Oi landlord get off your lazy backside says IDS in Parliament and some other Priti outrageous stuff
23 Tuesday Jun 2015
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in23 Tuesday Jun 2015
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in15 Monday Jun 2015
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inWell, would you credit it, as my Mum used to say, well yes, and no…
This, from November 2013: Please bear with me:
Cut benefits cap to £20,000, say Tories: Group of MPs says amount should be cut by £6,000 to send message to workshy that they cannot live comfortably on handouts
By Jason Groves for the Daily Mail 23:37 18 Nov 2013, updated 00:01 19 Nov 2013
No one should be allowed to claim more than £20,000 a year in benefits, an influential group of Tory MPs said yesterday.
Members of the Free Enterprise Group of Conservative MPs issued a unanimous call for the flagship welfare cap to be reduced from its current level of £26,000.
Tory MP Brooks Newmark said the benefits cap should be reduced to the value of the average £26,000 salary after tax – equal to just over £20,000
MPs said it would help raise cash to pay for middle-class tax cuts, as well as sending out a powerful message that the unemployed should not be able to live a comfortable life on benefits.
Tory MP Brooks Newmark said the cap should be reduced to the value of the average £26,000 salary after tax – equal to just over £20,000.
Mr Newmark said: ‘Many hard-working people in my constituency do not understand why we have a welfare cap that allows people to get £26,000 effectively post-tax. That is equal to an income of £35,000 pre-tax.
‘If we want tax cuts elsewhere we should lower the welfare cap to something more reasonable. For people who are fit and able to work they should be able to get no more than the equivalent of £26,000 post-tax.’
Fellow Tory David Ruffley said private polling conducted on behalf of Number 10 showed that the benefit cap was supported by about 80 per cent of the public. But he said 80 per cent of those backing it also thought it was too high.
Mr Ruffley said: ‘Most people think it is way too high – we should cut it to £20,000.’
My reason for recycling this nonsense is since it was, apparently, resurrected as a possible course of action in the last couple of days. This was reported by SpyJoeHarwood today. What can I say? How could they pay for tax cuts for the high earners by plunging tens of thousands of kids into homeless poverty?
The consequences are going to be so outrageous, so horrendous, that it will surely be an own goal against the Tory Party’s insidious selfish lack of imagination.
13 Saturday Jun 2015
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inWell I can’t quite remember whether it was five or six weeks, all I know is that it took just forever for my first Universal Credit payment to come through.
I think they used to call them “waiting days”, but, I seem to remember, being absolutely outraged about waiting three days for my dole payment last time I was unemployed (some 27 years ago, just for a few months – god I sound like I was ashamed or something: I wasn’t, but I sure as hell am now).
To return to the point, well now it’s not waiting days, it’s waiting weeks. Yes indeed, you get yourself a “managed migration” from Jobseekers/tax credits/housing benefit whatever, and then you have to wait 5-6 weeks before you get it. Oh yes, I kid you not, you are fully used to receiving your housing benefit fortnightly (one week in arrears, one week in advance) and your child tax credits, often paid weekly, plus your job seekers (not sure tbh), and then they announce you won’t get a blinding fuck for six weeks. Speechless wasn’t the word, I was like telling everyone that I didn’t have a bean of income for six weeks. Even left-wing friends showed limited sympathy, which was, I suspect, since they couldn’t quite believe what I was saying: they assumed that I was exaggerating quite extravagantly (what a card, get her another drink and shut her up).
Quite different was experiencing it however. WTF, six weeks includes the bloody landlord wanting his rent, and the phone companies/waterworks/council tax wanting their direct debits; it includes your kids wanting new shoes/kids’ parties/school club fees/shinpads/anti-acne facewash/feminine hygiene products/mascara, and Saturday lunch in town with friends – so can I have some spending money please Mummy. It includes several trips to the doctors, at the hard-working tax-payers’ expense, to discuss the lowering of mood which one experiences, and the relief when l got my increased dose of antidepressants.
I am lucky, I still have credit cards which I can use, but what if you do not have access to magic money. Starvation, begging, what the fucking HELL does the government expect these people to do for five or six weeks?
Well what happened to me is I acquired a clinical depression the depth of which surpassed any previous attempts I had made in a distinguished career of quasi-normality, achieving a top-ranking GAD7 not to mention a worrying PHQ9, or whatever my most appropriate measurement of misery and desperation might have been. I sure wasn’t up to being scrutinised by a panel at an employment interview, nothing could have been further from my mind, not when my maternal survival instincts were kicking in.
But what the hell, it was only six weeks, I had the benefit cap to look forward to after that, rejoice!
