Serco and Reed – The Profit Hungry Vultures at the Heart of the Big Society

David Cameron’s flagship Big Society initiative, the National Citizen’s Service,  is set to be dominated by profit hungry vultures like Serco and private training company Reed in Partnership.

The National Citizen Service was launched to much fanfare shortly after the current government weren’t elected, as a shining example of the Big Society at work. It has now been announced that a consortium including the multi-national security and workfare company Serco have picked up the largest share of the contracts to expand the scheme, winning 6 out of a possible 19 lucrative regional contracts.  Reed in Partnership, another company with a background in workfare, have also been awarded a contract.

Under the scheme 16/17 year old can take part in a short programme which involves sport, outdoor pursuits and ‘volunteering’ (such as, according to the Daily Telegraph, clearing wasteland). The involvement of Serco and Reed suggests that unpaid work is likely to remain at the heart of the project.

Whilst Cameron clearly launched the scheme in an attempt to appease the ‘bring back National Service’ brigade, at present it is entirely voluntary and not based on a military model.   Cameron has claimed that: “This is about sowing the seeds of the Big Society – and seeing them thrive in the years to come.” 

The truth seems to be that this is a gimmick designed to further profit the private sector at the expense of properly funded youth services working with the most excluded young people.

After last year’s riots the Cameron announced the scheme would be hugely extended, eventually becoming available to every young person in the UK.  Despite this one major national young people’s charities, the YMCA, has claimed that  the project is largely benefiting middle class families.  Certainly the picture above, taken from the scheme’s facebook page, does not seem to represent the diversity of the communities affected by last year’s disturbances.

The true face of Cameron’s Big Society is starting to emerge.  Whilst youth clubs in inner city areas close due to funding cuts, middle class kids are sent on tax payer funded jollies which serve to line the pockets of private sector poverty pimps.

A Lying Bastard at the Justice Department is Cameron’s Worst Joke Yet

The Chris Grayling comedy show lives on!

Bungling Employment Minister Chris Grayling has been promoted to bungling Secretary of State for Justice in today’s cabinet reshuffle, replacing Ken Clarke who has been demoted to minister who’s lost his portfolio.

Grayling will be relieved to be out of the DWP, where he was little more than a whipping boy for Iain Duncan Smith’s ludicrous and unworkable benefit bashing schemes.  But the promotion of a compulsive liar like Grayling to head the Justice Department is a risky strategy for a Government that’s as out of ideas as they are out of touch.

Grayling is unlikely to fair well when his lies are scrutinised by judges and barristers rather than benefit claimants.  Whilst his appointment represents a dark day for human rights, he is likely to prove the perfect example of what can happen when a fool is promoted above their level of competence.

Grayling may not feature as highly on this blog any longer which is a shame because he’s such a knob.  Tory spiv Grant Shapps, and Maria Killer Miller are also out of the picture, meaning new ministers for both disabled people and housing are on the cards.  It has yet to be announced who will replace them.

It is the news that Cameron pleaded with Iain Duncan Smith to leave his role as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions at the DWP which is most revealing.  IDS is now effectively squatting the DWP, without the support of the Prime Minister.  Whilst Grayling has dodged the upcoming Universal Credit car crash, Cameron remains firmly dazzled by the headlights.  He had his chance to end what could be a Tory Government destroying shambles and he bottled it.

Universal Credit is the new benefit regime dreamed up by Iain Duncan Smith on the back of an envelope after watching an episode of Shameless.  Millions of people are to be transferred to multi-billion pound new ‘big brother’ database.  All those currently claiming any benefit, including Child Benefit, could be bundled onto the computer system which is currently behind schedule and over budget.

This computer system, which underpins the new benefit, is set to be the most complex IT database ever built in history, anywhere.    Even, if by some miracle, it works, the plans are riddled with holes, and in some cases appear unworkable.

Changes planned to Council Tax Benefit as part of the new regime will leave Councils chasing benefit claimants through the courts for trivial amounts of money or facing huge budget shortfalls – a situation comparable to the Poll Tax.  The benefit caps, to be introduced next year, will plunge tens, if not hundreds of families into homelessness.  The ruthless assessment regime for sick and disabled claimants carried out by Atos is developing into a national scandal and almost the exact same system is about to be inflicted on over 2 million people claiming Disability Living Allowance.

