An unemployed man who had not eaten for three days set fire to a job centre in order to get a hot meal in police custody, according to the Manchester Evening News.
An unemployed man who had not eaten for three days because his benefits had been stopped set fire to a job centre in order to get a hot meal in police custody, according to the Manchester Evening News.
Bee O’Brien, 49, set fire to the customer telephones at a jobcentre in Moss side after a row about his benefits.
O’Brien told police he would “commit a crime and get arrested. I need some food”.
According to the Evening News:
‘O’Brien, of Camelford Close, Hulme, admitted criminal damage, attempted arson, and using threatening words and behaviour when he appeared before Manchester magistrates.
Gina Clayton, defending, said: “His benefits had been stopped for some reason and he hadn’t eaten for three days. He was simply desperate for some food. He went to the job centre to get his payments and lost his temper.
“He was aware that if he was arrested he would have been given food at the police station.”’
O’Brien was given a 12 month community order and ordered to do 40 hours unpaid work.
Last month a disabled man took his own life after worrying about how he would manage once his benefits were stopped.
128 Responses to “Tory Britain: Man sets fire to job centre after not eating for three days”
smithsoniain
This would be ridiculous in practice. It would stifle investment/R&D/expansion, de-motivate individuals from investing in their and their children’s futures not to mention entrepreneurship.
If the EU is anything to go by, there would be no actionable way to accurately collect, manage and govern such a wide scale taxation, let alone working out who would be in charge, who would get the benefit or when,on what or how that money would be spent on.
If history is anything to go by, taxes rarely actually fix the world’s problems. What your suggesting is taxing the rich in order to provide a band aid to the rest of the world’s issues. We should be identifying root cause issues and targeting them, rather just tax everyone else and hope that throwing money at the problem solves it.
Throwing money at the benefit system won’t solve the problems of the people on benefits, same goes for the NHS, the military etc. The government should start getting into the habit of analysing the issues and targeting them, rather than saying if we throw money at this everything will be better. Should we be looking at how to improve the benefits system? Maybe. Should we be focusing more on why people are ending up in the system in the first place? Yes. If we looked at solving the actual problems behind people entering the system, we could aim to redirect them into either work or the right kind of help before hitting the benefits net, thus relieving pressure on the benefits support system.
It wouldn’t surprise me if we put more effort into solving root issues, then the amount of money we are putting into the treasury as a whole, would be more than enough to support those who need it and to provide the services we need and want.
Maybe we should be looking to the way the manufacturing industry runs it’s costs and solves it’s issues, through lean process, World Class, Six Sigma etc. and start applying that wider business and gvernement and we might actually find that we can solve some of the problems and actually reduce the burden.
smithsoniain
“I say get rid of the government and let us run it.”
At which point, you would then go about setting up an elected group of individuals to act as proxy to run the central functions, since it would be impractical for everyone to run everything in practice, set up a police force to ensure the maintenance of law and order, a health service to ensure the ongoing well being of the island’s inhabitants and Oh Look!, we just created the government all over again!
Less time spent talking about getting rid of government and more time spent streamlining the system and solving the issues behind why people need it in the first place and we might not actually have the problems we have now. Your son might have been informed that he had an appointment, might have solved your sister’s problem faster, hell if they focused on attacking why the two of them were in the system in the first place neither might have been on it in the first place.
I would argue we potentially have the resources, be it money, knowledge, manpower or skills to enact the changes needed, to grow the economy sustainably and to provide the services the people want, it’s a matter of getting the government to realise that. There are examples on a smaller scale (Fiat for eg.) that show the impact of running lean systems and attacking the issues and root causes rather than just throwing more money at a problem.
Joe Davis
Blame the tories
smithsoniain
Honestly, I think the benefit system would work perfectly fine if we spent less time moaning about how little it gives and spent more time finding the answers and solutions to why these people are hitting the system in the first place.
If we were to do this we could potentially reduce the numbers claiming benefit in the first place, thus allowing people who do need to claim for whatever reason to be able to claim an amount that would be more easy to live on than it is now. If this was to take place, the current budget would potentially be more than enough to cover the difference.
I think we should spend more time identifying how to correct the issues that lead people onto benefits than arguing about why it needs to be more than it is now. We should align our goals towards achieving 0% sign on, rather than a something % increase in the budget. Not just the benefit system that could be improved, everything could be, from the NHS, to the military and police to local and national government agencies.
Danny Beoulve
The riots in London was global news, and near enough every news station in England was broadcasting it. Why did the riots start?
I am employed and pay taxes, but I know all too well about the DWP and their back-handed policies. It is a FACT that one of the policies they employ (that they train other advisors on) is to belittle and hinder you to the point of extremism when they can finally throw you out on your ass to fend for yourself.
I would love the entire British population to stop paying taxes. Then we will see just how quickly things change for the better. If we stop paying them, we are breaking the law. If they stop helping us, it’s their prerogative. It’s disgusting that England is the way it is. If we can’t come to a peaceful solution to the way we are treated, people will start getting violent….. and I wonder if the police will still defend the government knowing that it’s their jobs and wages being cut, too. The police may be governmental but still human, and still get wages paid from UK taxes…. I am proud to be British…. But I am utterly ASHAMED of my country