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The assault on the poor and disabled

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The assault on the poor and disabled - Page 2 Empty The assault on the poor and disabled

Post by skwalker1964 Wed Oct 10, 2012 1:48 am

First topic message reminder :

I reblogged this post in 'honour' of the Tory party conference and Ivan asked me to post it here, too. You can find the original post complete with links at: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Here are two true stories:

A friend of mine once picked up a hitch-hiker at a motorway service station. The bloke looked a bit down on his luck, so my friend asked what his story was. The guy said he’d been living in service stations, bathing in the shower facilities at lorry-driver stops, for several days as he tried to make his way from one end of the country to the other to where a hotel job was waiting for him if he could get there. He’d lost all his benefits and had no way to get the money to take a train or bus.

My friend gave this man all the money he had in his pocket, which was £60. The man seemed genuinely overwhelmed and grateful, seemingly unable to believe that someone would give him a fairly serious amount of money within minutes of meeting him, on the basis of the story he’d just related.

I asked my friend whether he thought the man had been genuine, or might he have been ripped off? His answer was that his gut instinct was that the man was for real – but that if he wasn’t, he’d rather be conned than be hard-hearted and risk ignoring someone in genuine need.

By contrast, the incredibly rich (some $287 billion in today’s money) industrialist Andrew Carnegie once famously said that it would be better for the world if a rich man threw his millions into the sea rather than give any to the ‘unworthy’. To be fair to Carnegie, he gave away a vast proportion of his wealth – but the rich and privileged have a long history of presuming that, from their pinnacle of wealth and comfort, they are able to decide who is ‘worthy’ and who isn’t. The concept of the ‘deserving poor‘, by denoting that some poor are by definition not deserving, has resulted in great suffering while allowing the wealthy to feel satisfied with their lack of concern or action.

The current crop of Tories are truly in line with their predecessors in this regard – except that they’re even worse. Even though they can’t possibly be ignorant of the consequences, they push this line in the most cynical way, with the aim of dividing the British public, fooling the undiscerning into allowing or even approving of policies aimed at stripping the vulnerable of crucial protections. And for the basest of reasons – for short-term political gain (persuading some people that the Tories are ‘at least doing something about something!’), and to release even more public funds that can be channelled into tax-cuts for the already-rich or even greater profits for private corporations.

With their limited moral imagination, the Tories really only know two tactics. Both are calculated to appeal to the baser instincts of the small-minded and thoughtless: fear and vilification. There may be different facets or manifestations – they might try to invoke suspicion, or envy, or to dehumanise or caricature one set of people to get another set to back their policies – but the roots are the same.

I’m working on a post about economic fear and the way that’s fostered by government spokespeople and tame media, but it’s proving to be quite a big project and I’m not going to be online much over the next few days, so it will be a little while in coming. But the other tactic – vilification or demonisation of the vulnerable or resistant – is so plain that this post almost writes itself. Whether explicitly or in the omission, the Tories are at it constantly.

Just in recent weeks, we’ve had:


  • Iain Duncan-Smith accusing Britons of not working hard enough, while bare-facedly distorting figures on fraudulent claims for disability benefit (claiming a 30% fraud rate when in fact it’s bare over one percent) to gain public support for his hateful Welfare Reform Act.


  • A smug Frances Maude announcing that the bottom 10% of civil servants has a year to improve or be fired – conveniently leaving out the fact that if everyone in the civil service was a workaholic genius, there would still be a bottom 10%. Being at the bottom doesn’t mean you’re incompetent or unproductive. He insists that this is not an ‘attack’ on the civil service, even though at the same time he’s making cuts of 25% in civil servant numbers and talking of removing any terms and conditions that are better than those of the private sector that the Tories and their pals have already robbed.


  • Andrew Lansley calling on doctors not to take industrial action and having his department and tame journalists conduct an orchestrated propaganda campaign to persuade the public that doctors are rich, privileged, selfish and uncaring of their patients (‘After all’, he might as well say, ‘we’ve robbed the rest of the public sector, why should doctors be any different?’) This in spite of the fact that the doctors’ pension scheme is not in shortfall and that the Health Secretary, having specifically abdicated his legal responsibility for healthcare provision in his new Health & Social Care Act, is really not entitled to comment one way or the other, let alone to impose new pension terms.


  • David Cameron underlining again that the Tories are on the side of ‘strivers’, thereby saying that they’re not on the side of anyone who can’t strive, or who simply wants to live a decent, balanced life.


  • Iain Duncan-Smith (again!) announcing plans to remove benefits from anyone who dares strike against the removal of pay, pensions, conditions and protection that is now the norm for the treatment of ordinary working people.