Private sector poverty pimps running back to work schemes are struggling to find enough workfare placements with ever more charities and companies pulling out of forced labour.   Yet IDS keeps announcing endless new workfare schemes.  And the £5 billion Work Programme, designed to help the long term unemployed, appears to be doing quite the opposite. 

All of these problems could have disappeared had Cameron had the courage to sack Iain Duncan Smith.  Yet so scared is he of the Tory right he has chickened out, run away and left Iain Duncan Smith to die another day.  The far right of the Tory Party love Iain Duncan Smith who plunged the party into bitter splits and helped make them unelectable for a decade.  He may well do the same again, to the delight of some back benchers who would far rather be drinking gin and whinging about the communists in Government than doing any real work themselves.

The human curse that is Iain Duncan Smith may yet be the downfall of this toff Government.  The problem is he seems intent on dragging most of the rest of the country down with him.

Cameron Uses Paralympics to Push More Disability Denial

David Cameron yesterday used the Paralympics Opening Ceremony as an opportunity to spout crass propaganda for the toff Government’s ruthless disability benefit cutting regime.

Speaking to Channel 4, Cameron said:  “It’s about the inspiration and it will change people’s minds and that’s what matters. It’ll teach people about what they can do, rather than what they can’t do.”

This is the exact same line that has been used to strip benefits from hundreds of thousands of disabled people.  Here’s a DWP spokesperson saying the same thing in the Daily Express to justify the Work Capability Assessment, the brutal computer based tests used to declare sick and disabled people fit for work:  “We’re overhauling the whole system of incapacity benefits to place the emphasis on what work people can do, not what they can’t”

This line as been trotted out time and time again by Ministers and DWP officials as justification for the brutal new benefit eligibility tests that have tragically driven an increasing number of people to suicide.  Those with serious disabilities or illnesses, including those undergoing chemotherapy, have all been stripped of sickness or disability benefits on the basis that there might, possibly be a job they could somehow do.  As one Tory MP, Nadine Dorris put it, “if you  can tweet you can work”.

It seems that even at the opening of the Paralympic Games Cameron can’t resist trying to crowbar some subtle benefit bashing into the proceedings.

Spotted by the ever vigilant Black Triangle Campaign

Join today’s online day of action against Atos, the company making hundreds of millions from carrying out these assessments: 
http://www.dpac.uk.net/2012/08/dpac-atos-armchair-games-30th-august-the-truth-is-revolutionary/

Above pic found at:
http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/remember-atos-kills.html

Cameron Will Allow Disabled Squaddies To Fester

David Cameron has announced that former service men and women who are injured on duty are to be left to fester on disability benefits, possibly for the rest of their lives.

Soldiers with disabilities are to be denied all the benefits of the upcoming Personal Independence Payment assessments and may not even qualify for the mandatory Work Programme.  It is believed that squaddies injured in battle will now be simply waved through conditionality for disability benefits, condemning them to wasted lives of fecklessness.

Astonishingly soldiers are set to be abandoned to payments for life, with no continuous testing to check whether conditions have cleared up, or disabilities disappeared.

Soldiers will be judged workshy by default, by a perverse system that is set to punish hard work and reward idleness.  In a tragic waste of human life it is believed that former soldiers may not even qualify for workfare.

This must surely be Iain Duncan Smith’s reaction on hearing that Cameron has pledged sick or disabled soldiers will not face the upcoming brutal assessment regime in order to qualify for sickness or disability benefits.

After all, this is the Government that have told us benefit cuts are good for our health, and that the short computer based assessments are helping people to ensure they are on the correct benefit.

The truth is that Cameron’s announcement is an admission that the upcoming Personal Independence Payment (PIP) benefit for sick and disabled people is unfit for purpose.  Of course it is right that soldiers who have lost limbs or suffered other injuries in battle should be supported without constant brutal and humiliating tests – but so should fucking everyone else.

Are only those prepared to go and kill and die in rich men’s wars the only people who deserve a humane welfare state?  What about nurses, teachers, firemen, or the thousands of people injured in industrial accidents?

The new tests for PIP will see everyone on Disability Living Allowance forced into a regime of continuous health and disability assessments by private companies regardless of claimant’s conditions.  This is the same process currently endured by those claiming the out of work sickness and disability benefit Employment Support Allowance.

Yet the Prime Minister himself judges this process so toxic he has moved the goalposts for disabled squaddies in the hope of pacifying a few Sun readers.

