Hidden beneath the benefit bashing which has dominated the obsessed Tory Party Conference, George Osborne’s speech yesterday was not just the attack on out of work claimants it appeared to be.
One big lie has dominated the Tory debate on welfare and the chancellor was only too happy to repeat it yesterday. Twice in his speech he claimed that both young people or families are “better off on benefits than they would be in work.”
This crude attempt at divide and rule has become a Tory mantra ever since this Government weren’t elected. And it’s not true.
A person under 25 working for the minimum wage for 37 hours a week receives a net salary of £204.36. Jobseekers Allowance for those under 25 is £56.25. The maximum available Housing Benefit for someone under 25 in Birmingham (for example) is £55.
This means that a young person in work, in almost all areas of the UK, is almost twice as well off as someone on unemployment benefits. Even in expensive Kensington & Chelsea the maximum Housing Benefit payment to those under 25 without children is £123.50. This is an exception due to the staggering cost of properties in a London borough which also has it’s share of children growing up in poverty. However a young person working in this borough (on minimum wage) is entitled to £30.49 a week in Housing Benefit. Or at least they were. George Osborne plans to change this.
The situation for working families with children is equally clear. Sadly even some workers at the lower end of the pay scale have bought into the relentless bullshit and bemoaned how they would be better off on benefits. They wouldn’t. No-one is. This is another lie and it’s time to nail it once and for all.
A single parent with two children living in Birmingham and renting in the private sector would receive maximum possible benefits of £348.14 (over a third of this would be in Housing Benefit payments which go to landlords). A single parent working on minimum wage for 37 hours a week, in otherwise the exact same circumstances, would receive a total of £445.86 in net wages and in work benefits.*
It’s important to note both these calculations are based on the minimum wage. As wages rise Housing Benefit is reduced at a tapered rate, meaning the difference between a better off earner and someone on benefits becomes even greater.
In work benefits are now under attack like never before. Working Tax Credits have already been stripped away for parents working part time. Housing Benefit has been subject to caps and set at a lower rate whilst for those under 25, whether in or out of work, it is seemingly to be abolished completely. Disability Living Allowance which pays for vital care and equipment for working and non working disabled people alike is to be cut by a fifth. Part time or self-employed workers who do not earn enough and depend on some in work benefits could face workfare when Universal Credit is introduced next year.
George Osborne may pretend to aim his cuts at the mythical feckless but this hides another quite different agenda. Osborne is attacking not just benefit claimants, but low waged workers. His contempt for the poor goes far beyond the tabloid rhetoric aimed at so called scroungers. If you aren’t rich, he’s not interested. As Osborne himself said in his speech:
“Whether it’s the owner of the corner shop staying open until midnight to support their family.
Or the teacher prepared to defy her union and stay late to take the after-school club.
Or the commuter who leaves home before the children are up, and comes back long after they have gone to bed, because they want a better life for them.
Or the pensioner, who has saved all their life, and doesn’t want to spend it all as they want to pass something on to their children.
Or the entrepreneur who doesn’t cash out and pack up, but devotes their flair and energy to building the next success story.
They are all part of one nation – one nation working together to get on.
That is the nation we represent.
These are the people I serve as Chancellor.”
Not bus drivers, or classroom assistants or call centre workers. Not pensioners who’ve worked their whole lives and are dependent on Housing Benefit to keep a roof over their heads. Unusually for tory scum, not even the poor bastards getting limbs shot off whilst earning a pittance in Afghanistan.
Instead small business owners, large business owners and middle class commuters who can afford to not only pay huge rail fares but live in the leafy commuter belt (and when did neglecting your children become an aspiration?). Or rich pensioners like George Osborne’s dad who hoard their money away so their wealth and privilege is passed onto the squirming vermin they’ve spawned. And professional public sector workers. But only if they are prepared to scab.
These are the people George Osborne governs for. And no-one else.
