What they say …
“It’s time to change the conversation about extending working life from one about working “until you drop”, to one about a fuller working life, that means working as long as is necessary to create the future you want.”
Esther McVey and Steve Webb, Fuller Working Lives Ministerial Statement
What they mean …
Fuller Working Lives, page 8
Unpaid work, cuts to disability benefits and mandated ‘work-related activity’ are set to be at the heart of the latest DWP strategy aimed at bullying older people off benefits
Last week the DWP published Fuller Working Lives, a ‘framework for action’ for older unemployed people and the rhetoric is depressingly familiar. Under the guise of help and support it will be business as usual as older claimants are left at the mercy of the grasping welfare-to-work industry.
The report notes that around a million people over 50 are out of work due to a health condition or disability and the new strategy sets out measures to force this group back to work. Astonishingly the DWP claim that one of ways to achieve this is the introduction of Personal Independence Payments. This is the replacement for Disability Living Allowance which has been designed to strip benefits from 20% of disabled people and currently has up to a six month waiting period for new claims. Disabled people’s organisations have warned that many will actually have to give up work if they lose this benefit which pays for the cost of care and mobility needs.
Other measures to ‘help’ sick or disabled claimants include a trial to establish whether harassment from a Work Programme provider, a health care professional, or a Jobcentre Plus Work Coach is the most effective means of bullying someone off benefits.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. The DWP is promising some exciting new initiatives, such as testing telephone based ’employment-focused talking therapies’ from a ‘specialist provider’ – which is likely to mean a phone call from some half-qualified quack who’s blagged a job on the basis that they saw a Derren Brown show once. If this doesn’t work then claimants with a mental health condition will be able to access “online mental health assessments and computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy”. If Poundland did healthcare, then this is what it would look like.
Poundland will be pleased with the new strategy, which sings the praises of Sector Based Work Academies – a long winded way of saying workfare – for older unemployed people. This is the scheme which hit the headlines after young graduate Cait Reilly was forced to work in Poundland for no pay. Older claimants are not be left out of this exciting opportunity to work without wages for high street retailers.
It’s not just workfare employers who are in for a windfall. The DWP recognise that “Some unemployed older people will need the more intensive support available through the Work Programme”. There’s plenty of cash available to prop up this disastrous scheme which has seen barely 5% of disabled people find work after two years of bullying by private sector Work Programme providers. There’s even more money on the way for the welfare-to-work industry with Supervised JobSearch Pilots finally to be introduced. Older unemployed people will soon have the lucky chance to be cooped up in offices for 35 hours a week whilst some twat with a clipboard harangues them about being unemployed. If they don’t turn up their benefits will be stopped.
Older claimants who want real training will have to pay themselves however, by taking out a Professional and Career Development Loans. I didn’t make that up. The Government are encouraging people nearing retirement to take out a huge loan on the off chance it may get them a job for the for last couple of years of their working lives. Loans that are repayable with interest, whether or not someone finds work, and those repayments will continue once they draw a pension.
This lays bare the truth about all this fake fucking help that the DWP plans to inflict on older people. There has never been any decent training available for people on out of work benefits despite billions spent on welfare-to-work schemes. Try telling a Jobcentre Work Coach you fancy training as an electrician and they’ll send you on workfare in Comet to hump televisions about all day for no pay. The DWP have no interest in providing real training so that older unemployed people can get jobs that might actually pay the bills. They’d far rather condemn older claimants to the same low or no-waged precarious world that those starting their working lives now face. That’s probably this Government’s warped idea of equality.
You can download Fuller Working Lives at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/319872/fuller-working-lives.pdf
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the void 
A matching book-end to the blog regarding the “stress chambers” on Vox Political regarding the ideology and practice of modern eugenics as practiced by IDS, DWP, ConDems, and their repeated attacks on the most vulnerable in our society.
This made my day lol!: I’m, 50, have a bad back n I was sent home today because a child in the school I work in pushed me over. I’m in agony. And I can carry on longer, ?! Our working conditions.are uunder attack, but at least I have a job.were I to lose it for any reason, even if the place blew up, I’d. Be treated as work shy from day 1 of my jsa claim! Help!
If people in this age group are suffering any illness/pains get it checked out now no point in being in pain and having to do this free labour. Can you think of anything worse than being in a room with that woman with that voice…….. personally if that was me it would be one page and a lot of nodding…. just to get out of the room!
(Oh i see that is what has happened)
One day people will get what is wrong with all this wasting millions on nothing!
The idea is obviously to make unemployment as horrible as possible in the mistaken belief that being unemployed is a “lifestyle choice” and by making that situation as ghastly as can be contrived the unemployed will “choose” to re-enter the “world of work” and take up one of these “millions of jobs” in the private sector that they were formerly refusing.
So it won’t work, obviously, because all of the foregoing is bollocks!
Actually I think they are trying to make ill people die. The older ill person will try & struggle on, will try desperately to avoid claiming, but when they do they feel dreadful. and will succumb more to infections and stress may well finish them off, if cold, malnutrition, and threat of homelessness doesn’t.
Follow the money………..
Esther McVey can get fucked. I’ve probably only got 20 years left on this planet if I’m lucky, so I’m certainly not going to worry about being unemployed or being sanctioned. I couldn’t give a toss. Up yours McVey.
due to a family history of early deaths i have about 10 years left give or take and tbh i am not bothered with trying to live longer
Same here. I am 54 this week, fit and healthy apart from a bit of glaucoma and being short-sighted. I have been unemployed in the past for 18 months and got some interviews but no job at the end. Just tell me what to do and I would do it, but no. Bastards, with the tories being the biggest ones. Fuck em I say.
And even if I was to get a Career Development Loan I certainly wouldn’t repay any of it. I haven’t even repaid a penny of my Student debt yet, and very much doubt if I ever will!
For someone that couldn’t give a shit you certainly bang on enough fella. One would wager if you really didn’t give a shit you wouldn’t be boring us to tears with the daily bloggage eh?
