Cameron: "Cuts will change our way of life"

[lifetime fan]

Seems fair to me. -£1.40 is plenty to live on. In my day, we'd only have -£2.20, and we'd still have enough money to drag ourselves into a shop window of a rainy winter night. Seriously, the disabled these days! They want everything on a fucking plate. Probably a result of the last 13 years of having it easy under Labour, and being able to afford food, water and a few things that make life worth living. They ruined this fucking country.

 

You couldn't fucking make it up could you.

 

Yes love, we accept you are unable to work and we accept you need support.

 

So that money we give you because we accept you are unable to work, you can give us that back towards the cost of support we accept you need.

 

 

 

 

EDIT: And Stronts get his knickers in a twist because I call them the 'fake libs' for propping up this shower of despicable cunts.

[Section_31]

The bird has been approached by a young woman with Aspergers to help her prepare for a court case (she is talking her local authority to court like the group of people did with Birmingham council) and possibly give evidence.

 

The reason this young lady is taking her local authority to court is she has been told she must contribute to her 'care costs' out of her benefits.

 

Yeah that's right...the benefits she receives as she is unable to work she has to use to pay towards her own care. The council want £75 a week.

 

Even if she is on top whack DLA she'd only be getting £73.60 a week.

 

It's worrying.

 

Everyone is being retested for incapacity benefit but the citizens' advice around ours don't have the staff to send people with them when they go for tests and tribunals, so a lot of vulnerable people who can't speak up for themselves are being fucked over.

 

A guy around ours had his money taken off him and has been told to go on jobseekers' allowance. He had a breakdown following the death of both his parents and has been suicidal according to my mother and sister, who go around and help him whenever they can.

 

At the same time, as a journalist, I've noticed a huge upsurge in the output of the DWP press office since the Tories came to power. We didn't get anything from them when Labour were around. We had five benefit fraud cases in the paper last week, two of them I reported on in court.

 

One case was interesting in that, the woman had defaruded over 100k in the last ten years because she had not told the DWP her husband had moved in with her, but he'd done so because they had a severely disabled kid.

 

The judge took pity on her, and said he had personal experience of a mother having to bring up a disabled kid alone and let her off with a suspended sentence.

 

Interesting thing was that the DWP claimed her fraud was 100-odd grand, but it was actually 58 because she had been entitled to other benefits that she didn't know about and hadn't claimed them. 58k is still a huge amount, fair's fair, but the DWP sent me a quote from some pleb, Lord fucknuts or something, saying justice had been done and all that bollocks and how evil these kinds of shenanigans were. A rival paper, too, took a one-liner from the case about her having a 'gambling problem', even though it was never stated that this was the reason she'd done what she'd done, and the headline became 'fraudster nicked 100k to feed gambling addiction' or some bollocks with a 'Lord fucknuts said justice has been served' style tale on it. She was the enemy within and the DWP had got their scalp.

 

When in actual fact, the story was she'd not told the DWP about her husband because she had a disabled kid to look after and the judge felt sorry for her - which is how I wrote it.

 

The probation officer I was chatting to said judges often have sympathy in these cases because even though they're from the top tier of privelage, they've been barristers and have spent a lot of time with 'the underclass' and see first hand the issues they deal with. apparently magistrates are much less sympathetic because they're drawn simply from the well-to-do lower-middle and middle classes.

 

It all goes hand in hand with the aftermath of the riots as far as I'm concerned. The working class have been hereded into a pen, and now they're about to get culled.

[lifetime fan]

It's worrying.

 

Everyone is being retested for incapacity benefit but the citizens' advice around ours don't have the staff to send people with them when they go for tests and tribunals, so a lot of vulnerable people who can't speak up for themselves are being fucked over.

 

A guy around ours had his money taken off him and has been told to go on jobseekers' allowance. He had a breakdown following the death of both his parents and has been suicidal according to my mother and sister, who go around and help him whenever they can.

 

At the same time, as a journalist, I've noticed a huge upsurge in the output of the DWP press office since the Tories came to power. We didn't get anything from them when Labour were around. We had five benefit fraud cases in the paper last week, two of them I reported on in court.

 

One case was interesting in that, the woman had defaruded over 100k in the last ten years because she had not told the DWP her husband had moved in with her, but he'd done so because they had a severely disabled kid.

 

The judge took pity on her, and said he had personal experience of a mother having to bring up a disabled kid alone and let her off with a suspended sentence.

