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

What is forced labour?

What is the problem?

Forced labour is any work or services which people are forced to do against their will under the threat of some form punishment.  Almost all slavery practices, including trafficking in people and bonded labour, contain some element of forced labour.

Forced labour affects millions of men, women and children around the world and is most frequently found in labour intensive and/or under-regulated industries, such as:

• Agriculture and fishing 
• Domestic work
• Construction, mining, quarrying and brick kilns 
• Manufacturing, processing and packaging
• Prostitution and sexual exploitation
• Market trading and illegal activities

 

How big is the problem?

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that there are at least 20.9 million people in forced labour worldwide. The figure means that, at any given point in time, around three out of every 1,000 persons worldwide are suffering in forced labour.
Some more detailed ILO's statistic:

• 18.7 million (90%) people are in forced labour in the private economy, exploited by individuals or enterprises. Out of these, 4.5 million (22%) are in forced sexual exploitation, and 14.2 million (68%) in forced labour exploitation in activities such as agriculture, construction, domestic work and manufacturing.
• Women and girls represent the greater share of forced labour victims 11.4 million (55%), as compared to 9.5 million (45%) men and boys.
• Adults are more affected than children 74% (15.4 million) of victims fall in the age group of 18 years and above, whereas children are 26% of the total (or 5.5 million child victims).
• 2.2 million (10%) work in state-imposed forms of forced labour, for example in prisons under conditions which violate ILO standards, or in work imposed by the state military or by rebel armed forces.

Why is there a problem?

In around 10 per cent of cases the State or the military is directly responsible for the use of forced labour. Notable examples where this takes place are Burma, North Korea and China.  However, in the vast majority of cases forced labour is used by private individuals who are seeking to make profits from the exploitation of other people.

Victims of forced labour are frequently from minority or marginalised groups who face institutionalised discrimination and live on the margins of society where they are vulnerable to slavery practices. Forced labour is usually obtained as a result of trapping the individual in debt bondage or by restricting their freedom of movement.  In other cases violence, threats and intimidation are used and/or there is an absence of effective State protection.

Where is the problem?

Forced labour is a global problem, although some regions have larger numbers of people affected than others.  The regional distribution of forced labour is:

• Asia and Pacific: 11.7 million (56%)
• Africa: 3.7 million (18%)
• Latin America and the Caribbean: 1.8 million (9%)
• The Developed Economies (US, Canada, Australia, European Union, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Japan): 1.5 million (7%)
• Central, Southeast and Eastern Europe (non EU) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CSEE): 1.6 million (7%)
• Middle East: 600,000 (3%)

Laws

The ILO defines forced labour as: “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of a penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”. 

This definition is set out in the ILO’s Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29).  This Convention has been ratified by over 170 states and obliges governments to “suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms within the shortest possible period”.

The United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also prohibits the use of forced labour (Article 8) and has been ratified by more than 160 states. 

China is the only country in the world which has not ratified either of these international standards.  However, many countries have not passed specific laws defining and prohibiting forced labour with adequate punishments for those responsible.  Where these laws exist they are often not enforced properly.


Read more...

Workfare: Will we get more results?

We were told that more Work Programme performance data would be published this month.  I would be very surprised if that happens.  It would be only four more months after the last lot, and one cannot imagine that there's been such a dramatic improvement that the government will be keen to publish.  Without that improvement, A4e and the other providers will be in real difficulties.  The attachment fees were just about keeping them ticking over, and we know that A4e were in trouble a year ago.  So, will we soon hear about contracts being ended?

While we wait and wonder, you might care to read a couple of DWP documents.  There's an impact assessment justifying the legislation to ensure that they don't have to pay back the £130m wrongly taken from people who were sanctioned while the compulsory work schemes were illegal.  Then you could look at a number of documents which tell "the DWP reform story", downloadable from their website.  They call it a "communications toolkit".

Last week we were told that under Universal Credit, enquiries would have to be made via an 0845 phone number - in other words, expensively.  In fact, this was raised a year ago by the Mirror.  Last November the DWP confirmed this but said that "free claimant access phones" would be available in "a large number" of Jobcentres.  So that's all right, then.

One other item: there's an article about the Trussell Trust and food banks on the Independent's website.  What caught my attention was a comment by someone calling himself Marchie1053 - scroll down and find it.    He draws attention to the close links between the Trussell Trust and the Conservative party.  Interesting. 

Watching A4e

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

Contact workfare exploiter Salvation Army – Day 2 Workfare Week of Action

Salvation Army International and UK HQs were paid a surprise visit to launch the week of action. [Photo: Sinister Pics]

Join the online day of action on Tuesday 19th March and tell workfare exploiters The Salvation Army exactly what the public think about their use of forced labour.

The Salvation Army released an astonishing statement recently which seems to suggest they will force people on sickness or disability benefits into unpaid work.

In a series of answers to questions asked on social media, the charity are unrepentant about their use of workfare. Responding to a question asking how they “can morally take sick and disabled people and force them to work?” the charity reply that they believe in “emancipation through employment” – a chillingly familiar phrase.

The Salvation Army have shown they are happy to act as Iain Duncan Smith’s workfare foot soldiers and yesterday their fight for the right to use unpaid workers was aggressive. The response to a peaceful protest at their UK head office was heavy handed, leaving one person temporarily arrested (until the police realised the accusation was entirely fabricated) after being falsely accused of assault.