FUCK OFF CUNT
IDS having (yet another) bad-hair day? Maybe he’s started to have scary daydreams about being thrown out by Betsy – I really hope this happens to him at some point & he’s last heard of sleeping under a bridge, barred from claiming any money due to no fixed abode, cold; hungry and unable to afford even the most basic of comb-overs. Obviously this is not something one would wish on the vast majority of people, ever – but an exception could be made for I’ve Doubled Sanctions.
& E McVee too – is there no end to her … ?
Hopefully yes.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-2dc0-Trade-unionists-plan-to-oust-Esther-McVey-over-disability-rights
AFM – thanks for the info; I hope they do it.
The final paragraph is horrifying.
Apologies for bad language, I’m a very incensed old Hector.
“To swear is human; to explete, divine”.
(best read in a Belfast accent)
You tell the tory. Tory is my favourite insult now.
Jog on son! Feckin idiot.
Well, you know what to do then, don’t you? BUGGER OFF
Lord my arse. Do one yourself, tory. That is enough of an insult, so I won’t go any further this time. Troll.
I got my own back by going to uni at 56. Got a very generous student loan and enjoyed spending the lot, even managed to get a decent degree. Will never payback loan as not working. Happy day!
Tommaz jay
Well played young man.
I’m in my fifties and haven’t repaid a penny of my student debt either, & probably never will, unless (in my case) I’m earning over £24K p/a. I Graduated 14 years ago.
Good idea. Spend the lot and refuse to pay it back.
They are seeking revenge against the anti-neoliberal Fighting Fifties that have been a thorn in their neoliberal agenda from the Thatcher onwards.
Fighting Fifties – the original Punk generation !
Exactly! We’re the wrong fuckers to pick on. The punk generation aka the over 50s won’t stand for it. We’ve grown up with the welfare state so Esther McVile can go and do one.
I won’t be going on any bloody Work Programme again. They can sanction my dole if they want, big deal, I couldn’t care less whether I live or die, I really couldn’t, so I’m not going to worry about it. Fuck ’em. There’s nowt they can do with me. I am quite prepared to starve if need be. Do your worst Tory cunts. I LAUGH AT YOU.
I think once u complete work pogrom u can’t be sent on it again..
i was on the work programme, they failed me, i was sent on the post work programme support officer who treated me so badly i had a breakdown, then they arranged to have me sent back to the work programme a different company where i havent seen them for 2 months so far..and another 2 months before a phone interview by them..
Good, I’d be surprised if they’d want to have me again!
That post work programme support is a hotbed of unlawfulness.as you say eric i have had the same,gone into the jobcentre and been ill for a week after.those with health problems’/disabilities are heavily targeted.
The baby boomers of the 60s are coming through now as in their 50 age group.the Dwp know that the chances of employment are slim hence this bull shit bullying dictatorial attitude.this generation bore the brunt of the thatcher years’ and economic slump,found themselves out of work and the chances of ever working low and on the receiving end of people like norman tebbit and the get on your bike.
Talking therapies were often given to those over the phone who A4e had written off and referred to other sub contractors’.it didn’t do a thing and wasn’t worth the cost of the call.it wont work.those that finished the work programme then found themselves written off at the jobcentre.
Well if they’re determined to deny us the ‘Right to Life’ by starving us to death – a breach of both EU & UN Human Rights legislation where Nation States have an OBLIGATION to safeguard their citizens from hunger – we’re morally in the right to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent this. If they’re actively trying to stop us from sustaining our own lives, we’ve every right to take action to stop them.
Oh & a big Hello to those tireless campaigners for freedom Liberty & Russell ‘revolutionary’ Brand – contacted them about recent jailing of man forced to steal food due to benefit sanctions and how this can be morally or legally justified in the light of Human Rights Legislation but unfortunately they were all too busy ‘fighting for social justice’ at their champagne & caviar book launches.
I’m with you mate – they’re either trying to exterminate us or forcing us into compulsory, unpaid work – (The LITERAL definition of Slavery – again supposedly ILLEGAL). If they think we’re gonna let ’em get away with it they’d better think again. This is MY country as much as it’s theirs. I have the same Human Rights they have & if they actively try to deprive me of these like the worst kind of banal, evil bureaucratic Nazis who orchestrated the Final Solution from behind their desks, they should expect a similar and equally justified response in kind.
May God Have Mercy On Their Despicable Inhumanity – cos I won’t.
Top tribunals judge questions universal credit ‘disappearance’
A senior tribunals judge has thrown doubt over the future of universal credit after it “disappeared” from Department for Work and Pensions forecasts on the number of predicted appeals.
http://www.24dash.com/news/universal_credit/2014-06-11-top-tribunals-judge-questions-universal-credit-disappearance#.U58jZZScdx8
Reblogged this on glynismillward189 and commented:
They (the government that wasn’t elected) really won’t be happy until we’re all dead will they!
I’m concerned that the British government is punishing people for being unemployed and ruining their mental health. The following is a recent letter that I received from a claimant who is ten years from retirement.
http://mydisabilitystudiesblackboard.blogspot.ca/2014/06/sam-things-are-dire.html
The main problem for this bunch of neo-Nazis is that we seniors have skills in engineering and other useful occupations before that Thatcher hag (may her soul burn) destroyed British manufacturing industry to spite the Unions and give money-making opportunities to her favourite City spivs. I’m in electronics, and I mean PROPER electronics which involves wielding a soldering iron, not the IT “industry” that just involves stringing wires between plastic boxes made in China.
Please send your thoughts on this matter to:
officeofesthermcveymp@parliament.uk
‘Lord Jason’ is the pseudonym of a well known paedophile.
I do not doubt that for one second. Aren’t the majority of tories paedophiles? Allegedly of course (cough).
