Moral? Priceless

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill (Hansard)

*****

The Welfare Bill: A government of millionaires just made the poor poorer - and laughed as they did it (Independent) 

MPs’ pay demand signals end of ‘Austerity Britain’

MPs call for, in private at least, a 32% pay rise

All in it together?

Who are Britain's real scroungers? (Hint: they want a 32% pay rise (Herald)

 Deconstructing Iain: Coalition benefit lies fall apart at debate

In work benefits – who really benefits from them?

Stuff the workers: Osborne mugs 1.7m breadwinners with Tory welfare reforms (Mirror)

Capping welfare benefits is the moral thing to do (DT)
 
Pensioners could face universal benefit cuts after election, says Iain Duncan Smith (DM)

Clegg criticises Cameron's 'irrational' pledge to protect pensioner benefits while imposing cuts on everyone else (DM)

MPs vote for 1% benefits cap (ITV)

Benefits cuts for ‘shirkers’ passed after angry debate (Scotsman)

MPs vote on 1% benefits cap: Politics live blog (Guardian)

Duncan Smith defends benefits squeeze (Guardian)

There is a problem with welfare, but it's not 'shirkers' (Guardian)

Poorest households will be hit hardest by benefit changes, Whitehall admits (Guardian)

The Welfare State, 1942-2013, obituary (Guardian)

The Tories’ Big Lie on Tax Credit Cuts

Tell a lie often enough….

The BBC: helping the Tories force-feed falsehoods to the masses

8 January 2013

Demonisation of people on benefits is a 'stain on our society' (PCS)

"The comparison between benefits and wages is unfair and misleading. The main unemployment benefit has dramatically fallen in value from just under 21% of average wages in 1979 to 11% now. At 21%, jobseekers allowance would be £135 a week today, instead of just £71."

Nigel

Moral? Priceless

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill (Hansard)

*****

The Welfare Bill: A government of millionaires just made the poor poorer - and laughed as they did it (Independent) 

MPs’ pay demand signals end of ‘Austerity Britain’

MPs call for, in private at least, a 32% pay rise

All in it together?

Who are Britain's real scroungers? (Hint: they want a 32% pay rise (Herald)

 Deconstructing Iain: Coalition benefit lies fall apart at debate

In work benefits – who really benefits from them?

Stuff the workers: Osborne mugs 1.7m breadwinners with Tory welfare reforms (Mirror)

Capping welfare benefits is the moral thing to do (DT)
 
Pensioners could face universal benefit cuts after election, says Iain Duncan Smith (DM)

Clegg criticises Cameron's 'irrational' pledge to protect pensioner benefits while imposing cuts on everyone else (DM)

MPs vote for 1% benefits cap (ITV)

Benefits cuts for ‘shirkers’ passed after angry debate (Scotsman)

MPs vote on 1% benefits cap: Politics live blog (Guardian)

Duncan Smith defends benefits squeeze (Guardian)

There is a problem with welfare, but it's not 'shirkers' (Guardian)

Poorest households will be hit hardest by benefit changes, Whitehall admits (Guardian)

The Welfare State, 1942-2013, obituary (Guardian)

The Tories’ Big Lie on Tax Credit Cuts

Tell a lie often enough….

The BBC: helping the Tories force-feed falsehoods to the masses

8 January 2013

Demonisation of people on benefits is a 'stain on our society' (PCS)

"The comparison between benefits and wages is unfair and misleading. The main unemployment benefit has dramatically fallen in value from just under 21% of average wages in 1979 to 11% now. At 21%, jobseekers allowance would be £135 a week today, instead of just £71."

Nigel

The Poor Sheeple

Support for benefit cuts dependent on ignorance, TUC-commissioned poll finds

"Ministers cannot assume that voters will continue to back them in their plans to cap welfare benefit rises, according to a new poll commissioned by the TUC from YouGov and published today (Friday).

Voters least able to give accurate answers about benefits are the most likely to back the government's policy on cutting benefits. The poll shows that once people learn that the benefit up-rating cap will hit workers in low-paid jobs, support moves away from the government, with 40 per cent overall opposing the cap on low-paid worker benefits and only 30 per cent backing them.

The TUC's poll, carried out in the run-up to Christmas, found widespread ignorance about spending on welfare, the reality of unemployment, the generosity of benefits and the level of fraud.

TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady said: 'It is not surprising that voters want to get tough on welfare. They think the system is much more generous than it is in reality, is riddled with fraud and is heavily skewed towards helping the unemployed, who they think are far more likely to stay on the dole than is actually the case. Indeed if what the average voter thinks was true, I'd want tough action too."

TUC Benefits Survey is Bad News For Tories

"The TUC report which was splashed across the front page of The Independent yesterday shows that the Tory’s benefit bashing obsession may yet unravel as the impact of the vicious welfare cuts becomes increasingly visible."

