TUC uncovers £67,000 pensions postcode lottery

A woman in her late 40s from East Dorset can expect to receive £67,000 more in state pension when she retires, compared to a women of the same age living in Corby, due to a widening gap in life expectancies and a rising state pension age, according to a new report published today by the TUC.

The report looks at life expectancy projections by gender, occupation and geographical area, and their effect on the amount of state pension people are set to receive. The state pension age is due to rise to 66 between 2018 and 2020 and to 67 between 2026 and 2028.

The research shows that by 2028 a woman living in East Dorset – the area of the UK with the longest post-65 life expectancy for both men and women – can expect to live nine years longer than a woman in Corby (the area with the shortest life expectancy) when they retire. This state pension divide works out at £67,000 over their lifetime. The state pension divide for men living in East Dorset and Manchester (the area with the shortest male post-65 life expectancy) will be £53,000.

This state pension divide will also grow for different types of workers. A female managerial or professional worker retiring in 2028 can expect to live 3.8 years longer than a female manual worker, compared to 2.4 years today. This state pension divide works out at £29,000. The equivalent gap for male manual and professional workers is £23,000, or 3.1 years.

The TUC report also shows that millions of people will receive less state pension, despite having to work for a further two years, because their life expectancy is not keeping pace with the increasing state pension age. People living in poor areas such as Corby, Manchester, Salford and Hull will receive substantially less state pension over their lifetime. A woman in her late 40s in Corby will have to work for two more years before retiring but will receive £12,000 less state pension during her retirement than those retiring in 2016.  A man of a similar age living in Manchester will receive £7,500 less during his retirement.

The lifetime state pension for men, based on a full ‘single-tier’ state pension award, will fall from £147,000 in 2016 (when the single-tier is introduced) to £146,000 in 2028. Women retiring in 2028 will have to work longer in order to receive the same state pension (£164,000) as those retiring in 2016.

The government’s failure to consider persistent inequalities in life expectancy when accelerating the rise in the state pension age, will leave millions far worse off in retirement, says the TUC.

The TUC believes that the government should reverse its decision to raise the state pension age in light of new evidence on life expectancy projections, and instead set up an independent commission to examine inequalities in life expectancy and their effect on people’s retirement incomes.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “The government’s decision to accelerate the rise in the state pension age will mean millions of people having to work for longer in order to receive less in retirement.

“There is already a shocking divide in life expectancies across England, and if current trends continue that inequality will get worse in the coming decades. The government’s pension reforms will add to the problem, with people in richer areas receiving more from the state, while those in poorer areas receive less.

“It cannot be right that people living in a wealthy area can receive tens of thousands of pounds more in state pension than someone living in a less well off part of the country, particularly as richer people are likely to have earned more during the career and have a bigger private pension too.

“The government should abandon its plan to raise the state pension age in light of the new evidence on projected life expectancies. It should instead set up an independent commission to examine health inequalities and the impact on people’s expected retirement incomes.”

Source

Related articles:

1. TUC’s pension warning over growing north-south life expectancy divide
2. Tory MP says he won’t change “unfair” pleural plaque postcode lottery
3. UCU condemns elite university postcode lottery

How Gov't Hid 1 million Jobless From Official Figures

Reblogged from Scriptonite Daily:

One of the purported achievements of the Coalition government’s disastrous economic policy of austerity, has been the unemployment figures.  Pundits say that at 7.8% (2.51m) they are nothing to shout about but not the disastrous rates seen in states such as Greece (26.9%) or Spain (26.3%). In reality, the unemployment rate is more than double this in many areas, while those in employment are facing ever worsening conditions to retain their non-jobs.

Messing with the Figures

 

We have the Thatcher government to thank for the majority of the statistical trickery which currently renders the government released unemployment figures redundant.  Prior to 1979, the unemployment rate was anyone registered as unemployed, this was converted to a percentage of the total workforce and that was the published unemployment rate.  Then some changes came in:

1. Redefining Unemployment:  originally defined as those ‘registered’ unemployed, changed to only count ‘claimants’ – this obviously reduced the number greatly as many unemployed people do not, for various reasons, claim benefits.
2. Cutting Benefit Entitlements: By making changes to the benefit system (who is eligible and not) the government can magic away unemployment numbers by simply removing eligibility for benefits.  If the person cannot claim, they are not classed as unemployed.
3. Training Schemes & Work Programmes: the conservative government of the 80’s began to double count those in training & work programmes.  First, they excluded them from the unemployed figures, then they added them to the total workforce figures – this means that simply by recruiting people into a work programme, the government has reduced the unemployment figures.  Prior to Thatcher, these schemes were not counted as employment.

The Thatcher government was able to show a drop in unemployment of 550,000 in July 1986, and 668,000 in 1989 by transferring those unemployed into work programmes.  They also kept an average 90,000 unemployed under 18 year olds off the books by making them ineligible to claim benefits.

Sadly, none of these changes have since been reversed, giving the UK public a much skewed view of unemployment and underemployment.  If we look at the research prepared by other bodies without such downright deceitful exemptions, we reveal a more realistic picture of the economic woe being meted out across the country.

The Real Unemployment Rate

A study put together by Sheffield University last year set out to establish the real level of unemployment in the UK, given that there has been little change in the published unemployment statistic, we can suppose they still hold relatively true.  The study found:

• For Britain as a whole in April 2012, the new figures point to more than 3.4 million unemployed. This compares to just 1.5 million on the claimant count and 2.5 million according to the Labour Force Survey – the government’s two official measures of unemployment. The difference is attributable to extensive hidden unemployment.
• An estimated 900,000 unemployed have been diverted onto incapacity benefits. These are men and women with health problems who claim incapacity benefits instead of unemployment benefits. They do not represent fraudulent claims.
• Hidden unemployment is disproportionately concentrated in the weakest local economies, where claimant unemployment is already highest. The effect has been to mask the true scale of labour market disparities between the best and worst parts of the country.
• In the worst affected districts, the real rate of unemployment is often around 15 per cent. Knowsley in Merseyside tops the list with a real rate of unemployment estimated at 16.8 per cent.
• The older industrial areas of the Midlands, the North, Scotland and Wales mostly have the highest rates of unemployment. In large parts of the south of England the rate is still only 3-4 per cent.
• Comparisons with similar data for earlier years shows that Britain was still a long way off full employment before the 2008/9 recession. Full employment is now still further away and the real rate of unemployment is higher than at any time since 1997.
• The report casts serious doubt on the likely impact of the Coalition government’s reforms, notably the Work Programme and Universal Credit, which are founded on the assumption that unemployment can be brought down by encouraging the unemployed to find work. The evidence points to large and continuing shortfalls in job opportunities away from the most prosperous parts of southern England.

One of the more worrying points in the survey is the widening gap between ‘claimant count’ and unemployed (p5), as ever increasing numbers of people fund themselves without a job or eligibility to claim social security.  For this expanding pool of people, exploitation beckons.

Exploiting the Unemployment Racket

 

The government is pressurising people into ever more exploitative work programmes in order to reduce unemployment figures by threatening withdrawal of social security for non-compliance.  In 2011, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government announced a plan to increase uptake of Workfare (the term given to these schemes) by 100,000.  They also made changes to the programme they inherited from New Labour as follows:

1. A jobseeker who leaves a placement after 1 week loses their welfare payments for 6 weeks.  If they do this a second time, they lose them for 13 weeks.  The third time, three years.

