ATOS

[go.oot.by.dog]

Dispatches : 8PM Channel 4, Monday 18/03/13.

 

"Rich and on Benefits"

 

Michael Buerk investigates claims that Britain's pensioners are part of an untouchable group when it comes to government welfare cuts and that some should not be receiving any help at all.

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/austerity-on-the-menu-food-bank-needs-1m-to-meet-increased-demand-caused-by-iain-duncansmiths-welfare-reforms-8538113.html?origin=internalSearch

 

Austerity on the menu: food bank needs £1m to meet increased demand caused by 'Iain Duncan-Smith's welfare reforms'

Explosion in numbers dependent on hand-outs from 29,000 in 2009-10 to nearly 300,000 in 2012-13

 

CHARLIE COOPER SUNDAY 17 MARCH 2013

 

Tens of thousands more Britons will be forced to rely on emergency food hand-outs when the Coalition’s controversial welfare reforms come into force next month, the head of the leading food bank charity has warned.

 

Chris Mould, the chief executive of the Trussell Trust, said that Iain Duncan-Smith’s policymakers “don’t have an adequate understanding†of the reality of poverty in the UK.

 

The trust, which manages more than 300 food banks throughout the UK, today launches an appeal for £1m in donations to help it cope with an expected rush on food banks after 1 April – the day that a tranche of changes to welfare come into effect.

 

Mr Duncan-Smith’s Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has sought to play down the significance of the rise of food banks, claiming that an explosion in numbers dependent on hand-outs from 29,000 in 2009-10 to nearly 300,000 in 2012-13, is predominately a result of better marketing by the Trussell Trust.

 

But Mr Mould told The Independent that there was a “very strong link†between real-terms cuts to welfare payments and increasing use of food banks. “When people are on low incomes and just managing to get by, marginal changes that appear to other people to be really quite small, just a few pounds here and there each week, are very significant,†he said. “They can be the difference between getting food on the table or not. People that have been involved in formulating the new welfare policy don’t have an adequate understanding of how precarious the situation for people on low incomes has become.â€

 

From 1 April, annual rises in benefit payments will be cut to an increase of just 1 per cent. On the same day, 660,000 households with a spare room will see an average £14-per-week-cut to their housing benefit with the introduction of the so-called “bedroom taxâ€. The benefit cap, which is predicted to cost 50,000 households an average of £93 per week when it is rolled out nationwide, will also be trialled in four London boroughs from 1 April.

 

Volunteers at Trussell Trust have been warned to expect more clients and now the public is being asked to donate “the cost of an Easter egg†to help acquire more emergency food.

 

A DWP spokesman said that though the Government “recognise the role of voluntary organisations play in helping people in local communitiesâ€, benefit payments were high enough to stop people going hungry.

[go.oot.by.dog]

Atos,Conservative and Lib Dem Nazis -

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS2-dS3AKko

[shetlandpeat]

 

Volunteers at Trussell Trust have been warned to expect more clients and now the public is being asked to donate “the cost of an Easter egg†to help acquire more emergency food.

 

A DWP spokesman said that though the Government “recognise the role of voluntary organisations play in helping people in local communitiesâ€, benefit payments were high enough to stop people going hungry.

 

I wonder why over 128,000 people rely on foodbanks. Not really a mark of success.

There are new food banks being set up everywhere, generally by the existing community groups that would fall into the well off retired. Muslims and Christians here are working together to see that folk do not go hungry, get sick and give birth to children who will have a problem due to a poor, short diet.

[paulb]

with respect it was under labour that there was a need for food banks. none of the parties have clean hands when it comes to shafting the poor.

[ArabiaTerra]

with respect it was under labour that there was a need for food banks. none of the parties have clean hands when it comes to shafting the poor.

 

Maybe not, but with labour the poor got shafted as a by-product of poorly thought out and implemented policies and an excess of sucking up to the rich and the city.

 

Whereas with the tories, shafting the poor seems to be the primary objective of government. There's a big difference.

[paulb]

not if your the poor its not.

[shetlandpeat]

Yup, about 20,000 used them then. What you may have missed is that I did not mention that initially, but, thanks for the history lesson, now with that over we can get on with working at a local level to support folk who need it. After all, it is the big society (another history lesson lol).

