A big day for welfare reform as we pilot a cap on benefits equal to the average wage. Amazingly Labour oppose it.
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) April 15, 2013
DWP statistics reveal that the benefit cap, set at £500 a week for families, was based on a bare-faced lie.
It has repeatedly been claimed that the cap – which was introduced in some parts of London earlier in the year and is now being rolled out across the UK – was to ensure that no-one on benefits receives more than an equivalent family on the average wage. This move echoed the Victorian principle of ‘less eligibility’, the idea used to justify the workhouse which insisted that the life of anybody out of work must be ‘less eligible’ – meaning more shit – than the life of the lowest paid labourer.
Yet just released DWP statistics on the average UK wage show that the benefit cap was set far below the average income for families.*
According to the DWP, the average income for a family with children is £670 a week. This is made up of £600 in earnings with an additional income of £70 which presumably comes from Child Benefit and Child Tax Credits.
The Benefit Cap has been set at not far from £200 a week less than the average wage that Cameron talks of in the above tweet. Which means David Cameron is a lying bastard.
Over 200,000 children now face homelessness due to this lie.
*In fact the cap is set below the amount a family with two working parents both on minimum wage would receive in most cases firmly establishing the principle of less eligibility. A family with two children in which one parent works 35 hours a week and another 24, both on minimum wage and paying £250 in rent a week, would receive a joint income of around £612 a week made up of wages and in work benefits.
Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid
the void 
“Which means David Cameron is a lying bastard.” YEAH ..AND YOUR POINT BEING WHAT?
going to cost the millions more in the long term.
@johnny void i rather think that someone commiting suicide beleiving that they were going to be sent to prison despite the fact that they had done no wrong at all since they were quite ill and was fully entitled to those benefits and that on the DWP website only in small print down the bottom of the list does it ever mention ‘risk imprisonment’ and on thre GOV.UK site not once does it ever mention imprisonment in fact a court case and incarceration cost would far out way any monies lost due to said fraud..in fact there are many procedures that are gone through before any consideration of penal servitude is considered…the loss to the love ones and community far out weigh the scroogelike attitude to a govt dept which pisses billions away on absurd schemes that help no one except to line the pockets of very wealthy corporations so the benefit cap is utter bollocks, trouble is joe and joline public are either blissfully unaware of all this or are wilfully ignorant of these facts after all do they think that all these ‘tough measures’ are going to reduce their income tax bill by even one penny? of course it wouldnt..but i guess it makes them feel a bit better by making other people lives a misery…
how much money are they going to spend working out who is above the cap and who isnt.
@nuggy and what if the caps dont fit then will they get atos to retest everyone to see if they fit?
more than it is saving so far: http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2013/08/labour-slams-dwp-over-benefit-cap-it/
“more than it is saving so far: ” they are good at that…look they do serve a purpose after all…its all about “being seen to be doing something.”.
seems theres no limit to what they will spend on administration.
Reblogged this on Vox Political and commented:
Vox Political in fact published this information (with only slightly varied figures – £605 pw instead of £670/£612 – in May: http://mikesivier.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/dwp-denial-with-prejudice/
However, it is information that bears repeated exposure to the public because – as Johnny Void points out here, and I pointed out before – the benefit cap is indeed based on nothing more than a bare-faced lie.
I’d like to know who they are protecting that should not be capped, would that be middle class couples out of work but in costly rent accommodation?
@guy fawkes -the monet trickles upwards as they designed it that way..
chewie
as you know
the capitalist “gates”, are set (engineered), for upward flow to benefit them who control our vitals, so people are compelled to work for the system, access to free food et a,l now long gone and replaced with the need for money, money is easy to tax..
so all we can do is resist the best we as individuals and collectively can.
jv’s post highlights, yet more loathsome lies from this govt that weren’t elected…
As far as I know pensioners and those in receipt of Pension Guarantee Credit escape the cap. Don’t worry, Camoron and his henchthugs have us down next.
rent should have ed on end.
your right chewie.
@guy fawkes thank you gut how kind of you to say so…pity the rest of the UK hasnt cottoned on to this yet..
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theres also the matter of people who lose jobs then get them again that’s going to be an administrative nightmare.
Reblogged this on Dawn Willis .
Dirty, evil, lying, Tory SCUM. The best thing that ever happened to them was the Brighton bomb, and even that didn’t finish them as it should have done. Utter fucking bastards. We need the Police and Army on our side then the Class War can become a Civil War. OFF WITH THEIR FUCKING HEADS !!!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23325667
Benefit cap ‘could be lowered by £6,000’
Gah, didn’t see this. Posted some of the Times article below, mentions some diferent things
absolutely agree. ive said before they wouldnt get away with it in france,spain,greece or italy. the people would be on the streets baying for their blood. if only we had a strong leader.[not miliband].
they don’t have blood, they have embalming fluid.