2. Placements can be mandated for up to 30 hours a week for as long as 6 months.

3. The scheme has been opened up so corporations in the private sector can exploit this taxpayer funded, forced labour.

This means that someone who finds themselves unemployed must work up to thirty hours a week, for up to six months at a time, stacking shelves for Tesco or Poundland simply to receive as little as £53 per week, which they are already entitled to as part of the social contract of Britain.  Also, Tesco isn’t paying the £53; we are, through our taxes.

Although an interview is supposed to be guaranteed at the end of the term, it is not required that the workfare provider has a vacancy open.  An interview for a job that doesn’t exist is no interview at all.

Corporations get free labour, the government gets to massage the unemployment figures (Workfare victims are counted as employed) and the unemployed get shafted.

Anyone doubting this critique would do well to read the findings of the DWP’s own analysis of the performance of their work programmes.  These schemes cost the taxpayer £5bn, yet only 1 in 10 people found employment lasting up to 3 months.  The figures are even worse for the sick and disabled people forced into the work programmes – only 1 in 20 finding lasting employment.

The picture doesn’t get any rosier for those who have managed to find employment either.

Employers are less likely to provide real jobs than ever.  As the market favours the employer, there has been an unprecedented month on month fall in wages through the entire 36 months of the Coalition government, and wages were already falling before they arrived.

On top of hidden unemployment, the UK also has an ever growing problem with underemployment; the case of people unable to find jobs with sufficient hours/pay to meet their needs.

A recent paper by researchers at the University of Stirling revealed that underemployment rose from 6.2% in 2008 to 9.9% in 2012. The rate hit 30% among 16 to 24 year olds.

We have also seen the rise of ‘zero hour’ contracts. Almost unheard of a few years ago, more than a million UK workers are now under these contracts.  These contracts have no specified working hours – meaning that an employee is placed on permanent stand by until or unless the employer needs them.  While classed as employed, the person has no wage security as they cannot guarantee their pay from one week to the next.  They also receive no sick pay, leave or other basic terms and conditions.

The Resolution Foundation recently published a review of ‘Zero Hours’ contracts which found serious issues of the spike in their use:

1. Those on ‘Zero Hours’ contracts earn less than half the average wage (£236 vs. £482 per week) of those on proper contracts.
2. Workplaces using ‘Zero Hours’ contracts have a higher proportion of staff on low pay(within £1.25 of minimum wage) than those who do not.

These factors have allowed the UK Labour Market in recent years to combine a relatively high level of employment and an unprecedented squeeze on wages.

1. Those on ‘Zero Hours’ contracts work 10 hours a week less, on average, than those who are not (21hrs – 31hrs).
2. 18% of those on ‘Zero Hours’ contracts are seeking alternative employment or more hours versus 7% of those in ordinary contracts

These factors have contributed to the rise in underemployment in the UK since 2008.  An ONS survey last year revealed more than 1 million people had been added to the rank of the underemployed since the 2008 bailout of the banks.

1. ‘Zero Hours’ contracts are hitting young people the hardest, with 37% of those on such contracts aged between 16-24.
2. ‘Zero Hours’ contracts are more likely to be held by those without a degree, and with a GCSE as their highest level of education.
3. Non UK Nationals are 15% more likely to be employed on such a contract than UK Nationals.

It is not difficult to see the advantages of ‘Zero Hours’ contracts to employers – they can achieve maximum flexibility of their workforce, effectively retaining them on a pay as you go basis.  It is also clear that in the short term, the government of the day also enjoy the advantage of hiding the true effects of their cut throat economic policies.  But the ordinary human being seeking to meet the rising cost of living is losing on all counts.

Between 2008 and 2012, inflation rose 17% according to the Consumer Price Index, while incomes increased just 7% – this translates to a real terms pay cut of 10% for working people.  But the Consumer Price Index measurement tracks the rising cost of an imaginary list of products and services that the poorest workers are unlikely to ever buy.  The UK Essentials Index however tracks inflation of the bare essentials that would the poorest would buy – and these have risen by an eye watering 33% during the same period.  This means that not only is the impact of unemployment hitting the country disproportionately, but underemployment and exploitative employment conditions are too – with the poorest being the worst affected.

Economic Recovery? For Who?

There was a piece on the Guardian this morning talking about the triple boost to the UK economy of increased factory output, house prices and car sales, and trumpeting this as a sign of economic recovery.

But what is the point of this increased GDP if it is won at the expense of people wages and livelihoods?  Surely, if the inequality in the UK between rich and poor is growing, unemployment is rising, underemployment is rising and wages are falling – this is a recession.  It speaks volumes for the broken economic measures of growth at play here that a real world recession for the majority, is applauded as a recovery, when all that is recovered are the profits for transnational corporations and incomes of high earners, most of whom pay little or no contributions in tax.


Get Involved

Boycott Workfare – get involved in the campaign to outlaw workfare
UKUncut – get involved in demanding proper tax contributions from those corporations benefitting from these nightmare employment schemes.
DPAC – Disabled People Against Cuts do extraordinary work highlighting the state’s assault on disabled people.  Please support them

Supreme Court to hear Government’s workfare appeal

On Monday 29 July 2013, the Supreme Court of England and Wales, will consider the Department for Work and Pension’s (DWP) appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal which unanimously held that the Regulations under which most of the Government’s "Back to Work" schemes were created were unlawful and had to be quashed.

Supreme Court to hear Government’s appeal on the “Back to Work” Regulations

The ruling which was handed down on 12 February 2013 was a huge setback for the DWP whose flagship reforms have been beset with problems since their inception.

The case was brought by our clients Cait Reilly, who was made to stack shelves in Poundland for two weeks, and Jamie Wilson, who was stripped of his Jobseeker’s allowance for 6 months after refusing to participate in a scheme which required him to work 30 hours a week for six months for free.

The Court of Appeal in its ruling held that over a two year period the Government unlawfully required hundreds of thousands of unemployed people to work without pay and unlawfully stripped tens of thousands more of their subsistence level benefits.

In March 2013, following the judgment, Iain Duncan Smith not only applied for permission to appeal but also took the wholly extraordinary step of rushing through parliament - The Jobseekers (Back to Work Act) 2013 - emergency legislation which overturned the Court of Appeal’s judgment and retrospectively declared lawful what the Court of Appeal had declared unlawful. That legislation, is the subject of a fresh judicial review challenge4 but it make the Government’s appeal to the Supreme Court academic because the law has now retrospectively changed since the Court of Appeal judgment.

"The decision of the Supreme Court on the DWP’s appeal will in the main be academic because the Government has already retrospectively changed the law to overturn the Court of Appeal’s judgment. However, the Supreme Court will also be considering our clients’ cross appeal in which we argue that the DWP is under an obligation to publish clear and accessible information about these schemes for jobseekers so that those like our clients understand what the schemes are and what can be lawfully required from them"

Tessa Gregory, solicitor, Public Interest Lawyers
Source; PIL

Watch this hearing on Monday at 10.30am on Sky Courts…

R (on the application of Reilly and another) (Respondents) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Appellant)

Court 2 | 10:30

Source; Sky Courts

Call for NGOs and sick and disabled individuals willing to act as "victim" in a UN complaint or inquiry

I need to hear from NGOs and sick and disabled individuals willing to act as "victim" in a UN complaint or inquiry

Please circulate this widely in Britain.