 

Interesting thing was that the DWP claimed her fraud was 100-odd grand, but it was actually 58 because she had been entitled to other benefits that she didn't know about and hadn't claimed them. 58k is still a huge amount, fair's fair, but the DWP sent me a quote from some pleb, Lord fucknuts or something, saying justice had been done and all that bollocks and how evil these kinds of shenanigans were. A rival paper, too, took a one-liner from the case about her having a 'gambling problem', even though it was never stated that this was the reason she'd done what she'd done, and the headline became 'fraudster nicked 100k to feed gambling addiction' or some bollocks with a 'Lord fucknuts said justice has been served' style tale on it. She was the enemy within and the DWP had got their scalp.

 

When in actual fact, the story was she'd not told the DWP about her husband because she had a disabled kid to look after and the judge felt sorry for her - which is how I wrote it.

 

The probation officer I was chatting to said judges often have sympathy in these cases because even though they're from the top tier of privelage, they've been barristers and have spent a lot of time with 'the underclass' and see first hand the issues they deal with. apparently magistrates are much less sympathetic because they're drawn simply from the well-to-do lower-middle and middle classes.

 

It all goes hand in hand with the aftermath of the riots as far as I'm concerned. The working class have been hereded into a pen, and now they're about to get culled.

 

 

The bird covers the whole of England for the National Autistic Society mate, is trying to train independent advocates and give legal advice to those living in Scotland and Wales (they have very slightly differnt legislation) because they have no equivalent post to hers.

[Strontium]

EDIT: And Stronts get his knickers in a twist because I call them the 'fake libs' for propping up this shower of despicable cunts.

 

 

Hold on, what does a local authority behaving like bastards have to do with us?

[lifetime fan]

Hold on, what does a local authority behaving like bastards have to do with us?

 

It is a tory council implementing policy from a tory government that you are propping up.

 

What is 'liberal' about taking that poor cows money off her.

[Strontium]

There's nothing liberal about it, but we're not responsible for what Tory councils do. People elect Tory councils at their peril.

 

Which council is it?

[TheHitman]

The bird has been approached by a young woman with Aspergers to help her prepare for a court case (she is talking her local authority to court like the group of people did with Birmingham council) and possibly give evidence.

 

The reason this young lady is taking her local authority to court is she has been told she must contribute to her 'care costs' out of her benefits.

 

Yeah that's right...the benefits she receives as she is unable to work she has to use to pay towards her own care. The council want £75 a week.

 

Even if she is on top whack DLA she'd only be getting £73.60 a week.

 

Something has gone seriously wrong in this instance. There are strict government guidelines that all local councils must adhere to, once someone has been assessed requiring care in the home. The law states that they must be left with a minimum income of normally around #130 pounds per week. It is under the fairer charging guidelines. Unless they have savings above 14k and 23k then they would need to contribute.

 

What may have happened, is they have reassessed her and downgraded the banding she falls into and decided that her illness is not serious enough requiring care needs. The problem is a lot of vulnerable people are being reassessed without being given the full details and often without an impartial adult to help complete the forms. Hopefully it is just an error and in theory should be rectified promptly.

 

A lot of local authority's across the country have cut funding to citizens advice bureau agency's. This type of agency would normally be a first port of call for a lot of people and their families. Anyone would think it was part of a deliberate strategy.

Edited August 16, 2011 by TheHitman

[Whelan]

Cameron uses riots to target 'feckless' poor people | Society | The Guardian

 

Seeking opportunity in a moment of crisis, David Cameron this week spoke of Britain's "slow-motion moral collapse". The prime minister sought to identify "deeper problems" and came up with a sociological canard: the culture of poverty.

 

This analysis is one that regards the chaotic lives of poor people as cause, not symptom, of the collapse of their communities. For the prime minister, these families and their children simply chose to be feckless, indolent or on the wrong side of police lines.

 

Such talk will do much to harden public attitudes – helpful to a prime minister who wants to push draconian social policy through the Lords in the autumn. The rhetoric will profit the contentious welfare reforms, a policy built on the idea that poor people are "culturally" unique and dependent on welfare by their own design.

 

Although a seductive line of reasoning, there is little evidence to support a thesis that poor people's behaviours and attitudes lie behind their plight. When proof is necessary to support this line of thinking ministers reach for beguiling figures. But in the welfare debate these numbers increasingly appear to be a mixture of lies and statistics.

 

Only last week, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) admitted that its claim that there had been a 30% rise in people on disability living allowance over eight years was in fact "distorted". Some in the media had confidently reported that people were either junkies, alcoholics or faking their disability to get the welfare payment – hence its supposed escalating cost to the taxpayer. In fact, the rise is closer to 16%.

