Conservatives first 100 days: day 4

Iain Duncan Smith confirmed to carry on in Works and Pensions (presumably to continue the destruction and persecution of the poor and disabled and to waste more millions at Universal Credits)

Priti Patel is confirmed for Works and Pensions. (is in favour of hanging so presumably this will replace sanctions once they scrap the Human Rights Act)

Jeremy Hunt confirmed to stay at Health (presumably to continue the sell off of the NHS)

Penny Mordaunt named minister of armed forces (once gave a lewd speech in the commons to win a bet with a bunch of marine soldiers. Will obviously bring gravitas to the position)

Have I missed anything?

The Most Articulate Summary of Conservative Attitude.

Like many I went to bed late last night, in shock at the exit polls. I woke up this morning to find that for some inexplicable reason, the people of UK decided to vote for the party that had caused the most damage to the poorest members of society. The one that created the need for the increase in foodbanks. The party that created more child poverty. The party that persecutes and harasses the disabled. The party that sanctions people for attending job interviews rather than signing on appointments. The party that drastically limited access to Legal Aid. The party that created the Bedroom Tax. The Party that is selling off the NHS. The party that kills thousands of people every year through DWP decisions based on a tick the box questionnaire filled in by a sports masseuse. I guess having the mainstream media, journalists and the BBC in your pocket to spread lies on your behalf will do the trick.

Anyway, I discovered something interesting this morning. I went onto the official site for the Conservative’s manifesto as I wanted a copy for future reference and comparison (what they promised, what they actually delivered and what they lied about). I noticed a section where you could put your post code in and they would tell you what their manifesto promised for your area. I put my postcode in (yes it was entered in correctly) and I put a legitimate email address in. It came up with this:

(postcode email partially obscured for privacy reasons)

Please enter a valid postcode.

It wasn’t just my postcode either. I tried Newcastle, Durham and Sunderland postcodes. All came up with the same. Then I entered a London postcode and what do you know, it came up with a load of information. I entered another London code, same again. Plenty of info.

You aren’t valid if you don’t live in London. If you aren’t white, wealthy and healthy, then you’re fucked.

The Nation’s Favourite Past time

It seems that the traditional hobby of lauding the underdog then knocking them down is going strong. Jack Monroe is suffering from it right now.

In case you didn’t know who she is, Jack Monroe is a political campaigner and food writer (you can find her blog here).  She has known and experienced poverty, heartbreak and desperation, surviving on a £10 a week food budget for her and her small son. She blogged her recipes frequently, providing a break down of the costs. Eventually more and more people started noticing her. To quote her directly from a recent blog post:

I started this year living – existing – on a £10 a week food budget topped up with five items of food from the Storehouse food bank once a week. I ended it with a recipe book deal, baking biscuits on Woman’s Hour, with a Guardian column, a debate in the House of Commons and regular political and campaign pieces in the Daily Mirror.

(to read more, click here)

As someone who has followed her progress from early on, it’s been a joy to see this wonderfully talented, genuine, down to earth woman pull herself out of her dire situation. With each success and victory, myself and countless others have cheered her on and congratulated her. With each struggle, we’ve thrown out words of support and encouragement.

We all love an “under dog”, someone who is struggling against the odds. We cheer them on but sadly, human nature in many is pre disposed to knock that under dog down, once they’ve reached a point where they’re no longer struggling. It’s an attitude that vexates, confuses and disgusts me.

Tonight on twitter, Jack posted a photo of her kitchen in her new flat. She’s moved four times this year and hopefully this is the one place that she’ll be able to make her own, god knows she deserves it.

 

This was a fantastic tweet for all Jack’s supporters to see. Considering that Jack is a food writer, this large kitchen is going to be a boon to her, it’s very much her “office”. Everyone who supports her was over the moon (and more than me will have thought “oooh what kind of recipes is she going to dream up in that?!”).

However, there’s always someone who is eager to pontificate and try and “shame” a woman who has struggled for so long, simply for having a big kitchen.

 

Now, I’m not sure what is meant by “A profound irony of the campaign however”. Surely the “campaign” is about allowing people to “live” not just to “exist”. To bring people out of poverty and give them the chance to enjoy life, to do something, not to judge them because they’re poor, disabled, vulnerable, or even “not as well off as others”. As for the other tweets, surely if you’re going to comment on someone’s situation then you need to actually, y’know, KNOW about their situation. To make asinine points like that speaks of enormous entitlement and to accuse someone else of having a sense of entitlement is just laughable.