In others words if you haven’t got a gun and are sick or disabled this Government doesn’t give a fuck and won’t listen.

Daily Mail Readers Back Benefits – Shock Poll Result

Over 80% of Daily Mail readers have slammed Cameron’s brutal plans to slash Housing Benefit for those under 25 reveals a poll on the paper’s website.

In a shocking blow to Cameron’s planned welfare reforms, it appears that the squeezed middle classes and now turning on the vicious benefit slashing agenda.  It is quite likely that many Daily Mail readers were horrified at the thought of having to accommodate their adult children should they be unable to find well paying jobs when they leave university.

Whilst the poorly thought through plans have been met with a mixture of ridicule and contempt elsewhere, Cameron might have thought the Tory press would stand behind him.  And (with the exception of The Sun) by and large they did.  The Sun knows that many of their readers will be in low paid work, or pensioners, and likely to be claiming Housing Benefits themselves.  It appears that the The Mail are not quite so in touch with their readership.

Housing Benefit is fundamental to the Welfare State.  Paid to those in and out of work alike, as well as parents, pensioners, sick and disabled people, it ensures, in most cases, that people have somewhere to lay their heads at night.  Cameron has assumed that people won’t understand that Housing Benefit is a crude sticking plaster for an out of control private rental sector.  It’s unlikely Cameron has ever even had a conversation that wasn’t stage managed with someone claiming Housing Benefit.

This is in stark contrast to the baby boomer Daily Mail generation, many of whom have working class parents, who may even now be claiming benefits towards their housing costs.  They are the generation that got lucky and in many cases benefited from soaring house prices.  They can see that their children are unlikely to be quite so lucky.

Slowly but surely the scrounger stories are being replaced by tales of homelessness, food banks and cancer patients being stripped of benefits.  Perhaps people are finally waking up to the stark reality, which is that the Welfare State is good value for all but the very rich and it won’t just be the poor who suffer should it be dismantled.

It’s not just Daily Mail readers who have rejected the ludicrous proposals.  The Daily Telegraph ran a similar poll the day before Cameron’s speech asking the same question.  Once again Cameron’s plans were roundly rejected.

So desperate were The Telegraph to prop up Cameron’s welfare onslaught that they ran the same poll the next day – changing the wording slightly in the hope of a more favourable result for the Tory Party.

It didn’t quite work out the way they hoped, with even more of their readership rejecting the plans – around 70%.

Unlike the Tory Party cabinet, most people aren’t multi-millionaires.  Even those on the political right seem to be waking up to the Bullingdon Boy’s onslaught.  Unlike Thatcher, with her council house give away, Cameron’s Tories have never had anything to offer the working class.  These polls reveal that even those in leafy suburbia are turning their back on the ex-etonian and his chinless chums.

One of the highest rated comments on the Daily Mail’s coverage of Cameron’s speech reveals what most decent hard working people think of this toff Government and their banker cronies:

“Demonising the poor to deflect attention from the scum that put our country in this financial disaster. Why aren’t these City Of London/Wall Street criminals in jail, yet?”

A statement that more and more people will agree with as the public school Oxbridge elite cause yet more havoc in the lives of all those who weren’t born with a silver spoon jammed down their throats.

Josef Fritzl Would Cheer Cameron’s Housing Benefit Massacre

Cameron’s latest benefit bashing speech contained all the hallmarks of this toff Government.  Brutal, dishonest, incompetent and desperately out of touch, it revealed the Tories have barely changed at all since their descent into the electoral wilderness just over 15 years ago.

Just like back then, this speech was intended to cover up the sleaze that infects not just the tax dodgers who pay the Tory Party’s bills, but also David Cameron’s morally bankrupt family.

When Tories are in trouble they have a go at single mums and many of Cameron’s new welfare proposals were precision targeted in that direction.  The slashing of Housing Benefit for under 25s in practice would be yet another Tory attack on women, children and those with least.

Over half of young people who claim Housing Benefit have children.  Some of them will be couples, some dads, but very many will be single mums.

Couples, under the new proposals will be expected to split up and go back to mum and dad themselves.  This is of course presuming they have a mum and dad.  Single parents will be forced to leave the homes they’ve built for their children and instead house them in over crowded and quite possibly unbearable conditions at their parent’s flats and houses.  This is assuming they have parents, who have a flat or house, and who is prepared to let them stay.