 

Blogger Mason Dixon points out that if this information had been released when it was signed off, in May, it would have been released while MPs were debating the welfare reform bill. But having concealed the real figure, the government is pressing ahead with cutting a billion pounds from the benefit.

 

Another supposed trait of poor people is that they are workshy. To substantiate such prejudice, ministers point to the number of people who have been shifted (after a controversial medical test) from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance.

 

When the department's statistics came out last month, the media reported with glee that only 7% of applicants had been judged unfit for work. The Daily Mail dubbed them "the shirking classes". Justified perhaps, except it was not true. Sir Michael Scholar, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, said in a letter to ministers earlier this month that the DWP had been producing data that was "not as clear as it should be".

 

Then there is the frequent claim of a Shameless generation – swaths of the country where no one works because "scroungers" are paid not to by the government. Declan Gaffney, a former adviser to the DWP under Labour, has sifted through the census data to show that last year only 47 "super-output areas" – each corresponding to about 1,500 people in England – had more than half the population in receipt of out-of-work benefits. These represent a tiny 0.63% of all welfare claims.

 

In truth, the welfare bill, as a percentage of GDP, is roughly the same as when Labour took power in 1997 – despite a recession, inevitable higher unemployment and the spluttering economy. But to convince voters that Britain is broken, the prime minister is pushing social policy based on ideology rather than evidence. It is a belief system that will do little to help the people who need it.

[lifetime fan]

There's nothing liberal about it, but we're not responsible for what Tory councils do. People elect Tory councils at their peril.

 

Which council is it?

 

Of course there is nothing liberal about it. I still struggle to understand how you can defend your party propping up these cunts.

 

Your party allowed the tories to implement this policy.

 

The fact a tory council took it to the extreme is a seperate point. Without the 'libs' support this was not possible.

 

Please explain how this is 'liberal'.

[Strontium]

Of course there is nothing liberal about it. I still struggle to understand how you can defend your party propping up these cunts.

 

Your party allowed the tories to implement this policy.

 

The fact a tory council took it to the extreme is a seperate point. Without the 'libs' support this was not possible.

 

Please explain how this is 'liberal'.

 

 

As I said, it's not liberal, and as TheHitman pointed out, it's not legal either.

 

And we're not propping up this council, wherever it is.

[Section_31]

Who'd have thought when the Tories got in that there might be mass social unrest, persecution of the poor, a 'crackdown' on benefits, that the super rich would get a tax reprieve and that we'd see nothing done to rein in the banks.

 

Apparently Cameron is considered something of a bleeding heart liberal among Tory hardliners too.

[VladimirIlyich]

Who'd have thought when the Tories got in that there might be mass social unrest, persecution of the poor, a 'crackdown' on benefits, that the super rich would get a tax reprieve and that we'd see nothing done to rein in the banks.

 

Apparently Cameron is considered something of a bleeding heart liberal among Tory hardliners too.

 

This might be for the other thread and one of your 'psychic moments.'

[Red Phoenix]

Cameron is too full of himself and his bunch of mates he's in power with are too elitist. Looking forward to the day their corrupt shite fails.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Workplace democracy - Plymouth style.

 

News | South West news | UNISON angry as council tries to silence staff | UNISON South West

 

UNISON angry as council tries to silence staff

UNISON reacted with anger today at the news that Plymouth City Council has withdrawn Union recognition for the largest union representing staff.

 

After months of talks, the final proposals put by PCC were once again reviewed by UNISON lawyers. The message was clear, signing up to this deal was not possible as it appears to discriminate against certain groups of staff. UNISON has serious concerns about the impact of these proposals on certain groups of staff and has raised issues with the Council throughout the process. The Council has ignored UNISON's request to continue talks to find a solution.

 

In fact, rather than talking about how to address inequality, the Council have chosen to try to silence UNISON and stop them speaking up for their members' rights. Some of these proposals would result in groups of workers losing up to 20% of their income.

 

Plymouth City Council made it clear there would be no further negotiations on these far reaching cuts to staff terms and conditions.

 

Helen Willis, Regional Manager, said:

 

"Once it became clear we could not sign the agreement Plymouth City Council have sought to play legal games by derecognising us in an attempt to impose this invalid collective agreement. They claim to have the support of Unite and GMB but we have been informed today that both unions have sought the withdrawal of their signatures. UNISON is the largest union and if the council is serious about valuing staff they need to listen to their representatives.

 

"We urge the council to return to the negotiating table and respect the long held rights of UNISON members to have their voices heard."