What i have just read is disgraceful. This Tory led government is the worst one i have ever known. Lets hope they don’t get in power again.
problem is who are we going to vote in.. the libdems.. tory poodle boys, or labour clones of tories who have no policy but the same as the tories. or ukip who are tory light
Green? Class War? SWP?
“Green? Class War? SWP?”
Green would seem to be the best alternative at present – Class War and SWP have too much baggage to attract a really popular vote.
Question is – where are the Greens ? They ought to be out there kicking arse , making political hay, and pitching themselves as a real socialist alternative to Labour – but I dont see/hear them.
I would say Labour are ‘Tory-Lite’, UKIP are the Waffen SS.
The Labour Party: Mili(Bland)er texture,150 percent full-fat Tory taste.
Reminds me of that recent pic in Private Eye; Miliband at a Butchers stall asking for “2 pints of cheese please bartender”. haha
Heard them talking about Iran on the radio today earlier and they were talking derisively about the Iranian electoral system saying that only candidates approved by the clerics are allowed to stand for election and that the supreme leader still has the final say on all matters regardless of what the people vote for.
Here in the free, sophisticated, superior, civilised West, they tell us that power is vested in the people and that the politicians are our elected agents that work for us and carry out our wishes, when in actual fact, we have a supreme leader too: the transnational corporations, the bankers, the aristocracy etc.
No-one gets elected without our supreme leader’s permission and our supreme leader makes all the decisions, then uses their media to brainwash us into agreeing with them and supporting them.
“or ukip who are tory light”
You mean Tories on fucking steroids! Some of UKIP’s ‘beliefs’ make some of the worst Tory bollocks almost seem sane by comparison.
It’s surely the worst Government this country has ever seen. You’d have to go back to King John to beat them.
Who to vote for? Lib Dems are traitors, Labour can’t be trusted, UKIP are much worse, and the left wing parties are too small.
The Green Party?
That’s who I vote for now. Unless we ever have a SWP or Class War candidate.
I don’t know about the Greens in Scotland/England, but in Wales they are pretty much split into fairly decent people and English immigrants carving out lebensraum and hating the Welsh speaking natives. The SWP are out, as I can’t possibly be expected to condone rape apologists, (and in my area the Local Swoppies did support the cover-up), and besides that, why would I want yet another crypto-imperialist part ruling over me when we already have the Labour Party in power in Cardiff Bay? Class War are out because they come over as a bunch of idiots,(whether they are or not) but that may just be the point they are making – many of us seem quite happy in voting Tory, LibDem or Labour idiots into government.
None of the mainstream left-wing parties have a clue, and the ‘new kids on the block’ (TUSC and Left Unity) seem just be rehashes of the same tired old left-wing ideas warmed over that would result in them ‘nationalising’ the present privatised industries – plus ca change!
If we really want to get serious about it we vote for none of the established idiots, or maybe go and spoil our ballots en masse, but also start mobilising, perhaps initially into local self-help groups and then developing from there, basically acting socially in a similar way to the way that the IWW does as a union.
Let’s face it, the only way that we are going to have any kind of decent future is if we start to take over and run society ourselves, where it is the workers in industry that own that industry, and housing is owned collectively by cooperatives or by individuals themselves. It’s not like we’ll really have a choice about that, as they will present the only option once social security as we know it is abolished by whichever lookalike government is in power.
Reblogged this on UNEMPLOYED IN TYNE & WEAR.
Reblogged this on The Heckler and commented:
When will likes of Esther Mc Vey get it through their heads that jobs for older workers trying to get back into the workforce are pretty much non-existent in what is an ageist employment where few employers bother to look at the CVs of anyone over 50, let alone give them an interview FFS!
Right you are. They won’t do anything about age discrimination, and between that and (deliberately maintained) mass unemployment for people of all ages, over-50s haven’t a hope in hell of getting a paid job. Of course, that makes this age group an ideal pool of unpaid labour.
And pensioners are next. A politician has already called for workfare for pensioners — so we can ‘give something back’ ; and from time to time columnists urge us to ‘get off the golf course’ and do voluntary work. The government now has a sinister-sounding Commissioner for Ageing and Volunteering, and we all know what ‘volunteering’ means to the DWP.
They keep telling me ‘Don’t worry, you won’t be affected, because pensioners vote’. Rubbish! In campaigning against workfare, I’ve never had any illusions about old people’s permanent exemption from it or from other attacks on welfare. The division promoted will be, in this case, not between old and young (the groundwork for that has already been securely laid), but between feckless (i.e. poor) pensioners who couldn’t save anything, and responsible (i.e. well-off) ones who were able to save enough in some form to avoid needing anything from the state.
Indeed, even for the middle classes the concept of retirement is disappearing. Eventually we’ll have to prove that we’re too infirm to work, and even if so assessed, will be sent on ‘training courses’ like the younger disabled.
There’s always a crisis narrative supporting these moves. In this case it’s ‘the ageing population’ and people ‘living too long’ and ‘being kept artificially alive’ — all of which means that ‘we’, or ‘the economy’, or ‘the country’ can’t afford retirement any more. Whatever the nature of the crisis, the solution is always the same — bash the poor and disadvantaged.
But oh boy, just let them try to get me on a workfare scheme. With one of the few advantages of old age, namely having very little to lose, I’ll make life merry hell for them.
And especially if you are over 50, haven’t worked for a few years, have no specific vocational skills, no CSCS card, no Driving Licence, no transport, and have health problems and a criminal record. And my Jobcentre adviser wanted me to contact all the agencies I’d applied to and ask WHY I hadn’t got the jobs! LOL I told him where to get off.
Yes that is so true. What do they think the 50s age group are like? We are not dithering old farts just yet. We have our faculties if we are lucky, and want a job so just bloody give us a real, paid job you tory bosses. We are not all fat and have false teeth either.