Protest is one thing, and important, but governments still have the upper hand in all those countries. However, as this essay points out, protests are a good starting point:
http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/recentfeatures/nightmares.php
It’s also interesting how workers around the world are dealing with their own unemployement caused by the boss class as this website shows. It’s and interesting website, but part of it will need translating using Google Translate, though if you use the Chromium browser that option is automatically offered:
http://www.viome.org/
It’s also worth having a look at how workers in Argentina responded to the economic crisis their country suffered at the turn of the century, particularly the group that took over the Hotel Bauen in Buenos Aires:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Bauen
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/single-parents-will-bear-brunt-of-benefit-cap-8750997.html
Single parents will ‘bear brunt’ of benefit cap
then there kids get kids get put into care which costs even more money.
@nuggy and the worry is this -what if the kids are put into care and the convern about what happens to them…its odd as i sent a hughes report on kids put into care and the concern about what happens to them eg sexually abuse as weve been reading a lot..one could even reason its deliberate….
well it will make a nice little profit for these newly privatized children’s.homes.
@nuggy you have no idea how serious that shit really is did you know that before 1982 there was no safety checks on private childrens homes at all that why they introduced the childrens care home act….not only that ive found its so easy to set up a childrens care home as a profitable business..
they won’t be bothered about that cos Serco and G4S will be coining it in with profits, which I am sure will get into the coffers of the Tory Party
Serco were on the news last night for dodgy practices and falsified financial data/records.
maybe your not far from the truth bob maybe that’s what they do want.
@nuggy and what with the bloody cover ups about paedos targetting them too..especially the VIP nonces…
it will also make a nice little profit for alll these emergency housing places.
@nuggy you mean the hostels that have been taken over by housing associations?
yes thats what a mean and the dodgy guesthouses.
@nuggy its like that poor people are nothing to them and just there to be used and thrown away..
£656 per week gross would result in a NET income of £500.00 per week and that is the correct equivalent as for benefits to equate with income it needs to be compared with NET income and not gross income.
Cameron is I agree a lying bar steward but the figures do approximate on the benefit cap
@joehalewood i am not on £500 pw i dont know anyone who is..
NO ONE is !
ITS BOLLOCKS THEN
the figures quoted are based on net income
i find it a bit disheartening that jamie oliver gets more comments than this does.
nuggy…
i guess more people are affected by food issues, than savage benefit cuts..these cuts are designed this way ie slowly but surely, bit by bit erode the welfare state so that those not affect by it now, will find a gulf, when they are in future need and say how could this have happened, too late all gone, rip welfare state..
the welfare hasnt gone nor will it.
it has only gone for people the rich will still reap the benefits of it.
nuggy..
yes the rich will always get the benefits of our welfare!
they stand little state funded profit out of this cap.
sory the stand to make a nice littleofit from state funded profit from this cap
When £26k becomes £20k?
The below is from the frontpage of The Times, Tuesday, July 16 2013.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BPPqnavCcAA390U.jpg:large
“Tories prepare new assault on welfare handouts
Osborne set to lower benefits cap after election
George Osborne is considering a further lowering of the amount households can receive in benefits as Tory MPs press him to reduce a newly-imposed cap by another £6,000. A limit of £26,000 a year was imposed on claimants yesterday, but the Chancellor is facing calls to take a harder line from backbenchers who want it cut to £20,000 as part of a post-election assault on welfare spending. Mr Osborne’s aides confirmed yesterday that the Treasury was preparing to reduce the cap once it had been shown to work, to drive home what the Conservatives consider a key advantage over Labour and the Liberal Democrats. “We’ve had representations on [lowering the cap] — we want to see how the policy beds in,” said one aide. “But clearly over time, lowering the cap is an option.” Tories believe that the cap is one of the party’s most popular policies. A recent YouGov poll showed that 79 per cent of voters backed it, and another survey last year found that 36 per thought it should be less than £20,000 a year. Mr Osborne has said that reductions to welfare spending will form a significant part of a Tory drive to eliminate the budget deficit after the election. He has vowed to find the £23 billion in savings needed after 2015 by cutting government spending, rather than by increasing taxes…”
“A recent YouGov poll showed that 79 per cent of voters backed it”:
http://yougov.co.uk/publicopinion/archive/6938/
“…another survey last year found that 36 per thought it should be less than £20,000 a year.”:
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2012/01/21/benefits-cap-proposal/
one miserable git in east cheam complained about scroungers and thast gets translateded as 80% of the population ..
