campaign against welfare cuts and poverty

[Awesome Wells]

The obsession with punitive conditionality is obscene, people would jump at genuine help perhaps offered at a multi-purpose centre,

I know lets call them community centres, but aren't they being closed down?

Exactly. Getting some semblance of financial security, if only temporary, through winning my ESA tribunal has made all the difference. But the capitalists cannot and will not see how a carrot is better than the barbed wire wrapped club they currently use. It will become a vicious downward spiral until we descend into chaos. People always respond more to compassion honesty and support.

 

[treelover]

Benefits Street? It's nothing like the James Turner Street we researched
The fieldwork we did in Birmingham produced a picture of a community very different to that portrayed in Channel 4's series

"James Turner Street? I'm sure I've heard of it," I mused, when watching the trailer for the first episode of Channel 4's Benefits Street. But it didn't look like or seem to be the same street that I was soon to recall. Within a few seconds we had statistics quoted by a narrator – "only 5% working … almost everyone on benefits" – and residents to set the scene. Images of rubbish piled high were provided backed by a collection of dysfunctional individuals paraded in front of the cameras. And then it clicked.
I first went to James Turner Street in 2008 for my company, Vector Research. Specialising in researching what are known as "hard-to-access" groups and neighbourhoods, we had been commissioned by the city council and Urban Living, one of the government's housing pathfinder organisations seeking to improve communities in north-west Birmingham, to produce a report on the area. The project, conducted in partnership with Ark Housing Consultancy, was a neighbourhood renewal study to look at the conditions of properties and to gather a range of data from residents to identify their priorities for future intervention.

Great, Benefit Street exposed, got Love Productions bang to rights, the 'debate will be interesting, researchers who have worked in the area say it is nothing like the programme, yet policy is clearly being made on the back of that rubbish.

 

[treelover]

http://labourlist.org/2014/01/rache...ach-to-social-security-taking-the-next-steps/


Reeves speech to the IPPR, her plans are worse than even the media are reporting.

 

[Awesome Wells]

FFS someone pull her or Merelybland aside and have a word with them. This is ridiculous.

 

[BigTom]

i don't think it's words that are needed unless those words are die scum! and issued shortly before doing violence unto their worthless bodies

edit: Actually, their bodies aren't worthless. Organ donation. I retract my insult.

 

[Treacle Toes]

1300 people on ‪#‎sickness‬ ‪#‎benefit‬ ‪#‎DEAD‬ after being told to begin work related activities immediately admits @dwppressoffice https://t.co/warnqsskJO

According to Iain Duncan Smith’s team, every year, more than 40,000 people on Sickness Benefits (eg. ‪#‎ESA‬) die. Over a three year period more than 125,000 people had died while on sickness benefit. During the lifetime of this parliament, 200,000+ will die on sickness benefit.

 

[Frankie Jack]

Food bank issues parcels for those too poor to heat dinner
Charity distributes products that can be prepared by adding boiling water or eaten cold in a 'sign of how bad things are'

Only time I've ever experienced this poor was during miners strikes over the years. This isn't heat or eat. This is can't heat OR eat.. !!

Edit to say.. I doubt my JSA will get me or my key/card meters to the next giro either.

 

[treelover]

 

[Awesome Wells]

Sooner or later IDS - yes even IDS - will have to take his thumbs out of his ears and open his eyes.

 

[Greebo]

<snip> This isn't heat or eat. This is can't heat OR eat.. !!

Edit to say.. I doubt my JSA will get me or my key/card meters to the next giro either.

That really is bad - even when my grant was late I could just about afford to use the cooker.

Benefit claims taking ages to start (and then to process) combined with near systematic dissuasion from putting in a claim in the first place are probably at the root of this.

 

[DotCommunist]

I see Rachel 'hammer of the poor' Reeves is floating the idea of a 20 quid top up for claimants with more than five years NI

a) thats a risible amount

b) deserving/undeserving

 

[treelover]

It's inevitable, this is one very consistent public demand, normal on the continent

 

[Frankie Jack]

That really is bad - even when my grant was late I could just about afford to use the cooker.