Help? What help? FFS!! The only ones the Work Programme ‘providers’ help are themselves- to lots of loot from the public purse!
i was on the work programme for 20 mins b4 they told me to piss off 😉
I got about six pages into this tory twaddle and had to stop becouse I was in danger of pissing myself by laughing. What planet is this lot on. Tinkywinky, larlar, and pow have nothing on the clowns running the DWP. Fast forward to the punchline “we have a big stick and we are out to bag an pensioner”
Of course their are more fifty plus sick, injured and disabled, this what a lifetime of graft dose to people. Why not just come clean and declared your true eugenics dogma and tell us to “fuck of and die you useless old twats”
Tommaz jay
totally agree with you tommaz
“Why not just come clean and declared your true eugenics dogma and tell us to “fuck of and die you useless old twats”
“All warfare is based on deception.” Sun Tzu
time for revolution
Off with their heads!
My take on all this rubbish… It might be taking the piss but I can see this happening…
You there, you Peon.
Get down from my leather seats and stop your whinning you LibDem poodle.
Servant go and get that Peon over here to my Peasent pulled gold crested carriage.
Peon, I understand that you are one of the lifestyle choice Oldies and wish to protest at being forced to work for free till you drop dead, hopefully before retirement. You have to understand in these financially strapped times which I and my ilk are causing so we who are your betters get richer while you other non-persons get poorer, these sacrifices must be made. We are all in it together, us on top giving you all a good Oxford rodgering, while you Peons stay in your place below in other poor places etc outside our Gated housing. What, you are upset at your unemployed nephew dying when he fell down the chimney while cleaning it on Workfare? Look here you, these things happen and health and safety is uppermost in my mind for myself.
Enjoy the Bingo. Oh you cannot afford the entrance fee let alone a Beer. Well I hope the Whippet is okay? Oh it died from starvation. Maybe thats for the best as it was getting old wasn’t it… We’re British, don’t be bashful if you’re rich is what I say! Carry on my good man. Carry on.
Older people forced onto workfare when disabled and chronic sick will just end up spending most of their time at doctors or in hospital and may indeed die. Forced off benefits they cannot access cold weather payments and cannot access vouchers to food banks.
By raising the retirement age, the government burdened themselves with unemployment benefits with the over 60s, when they do not list the over 60s on unemployment statistics.
Not one penny in tax has been saved by raising the retirement age, because the state pension fund has been full for decades and cannot be emptied by government for general expenditure.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
Loss of state pension is loss of food money and forced onto unpaid work, when do not have a bus pass.
Then there is the reality. Most of those going to food banks are in work. This will mean these older disabled and chronic sick being unable to get out to a food bank and rendered too ill by work.
Labour could do things differently in 2015 and end all Workfare, all benefits, all welfare reform admin, revoke Welfare Reform Act, Pension Bill and Flat Rate Pension, leave no-one to starve and pay off the national debt. Here is how:
http://www.theswansnewparty.org.uk/universal-citizen-wage/4584622902
Labour could do all kinds of reversals but they’re too far gone?
It’s like imagining that someone who’s just finished kicking you – or someone you love, or just a random stranger – into the gutter, and in the head a few times – and laughed at the same time, might soon afterwards examine their conscience and revisit the scene of their crime, call an ambulance & pay for medical costs (the old, mortally wounded NHS not being free at the point of use by then, for some reason). They’d have to be able to admit what they’d done was wrong, and be held publicly accountable; prepared to pay a massive fine or be sent to do community service. For reversals of this type to be in any way likely, the head-kicker (Labour) would have to be in posession of a conscience – which seems not to be the case – and be prepared to admit they’ve engaged in random acts of violence and to take responsibility.
It would seem counter-productive – if not completely unlikely – that this would happen, from career politicians vying to be the party of ‘hardworking strivers’, desparate to (re)gain power via any (cynical/blatant) means & playing ‘good cop’ – but only relatively – to the Tory’s ‘bad cop’. They’ve kicked the ‘ordinary’ people of this country even before they were down, but continued to attack them while they were on the ground (so to speak) – why would they suddenly now experience a damascene conversion and ride to the rescue – it’s not in their interests …
The minority of individual exceptions who are still tirelessly working away for their constituents, & who’ve not lost their humanity, almost make the situation worse as they are more or less shouting into the void (!).
Sheila Gilmore has apparently secured 6 debates over the past few years on changes to ESA/people being unable to receive sickness benefits and people caught in the catch 22 of ‘too fit for one benefit – JSA (allegedly); not fit enough for the other (ESA)’ … then being made destitute/their health deteriorating further than it originally had been due to stress, sanctions and the recently-introduced ineligability for assessment rate benefit. Ms Gilmore is doing her level best – along with a few others (many northern MPs – strangely; but not all) – to pin Mike Penning down on this sad – in every sense of the word – reality, but it’s more or less like talking to the fireback; Penning appears to have the hide of a rhino, while being able to outwardly at least make some sympathetic/empathic noises. He is a more image-conscious/less sadistic-seeming, but still a very worrying man with vulnerable and unwell people’s lives in his hands.
than IDS/E McVee.
VoxPolitical has a picture of the debate.
MPs stuck at home making sure their passports have arrived on time … or perhaps this debate isn’t ‘sexy’ enough to get them turning up even in ones and twos.
recently men used to be able to claim pension guarantee credit @ 60, currently worth approx £150/wk…the pension age escalator means the minimum age anyone will get a state pension will be 65 after 2018…not paying out state pension and PGC until 65 slashes the pensions bill by billions, will cause poverty and hardship, to the detriment of the local economy…
Men still qualify for Pension Credit at the same time as women (I did two weeks after my 60th birthday) but of course that qualifying date is now advancing rapidly – my sister won’t qualify for a State pension until she’s 68. Bear in mind that as well as Pension Credit, bus passes and winter heating allowances are also delayed by the pension age escalator.
wildswimmer
the PGC age is now 62 and a few weeks…still get bus pass @ 60 in scotland….