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/claimant-commitment-to-spell-out-what-jobseekers-must-do-in-return-for-benefits
They are putting in place a system that is guaranteed to sanction the majority of Claimants, thereby appearing to reduce the Social Security bill. We’ll all end up on forty quid a week Hardship Allowance.
“And be grateful for it.”
And these are the principles that Liam Byrne says Labour agree with and support!
I am not sure this is s bad thing. At the moment we are hearing from many people “that there is no point in working because their benefits are nearly the same as minimum wage – so why work” this way if you get a job its better than living on benefits
wouldn’t it be better just to raise the minimum wage.
surely higher wages is a better to make people better off in work.
and if your claiming in work benefits then you already are better off.
@nuggy That makes too much sense!
“You are suffering because of [insert group of people here]”.
“I/We can make you feel good about yourself by making [insert group of people here] suffer”.
Politicians/Political parties dress this up in flowery language (or not) depending on their target audience.
Some call this creeping fascism.
WARNING: Do Not Mix low-paid workers and benefit claimants together
That’s because Wages are too low! You can’t improve conditions for Workers by worsening conditions for unemployed Workers.
Keep promoting that message LP, as sadly there seem to be quite a few who should be on our side here still deluded enough to swallow the divide and rule crap about strivers and skivers.
Come next election I’m sure the ranks of the deluded will all go out and vote Labour in the vain hope that they will be better than this present lot, only to discover that Labour plans even more draconian measures – talk about turkeys voting for Christmas!
About the only thing that will make a difference is to get involved in creating the alternative society that we will inevitably need to create. It will require ingenuity and imagination, but one thing is very clear, DO NOT TRUST ANY political party, and only have the leaders that everyone is happy to have as a leader, and make sure that they can be removed when people are no longer happy with them.
Organise a general boycott of the next General Election, or at the very least organise a campaign to persuade people to spoil their vote. We all should know by now that voting for which tyrant has the ‘privilege’ of lording it over us for the succeeding five years is a mug’s game.
@landless “That’s because Wages are too low! You can’t improve conditions for Workers by worsening conditions for unemployed Workers” we know that but they will try that on …just wait till the self righteous get clobbered..
oh here is a thought its about stock marker traders do they affect people in jobs? like can their actions result in a firm being closed down and loss of jobs? if so then why let loose those grasping animals to cause havoc and misery?
@sandra reid
Have you not thought this situation through, or are you just nuts.
Not if your job’s shit and you’re constantly knackered.
Are you quite sane Sandra? There is little point working when statutory minimum rates of pay are disgustingly low as to allow a situation to arise where even those in work have to claim benefits. Much of the work that is available pays the bare minimum which is a starvation wage. No-one should have to work for that kind of pittance, nor suffer the indignity of having to claim a top-up from the state.
Benefits for people who are unemployed are far too low as it is, and rents, even in the social housing sector are way too high.
I suggest that you stop watching TV, or reading the Sun, The Express or the Daily Mail and go and find where it is you’ve put your brain for safe keeping.
@sib i am getting fed up of this brainwashing crap i think its bloody obvious you get paid better in work well thats the theory anyway..would not surprise me to see attempts to lower wages further..funny that WPP lot dont get paid reductions as they are sodding useless pots kettles etc.
The devil is in the detail though isn’t it Bob. It’s true that even on minimum wage someone would be a lot better off than if they wear on benefits, but that would be assuming that the person in work was in what most people consider a full-time job. And this is where the disconnect occurs, ‘full-time’ jobs of 35+ hours a week are as rare as hen’s teeth, and the DWP consider any job that is more than 16 hours a week as full-time for statistical purposes.
As we know, many of the jobs advertised are part-time, or even zero hour contracts, where a worker could very easily be worse off than on benefits. Until the advent of Universal Credit those in work, even part time work did at least have a bit of a breathing space in that they were not hassled by the DWP to get ‘more, or better paid’ work. UC will change all this, and bring the precarity faced by JSA claimants to those who are in work as well, and as we know, it is many of those who presently have the kinds of jobs that don’t pay enough who look down on those claiming JSA, but what happens when those in work low paid are also claiming UC and facing sanctions?