I recently contacted a human rights solicitor at Leigh Day regarding the submission of a United Nations complaint (UNCRPD) or inquiry into Britain's draconian welfare reform policies. The solicitor has expressed interest. I need to hear from NGOs and sick and disabled individuals willing to act as "victim" in the UN complaint or inquiry.

For further information, please see http://www.twitlonger.com/show/lbeqbu http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rkmam4 http://mydisabilitystudiesblackboard.blogspot.ca/2013/03/the-jobcentre-sanctions-scandal-in.html

I am especially interested in hearing from individuals (disabled and non-disabled) who have been unjustly sanctioned by Jobcentre and/or the DWP.

Please contact: Samuel Miller at disabilityinliterature@gmail.com

--
Samuel Miller

http://independent.academia.edu/SamuelMiller
http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/letter-to-the-icc-at-the-hague-re-mistreatment-of-the-disabled-and-sick
http://mikesivier.wordpress.com//?s=Samuel+Miller&search=Go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnHBfW0_u5A&feature=youtu.be
E-Mail: disabilityinliterature@gmail.com
Blog: Hephaestus: Disability Studies
http://illnessandcivilization.blogspot.com/
Blog: My Disability Studies Blackboard
http://mydisabilitystudiesblackboard.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Hephaestus7
(Montreal, Canada)

Dying Is An Option Thanks To DWP

Reblogged from enoughisenoughdwp:

Nothing left to do but die

It has taken 3 days to type this, I can't concentrate for long and can't be bothered to correct.

I suffer from crippling depression And anxiety. I also have problems walking  and standing unaided  because of a spinal issue. 

I rarely leave my home and spend most of my time in bed or in front of a Telly. I have lost contact with friends as I just want to be  left alone 

I haven't been paid any benefit since mid February when my ESA was stopped.

The reason they stopped it was because I didn't attend my medical assessment at Atos. This was because I never received my notification.

I am no longer at the address it was sent to, but when I lived there, mail could be very sporadic because mine and others on the street, would be sometimes delivered to different flats and houses on the street.

I appealed their decision but was refused twice and later told, they were not appeals, but  reconsideration, even though I filled out a GL24 form.

I have reached the point that some days I feel life is no longer worth living. I was evicted 3 Weeks ago and currently living in a mice infested squat because I didn't want to be parted with my dog.

If it wasn't for my pensioner mother, I don't know how I would have survived. She has helped me out with small amounts of money here and there, but it is not fair on her as she is also in bad health.

After several months I tried to apply for job seekers but was met by a very unhelpful and spiteful bitch called Saba who works at the Dalston Job Centre. I'm sorry, but after that woman did to me, it's the first word that comes to mind.

From the first meeting she showed no interest and didn't even look at me when I was in front of her.

Things came to a head when I attended  Dalston Job centre for my first sign on. Saba was unfriendly, barked at me. I told her I was unable to look for the required 8 jobs and only managed a few, because of my dire state of mind. I was on the verge of being evicted, suffering depression so bad that I spent most of the day with a duvet over my me. Compounded with arthritis and a bulging disc in my back, I was lower than low. Even standing at the kitchen sink was an ordeal. My only relief is when I'm lying down.

Saba reluctantly decided I would be paid, but scolded me like a child and told me to show up with proof of 8 jobs I had sought next sign on

She got me to sign something and when I handed the pen back to her, she claimed I threw it at her. In fact it dropped from my hand as I have problems holding on to things, even a phone because my fingers are numb most of the time  and feel like pins and needles.

She told me my JSA was being stopped because I threw a pen at her. I insisted on seeing her manager (she refused at first but I insisted). Her manager who overheard everything told me he had called her aside and spoke with her even before I requested to speak to him.

After two Weeks on JSA it was decided by my doctor I not try to work.

That is when the nightmare got worse.

How long am I supposed to live like this? I can't handle the stress of calling DWP, I can't handle the abuse from them, I can't handle sleeping on a mattress in a mice infested squat. I don't think I have enough pills left to take my life and not enough on my oyster card to get into my nearest tube station to jump infront of a train. The easiest thing is to walk in front of a bus on Kigslad High Rd nr the job centre What more do they want from me? My doctor has written a letter to them but that is not enough.

To our current government, Dwp, the staff at Hackney and Dalston job centre. My blood will be on your hands when I summon up the courage to leave this world.

I can't just blame them for everything, my problems began long before my dealings with Dwp. It hurts to be awake. I just want to sleep and never wake up.

It has taken 3 days to type this, I can't concentrate for long and can't be bothered to correct.

I rarely leave my home and spend most of my time in bed or infront of a Telly. I have lost contact with friends as I have nothig  to share

I'm out of money, can't pay for my mobile phone bill and can no longer pay for top up for mobile broadband,  basics like  personal hygiene and food

I don't want to be a burden to my mother anymore and cannot bare the thought of asking her for more money.

The following  people helped drive me over the edge

Dalston job centre, Hackney Job Centre, Francine (mare street jc) who was so cold and told me to kill myself if that's what I felt like doing , some woman called Begonia (mare st jc) who spoke very bad English and refused to give me her name yesterday and this morning, Jenny (mare st jct) who was rude some months ago and hung up when all I did was ask her a question.You are employed to help people not degrade them.

Rob on the Ajax Team at Mare St thanks for being very decent. Same goes to Delores at Dalston Job centre for being very patient and taking time out.

Picket Lord Fraud In Manchester - 27th June

Reblogged from the void:


Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Fraud and Housing Minister Mark Prisk will both be speaking at the national exhibition and conference of the social housing industry, Housing 2013, in Manchester on 27th June.

Manchester Against The Bedroom Tax have called morning picket to greet the Tory filth outside Manchester Central Conference Centre from 9am.  Facebook event 

A protest has also been called earlier in the week on the 25th June to Lobby the Landlords, the social housing providers who will be present at the three day beano.  Facebook event

Those not in Manchester can join in on twitter, where the conference organisers will be tweeting from @CIH_Housing2013 using the hashtag #housing2013

The Great Crapsby: Why Iain Duncan Smith isn’t all he seems

The Great Crapsby. Artwork by Dan Murrell for the New Statesman

Like Fitzgerald’s doomed, self-fictionalising hero Jay Gatsby, the Work and Pensions Secretary has constructed a personal narrative for himself that doesn’t quite take in all the facts. Look deeper, and you discover the powerful ideology and lack of empathy that motivates his politics.
BY SARAH DITUM PUBLISHED 29 MAY 2013 8:39

It’s a bold play for Iain Duncan Smith to reference F Scott Fitzgerald in the course of his tedious, risible political thriller, The Devil’s Tune.

 A female character approaches a grandiose house:

“Laura was reminded almost instantly of The Great Gatsby. She smiled at the absurdity […]”

(Anyone who’s battled through this shockingly bad novel will feel the absurdity if not the smile.)

A bold play, but perhaps not a wholly inappropriate one, since at least one of Duncan Smith’s barely distinguishable characters owes a debt to Gatsby himself. Democratic presidential pretender Kelp is the epitome of the American dream, according to the novel – an ex-military man who has made his own myth and risen from dirt, with the help of some dubious money and connections. He’s also a deeply crooked politician.