09 Tuesday Jun 2015
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inEarnings and UC Benefit Cap 1) Under UC, the work of people on the minimum wage is devalued – they have to work harder to avoid the cap. The decision to apply a Benefit Cap is made on an individual monthly basis. If you have earned at least £430 in that month you are not capped, otherwise you will be capped. So an office cleaner could have done 66 hours of work in that month at the minimum wage, and get capped, while a locum GP might have done 6 hours of work in that month and not get capped (on HB/Tax credits it was based on working 16 h per week at any wage). So, if you have neither the qualifications nor the experience to take on a high powered role with a good part-time, Full-time Equivalent (FTE) pro rata salary you’ll just have to work more hours at the minimum wage to try and earn your £430/month. 2) Disparity between those with regular hours of work and those with irregular patterns of employment. This crazy rule also messes up the situation for seasonal workers and term time only workers, such as teaching assistants. That half term break welcomed by your teaching colleagues may push your paltry earnings below the threshold and risk another dreaded month on the benefit cap. For seasonal workers earning on average £430 per month over the whole year, they could find themselves capped for several months of the year, and losing say £600 for each of those months. 3) Actual monthly income becomes critical between £400-£450 level for capped families with a cliff edge effect Single parent 4 children Rent @ £1300/month; Notional Allowance £2530/month Benefit Cap £625/month (unemployed) Therefore income £1905/month £605/after rent Effect of part time work (Work allowance is £263/month) Example 1: Earns £350/month Gains £350 Allowance reduction £350-£263 = £87; £87 x 60% = £52.20 So capped by (£625-£52.20) = £572.80 Income still £222.80 less than allowance Work has merely lessened the extent of capping: is this what “making work pay” means? How soul destroying to work in such circumstances, and yet be denigrated as a work-shy scrounging shirker. Many women are in the position of doing bits and bobs of work such as lunchtime school meals assistants. Example 2: Earns £400/month net Allowance reduction: (£400-£263 = £137); £137 x 60% = £82.20 So capped by (£625 – £82.20) = £542.80 Income now £142.80 under allowance Working more but still capped. Example 3: Earns £450/month net – not capped Allowance reduction: £450-£263 = £187; £187 x 60% = £112.20 So receives £112.20 less UC Total gain of £337.50 Work has finally paid over allowance, but how precariously. The £23K cap can only make this situation worse as the gap between Examples 2 and 3 will be even wider: Ex 1 – Earns £350, £472.80 less Ex 2 – Earns £400, £392.80 less Ex 3 – Earns £450, £375.20 more A whopping £768/ month difference for 10 hours more work. I thought Iain D-S was trying to get rid of such cliff edge discrepancies? How stressful to know that an extra hour’s work will be so critical to your kids’ well being. 3) Home owners keep more of their earnings than renters or mortgage payers. You are allowed to keep some of your income on UC. However, there are two different rates for people who have housing costs (similar to HB), and for those who don’t. For a single parent living in a house owned outright (maybe from divorce proceedings) they can earn £734/month (lose 60% after that); for a single parent in rented accommodation she can earn only £263/month before losing 60% of earnings. So if you are lucky enough to own the property you live in you -Earn more without losing 60% of it -Are much less likely to be capped since housing allowance is often a major component of UC This favours those who already have more, but what else are we to expect from this government. ——————————————————————————————–
06 Saturday Jun 2015
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inMyself, well I spend so many hours job hunting, I’m not sure how I would fit in the old shelf stacking in Poundland: this is where I could be sent on a Workfare wheeze when I run out of valid reasons for failing to find a post in my previous profession within the stipulated time period of 3 months.
My poor old Jobcoach doesn’t know what to do with me these days, and I can tell she doesn’t think I’m really trying. Every time I go there she demands “written evidence” that I’ve applied for ever so many jobs, even though I tell her those personal statements take forever. Everything’s online now you know at JobCentrePlus they’ve gone digital, so I always just do a search on my phone for “regret to inform you” emails and thrust that in her face. Then she says it’s got to be on paper or she’ll start sanctioning me, and I start talking about issues of trust.
I do actually wonder though, why did I spend so long pursuing an education, at the government’s expense, paid for by those hard-working families no less. well, because it enabled me subsequently to become a hard-working family member for nearly two decades, and a hard-working tax payer for a good ten years before that.
Now my time’s up though because I had a personality change and decided to be a benefit-scrounging family member instead. I never believed those psychology textbooks that went on about the constancy of the personality across the lifetime, because my change of heart was sudden and dramatic, as soon as the P45 hit the doormat I became scrounging scumduggery.
Why do all these idiots assume that the benefit-capped are underqualified? Why do they assume that we don’t want to work? Why do they assume we are youngsters, in need of an apprenticeship or an entry level qualification? Why do they assume that we come from families afflicted by intergenerational unemployment?
My working-class family worked hard, and my grandparents, and great-grandparents before them. My socialist parents truly believed that a university education would set their kids up for a life of professional success in a meaningful career, not a career cut short by benefit capped Poundlandary.
05 Friday Jun 2015
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in04 Thursday Jun 2015
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inHi Harriet,
Have you not noticed that the Labour Party Elite is aboard a lilo, and drifting further every day from the Grass Roots members, not to mention the other citizens of the UK who voted for Labour this time around (it’s called faith).
My own associates in my local Labour Party look like they are about to burst into tears at a moment’s notice just now – and not, surprisingly, because we lost – for these brave souls dragged themselves back to the Party offices within hours, days or weeks following the election.
No, what really hurts, deep down, is the disconcerting worry that the SMT of the party you pounded the streets for consists of a bunch of ignoramuses. For example, the Shadow DWP, Rachel Reeves, has apparently failed to grasp the most basic curricular requirements for someone in her field of expertise. I note that she is an Oxbridge scholar, so must conclude that it’s attitude rather than aptitude that’s limiting her perception.
So, for my first question: If I work, will I be exempt from the Universal Credit benefit cap? Is it really true Rach, that you can work quite hard, probably harder than you do Rach, considering your ignorance and all, and yet still be subject to the benefit cap? Ooh you didn’t notice that did you Rach. But I can assure you, that a lot of work can be done each month, and leave you capped good and proper, cause you are not working hard enough see. And let’s be straight here now, working hard means getting paid the required £430/month doesn’t it? I mean if you get paid peanuts, then you will need to work twice, thrice, (n)ice as hard to get the benefit cap off your back, since on Universal Credit, the requirement for immunity depends on earning power not on graft per se. But, come on, since when was the hard work of a street cleaner in any way equivalent to the hard work of an NHS executive who tells her nurses to magic up three extra beds in a ward, obviously this clinically inexperienced individual knows best…but I digress.
02 Tuesday Jun 2015
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in01 Monday Jun 2015
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in01 Monday Jun 2015
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