Salvation Army need to be shown just how many people object to their use of forced unpaid labour. Join in the online day of action and tell them what you think!

Salvation Army UK can be contacted on facebook and on Twitter:
Tweet to @salvationarmyuk
Boycott Workfare

The myth of the “welfare scrounger”

A little noticed piece of DWP research shows that four out of five claimants spent at least three quarters of the past four years off unemployment benefit.

BY IAN MULHEIRN PUBLISHED 15 MARCH 2013 14:58

A man stands outside the Jobcentre Plus on January 18, 2012 in Trowbridge, England. Photograph: Getty Images.

In its effort to save money on the working age welfare bill, the government has used some bold imagery. The Chancellor is fond of saying, 

“where is the fairness…for the shift-worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next-door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?”

And the Prime Minister has talked of the benefits bill

“sky-rocketing”

while

“generations languish on the dole and dependency”.

The benefit scrounger is the bogeyman of British politics, stalking the corridors of Westminster.

In the real world, it’s pretty hard to find families that have never worked, let alone generations of people on the dole.

But as well as being political cover for the public spending squeeze, this rhetoric reflects an apparent hardening of public attitudes.

The British Social Attitudes survey shows that in 2011 54 per cent of people thought that if benefits were lower people would “learn to stand on their own two feet”, more than double the 26 per cent who felt that way just 20 years earlier. It appears that the idea of dependency is almost synonymous with the dole in many people’s minds. As a result, moves to erode benefits, through things like the 1 per cent up-rating plan, garner widespread public support.

Into this rhetorical maelstrom, was last week released a fascinating – and little noticed -piece of research by the Department for Work and Pensions on the benefit histories of dole recipients.

It’s a precious piece of evidence in an argument that tends to be fuelled by anecdote, prejudice and fear (on all sides). And it rather undermines the picture that our welfare system is awash with people taking advantage of its ‘something for nothing’ deal.

The analysis looks at the benefit claims history, going back four years, of people who made a claim for unemployment benefit in 2010-11.

For a sample group of 32-33 year olds who claimed Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) in 2010-11, 40 per cent of them had not made a claim before in that period.

Sixty three per cent had spent no more than six months of the previous four years on JSA.

And almost four out of five claimants had spent at least three quarters of the past four years off the dole.

The idea that these claimants are ‘trapped’ in a ‘dependency culture’ is absurd.

What all this implies is that the overwhelming majority of people who claim unemployment benefit each year spend at least three-quarters of their time in work.

And for 40 per cent of claimants, the need to claim JSA clearly comes as quite a shock since they have no recent history of having done so before.
But you would never tell that from the tone of the debate.

Only a small minority of adults – 11 per cent of claimants in 2010-11 – have a history of spending more than half of recent years on the dole.

The government is right to want to take action to help that 11 per cent achieve sustainable employment rather than spending half their time on the dole. But when four out of five claimants draw benefits for an unemployment spell that is obviously an unfortunate aberration, it’s clear that the excoriating rhetoric isn’t based in reality.

If all claimants are to be labelled ‘scroungers’, then today’s striver is tomorrow’s scrounger – and that could be any of us.

It’s worth remembering that the next time we hear a welfare squeeze being justified by a pervasive ‘culture of dependency’.

The New Statesman 

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

Iain Duncan Smith Bashes the Bishop [the void]

As if we didn’t already know that Iain Duncan Smith is a wanker, the bungling Work and Pensions Secretary has resorted to bashing the bishops in yet another rant defending his vicious social security slashing regime.

His latest outburst comes after 43 Bishops wrote to him warning that

“As a civilised society, we have a duty to support those among us who are vulnerable and in need. When times are hard, that duty should be felt more than ever, not disappear or diminish.

‘It is essential that we have a welfare system that responds to need and recognises the rising costs of food, fuel and housing.”

  This led to yet another tantrum from the Work and Pensions Secretary who claimed: “There is nothing moral or fair about a system that I inherited that trapped people in welfare dependency. Some one in every five households has no work – that’s not the way to end child poverty”.

And the thing is, for once in his life he’s right.  There is nothing moral about a system that condemns millions to lives of unemployment and poverty whilst people like Iain Duncan Smith live in luxury (in his case scrounging off his wife’s inheritance).  There is nothing moral about a society that excludes disabled people or those with mental health conditions from fully participating.  There is nothing moral about the shocking fact that people who often do some of the hardest physical work are not even paid enough to keep them fed, housed and warm.  There is nothing moral about capitalism at all.

Yet Iain Duncan Smith’s answer is not full employment and neither is it greater workplace access for disabled people – which has fallen by over a third since this Government weren’t elected.  His answer is not to demand a living wage or rent caps or more council housing – nothing must trouble the landlord class after all.  His answer is not even quality training and free education to at least provide an illusion of social mobility.
His answer is certainly not to question the system under which an arms dealer or loan shark becomes rich beyond belief whilst being a parent or carer is no longer even judged to be legitimate work because it doesn’t make a profit for the rich.  Jesus Christ would weep if only he weren’t a largely fictional character from an archaic Middle Eastern soap opera.