Benefit claims taking ages to start (and then to process) combined with near systematic dissuasion from putting in a claim in the first place are probably at the root of this.

Add in the sanctions dished out for ridiculous reasons and the price increases in food and fuel. It's a disaster.

 

[Frankie Jack]

Sooner or later IDS - yes even IDS - will have to take his thumbs out of his ears and open his eyes.

Never gonna happen IMHO.

 

[Greebo]

Never gonna happen IMHO.

Agreed. But I'd love to see him completely stripped of his safety net and made to live for 5 years under the system he's brought in.

 

[Frankie Jack]

Mrs rich daddies girl would have to divorce him. The party would have to expel him. We can live in hope..

 

[Awesome Wells]

FFS someone needs to reprogramme Rachel Reeves. This is where your policies will take us, the only difference is that the Tories get there quicker. High Speed Rail straight thorugh the twin constituencies of decency and compassion all the way to Black Heart Central.

 

[Awesome Wells]

I see Rachel 'hammer of the poor' Reeves is floating the idea of a 20 quid top up for claimants with more than five years NI

a) thats a risible amount

b) deserving/undeserving

She might as well just cross the floor. What's the point of her?

I say bombard her with messages telling her we don't want this shit.

For all the good it will do.

 

[The39thStep]

Fascinating Twitter feed from Debt Summit conference

Lambeth Council reckon that a third of pay day loans are taken out to pay energy bills and another contributer reckons it is more socially acceptable to get a pay day loan than be seen to be seeking debt advice

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23debtsummit&src=hash

 

[Treacle Toes]

Mentally ill woman on Coalition Work Programme told to find work despite being in a COMA

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sheila-holt-mentally-ill-woman-3048449#.Ut-Bz-JFDIU

 

[Frances Lengel]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sheila-holt-mentally-ill-woman-3048449#.Ut-Bz-JFDIU

Well she can't expect to be able to stay in bed all day with the blinds drawn while the taxpayer foots the bill can she now?

 

[Treacle Toes]

My eyessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss, someone please put this man out of his demented misery!

Iain Duncan Smith compares being on benefits to slavery and suggests he is acting in tradition of abolitionist

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ing-in-tradition-of-abolitionist-9080982.html

 

[Mr.Bishie]

Just when you thought this fuckwit couldn't piss you off any more.

Jesus fucking wept!

 

[teqniq]

That's some weird psychological justification going on right there.

 

[weepiper]

he's lost the fucking plot.

 

[Awesome Wells]

Wh..what the jedi jesus fuck?

 

[Awesome Wells]

That's some weird psychological justification going on right there.

he's mentally ill. It's the only explanation. The man is sick in the head.

 

[Brainaddict]

But it makes sense from the full-throttle Randian neoliberalism perspective. Any type of state support is socialism and anti-liberty and basically evil and should be abolished for the good of all. That's the scary thing here, not that the guy is nuts but that he's talking from an entire intellectual perspective developed for and by the elite, and among his peers he'll be able to find plenty of people to agree with him.

 

[SikhWarrioR]

he's lost the fucking plot.

Did iain duncan shit have a plot to lose in the first place

 

[Awesome Wells]

But it makes sense from the full-throttle Randian neoliberalism perspective. Any type of state support is socialism and anti-liberty and basically evil and should be abolished for the good of all. That's the scary thing here, not that the guy is nuts but that he's talking from an entire intellectual perspective developed for and by the elite, and among his peers he'll be able to find plenty of people to agree with him.

Apart from all the benefits he receives.

These people simply think benefits are, perversely, to be 'earned', which is their code word for 'hard working'.

Folk don't work and get paid. Instead they earn their money. People on shitty wages don't earn enough, in their vernacular, because they aren't, in the eyes of the tories, hard working enough. IDS earns lots because he's hard working (obviously!) and he's a tory (and all tories are, like pink elephants, hard working), so he's entitled (that word again) to a big fat house, a land subsidy, expenses, and hundreds of thousands, etc.

The whole thing is monstrously perverse. The guy is off his head.