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campaign against welfare cuts and poverty

And TBF, 20 months was probably a tap on the wrist with a feather:the law is not generally given to kindness where threats to set fire to things are concerned.
 
Britain on Benefits tonight on Channel 4 - 8.00pm (25/2/2013)

The Disability Living Allowance helps more than three million people lead useful lives. It pays for transport and carers, meaning that disabled people can work and lead independent lives.

But the benefit bill has to be cut, and the government plans to take more than half a million claimants off DLA. What will that mean for those who depend on it?

Talking to fellow Paralympians, disabled army veterans and disabled people in work, wheelchair basketball ace Ade Adepitan goes in search of answers, and asks if this hugely ambitious and expensive plan to reassess disabled people has been properly thought through.
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Libertad said:
They're getting hammered from all sides. :)
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and they're out sort of and very stroppily

Sue Ryder has reviewed its position with regard to the Department for Work and Pensions’ mandatory back-to-work schemes.

Our priority at Sue Ryder is providing hospice and long term care in our Health Centres across the UK. We enable this with volunteers in both Care Centres and in our Retail Shops. Overall we have 10,000 volunteers working alongside our staff to support our service users. Of those 10,000 volunteers fewer than 10% are on Government placements.

Recent online lobbying using strong and emotive language and making misleading claims about our volunteering practices has presented a risk to our critical work. Equally we need to protect our service users, their families, our supporters and Sue Ryder staff and volunteers from any further distress.

Therefore, we have taken the decision to withdraw from the DWP’s mandatory back-to-work schemes. We do this with a heavy heart as our volunteers, including those on placements, regularly tell us how much they have benefited from their time with us and we are immensely grateful to them for their time and dedication. We will undertake a phased withdrawal from the scheme so as not to financially disadvantage any of our volunteers on this type of placement.
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http://www.facebook.com/SueRyderNational
 
Media watch: RT has been broadcasting a really nasty package on how millions are "happy to live and not work due to UK safety net" including interviews with Hard Right characters like Mark Littlewood, worrying as RT has been very good on poverty issues, this was more like Fox or the BBC.

Meanwhile on the Wright Stuff, Lowri Turner going on about loads of fiddlers with DLA and that people need to be assessed, of course in reality fraud is low and tests are already frequent and robust...

edit, oh, and BBC had saints and scroungers on at the same time, part of a new series of twenty, free speech eh...
 
Benefit Justice Summit – 9th March 11am – ULU, Malet Street, London


To book your place email benefitjustice@gmail.com or fill in the form on benefitjustice.wordpress.com

What can you do before 9th March

-Let us know what’s happening in your local area, how cuts are affecting people and what campaigns are building up to oppose the attacks

-Raise awareness of the changes coming in with leafleting and meetings. Let us know if you would like a speaker.

-Organise protests and build local campaigns


Follow the Campaign for Benefit Justice on facebook and twitter:

@benefitjustice

[URL='http://www.facebook.com/benefitjustice[QUOTE]']www.facebook.com/benefitjustice[/URL]
New national organisation forming against benefit cuts and hopefully for positive change, sounds promising, SWP inv, etc, but reports say egos and agendas being left at the door, people and groups maybe realising the utter catasophre millions are facing, I do hope so. My council is forcing everyone, unemployed, disabled to pay 16 pounds a month for council tax.
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'An organising meeting called on Saturday 19th January by Defend Council Housing (DCH), Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Right to Work (RtW) attracted around 40 people representing 32 different campaign groups and union branches to build an umbrella campaign to oppose ConDem attacks on the poor and fight for benefit justice. The idea for the meeting came from a workshop on Welfare and Austerity hosted by DPAC and RtW at the Unite the Resistance conference in London in November.
Anger and desperation are mounting as benefit claimants brace themselves for changes due to come in this April at a time when many are already having to choose between heating and eating. The Bedroom Tax will mean tenants having to find around a £1000 a year to plug the cut in Housing Benefit, something that is simply unaffordable for people also facing a cut in Council Tax Support through what is fast becoming known as the new Poll Tax, and the benefit cap. Disability benefits are under attack on an unprecedented scale with cuts to DLA set to remove essential support from more than 600,000 claimants and the closure of the Independent Living Fund literally returning disabled people to the institutions. Unemployed workers are labelled as skivers and scroungers when the reality is there are no jobs and mandatory work placements are being used to drive down wages. Many low paid workers who will be expected to implement the changes will also be affected by them as research by union PCS has shown.

