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Post by The Doctor on Jul 17, 2012 18:01:47 GMT
Surprised we don't have a thread for this. I am already seeing the terrible effects of welfare cuts in relation to folk I support and am aware of some Deep Shit on the horizon. Also deeply troubling is the hate-mongering in certain sections of the media. Just last week the Daily Express ran a front-page story deploring the idea of access to benefits being afford Human Right status and stating that benefit claimants are "workshy". Reading this disgusting rant makes my blood boil: www.express.co.uk/posts/view/332520/Spongers-can-sue-to-claim-benefitsUnfortunately, many people read that kind of thing and so hatred of the most vulnerable in society is fostered. If you're not up to date and want to see what is really going on, read this: www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/17/despair-loneliness-austerity-britain?CMP=twt_gu-Ralph |
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 18, 2012 20:34:13 GMT
Food banks: www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/18/food-banks-on-hand-outs?newsfeed=trueIf I didn't have access to these, some folks my service works with would quite literally starve. They are on the rise in terms of use due to welfare cuts. One Edinburgh service which used to give out food parcels for 6 weeks to clients can now only offer 4 weeks due to a surge in demand in the last 6 months. -Ralph |
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jul 18, 2012 21:47:19 GMT
Bloody frightening stuff.
How soon till shanty towns start springing up?
Andy
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kayevcee
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
The Weather Wizard
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Post by kayevcee on Jul 18, 2012 23:26:44 GMT
I fluctuate between despair, indignation and fury reading that article. It makes me wonder how hard it's going to kick off when it eventually stops raining long enough for people to take to the streets.
-Nick
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 19, 2012 6:49:09 GMT
we've had a foodbank here in Swindon for the last five years. I know some of the people involved with setting it up and running it. And demand has just surged during the time.
One the one hand it's good people stand in the gap.
On the other the gap shouldn't be there.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 19, 2012 6:54:37 GMT
I am a recipient of two government benefits: Incapacity & DLA.
I get Incapacity because the PHI work pays me meets a certain defined criteria (provided by my employer but my contract of employment has not ended: IE I could go back if I got better)
The DLA is more obvious - Higher Mobility, Middle rate care
Everytime changes to benefits come up I get a feeling of fear, a nasty clench in my stomach. I'm pretty confident I'd pass any test they'd put me up for (mainly cos I'd get so stressed I'd go in and keel over. But still the fear persists
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 19, 2012 7:17:15 GMT
we've had a foodbank here in Swindon for the last five years. I know some of the people involved with setting it up and running it. And demand has just surged during the time. One the one hand it's good people stand in the gap. On the other the gap shouldn't be there. It shouldn't, but I'm seeing situations where people have their benefits stopped for days/weeks/months/indefinite for no rational reasons. No food banks = people starve or have to go on the streets to beg. -Ralph |
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 27, 2012 6:59:08 GMT
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jul 27, 2012 10:34:48 GMT
Cunts.
Andy
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Post by legios on Jul 27, 2012 17:12:11 GMT
Nice to see that the high court has okayed the claim for a judicial review about the way that the new system treats mental health. I was profoundly hoping that this would happen.
I have profound concerns about all of these changes, and the way that they are being implemented. Working in the sector that I do it is arguable that the probable impact of the new Welfare regime comes right at the top of our list of concerns in all honesty. As well as the things that are already discussed there are all sorts of other issues which relate to the changes to the regime for assistance with housing costs which have me deeply concerned.
That is before we get into the media agenda, which is in some quarters quite horrendously stereotyping and divisive in its nature.
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 27, 2012 17:38:53 GMT
A time-bomb waiting to go is the double whammy of the Housing Benefit cuts to folk under 35 (which will make people homeless or make exciting new ghettos for them to live in. Hello, social engineering) and the fabulous new scheme to send Housing Benefit direct to folk rather than their Housing Provider. Just take a minute to consider how many vulnerable sectors of society (many of which are in social housing) will not be able to pay their Housing Benefit forwards to their Housing Provider. Then watch as the homelss numbers escalate and many folk with mental health problems, learning disabilities, elderly, young folk escaping domestic abuse, folk with addiction issues, etc end up the streets. Shanty towns within 2 years.
-Ralph
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Post by legios on Jul 27, 2012 20:22:40 GMT
Yep, that is a very eloquent statement of exactly the scenario that gives me the whillies. The cumulative effect of some of changes that aren't really being talked about by the mainstream media is going to have a huge impact on some of the most vulnerable in our society.
No one is really talking about things like the planned reduction in the Housing Costs element of Universal Credit for under 35's. For clarity - it will be pegged at a rate equal to the average rent for a single room for all those under 35 - so if you are in part-time work, or lose your job and happen to be renting your home, you are expected to forthwith move back to live with your family or move into a single room in a flat-share or HMO. This when a large majority of the employment out there is part-time, transitory, low-paid or some combination of the above....