Iain Duncan Smith’s answer is to punish the poor for their own predicament.  His idea of a moral society is one where those with least are forced to claw each other’s eyes out in the scramble for the few scraps the rich toss down from above.  And for those who don’t make it into insecure low paid work, let them die in the gutter.  Let their children starve.  Let them lose their homes and be forcibly relocated hundreds of miles away from school, family and friends. Force them to work without pay or let them beg in the street as a lesson to the rest of us.

Honest capitalists will admit that unemployment is vital for the system to function.  That otherwise workers, not bosses, might have the power.  No capitalist country anywhere in the world has achieved real full employment and almost all, including the UK, have given up trying.  There are hundreds of people chasing every vacancy in some parts of the country.

Iain Duncan Smith is either all too aware that unemployment is here to stay and doesn’t care what happens to those unable to find work.  Or he is arrogant enough to believe his tinkering with social security contains the magic button that will somehow fix the problems created by capitalism.  Problems that no-one else, anywhere in the world, has come close to solving.  And his cure is forced unpaid work, benefit cuts and homelessness.

In other words he is either stupid or a genuinely nasty human being whose true agenda is merely to brutalise the very poorest.  Every crisis needs a scapegoat, and Iain Duncan Smith has chosen low income families, disabled and unemployed people as the human sacrifice to atone for the sins of the rich.
Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

the void

What was the real purpose of David Cameron's visit to India?

With little mention from the British media, Cameron is negotiating trade agreements that will open the UK jobs market to considerable inflows of Indian labour.

 
Vince Cable & David Cameron - Image: Prime Ministers Office

When David Cameron made a recent trip to India[i], with a huge business and media entourage, the main purpose of the trip remained hidden from the UK public despite the media presence.

The core purpose of the trip was to boost completion of the bilateral EU/India Free Trade Agreement by assuring India that its government’s sole demand in this agreement, for Indian companies to be able to supply cheap temporary labour into the EU but primarily into the UK, will be met. This is what UK media, including BBC staff, failed to report.

In statements he made while there, Cameron said there would be no limits on numbers of ‘students’, ‘workers’  - later changed to ‘graduates’ - and ‘businesspeople’ who would be welcome in the UK.
While the statement foregrounded ‘students’ coming to the UK and those who then stay and work in graduate jobs[ii], the clue to the trade agreement being the purpose of the visit is the reference to ‘workers'[iii].

Two pieces of information about the EU/India Free Trade Agreement are of enormous importance to the present and future resident UK workforce. The first is that, although this agreement has been negotiated for the last 5 years by the EU Trade Commission as an EU deal, it is, according to key Trade Commission staff, essentially a UK/India deal, in which the UK ‘can expect 85% of the gain and 85% of the pain’[iv].

The second is that the single demand India is making in this deal is for any Indian company to be able to supply temporary skilled labour into the EU[v] – but, with reference to the first point, primarily into the UK[vi].

In ‘tradespeak’, this part of ‘trade’ that is about bringing or sending workers across borders is called ‘Mode 4’. Mode 4 openings are effectively permanent commitments to open up and stay open to cross border labour supply.

Despite its generally secretive way of operating, Trade Commission negotiators have admitted throughout the negotiating period that there will be no EU/India Free Trade Agreement without Mode 4 concessions[vii], underscoring the fact that Mode 4 concessions are the single demand from the Indian side.

Thus an effectively irreversible international trade agreement is resting on the UK opening its borders to an unlimited supply of temporary, cheap, skilled labour - just what David Cameron offered to India on this trip.
UK jobs are being traded primarily for the liberalised access to Indian financial services such as banking and insurance[viii] that London-based transnational financial corporations are seeking. Cameron repeatedly emphasised the need for India to make these reciprocal liberalisations on his trip.

These concessions would be the ‘gains’ - 85 % to the UK, although actually to transnational financial services based in the City of London.

The ‘pain’ – 85% to the UK – will be the Mode 4 opening in response to Indian demands which must inevitably mean broad scale job displacements and the driving down of hard-won working conditions in the UK. Although financial service investment opportunities overseas may involve UK pension funds, they will not produce UK jobs.

Because trade agreement commitments are effectively permanent - to provide ‘investor security’ - these labour effects will be continuing, affecting future generations of UK resident workers too.

Apart from effects on individuals and the work force overall, broad scale temporary labour immigration can also have negative effects on the national economy, on economic recovery and the economic future.
As temporary migrant workers displace UK resident workers, the unemployment bill increases here while wages are repatriated overseas. Thus the earn/spend cycle needed for economic recovery is undermined. No tax or National Insurance is collected.

The skills base is eroded for the future so that ‘skills shortage’ becomes self-fulfilling, as is happening now in the vital and cross-cutting computing sector[ix].  Individuals are deterred from investing in their own skills development when it means being in competition with unlimited cheap labour, not just from work being sent overseas but also through the importation of workers prepared to work for low wages.

Big business gains not only from the trade agreement trade-off, but also from the very profitable supply and use of cross-border labour, capitalising on the wage differential between lower and higher wage countries, and from the overall reduction in labour costs from the resulting downward pressure on wages in general.
Wages levels and other labour standards, as well as any balance between capital and labour, are achieved and maintained through the interrelated factors of limits to labour supply and the establishment of industrial agreements.

With EU Mode 4 trade concessions, Member States set their own limiting or delimiting regulatory framework. EU Mode 4 concessions for skilled worker entry potentially delimit labour supply and the UK government appears to be choosing to go all the way with this. At the same time, the pro-business European Court of Justice has established that only nationally-legislated industrial standards have legal standing[x] thus only the minimum wage counts. This puts UK skilled workers potentially in competition for the minimum wage with unlimited imported labour.