 

Message of support received today from a Plymouth City Council employee and non union member:

 

'I am not a member but I fully support you. I am a customer facing worker we have recently lost staff and hours to a restructure. We are going to lose even more pay under these proposals - I will end up losing nearly 200.00 per month. You have a lot of support from staff who are not in a Union so are not heard.'

[Hermes]

Between April and June 289,000 more foreigners have found jobs in Britain. One day the indigenous people may decide to get off their arses.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Between April and June 289,000 more foreigners have found jobs in Britain. One day the indigenous people may decide to get off their arses.

 

Your lack of understanding of the job market and the type of job needed for the majority of the 'indigenous' to sustain themselves is very poor.

[Whelan]

Your lack of understanding of the job market and the type of job needed for the majority of the 'indigenous' to sustain themselves is very poor.

 

It isn't poor, it is exactly at the level he requires to maintain his idiotic, self centred point of view!

 

God forbid he develops a sense of inquisitivness, as that may require him to evaluate his current thinking and maybe, maybe reassess!

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

It isn't poor

 

It definitely is.

[Whelan]

It definitely is.

 

Yes you are right. But it has to stay poor, that way he is right. All the time!

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Yes you are right.

 

Tru dat, brudda. Tru dat.

 

Nay, you're right. He fits the facts in with his silly bias.

[lifetime fan]

Yes David, scrapping human rights will solve everything.

 

Twat.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Yes David, scrapping human rights will solve everything.

 

Twat.

I know some people here disagree with me on this, but he clearly just doesn't 'get it'. He is much more clueless than Major - who he has recently been compared with - ever was. At least Major had a bit of intelligence. This guy lives in a bubble. We're having to suffer this utter prick because of the Liberal Democrat's selfishness and lust for power.

[Section_31]

I know some people here disagree with me on this, but he clearly just doesn't 'get it'. He is much more clueless than Major - who he has recently been compared with - ever was. At least Major had a bit of intelligence. This guy lives in a bubble. We're having to suffer this utter prick because of the Liberal Democrat's selfishness and lust for power.

 

Major was a world away from Cameron. He was a banker with a sharp mind and a photographic memory, he was also a decent bloke deep down I reckon. Cameron is just a suit with the mental outlook of a private school head boy who can only pass his exams by cheating. Half knowledge is his game.

 

The pair symbolise how much politics has changed IMO, Major would never make it as a party leader now because he doesn't look good enough on screen, much like Brown really - both were sharp people who just didn't fill out a suit well enough.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Major was a world away from Cameron. He was a banker with a sharp mind and a photographic memory, he was also a decent bloke deep down I reckon. Cameron is just a suit with the mental outlook of a private school head boy who can only pass his exams by cheating. Half knowledge is his game.

 

The pair symbolise how much politics has changed IMO, Major would never make it as a party leader now because he doesn't look good enough on screen, much like Brown really - both were sharp people who just didn't fill out a suit well enough.

 

I agree. It doesn't stop the 'most clueless since Major' coming out of the young left, and the old right. I actually quite liked Major as a person. He was very clever. I like Brown, too. He's incredibly astute.

 

That said, I don't really buy this mentality that says we only want plastic PR faces, and you can only get elected if you are one. A talented orator, with leadership and vision, could batter those unrecognisable in a debate. It's far more about who papers tell you to support. That shouldn't be allowed. It has far too much influence over the electorate.

[Section_31]

I agree. It doesn't stop the 'most clueless since Major' coming out of the young left, and the old right. I actually quite liked Major as a person. He was very clever. I like Brown, too. He's incredibly astute.

 

That said, I don't really buy this mentality that says we only want plastic PR faces, and you can only get elected if you are one. A talented orator, with leadership and vision, could batter those unrecognisable in a debate. It's far more about who papers tell you to support. That shouldn't be allowed. It has far too much influence over the electorate.

 

I just think the way we perceive politicians has changed though, and I don't think all of it has been by design, I think much of it is due to reality television and maybe even social media - which to my mind has made us a society that wants its famous people to feel familiar, a society that can only concentrate in short bursts and can only digest striking images and flashes of soundbite.

 

I think it's been that way in the states for much longer and I think Obama was a good example of that. There are a good many people who researched his background and backed him for that reason, but there's also shitloads who bought into the 'change' campaign, but had no idea what change was or how it would be brought about. He was basically a popstar - especially outside the states - he was 'black' and therefore 'different' and hopefully very different from Bush, and he was going to bring 'change'. Many people's understanding of him went no deeper than that.

 

I think that'll be the case over here. I think the next person to sweep to power over here will be someone who has some kind of image which captures the imagination, whether that be a young person, a woman of an ethnic candidate, or maybe even someone who is already famous.