 

Sadly, your history lesson will not stop future generations of folk with long term medical conditions because they were unable to be nourished in the womb.

[paulb]

and it will not be forgot by the disabled that they can't trust any party. yours included peat.

 

please tell us brown was not planning similar cuts.

 

i wont talk about under 25s not being allowed housing benifit.

removal of benefits from under 18s.

the atos joke.

or even the bank bailouts.

 

how much richer are blair and brown now to when they started. they all stink of greed no matter who they claim to represent.

[shetlandpeat]

More history Paul, how about helping to remedy some of it. Again, it is all sorted now. I have come to the conclusion that if you keep harping back to days you cannot change, you may be unable to change yourself.

The best folk can do is to make sure the community survives this the best they can, but, folk seem to want the council to do it all for them, but with no staff because folk wanted them to go to satisfy the lack of their own action. I am not just talking about you Paul, sorry. There seems to be a problem with getting folks to help out, of course, there will be if you are not going to remunerate them and make then jump through hoops. Alas, that is a situation that has been created by the fears of folk. Hence the delays with Criminal Checks and all that sort of thing.

 

Regardless of who you think is to blame (can only be the people, can it not, they keep putting these sorts in some form of control), what is going on now is the real issue.

 

Although, folk are happy to let others take that control, then complain.

 

I meet several folk a week who have been the victim of the ideology of the right of politics, it is something they do, time after time, alas, that is also history.

 

This will take generations to heal.

 

"Billy Green Is Dead"

 

The economy is in an uproar

The whole damn countries is in the red

Tax and fares are going up

You say, "Billy Green is dead"?

The government can't decide on bussin'

or at least thats what they said

 

Yea I heard you, when you told me

You said, "Billy Green was dead"

But let me tell you bout these hot-pants that this big legged sister wore

when i partied with the alphas

what?

Billy took an overdose

well now junkies will be junkies

but did you see Gunsmoke last night?

man they had themselves a shootout and folks was dyin' left and right

At the end when Matt was cornerd i had damn near give up hope

 

What you? Why you keep on interrupting me? you say, My son is taking dope?

Call the law and call the doctor!

What you mean i shouldn't scream?

My only son is taking dope?

Should i sit here like I'm pleased?

 

Is that familiar anybody?

 

Check out whats inside your head

Because it never seems to matter

when it's Billy Green who's dead

 

Oh yes, and this comment now,

 

 

how much richer are blair and brown now to when they started. they all stink of greed no matter who they claim to represent.

 

Blowing out of ure herse a bit there Paul, although Blair may have made some money, I do take issue with your factually incorrect spew..

 

"As the Register of Members' Financial Interests makes clear for every event Mr Brown undertakes Mr Brown personally receives nothing at all because he donates all money either direct to charities or to support Sarah and Gordon's charitable and public service work,"

 

 

 

Indeed Mr Brown's sole personal earnings are his salary as an MP because he has also renounced the prime ministerial pension he was entitled to receive immediately he retired as PM."

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/02/17/gordon-brown-has-earned-more-than-14m-since-he-quit-as-prime-minister_n_1284025.html

 

http://gordonandsarahbrown.com/

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://i1359.photobucket.com/albums/q799/magnacube/b456dbbd-14b7-44f6-9928-3094ad485d0e_zps2648893e.jpg

[go.oot.by.dog]

So there were over 50 bedroom tax protests that took place over the weekend from one end of the country to the other yet it seemed to get very little media coverage.......mmh think they maybe just could not make it? or perhaps there were forces at play that prevented them from covering it

 

Also yesterday in the House of Commons they actually voted to introduce a retroactive law through parliament that will overturn the outcome of a court of appeal judgment and ensure the government no longer has to pay £130m in benefit rebates to about a quarter of a million jobseekers and yet again very little coverage.....mmh think they maybe never knew about it? or perhaps there were forces at play that prevented them from covering it

 

I also note that our MP again voted in favor of it

 

Labour MP John McDonnell made an absolutely excellent speech in the debate before the voting took place and it is well worth watching -

 

 

So it seems now that we just can not win as if the Government make a mistake and are told so by the Judicial system they will just introduce new Laws and over turn the decisions made by the Courts and carry on regardless which makes an absolute mockery of everything........