*These figures represent claimants eligible for Job Seekers Allowance or Income Support, the two main out of work benefits. They include Council Tax Benefit, Housing Benefits, Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit (for those in work). They do not include the sickness or disability benefit Employment Support Allowance (ESA). A single parent with two kids qualifying for the support group for ESA – meaning a person assessed as being unable to ever work again or someone being treated for cancer – would receive a total of £396.99 a week in benefits compared to £445.86 total income for someone in minimum wage work.
the void 
i HATED that pressure – I worked hard all my life, I too wanted a better life for my kids, so I went to night school, and even day school to get qualifications as I left school at 15 with none. I worked from15 years old full time, I cleaned other peoples shit up, I scrubbed floros, I cleaned offices – cleaning up after those twats in Merchant Banks, I eventually got into a university and qualified and worked in social services (yes I admit it, because I wanted to help people who were like I was before I was able to get any help myself having been shunned by companies because I was an epileptic) but I was always in trouble as I spent TIME with people and helped them with those fucking forms so they would get those benefits they were entitled to, and they did) anyway, I worked all hours (weekend were taken up recording all the reports and crap) and as a consequence I didnt get to spend much time with my kids, who now hardly even give me a thought becuase I was neve ‘there’ for them – a slave to the State and now I am a victim of it along with everyone else who took their crap and swallowed it.
I made my own bed and now I pay for being a state slave………now I am a victim of it.
Let this be a lesson to anyone else who works for the STATE. It couldnt give a fucking toss about you. You will pay with your ass one way or another.
Fuck this Nazi bastard !
George Osborne is a Toff Cunt – loving your online name!
This is a fantastic blog Johnny – thank you
George Osborne is bleeding filth. Now… where did I put me bleeding teef.
The Conservative Conference has been quite simply – a festival of hate. Each participant has been competing with the other to show who hates the most disadvantaged and vulnerable more – ” I despise the poor” “no sir, I think you’ll find I hate them more” “no I hate them much more than you both do”. The outpouring of hatred for the poor has been incredible to behold.
The Tories ravenous pathological desire to inflict misery suffering humiliation, despair and complete destruction on the poor is insatiable, it can never ever be sated, nothing is ever enough for them, they always want more. Even when they have completely eliminated the welfare state and people start starving in the streets, it still won’t be enough for these sick maniacs.
Even when you die from neglect, they will still won’t let you rest in peace. They will still want to humiliate you further. They will dig your body up, revive your brain, attach it to a cinema screen and invite their chums around to watch the ultimate in reality television – replaying your life through your eyes.
They will see everything you ever saw and experienced in your life, hear all the private thoughts you had during your life, watch all your intimate moments, laugh at all your mishaps, guffaw at all your foibles, laugh hysterically at you worrying yourself sick about money, revel in your suffering, laugh heartily as they watch you become homeless and destitute and then laugh until they cry at the grand finale – watching you die a slow agonising lonely death in the gutter.
“Jolly good pleb film old bean, I especially enjoyed the scene where he wept because he couldn’t afford his daughter’s medical treatment” “yes that was rather pitiful wasn’t it, so irresponsible with money and no stiff upper lip the plebs, he got what he deserved” “indeed old sport”.
It was all that could be expected, what did you think was going to happen? the more hatred and bile that gets spewed from their foaming rabid,mouths, the more the Tory faithful all lap it up, howling and baying for more. Apparently the security around the ICC in Brum was like Alcatraz – what does that say about how worried the Tories are about their own safety. They can spout pure evil safe in the knowledge that G4S has workfare slaves protecting them from the public and those that want their heads on poles.
They really are scum – last night I went on Twitter to watch all the hate and bile being thrown back at them on the #cpc12 hashtag ( I was Mr Arbeit Macht Frei btw) and there is a LOT of hate for them.
Its also a great read on the #askdave hashtag – Dave’s new twitter account @david_cameron got over 100,000 followers in 3 days with all bar about 40 of them all joining to send hatred messages to him and mocking him.