So, apart from the people who think that Jack Monroe should remain poverty stricken to remain a political campaigner and food author, we also have people like this:

 

 

 

If anyone is jealous of Jack’s success and wants what she has, then maybe, just maybe they should get off their arses and do something rather than whine and complain? And maybe, just maybe, they should READ HER BLOG, then they’d know better than to throw the label “champagne socialist”  about or accuse her of selling out by doing adverts (for a supermarket she was advertising for free on her blog anyway). They’d know that she’s handing over a large part of her earnings over to charity. Which is more than any of us do.

When we see someone who has pulled them up by their bootstraps and made a success of not only their lives but ours (hands up who else got a debate about foodbanks in Parliament?), our first response should be “good for you mate, well done!” It shouldn’t be to bitch, moan and cast ignorant judgements about.

This woman deserves some credit. Hell, Richard Littlejohn hates her so she must be doing something right…

Copyright ©2014. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied or reproduced elsewhere without the authors’ permission.

Dear Rachel Reeves

Continuing the conservative’s persecution of societies most vulnerable is hardly the best way to win an election is it?

Your string of announcements confirmed that you and the Labour party are in league with the government. You would rather pander to the right wing in order to get votes, rather than support and work for the ordinary, the disabled and most importantly the poverty stricken.

You say that you will guarantee jobs for the under 25’s and the long term unemployed. I’m curious as to how you’re going to do this when there are so few jobs right now.

You say you’re going to GUARANTEE jobs. How? Are these jobs going to pay a living wage? Are they going to be permanent, full time jobs? Are you going to abolish zero hour contracts and all slave labour programmes? How are you going to do this? How long is it going to take to create all these jobs? Are they going to happen overnight by magic? Jobs don’t just appear  because you say they will, or because you issue vague, jargon saturated buzz phrases.

You say that people will be sanctioned if they refuse the job. What are those sanctions going to be based on? If the job is too far away, are they going to be sanctioned? Or are you expecting people to uproot their lives and move? Are you going to pay for deposits and rent in advance? Are you going to pay for removal vans? 

You are continuing the Tory spin by perpetuating the myth that benefit fraud is what is costing this county money. Despite what the government and media would have us believe, this country ISN’T infested with people claiming £60,000 in benefits. Benefits are capped. It’s physically impossible too claim that amount. Not everyone on benefits have massive TVs. Fraud does not cost what people are claiming. It does not cost 27% it costs 0.7%. Pensions, departmental errors, unclaimed benefits and Atos appeals cost far more than benefit fraud. Tax evasion costs far more than benefit fraud.

Stop trying to blame the poor and stop working with the tories. Staying that you’re going to repeal the bedroom tax isn’t enough. Because right now you don’t have my vote.

P.S How about canceling Atos’s contract and employ doctors to assess cases rather than physiotherapists?

Copyright ©2013. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied or reproduced elsewhere without the authors’ permission.

Is the UK becoming one of the worlds most intolerant? I think so.

So, Colin Brewer MP thinks children with severe disabilities should be “put down” so they don’t cost the state money. He likened it to farmers bashing “misshapen lambs” against a wall. Why can’t I but help think about the picture of Nazi soldiers bashing Jewish childrens skulls against a wall?

In an earlier post I blogged a Nazi propaganda poster which informed the public that it was wrong that the country pay for the welfare of disabled people. Pretty much the view of this government in view of the behaviour and attitudes of Iain Duncan Smith, the DWP and ATOS.

Colin Brewer has statedthat he won’t resign, he’s done nothing wrong and that he’s apologised (but surely if he’s done nothing wrong, why should he apologise?).

He’s also blamed all of this on the fact that he’s suffered from strokes and that people say he’s changed because of it. Well surely if that’s the case then why did he run for government when his health has made him suffer such severe changes? Going by his own opinion, surely the country shouldn’t be treating his strokes as they cost too much? Far better to let him die than waste valuable resources.

Strokes aren’t to blame for this. Colin Brewer himself is. He’s an odious, prejudiced, bigoted little runt of a man and every single person who voted him is no better than him. In fact they’re worse.

He’s symptomatic of this country’s growing stance on the disabled, the poor and the vulnerable. The public are being brainwashed into viewing these groups of society as less than scum. The influence of government spin, lies and deliberate misinterpretation of figures is being fed down to a media that is sitting in the governments pocket. Why do I think this? Because if we as a nation, were REALLY outraged, there would be riots and mass protests in the streets across the country. The news would be full of stories about this. As it turns out, we have to rely on certain political and activist bloggers to bring these outages to light and only then does the national media report it when they read about murmurings of dissent.

The Lib Dems have proved that they can’t be trusted, going against and abandoning their manifesto promises in order to gain power. For years their motto was “a vote for the Lib Dems is not a wasted vote “. By acting the way they’ve done they proved that that motto is a lie. Nick Clegg has set the party back decades and they will have to spend years proving they’re worthy of votes before anyone will trust them again.