Hopefully the individualistic brainwashing carefully nurtured over the last 30 or so years by the Tories and their friends the Labour Party will begin to give way and ideas of collective action will again begin to take route. In many ways this is already happening, but as yet there is nothing cohesive yet. Some groups of low paid workers are beginning to fight back by forming their own unions under the wing of the IWW or the IWA, (John Lewis Cleaners in London, and the Pret-a-Manger workers) and the successful campaign by the IWW to get the issue of low pay for cleaners at the BMA debated shows that there are some signs that grass roots opposition is growing, and this isn’t from within the complacent mainstream unions who are shamefully silent. Could this also be behind the present government campaign to bring in a gagging law that would seriously handicap organised opposition? I think so, as whilst online petitions carry no legal weight they do act as a barometer of public opinion and have resulted in some parliamentary motions being defeated, or not progressed with.
UC will be a disaster for people like us, but it will also ultimately be a disaster for those who designed it and support it. 30 years ago the welfare state in the shape of the dole allowed to Tories to smash the labour movement by cushioning the blows of unemployment and redundancy . It softened the blow and muted resistance, was the sugar coating to the bitter pill. Now we are just getting the bitter pill, only in the government’s arrogance and stupidity the bitter pill is being prescribed to those in work as well. So many more people will find themselves between a rock and a hard place, with no dole or in work benefits that are not subject to conditionality to cushion them. This is not a nice place to be, and who knows what the outcome will be. Things could get even nastier and UKIP gets a ‘landlside’ victory at the next election – quite feasible if you think about it as there is huge disillusionment amongst people about both the Labour Party and the Tories, though for the life of me I can’t think why…
Ultimately this state of affairs will continue until we the people firmly decide otherwise. All over the world people are beginning to decide otherwise, and hopefully our time will come too in the not too distant future.
I agree with everything except getting rid of your tv, that would only please the Oliver lot.
” 79 per cent of voters backed ” the benefit cap. Smug bastards, wait til they maybe some time have to claim benefits, karma has a strange habit of biting your backside.
im not sure they did im not sure i believe all those polls im somewhat suspicious of the motive of people who conduct them
what when answer you get always depends on how you ask the question.
Absolutely correct nuggy. Research sometimes is all about ‘horses for courses’. So your right to be suspicious about polls..
Depends on where the poll is carried out too
I’ve posted links to the polls above, needless to say one was for that new Murdoch rag on a sunday (This one actually asks several questions).
Probably leading questions too. Many surveys, even by ‘reputable’ PR companies in my experience have far too many questions designed to elicit the response they want.
Also, the sample seems usually to be around 1001 people, which I wouldn’t accept as being representative of Cardiff, let alone the whole of the UK!
Trouble is there are still far too many people who believe what the government and their friends tell them is the truth.
“” 79 per cent of voters backed ” the benefit cap”
A similar % claim is made about those on part-time and zero hours who DON’T want their hours increased.
Wait until they see their claimant commitment. They’ll have to give up work entirely to full fill it.
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Reblogged this on kickingthecat.
The Tories truly can be described as ‘enemies of the State’, and as such they should be arrested for Treason and thrown in the Tower. They are inflicting more damage on this country than Hitler ever did.
Hmmm, but aren’t the Tories de facto the State, and isn’t the state the enemy anyway?
Not sure they have done more damage than Hitler, as I don’t see any concentration camps, (yet) and certainly no death camps.
The Tories and their LibDem poodles and allies, the Labour Party are certainly going down a road towards fascism, but I don’t think histrionics will help our cause.
The State is OUR State, not theirs. The Tories want to dismantle the State, under auspices of allegedly saving money. Cutting Benefits, cutting all our Services, sacking Civil Servants, is all about diminishing the State. They want everything to be Privatized and for Profit.
Sadly the state is the property of those that control it, which clearly isn’t people like us, no matter who has political power. It’s within the state’s remit to give, to take away at whim, and to privatise itself too – it actually makes little difference, though we, the people might have a bit more leverage with a privatised state where we could play one provider off against another – we don’t have that option when the state has a monopoly.
I don’t want to see the state privtatised, I want to see it abolished and replaced with something enlightened, rational and humane, and above all, horizontally organised.
I’d like to see the state replace with real democracy not fuelled by vigilantism, money or he who can shout the loudest, but definitely all the other qualities you mentioned.