No, they really have gone completely mad now, and I think its only got to be a matter of time before Clegg the Coward says enough is enough and dissolves this pantomime of hatred. Some tweets reckon we may have another election by May 2013 – we can only but hope, and pray.
Problem is the Torries know they have no discernable challenge, specially not the toothless spineless Labour party, another bunch of arse wipes.
Notice how this announcement of drastic benefits cuts is immediately followed by a policy giving homeowners even more freedom to tackle burglars? No doubt the government recognises there will be an increase in crimes resulting from their benefit cuts, so are giving people the right to tackle intruders. The government may be full of callous, inhuman bastards, but they aren’t (that) stupid…
Of course, its the last part of the American Dream that we dont have yet, guns and the right to use them. So that will only say to the muggers and workshy – you must get a gun too, and be faster on the trigger when you break into granny Groggins’s house to steal her pension – because of course, she will be OK, as pensioners all vote Tory – or so Adolf Camoron thinks.
Wonder how long till we can buy a hand gun on Ebay, I’ll be getting one, cos I’ll need it when I get sanctioned for not doing 30 hours a week on the commnity action program next year.
Now its gonna get REALLY nasty – guns were the last part of America to arrive here. Shoot em up boys, we got money to find!
This is unforgivable Britain!!! where is that fighting spirirt for all thats unjust where has the compassion gone and is this it now we measure our humanity by money terms!! Shame on you !! you should be ashamed of yourselves right now!!! Choosing to ignore the plight of some of us because we weren,t born with money or influence, because we dared to get sick!!! because our place of work closed down!!! because we lost our house because we couldn,t pay the mortgage or rent!!!! because we couldn,t find a job ( any job) !!! because we ended up on benefits.. because we don,t have thousands of pounds spare, the bit we had put aside for our retirement has had to be used up to be able to live!!! because we got older!!!! because we got sick or already had a disability from birth or due to accident. Just because you have money this will not matter if Illness, sickness, job loss or any other daily disaster, that occurs regularly these days decides to inflict itself on you and your family.. it will not not differentiate , just because you have the good things in life now does nt mean a small twist of fate could send you spiralling downwards to disaster too, so just think on.. we are all in this together..only the mega rich will survive if we don,t act now..Governments have been overthrown in the past and countries have rebulit their trust in each other. Our own prime minister lost a son to disability, he seems hell bent on punishing us because of this tragedy, he should know better.. The Nazis are alive and well and in the UK.
Shame on you Osbourne you Rich contemptuous, arrogant arsehole!!!!
Well said. Thing is, unless more people start to wake up and realise we are all in it together means US, those of lesser means and motheaten wallets and NOT the upper class, those who have never had is to damn good corporate types and of course, those born with a golden spoon in their mouth.
Only if the masses stop being so scared witless and join together will we all be able to change the situation for the better. And, non violently too. If violence comes into it, you will lose.
You cannot fight a fire with fire, you need water foam or sand. Let us all band together and be that tsunami that puts out the fire — if you feed a fire it will burn larger and hotter, we need to adopt very different tactics.
People n Spain drove the police away by doing just this, standing together, and they basically ‘herded’ the police back into their vehicles.
Sorry, but this Tory govt wont listen to peaceful protest – wont bat an eyelid they wont. Its going to take serious riots and mass civil disobedience, even martial law and the army on the streets. How did Thatcher and her poll tax get taken down in 1990? – Riots.
The Tories have lit the touchpaper now and riots are inevitable, and in the next 9 months, once the Universal credit sanctions start to bite, and bite hard they will. The more people that lose their benefits, the more the fury will grow – it will mushroom like a nuclear bomb, and we will be in full scale civil war and social breakdown. What’s coming next year is going to be like social armageddon, and streets will burn. All this because the Tories will push the poor – too far.
Before this entire article and its comments turn totally into a politcal festival for bashing the Conservatives, I would like to remind you of one thing. The Work Capability Assessments were dreamed up by a LABOUR GOVERNMENT and that same LABOUR GOVERNMENT were the ones who gave the contract to the pathetically incompetent Atos.