“Pension Credit, bus passes and winter heating allowances”
wildswimmerpete,
SOON after the next election all the above will be gone, even for those who claim them now (that is if we have another election ?, everything may have collapsed by next year), I hear the Pope is saying there is danger of a global financial crash, what has he been told ?.
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/business-news/freedom-riders-refuse-to-pay-fares-in-protest-1-6556506
http://sites.scran.ac.uk/redclyde/redclyde/rc069.htm
http://www.readersdigest.co.uk/money/retirement/equity-release-rescues-pension-prisoners
Of course there is the danger of (yet another, yawn) worldwide financial crash as the idiots who caused the last one are still running the global economy.
The only reason that this present set of chumps in government have managed to keep the lid on things economically is through an artificially low bank base lending rate which is why we are seeing house prices increasing as there is access to cheap money – once interest rates start to increase we’ll start to see real problems.
Part of the problem is that Labour, when in government (operating neo-liberal economic policies) backed the bankers with a bail out paid by taxpayers thus creating the situation we have now, and providing a wonderful excuse allowing the Tories to blame the poor for the false need for austerity.
Nothing has changed, so I’d be very surprised if we weren’t in for yet another financial crisis – look at the history of capitalism and you’ll find a very familiar pattern.
sib
http://wingsoverscotland.com/when-you-get-there/ a message to alba from gymru….see also “sunset for scaremongers”, where as british citizens we will be remain eu citizens, inspite of indy from the union…
Thanks for that link OBD – I know a few of the people appearing in that video (Welsh speaking Wales is scarily small!). However, with support for Indy here only about 10 or 11% there is a way to go – but a Yes vote in Scotland will certainly heat up the debate.
Pingback: Workfare Till You Drop – Esther McVey To ...
I glanced through the report and it seemed to be a bit patronising towards older women – just retail and caring or knitting if you want to be self-employed. At the end Wetherspoons is given as an inspiring example but a lunchtime job (which they recommend) isn’t going to help you much when they introduce Universal Credit.
Fuck Wetherspoon’s. Tory donators. I won’t even enter their crummy pubs.
workfare/work to you drop, promoting britishness, gruel britannia….
http://wingsoverscotland.com/another-paranoid-cybernat/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=another-paranoid-cybernat&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
so they’re effectively targeting all demographics.. when will this end?
When we target them!
Well said 🙂
I had a glance through the report and noticed that they are hoping to bring in legislation by 2016 to make the retirement age 67. At the moment I will be able to retire at 66 in 2022. I guess if I have to look forward to community work in all weathers until I’m 66 I probably won’t be around when I’m 67 to enjoy a pension so the potential change won’t matter.
I you wonder why we Scots want Independence. Hopefully we can change this if we have the sense to Yes.
The English also want to be independent of the Tories.
l p
free of the red tories as well..i think residents of england should also be able to vote to breakaway from the WM union…fairs fairs after all… http://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2014/06/08/the-shamelessness-of-john-reid/
Sainsbury’s are using workfare ?
Boycott the supermarkets, support local independent stores, grow your own veg, shoplift at Sainsbury’s.
Yeah f*ucked nation mate, not so sure about the kids being smart conditioned more likely.
*OFF TOPIC*
BTW, have you heard of the ultra Right-wing-nut group calling themselves ‘Britain First’ ? Who purport to be Christians and provocatively deliver Bibles to Mosques? If they reall are Christians then surely they should be called ‘Britain Last’.
“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matt. 20:16)
HYPOCRITES!
I think you’ll find that Britain First are true fascists.
Agreed. Total Nazis. They’ve been attempting to stir-up trouble in Bradford.
Reblogged this on nearlydead.
Ah the intensive support of the work programme. Just coming to the end of my 2 years, and I’ll just list the support they have given me.
Now I don’t know what you think but I don’t think that’s a very long list.
That’s not fair, you got twice the amount of support I did.
sainsburrys get 2400 quid for each 6 month placement from learn direct utter wankers and i got the letter to prove it 😉
Sainsbury’s involved in Workfare? I saw the video went over to Boycott Workfare and they’re not on the list over there, unless i missed them.
Contact BW to get them added to the list of exploiters.
these also use work fair http://www.bmstores.co.uk/
had a letter from the wp to show up for a meeting with them to see if they wanted me.
only problem was the letter came 3 weeks after i was meant to go n not got a fkn time machine yet but im working on it. 😉
i got the letter from the managers office late last year as the person was on the wp and after his 6 months were up sent back to the wp for a replacement..
the store was only a small one and have stopped using them at that location so far as the staff was pissed as there was no extra hrs for any of them or over time as they took it all up as free slaves.
this was for the 18-24 year olds tho
Panic over! I’ve just been reading the report and I think it’s just a plan for sometime in the future, many years from now. This is because it keeps mentioning Universal Credit, and we all know how far that is from being implemented.
Right, that would make sense, I should have known, just yet more ill-conceived, undeliverable, Tory hot-air blowin’ out of their staggeringly incompetent posh pie/arse-holes for the benefit of dole-hating, rabid, Daily Mail readers. Thank goodness for that.
“Morrisons plans to cut 2,600 management jobs”
Nevermind, they could just take them all on again working for their benefits, hardworking taxpayers won’t mind.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27888549
a f m
they’ll get a (jb) fuller working life, with 4hrs/day sleep in between shifts…could sleep supported by a rope, as in days of galley…
So much for the so-called ‘jobs boom’ recently alleged. I see redundancies in the news all the time.
“Benefit Integrity Centres”
http://dwpexamination.org/forum/general-discussion/benefit-integrity-centres/#p135559
“The Means Test Scandal – A Scathing Exposure, 1929-1933”
http://sites.scran.ac.uk/redclyde/redclyde/rc069.htm
Just had a thought!.