Iain Duncan Smith has his myths too.

He’s the “quiet man”, the man who had the “Easterhouse epiphany”, a man whose compassion for the poor drove him to found the Centre for Social Justice, where his honest intentions become honest research. He’d like it to be believed that he – like Gatsby – has hauled himself up from common stock, but that’s not quite true. Nor are many of the other things that are widely believed about him, but he is like Gatsby in one regard: he’s a great work of self-fictionalising. The end result, sadly, is no match for the luminous Mr Jay.

Let us think of IDS instead as the Great Crapsby.

The narrative of the Great Crapsby is one of fall followed by resurrection, hinging on a single dramatic incident of enlightenment. Following his unlikely victory, Duncan Smith was a humiliation as Conservative party leader, his reign of just over two years was marked by embarrassment and ineffectiveness. His pitiful parliamentary performance won him the name “Iain Duncan Cough” in Private Eye, and having once betrayed Major, Duncan Smith reaped the disloyalty of his party in turn.

After he was deposed in 2003, it seemed plausible that he would vanish into the political scrub. Instead, he founded the Centre for Social Justice – the allegedly independent think tank that would do so much to promote and shape Conservative policies on welfare and society, and that established Duncan Smith’s credentials to take on the work and pensions portfolio.

Stories of the CSJ’s origins routinely mention something called the “Easterhouse epiphany”:

“It was on the Easterhouse Estate in Glasgow where I began to appreciate the scale of social breakdown occurring in Great Britain,”

writes Duncan Smith in one of the Centre’s publications;

“The CSJ was born through a visit to Easterhouse Estate in Glasgow,”

he says in another.

In 2010, Tim Montgomerie described the Easterhouse visit as the moment

“something suddenly clicked […] he realised here was his personal mission and a mission for the Tory party.”

So far, so Damascene. And it’s worth remembering that the apparatus of piety plays a large part in the iconography of IDS – he has claimed that:

“My Catholic background […] has become integral to everything I do.”

But – besides people saying that it happened – what evidence is there for this miraculous moment of enlightenment? 

Not, it turns out, very much at all.

In 1994, Duncan Smith (then working in the Department of Social Security, predecessor to the Department of Work and Pensions) wrote an editorial for the Mail (the text of which is copied here). In it, he decried the growth of spending on welfare since the foundation of the welfare state; he claimed that the benefits system had betrayed the intentions of the Beveridge Report, and was being defrauded and abused on a vast scale.
Worst of all, he alleged, the welfare state had created a class incapable of self-help:

“[T]he system discourages people from getting a job […] people become trapped, remaining dependent on the State rather than on their working abilities.” His answer? “There should be just one, income-assessed benefit.”

In 2010, Duncan Smith (now work and pensions secretary) delivered a speech. In it, he claimed the benefits system had betrayed the intentions of the Beveridge Report, that it was being defrauded and abused on a vast scale, and worst of all, that it was counterproductively “supporting – even reinforcing – dysfunctional behaviour.” His answer? Universal credit.

Over 16 years, there was only one appreciable difference in the rhetoric: in 1994, Duncan Smith claimed that it was particularly appalling to see welfare spending expand during a time of economic growth; by 2010, the argument for urgent action was that “the economy isn’t growing as we had hoped”. But that change is simply a matter of shaping the argument to the political conditions. Whatever Iain Duncan Smith discovered in Easterhouse in 2002, it did nothing whatsoever to alter his politics. His diagnosis and prescription for the welfare state has remained constant, from the Nineties to now.

The “epiphany” is a useful fiction, nothing more.

It feels painful to impugn Duncan Smith’s honour like this, because the perception of him as a decent man is so strong, even among those who oppose his politics. In some ways, his ineptness as a party leader has come to be seen as evidence of his virtue: his failure as a politician is proof of his good faith. But a certain taste for self-fashioning has long been evident in him. In 2002, Michael Crick discovered what might kindly be called exaggerations in Duncan Smith’s CV. It stated that he had attended the Universita di Perugia. This was not true: instead he had been to a language school in Perugia, and had not received any qualifications. Duncan Smith is a Perugia man in precisely the same way that grifting Gatsby was “an Oxford man”.

When he isn’t bloating his qualifications, Duncan Smith can be found putting on the poor mouth and talking up his experience of poverty. Having haplessly claimed that he could survive on £53 a week “if I had to”, Duncan Smith was forced to plead personal experience. After he left the army, he told the Mail, he lived illegally with his then-girlfriend, now-wife Betsy Freemantle, in a ragged bedsit.

“They say love makes everything work,”

said Duncan Smith, although presumably the fact that his partner is the daughter of a monied aristocrat and the recipient of an inheritance in her own right also went some way to making everything work. Whatever privations the Duncan Smiths may have experienced, there was always the comforting hand of wealth to keep them from plunging into the underclass. They now live – rent-free – in the Freemantle ancestral home.

So he may not know directly what it is to be truly poor, his defenders can say, but at least he has studied the issue through the Centre for Social Justice. Well, that depends on what it means to study something. The CSJ has published report on report, all of them with the curious effect of reinforcing its founder’s prior positions and supporting government policy.(The intimacy of the CSJ and DWP is underlined by the fact that, until late 2012, Philippa Stroud was both a special advisor to Duncan Smith at the DWP and paid by the CSJ to be co-chair of its board of advisers.) Few of us have the divine inspiration that lets our hypotheses precisely anticipate the results of our research, but Duncan Smith appears to be one of those saintly, second-sighted few.

Either that, or he has no respect at all for evidence. In 2010, Duncan Smith made a number of claims about the stymied brain development of children who “witness a lot of abuse”, or whose mothers have “different, multiple partners”, citing the work of Dr Bruce Perry. Perry protested that his work had been “distorted”: while Duncan Smith implied that children of chaotic or neglectful households were destined to criminality, Perry’s work had in fact been on children who suffered extreme deprivation, including being locked in a basement without human contact. Yet Duncan Smith maintained, implausibly, that he not misrepresented Perry’s findings.

This wasn’t an isolated case of over-enthusiasm. Here’s another: in April, Duncan Smith claimed success for the benefits cap before it had even been implemented, saying:

“Already we’ve seen 8,000 people who would have been affected by the cap move into jobs. This clearly demonstrates that the cap is having the desired impact.”

Again, the original research showed nothing of the sort. On 9 May, Andrew Dilnot of the UK Statistics Authority wrote:

“[the statement] is unsupported by the official statistics.” Furthermore, Dilnot’s letter to the DWP points out there have been previous incidents of statistical abuse in the department, and requests “further assurance that the working arrangements within the department give sufficient weight to the professional role and public responsibilities of statisticians.”

It is one thing to be an individual fantasist, telling flattering stories about yourself. It is another to insist that government policy should be directed by fantasy. But the final tragedy of the Great Crapsby is that, for all the dull power of his imagination, reality stubbornly refuses to comply. The work programme, which Duncan Smith launched two years ago, doesn’t work. The hardest cases are neglected while private providers profit from shuffling the easily employable into jobs.

Universal credit – the single benefit that Duncan Smith has been arguing for since the 1990s – seems unlikely to happen in this parliament, after widely predicted problems with the computer system saw the trial reduced to a minute population that included only individuals with the simplest circumstances. In the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority review, universal credit was given an amber/red status, meaning “in danger of failing”.

