New disability test 'is a complete mess', says expert

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/22/new-disability-test-is-a-complete-mess/

"During the preliminary roll-out of the test, people with terminal cancer, multiple sclerosis and serious mental illnesses have been found fit to work."

Disgusting isn't it. And I wonder how many of those stories made the front pages of the news papers in the same way as 'benefit scroungers' stories do. Bloody Tories

Nick Clegg blocks housing benefit cut for jobless

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/17/nick-clegg-housing-benefit-cut-dropped

I wonder if this was a genuine victory for Nick Clegg or he's just borrowed a competent spin doctor to get some support back from Lib Dem supporters.

The rest of the article is outlined by the nastiest elements of Tory philosophy

The deserving or undeserving poor?‏

And that mention of the wealthy raises an intriguing final thought, which might make tax evaders and big bonus bankers uneasy. If we are now more prepared to talk about the "undeserving poor", who are the "undeserving rich"?


I'm very uncomfortable about removing people's benefits entirely. I understand why they're doing it but I'm not convinced it's the right course of action

David Cameron refuses to back down over housing benefit

"Cameron insisted there was "no reason" why anyone should be made homeless as a result of the changes, and said there were plenty of jobs for those out of work for more than 12 months in high-rent areas such as London."

Typical bloody Tories

George Osborne: good cop and bad cop in one

as a socialist, i find myself in the odd position of agreeing with the boy george on these.
i don't think people should earn more on benefits than in work. but not everyone on benefits made a "lifestyle choice" to be so. I was put out of work by the boy george's very first cuts after the election and, try as i might, the private sector has not ridden to my aid on its shiny white horse. too little experience for my target job, "overqualified" to take just anything. but yeah, work should pay more than not working.
also, the poor should not subsidise the rich, the rich should help out the poor and needy. it's just a shame that the boy george's policies are not laying a finger on the rich while making plenty poorer

my worst time of year

i hate having to sit through Tory conference at the best of times, but with these smug hypocritical bastards In Government (!, looking at you Clegg) they are unbearable. Quote of the day: "Conservative party traditionalists tell the chancellor his benefit cut for high earners could discourage marriage and hit middle-class single mothers". Now i thought they were against single mothers, but apparently it's only poor ones. Middle class single mothers are to be defended. Hypocrites

today's benefit reforms

i agree that people should be better off in work than on benefits.
however, AxeMan Osborne does not give me any confidence he will do anything other than attack the poor and vulnerable.
anyone who thinks his measures are not ideological are mental. they must be pretty grateful for the Lib Dems to take much of the fire for them from both sides.

ideally, wages should be of a level that means people are decently off in work, but there's in work poverty as well as benefit affluence.


Update: "A government source has just told Nick Robinson that the chancellor's benefits cap is more a "symbol" than a policy whose implications have been fully worked out and will produce real savings. "
oh there's a surprise

today's Tory proposals

i woke up this morning to Tory proposals to cut benefits and all but out law strikes.
i don't have a problem with the cut to 'universal' benefits. benefits should go to those most ni need, and i'm afraid top-rate tax payers are not most in need so, given the current financial position, it seems fair enough.

on restricting strikes, i think it's a tactic to back Ed Miliband into a corner

Unwanted men, we need you to curb the welfare Amazons | Minette Marrin - Times Online‏

Oh for fucks sake, the right wing and their un-wed, welfare dependent mothers.
Don't they have anything else to whine on about?

Job Seekers Allowance

The whole JSA system needs looking into.
My situation is that because I was a student and then a low-paid worker, i am not eligible for the JSA i claimed for.
So i have been paid nothing at all.
I might be eligible for another type, which is means tested and involves another type of form which i need to go to the job centre to get, and it will then be assessed. I can't help feeling i'm being penalised for being a student and a low paid worker. This may be someone else's fault, though that's not very important.
Changes need to be made.
There are far too many forms to fill in for a start.
The needs of the claimant need to be put to the fore.
Considering i am well educated an entited to benefits (as is my girlfriend) and we have been unable to claim anything, i struggle to see how benefit fraud ever happens at all

Recession

"who is affected most by these trends? Confounding early predictions of a 'white collar recession', the statistics show that it is the same people who were hit by previous recessions who are most exposed this time round – the 14.3 million low-paid, low-skilled workers"
There's a surprise.