All this “workfare” making people spend so much time looking for jobs that don’t exist!, could it be that the powers that be are trying to impede people from joining the coming demonstrations/troubles that are coming ?.
annos
that is exactly why the jobseeking scheme was created…
I told a couple of Advisers that my Meds kept me calm/happy, and suggested that half the country are on them & the other half are stoned, I said, why do you think we’re not out there rioting? They were older guys, and they had a chuckle. But really it’s no joke!
Yes I see you wrote that in June last year and now, 12th May 2015 what you said it coming true. I would go on demos but my bladder is weak and I might start pissing on some tories while I was out demonstrating.
“DWP will also hold an ‘Older Claimants’ fortnight from 9 -23rd June 2014 that will focus attention on supporting older people to find a job. This will include a range of internal and external communication activities to fully demonstrate the benefits to business.”
It looks like all their communication activities failed, did they forget to tell anybody.
https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=%22Older+Claimants%E2%80%99+fortnight%22
No one at my Jobcentre has said a thing about it, and I only signed-on this afternoon.
Me too. I’m 51 and I’ve heard nothing, and it’s now the 18th June.
Rumour has it that David Cameron asked the Chinese to run the Work Programme.
They’ve got a wall needs pointing….
Wok Programme?
cant`t stop laughing!
Another Fine Mess – This should make you happy – it’s located between paragraph’s 10 and 11.
DWP Central Freedom of Information Team.
e-mail: freedom-of-information-request@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
Our Ref: VTR 5466 & 5529
28 November 2013
Post Work Programme Support (JSA claimants) Guidance Queries and Help.
Important note: WP completers must not be re-referred to the WP at any
time or under any circumstances.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/186510/response/455054/attach/html/4/Post%20Work%20Programme%20Support%20JSA%20claimants%202013%2011%2025.pdf.html
Well I already know that!
With all their rules and regulations, you’d think they were dealing with master criminals and not just some poor sods who’re looking for paid work.
Or maybe we’ll rebuilding that one to separate the Scots once more? i.e. the new Scottish Border? They’ll have an unending supply of free labour to work to death just has happened in the past by Japanese & Germans in WW2.
Fat Dave was grovelling to the Chinese yesterday to get them to invest in nuclear power plants and HS2, so I’m sure he mentioned Britain’s endless supply of slave labour. Five more years of Fat Dave and Gidiot and Britain will be making iphones for the Chinese.
As for McVile’s latest squawkings, she’s desperate for promotion in Fat Dave’s reshuffle (if he stops going on holiday for long enough to have one) so she’ll say anything that gets her press coverage. This year parliament will spend more time in recess than sitting (but all concerned will still claim full salaries) and the main priority of all departments is to set traps for a Labour government.
what a sad society we live in if old people are being forced into working longer on arthritic joints . Who ever is in the driving seat behind these fascist moronic ideas must seriously be sick in the head . Its obvious now that the country is not being governed right and some one is making repeated mistakes in running the place . this constant bulling of the sick and unemployed has to stop , They should all just say sorry to the public for the chaos and stand down letting in a new brighter younger MP take their place , people who understand the workings of economics and are intelligent enough to register the fact that in any country you will have a percent of Unemployed , sick disabled and pensioners . Money to cater for these should never be a problem and they should all be treated with respect and patriotism they deserve not demoralized projected as rats and parasites in a Hitler style public brainwashing ethnic cleansing by trouble causing unprofessional spoilt greedy bars-tools who have NEVER gone without for longer than an hour .Old people have served this county enough and should be well looked after , not sent to the workhouse to gamble that they may drop dead saving money on the pension,The sick deserve piece of mind whilst ill not illegally worried and aggravated out of their minds,they should also be treated with compassion the same as them on private medical care are,,” Not disturbed ” . Everyone’s grandparents and parents have paid into the social fund for years , If the government have squandered and improperly invested this money and not let it grow with population they why should everyone else take the blame ? wheres all the money gone ? if they cant do their job right them why smack the disabled around for it ?easy targets for bullies ? It all is so ridiculous whats going on that its got to be a smoke screen for something really big that they are pulling the wool over our eyes for . They are changing the goal posts that much that its ended in chaos and the weakest link is getting the blame …the sick , unemployed and the Old .
The scary thing about it all is that no one has noticed the fact that the sick have been put on probation (work related activity group) the unemployed are being put on community work, and the Old are being worked to death . ,on top of people getting jail for talking , bigger fines to entrap the poor into behind sent to the floating private prisons to be used as a means to charge more tax on the blinkered tax payers backs . the tax payer is next they will have a barcode etched on the forehead , tagged and only let out the living quarters to earn tax then they too will be left to suffer higher and higher inflation until they cannot keep up , then they too are evicted , home stolen by the banks , then due to illegal camping laws put into the floating prison to be conveniently sunk out at sea .leaving only the blue eyed , blonde haired rich super race to enjoy the rich pickings of what the poor leave behind ……..
Reblogged this on chunkyfunkymunky.
If some Administrative Officer within JCP masquerading as a Work Clerk suggests retraining as en electrician with Comet, then they can point out that any Professional Careers Adviser would be aware of the fact that Comet went into administration some time ago (I think during the latter part of 2012).
OT
an essay from the radical independence campaign, with a revision would be a great essay ie wales and NI are also part of the union…it does not say it all, but says enough…
http://www.scotsman.com/news/independence-essay-class-is-at-heart-of-vote-1-3448245#comments-area
Have the Work Programme providers siphoned off billions of £s of the European Social Fund allocated to the UK, is that their core funding through the DWP?
Yes, loads possibly a lot more than the DWP fees, that’s why when you are sentenced it doesn’t matter how good you are, you still need literacy, numeracy and employability lessons.
Fake jobs, fake recovery, fake economy. That’s Britain in 2014; the land of make believe and fairy tales.
Making people apply for friggin’ fake jobs on their spam ridden UJM bug infested site that no sane person would ever even log on to.
….that no sane person could ever even log on to even if they tried.
Fake internet job site to add to the list of fake BS this government vomits out.