YouGov / TUC Survey Results: Fieldwork: 11th - 12th December 2012

Why working people should fear the Coalition’s social insecurity

Welfare Reform: What Do The Public Really Think?

Nigel

It's What They Do - Does Not Matter Who They Are

Friday 04 January 2013

Voters 'brainwashed by Tory welfare myths' (Independent)

"Survey shows public ignorance of the level of benefits and who gets them

Ministers were accused last night of demonising benefits claimants in an attempt to justify their controversial decision to increase most state handouts by less than inflation.

Polling commissioned by the Trades Union Congress suggests that a campaign by Tory ministers is turning voters against claimants – but only because the public is being fed "myths" about those who rely on benefits.

The criticism comes before a crunch Commons vote next Tuesday on the Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill, which will ensure that most benefits and tax credits will rise by only one per cent for the next three years. Labour, which will vote against the measure, will try today to answer Tory claims that it is "soft" on scroungers by announcing a "tough love" plan to force adults who have been out of work for more than two years to take up a government "job guarantee" or lose their benefits."

Editorial: Who said the nasty party had gone away? (Independent)

Friday 4 January 2013

Labour proposes 'tough but fair' jobs and welfare scheme (Guardian)
Labour urges temporary jobs for long-term unemployed (BBC)
Making work pay: Balls announces compulsory jobs guarantee for long-term unemployed (LFF)
Job Guarantees give hope to long-term unemployed (LFF)
Labour's job guarantee (PH)
Labour revisits old welfare ghosts with its jobs guarantee (Spectator)
The Trouble with a Job Guarantee
Ed Balls: Britain needs real welfare reform that is tough, fair and that works
Working reforms will introduce job guarantee plan for long-term claimants over 25, announces Ed Balls

"Shadow chancellor Ed Balls says the £1bn jobs subsidy would be linked to a cut in tax relief for higher earners' pensions. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

Labour will move to protect itself from the politically damaging charge that it is soft on welfare claimants, by proposing that every adult aged over 25 and out of work for more than two years should be obliged to take up a government-provided job for six months, or lose benefits.

The "compulsory work or lose benefits" announcement by the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, and the shadow work and pensions secretary, Liam Byrne, comes ahead of what threatens to be a fraught second reading debate on Tuesday over Labour's refusal to back a government bill restricting increases in benefits and tax credits to 1% a year for the next three years – which is likely to represent a 4% cut in real terms."

Friday, 4 January 2013 

Back to the future?

"On many forums, including the comments on newspaper articles, it has become commonplace for people to forecast a return to the workhouse.  As a historian, in an amateur sort of way, I have begun to see genuine parallels between the plans and attitudes of the current governing classes and the climate of opinion which brought about the Poor Laws of 1834.".

January 9th, 2013 

Labour’s real guarantee: Workfare

"Last week saw the Labour Party announce its own form of workfare: the Job Guarantee. Labour, who introduced workfare and welfare reform into the UK whilst in government, now guarantees a number of things: It guarantees that yet again politicians will give billions of taxpayers’ money to subsidise big private businesses – probably the likes of failing and government contract reliant A4E, and workfare-users ASDA – helping them to drive up their profit margins. It guarantees to further undermine real job vacancies as companies replace job roles with subsidised compulsory short-term placements."

Labour’s Job Plans, Concerns After Some Serious Thought

Isn’t it time Labour’s plan for jobs and growth was different from the Coalition’s?

Nigel

X% Of A Lot More, Is Better Than Y% Of Very Little - Fix X, Not Y

10:00AM GMT 01 Jan 2013

Benefit increases far outstrip private sector pay, DWP figures show

"Benefit claimants have seen their handouts far outstrip increases in average private sector pay for those in work, figures show."

Wednesday 2 January 2013 

Benefit rises outstrip private sector pay, says government
Benefit wars: IDS on offensive before uprating vote

"Labour party accuses Tory-led coalition of being out of touch with reality over plans to stem rise in working-age benefits."

12:17pm UK, Wednesday 02 January 2013

Benefits Rise 'Almost Double Salary Increase'

"Out-of-work benefits increased by 20% in five years, compared to a rise of 12% in the private sector, official figures say."

Wednesday 02 Jan 2013

FactCheck: are benefits rising faster than pay?

"So from what Mr Duncan Smith has said, he’s correct – benefits from 2007 have gone up by 20 per cent, and private sector wages by just under 12 per cent.

However, it’s worth bearing in mind that the period he talks about includes the recession and the credit crunch, when private sector wages were badly hit.

FactCheck went back further, by nine or 10 years or so, to a time before the recession and depressed earnings. Incidentally, this seems to be roughly the way the Labour Party has approached these figures as well.

That found that from April 2003 to April 2012, JSA for a single person above 25 went from £54.65 a week to £71 – up by 30 per cent.

Over the same period, private sector weekly wages rose from £351 in April 2003, to £468 – an increase of 33 per cent. Which is high, but not as high as the pay rise the public sector saw over that period – of 35 per cent, from £355 to £481."