A few years ago when I was on JSA, I was threatened with having my benefits removed because I spent around 20 hours over just 1 week helping my sailing club run a junior training week. They backed off when I said I would get a letter from the club Commodore confirming the hours I put in, confirming it was just 1 week and that I was volunteering and not paid,
The Jobcentre staff were completely incompetent at helping me find a job in IT and refused to take action when I was discriminated against because of my age on two occasions.
As an example of the Job Centre’s inadequacy to help professional and technically trained people, they showed me a job on their system and demanded to know why I hadn’t applied. It was for an MOD security cleared contractor working on weapons system on SUBMARINES! How did they think that a 56 year old woman could do that? They didn’t remotely understand the highly specialised technical requirement for the job or the fact that the Navy would probably never have allowed me to do it.
In the end I never did go back to work because I was diagnosed with serious depression, transferred to ESA and then had to fight Atos over 3 WCA’s two of them claimed I was fit for work and were successfully challenged. The back to work training allegedly provided by A4e was woefully inadequate and the Jobcentre insisted I continue to attend right up to a month before I received my state pension – at least 6 months complete waste of money. The A4e advisor had not the slightest glimmer of understanding when I described what I did in my career as a software developer, they appear honestly only fit to advise people whose abilities are limited to making widgets or stacking shelves in Tesco.
I offered A4e to help their other clients, on a voluntary basis, by giving them some very basic IT training that would enable them to use the Internet to search for jobs. I was told it wasn’t possible because I would need a CRB check. I asked for the money to get one and was refused! How is that helping people back into work?
How will Mr Duncan Smith’s press-ganged volunteers get around many charities’ requirement for CRB checking?
If assessments were carried out directly by the NHS staff directly responsible for the care of the claimant, an entire level of incompetency and waste of money would be removed at very considerable cost. The NHS has much higher standards for the staff it employs in terms of experience and also requires a higher standard of spoken English. Some Atos assessors are reported as hardly being able to speak English properly. How can they understand the claimants, the forms and the computer systems in order to do their job properly?
I challenge the Government to solve the inadequacies and unfairness in the Work Capability Assessments, to transfer them away from Atos and to generally stop telling such disgusting lies about the money that people on benefits receive, especially single people with no families.
As a result of Atos incompetence I spent the coldest part of the freezing winters of 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 on the minimum benefit because it took 7 months and 5 months respectively on appeal. Cold weather payments are withheld from those who are awaiting appeals- an absolute scandal. I had to choose to eat properly or heat my home and ended up with bronchitis as a result of lowered immunity.
Your story is heartbreaking. I hope your situation has/is improving *hugs* You raise valid points, if not for one thing – this Lab/Condem policy is NOT about “helping the genuinely ill” or “weeding out the scroungers”. This policy is deliberately using the sick and disabled as a horrific, terrifying warning to those who are not swayed by Unum’s glossy adverts to purchase a “safety net” to, yes, purchase a safety net. There are people out there who don’t know – or don’t want to believe – that the system that they’ve paid into all their lives is being dismantled by, you’ve guessed it, Unum. It’s kinda like paying “protection money” to gangsters.
Just look into how many in mps and Lords have financial links to private healthcare – spoiler alert – it’s in the triple digits.
were do you sign up for the Revolution
Dunno. Same place we signed up the last time, I guess ; P
End every post with U.S.T.U. We want a piece of the pie too!
Revolution is a cycle.
Evolution is progress.
Join us!
Form cells…three to a cell…..one from each sets up another three person cell, and so on ; this is how revolutions work if enough people have had enough of this gang of aristo/toff/fascists. Have you had enough?
If so, you can create a revolution right under their noses, because with the cell system, you cannot be monitored,and you don’t need modern technology. You just do it. And you get serious. As serious as they are.
Their policies are killing people and it’s only going to get worse.
I don’t believe that you can take on the state.
But your group of 3’s can be the First Wave.