There is no details in these plans of what happens should the parents tell their children to fuck off.  Are single mums, and their children, to be forced to sleep on the streets if their parents don’t like them or can’t afford to have them back in their homes?

Cameron claims these plans will not apply to anyone who has faced domestic abuse, whilst Iain Duncan Smith piped up to plead that orphans might also be protected.  There are approaching 70,000 children in the care system, the vast majority of whom will start their adult lives in a housing benefit funded council flat.  If they are to not face the cuts to Housing Benefits then the £2 billion, which will allegedly be saved from the proposals, already starts to shrink significantly.

But it won’t just be kids leaving care who will suffer if these vicious proposals are ever actually implemented.  How does Cameron propose assessing whether domestic abuse has taken place?  Does this mean physical, sexual or emotional abuse, or all three?

Will abused children only be able to escape their homes should a social services intervention have taken place, or a parent has been convicted of abuse?

Abused children don’t generally grass up their parents, at least usually not at first.  They run, often at the first opportunity.  For huge numbers of young people who currently live in Housing Benefit funded hostels it may take many years before they are psychologically strong enough to come to terms with the abuse and even think about taking legal action.  Under David Cameron’s plans, a young woman who has been sexually abused will be forced to either begin the long and arduous process of confronting the abuser, who may be a parent, or face being sent back to continue being abused.  If Josesf Fritzl is ever released he’d do well to move to the UK before starting his next family.

The other side of this brutal coin are the children who leave home because the relationship with their parents or step-parents has broken down completely.  This can take years for families to fix.  The only escape for these kids will be to formally allege some form of abuse.  At the most vulnerable time in a troubled family’s development, Cameron wants to drive a meat cleaver between children and their parents.  Those unable to continue living at home will be forced into make some kind of case against their parents to government busy-bodies in the hope of being permitted to access meagre Housing Benefit payments.

Many commentators have pointed out that huge numbers of Housing Benefit claimants are actually working.  With wages at an all time low for young people it is clear that even finding work will be no way to escape a damaging home life.  Cameron has made this very clear.  Work is not the answer after all.  There is no deserving poor anymore.

But every policy should also be judged on how it will affect the most vulnerable.  Abused children, those from fractured families, single mums nursing new born babies, young people with mental health conditions  – these are just some of the people who will find themselves on the streets should these policies ever be implemented.

Cameron is burying his head in the sand over the upcoming homelessness crisis.  Come the next election it is quite likely to be top of the agenda and these plans will be long forgotten.  Yesterday’s speech was a botched attempt at clawing back some degree of credibility with swivel eyed right wingers after a string of shambolic policy u-turns.  With even The Sun rejecting the proposals, Cameron now looks as out of touch as ever.

It is quite possible that Cameron’s plan to cut housing benefit for those under 25 will never see the light of day.  But with communities still reeling from last year’s riots, this is an irresponsible and downright foolish provocation.  Not content with forcing the young unemployed to work for free and destroying the educational chances of all but the wealthy, Cameron now wants to remove the one safety net available for the most vulnerable young people.

It’s been questioned why young people should be forced to pay tax if they aren’t to receive the same protections in society as everyone else.  The real question, as the young face a sustained attack on both their current living standards and their futures, is why should they feel they have any stake in this society at all.  With increasingly little left to lose, the rage of the abandoned working class youth will resonate with ferocity throughout the generations to come.

The Tories on Drugs

Theresa May on drugs : “I have a very tough view on drugs.

I think there are far too many people who think drugs is something you can do without it having an impact, but it does have an impact.”

May was responding to this week’s call from the chair of the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs, Prof Les Iversen, that people caught in possession of drugs should not face criminal records.

David Cameron on drugs: “I’m allowed to have had a private life before politics in which we make mistakes and we do things that we should not and we are all human and we err and stray.”

Boris Johnson on drugs: “It was jolly nice.”

Louise Mensch on drugs: “Although I do not remember the specific incident, this sounds highly probable… since I was in my twenties, I’m sure it was not the only incident of the kind.”

Francis Maude on drugs: “It was hard to go through Cambridge in the 70s without doing it a few times.”

Oliver Letwin on drugs: “At Cambridge, I was a very pretentious student. I grew a beard and took up a pipe. On one occasion some friends put some dope in a pipe I was smoking. It had absolutely no effect on me at all. I don’t inhale pipes.”

Tim Yeo on drugs: “I was offered it on occasion and enjoyed it. I think it can have a much pleasanter experience than having too much to drink.”