3 January, 2013 - 18:09

Are wages failing to keep pace with rising prices and benefits?

"All three claims about the relative speed of rises to wages, benefit claims and rail fares can be substantiated, however each can be measured in different ways, which means a plethora of different interpretations can be supported, given the right time period and metric."

2 January 2013 Last updated at 14:57

Battle over plan to cap benefits ahead of Commons vote

"Labour, which will fight the 1% cap, says that jobseekers allowance has risen by 32% over the past decade, whereas wages have gone up by 36%."
 `

02 Wednesday Jan 2013

Why do governments only ever quote statistics that mislead?

"According to financial journalist Paul Lewis on Twitter, this means unemployment benefits have risen by just £11.85 per week, while average private sector pay has risen by £49 a week.".

"IDS is living in a world of his own, though. He’s arguing for a cap of one per cent on benefit rises, for the next three years – effectively removing six per cent of jobseekers’ income by the end of that period."

Overall Benefit Cap – It should be abandoned not just delayed

Welfare Cuts Row, Lies and ‘Statistics’

Is IDS Sick or just Vile?

Wednesday, 1 February 2012 6:21 PM

Resorting to the rulebook: Ministers bypass welfare clash

"Ministers are using parliamentary rules to prevent the Lords causing further setbacks to the coalition's welfare reforms. Employment minister told MPs he intended to invoke the Commons' financial privilege, as ministers sought to reverse seven Lords defeats to the welfare reform bill.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne told politics.co.uk that the opposition was working with parliamentary authorities and lawyers to force a vote on its proposals for a regional benefit cap.

"We think they've crossed the basic line of British decency and they're trying to use financial privilege to prevent it being reopened again," he said."

Published 02 January 2013 8:43

Memo to Duncan Smith: low wages are not an argument for cutting benefits

"The fact that benefits have risen faster than wages [sic] is an argument for higher wages, not lower benefits."

11th January, 2013

Wages and welfare benefits are not comparable 

"The Coalition’s line on benefits will not hold water. The Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith claims it is unreasonable for benefits to rise in line with inflation when wages are not doing so. This ignores two things: what it costs to live even at a subsistence level and the effects of those in work drawing benefits, especially working tax credits."

Nigel

Rich, From A Tory

7:05PM GMT 18 Dec 2012

'Ban benefits claimants from spending on drink and cigarettes'

"Benefits claimants should be banned from spending welfare payments on “luxury” items like alcohol, cigarettes and satellite television, a Government aide has said.

Strain: the Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is masterminding welfare reforms

Alec Shelbrooke said that claimants should be paid welfare via electronic cash cards that could only be used to buy essentials like food, clothing, energy, travel and housing.

Mr Shelbrooke, a Conservative MP, is a parliamentary private secretary at the Northern Ireland Office,

He made the suggestion as a backbencher in the House of Commons, but ministers are understood to be looking at similar ideas.

Mr Shelbrooke has drafted a Bill that would change the law to allow welfare payments to be made on a new “welfare cash card” whose use could be restricted by the Government."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9754188/120000-troubled-families-could-be-legally-banned-from-spending-benefits-on-alochol-and-tobacco.html

MP: Ban benefit claimants from buying alcohol

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9779000/9779292.stm

No beer on benefits: Tory MP wants those on benefits banned from buying "unnecessary items" 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-mp-alec-shelbrooke-wants-1496523

We won't dish out benefits: Tories declares war on claimants by studying plans for welfare card

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/government-studying-welfare-card-plans-1499584

Alec introduces the Welfare Cash Card

http://www.alecshelbrooke.co.uk/index.php/home

Welfare cash card

http://blueconservative.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/welfare-cash-card-2/ 

*****

I contacted Mr Shelbrooke ...

Subject: Your Dangerous Madness

Dear Sir,

I will try to be brief, as I do not believe your offensive ideas warrant much effort.

JSA is deemed "the minimum amount one can live on".

Living is more than survival.

Many of us are likely to be on JSA (or equivalent), for the remainder of our 'working' lives.

Imagine a life, with no hope for anything other than state-sanctioned commodities.

Can you imagine that?

Does it ring a bell?

Is that the kind of country you believe in?

Yours,

NLO
http://criticalestoppel.blogspot.co.uk
(and, no, I do not 'drink' or smoke)

*****

Friday 21 December 2012 12.57 GMT

Welfare cash cards and spying: the Tory approach to unemployment

"An MP's proposal to stop claimants buying 'luxury goods' would fit with a new website that tracks job search activities."

January 14, 2013

Alec Shelbrooke: The need to reverse Labour’s destruction of the Welfare State is greater than ever

"This is a plea to the reader – it is not in my character, nor ever the intention of my Bill to play one section of society off against another. To suggest otherwise is not only false but damaging and disrespectful to the 5.8m recipients of DWP benefits who believe in the integral importance of the Welfare State."

Nigel