I’ll quietly unite the stereotypes of unemployment, & then take the rest from there.
said it before and will say it again , its glaringly obvious that these toffs did badly at history in school /uni ( if indeed they ever took it ) as anyone with even a cusory intrerest in the subject will know that the cause of most revolution is the mistreatment of the many by the few .
the only thing that protects the government in the uk is the sheepels APATHY !! – but now that those who regard themselves as “middle class ” are in the same boat as us “plebs ” and other untermench – i suspect that apathy is slowly going to fade – and when it does – look out .
i too watched the speaches at the conference – sitting on my hands to stop myself throwing the nearest heavy object at the screen ( cant afford a new tv every conference season ) – and like others here can not belive the shite these people spout – and noted the wrapt attention of the party faithfull – noting that none of them was what i would call poorly dressed and where for the most part corpulent ( a bit like you never get an obviously starving delegate from these countries we send so much aid to at the UN – or any other meeting of politicos – ever noticed that ??? )
anyway , i digress , – just as hitler used the jews as scapegoats for the economic woes of germany in the 30’s , this bunch of nazis ( and i make no appology for using the term ) are using the “plebs ” as their scapegotats for their own “screw you jack ,i’m rich and ok ” policies in the name of settting the county to rights
so doing my mystic meg bit what do i see before us ?? – well as i said you can only push the people so far before they snap , and either they will vote this lot out next time round and consign the quizling lib dems to the dustbing of political history , or , more worryingly there will BE a british revolution – as if you get hundreds of thousands of young people with no money and no hope on the steets – then eventually trouble will ensue
i too noted that they now have set in motion moves for “householders ” to use anything bar “disproportinate ” force to protect property and possesions – a clear sign imo that they are expecting to HAVE to protect said property ( we have never had this before in this country – so WHY now ?? ) – so maybe some in the tory party have a cursory learning in history and realise that even the most plasid “cur ” if kicked enough will eventually turn on it’s “master ” ???
we live in interesting times .
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Tweet from Oliver Wright Whitehall Editor at the Independent at the party conference – “Huge round of applause in the hall for plan to cut housing benefit for the young”… – need I say more?
Right-wingers are primarily motivated by two things: greed and sadism. Tories really enjoy hurting people. They love it. It’s at the heart of everything they do and it’s why they enjoy blood sports so much. Tormenting the unemployed, low-paid and sick and disabled sexually excites them. Making the poor completely destitute and homeless is complete ecstasy for them.
All this is due to the fact that we are ruled by a ludicrous economic system developed over the last 2500 years in which money is scraped into big heaps owned by a very few which they then generously allow us to “borrow” but want back with interest which interest can and does often exceed the amount “borrowed”. Thus the amount of money in circulation is continually reducing and is only kept up by, you guessed it, borrowing or of course printing more!
Try going onto the web of debt blog it’s American so can be a bit one dimensional and some of the people on it are barking mad, but there is a core of sense and reason in it.
I saw the post about winter fuel allowance. In some areas the cost of heating is many times the payment. If you are aged under 60 and disabled but on JSA you can’t get it, so I am without any extra for heating in winter and most of the time there is none. I think it rules out most people on DLA and ESA too.
Today I was at Work Programme for 5 hours. They gave a new form and made me do a work diary/log. I wasn’t eligible to apply for any of the jobs I wrote down. Then someone else came and said don’t do it that way. You are meant to put ones you’ve applied for. Since they have been threatening me for a while now I started this week Working To Rule, a concept they have not grasped. They said I must sign a new agreement of applying for at least 4 of their ‘jobs’ a week and the 4 at the Jobcentre making 8, even if there aren’t any. I said I refuse to sign it. They said I had to; but I don’t ‘agree’ so am committing perjury by signing. In the end they said they’d stop my dole so they bullied me into signing it. I suggested to the guy in with me (just out of jail, and banned from most parts of the city by courts/police) he could apply for a job as a heart or brain surgeon in London! Well they WANT you to APPLY for JOBS, and it’s a _job_….