George Osborne on drugs:

The law on drugs: “The maximum sentences for possession of each class of drug are:

• up to seven years in prison or an unlimited fine (or both) for a Class A drug
• up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine (or both) for a Class B drug
• up to two years in prison or an unlimited fine (or both) for a Class C drug“

Are The Wheels Falling Off Universal Credit Already?

Universal Credit, the new all purpose benefit which underlies Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms, may already be falling apart says a story in the Mirror today.

According to DWP documents the national roll out has been pushed back to mid-2014, almost a year later than has been previously announced.  Only a small pilot scheme will be introduced next year and the Mirror claims that even that may be in doubt.

The new benefit depends on the construction of a database of an unprecedented size and complexity.  The benefit is set to be ‘digital by default’, meaning it will be almost inaccessible to anyone without a home computer and broadband connection.  When Working Tax Credit, a far simpler benefit, was  introduced it was initially intended to be claimed online.  After hundreds of thousands of people rang helplines complaining the site didn’t work, claiming the benefit was quickly reverted to a paper only system.

This hasn’t stopped Iain Duncan Smith from ploughing ahead with the scheme, which could yet see the country plunged into financial chaos.  The harmonising of the tax and benefits system means it will not just be benefit claimants who will find their details on the new database.  George Osborne’s ludicrously complex child benefit changes will mean parents will also be added to the system, as may pensioners and other groups, if mean testing of Winter Fuel Payments and other benefits are introduced.

The vast database will be underpinned by the new regime for reporting income to the Tax Office, known as ‘real time reporting’.  This will mean employers and self-employed people will be required to provide monthly (rather than annual) information about income to the HMRC.  The new system, which is likely to prove hugely unpopular with employers and self-employed people alike, is currently undergoing small trials around the country .  One major employer in Newcastle has claimed the changes are set to be ‘shambolic’ and warned it will create a “red-tape hell” for employers.

Until ‘real time reporting’ is working nationally then Universal Credit, which will add even further complexity to the system, will not be able to go ahead.

This is not the only pitfall awaiting the flagship scheme, which will see all benefits, including housing benefit, rolled into one payment.  There has still been no information provided by the Government on how the system will handle rent differentials around the country, sickness or disability premiums, child care support payments and pass-ported benefits such as free school meals.  Council Tax Benefit is to be handed over to Local Authorities with the total spend to be cut by 10%.  This will leave Local Authorities facing a huge shortfall which they will be forced to recoup from low income households.  The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently claimed in a report that the working poor will be hit hardest, with Local Authorities reduced to chasing the very poorest for small amounts of money, a situation comparable to the Poll Tax debacle.

Privacy is also likely to emerge as a concern as it becomes apparent that Universal Credit will require the Government to hold huge amounts of personal information.  With voice biometrics having been suggested as one way the system could verify identity, it is possible (but not very likely)  that even some Lib Dem MPs may raise concerns about the fact that a huge Government database -  which dwarfs the last Government’s National Identity Register they were so opposed to -  is quietly being constructed behind the scenes.

Even this is not the last of Universal Credit’s woes.  Some employers have warned the scheme may be undermined by the lack of jobs available.  Housing associations are concerned that all payments being made direct to tenants rather than landlords will mean vulnerable claimants may run up huge rent arrears.  Bizarrely Lord Freud, one of the architects of the scheme claims this will make more tenants get jobs.  They sound more desperate everyday.

Any failure of Universal Credit will be a career ending disaster for Iain Duncan Smith, which may explain why Cameron has yet to pull the plug.  IDS is a party wrecker and one of the key people responsible for plunging the Tories into the electoral wilderness in the 90s.  An old school patriarchal Tory with old testament Christian beliefs, he is a world away from the economically right wing, but socially liberal image that Cameron wishes to portray.  This makes IDS awfully popular with the swivel eyed right of the Tory Party, who still make up much of the rank and file and are growing increasingly frustrated at the Government’s failure to abolish gays and ban the internet.

IDS is also vehemently anti-Europe and was one of the ‘bastards’ who helped bring down the Major Government after the party fractured in two over the issue.  Whilst his leadership of the Tory Party was an unmitigated disaster, IDS is a useful idiot for any amongst the Tory right who may wish to make a move against Cameron.  IDS is both ambitious and stupid, a dangerous combination for a man in such high office.  Of most concern is that he doesn’t appear to realise his own stupidly and is an avid believer of his own bullshit.  Whilst it’s obvious that Chris Grayling relishes lying through his teeth about welfare reform, Iain Duncan Smith appears to be entirely sincere in the bollocks he talks.