 

On a side note i noticed that the SNP MPs all voted against it which is more than can be said for the Labour ones as the vote was - 277 Ayes and only 57 Noes.

[ArabiaTerra]

So it seems now that we just can not win as if the Government make a mistake and are told so by the Judicial system they will just introduce new Laws and over turn the decisions made by the Courts and carry on regardless which makes an absolute mockery of everything........

 

On a side note i noticed that the SNP MPs all voted against it which is more than can be said for the Labour ones as the vote was - 277 Ayes and only 57 Noes.

 

There's only one positive reason I can think of for labour backing this retrogressive change to the law:

 

When they get back in after the next election, they can retrospectively go after the bonus-boys in the City, and the tories won't have a leg to stand on.

 

(Hey, a guy can dream, ok?)

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://i1359.photobucket.com/albums/q799/magnacube/ba168176-ec0d-4f52-b6b5-40ba0d232f44_zps0ff57c97.jpg

[go.oot.by.dog]

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/workfare-why-did-so-many-labour-mps-accept-this-brutal-unforgivable-attack-on-vulnerable-people-8542193.html

 

Workfare: Why did so many Labour MPs accept this brutal, unforgivable attack on vulnerable people?

 

Labour's leadership is failing to uphold its party's values

 

What a disgraceful, grubby chapter in the history of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Usually when a Tory Government is in power, giving working people and the poorest in society a kicking, any critical voices of the Labour leadership are savaged for aiding and abetting the enemy. It's the Tories we should be opposing, or so the line goes. But what happens when the Labour leadership actively rides to the rescue of the Tories, blatantly and overtly helping them as they attack some of the poorest in society while riding roughshod over British law?

 

Yesterday's vote should not have been clearer. A Tory Government was defeated in the courts because it broke the law. The Department of Work and Pensions, according to the Court of Appeal, had illegally sanctioned unemployed people who had been forced to work for free. Being forced to work for free – with the taxpayer picking up the bill for a measly £71 a week Jobseekers Allowance – is known as workfare. Those driven on to workfare had not been given properly informed about the schemes and – by violating the law - the Government was due to cough up an average of £550 to 231,000 illegally punished people.

 

The Government lost in part because a courageous young woman, Cait Reilly, refused to work for free in Poundland. In Cameron's Britain, unemployed people are often dismissed as workshy scroungers lacking any initiative. Reilly is a woman who dragged the British Government through the courts in the face of relentless snide attacks from overpaid journalists and ministers, exposing and utterly humiliating them. I hope she whacks all that on her CV.

 

So what was the Tory response? Not only to change the law, but to do so retrospectively. No laws were now broken, because those laws have been changed in hindsight. The Government has effectively declared that it is above the law. “The precedent is a terrifying threat to civil liberty,†says classical liberal think-tank Civitas. “The entire concept of 'Rule of Law' is undermined as soon as the government starts to cover its back like this.â€

 

Gone missing

 

A straightforward argument for Labour, then. An honest day's pay for an honest day's work is at stake. The rule of law is being attacked. Every single Labour MP would surely near-instinctively file through the 'No' lobbies, proudly defending some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in society, as well as the British legal tradition.

 

Think again. Labour's spokesperson on the welfare state, Liam Byrne, demanded that Labour MPs merely abstain; sit on their hands, hide in the toilet, whatever. It's actually worse than that: this Bill only received emergency timetabling with Labour's help. It was supposedly in exchange for a concession: that an “independent review of the sanctions regime†must report to Parliament. The history of “independent reviews†suggest that “pointless exercise†would be a generous description, at best.

 

Not that all Labour MPs disposed of their backbones at their parliamentary selection meetings. 40 Labour MPs took the revolutionary course of voting against a Tory government. Among them were the diminished group of working-class Labour MPs: Ian Lavery, a former miners' leader; Ian Mearns, a former British Gas worker; Graham Morris, the son of a miner; Steve Rotherham, an ex-bricklayer; John McDonnell, the son of a bus driver; David Crausby, a former turner; ex-miners like David Anderson and Dennis Skinner. Here are MPs who remember what the Labour Party was founded to do: to give working people a voice, not least when they come under attack from a Tory government.

