyone who watches these shows and finds themselves getting wound up needs to stop tbh. You're knocking years off your life with such directionless, impotent prescribed rage. But hey, maybe that's part of the agenda too... Whip all the oldies into a frenzy over benefits and immigration so that they all have strokes and heart attacks, cut the burden in the pension pot.

..you haven't watched it though...and yet you have judged not only the show but those watching it...

:clap1::clap1::clap1:

Which speaks volumes for the validity of his often offensive comments about the intelligence of those of us who hold a differing and qualified viewpoint because we have watched it.

I watched it and my opinion was considered childish... damned if you do and damned if you don't it seems, but that's ok I'm used to letting the majority get on with their tub-thumping.

Yep. I judge them for taking the precious time out of their lives to watch it in the first place. Therefore, I simply can't watch it, or my entire argument becomes invalid.

The people I judge as being right and correct are those who look at their "now and next" guide, see that crap like this is coming up next, and make a desperate scrabble for the remote to watch something more relevant. Knight Rider, perhaps, or maybe a re-run of Countdown from the mid 90's (Good old Richard and Carol!).

Failing that, if they can't find the remote, the next response should be to leave the house, go to B&Q, buy a selection of common household materials that can be used to make explosives, return home, build a bomb, and simply blow the **** out of the television.

If these are not the reactions, if the reaction is "Oh yes, that looks good, I'll watch that and fap myself senseless with rage" then oooooh yes I judge. I am quite comfortable in my judgement. My horse has been getting baked on skunk for days.