The Great Gatsby had his vast wealth and a belief in the green light. The Great Crapsby has his vast wealth and an irresistible attraction to that red light of failure – not just his own personal screw-ups, but a belief that the poor must be made to fail and ground down as far as possible. How we must hunger for saints in our politics if we accept a man as good purely because he says he is good, while so much of what he does bespeaks falsehood and a perfect absence of empathy.

The New Statesman

The Tory Trussel Trust: Food Banks replacing benefits?

The Trussell Trust Food Bank founders, The people behind it:

The Trussel Trust, was introduced to dole offices specifically as an alternative to the ‘crisis fund’ previously run by the state

The Trussell Trust describes itself as “a Christian charity that does not affiliate itself with any political party”. It is controlled by Tory Party Councillor and Mayor of Worthing, Neil Atkins and director Chris Mould, who splits his time between the Trussell Trust and the Shaftesbury Partnership.

The Shaftesbury Partnership is a “practice of professionals committed to large scale 21st Century social reform.”

Co-founder was Nat Wei, who was appointed the Government’s Chief Adviser on Big Society in May 2010, now a life peer.

Other people in the Shaftesbury Partnership :

Dominic Llewellyn(Conservative party candidate in 2010 )who co-authored the government’s Big Society policies.

Shaftesbury’s recently departed head of operations Antony Hawkins states that he “developed conservative unemployment and welfare reform policy (“The Work Programme”). Planned the implementation of Conservative welfare policies in the Get Britain Working manifesto”.

The Shaftesbury Partnership’s aim is to “design our solutions so that they are both scalable and have sustainable business models, maximising the potential for social transformation”.

The Trussel Trust, was introduced to dole offices specifically as an alternative to the ‘crisis fund’ previously run by the state

If the Tories believe that their policies will reduce poverty, why are the instigators and creators of its ‘Big Society’ policies investing in, and directing food banks?

READ MORE

Government invoke Godwin’s law to refuse to meet disabled people

Esther McVey: Talk to the hand

The government has cited one line in the guest  foreward of a review of the work capability assessment as the reason why it refuses to meet with representatives of sick and disabled people. The line they objected to referred to wounded soldiers being sent back to the front by the Nazis.

As Michael Meacher MP said in Parliament “This work is evidence based, uses the DWP’s figures wherever possible, has never been challenged on accuracy.” He pointed out that it has been used by the Work and Pensions select committee, the joint committee on human rights, and in many parliamentary debates.

Mark Hoban, Minister of State for Work and Pensions, refused to meet Meacher to talk about the Work Capability Assessment and he flatly refused to meet representatives of We Are Spartacus. In Michael Meacher’s own words:

He simply replied blankly “I’m not seeing you”, and repeated it 3 0r 4 times.   I kept on insisting ‘Why not?’ and finally he said “I’m not seeing Spartacus”.   Again I was taken aback and asserted that in my view Spartacus had analysed hundreds of cases, prepared a very detailed and thoughtful analysis of the implications arising from these cases, and even if he disagreed strongly for whatever reasons it was his responsibility to meet them.   To this he simply kept repeating “I’m not meeting Spartacus”.

Michael Meacher took it to the speaker of the house and arranged a debate to face Hoban in Parliament. Hoban didn’t turn up. Instead he send Esther McVey, Minister for Disabled People. Who publicly refused to meet disabled people. The reason given, eventually, was that it “wouldn’t be constructive”. The evidence presented was one sentence from the guest foreward of The People’s Review of the Work Capability Assessment.

The process is reminiscent of the medical tribunals that returned shell shocked and badly wounded soldiers to duty in the first world war or the ‘KV-machine’, the medical commission the Nazis used in the second world war to play down wounds so that soldiers could be reclassified ‘fit for the Eastern front’.

- Guest Foreward to The People’s Review of the Work Capability Assessment by Professor Peter Beresford OBE, BA Hons, PhD, AcSS, FRSA, Dip WP, Professor of Social Policy, Brunel University

The government have essentially invoked Godwin’s Law to get out of meeting the most effective campaign against their welfare policy. They are afraid, desperate, and grabbing at any way out they can find.

Please sign the WOW petition to call for a cumulative impact assessment of the government’s welfare reforms.

Michael Meacher MP: DWP Ministers run frit of seeing delegation on Atos Healthcare
Benefit Scrounging Scum: Polite? Constructive? Request to meet with Minister Mark Hoban 10/2012
We Are Spartacus: The People’s Review of the Work Capability Assessment
Where’s The Benefit: Is It Coz We Is Disabled?
A Latent Existence: Godwin’s Law Must Die
We Are Spartacus

A Latent Existence

‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ – hyperbole?

The Salvation army has recently received flak for its involvement with forced labour and the assertion that appears on their web site:  ”The Salvation Army’s key purposes: emancipation through employment“, thus echoing the sign that appeared on the gates of Nazi forced labour, later extermination,  camps “ Arbeit Macht Frei” (“labour makes you free“).

Both Protestant and Catholic Churches in Germany have apologized for the use of forced labour supplied by the Nazi’s and it is regrettable that the SA in the UK is echoing the secular SA (Brown Shirts) of the Nazi era in being involved with forced labour.  Coincidences are just that – coincidences – however, it recalls how the current government introduced forced work for disabled people on United Nations’ International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Belatedly my attention was drawn to an astonishing article that appeared last year in the Daily Mail which was pulled very quickly after it appeared on Twitter. If you don’t believe in God then perhaps  you might find belief in a round about way by concluding that there is indeed a devil hovering over these isles. Domique Jackson wrote:

“The German slogan ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ is somewhat tainted by its connection with Nazi concentration camps, but its essential message, ‘work sets you free’ still has something serious to commend it.

There is dignity to be gained from any job, no matter how menial, and for young people at the start of their careers, there are valuable lessons to be learned from any form of employment, whether that is on the factory floor, on a supermarket till or in the contemporary hard labour camp of a merchant bank or law office.”

  Coincidentally it was printed on Independence Day in the USA, the country which introduced modern Workfare, during the Clinton administration, and which has been copied by several other countries including our own.

Welfare Sorrows

Yesterday's Labour Workfare Masssacre

Reblogged from Diary of a Benefit Scrounger

 

This morning, like the night after Agincourt, lefties like me scan the bloody, burnt out social media #workfare battlefield in the hope of finding twitching Labour corpses. There are none. Like the French 600 years before, a few generals at the top of the pile made the fateful decision to crush the weak and exhausted. Like the French, they were shown exactly why that's often not a very good idea at all. 

In the three years since Labour have been in opposition, nothing has described their fate better than the welfare debate. With minds stuck in an ideology forged around a gleaming new millennium, welfare was a comforting Blairite hawk to offset the freer doves of education, international aid and health. 

Tough on povety, tough on the causes of poverty. It suited Purnell, and Murphy and Cooper as they forged their credentials as "centrists" and who knows? Future leaders? 

So the argument goes : "It's a no brainer. The public think everyone on welfare is scrounging. (Except them) The tougher we are on welfare, the more people in the "Middle" and the "Shires" and the "City" breathe easy at night. (As long as it's not pensioners and it doesn't affect them.) Combining a little social justice elsewhere, with a good dose of judgement and steel in welfare = the chance of a majority. 75% of the public support workfare. Therefore, supporting the government on this is a chance to show we are still tough on poverty, tough on the causes of poverty. The Daily Mail fall gasping at our feet, they raise a glass in the gentleman's clubs, and no-one will listen to the screams of the anguished or weak, well, because they're anguished and weak."