My solutions:
Keep people in work.
Support the low paid through the direct taxation system to save on admin and the costs of admin.
Government subsidised internships.
Even the smallest bit of compassion in the benefits system.
More equality of income and wealth.

Possible solutions from the article:
"As well as measures to improve responsible lending, more low-cost, out-of-court remedies, like the Debt Relief Orders are also needed to support those people in unsustainable debt or for whom repossession is the only remaining option.

Safety nets are vital, but work is nearly always the best route to maintaining economic independence for any household. This is particularly true for low earners, who are more dependent on their earned income than other groups due to their lack of savings and their lack of eligibility for many means-tested benefits. Expanding the eligibility criteria for working tax credit to include training as well as paid employment,would make it easier for people to access training while in work thereby insulating them against the risk of redundancy.

For those people who do lose their jobs, the focus must be on maintaining their proximity to the labour market and it is this measure that should be used to evaluate the effectiveness of government schemes such as the Future Jobs Fund and the Work for Your Benefit pilots. Enhancing the existing 'light touch' skills assessment that takes place at 13 weeks after someone has lost their job, and defining 'sustainable' employment as 12 months rather than 13 weeks could also make a real difference to low earners who find themselves out of work."

Childcare vouchers

If Gordy's right and "this relief is badly targeted, with one third of the benefit going to higher rate taxpayers, and wants to divert money to fund nursery places for two-year-olds"
Then he's taking the right course of action.
He should be appluaded for doing the right thing rather than 'playing politics' with the issue.
Is he? No.

Daily Mail bollocks story of the day

When in doubt, attack people on incapacity benefit.
"Figures suggest that only around 400,000 men and women out of the 2.6million who claim the handouts are too sick too work."

From my own experience, I very much doubt their figures.
It's very difficult to get IB, and my mrs has been put through hell over it. Her doctor was over-ruled by a bureaucrat, then my earning minimum wage was deemed enough to support two people and her benefits were withdrawn. And she had to go through lots of tests and reassessments, which are difficult enough without their being miles and miles away.

Now plenty will say that if we were foreign we'd have everything handed to us on a plate, while us being British meant we were treated badly by the authorities in order to get the foreigns in first.
I don't believe that either, but the Mail have made their bed and look very happy as they are


Some small hope, from the second-lowest-rated comment:
"Here we go again squeeze the poor and vulnerable. Just remember that it was the rich the bankers who have destroyed this country with their ruthless greed. Ok there are always a few who will milk the system, but this is the same of all benefits , tax allowances and parliamentary expenses.

The wholesale punishment of those who are already down at heel through no fault of their own, is however, thoroughly nasty and despicable. It makes me me ashamed to be British."

96% tax rates

If the Tories want to get the FT onside, they have a lot of work to do.
There are a lot of problems on the lower margins around benefits and getting off them, but i don't think Cameron's Tories have the answer

"Labour has just pointed out that in 1998 (a year after the Tories were removed from power) there were 130,000 families facing marginal deduction rates (the technical definition) of over 90 per cent.

That has fallen to 60,000 thanks to the minimum wage, tax credits and lower income tax.

In fact, in 1998 there were 5,000 families facing 100 per cent deduction rates. Every £1 they earned was then taken in tax. The number is now more or less zero"

Welfare state

According to the Mail "Benefits 'wrecked the British work ethic'"
Usual crap.

"The work ethic that inspired successive generations has ebbed away in the face of the welfare state." What rubbish. Especially in a recession, it's not just the 'work shy' who are out of work, but those looking and trying hard to get work. To say we've lost our work ethic is crap.


"There are 2.6million adults who claim the handout meant for the sick and incapable, with around 20 per cent thought to be fully able - but unwilling - to work." Based on what exactly?


"Most economists point to oil price shocks and the collapse of the post-war system of fixed exchange rates in the 1970s for the decline in employment.

Subsequent blows such as housing market collapses or banking failures are also blamed.

But report author Jean-Baptiste Michau rejected these explanations of why unemployment has risen substantially across Europe since the 1970s.