Useless wankers. Now Miliband announces how he wants to put the boot into youngsters getting JSA! Is there no low that the Labour party will not stoop to?
They are beneath contempt.
Another nail in the coffin of UC, there can’t be much room left on the lid by now!
“Cuts may undermine work incentives in universal credit”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/17/cuts-universal-credit-work-incentives-review
Of course, we should all know by now that Tory plans are ultimately doomed of their own accord, all their fancy plans come to feck all ‘cos they’re too tight to fund anything! haha
“Cuts may undermine work incentives in universal credit”
They missed out the n.
Just come across this article on Vox Political.
Could not believe what i read, it is scary
Sure on a quick read through that a providers guide book stated that providers such as a4e staff could make home visits to (vulnerable) claimants mandated onto the work schemes.
time to get a dog.
Got one, She`s a beauty, and doesn`t like strangers, lol!
“Ed Miliband to set out plans to cut benefits for young jobless”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/18/labour-welfare-plan-benefits-means-testing-training-ed-miliband
Well,, look on the bright side, we do have a choice at the next election!…TORY, TORY, or TORY….
No mention by Miliband of taxing all those off-shore accounts that evaded paying tax!, that would bring in a few trillion.
Yeah…. I see this came over the news tonight.
Kids between 18 and 21 to get no JSA, etc, if they can’t read. So does Miliband aim to separate the brighter kids for JSA and the les brighter ones?
And yet, the tories still dare to accuse this miserable little useless trait o to the poor of being “socialist” HUH!
So that is just the start of Labour ideas. I can se the NEW NAZIS take this one up anytime soon.
They are still toying with removing benefits to all under 25 to help reduce longterm worklessness”
Miliband is playing right into that ideology here.
It gives young folks absolutely no incentive to vote for his group, which is just a version of Thatcherism, and not much else.
Labour has lost all pretence of being for the people.they are tory clones
But, but, the wealth creators would be forced to flee from such tyranny! They would leave the country! *gasp* which would cause the loss of millions of jobs, economic collapse, the breakdown of society, and Armageddon!
Must be a response to the recent polls stating that the electorate consider Miliband to be an uninspiring, insipid weasel unfit to be Prime Minister (which of course he is). So this gormless inadequate gimp’s response is to yet again attempt to prove to the right-wing media and the electorate his toughness, authoritative manliness and gravitas by demonising the unemployed and issuing more vicious, nasty and cruel threats to leave them destitute, in a futile attempt to out Tory the Tories, which never ever works.
All Labour are doing, is strengthening and reinforcing the Tory framing of unemployment as a moral failing, which validates that false, victim-blaming, scapegoating, dehumanising hang ’em and flog ’em worldview in the electorate’s minds and if that worldview comes to be widely accepted by the electorate, given the choice between dyed in the wool Tories and Tory lite, they will choose the real thing every time.
It’s like groundhog day. It’s like listening to a broken record. There is no way you could keep making the same mistake over and over again without at some point coming to the realisation that your current tactic is ineffective and self-defeating. It’s like watching a man run head first against into a brick wall over and over again. It has been proven to be an unsuccessful self-defeating strategy for Labour so many times for so long now, I have to conclude that validating the right-wing worldview and helping to facilitate the Tories’ Social Darwinist agenda is their intention.
“It has been proven to be an unsuccessful self-defeating strategy for Labour so many times for so long now”
R34,
It has made a LOT of money for so many Labour MP’s over many decades, secet payments, etc, we will NEVER know the truth of it all!!!, the people were sold out long ago.
http://socialinvestigations.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/compilation-of-parliamentary-financial.html
I was specifically referring to Labour trying to take on the Tories on their welfare bashing turf, but yes they have profited considerably from their corruption and treachery.
It also might make them kick off bigtime.
Yep.
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Just wondering if the Condemns compulsory 6 month Workfare cobblers is considered by them and their DWP lackeys as a civic obligation or not under new JSA rules.
If it isn’t a civic obligation like, for example jury service, then workfare is obviously deemed illegal under ‘Article Four’ of the Human Rights Act. Does anyone here know whether mandatory workfare comes under the definition of civic obligations? If it doesn’t, then I can refuse any JCP attempt to shove me onto workfare in the coming months.
Civic obligation is the expectation of the Good Samaritan not the aspirations of the Slave Master.
This principle has deep root within the culture there should be no need to seek recourse to the Human Rights Articles.
voidseeker
yes….
O-T
Legal Challenge to DWP’s Emergency, Retrospective Legislation
http://www.publicinterestlawyers.co.uk/news_details.php?id=415
Nice one, and I should bloody well think so too! This lot make the law up as they go along, they need stopping.
Here is another example, a further land-grab by the Rich:
http://www.scriptonitedaily.com/2014/06/18/you-will-not-believe-what-david-cameron-is-selling-off-now/
l p
speechless, but not surprised…they want it all….they’ll privatize one’s shadow, soon…
Your shadow? These bastards want your Soul !
l p
yep, they try to block its power….”all that you have is your soul”…it is the most precious treasure we have..
Great song obd: going to have a re-listen to it as soon as.
The young jobless will have to sign up to achieving level 3 training or not receive jsa under labour. The young unemployed living at home with parents earning over 42k to get nothing seems unfair. When I was on the new deal schemes I couldn’t complete NVQ3 without a placement at a company. When a labour leader has to show he is hard on welfare as a way to win an election then the labour party really has been taken over by the right.
Labour sold out years ago. Vote Green.
But a Green vote would be wasted as they are not big enough to get any MPs.
I don’t see it like that. I vote very much on a personal level. I would vote SWP or Class War if they were standing in my area. Times past I have deliberately spoiled my ballot. Nowadays I give it to the Greens. Used to vote Labour a long long time ago, pre-Blair.
They’ve already got one – Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavillion.
plus a vote for any of the main parties is also wasted as they’ll fuck you over.
You’re right there, we have three Tory parties and a Fascist party.