Iain Duncan Smith could tear the party apart without even realising what he’s doing and Cameron is well aware of this.  Whilst the failure of Universal Credit could plunge millions into financial chaos, and possible homelessness, David Cameron may well think it worth it to rid the party of one of his most troublesome foes.

Iain Duncan Smith Launches Shocking Attack On Disabled Workers

Iain Duncan Smith has launched an astonishing attack on disabled workers exposing that the Tories are still very much the ‘nasty party’.

The outburst came when the Daily Express delivered 15,000 ‘Save Remploy’ letters to him from their readers.  The Government are closing the Remploy factories in a decision which will see 1,500 disabled workers sacked.

Showing his utter contempt for the soon to be unemployed workforce, IDS snapped:

“Is it a kindness to stick people in some factory where they are not doing any work at all? Just making cups of coffee?”

When questioned on his shocking statements the Secretary of State of Work and Pensions became even more abusive.  When a Remploy worker pointed out that they do work in their factories, IDS’  aggressive response was:  “You don’t produce very much at all.”

Finally IDS revealed his belief that no disabled people should have any say in their own lives when he said: “How far do you want to go with the idea that you can choose to do exactly what you want?”

Not being able to do exactly what you want, like use the tube in London, is something many disabled people are all too familiar with.

Previously IDS has kept hidden his unpleasant opinions behind DWP Press Releases accusing sick and disabled people of being scroungers or faking it.  Press Releases, it should be said, that the Daily Express have been only too happy to splash on their front pages.

This latest temper tantrum has showed IDS for what he truly is.  A spiteful, bigoted little shit who can’t keep either his temper or his prejudice under control.

The truth is that Iain Duncan Smith is a political failure.  Whilst he’s got time to insult disabled workers, he barely mentions Universal Credit these days.  Is his slipping composure down to the fact his deluded plans for a Big Brother style database watching our every move are being revealed as mere fantasy behind the scenes?

The Atos assessments are a brutal shambles and plans to extend this to DLA claimants are already looking disastrous.  The Work Programme has collapsed after the business community told them they wanted no part in the ‘toughest ever sanctions regime’ for those not attending workfare.  Welfare Reform under IDS is turning into a sick joke, with people assessed as being able to work inconveniently dying a week later, and Work Programme  private sector providers scarpering with billions of tax payer’s cash for doing precisely fuck all.

On top of this he is despised by Cameron, Osborne and the rest of the arrogant posh boys in the cabinet.  IDS, who has an army background (officer class, it’s a wonder he wasn’t shot by his own troops), is seen as an oik by the new breed of toffs in Government.  He hasn’t even made that much money, despite paying his wife Betsy a small fortune in tax payers cash to sit around at home whilst he was Tory leader.

After ‘Betsygate’ blew up IDS was reportedly furious at two Tory Party workers he believed were behind the leaks which led to the scandal.  IDS was eventually cleared by the Commons standards committee who called his affairs ‘not ideal’ but conceded no rules had been broken.  This is known as getting off on a technicality.

IDS vowed bloody revenge on party worker Vanessa Gearson and Tory Chief Executive Mark MacGregor.  He blamed both of them for documentation falling into the hands of the BBC which led to the investigation into his dodgy financial affairs.   Despite the two of them being cleared of any wrong doing in 2006, IDS threatened to resign the Tory whip if they were ever allowed to run as Tory MPs.

Whilst Francis Maude amongst others is said to be keen on their return, until now they have not yet been selected as MPs.  It is clear that Cameron is too spineless to take on the errant Secretary of State just yet.

Iain Duncan Smith remains a darling of the Tory right despite his string of scandals and mishaps.  He is ruthlessly homophobic, having voted against every piece of LGBT rights legislation, except the Civil Partnership Bill, which he didn’t bother to turn up for.  Whilst he was party leader the Tories were accused of ‘endemic racism’ by black Tory Peer Lord Taylor of Warwick .  He is known to be virulently anti-Europe and was one of the ‘bastards’ who helped orchestrate John Major’s fall from grace.  And his latest comments aimed at disabled workers shows his unpleasant views haven’t changed in the slightest from the days when bigotry was the respectable face of the Conservative Party.

