campaign against welfare cuts and poverty

[NoXion]

Looks like a series of inhuman and anonymous collections of pixels to be thoughtlessly blasted away to me. Says a lot, and none of it good.

 

[8115]

Dispatches about PIP on C4 now.

 

[friendofdorothy]

Intesting programme on tv C4 the Great Benefits Row with Ade Adepitan about PIP payment assessments now

 

[krink]

Not sure where to put this but wanted to get it off my chest. I do Housing Benefit work and just had a woman who has had the new "living" wage increase on her pay which worked out at a whopping £8 a week. This has now been reduced by a reduction in housing benefit and council tax support of £7.13 a week. so her net increase is 87p a week. what a complete con.

 

[8115]

DWP 'punishing' low-paid full-time workers under new benefits rule

 

[Greebo]

DWP 'punishing' low-paid full-time workers under new benefits rule

WTAF?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Not sure where to put this but wanted to get it off my chest. I do Housing Benefit work and just had a woman who has had the new "living" wage increase on her pay which worked out at a whopping £8 a week. This has now been reduced by a reduction in housing benefit and council tax support of £7.13 a week. so her net increase is 87p a week. what a complete con.

Fucking despicable, isn't it? Given how many people in the UK have been pushed onto HB/LHA in the last decade, you'd think that nailing people almost pound-for-pound with regard to what's actually a cost-of-living-increase (given that the NMW wasn't fit for man nor beast) would be the last thing that the bureaucratic fucks would do, but no! Let's penalise someone whose "rise" is actually less than required to compensate for risen costs!

 

[8115]

BBC reporting on pay to stay council rents are describing it as an end to subsidised rents (used this term twice).

 

[ViolentPanda]

BBC reporting on pay to stay council rents are describing it as an end to subsidised rents (used this term twice).

On which programmes, please?

 

[8115]

On which programmes, please?

Today in Parliament I think, last night 11.30.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Today in Parliament I think, last night 11.30.

Just submitted a snitty complaint asking them to get their journos to do their homework, and explaining that there is NO such subsidy.

 

[BigTom]

Secret DWP plan to CHARGE disabled people to appeal benefits decisions revealed

DWP had secret plan to start charging for disability benefit appeals never actually put forward as policy I think

Amusing poll at the bottom, do you trust the dwp? 99% say no

 

[DotCommunist]

Secret DWP plan to CHARGE disabled people to appeal benefits decisions revealed

DWP had secret plan to start charging for disability benefit appeals never actually put forward as policy I think

Amusing poll at the bottom, do you trust the dwp? 99% say no

what stinks there is that they know the money for appeals will be there, that govmnt will pay the deparments bills. So the idea to charge has nothing to do with money saving and everything with trying to reduce the embarrasing figures showing appeals being won overwhelmingly more often than lost. The devios shits

 

[treelover]

Loach film on shame of poverty in Britain moves Cannes to tears

Director Ken Loach denounced the British government's "conscious cruelty" towards the poor Friday after his film about the poverty and humiliation inflicted upon them by welfare cuts had critics at the Cannes film festival in tears.

The left-wing director, who turns 80 this year and is known for shining a light on the downtrodden, also got lengthy applause and shouts of "Bravo!" at a press conference after "I, Daniel Blake" was screened.

It tells of carpenter Daniel Blake's Kafkaesque journey to get benefits in Britain after suffering a heart attack and being told by doctors he can no longer work.

The movie's writer Paul Laverty said the research team was stunned at how people with mental health issues and disabilities were targeted by the welfare cuts.

He said people interviewed within the Department for Work and Pensions told them "they were humiliated at how they were forced to treat the public. There is nothing accidental about it."

The story taps into the despair over rising unemployment and austerity in Europe after the financial crisis.

"When I read the script I thought we have really got to make this straight away, it's such an important story to tell," producer Rebecca O'Brien said.

The movie was warmly received by critics and Variety magazine called it "a work of scalding and moving relevance."

Loach film on shame of poverty in Britain moves Cannes to tears

Maybe Kens' last film will make the issues viral, questions will certainly be asked, why civil society, etc, didn't do more.

 

[treelover]

Film has won Palme d'Or at Cannes, a real shame there is no mass movement on the issue to take adavantage of it..

 

[teqniq]

do they serve spam?

 

[ViolentPanda]

do they serve spam?

At room temperature, in thick slices.

 

[teqniq]

At room temperature, in thick slices.

Ah I should explain there was a shedload of spam postings above that one of mine concerning some eating establishments but they've been removed now.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Ah I should explain there was a shedload of spam postings above that one of mine concerning some eating establishments but they've been removed now.