The Mode 4 categories that India is requesting in this trade deal are Contractual Service Suppliers (CSS), workers supplied by any Indian firm that is not transnationally established, and Independent Professionals (IPs) -  thus the skilled workers  or ‘graduates’ to which Cameron referred.

The UK has existing commitments for another Mode 4 category[xi], Intra-corporate Transferees’ (ICTs). These are workers brought across borders by transnationally-established companies.

As an indication for future Mode 4 commitments, it is informative to consider how this existing commitment is being regulated by the UK government and utilised by transnational corporations. Although the UK’s actual ‘Intra-corporate Transferees’ commitment is only for senior managers and specialists, the government is allowing trans-national companies (TNCs) to bring in a much broader band of workers.

The Tier 2 ICT category of the UK Points Based System (PBS) has no numerical limits and is now the biggest labour migration category in the Points Based System[xii].

Although the Coalition government has an ‘immigration cap’[xiii], the government has excluded temporary workers from the cap. This exemption is contradictory as effects on the resident workforce were a rationale for having a cap, and temporary workers, unable to organise, potentially have a significant negative effect.
The government is allowing ICTs who come for less than a year, which is the majority of them, to be paid just the minimum wage[xiv], made up to a low industry norm with tax-free expenses. The higher wage requirement which Vince Cable, Secretary of State for the department of business[xv], tends to emphasise is for the smaller number of workers that come for more than a year.

‘Temporary’ is not defined in trade rules. According to the TUC, the government stipulates that this can now be 9-10 years[xvi]  in the UK.

In fact the majority of the ‘ICTs’ brought in by transnational corporations are actually being supplied into other firms on a day rate. This allows transnational corporations to cream off profits from their ability to utilise the UK’s Mode 4 ICT (labour transfer) commitment while client firms are able to offload employer responsibilities. ‘Intra-corporate Transferees’ workers are reliant on the transnational company for their visa: UK workers are displaced or not hired.

The UK Points Based System was recently specifically prepared for Contractual Service Suppliers[xvii] within the ‘international agreements’ category in Tier 5, before the EU/India deal is finalised and shortly before David Cameron’s visit. Like the Tier 2 ICT category, this category has no numerical limit. Unlike the ICT category, which has a minimum salary requirement, albeit low, there is no salary floor for Contractual Service Suppliers. The other Tier 5 categories are sportspersons and religious workers and Tier 5 receives little attention.

There is now an intense barrage of propaganda and ‘news’ items promoting India in the UK, as well as on-going propaganda about the need for migrant workers. TheCityUK, the lobbying and propaganda organisation for the City of London Corporation and the transnational businesses that comprise the City, is well resourced to produce propaganda from the bequests made over centuries for the City to administer to the poor.

When David Cameron’s spin team changed ‘workers’ to ‘graduates’ during the India trip, it created ambiguity as to whether this meant those who come to study and then work in graduate jobs in the UK or those from Indian educational institutions who come as workers. The media posse, it seems, accepted the former meaning, but, as the Prime Minister was talking about entry, this clearly meant the entry of skilled workers who have graduated overseas[xviii].

The existing commitments for Intracorporate Transferees and Business Visitors combined with currently negotiated openings for Contractual Service Suppliers and Independent Professionals means that the UK will be open to skilled workers brought in under any employment circumstances, without numerical limits.
In response to enquiries, Number 10 and the Home Office will only make reference to existing trade commitments, current rules and Tier 2 ICT provision and not to the Free Trade Agreement trade-off covertly promised in the Prime Minister’s statements.

But we need to know the implications of commitments that are being made on our behalf before they become irreversible.

No 10 does now admit that Cameron discussed the Free Trade Agreement with the Indian Prime Minister during his trip, though it seems not to have been reported at the time.

Ultimately, Number 10 can hide behind the EU Trade Commission’s insistence that its trade negotiations are secret until they are completed. Yet as negotiators and business lobbyists[xix] on both sides of the negotiating able know what is on offer, it is only the public - which will bear the brunt of the commitments - that is kept in the dark by this ‘confidentiality’.

David Cameron made a prior trade trip to India in 2010, directly after the election, with Vince Cable. They then failed to mention the EU/India Free Trade Agreement, the central role of the UK in that agreement, the pivotal importance of India’s Mode 4 demands or what they will mean for people in the UK.

On this trip, while again keeping it all effectively secret from the UK public, David Cameron promised everything the Indian government has been demanding in the Free Trade Agreement. It all begs the questions of why top UK politicians are so underhand with the people they supposedly work for, and on whose behalf are they working? The British public are being kept in the dark about trade agreements that could have significant impact on their livelihoods.