Labour is no better. Time and time again they’ve been handed opportunities to thwart government plans, to attack and prove the government lies and yet they stay silent. That silence is proof of their cowardice and complicity towards this government.

What it boils down to is this: we have a group of lying, deceitful, greedy, bullying (and in many cases) thieving, parasitic, scrounging, manipulative scum.

They’re called the government.

How much is benefit fraud REALLY costing the taxpayer?

A council spent £50,000 of the taxpayers money on lie detector software that turned out to be unusable

The governments “Nudge Unit” (designed to alter peoples thinking) uses a stolen pyschometric test (illegally according to the DWPs own rules) that was not fit for scientific use This unit costs the taxpayer £520,000 a year.

Universal Credit, the massive benefit reform that has cost the taxpayers millions so far in setting up IT infrastructure for it not to actually work, resulting in more money being spent by replacing the computers. Experts say that rather than cutting down fraud, it will actually increase it

ATOS, under a government directive to clear as many people as possible off disability benefits using people such as physiotherapists to assess the claims of people who have far more wrong with them than a dodgy knee. Resulting in thousands of appeals which on turn end up costing the taxpayer more money each year as appeal upon appeal is successful and the DWP needing to employ more staff to cope with the appeals. The overturn of appeals is conservatively put at 38% but is considered to be higher. ATOS cost the taxpayer £112 million in 2011 – 2012.

This list is not comprehensive, but these few examples leave me wondering…

If the government stopped wasting the money to stop the DWP estimated 0.7% (£1 billion) fraud bill*, and concentrated on going after tax fraud (which costs the taxpayer £70+ billion) the country would be better off financially AND emotionally.

*of that fraud bill, a lot of it is departmental errors eg over payments.

Daily Mail – Official Spokespaper of the government?

With both George Osbourne AND David Cameron echoing The Daily Mail’s opinion on the Philpott case, is the paper now forming official government responses? Seemingly so.

All have said that him claiming benefits led him to the murder of six of his children. Now let’s be clear on this. He had a history of domestic violence and abuse. If he were fully employed all his adult life and not claiming any benefits, this man would still have abused and controlled the women in his life. Claiming benefits does not an abuser make.

The fact that the Prime Minister and the chancellor have decided to use this case to push their welfare agenda is reprehensible and despicable. Making political hay out of the deaths of children and domestic violence is disgusting. The fact that they’d rather focus in on the benefit aspect rather than domestic violence and abuse tells us more about them than I think they’d like.

Rather than making bogus claims to support the evil of what they’re doing re welfare reforms, how about they focus on what the government can do to support victims of abuse and domestic violence?

I can’t see that happening, given that this government is intent on alienating and humiliating the poor, the poverty stricken and the disabled.

We expect our government to protect the disadvantaged and the vulnerable. Something this government is clearly hellbent on NOT doing.

David Cameron, George Osbourne, Iain Duncan Smith, Jeremy Hunt, Lord Freud…you are all morally and politically reprehensible and NONE of you are fit to govern.

Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved, no part of this article may be reproduced without written permission of the author

April Fools

Today is the day where 660,000 are plunged further into debt and poverty with the introduction of the bedroom tax, the scrapping of crisis loans, the severe reduction of CAB funding and the scrapping of legal aid where benefit advice, debt advice etc is taken away from those that need it the most.

We’re hearing lots of rhetoric about house swapping regarding bedroom tax. People ignoring the most basic flaw in that plan. It costs serious money to move. We’re also hearing rhetoric about people moving to smaller homes. All well and good, but there are NO smaller homes available. So people will be moving to privately rented accommodation and the housing benefit budget will actually rise. In The Independent yesterday it was claimed that “Responses from 37 authorities across Britain revealed 96,041 households faced losing benefit but there were only 3,688 smaller homes available”

We’re hearing lots of rhetoric from MPs stating that they could live off £53 a week. They think that “live off” is food only. Not acknowledging that included in that amount is heating, water rates, supplementing housing benefit, phone lines/bills, travel costs, dental costs (not everyone has access to a NHS dentist), internet (vital when applying for jobs and sorting out benefits) and clothing costs (interview clothes, kids clothes, school uniforms etc). If they were to attempt to survive (and let’s face it, that’s what it is, survival) then they’d have to move out of their mansions and sell off most of their possessions. Could they do it? I doubt it. A marvellous point was made on twitter, @CSkinner said “It’s not about whether you could, it’s about whether you should.” We’ve even heard from Ian Duncan Smith saying, and I quote

“We had dire predictions when we started these changes. None of the predictions have come true.”   – on changes coming into effect TODAY. (which incidentally sums up the arrogance, stupidity and incompetence of the man)

Today is also the day where 13,000 millionaires get a tax cut. Now this leaves me confused. If this country’s finances are in such dire straights, how are the tax cuts being paid for? From the benefits cuts? From the bedroom tax? If the country’s finances are in such dire straights, how is this government affording to turn a blind eye to £70 billion in unpaid corporation tax? How can the government claim that £1 billion (0.7% according to the DWP’s statistics) is worse than £70 billion? Not to mention that David Cameron purposefully gave out “misleading” figures, claiming that benefit fraud cost £5.2 billion. Of which tax credits and GOVERNMENTAL ERRORS were responsible for £4 billion of his figure.