I said how do people who can’t read, do this requirement? (I’ve seen blind people in there before too)
To the lady told to get a job on a submarine: The JCP are as thick as a blast wall! All our submarines in the military are the big nuclear ones. You can only go on board if you are military, MOD, or MOD police (or my friends with dreadlocks and paint and boltcutters ha ha). Also they ban women from the subs because of the risk of radiation even if babies are not an option; and don’t stop men from it for the same reason (radiation still gives men cancer or abnormal sperm and disabled/no babies…).
My list of jobs were the most likely of a list of 600 they showed me, I picked the 16 least unlikely/impossible. All were impossible. Army was one, I’m a disabled pacifist anarchist veggie. One was a lorry driver taking carcases between abattoir, meat factory and suppliers. Apart from the obvious, I’m not a car driver even, can’t lift or carry one of the carcases (not that I’d touch it), and can’t reach the bottom step to get into a lorry cab. A lot were in London. Most wanted drivers. Of the rest, they had medicals I’d fail, banned disabled people completely, etc.
On a plus note the Work Scheme that was run by Scout Enterprises (North West) Limited, that till the other week was running Work Programme…
Scout have gone bankrupt, and fled leaving their office empty. Unfortunately they fled with ALL the money they owe us jobseekers for Travel refunds…
Sorry, but according to rich toff Gideon, winterfuel allowance is for pensioners only, and even rich pensioners get it. Pensioners vote, and many of them vote Tory.
The Work programme are a law to themselves. They exist only to inflict misery and sanctions on the unemployed. I have had this “you must apply for X number of jobs a week or face sanctions for failure to actively seek work” crap shoved in my face many times, and then if I apply for jobs that are unsuitable they try to claim I am being deliberately obstructive. You cant win, and they just keep widening the requirements when it suits them.
Its going to get worse, much worse.
Cameron and IDS told the Tory faithful at conference that they are going to get people off benefits – and we know how as well – by sanctioning them, for up to 3 years for failing to comply with nigh on impossible “requirements”.
Next year benefits are going to be so “conditional” that hardly anyone will be able to get anything.
Then we will really see the shit hit the fan. Its a very grim future – but after all, we’re all in this together.
the rich pay less and less for more and more finally paying nothing for everything
the poor pay more and more for less and less finally paying everything for nothing.
the logic behind the governments programme is just that .
Logic states that the more rich people there are and the richer they are the more poor there are.
They think that only the rich made this country great, therefore the more rich people there are the better. The wealth of this country is in it’s people not in money. Money after all is a tool to do a job something that it is signally filing to do at present. They on the other hand think it is the ownership of money that matters and “hard work” -something none of them know anything about. These millionaires need to be dropped into a depressed area in just the clothes they stand up in and see if they can get a job. then live for a year on what they make.then we might know what they are made of.