Notes

[i] Dates of visit 18-20th February 2013
[ii] In his speech at Unilever, the PM said that for Indian students coming to the UK to study ‘there’s no real limit on the length of time you can stay and work in the United Kingdom’ http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/david-camerons-speech-at-unilever-offices-in-mumbai/ while the Home office has indicated that those who come and graduate here and stay and work will only have to be paid in the 10th percentile of the industry norm wage http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/immigration/soi-cop-skilled-workers?view=Binary p5 
[iii] Joint statement on the India-United Kingdom summit 2013 at Hyderabad House, Delhi 19 February. http://ukinindia.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=PressR&id=858563882
 Point 8 affirms the joint commitment to completion of the EU/India Free Trade Agreement. Point 48 ‘welcomes all legitimate ...qualified workers’
[iv] Personal interview with the EU Trade Commission’s Mode 4 specialist
[v] Email response from the EU Trade Commission’s senior trade lawyer
[vi] An EU document leaked by the union organisation of another Member State showed the UK prepared to take the lion’s share of the EU’s commitment on the entry temporary migrant labour supplied by Indian firms. In fact the purpose of this document, shared by other Member State governments with their union organisations, was to reassure them that their commitments would be very small and thus secure their support for the agreement. The figures for the UK, even at a much higher level, cannot be taken as an upper limit. The UK government did not share the document.
[vii] A chief EU Trade Commission negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero has stated this in several of the Trade Commission’s Civil Society Dialogue sessions
[viii] Other ‘EU’ demands are for profit-sharing for ‘Big Pharma’[1][viii]  in India’s generic medicines industry[1][viii], access for mixed retail giants such as Tesco and Carrefour[1][viii] and for subsidised EU dairy products into India. The EU also wants reduced tariffs on goods imported into India, especially cars. These corporate-demand liberalisations, including of financial services, have been protested in India because of the anticipated negative effects there.
[ix] http://www.cphc.ac.uk/docs/cphc-computinggraduates-june08.pdf http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/inside-outsourcing/2013/01/restrict-it-offshoring-and-prevent-immanent-skills-shortage.html
[x] Notably the Viking, Laval and Ruffert cases.
[xi] These 1995 commitments from the Uruguay Round of trade talks from which the World Trade Organisation was set up, and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) initiated. Mode 4 is part of services and the EU made GATS Mode 4 ICT commitments at that time.
[xii] http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/28/companies-bypassing-immigration-cap
[xiii] The Migration advisory Committee previously recommended capping ICT numbers, but the UK government did not cap this category.
[xiv] Previously ICTs could be paid less than the Minimum Wage until the illegality of this was raised in parliamentary questions
[xv] The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)
[xvi] Owen Tudor, head of the TUC’s international Department in BBC radio 4 Today Program discussion November 2012
[xvii] Contractual Service Suppliers are within ‘international agreements’ in Tier 5 of the PBS. See the UK Border Agency’s November 2012 document showing changes to accommodate this Mode 4 CSS category in Tier 5 of the UK Points Based System (pp75-76, points 7.27-7.29) at this webpage http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/statementsofchanges/
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wms/?id=2012-11-22a.40WS.0
[xviii] Graduates or graduate equivalent’ is the trade stipulation that the EU makes for Mode 4 entry
[xix] Non-Government Organisation Corporate European Observatory is currently pursuing legal action against the EU Trade Commission in regard to the access that business has been given to negotiating positions on the EU/India Free Trade Agreement which has been denied to civil society.

Open Democracy

‘May? Fox? Nobodies! Don’t forget my benefit cap will ruin workers’ pay claims’, says Smith*

Return of the savage: Iain Duncan Smith is using his benefit cap to claw back workers’ rights. YOUR rights.

It’s as if they’re having a competition.

After Liam Fox, the disgraced former Defence Secretary with nothing at all to gain from his outburst, made a fool of himself by making a series of outrageous demands about government spending (the BBC website picks out “We need to begin a systematic dismantling of universal benefits and turning them into tax cuts”), Iain Duncan Smith stepped into the breach to “dismiss” the Archbishop of Canterbury’s warning – despite its firm basis in fact – that benefit changes will drive more children into poverty.

Clearly the man this blog refuses to call anything but Smith is getting worried that he might fail to retain Vox Political‘s coveted Monster of the Year award in the face of such strong competition – don’t forget Theresa May weighed in with a plan to strip everyone in this country of their hard-won human rights – that he felt it necessary to step up.

We’ll put the rabid Fox down first. Vox correspondent Big Bill called it right when he said Fox was already damaged goods.

“He can be sent out to air these ideas without any further potential loss to the party,” Bill wrote.

“If Cameron started airing them or Osborne, there’d potentially be loss to their status, I imagine Tory thinking has it, and they’re too valuable to waste but Fox is already a political phantom, no more than the fading echo of a career mournfully walking abroad at Westminster.

“If more opprobrium’s heaped on his head, well, then, the party’s learned those ideas won’t fly and no loss to anyone. If by any chance they start to be taken seriously then these ideas will indeed be taken up by Osborne and Cameron.”

Judging from the comedy Prime Minister’s response, the ideas didn’t fly at all and in fact went down like the R101.

But let’s not waste the opportunity to pour scorn on Cameron’s comments. Having already fallen foul of the facts in the past, he simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to show that he hasn’t learnt anything and loves the taste of his own shoes.

“There is one piece of advice I won’t take. That’s the piece of advice saying ‘You ought to cut the National Health Service budget’,” said the PM, past the foot he’d just wedged in his mouth.

How quick he was to forget that Andrew Dilnot, head of the UK Statistics Authority, wrote to caution the government that its claims of increased spending on the health service, year on year, during every year of the current Parliament, were inaccurate. Mr Dilnot stated that the figures show a real-terms cut in expenditure between the 2009-10 tax year when Labour was in power, and 2011-12.