Some around the shadow cabinet now look uncomfortable, shift in their seats. This is at least progress. Some mention the change in the welfare narrative lately. Opinion polls shifting, disability becoming toxic for the Tories, the increased media interest and above all, that behemoth of opinion formers - social media. But the hawks give the doves a little slap about and logic prevails. 75% of everyone or about 1% of the active, gobby probably-gave-up-on-us-anyway-leftie-activist-Face-Tweeps??? 

As has happened so often before, but had been happening less lately, the hawks won the welfare Agincourt, and they took to the commons. 

We on Twitter and Facebook steeled ourselves. Defeat had been heavily trailed on the blogs and had met with the grim opposition of the archer who knows he may be amongst small and ragged numbers, but he has all the arrows and the mighty have none. 

And so it proved. If the Daily Mail or the BBC even noticed Labour's unprincipled stand yesterday, designed to get them picked for the election team, there is little evidence today on a quick dodge of budget fever. 

But on Social Media? 

Oh Agincourt,

"Those few, those happy few those band of brothers. 

For those yesterday who shed their blood may have been a brother. 

Be he ne'er so vile, election day may have gentled his condition and Englishmen abed may have held their front doors wide as any speaks, that canvassed late, upon election day!!!"

For the return of precisely zero centre ground, floating voting, Mail readers, Labour managed to enrage and alienate 10s of 1000s of active, passionate, left of centre, engaged, knowledgeable, informed, opinion formers who are read by journalists and opposition alike - not to mention their own families and friends. 

Life has changed since 2000. Politics has changed. The economy has changed beyond all recognition. Living standards have fallen. Corruption seems to stalk everywhere now that gossamer veneer of "success" has floated away. 

But most of all, "media" has changed. Numbers of papers sold are plummeting, news figures freefall by their side. 

And every day, social media takes over. Sure, not the majority, but the vanguard. And they are the ones who care and think and devise and solve and organise. Just like any world paradigm change, it is the few who lead you to safety not the many. 

Every time Labour remembers that, they are rewarded with just a little touch of Harry in the night - Murdoch and Leveson, Gas giants and Loan sharks their names in our mouths bitterly remembered. 

We appreciate their company, there in the breach. 

But every time they take what they know is the wrong decision on principle, the response is swift and horrific. 

I won't pain myself more by sifting through the "I'll never vote Labour again" tweets or sifting through the debris of torn up membership cards and broken hearts. 

But Labour squandered so much more yesterday on a battle they could never win, and all the while they go on frittering away principles and viable voters on the wind of a cruel popularity it cannot win, our cause be not just.

 

 

Chris Spivey on Ian Duncan Smith [Contains strong language]

Fuck Off Smiffy.

Okay, lets talk common sense.

Ian Smith – because that’s who the cunt really is - couldn’t cut it as the Tory party leader and as such was made to suffer the humiliation of being told to “fuck off out of it” – thus condemning  him as being a totally useless cunt.

Never the less, you only have to look at Smiffy to know that he has delusions of grandeur (hence the made up double barrelled surname and fake CV) and an ego the size of the National Debt – thus making him a useless, lying cunt who is full of shit.

Throughout his time as an inept politician he has done fuck all for us, yet taken, and continues to take, a big, extremely undeserved, public funded wage, as well as claiming equally undeserved, fantastically inflated expenses – thus making him a drain on society. In turn, that fact makes him a useless, lying, bullshitting, cunt, who is a gross liability.

In accepting his over inflated, totally undeserved, public funded wage and expenses, he becomes guilty of fraud. Even more so when you realise that the ponce was claiming a big wage for his wife who did fuck all else other than bring the Smiffy kids up – thus making him a corrupt, criminal, useless, lying, bullshitting, cunt, who is a gross liability.

Enter multi millionaire Dave ‘the rave‘ Cameron, a mush with an extremely secretive and shady past, whom it transpires has the blatantly obvious mandate of leading the country into chaos and civil unrest.

What better way to do it than employ a corrupt, criminal, useless, lying, bullshitting, cunt, who is a gross liability and full of resentment in the knowledge that he is perceived as a joke – a sick joke at that.

The fact that the Cunt Cameron would employ such an obnoxious, pointless dog turd is a good measure of our Prime Ministers integrity. The fact that the Nation has allowed him to do so – and carried on doing so –  is a good measure of their stupidity.

So, is Idiot Dickhead Smiffy value for money? Lets start with ATOS, since Dickhead Smiff aims to shave £2.5 Billion of the ESA bill. Here is what Edinburgh Against Poverty say:

Despite a fraud rate of just 1%, plus £16 billion in unclaimed benefits, the Government are determined to toss 500,000 people who currently rely on sickness benefits into the bleakest labour market in a generation and to cut already meagre disability benefits to starvation levels.

Straight away, that £16 Billion unclaimed benefits figure jumps out at you and slaps you round the chops. So, in reality, the government ought to think themselves lucky. Remember, Benefit is an ENTITLEMENT.

ENTITLEMENT: something that you have a right to do or have, or the right to do or have something. (Cambridge On-line Dictionary)

  So, notwithstanding that the government will pay ATOS a minimum of £50,000,000 just to pass these people unfit, those people will then go on JSA. Course, they may then go on the Work Program eventually. ATOS is getting £500 Million Quid for running that little scam.

Since ESA fraud is estimated to cost the government  £250 Million, it isn’t hard to see the false economy there. Neither is that taking into account the untold misery that these cunts are imposing on those poor people.

Neither does the Work Program work. This from the Guardian:

Number geeks point out that, as stunningly bad as the Work Programme figures are, they are actually slightly worse than they look. Between 1 June 2011 and the end of July this year 877,800 people were referred to the Work Programme and only 31,240 people got jobs and stayed there long enough (three or six months) for the relevant company to get paid. This is 3.4%; the Department for Work and Pensions’ lowest expectation was 5%. But if they had done this evaluation in the regular way – June to May, rather than June to July – the figure would drop even lower: 2.5%. [...] Working Links, proud holder of Work Programme contracts worth £307,752,305, put out a press release a few weeks ago saying they’d found 40 people jobs in McDonald’s. It’s not exactly specialist knowledge, is it? “Psst, I know this low-profile employer that never advertises, but just might give you a trial … Ronald McDonald.” READ MORE

  Add to that the cost of the court cases, the changing of the law needed to keep it going, and the potential lawsuits for medical negligence and what you are left with is a massive failure by anyone’s standards in terms of both cost and human suffering…. The useless, self serving, nonce cunt, pasty faced imbeciles are meant to serve our interests not implement our destruction.

Then there is the Universal Credits that IDS is publicly crowing about, while no doubt privately shitting himself since he knows that the scheme is going to be as successful as the novel he wrote.

The Universal Credit scheme (UCS)  has already cost over £2 Billion to set up according to the major study undertaken by the Institution of Fiscal Studies (IFS). However, the IFS also say this:

Of course, moving from the current system of benefits and tax credits to a single benefit will require major administrative and IT changes. It is beyond the scope of this note to assess the risk involved.

So if the IFS cannot predict the risks involved, then you just know that we are fucked.

