Tenants Feel the Pinch as Housing Benefit Cuts Come into Effect

Why resort to naming scapegoats? Governments have it down to a fine art supported by the tabloid press. (I have just lit my stove with a pile of tabloids I was given, I find it's the best use for them). To seek to pigeon hole the character of a person by their financial circumstance is as useful as doing so by their parent's shoe size.
A person with a job on basic wage as a classroom assistant in a school in Central London will likely receive some benefits which mean they could pay their bills, just. I doubt they could afford to keep that job if they have to commute from the suburbs and manage a long distance school run for their own children who will no longer be at a school close to where they are working.
Likelihood is that this policy will create homelessness, unemployment and a human resources issue in the void left in the city centre.
As to the sodding riots. For 4 days a tiny minority of people did a lot of damage in some urban areas. In the days following a lot more people came together to clean up. Why are we seeking to define and question our whole society by a criminal minority?
Either yell 'Apocalypse' and run for cover or lets look for solutions that actually treat human beings like they're more than a cheap tabloid stereotype. Surely doing that just plays into the hands of successive Governments totally lacking any long term vision to resolve the housing issues facing us. If debates like this always end up focusing on the minority then that minority will guide policies which are deflective rather than forward thinking.

Yes I am sure there is a lot of politiking occurring and yes I used the lazy example as it was on the bbc and was all I could remember.
It may not be representative; but obviously does no good for claimants in less well off circumstances as you have mentioned when it is quoted as another example of failure of the benefit system.
The old saying mud sticks I think is so true regarding these highly inflammatory pieces about claimants even if true.

Ben, you seem to assume that everyone who disagrees with you is a racist or believes the tabloid propaganda. This is not the case. I too welcome people of all creeds and colours who are willing and wanting to work for the good of themselves, their families and to the benefit of the country as a whole.
BUT! I am sick of paying for the bone idle to live as they want and where they want at my expense. You make valid points regarding overcrowding and people putting down roots but you don't address the issues of affordability or personal responsibility. Life is tough enough for the working classes, it should not be easier for those out of work. I work an average of 45 hours per week, commuting on top, my wife works too. We have hols every four years or so, are selling one second of our two ten year old cars and I gave up smoking, as much for financial as health reasons. We also stopped after our second child in order to be able to provide our family with reasonable standards of living. This is about personal responsibility.
We will all benefit once the freeloading carousel grinds to a halt. That's us the current taxpayers and those who will see the benefit of working for their living, even if they have to move home to experience it.

I'm sorry Ben - I feel you are sentimentalising with this talk of Highland Clearances and "community". The same argument could be used about all the ordinary working ex-Londoners who have already been "cleared" by high house prices and rents to move out of the city. They accept having to change jobs or commute from places like Watford, Reading or even Peterborough or Coventry as the price for being able to afford a place to live: much lower housing costs in exchange for high transport costs and the interminable hours of travel back and forth, with all the toll that takes on health and family life.
 
The Maida Vale example is of course an extreme one, but I can understand why working people who would like to live in London resent it when the unemployed are funded to stay in the city, occupying houses in, yes, Peckham and Hackney that an ordinary worker would love to be able to buy or rent from the PRS or, even better, a council offering cheap rent, free maintenance and a lifetime tenancy. The working and middle classes are forced to make unpalatable choices every day because of redundancy, a low income or a growing family, including relocation; so why not benefit claimants too? It's a question of fairness and natural justice: people on benefits should be made to work for their living and to improve their employability, just like the rest of us, and they should be subject to the same economic pressures, which includes real, hard choices over housing too.

Question: How many Landlords would rather have someone in their property with the whole rent being paid by the local Council ie no cap on their allowance if they cannot have someone in their property who is working & can afford to pay all rent themselves??

I think it is Landlords that charge huge rents that are unjustfied that are the problem!! I keep my rents below the local average. That way I always have a tenant & no empty periods, in fact I have my own "waiting list" of people who would like to live in my flats. Also I keep my flats decorated to a standard that I myself would be happy to live in. STOP the rogue Landlords who are GREEDY!!

I rent my flats out at market rent which is about £350.00 more than the LHA rate for a 2 bed property.
My property is not in the lower 30% precentile and so I prefer private tenants where I may increse the rent periodically.
I happen to review annually and much prefer my private tenants form the LHA types.
My rents are more than justified as the price I paid for the property to rent out were insufficient to pay the mortgage costs.
Only low interest rates have given the tenants a home.
So I think you are wrong in your contentions.
To date I have made massive losses renting out to wrongun tenants and won't make any money ever again unless property prices surpass my mortgage debt!
Effectively I am running a housing charity.
Very few LL who bought since 2005 are making money.
I was subsidising the mortgage payments as rents were not sufficient to sustain the lifesyle of a tenant in such a nice property.
Most LL have large mortgages, so you may think the rent is a lot, however it is just paying the mortgages costs which had to be taken due to the cost of the property.
You might have been lucky with your purchases and therefore not have a large mortgage.
You are the exception rather than the rule.
So no we are not greedy nor rogue!