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Reblogged this on SMILING CARCASS'S TWO-PENNETH.
take a look @ this condescending nonsense form our politico…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27927843 then add the link from sue marsh to jv tweet above…millions of people are suffering by their hands, they caused the WCA and PIP system..all we can do is to look on horrified and deprived of the vital income we all need to live in dignity….and all they can do is gossip about the implementations costs that they suffer….
Reblogged this on Jay's Journal and commented:
I cannot believe what I am reading, but it’s true – just sick…
Hey, at the end of the PDF let them know exactly what we think of this – they are asking for our views – maybe someone could produce a template and we could then adapt it for personal circumstances – this is the email address given: FULLER.WORKINGLIVES@DWP.GSI.GOV.UK
If anyone does, don’t forget to ask them whatever happened to the:
“DWP will also hold an ‘Older Claimants’ fortnight from 9 -23rd June 2014 that will focus attention on supporting older people to find a job. This will include a range of internal and external communication activities to fully demonstrate the benefits to business.”
Bit about the ‘reforms’ on NewsNight with Owen Jones and the horse stables bloke.
Starts about 8 mins in. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b047bzm7
Reblogged this on wslattery.
Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
This is more of the government’s spurious attempts to get people into work, while in reality merely massaging the unemployment figures and providing more cheap labour for the companies involved in the welfare to work industry. Many unemployed older people over 50 would actually like a job. What stops them actually getting one isn’t any unwillingness on their part, but a lack of interest from industry as a whole in employing anyone over that age, when they can just as easily have their pick of young, impressionable kids they can more easily mould, or manipulate and humiliate, and pay at lower rates than their older workmates. As for some of the therapies involved, they sound like very risible euphemisms. An ’employment-focused talking therapy’ could be someone spouting various New Age-y platitudes about believing in yourself, following your dreams and realising your inner potential to get that dream job. Or it could be some prat giving you the third-degree over the telephone to ask you why you haven’t yet got a job. A friend of mine got this from an outsourced company down here in Bristol. When he asked the young woman, who was giving him this interrogation what she was doing, she declared ‘I’m trying to motivate you’. As for online mental health assessment and computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, this sounds highly suspicious. Psychiatrists and psychologists use Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to treat anxiety disorders, such as phobias and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. While it is the only therapy, which actually works for these disorders, it doesn’t suit everybody. Moreover, I’m not sure what the medical professionals, who use it to treat the mentally and emotionally disturbed think about the way it has become co-opted as some kind of cure for all manner of personal motivational problems. I’ve come across books on the self-help shelves of Waterstones with titles like ‘Improve Your Life with C.B.T. (Cognitive Behavoural Therapy)’. This smacks of that kind of self-help material simply applied to getting a job. My guess is that the medical professionals who use probably wouldn’t be impressed. The impression I have from the therapists, who use it to treat anxiety is that it’s a tool to combat and alleviate specific medical conditions, not a panacea for all life’s emotional problems.
With people, who genuinely have some kind of severe mental or emotional need, I can see this treatment violating the fundamental principle of the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm. As I said, I’m only familiar with it as a medical tool for treating obsessions, phobias and depression. This is done under the supervision of an accredited therapist or psychiatrist. This is very different from the ‘online mental health assessments and computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy’ Johnny Void describes as contained in the report. It seems to me that this impersonal, one-size fits all approach to using a medical tool may mean that it could actually endanger people who are psychologically vulnerable. I would say I wonder what the DWP thinks it is doing here, but I’m afraid I know the answer: it believes it has found a cheap way of persuading the public that they are personally to blame for their inability to find work, based on what something somebody has picked up at a self-help, management seminar they attended. It’s another fad, just like a few years ago there were various courses set up to persuade you that you could become a better employee/ more efficient manager, and all-round better person through Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Well, that’s gone by the board, but now we have the same kind of people in the DWP promoting C.B.T. as the next panacea.
Of course, the motive behind all this is to find reasons to lower jobseekers allowance by pretending that there’s work available, and that industry is desperately seeking to employ the grey-haired, while in fact there isn’t every enough work available for the unemployed young. Hence the need to send them on ever longer training schemes and workfare placements.
Yikes! Orwellian! I remember reading something about NLP – On UK Column, Brian Gerrish talks about it, and “Common Purpose” – very manipulative and very sinister! It is disturbing that there are people in the DWP and all these other organisations promoting things like NLP, CBT and all this new-agey pseudo-science – it all sounds like the superstitious beliefs of the Dark Ages – and oh yes, the witch hunts too!
Reblogged this on stewilko's Blog.
yep, construction firms building ‘cheap hotels’ and army recruitment,
fine if ur under 24 or don’t mind killing people…. and after that?
I was unlucky enough to be made redundant at the age of 52. I was on the Work Programme, which failed me and now I’m being put on the “Community Work Placement’ Scheme – I guess it’s sort of a punishment for the crime of being unemployed! And for being an older lady!
I’m already doing voluntary work, so I have no problems with that – what I really object to is the way the whole thing is presented: as being “mandatory for those who need help and support because they either lack motivation or experience to find and keep a job” – Patronising and degrading to say the least! And to be told all this by some 12 year old jobsworth wearing Daddy’s suit!
Of course, they won’t acknowledge the fact that for every job advertised (and a lot of them are fake) there are hundreds of applicants – there simply aren’t enough jobs, and age discrimination does exist. So their view of course, “It’s all your fault! You’re not trying hard enough, you’re not selling yourself (Yawn!) etc, etc.”
I agree with you. I am nearly 54 and try as I might, they could work out how old I was by my CV and would not interview me. I got one interview as a cleaner, but there was a lot of competition and did not even get that, the bastard tories. I will make their life hell.
Didn’t anybody see Mary Portas (Queen of Shops!), opening a Job centre for the over 65 s on the BBC?
No, because I do not have a TV. I might be signing on in 2018. We will see what happens. Tory is my new swearword. Bye for now.