Camoron has never acknowledged this fact, even though it comes from an authoritative source. Maybe he’s no longer capable of listening to anything but the voices in his head.

He continued, saying it was “absolutely right that we have got a plan to get on top of our deficit”. Nice one, Call-Me-Dave. It is indeed, absolutely correct that you have a plan to get on top of the deficit. It’s also absolutely right that your plan does not work; will never work; will in fact make the deficit worse. It’s a plan to give you an excuse to shrink the state.

In that sense, Cameron’s difference of opinion with Fox is a sham. Perhaps he’s using Fox’s words to make his own scheming seem less objectionable.

Too bad. After nearly three years of this red-faced buffoon we can all see through him like a fishnet negligee.

And now, let’s turn to another Tory who won’t listen to anything but the voices in his head – Iain Pretentious Smith.

He has responded to calls from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, along with no less than 43 other Anglican Bishops, to reconsider benefit changes that will push an estimated 200,000 children into poverty. These are figures from The Children’s Society, which is a charity that deals with issues affecting deprived children every single day of its existence and should therefore, reasonably, know.

The letter states that the decision to increase financial support for families by no more than one per cent per year for the next three years, regardless of the rate of inflation, “will have a deeply disproportionate impact on families with children, pushing 200,000 children into poverty. A third of all households will be affected by the Bill, but nearly nine out of 10 families with children will be hit.

“These are children and families from all walks of life. The Children’s Society calculates that a single parent with two children, working on an average wage as a nurse would lose £424 a year by 2015. A couple with three children and one earner, on an average wage as a corporal in the British Army, would lose £552 a year by 2015.

“However, the change will hit the poorest the hardest. About 60 per cent of the savings from the uprating cap will come from the poorest third of households. Only three per cent will come from the wealthiest third.”
Only three per cent from the wealthiest households? It seems we’ve discovered why this plan is so attractive to the Party of the Rich.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby – who has yet to be enthroned – added: “As a civilised society, we have a duty to support those among us who are vulnerable and in need. When times are hard, that duty should be felt more than ever, not disappear or diminish.

“It is essential that we have a welfare system that responds to need and recognises the rising costs of food, fuel and housing.” (Labour Party – and especially Liam Byrne – please note).

It was pleasing to see these words from the new Archbishop, who is clearly unafraid to enter political debates, despite the undue flack received by the former Archbishop, Dr Rowan Williams. The Church should speak up to protect those in society whose voice is not strong.

Of course Smith – a Catholic whose behaviour should have had him excommunicated from his own faith – was having none of it.

“I don’t agree that the way to get children out of poverty is to simply keep transferring more and more money to keep them out of work,” he said, possibly revealing a little more than he intended. It seems Mr Smith thinks that, rather than receiving benefits to support them, poor children should be sent out to work. Is he advocating a return to the despicable conditions of the 19th century, in which children were sent up chimneys to clean them?

Don’t put it past him – look what else he had to say!

He said this: “We are doing the right thing in bringing in the benefit cap. For the first time ever, people on low and average earnings will realise at last that those on benefits will not be able to be paid more in taxes than they themselves earn.”

Exactly. Those on low and average earnings will realise that, if they get the sack, they will not be able to cover their current outgoings, meagre though they may be.

The intention behind the benefit cap is – as Vox Political has stated in the past – to silence those on the lowest wages from seeking any improvement in their pay and conditions, and even stop them from complaining if their bosses decide to cut those things.

It is a wholesale – and despicable – betrayal of the vast majority of the British people.

Don’t you forget it.

*He might as well be saying that; it’s what his statements indicate.

Vox Political

Cameron's Bullingdon Club 'burn £50 notes in front of beggars'

Bullingdon Club initiation ceremony claim: New members of David Cameron's old club 'burn £50 note in front of beggar'

 

 

A friend of one of the exclusive club’s super-wealthy members revealed the sick prank to an Oxford student newspaper

 

Ex-member: David Cameron



New members of David Cameron’s old Bullingdon Club have to burn a £50 note in front of a beggar as part of an “initiation ceremony”, it has been claimed.

A friend of one of the exclusive club’s super-wealthy members revealed the sick prank to an Oxford student newspaper.

It was immediately condemned last night by Labour MP Ian Mearns.

He said: “This kind of thing takes us back to the loads-of-money days under the last Tory government.

“Then it wasn’t just about having cash – you had to rub it in the faces of those who didn’t. It’s distasteful and disgusting.”

The Bullingdon revelations came as figures showed a rise in those sleeping rough.

One night in autumn last year councils found 2,309 out on the streets compared to 2,181 in 2011.

The boozy Bullingdon club is infamous for trashing Oxford restaurants and its other former members include Chancellor George Osborne and London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Earlier this month a Bullingdon member is alleged to have set off fireworks in a club.

MIRROR

Iain Duncan Smith's delusional & self-righteous defence of workfare

Michael Heseltine Mocks Iain Duncan Smith

Government deliberately misrepresenting the poor, say churches



Churches claim several "myths" have emerged as a result of the way information is used



By John McManus
BBC News

The government is deliberately misusing evidence and statistics to misrepresent the plight of the poor, a report says.

The Methodist and United Reformed Churches, the Church of Scotland and the Baptist Union jointly published the The Lies We Tell Ourselves study.

Researchers said evidence had been skewed to put the blame for poverty at the door of the poor themselves.