The report in the journal CentrePiece said: 'A decline in the work ethic, induced by the expansion of the welfare state, is key to understanding European unemployment.'"
Bollocks. Moral hazard indeed. While it is an acceptable theoretical arguement, the alternative is the workhouse which is far too far in that direction.


"In Britain, unemployment grew in the 1970s and 1980s, a decade during which many of those without jobs chose to sign on for sickness benefits instead of less generous unemployment payouts.

At least half a million incapacity benefit claimants are thought to have no real disability"
People can't choose to go on incapacity, it has to be assessed. But why let the facts get in the way of a story eh?
Thought to have no real disability - based on what? And i shudder to think about what disabilities the Mail considers not 'real'

Drives me up the bloody wall

Benefit cuts

My take:
The usual attack on the poor and vulnerable. It's hard enough to get benefits when they're needed, this is just motivated by a heart-less cull of those least able to defend themselves

Tory attacks on benefit claimants

"Sickness benefit cheats to face tough Tory test" from the Telegraph.
Usual Tory rubbish - attack those most vulnerable and least able to defend themselves against the mulit-million pound Tory and media attacks.
Labour rubbish it, of course. Their line being: "a rehash of what we're already doing, but without the investment needed to make them work."

I agree with the Lib Dem line of Steve Webb: “This is yet more Tory posturing ... Much of what David Cameron is proposing is happening already. But the central assumption – that unemployment is simply about the workshy not applying for jobs – is ridiculous in the middle of a global recession.”
I thank you

Tories - it's just a jump to the right, and then a jump to the right

and then a jump to the right, and then a jump to the riiiiight.
Tory party policy at the moment.
It's amazing the transition that we're seeing in them. There are too many to list, but this recent attack on benefit claimants is just the latest example

"the system makes it hard for people to earn more at work than they get in benefits. "
so the remedy is to improve the pay of those worst off? No, cut benefits. It's pretty damn stupid

Tory attacks continue

Michael Portillo has continued the recent Tory attacks on welfare, though i'm not convinced that Sunny H's attack on him at Liberal Conspiracy.
The thing about all this stuff on welfare dependency is a typical, quite far right, attack on the welfare state. I must admit i'm a bit surprised that Cameron has sanctioned these attacks, as he himself is more on the left of his party and is trying to rid his party of the 'nasty' tag.
If this is to form their thinking, then we can look forward to those most vulnerable being at the sharp end

"Welfare to work is failing the jobless"

Having never worked in or around welfare to work scheme, i'm not in a position to comment on these assertions, though that's never stopped most people.
Without a doubt there are some significant problems with the benefits system we currently have in the UK.
"In one of my recent cases in the court of appeal where a family with five young children was facing eviction due to housing benefit problems one the Lord Justices said: "In my view it remains an apparently non-eradicable blemish on our operation of the rule of law that the poorest and most disadvantaged in our society remain subject to regulations which are complex, obscure and, to many, simply incomprehensible." I could not agree more."
My worry is that governments are so scared of the headlines in the Mail and Express of the government encouraging benefits lay-abouts that they would rather go too far the wrong way and take it out on the poorest and most vulnerable.


My experiences are that at the very least the benefits system is very poorly managed and confused. It needs real reform, lead by the people who deal with it every day rather than some suited academic or former banker who have no real experience of life on benefits or dealing with people on benefits.





"Jenni Russell is right to expose the dire risks of destitution in the welfare-to-work programme. I know one man who found a job without any help from the jobcentre. The local authority told him he could keep his housing and council tax benefits; three months later they found they had made a mistake, debited his rent and council tax account with £2,000 arrears, started to evict him and sent in the bailiff's for the tax. He had a nervous breakdown. Three months after that the Inland Revenue demanded a repayment of £2,200 of tax credit. He had tried to refuse tax credits because he was afraid of overpayments but was told they are compulsory; this time he was committed to hospital for three weeks.

He became unemployed again, receiving £64.30 a week jobseeker's allowance. He slipped into unauthorised overdraft to survive, attracting bank charges which consumed his entire allowance and left him penniless for weeks. He is a man who is highly motivated to work. He is not in the "hard to help" category.

The government has accepted in principle an amendment to the welfare reform bill requiring decision takers in the welfare-to-work programme to regard the wellbeing of children; but we should not ignore the wellbeing of the adults on which the children depend."