Campaign groups and actions are multiplying as people are left with no option but to fightback. In Liverpool last week 100 tenants attended a meeting called by Defend Your Homes Against the Bedroom Tax with plans for February to occupy a local housing association that is using housing benefit cuts to push tenants into unpaid work. Local Councils are being targeted with protests called at town halls such as those organised by Camden United for Benefit Justice. A facebook group called Anti Bedroom Tax has over 6000 members, many of whom have never been politically active before. Fuel Poverty Action is linking up with Greater London Pensioners Association and Disabled People Against Cuts on a weekend of action from 15th – 17th February and Boycott Workfare has a week of action planned from 18th – 23rd March.
The Campaign for Benefit Justice is about uniting the growing resistance, overcoming the divide and rule tactics the Government is using to get away with its assault on the 99% and bringing together disabled people, tenants, unemployed workers, trade unions, students, pensioner, single mothers and others to oppose benefit cuts.
We will be holding an event in London in early March with protests planned for budget day. More details to follow. For more information or to sign up to the statement below please contact info@defendcouncilhousing.org.uk.
Campaign for Benefit Justice – Statement
Cuts in benefits are an unjust attack on the poor. Cuts concentrated on Housing Benefit are already breaking up families, communities and support networks. They will mean poverty, debt and evictions.
We oppose all cuts in benefits and tax credits. We did not cause the banking and economic crisis and will not be scapegoated to pay for it.
We reject false divisions and stigmatisation of people who are low-paid or unpaid.
We will join with local and national campaigns including disabled peoples, tenants, unemployed workers, trade unions, students, pensioner, single mothers and others to oppose benefit cuts
We will support and link up local campaigns.
We oppose all evictions and legal action against those hit by benefit cuts and support all actions taken in defence.'



Heavy SWP inv, just hope it doesn't go belly up, its too important..

they also need to say what they would like in terms of a just benefits system as well, imo..anyway, the campaign as in the title is now a distinct reality..
 
I'm working my way through this combined report from the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church, the Church of Scotland and the United Reformed Church. I'm not one for God-botherers at all but actually it's excellent.

The belief that families are choosing to live on welfare as a ’lifestyle choice‘ is common.
The ’lifestyle‘ which people living on welfare experience is one with a very low income,
on average less happy, and one with poorer than average health for themselves and their
children. It would appear to be a strange choice to make.
Click to expand...

The term “generations of worklessness” deliberately implies laziness,
and suggests an entire family sitting for their whole lives in front of the
television. It is important to note that the statistics for those who have
“never worked” will include people who cannot work due to disability or
caring for a family member, and that any temporary or seasonal work is
ignored in the government’s statistics.
Those few in the “two generations of worklessness” category tend to live in
areas of high unemployment and usually the youngest person of working
age is a recent entrant to the job market, so has not been unemployed for
long.
For example, a family would be counted as two generations of worklessness
if one parent was seriously disabled, the other parent was their long term
carer in temporary employment and their child had just turned 16 but did
not have a college place.
Click to expand...

A comfortable story which assigns blame to
those living in poverty has become easy to
believe because it is so widespread and often
repeated. Yet there is danger in comfort. The
typical family in poverty in the UK is not made up
of the feckless, workless scroungers of popular
imagination. More typical is a person in low-paid
work, or a person recently unemployed and soon
to find another low-paid job. More typical is
someone who scrimps and saves and does without
to make sure their family is able to make it to the
end of the week.
The comfortable story of poverty allows the
majority of people to live in comfort and security,
largely unaware of the difficulties that many
others face. It neutralises our response to people
who struggle - not with criminality and anti-social
behaviour, but to cover the essentials of feeding
a family, clothing growing children and heating
homes. The comfortable myths about poverty
allow us to believe that people in poverty are
deserving of their poverty, and that it is neither
our fault nor our problem.
The conversation about poverty has concentrated
on fraud, addiction and a culture of entitlement.
The implication is that if you tackle these faults,
then you tackle poverty. It also suggests that
poverty can be confronted without impacting on
the lives of anyone else – except perhaps reducing
the tax we pay. Politicians and parts of the media
have reinforced this belief and told us what we
want to hear. These myths have been a distraction
from the reality of spending cuts that will
continue to have, a dramatic effect on the living
standards of the most vulnerable in our country.
Click to expand...

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/files/truth_and_lies_report_final.pdf
 
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