The government said it had always made it clear that the system was failing people, not the other way around.

Complex reasons

The churches said that a number of "myths" about welfare claimants have arisen as a result of statistics being misused.

These are repeated by the media and find their way into the popular consciousness.

The myths, according to the churches, pin the blame for poverty directly on those who rely on welfare benefits while ignoring more complex reasons.

These incorrect ideas must be challenged, according to Paul Morrison from the Methodist Church.

He said: "Everybody is complicit - politicians, the media and the general public.

"This is because we have a culture which allows us to tell lies in public life."

Mr Morrison said many people preferred to believe that bad things only happen to "bad people".
The report challenged what it called several misleading ideas about welfare and poverty.

One of these related to the 2011 launch of the government's plan to tackle disruptive families, the Troubled Families programme.

Mental health

Speaking about the programme at the time, Prime Minister David Cameron referred to 120,000 families who were plagued by drug addiction, alcohol dependency and crime.

The report said families counted as "troubled" had to exhibit certain characteristics - none of which actually related to alcohol or drug addiction or criminality.

The largest shared characteristic of the families was, in fact, that the mother had mental health problems.
The report's authors also challenged the idea, repeated by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith, that in some parts of Britain there are three generations of families where nobody has ever worked.

According to Mr Morrison, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has admitted that no data exists to prove this claim.

In response to the report, the DWP said there was an ongoing debate about the benefits system.
The department's reforms aimed to end the benefits trap and make it easier for those who needed help to get it.

The four churches said they would send a copy of their findings to every MP and MSP.
They have called for an honest debate about poverty, with policy being formed on the basis of clear facts.

Related Stories

• 'Wide differences' in child poverty
• Ex-minister attacks benefit plans
• How did welfare claimants come to be seen as scroungers?

BBC

Open Letter to Salvation Army by former Member

An Open Letter to the Salvation Army

July 8, 2012 by Liz Ely

Dear Salvation Army

My name is Liz, I grew up in the Salvation Army – so did my dad and his dad, and my mum and her mum. I became a Junior Solider at 7, and a band member at 8. You taught me how to play the trombone, and to speak out about what I believe in.

Although the Salvation Army is no longer part of my weekly life (we part ways over a few issues and reconciliation seems unlikely for me), I still feel a connection to the organization. Despite condemning your homophobic actions around Section 28, I have always felt proud to have a link to the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army is my single biggest connection to my wider family history; I have an uncle who is a minister, and frankly there are more Salvationists than non-Salvationists in my family by a long way.

I felt proud to be part of a church that takes Christianity seriously and actively through service – I also felt proud to be part of an organisation in which women have always had a more equal footing than in other churches. Most of all I felt proud to be part of an organisation which worked to help the poor, and indeed was set up for that very purpose.

It is in that spirit that I am writing this open letter, to share my disappointment in your continued involvement in the government’s work programme. I am asking you to reconsider and withdraw your support for this government scheme, which degrades workers and the unemployed alike.

The work programme promises ‘work experience’ for those out of work for long periods, which seems like offering a helping hand. The reality is that if people do not wish to comply with the programme they can lose the meagre amount of money that they have to live on. There is very little evidence that the scheme helps people into work – in fact it is likely that the work experience positions are replacing paid jobs in the retail sector. I understand that Salvation Army charity shops are run by volunteers, so any work experience placements you accept are unlikely to replace paid work; however, by supporting the scheme you give it credibility. By supporting this scheme you support a government who would make someone homeless for their refusal to work for free, a government threatening to withdraw housing support for young adults. In my view this goes fundamentally against the mission of The Salvation Army.

My experience of this scheme is also personal, my partner is unemployed and has been for a long time. He has in the past been forced to volunteer in a different charity shop, an experience that was profoundly negative, damaging his self-esteem and addressing none of the barriers he faces to get into work. He is not a ‘job snob’, he is applying for hotel porter jobs despite being educated to degree level. The fact of the matter is that in some areas there are up to 35 people for each job vacancy.

I have always respected the Salvation Army as having a practical approach, but if there are no jobs, then why place the blame on the unemployed? Why spend time giving them skills in retail, when there is a scarcity of full time retail jobs? My partner is now in the unfortunate position of being forced into more of this ‘work experience’, with Salvation Army Charity shops as one of the possible places he could end up working against his will. I am not against work experience, or offering support to the jobless – but all work experience should be voluntary, supported and properly remunerated.

I am asking you to consider the work programme from a Christian perspective, and ask your self what Jesus’ approach might be in this situation. Would Jesus support people like Emma Harrison, founder of A4E, an organisation that forces the unemployed to volunteer in your shops? Would he be happy that she earns millions of pounds from forcing others to work for free?

Would Jesus support a government of millionaires who bail out bankers whilst blaming the unemployed for a crisis created by the greed of the wealthy?

I grew up learning that Jesus evicted market sellers from the temple, and went against the leaders and profiteers of his day. Through your involvement in this scheme you are propping up the market sellers, and supporting the profiteers who Jesus forcefully removed.

I am calling on you to follow the lead of other charities like Oxfam and withdraw from this scheme.
I would ask that others, in particular Christians and Salvation Army members consider the issue and write their own letters.

Yours faithfully.