Lies from evil, war pig scum
Bastards, the lot of ’em
And I’m reduced to impotent insults, whilst they fuck eveything up
Bobchewie. Please, for the love of God, buy yourself a dictionary. I’m exhausted after reading your first post from today, let alone the others. Why? Because there isn’t a single comma or full stop between words.
simon..
do dictionaries help? commas and full stops only spoil the essence of grammar…
simon…
i’ve just re-read chewies post it reads like silk to me, he does use a comma, and some full stops
oh fuck its the grammar Nazis
I hadn’t noticed that, Bob must be uncharacteristically upset about something to make such errors as usually his posts are extremely lucid and clear. However, there are some who post on here who could benefit hugely from getting a copy of ‘Eats, Shoots, and Leaves’ and even some who could benefit massively from attending basic literacy classes.
I’m not being facetious, I just think it’s important that people are able to express themselves properly, and things like grammar and proper punctuation are important in this, but not so much spelling. However, that said there are commonly glaringly bad examples of poor grammar about, e.g. ‘less’ being commonly, and incorrectly substituted for ‘fewer’. Most people would find fault with the grammar of ‘fewer water’ but strangely not ‘less clothes’. Those are pretty trivial examples, but sometimes we do see posts by people who are really struggling to articulate what is on their minds who are no doubt saying something valid, but who fail because they do not know how to express themselves.
On the other hand, there also posts from people who respect every rule of grammar, punctuation and spelling and yet still only manage to say things that are total bollocks.
sib
i think we have to do the best we can to art ic u late, ourselves, and also do are best to understand what others are saying.
i find that i now automatically put the punctuation marks in when i read posts, the most important thing is to try to hear the voice of another…
I do try to do just that, but what about those frequent situations where the meaning is ambiguous? It is in those situations that punctuation becomes crucial in order to comprehend exactly what someone is saying. Poor spelling and a lack of proper capitalisation are mere niggles, and don’t usually form a barrier to comprehension. I’m sure that in a face-to-face situation where the person was speaking rather than writing their meaning would be much clearer as there is the nuance of tone, and body language etc.
It’s easier for those who speak perfect grammar to write perfect grammar too. Some peoples wording and pronunciation is tainted by dialect which they would use in normal language and why face to face comments are more reliable, but generally most people get the gist of what a person is saying with or without good grammar or punctuation.
@guy yeah like wotever..
@sib i am very sorry about punctuation you are quite right however my circumstances are noit helping eg my laptop keyboard messes up and i am in net cafes a lot keeping an eye on the clock at £1 per hour added to that as most of you know i am struggling to move and i ma struggling to focus on my destinatioin with my mind wandering a lot its very hard when you see buses with place names you have been to but i have to disconnect myself from all that in order to focus on the target place which is miles away from where i actually am now..let me tell you what struggle that is for me…again sorry mate but maybe if some of you guys can take into consideration someone circumstances first it may help..ok?
I wasn’t having a go at you Mate, as you see at the beginning, I said that you must be ‘uncharacteristically upset about something’ and that your posts are usually ‘extremely lucid and clear’. I’m sorry that you seem to have misunderstood.
Totally understand about laptop keyboards, hateful things unless you have really small hands!
If you read my initial post on this subject again, you will see that it is categorically NOT aimed at you!
Hope all goes well with your plans re: moving and that the stresses you are under abate soon.
@sib yeah i wish the one thing i lack is consistency with ppl keep changing the rules atm am banging my head against ”establishing local connections’..
“So far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was, is, and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality.”
(E.E. Cummings)
@shirleynott thank you–most of you guys know i am not well…
im in trouble.
whatever is the matter donkey?
“Cummings’ lifelong belief,”[…] “was a simple faith in the miracle of man’s individuality. Much of his literary effort was directed against what he considered the principal enemies of this individuality—mass thought, group conformity, and commercialism.” [he] satirized what he called “mostpeople,” that is, the herd mentality found in modern society.”
“At heart,” […] the quarrels of Cummings are a resistance to the small minds of every kind, political, scientific, philosophical, and literary, who insist on limiting the real and the true to what they think they know or can respond to. As a preventive to this kind of limitation, Cummings is directly opposed to letting us rest in what we believe we know; and this is the key to the rhetorical function of his famous language. […] ranked among the best love poets of his time […]” (Poetry Fundation)
Nuggy you talk a lot of sense even if like me your grammar is not perfect.
see that should read mine not me.
@nuggy whats your gran ma got to do with it?
Dear Meredith Ong
Freedom of Information ref: 2013-3545
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request received on 29th July 2013.
You asked:
“How many single persons, who were not registered as disabled or sick, were
receiving in excess of £350 per week in benefits?
Please indicate by region.”