Bah, there was me thinking you'd been all intermalecktual, and were passing wry comment on treelover having put the same "wins the Palme d'Or" post on 3 different threads!

 

[teqniq]

tbh I hadn't thought of that.

 

[Greebo]

tbh I hadn't thought of that.

Shoulda happened.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Interesting news.

A project run by Oxford city council and the Department for Work and Pensions found long-term jobless claimants were 2% less likely to find work for every pound of income lost through housing benefit cuts.

The EU-funded project sought to help unemployed claimants who faced housing benefit cuts as a result of the government's benefit cap and other welfare changes.

 

[Wilhelmina.Trav]

Can we slag off Cameron n the Tories here? I hate what they've done to our benefits system. The level of stress dealing with all these changes has been phenomenal.

It's ok for these politician sitting down in their comfy chairs n posh suits while people are stressing whether they're going to put food on the table

Makes my blood boil. Scum of the earth the lotta um. And did I mention I hate politicians? Bloody assholes.

Evey

 

[treelover]

Every week Charlotte sees desperation at first hand – outside the job centre

Frances Ryan
Her group have been helping jobseekers exposed to the vagaries of Britain’s benefit system. She says people feel like criminals in a culture of fear

It will be two years this summer since Charlotte Hughes and her group of activists in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, first gathered outside the local jobcentre to try to address some of the damage they believe it’s causing.

Hughes’s heavily pregnant daughter, then 19, had just been hit with a three-year benefit sanction. Her offence, Hughes says, was telling a workfare interviewer that she was pregnant, which meant she couldn’t take part in the unpaid labour needed to keep her benefits. “She was crying afterwards,” Hughes tells me. “She had to come back and live with me – she had no electric, gas, or food.”




Hughes made a decision there and then to get justice for – in her words – the “sitting ducks” exposed to Britain’s benefit system: jobseekers, low-waged workers, and claimants struggling with disability or mental health problems. On a Thursday morning in August 2014, the 44-year-old stood outside Ashton-under-Lyne’s jobcentre for two hours with a few friends: offering words of support to people going through the doors, pointing out local services, and handing out information leaflets on benefit rights (correcting misinformation given by the jobcentre is key, Hughes says).

They have been there every week since. The size of the group fluctuates, from three to 30: it includes retired people, the self-employed and former benefit claimants who have seen the system first hand. The important thing, Hughes says, is that they’re a constant presence. “Welfare rights are overrun. Citizens Advice too. But we’re right outside. Every week. They know where to find us,” she says. “That space outside the jobcentre is a safe place. Because they’ve not got one inside.”



Every week Charlotte sees desperation at first hand – outside the job centre | Frances Ryan

Well done Charlotte and group, wish there were more like you.

 

[Pickman's model]

Well done Charlotte and group, wish there were more like you.

have you ever thought of doing something similar?

 

[treelover]

I did, and you fucking know it, with little support, thats why i am so bitter about the left, civil society, etc, and its priorities, now do one stalker, and stop soiling the thread.

 

[crossthebreeze]

DWP, Atos, and Disability Minister Justin Tomlinson have been harassing a child sexual abuse survivor with severe PTSD who is waiting to give evidence in court, who has been told by police that he can't discuss the case, including the abuse he suffered, or allow DWP/ATOS access to his medical records, as the case is sub judice - so there's no way he can have a fair reassessment of PIP.

 

[treelover]

Andy was badly injured on an oil rig. Yet he’s been judged ‘fit for work’

Frances Ryan
He’s apparently not disabled enough for sickness benefits – but he’s too disabled to stand a chance in the job market, and he’s hungry

Andy was badly injured on an oil rig. Yet he’s apparently still ‘fit for work’ | Frances Ryan

Still the brutalities continue.

 

[inva]

yes and so many of these cruel decisions that we never even hear about.

not to mention all those people who just gave up at some stage of the process because they couldn't face the stress, the hostility and the harassment that goes with it. I know I couldn't have got on the esa without help doing the forms, not a chance. it's sickening to think of how many people who could and should qualify are too isolated to get help or for whatever reason not able to get a just decision.

 

[03gills]

WTAF?

This has the potential to be a huge political miscalculation by the Conservatives, as it will include working class Tories too. I personally know someone on Tax Credits that this will eventually affect, & if they are any indicator then trust me, you can't even begin to imagine how badly shit is going to hit the fan when this scheme really kicks in.

Once in work people are entitled to financial support to top up low wages without conditionality & should be trusted to get on with their own lives.