 

Their speeches displayed their commitment to the original purpose of the Labour Party. “People want to work for the best intentions and the right reasons,†said Ian Lavery. 'They want self-esteem and finances... It is not right to talk about people as, 'This group of claimants.' They are ordinary people with feelings, and many of them want to get on in life.'â€

 

They were joined by Scottish and Welsh nationalists and even the Ulster loyalists of the DUP, as well as the formidable Green MP for Brighton Pavillion, Caroline Lucas. “It's incredibly disappointing that Labour's opposition to these proposals appears to amount to nothing more than seeking very minor 'concessions' that don't touch the core principles of the issue,†Lucas says. “A meek call for a review of the regulations in a year's time is frankly no Opposition at all.â€

Byrne's record

 

What do we learn from this debacle? Yet again, we learn that Labour will never offer a coherent alternative to the Tories so long as the likes of Liam Byrne wields influence. In contrast to the Laverys, Mearns and McDonnells, Byrne represents the worst elements of New Labour. The party's upper echelons became overrun with generic hacks with ambition in place of principle, with CVs that suggested no demonstrable commitment to what Labour was founded to do. Byrne is a striking case in point: a former management consultant and merchant banker, who has yet to provide any convincing case about why he even joined the Labour party in the first place.

 

Here is a man responsible for one of the stupidest acts in modern British politics: leaving a note in the Treasury for his successors that read: “I am afraid there is no money. Kind regards – and good luck!†It summed up the abysmal failure of the Labour leadership to take on the Tory myths and lies about the consequences of the great financial crisis. It was perversely left to critics of Blair and Brown like myself to defend New Labour's economic record from their own supporters – that it was not public spending that sent Britain into the abyss.

 

Here is a man who happily participated in the shameful Tory attempt to turn the working poor against the unemployed. “Labour is the party of hard workers not free-riders. The clue is in the name,†he once said. “The party of workers, not shirkers.†Scrounger-bashing from a man who knows a thing or two about scrounging from the state: he once rented an apartment in County Hall overlooking the Thames, charging the taxpayer £2,400 a month for the privilege; claimed the maximum £400 a month for food; and even attempted to claim room service bills as expenses.

 

Here is a man who accepts the underlying principles of the Tory onslaught on the welfare state. His colleagues tell me that he did not even want to oppose the bedroom tax. It was of course New Labour who first introduced workfare, and Byrne has made it clear that “both he [iain Duncan-Smith] and I believe that sanctions are vital to give back-to-work programmes their bite.â€

Backbone

 

But there is another lesson. We desperately need more Labour MPs selected who have a backbone and do what the party was founded to do. Some on the left argue that this is a naïve exercise in abject futility. They are at best bemused as to why I have any faith in the ability of Labour to represent working people. It is not out of some misty-eyed nostalgia. As long as Labour remains linked with the unions – the biggest democratic movement in the country, representing nurses, supermarket shelf stackers, factory workers, bin collectors and other pillars of society – then there is a fight to be had. There has been no shortage of attempts to form new parties to the left of Labour: from the Independent Labour Party of the 1930s to the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, recently beaten by the Pirate Party in the Manchester Central by-election. Without exception, each and every attempt has ended in catastrophic failure, and in political conditions far better than our own.

 

A Labour Party worthy of the name: it must be fought for. But that is going to be a long haul, and the suffocating political consensus must be fought now. With the Labour leadership abdicating their responsibilities, we need a broad movement that can confidently and unreservedly challenge Tory attacks. That's why I'm throwing all my energy into building the People's Assembly, a new initiative being built by trade unions, community groups and activists, members of the Green Party, Labour Party and – most importantly – those with no political home at all. It will be a coalition of all those who despair of what is being inflicted on this country, and are determined to do something about it.

 

So yes, I'm furious about yesterday's vote, but I'm also bored of being furious. Throwing things at the TV isn't going to cut it. The likes of Iain Duncan-Smith and his de facto partner-in-crime Liam Byrne cannot be allowed to win, and if we do something about it, they won't. To paraphrase the 19 century US labour activist Joe Hill: Don't mourn, organise!