In response to your question about people receiving over £350 per week in benefits, there
are a large number of benefits paid to individuals, some are out-of-work benefits such as
Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) and some are in-work benefits like Working Tax Credit
(WTC). An analytical dataset linking information from the several different complex datasets
holding data on claimants of different DWP-administered benefits has been compiled. This
database was used to help identify which households may be affected by the Benefit Cap.
As not all benefits are included in the dataset (details of which benefits are included in the
Benefit Cap calculations can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/benefit-cap) we do not have
a complete picture of how many people or households are in receipt of more than £350 of
benefits a week. For example, single individuals aged 65 and over are not included.
As the information required to answer your request is not readily available and would
require the processing and standardising of data from numerous sources, we estimate that
the cost of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit of £600.
The appropriate limit has been specified in regulations and for central Government it is set
at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3½ working days in
determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and
extracting the information. Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act the
Department is not obliged to comply with your request and we will not be processing your
request further.
Information that is available within cost is the published statistics on the number of
households capped across phased area Local Authorities, including the amount capped per
week. This can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-
for-work-pensions/series/benefit-cap-statistics
If you have any queries about this letter please contact us quoting the reference number
above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Team
Information, Governance and Security Directorate
Department for Work and Pensions
Typical fucking drivel from the DWP;
“THE DEPARTMENT IS NOT OBLIGED TO COMPLY WITH YOUR REQUEST”
Another of Duncan Smiths lies exposed for all to see……….
“THE DEPARTMENT IS NOT OBLIGED TO COMPLY WITH YOUR REQUEST” but a claimant is..pretty one side i call it..
Interesting study on the impact of poverty on decision making.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23881780
Homer, thanks for the link.I seem to spend my whole time thinking about where the next meals coming from hampering my ability to think straight.
It must be happening to hundreds if not thousands of people every day.
@bernardette i have also found that hot sunny weather can seriously cause mis judgements..
Of course, & a major reason why the previous post on (won’t dignify with another name check)’s offensive remarks attracted such heated debate/s.
In light of this evidence one has to wonder what effect driving people further into poverty will have in light of harsher compliance regimes being introduced by the ConDem coalition. The welfare conditionality regime by which claimants have to live is getting stricter and stricter, and benefits are being reduced for many, and if this is true – that poverty affects people’s ability to think straight – it is obvious there is a real risk of a negative feedback occurring, in which people who have seen their benefits reduced make more mistakes and are unable to comply with the terms of a claim, for which they are sanctioned, for which benefits are withdrawn further, etc…
samwise gamgee
without the checks and balances, that have been removed..we are in an era of pure capitalism, we are now more than ever, put under relentless oppressive pressure to perform, at a time when we are least able to perform, kettled by the welfare system.
the original welfare state set up to tackle this very problem, and improve the nations health, the cause and affects of poverty have always been well known…
@donkey how sad is this? a balding bloke came up to me threatening suicide if he thought he was going bald !!! true how fucking tragic is that i thought benefit fraud allegations was bad enough but baldness??
chewie…
people link things like that with self esteem, but of course it is not, but a deeper issue….i think some people are best avoided at certain times….the grinding down of self esteem is a major issue for many atm..
@donkey yes i thought it was quite tragic for thsat poor fellow for crying out loud as if we dont have enough to upset us let alone the fear of baldness
He must be someone with so little going on in his life to worry so much about going bald! I think I’d have just stared at him speechless with disbelief…
There are people starving and homeless in this sceptred isle and he’s worried about going bald to the point of threatening suicide. I could understand a woman being upset about going bald, but for a bloke it’s all part of the territory and most of us are grateful if we can put it off until our later years and thank our lucky stars if we only end up with a receding hairline.
Still, it takes all sorts.
@sib i still thought it was tragic..
(Unless we are all very much mistaken), poverty – involving either actual physical hunger and/or it’s knock-on effects – concern/low-level anxiety/awareness of each next meal being part of a stream of thought-processes rather than something to that can be relaxed/not thought about constantly at some level. Ongoing guilt/distress about whether our dependant children (other family members and even any pets) are likely to have ‘enough’ and to what degree will their quality of life suffer and later affect their memories of growing up). All while being under the JCP cosh – “Have I done enough to receive a payment this fortnight?” “Can I ‘prove’ it enough?” Worries about whether there “Will be ANY money?” (let alone ‘enough’ in a continuously repeating cycles = all affect ability to think straight/focus/prioritise more than these very basic impulses or focus a.n.other projects – even one as essential as finding work.