The IFS then goes on to say that the  UCS will cost a predicted £1.7 Billion to run once it is properly in place, but cannot even begin to predict how much the running costs will be in the transitional period… Way to go
IBS IDS.

According to the IFS the UCS will have this effect:

A total of 2.5 million working-age families will gain and, in the long run, 1.4 million working-age families will lose, and 2.5 million working-age families will see no change in their disposable income because their entitlements to Universal Credit will match their current entitlements to means-tested benefits and tax credits.

Therefore, there is a difference being made to 3.9 million families with a plus minus ratio of 1.1 million. Course, the plus and the minus benefits are unknown, but will obviously be more drastic to the minus ratio and negligible to the plus ratio. This will no doubt cancel out any savings, while at the same time plunge another 1.4 million families into deeper poverty.

So, once again a massive failure by anyone’s standards in terms of both cost and human suffering … Fucking useless, evil imbeciles. I fucking detest the solidified farts.

As for the bedroom tax. The cost of setting that up will also be in the £ billions. That’s on top of the £ Millions in police costs to marshal the mass protests. To be honest, I cannot see it being workable. I can think of at least one scam to avoid it, if ya know the right people.

In any case, there is much back peddling by the government on who will now have to pay, which the Daily Mirror describe as “Total Chaos”  and estimates has cost us an unnecessary £36 million.

I repeat; Cost us – not them… US!

Where the fuck is the accountability? Imagine if you or I cost our employers that amount of money through our incompetence?

And, to top it all, those on benefits will now have to pay something towards their Council Tax bill.

Now, what I haven’t seen anyone mention yet is that when you get notification of your benefit entitlement it states something along the lines of ; The Amount Of Money The Law Says You Need To Live On. That amount of money is then stated in X amount of pounds.

Therefore, that X amount of pounds is the minimum you are allowed to receive by law and will have been calculated on the number of things people have to pay out for in everyday life I.E. Food, and bills. However, that amount of money will not have taken into account money for Council Tax, since it is safe to assume that anyone on benefits who has rent to pay will also be claiming Housing & Council Tax benefit.

So, to my way of thinking, unless the government add more money to JSA, Income Support and ESA, they are breaking the law and violating your human rights  by now making those on benefits pay towards their Council Tax. After all, those people will now be living on less than what the law says you need to live on.

To my mind, the same applies to those having their benefits sanctioned. Never the less, are those who have been sanctioned still eligible to pay the council tax for those weeks that they were given no money?

The very fact that some fucking jobs-worth cretin who was no doubt bullied at school has the power to decide who gets to eat and who doesn’t is sick, sick, fucking sick. I’d burn the fucking Job Centre down, I would and say sanction that you cunt.

My position remains the same. People, if you roll over and pay these thing, you are mugs who are contributing to your own downfall… Wise up.

It is also up to you people to fight for and protect, those in society who cannot do it themselves. Nay, it is your duty as human beings… Your government, whom were elected by your naivity are not going to do it, so the task falls down to you… And remember! You have nothing to fear, but fear itself.

As for Iain Dickhead Smiffy boy! Lets kill the cunt.

Chris Spivey

Christian charities face Christian protests over use of workfare labour

Christian organisations including the Salvation Army and the YMCA are participating in “workfare” schemes, using workers who must work without pay or face losing their benefits.

Christianity Uncut is writing to the charities to urge them to withdraw from the schemes as a public witness against forced labour.

The call comes at the start of a week of action against workfare. The action has been called by the group Boycott Workfare for the week of 18-24 March. During the week, Christianity Uncut is planning to write to all Christian organisations using workfare labour.

Christianity Uncut welcome the fact that most churches and Christian organisations are not participating in workfare. We encourage them to sign the pledge promising that they will not do so in future.

Chris Wood, a spokesperson for Christianity Uncut, said:

“Workfare workers are not volunteers – their work is not voluntary but obligatory, and they should be paid a living wage. Instead they are being threatened with losing the benefits on which they live if they refuse to take part in this forced labour scheme.

“We are deeply saddened that charities such as the Salvation Army and YMCA are undermining the good work they do, and their witness to Christ, by participating in workfare schemes. Throughout the economy, workfare is increasing poverty and unemployment by reducing the jobs available for paid staff. Christians need to make a public witness against workfare and proclaim Jesus’ teaching that ‘The worker is worthy of his pay’ (Luke 10,7).”

There are numerous workfare schemes currently in operation. Each requires claimants to work without pay or face possible destitution through sanctions (benefit stoppages), which can last for up to three years. A list of schemes currently in operation can be found at http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?page_id=663.

Protests, creative actions and online pickets against workfare will take place on 18-24 March across the UK in a week of action called by the Boycott Workfare network to escalate the campaign against forced unpaid work. More information and a list of actions can be found at http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=1996.

Christianity Uncut

Welfare Myth Number One - Benefits Are Expensive

This is the first in occasional series on welfare myths - those persuasive facts that everybody knows to be true, but which, on closer examination turn out to be totally false.

Welfare Myth Number One is that the benefit system is expensive. When politicians want to frighten us they add together the cost of all benefits and pensions and get a staggering figure of £180 billion. We are then told that this figure is far too high and no longer affordable. They even imply that the high cost of benefits is the reason why our economy is in such trouble and why the government is cutting benefits by 20%.
However these figures are utterly misleading.

If I give you £10 but immediately take back £9 I have not given you £10 I have really given you £1. In the same way, to calculate the true cost of benefits we must take out the taxes that people pay from their benefits. For example, in 2010-11 the poorest 10% of families received an average of £104 per week in benefits. However they then paid £68 back to the government in taxes, leaving only £36 per week - or £5 per day.

The real cost of benefits is the net cost of benefits. That is, the cost of benefits after people have paid their taxes. We can find this data from the Office of National Statistics. For each household they have calculated both income, including benefits and taxes paid. So we can see how much better off people are, after taxes.

As the graph below shows, the poorest 40% of families are made a little better off because of the benefits system. The real cost of increasing the incomes of the poorest 40% of families is £27 billion. At the same time we can also see that the other 60% of families are worse off by a total of £213 billion.



What this shows is that most of our taxes do not go to fight poverty or redistribute income. £27 billion is less than 3% of GDP and about 6% of government spending. Fighting poverty is clearly a very low priority.

In fact many economists would argue that these benefits should not really be treated as government expenditure. Benefits are actually "transfer payments" - government is not spending money, government is shifting spending power from the rich to the poor. Cutting benefits and reducing the level of transfer payments can be very damaging to the economy because people on low incomes are less likely to:

• Spend their money abroad
• Save their money
• Hide it from the tax man

This is just one more reason why the government's efforts to target cuts on disabled people and people in poverty is economic folly.

Next time a politician tells you benefits and pensions are expensive remember that they are not talking about the real cost of benefits. And remember the wise words of the great American cynic, H L Mencken:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

I will explore who really benefits from the £213 billion of net taxes in a future welfare myth. If you are interested in these ideas you also might like to look at this more detailed essay on The Centre for Welfare Reform's website or join the Campaign for a Fair Society.