Liz Ely

Former Junior Solider, Singing Company and YP band member Castleford Corps – 1986 -2002ish

Bright Green

Charities using forced labour supplied by the DWP

I would avoid giving anything to a charity which uses labour supplied free by the DWP. Nor would I buy from a charity shop which used forced labour. The very word “charity” has been emptied of meaning by organizations which now employ highly paid executives that were founded and run by volunteers who worked for nothing.

Saint Paul wrote that “the love of money is the root of all evil” and when one sees charities using forced labour provided by the DWP it’s hard not to sympathise with his sentiments. The very word “charity” is derived from the latin “caritas” which means love. Today we have in the U.K so called charities which are instrumental in the issuing of welfare sanctions against the poorer segments of society, using forced labour and running what are really businesses set up for the benefit of their executives.

I am no longer taken in by the misuse of words like “charity” to cover the wrongdoings of people motivated by greed and not love. I wonder if we will ever see a political party which will tackle this problem. I think it’s unlikely to happen in the near future so long as politicians see the charity sector as a tool for underming welfare and keeping downward pressure on wages through using forced labour.

When shopping at a charity shop I will ask politely if they are taking on anyone under the Work Programme. If the shop says yes then I will explain that in good conscience I cannot shop there since I believe it to be morally wrong that people are being forced to work for nothing by a so called charity.

Dame Vera Lynn called for charities to go back to being what they were in the past, i.e run by people who did the work out of love and not for money. Sue Ryder who set up the charity associated with her name later blamed the trustees of the Sue Ryder Foundation of hijacking the charity and accusing them of betraying its volunteer helpers and splashing out on new offices in central London.

Several years ago I worked with people who had an association with the Salvation Army and who were really trying to help people with big problems. They would have been as astonished as me to find out that the Salvation Army was using forced labour supplied by the DWP and incredulous that one of the directors of the Salvation Army trading company ran an external company which had made millions out of the clothes donated to the Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army has tried to backtrack on the forced labour issue by referring to its voluntary nature. Let’s be very clear about this. If the Salvation Army is using people supplied by the DWP who are subject to sanctions if they refuse to attend then there is nothing voluntary about it. To take away the welfare benefits of anyone if they refuse to work unpaid is not voluntary but a form of forced/coerced labour.

Iain Duncan-Smith proclaimed his Catholicity on a recent Question Time BBC programme. How he or the Salvation Army can reconcile their Christianity with what they are, or have been, involved in needs some explaining.

Perhaps one of the single biggest causes of the Christianization of the Roman Empire was love given to the poor by the early Christian communities. Charity, in its true and traditional meaning, might be considered Christianity’s unique selling point in the ancient world through it’s scale over and above any spiritual influences. It particularly took hold amongst the poorest and marginalised sectors of society: slaves, women and children. The message of the gospel had a particular meaning and resonated strongly with the poor and oppressed. Today it often seems that the gospel of the poor proclaimed by Jesus has been turned into the Gospel of the Rich – a form of Mammon Worship.

Welfare Sorrows

IDS slips up: “She was PAID jobseeker’s allowance to do this”



Illustration by @dochackenbush


Iain Duncan Smith was interviewed on the Andrew Marr show today. He made some telling statements.

“I understand she said she wasn’t paid. She was paid jobseeker’s allowance, by the taxpayer, to do this.”



Funny, the government have always said that this wasn’t a work-for-your-benefits scheme but IDS seems to think it is.  In fact, the official response by the DWP to a petition to abolish Workfare said:

“We do not have Work for Your Benefit or Workfare schemes in this country.”

Furthermore, in a response to a Freedom of Information request the DWP said:

“Benefit is not paid to the claimant as remuneration for the activity. “

They continue:



“Instead, performing it is one of a number of conditions which may have to be fulfilled by the claimant in order to be paid Jobseeker’s Allowance.  The relationship between the claimant, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and any third parties involved in providing the activity is not one of employment.”

In my opinion that is a serious mistake by IDS. If, as IDS says, benefits are being paid as wages for work experience schemes, then it I suspect that it breaches minimum wage laws. If they are not, as officially claimed by his department, then we have forced unpaid labour. I thought that people paid National Insurance in the expectation that when people needed help they would be supported. Having to work for it is a breach of contract.



“I’m sorry, but there is a group of people out there who think they’re too good for this kind of stuff.”



People don’t think they’re too good for shelf stacking, they think they’re too good for shelf stacking without receiving a fair wage for it. Is “A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work” really a controversial statement in the 21st century?

“Who is more important – them, the geologist, or the person who stacked the shelves?”

Every person is important, including shelf stackers. Geologists are pretty important especially in the oil industry.



“Let me remind you that [former Tesco chief executive] Terry Leahy started his life stacking shelves.”



He was paid for it!

BBC News: Duncan Smith: Shelf-stacking is more important than geology

My thanks to @A11_Seeing_Eye and @Spoonydoc for help with this article.

A Latent Existence



IDS confirms: IT IS WORKFARE!

On the Andrew Marr show on BBC  IDS was speaking about the Poundland case in which Cait Reilly was forced to work in a Poundland store for two weeks and thus had to abandon a voluntary position at a museum. During the interview he said:

‘She was paid jobseeker’s allowance by the taxpayer to do this.’

thereby confirming what most had known all along that, far from being an individually-tailored training scheme, the Work programme is nothing other than Workfare in which the benificiaries are the companies who get a free workforce at taxpayer expense.

soiniciulacht