you know the answer , but a bullet to the head often offends _
What Osborne doesnt seem to realize with all this talk of big benefits, is that the claimant sees very little of it. JSA claimants nationally are given the same rate of up to £71 per week, less any deductions to repay social fund loans they had to take out to stave off starvation while their claim was being assessed in the first place.They may live in relatively cheap housing or relatively expensive housing, but either way, that £71 is further reduced by the top-up needed to maintain a roof over their heads. Council tax arrears are also deducted from the housing benefit. So, with loan repayments, council tax arrears and rent top-up reducing a person’s benefit to around £30 a week if you are lucky, then come the decisions: To eat or heat? An electricity key meter takes about £20 a week. Gas heating and hot water in winter can be £6 a DAY or £40ish a week. So you have to ration that and accept donations of duvets and thick coats and socks. Food? Clothing? Household repairs?.Toiletries? Repairs? Travel to interviews? Christmas?(Joke – nobody on benefits can afford Xmas/birthdays). TV licence? (You face harrassment and a criminal investigation if you dont have one). Insurance? (Dont be silly – cross your fingers instead). This is the exact situation I have been in since last year when my husband left me. Even though I’m seriously depressed, I somehow think battling in the ESA arena would simply send me over the edge, so I have not done so. But I CANNOT survive on benefits. I doubt many can survive on minimum wage either as the level is well below a living wage. But on top of the trials and struggles of surviving in this way, then comes the ritual humiliation of the DWP accusing you of not ‘doing enough’ to find work. Then the threats of sanctions – your pittance of a lifeline might be taken away at a stroke if you dont remember to sign on the right day, or forget about an appointment. Morale dies, enthusiasm fades, self-respect withers away. Then you start to feel like you are second class, unworthy, an unwitting scrounger. But listening to well-off politicians vowing to care for the middle and upper classes has started to turn my self pity into anger. I have decided no longer to accept this treatment. I am going to use every trick in the book to defy the system, to get myself working, to pay the same proportion of taxes the rich people and corporations do. 6% max, I think sounds fair. Then on my way back up the ladder I will carry people with me through encouragement or through work, however I can. I am also becoming an advocate of fair treatment. I might even stand for parliament. God, if I ever got elected I’d run those tax-avoiding sadistic pricks right out of town. At the moment I cannot do much, but watch this space.
This is an excellent post, describing very well what most unemployed have to put up with for the pittance of a payment that the state begrudgingly has to hand out each week. Its the same for me, but I dont have token meters, and pay about £25 a month for electric and the same for gas – in the summer. In the winter its dreadful, as I live in my own house (non rented) an old 1900 terrace with single glazing and no wall insulation, so my bathroom being downstairs on the back of the kitchen gets down to 5 celcius in the winter, and the lounge down to about 10 celcius. I cant afford the heating in winter, same as many other unemployed. The DWP and the work programme are forever threatening sanctions for not doing enough to find work, despite me sending off application after application and getting nowhere. I’m in my 40’s and live in North Staffordshire where jobs are scarce. I cant afford the costs of selling up and moving, and where could I afford to go anyway, as where I live is the cheapest for property in the country.
I have been on anti-depressants for 5 years now and the thought of what the Universal credit and its punitive sanctions regimes will do next year is terrifying. I am lucky I have my own house and am not at the mercy of venomous landlords, but it also means that I dont get any repairs or improvements done to my house. If I took on a lodger I would lose my benefit so that is not an option. Fortunately I worked for 20 years on the trot up until 2009, so my appliances are OK for now, but if one broke down, I would be financially stretched to replace it.
What this government are doing is evil, plain and simple, mean spirited, selfish and callous, and they are destroying the fabric of society in this country.
I, also, had my own home. I was working as a civil servant. Due to my son having problems at school I was left with no choice but to leave work. I couldn’t get help with my mortgae so decided to sell up and rent privately. Big mistake. Nine months later I tried to claim benefits but was not allowed any for a year due to selling my house. What they refused to take into account was my ex-partner had stolen all the proceeds and left me with nothing. I got into arrears. I had to leave my rented accommodation and ended up in a hostel. I have ended up in social housing which is draughty and cold, now receiving a pittance in benefits to live on. Having your own home may seem to many to be an asset, but it can also be a millstone. Yet the only choice sometimes is removing the millstone to end up drifting in choppy seas trying not to drown. It can happen to anyone at any time, and I would urge well-to-do Tory voters not to ignore that possibility. Hardship doesn’t just happen to undereducated people.
I am one of those people most hated by the tories-a retired civil servant.
My son is in the same position as you all, without my help he would be starving. Nonetheless I and my wife have to do a part time job to have some kind of life and to be able to help him. If he had the same job, the chances are he would be worse off. The lack of sense and logic in this situation breaks my heart.
What makes me very angry is that there are other economic and monetary systems where this situation would never occur But trying to find the right people to approach about them is nigh on impossible.
However even our present system kind of worked before Thatcher, because governments turned a blind eye to the grey economy – no longer – now you would be called a cheat. The whole stinking system has lost it’s humanity and so have the people who run it and benefit from it. We now must worship the Great God MONEY which must be made but not spent!!