 

Follow Dr Simon Duffy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/simonjduffy

HuffPost

IDS attacks BBC over its coverage of welfare reforms

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has launched an astonishing attack on the BBC for repeatedly referring to one of his welfare reforms as a “bedroom tax”.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has hit out at the BBC. Photo: Geoff Pugh

By Peter Dominiczak, Political Correspondent

Mr Duncan Smith accused the BBC of using language “promoted” by the Labour Party and causing alarm to people in social housing who will not be affected by the changes.

Under the Government's proposals, people in social housing will receive a cut in housing benefit where they are deemed to have spare bedrooms.

Ministers say the “under occupancy penalty” is intended to ensure that the best use is made of social housing and reduce the housing benefit bill, currently more than £20 billion a year.

The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that the change will save taxpayers £480 million a year and affect around 600,000 people. The average loss for a single empty bedroom will be £14 per week.

It is also intended to encourage people to move into smaller properties in order to free up accommodation for families.

However, the policy has been highly controversial, with Labour labeling it a “bedroom tax” that could force families into arrears if they cannot find smaller homes to move to.

David Cameron this month launched a Tory counter-attack, dubbing the current rules a “spare room subsidy”.

Mr Duncan Smith has said that “Labour have deliberately set out to scare as many people as possible” over the issue.

He has reacted furiously to BBC coverage, which has repeatedly labeled the reforms as a “bedroom tax” in reports and articles.

In a letter to Fran Unsworth, the acting head of BBC News, which was leaked to The Daily Mail, Mr Duncan Smith said the corporation is “failing” in its duty to “inform the public”.

“The BBC has a duty to inform the public,” he wrote. “We believe that the BBC is failing in this duty and confusing members of the public.

“In using the word tax, the BBC has helped to worry those not in social housing that they might be taxed when this is not the policy.

“It is also a term continually used and promoted by the Labour Party.”

A BBC spokesman said: “We can confirm that we have received a letter from Iain Duncan Smith and we will respond directly in due course.”

Telegraph

Protesters Gather at the Courts to Save the Independent Living Fund

Around 70 people gathered at a well attended protest outside the Royal Court of Justice today to demand a halt to the close of the Independent Living Fund (ILF).

The ILF is used to support the most severely disabled people live independent lives.  In what the Government claim is reform and everyone else knows means cuts, funding will be devolved to local councils. This funding will not be ring-fenced meaning that the money may well be spent plugging the gap in Town Hall budgets due to the already savage cuts.

Campaigners warn that disabled people could be forced back into institutions due to the closure of the fund as councils seek to cut costs..

Today’s protest, which saw speakers from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Inclusion London and the PCS Union, came as six people challenged the closure of the fund in the high court.  The case, which is ongoing, will argue that the closure of the fund will breach the United Nations Convention for the Rights of People with Disabilities which provides the right to independent living and the right to an adequate standard of living and protection.

Lawyers will argue that the consultation into the closure of the fund was illegal due to a failure to provide adequate information about the changes.  The court will also hear that there has not been an adequate assessment of the impact of the closure of the ILF on disabled people’s ability to live and work independently.

For more information about the closure of the ILF and the personal testimonies of those affected visit: http://www.dpac.uk.net/blog/

The Void

CAPITA will NOT be offering claimants Audio Recording of PIP Assessments

A FOI Request has confirmed Capita will not be offering PIP Claimants the opportunity of having their assessments audio recorded as was previously thought to be the case.

It now seems the government are determined to stop audio recording in any way they can, claimants will if they choose be able to record PIP assessments with their own equipment if they can provide a copy to the HCP at the end of their assessment, it’s the same old crap basically.

The government/DWP/Capita don’t want the truth to come out about how the assessment process is carried out, a bigger bunch of shysters I doubt we will ever come across again…

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/capita_pip_contract_audio_record#incoming-369105

Smoking Gun that shows the Tories lied about ALL their Welfare intentions [Sue Marsh]

Reblogged from Sue Marsh

And that's how it goes folks. Being me these days. Suddenly, out of the blue, someone sends me something so perfect, so shocking, so undeniable that my heart starts to beat faster.

So in an innocent little tweet from someone called Stephe Meloy sent me this wonderful, oh-so-detailed smoking gun.

http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2010/05/~/media/Files/Downloadable%20Files/Manifesto/Equalities-Manifesto.ashx 

Entitled "A Contract for Equalities" with (oh delicious irony) a foreword by Theresa May (Yes that's right, she IS the now Home Secretary who wants to abolish Human Rights) it is a detailed pre-election plan of what the Conservatives will and will not do if they win power in the 2010 election.

Best of all, as @mrsblogs points out on Twitter a link to launch the document urges "if we fail to make progress in these areas & do not deliver on our side of the bargain, then vote us out in five years time"

Theresa May assures us in her intro that

"Just as we are determined to fight poverty, so we are determined to fight prejudice and discrimination wherever it exists
No group, no minority, will be left behind on the road to a better future."

Which gives you the tone of pure fantasy of the rest of the document.

Initially, we are told, no-one too ill to work should be forced to. 

"Central to our plans is a clear distinction between people who can’t work and those who can. of course, there are some people who due the nature of their disability or illness will not be able to work. These people who cannot work because of a disability or illness should never be forced   to work."

So far, 22,620 Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants in the 
WRAG  (Work Related Activity Group  - people found to be severely sick or disabled and unfit for immediate work) have been sanctioned - some onto the government's work programme - under threat of losing their income between 1st June 2010 and 31st May 2012 

"We are very much focused on
helping all who are capable of work, not just
those who are nearest to the job market."

Recent evidence to parliament's Work & Pensions committee shows providers ARE favouring those easiest to help


Here's where it get's really interesting. They WON'T be scrapping Disability Living Allowance (DLA)

"As disabled people themselves are best placed to judge how to meet their care needs, we will preserve Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance as cash benefits, which can be used to support family care and costs arising from their disability. "
Disability Living Allowance Mobility Component for blind people the current rules for people claiming the Higher Rate Mobility Component of Disability Living Allowance mean that it is only available to people who are physically unable to walk. This is unfair to visually impaired people as they too face mobility difficulties. While the law has now been altered to enable these rules to be changed, it is still not a reality for people with no useful sight for orientation purposes. We will implement this change to help support people with visual impairments to live more independently"

Expressing the desire to EXTEND a benefit, would certainly imply you had no intention of abolishing it the moment you came to power. The Conservatives announced a new benefit to replace it just weeks later

They go on to say they will "simplify the assessment process for accessing services" for disabled children,

they say they will "increase the number of health visitors by 4,200" and that they won't abolish Child Trust Funds or the top up payments for disabled children.

But here's the real killer punch at the end :


Under a section entitled Changing attitudes towards disabled people :

"A Conservative government will tackle the stigma and prejudice that still persists towards disabled people, particularly those with mental ill-health."

In fact, a misleading scrounger rhetoric, knowingly engineered and sustained by this government, has left millions of disabled people living in fear and allowed the single greatest attacks on disabled people in living memory. Note the HUGE spike in negative language about welfare claimants and the disabled from 2010 when this government came to power.

There are literally countless lies here, and I've only focussed on the very narrow subject of welfare reform and adult disability. Other groups are infinitely better qualified than me to discuss the many many other sections to this document. I'm sure they will want to when they see this utter fabrication from our current government.

PLEASE SHARE THIS : SHOW THE REST OF THE COUNTRY JUST HOW FAR THIS GOVERNMENT ARE PREPARED TO GO. 

Diary of a Benefit Scrounger