The time/energy Bernadette mentions being used up in living from meal to meal – ‘from hand to mouth’. Living under such this kind of stress, day in day out, and the energy (calories) it uses up – often with no obvious outcome other than to stay ‘head above water’ for another day is what defines ‘debilitating’. The mental and physical energy we would need and would much prefer to be using to further our chances in other, more tangible, ways (printing CVs at a library, researching job possibilities or pounding the pavements to look for potential job opportunities). But there’s a diminishing amount of energy left for this. Since we’re not any longer allowed to plan our own approach to it (as we receive more and more extreme/ever-increasing JCP levels of conditionality) this only adds to the stress. I can only speak for myself, although I’ve heard similar opinion from others – that it has the opposite of a motivating effect – when a low, basic income is replaced with a below-survival level of income in any real/reasonable (2013) sense.
So a vicious circle is set up (whether by deliberate design or misguided ignorance about the ways people will react under stress/what motivates them – or both). There is a decreasing likelihood of ways out being likely, the more we are tied up in knots and sent round in circles from JCP to WP to JCP to Food Banks & discount food shops ….
Being unemployed is demoralising enough, but it’s going to get even worse when the mandatory 35 hour commitment comes in, with people not only having to come to terms with their inability to find work, but also having to account for this failure to an “advisor” whose main job is to find reasons to sanction them.
Plus, looking for work and failing to secure employment is depressing, and sometimes taking a break from jobsearch is good for the soul(and one’s sanity), even if it’s just for a day, but now we will be denied even this. Cases of depression and suicide will get even worse once this extra conditionality comes in. Perhaps that’s what IDS actually wants…
sn
spot on analysis…the constant preoccupation stress/anxiety…which reveals it’s true purpose, to keep us busy, and control us…rather than to find work, which if it was available we’d find for ourselves…stock control!
“Living the (surreal) dream!”
sn..
it struck me today, a dusty thought about, “concrete operational stage” in piagets model of cognitive development..that they are stuck in, 7/11 child (ish) stage, and have not yet progressed into adult abstract thinking stage..it all fits, check him out, unless you have done so already…common sense really, but there it is!
obd, No, I’ve never heard of him but will have a look. It definitely feels like being ‘led’ by people who have had parts of their brains surgically removed, didn’t fully develop them in the first place and/or were treated badly/neglected as children …
sn
why would they be stuck in this “demanding” stage, ie they demand of us, using their bullshit to baffle our brains..they want us to do their work for them, that they want us to feed them !..
Long-established convention (understood by around age 7-11)? of using other people as stepping-stones/footholds for getting to/staying at, ‘top of the pile’ … Handed down, strongly-held beliefs of, ‘This is the way things are and should be’; ‘It’s only right & for the best’, ‘Those people over there would only mess everything up if We left it up to Them, as they are lazy/can’t learn/like to gamble & drink & eat rubbish all day while watching TV’ etc.
‘Common People’ (Pulp); ‘Jamie (Oliver) Twist’ …
@shirleynott yeah and i would like to add ”blaaaagh”..
Behavioural economics.
Nicer, fluffier capitalism.
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/contacts/
I wonder if any of “the international team” have any books coming out?
I’ve a feeling liberals will looovvveee any such book.
Report on end of year test, Remedial Maths (Number Power)
Pupils G. Osborne, D. Cameron, G. I. DuncanSmith: FAIL
Reblogged this on HUMAN RIGHTS & POLITICAL JOURNAL.
Reblogged this on HUMAN RIGHTS & POLITICAL JOURNAL.
Aufheben analyse the continuing shift from welfare to workfare in the UK.:
“In 2007 the British benefit system underwent a renewed attack from the then New Labour government. The Welfare Reform Acts 2007 and 2009 were aimed at imposing work, and creating a renewed work ethic amongst benefit claimants, who had so far been allowed to stay out of the labour market, in particular, single parents and the sick. The Welfare Reform Act 2009 also introduced a ‘work for the dole’ condition for the long-termed unemployed. At the same time, the government raised the pension age, thus imposing work on the elderly.”
http://libcom.org/library/renewed-imposition-work-era-austerity-prospects-resistance
More on the Claimant Commitment set to be introduced from this October for Universal Credit.
http://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/universal-credit-claimant-commitment-no-choice-no-law-no-money-no-appeal/
There are death & labour camps, but in more subtle forms. Think of the thousands who’ve committed suicide at the hands of Atos; think of all the people sanctioned (the govt won’t even announce the figures), all the slave workfare labour, das verk program, the places may not exist but similar methods are being used. It’s eugenics.