  • Claims by Communities Minister Eric Pickles, vocally supported by Housing Minister Grant Shapps and many others, and by the right-wing press, that the UK has 120,000 ‘problem families’ who cause 80% of societal problems, even though not one of the criteria used to decide who is a ‘problem family’ relates to criminality, but instead refer to poverty and physical or mental illness.


  • Endlessly repeated soundbites about ‘benefit scroungers’ to justify capping housing benefit, even though the vast majority of people receiving this benefit are working, but can’t afford outrageous rents.


  • Cameron and others vilifying transport workers for daring to plan industrial action during the Olympic Games money-making exercise, even though industrial action is really their only negotiating weapon and it’s perfectly sensible for them to aim it at the periods when it will be most effective. The Tories really do want a workforce that’s powerless to stand up for itself.


I could go on, but I want to keep this post to a readable length.

The aim of all these policies and pronouncements is very clear: persuading whichever sections of the public that are not affected by a particular measure that those who are affected are not worthy of support, and definitely not worthy of help.

The consequences of these and other Tory measures are not hard to imagine – and they’re already being played out. Disabled, ill or mentally ill people spend their days in fear at the prospect of having their benefits stopped because they’re ludicrously assessed as fit for work, while some even attempt or commit suicide. People are forced to accept part-time ‘work’ that offers few (or even zero!) hours while the government crows that it has reduced unemployment; jobless people are forced to work for free and sleep under bridges by companies who ruthlessly exploit them to maximise profit. And so on.

In this context, it’s patently clear that the Tories’ policies, attitudes, sleaze, self-enrichment and their unholy alliance with powerful corporate and media interests show that they are not fit to judge a vegetable show, let alone judge whether a vulnerable person is ‘worthy’ of help.

Fortunately, we get to choose whether we believe them. To choose whether we agree with the kind of approach to life that says that, while no system is perfect, it’s much better to err on the side of goodness than of suspicion and selfishness, that it’s better to set up or protect systems that protect the genuine many than one which might prevent a very few ‘playing the system’ but that also strands people in genuine need in a situation of despair. We have the privilege of deciding what kind of society we want to be.

From everything I’ve written, you’ll probably have guessed that I absolutely agree with my friend, rather than with Carnegie, about which side it’s better to err on. But Mr Carnegie did say something that I agree with very much:

‘A man who dies rich dies disgraced’

In our current government, and in the people who support and fund them, we have a lot of walking ‘disgraces in the making’. Let’s think for ourselves, see them for what they are, and not make it easy for them to become even bigger disgraces than they already are.
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Post by Redflag Wed Dec 12, 2012 5:38 pm

tlttf wrote:Speaking of lies red, has Ed changed his mind "again" on any subject?

How many U-Turns have the Tories HAD to do in two half years ? or how many times have they made a blunder and HAD to change tack?. I thought Scam..er..on was cleaning up the expenses so how come Maria Miller threatened the newspapers with statue law if they print the story. lol! lol!

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Post by tlttf Thu Dec 13, 2012 6:43 am

All true Red, but have you noticed things are slowly improving unless your on benefits. Works for me!

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Post by Redflag Thu Dec 13, 2012 8:11 am

tlttf wrote:All true Red, but have you noticed things are slowly improving unless your on benefits. Works for me!

Are you talking about people HAVING to take part-time jobs when really they need full-time to keep there families stomachs full because your shower of dick heads are cutting working tax credits, and do not forget some of those people that are on benefits "Thanks to Scam..er..on cutting the Public sector Jobs" what about them that have to be on benefits until the private sector do what Scam..er..in said they would "Pick up the slack from the public Sector", not forgetting the 2.51 Million what are they supposed to do.

While I'm here lets tackle another myth J.S.A. is £70.00 per week that is only £2.00 per hour for a 35 hour week someone working 35 hours a week at the minimum wage is £217.00 per week "Spot the Difference".
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Post by oftenwrong Thu Dec 13, 2012 10:27 am

'Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.'

Until at least 1800 in England, the penalty for stealing sheep, irrespective of the animal's age or gender, was execution or deportation. Since there is more meat and wool on a fully-grown sheep, why bother putting the same effort into stealing a lamb if the consequence of being caught for either crime was the gallows?