We see the disabled being thrown into poverty and death by ATOS. We see them and the poor being marginalised  persecuted, abused and humiliated. And no-one in positions of authority are speaking out for them. We see Ed Milliband, the labour leader ordering his MPs to abstain from voting in a bill, ensuring the government no longer has to pay £130m in benefit rebates to about a quarter of a million jobseekers because of the Workfare fiasco. We see staff  in Job centres being urged to sanction people on benefits at all costs in order to meet targets set by the DWP and we see politicians lie about it.

If what is happening in this country were to happen in another, there would be more outrage being spoken. I urge everyone to shake their heads, clear their minds of all the media and governmental spin which has so effectively brainwashed this country. I urge people to do their own reading of what’s going on, not to rely on information that is made up of spin and lies, being fed to them. I urge people to stand up and make their voices heard. To let this government know that we are not happy and that revolution may very well be seen in the streets in the coming months.

Copyright ©Carole29 2013. All rights reserved, no part of this article may be reproduced without written permission of the author

Workfare Lists

Workfare is the programme run by the government forcing people on benefits to work for companies in order to keep on receiving their benefits. Put simply like that, it sounds reasonable. However if you stop to think about it for only a brief few seconds it’s obvious why this is grossly unfair and immoral.

People made to go on these programmes do not have employee rights, they are paid far below the minimum national wage when taking into account the money they get and the hours they work, it comes out as around £1.95 per hour. Is that fair? NO. If there are places in a company where work can be found, then the company should be paying them, not the government. There are jobs out there that are not being filled by workers, they’re being filled by forced labour. In other words, slaves. Why? So that companies can get a free, unlimited supply of workers which they don’t have to pay, and the government can take the people off the unemployment lists and claim that their programmes are working, when in fact they aren’t. They’re damaging the workforce and the economy.

Should companies benefit from unpaid labour and the ability to withhold employees rights? I don’t think so.

image via AnotherAngryVoice (see below for facebook link)

Lets look at that closely. The lists aren’t officially released because the government recognise the fact that enough people would protest against the companies and ruin the programme. They KNOW that this is wrong. Especially when someone has won their appeal when they were forced to give up their voluntary job in a museum in order to go and work stacking shelves at Poundland. Taking someone out of a voluntary job with proper training and prospects, and forcing them to do menial labour. Making sure people are “kept in their place” eh? If the whole point of this is making sure people on benefits contribute to society, why pull people out of placements that they have organised themselves? Why punish people for wanting to train for better and more fulfilling careers than stacking shelves at Poundland and Primark?

So, the government won’t release a list, however others will. For those interested in contacting the companies taking part, here is a link to a list.

http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com.es/2013/02/list-of-workfare-companies-mwa.html

Full contact details are there. If you have ANY concerns about this appalling programme, I suggest you contact them. I have today. It doesn’t take long. It took me about 20 minutes of my time.

If you want more jobs on the market, more job opportunities, then please join in the protest. I would also recommend following Another Angry Voice on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Another-Angry-Voice/185180654855189

Text Copyright ©Carole29 2013 All rights reserved.

Images©AnotherAngryVoice 2013. All rights reserved.

If you’re on benefits, apparently you’re dysfunctional.

In a speech to launch the consultation, Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, outlined his theory that other factors aside from money caused poverty, highlighting his concern about children growing up in “dysfunctional families”.

 

This is chilling. What are the government going to do next? What do they describe as “dysfunctional”? Apparently parents on benefits. 

He argued: “It cannot be right that experiences so vital to childhood, like seeing a parent go out to work…are not reflected in our understanding of child poverty

So, according to the government, not only are people who are receiving benefits, scroungers and liars, but now they’re raising their children in a dysfunctional family? Just because they’re on benefits. Is there nothing that this government will do to increase the rhetoric in order to create a bias? The divide is getting stronger and stronger. The public are soaking all of this up, not realising that this government is actually worse than the Thatcher government in terms of destroying families and creating a divide. 

When I read of things like this, I’m sickened and appalled. I’m typing this whilst tears are falling down my face. We’re being pushed, bullied, manipulated and destroyed. And the worst thing is, that the majority simply don’t care. 

When are we going to wake up and smell the smoke in time to put the fire out?