The Universal Jobmatch website is designed to be an ‘electronic prison’, or at least it would be were it not for a little matter of the Data Protection Act, which enables the Claimant to prevent DWP snooping by denying access for monitoring.
It has entrapped some people into sanctions though – so it is working.
@donkey thank you so much for that mate as i say i am struggling with my state of mind as i am at odds with a whole range of issues at present as i have explained..
chewie…
my pleasure… all of these issues come in and flood the mind, and it is hard to find calm at times…a good cry and a rant at a chair helps…
@donkey i have several devices eg mobile phones all in pieces that will testify to my furies …
chewie…
don’t smash your things up, not good for YOU…shout at an m/t chair tell whoever you want to get to fcuk, through your m/t chair..
see dr bob truth…
last thing i wrecked was a android pad and my phone–its like i am teling them to behave..
@simon sorry i have explained myself on here just now my concentration is a big problem for me at present as is memory and keeping track of a lot of things..
i cant think why he picked on you my spelling and grammer is a lot worse.
@nuggy maybe i cause a bit of a fuss and someone wants me shut up -who knows?
nick says:
August 31, 2013 at 11:03 am
another death mo for your records just in
“CORONER’S CONCERNS OVER SURGERY LETTERS”, CRAWLEY OBSERVER, AUGUST 28 2013 – PAGE 4
An inquest last week heard Lee Robinson of West Green (Crawley) committed suicide after after losing his benefits while being long-term unemployed….Until the end of last year the 39-year-old was receiving Employment Support Allowance while he was looking for work. However, he was told he was no longer eligible for it, and his council tax benefit was also being assessed.
He challenged the decisions, but at the end of last year was referred to Crawley mental health services suffering with suicidal thoughts.
On February 4 he was found by a friend hanged. He left a suicide note.
@GEOFF REYNOLD thanks for that i shall put that poor fellow along with the late JULIA MARGARET O CONNOR who hung herself in 2011 in kingston hospital after being accused of benefit fraud when she was entirely innocent as she was quite unwell and had been for a while..
The person responsible for denying this man his benefits must be really feeling the heat………………
Whoever it was, is involved in a decision that was “tantamount to murder by decree”and should suffer for the rest of their days.
“Yes you spineless bastards”, its so easy sending a brown paper envelope through the post, someone has got to pick up all the fucking pieces afterwards…….
Anyone can distance themselves from their actions and pretend to be oblivious to the outcome.
Sanction targets, of which you claim do not exist, have taken another precious life away, someones son, brother, father or grandson……..
“HIDE YOUR HEADS IN SHAME, THERE ARE NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE YOUR EVIL WELL ENOUGH”.
“YOU HAVE TAKEN YET ANOTHER LIFE”………………………
Yeah, Geoff, the DWP fuckwits responsible will just fall back on the Nuremberg defence “I was only doing my job”
but a fat lot of good that ‘defence’ gave them… Something those people making the decisions should perhaps bear in mind. Sadly, as Stanley Ingrams discovered, many people will just do what they are told to do by someone in ‘authority’.
Gah! Grammatical error, should read ‘a fat lot of good that ‘defence’ did them’
i just wondered could a private prosecution be brought against somebody.
Isn’t it ‘death by bureaucracy’? There are no individuals (well, not in the traditional criminally responsible sense – they won’t be asked about it/confess/be brought to court) – only a faceless ‘system’ of bureaucrats/civil servants carrying out government policy. There are heads of department … & there are government policies. From what I’m reading/understanding one difficulty is that a coroner only can pronounce on ’cause of death’ & it’s less than straightforward. (Eg. cause of death ‘Heart failure’ or even ‘suicide’) – rather than which factors increased ill health/contribute to a needless death.
i think there maybe a case to bring somebody to court i think its worth looking into.
I hope you’re right & I know which people I would want to see prosecuted (first). Not in favour of the death penalty but sometimes banishment is ok.
Yes let’s banish them to St Helena along with the truly guilty paedophiles not those that have been accused unjustly.
Pity the poor St Helenans having that shower foisted on them. My preference would be the South Sandwich Islands.
@shirleynott banishment eh? and put them in the stocks and throw hand grenades at them..
Wicked Bob, wicked!
@sib thats my evil twin saying that stuff..
Well given our corporatised government, it’d be nice to stick the odious Iain Duncan Smith with corporate manslaughter.
that’s an idea i think if the people who made these decisions thought they could be held accountable they might be more carefull
The entire government are culpable as they are all well aware of the policies peresued by their front bench. Therefor they are all equally guilty.
yes but some but leggaly some people would be more culpable than others.