All of this makes him popular with the swivel-eyed freaks on the right of the Tory Party.  The very same out of touch weirdos who are calling for Cameron’s blood now whilst obsessing about gay marriage.  For this reason he’s unlikely to be sacked anytime soon.

Cameron is simply too gutless to remove this embarrassment from government just yet.  Far better to let him carry on wasting money on Universal Credit and then, when it fails miserably, regretfully remove him from post.  The biggest and most expensive disaster in the history of the Welfare State is steaming ahead simply because Cameron isn’t a strong enough party leader to put the breaks on.

Once again Cameron would rather let the country, our money, and disabled people’s lives go to hell in a handcart rather than damage his own chances of clinging on to the leadership until the next election.

For more info on the fight to save the Remploy Factories visit:
http://www.remployworkers.info/

David Cameron Looks More Like John Major Everyday

The Tory wipe out in the local elections leave David Cameron looking more like John Major than ever before.  Despised, clueless and inept, the hapless Prime Minister blunders on with no ideas and no direction.

There are differences between the two.  John Major came from a circus family, not a family of millionaires.  He was also elected, unlike this toff Government.  And whilst Major had bastards in his cabinet to contend with, Cameron has got the biggest bastard of all in City Hall.

The insipid Lib Dems are likely to prove the least of his problems.  If yesterday’s election showed anything, it showed the Lib Dems are nothing at all.  Their party is dead.  Clegg and Alexander will no doubt carry on in their lucrative jobs, but the only hope Lib Dem MPs and the few remaining Councillors have of saving their salaries is a very public rebellion. Don’t hold your breath.  That they are watching their beloved party collapse around them and still remain silent just shows the cowardly heart that beats in the chest of every Liberal Democrat.

It may yet be Boris who proves Cameron’s undoing.  If the Bullingdon Boy rival remains popular whilst Cameron remains despised, there will undoubtedly be calls for Boris to challenge for the leadership before the next election. Despite being a darling of the Tory right, Boris is far too much of a dick to ever actually be Prime Minister.  But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want it.

Cameron recently stated that he believes children should stand up when an adults enters the room.  When Tories are in trouble they go ‘back to basics’.  If David Cameron seems out of touch now, a lurch to the traditionalist right will see him made a laughing stock.  Tory MPs bleating about Tory values, such as not letting gay people get married, shows the rump of the party hasn’t moved on one inch from the fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists which infected the party in the 1990s.

This election was a clear vote against austerity.  George Osborne’s ideological crusade to line the pockets of the wealthy at our expense has not only wreaked devastation on people’s lives, but has driven us into the longest recession since the 1930s.  Yet the Tories will plough on with more of the same.  Out of ideas and in the pockets of the super rich, there’s no turning back for Cameron now.

If he flinches then the Tory right will destroy him and crown Boris.  If he carries on he will plunge the country into further chaos.  He’s choosing chaos to save his own skin.  Only two years into this toff Government and already it’s every man for himself.

John Major presided over the self-destruction of the Tory Party in the 90′s, behaving like a rabbit in the headlights as sleaze, scandal and bitter in-fighting wrecked his Government.  But even Major wouldn’t have slipped up over Cornish Pasties.  John Major’s ill-fated traffic cones hotline seems positively competent compared to the Tory’s recent performances.  And once more the Tories are finding themselves mired in sleaze, as Leveson and cash for questions reveal that envelopes stuffed with cash and dodgy deals remain at the heart of all Tory Governments.

Cameron like Major, is letting his temper get the better of him.  John Major kept his outbursts behind closed doors.  Cameron prefers to expose his fury in the House of Commons, telling older MPs they should retire or insulting and patronising his own female MPs.  There has rarely been such an arrogant little posh boy in Government.

The truth is, just like John Major, he’s no good and won’t get any better.  The elections show the country is fast waking up to this.  Many in the Tory Party always knew it but chose to remain silent.  Until now.  That a floppy haired clown like Boris should be the greatest political threat to the Prime Minister just shows how bad things have got.

None of this is of any comfort to the millions facing poverty, ill health and homelessness due to this Government.  The Westminster soap has little impact on our daily lives.  Even the Mayoral election has been little more than a boring version of X Factor.  If the Tories collapsed tomorrow the grinning idiot Milliband would be no better.  The gaggle of public school boys in all parties are determined to steer us into neo-liberal hell.  The only opposition is us now.