I'm going to stop now, I feel a rant coming on and even I don't like it when I rant.
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 27, 2012 23:26:39 GMT
Actually, the under 35 HB thing has already happened, as of April. It just hasn't rolled out everywhere yet.
-Ralph
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dyrl
Empty
Transforming robots are no match for combat waitresses from the future!
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Post by dyrl on Jul 28, 2012 12:28:19 GMT
Well, I don't live in England, so I can't comment on the situation there in particular. That said, I think the best thing that can be done for the poor is to foster economic growth. If the economy grows, people have more jobs and money to be able to take care of themselves.
If the economy grows, people also have more money to give to charities and the needy.
When the state controls larger and larger percentages of the economy and taxes productive work and investment, economic growth stalls and eventually stops - that's what's happened in Western Europe and the US.
Now, the West is slowly developing into a region of the world where more people are tax-beneficiaries rather than tax-payers. More and more people need and get help from the state - and less and less people produce enough to finance the state. Thus the state functions on the basis of debt and fiat currency.
This is all a very bad spiraling cycle that will deliver more misery and hardship for everyone.
Add in a culture of decadence bent on the satisfaction of whatever urges and impulses people happen to wake up with in the morning, the decay of families and communities - and you have a steadily growing underclass of proletarians who have no familial, religious, cultural or national bonds with one another and instead reside in a condition of cut throat competition that is not limited by any moral order - virtue is defined as being the most ruthless in the pursuit of ones' own base instincts and ends.
I think it's hard - given all of this - to focus solely on welfare. We need an overhaul of the entire political philosophy of the state as such - or at least the West does. Here in Poland, while there are problems with poverty, unemployment, debt etc etc - it seems to me that there is still a sort of national solidarity between people who actually have something in common (a shared history and religion) that limits the scope of the corruption. Also, consumerism hasn't quite managed to spoil people as much as it has in the west - here, folks still remember what it meant to fight for true independence and freedom from an oppressive state, and are thus not about to give that independence and freedom away to sly marketing on the part of corporations (although I get the feeling that the next generation - Polish people who grew up after communism and in the world of pop-culture and comercialism - won't be as immune to some of the ill effects of those phenomena).
In any event... it seems to me that the immediate cure to the problems Ralph is talking about is economic growth.
Pete
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 30, 2012 17:42:00 GMT
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 30, 2012 18:26:10 GMT
Panorama, 8:30 tonight
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Post by legios on Jul 30, 2012 20:11:46 GMT
I sense a certain amount of spin emanating from the government on this issue...
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 17, 2012 22:03:01 GMT
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 30, 2012 13:46:59 GMT
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 31, 2012 21:45:41 GMT
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 3, 2012 17:53:56 GMT
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 3, 2012 19:57:35 GMT
how long before they're marching the disabled to the gas chambers? FFS
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Post by legios on Sept 3, 2012 20:28:59 GMT
I've been doing a lot of reading about this - position papers, consultation responses, briefing documents. One of these things that pretty much comes with the territory due to my job. None of it has been entirely calculated to improve my general outlook.
One thing that does get my goat though is this idea of time-unlimited work experience for folks. This come perilously close to being a statement that "if you don't or can't find work then the government will compel you to work at a job of its choosing, for less than the going rate, for any term it sees fit". I thought we had abolished compulsory service in this country before I was born?
Karl
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Post by blueshift on Sept 3, 2012 23:11:29 GMT
Come on guys, pull yourselves up by your own bootstraps!
Also if you find yourself in trouble get your rich Tory Peer father to get you a job.
TUT SO LAZY!!!!
PS we're all in it together!
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kayevcee
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
The Weather Wizard
Posts: 5,527
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Post by kayevcee on Sept 4, 2012 4:47:49 GMT
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 4, 2012 17:35:48 GMT
It's worth noting that ATOS and what it gets up to is not at all new. I was dealing with them on behalf of folk in a support job I did during 2002-2007. It's just they are getting media attention now. It'll take someone's famous granny or the like to have problems with them for the tabloid media to care and then stand back and watch the shit-storm.
Incidentally, the cuts to the welfare state directly impact on my line of work as funding for helping roles constantly evaporates and it's accelerated dramatically just since April of this year alone. I'll be very, very lucky to have a job doing what I do this time next year and I don't expect to make it through 2013 without a period out of work as a result.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 4, 2012 18:01:20 GMT
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Post by legios on Sept 4, 2012 19:40:39 GMT
Read that this morning. It is a very sobering thought to read those kind of figures. What struck me was the level of increase in the numbers of people who are in employment who are qualifying for them - we now have a sizeable element in the populations whose work no longer gives them enough money for basic survival. This is a not a good development. Karl |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Sept 5, 2012 20:32:37 GMT
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 27, 2012 19:29:35 GMT
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