Dont be downhearted. From desperation comes inspiration. Whether ’tis legal or not, is no longer an eligible issue. Whereupon once it was cheating, now it is compensating. When the rich impose financial injustice upon its citizens, we have a duty to respond as we see fit, even if it is not outright rebellion. We maintain our integrity whether or not we follow acts and laws, because we prefer to see injustice thwarted. That, to me, is a much nobler act. xx
My son a bricklayer has just got a short term contract with an agency who are deducting £23 per week out of his wages for someone to make his wages up – they are creating work out of the workers pockets again who can ill afford it.
I’ve been down that route myself.
I worked for 4 weeks as a labourer @ £6.08 per hour in August 2011.
£15 was deducted from my weekly pay, for **** constructions ‘profit margin’.
On top of this, 30% of my weekly pay went to the Taxman, as I did not have a Unique Taxpayer Reference.
Plus £2 Accident Insurance.
My payslips didn’t show ‘hours worked’, ‘hourly rate’ or ‘N.I. Contribution’.
I cleaned the site toilet on site once.
This was my first job after passing an electrical installation course at college, as a mature student.
Great opportunity, & well worth it.. Not.
Good luck to your Son.
I am pleased to have found some kindred spirits!
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Never blogged anything before guys so apologise if I stuff it up but I’m just furious about what’s going on and grateful that others can recognise it for what it is. Shameful, disgusting and abhorrent.
I’m surprised they’re not re-building workhouses. After all, they’re re-visiting all the treacherous, scuzzy rhetoric which led to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 but a la 21st century. I cant see any difference.
The latest thing which has infuriated me is all this “strivers not skivers” and “workers not shirkers” bullshit. It really makes my blood boil. It is so downright offensive and – as posted above somewhere – it is really going for the jugular because its playing the “divide and rule” game. I shudder when I hear people banging on about benefit scroungers, tarring everyone with the same brush. And as for the way disabled people are being treated, its is an outright scandal. Its probably costing them more in administration than it will save them. What is it with these people? They get these stupid ideas into their heads and spout forth before they stop to THINK. From a purely pragmatic viewpoint their arguments are totally flawed..
I read some statistics the other day about the number of people in the UK who are dying because of poverty. 24,000 last winter apparently because of fuel poverty. The increased number of suicides – hundreds more every year. Collateral damage of this vile regime. People who just cant take the stress and stigmatisation any more. To quote someone from one of the broadsheets last summer and echo the words of a previous poster, they are “demonising the vulnerable”. Its despicable, its cheap, its monstrous and,worst of all they appear to be getting away with it and planning to keep going to the next election. Like f**cking Ronseal “doing what it says on the tin” except so many of the population dont seem to have noticed that its a very nasty shade of brown…..
I’ll climb down off my soapbox now…. Thanks for letting me vent! Phew!!!
People who are well off do not realise the situation for those at the bottom of the pile. I am reminded of a conversation I had in the early seventies, when the coal miners were asking for £100.00 a week. my colleague said “gosh I would not mind doing it for that”. I asked him if he would do it for his present income to which the answer was “no of course not” ( his income was £150.00 per week equivalent). Yes a millionaire can live on seventy pounds a week, if you discount such luxurious frivolities as clothing, heating, water TV licence, and a healthy diet not to mention other things that make life bearable.!!!
i think the real villians are the libdems who have put the tories in power and support them to the death.
Not to mention those who vote out of sheer habit for what look like overgrown baby faced schoolboys.
Too true these tory millionaires are just out to line their own pockets, theivin lyin spoilt scab fucks, they dont give a fuck about anyone whos living on the breadline, look at all their shit they get up to when the expenses scandal broke, & today i read about some tory tycoon cunt who claimed £6000 on his expenses to heat his mansion & horse stables, & he wants to put cuts in place for child benefits & poor famalies. Unbeleviable . THEIVIN TORY SCUM
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