Tory policy in 2012 seems to operate on the above principle. Knowing they are in such bad odor with the Public, Cameron/Clegg/Osborne are throwing into the pot all the Right-wing dogma they can.
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Post by Ivan Thu Dec 13, 2012 11:36 am

have you noticed things are slowly improving unless your on benefits.
He just keeps telling 'em, doesn't he? Evil or Very Mad

The fall and fall in the real wages people are taking home:-
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Post by Redflag Thu Dec 13, 2012 12:50 pm

Ivan wrote:
have you noticed things are slowly improving unless your on benefits.
He just keeps telling 'em, doesn't he? Evil or Very Mad

The fall and fall in the real wages people are taking home:-
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Are you talking about Osbourns lies Ivan or tittf believing them ? it is not just the fall in real wages what about the poor buggars that are going to have to stretch there benefits further sorry but money is not made of elastic well not the last time I looked.
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Post by tlttf Thu Dec 13, 2012 3:02 pm

Again red you mistake me for a tory, I'm a libertarian who believes in minimal government interference. What I do know is if we removed the immigrants that Labour allowed to come here unchallenged, perhaps the indigenous people would have more help available for them.

Reality - schools oversubscribed - immigration unchecked
Reality - NHS failing - immigration unchecked
Reality - 2.5 million unemployed - immigration unchecked
Reality - Labour opened the doors to allow future voters in.

End of the reality check, so yes Ivan I just keep telling them.

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Post by Redflag Thu Dec 13, 2012 9:06 pm

tlttf wrote:Again red you mistake me for a tory, I'm a libertarian who believes in minimal government interference. What I do know is if we removed the immigrants that Labour allowed to come here unchallenged, perhaps the indigenous people would have more help available for them.

Reality - schools oversubscribed - immigration unchecked
Reality - NHS failing - immigration unchecked
Reality - 2.5 million unemployed - immigration unchecked
Reality - Labour opened the doors to allow future voters in.

End of the reality check, so yes Ivan I just keep telling them.

If you think this lot are doing anything about your list above think again tittf, as for the NHS the fcuking tories have it in mind to finish it off by giving 49% of it too the private health sector that is pay-back because they fill up the Tory party funds, but no amount of money will get them back into power in 2015 they have SHIT in there own nest, this ends YOUR reality check. You say you are a libertarian but you sound and post just like a tory voter.
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Post by Ivan Thu Dec 13, 2012 9:27 pm

tlttf. There has never been "unchecked immigration" into this country, but don't let the truth get in the way of yet another of your lies. Of course it didn't help when John Major abolished exit controls, so that it then became impossible to check on how many 'students' returned home after their courses. It also didn't help when this evil shower reduced the number of staff working for the Border Agency.

If, as part of the Tory hatred of just about anyone and everyone, you see immigration as some sort of problem, please discuss it in the appropriate place:-
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Post by oftenwrong Thu Dec 13, 2012 9:38 pm

As things stand, the Tory-led Coalition have two years in which to complete their Thatcherist transformation of our Nation into Leaders and The Led.

Legally and democratically they have a clear field until the next General Election.

Is that the kind of Society we really want to be?

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Post by Redflag Fri Dec 14, 2012 10:15 am

oftenwrong wrote:As things stand, the Tory-led Coalition have two years in which to complete their Thatcherist transformation of our Nation into Leaders and The Led.

Legally and democratically they have a clear field until the next General Election.

Is that the kind of Society we really want to be?


I tend to think OW that the L/Ds will be pushed too far which will mean the end of the coalition, when the people of the UK start screaming and protesting (as in the poll tax riots) then maybe the L/Ds will pull out, it can not have missed their notice how their voters and activists are kicking up a fuss.
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The assault on the poor and disabled - Page 2 Empty IDS: feel sorry for me, not the poor and disabled!

Post by skwalker1964 Thu Jan 31, 2013 12:06 am

From [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

IDS: feel sorry for me, not the poor and disabled?

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‘Discombobulated monkey’ Iain Duncan Smith: hounding the disabled is not his only strenuous job

It’s tough at the top.

I have it from a cast iron, but necessarily anonymous, source that Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith was seeking sympathy from a colleague recently for what a tough time he’s been having.

IDS was apparently suffering from exhaustion, aches and pains. The cause? Not the onerous workload of his ‘mission’ to deprive the disabled and the poor of every scrap of support he can get away with, but a weekend spent ‘beating’ the local moor to drive out game for some of his neighbourhood toffs to shoot.

In the Commons yesterday, Duncan Smith ill-temperedly called opposition MPs a bunch of

discombobulated, bouncing monkeys

which is pretty rich coming from not just a member, but a former leader, of the party known for its guffawing, scoffing, boorish behaviour in the House. Clearly his weekend activities are wearing him out and and making him even more grumpy than normal.

Much as I sympathise with his plight, and whatever your opinion about shooting birds, rabbits or whatever with a shotgun, I’d like to suggest that IDS devote all of his time and effort to his country pastime.

It’s a whole lot less harmful for him to spend his days ‘beating’ the moor for poor, defenceless animals than in beating up the UK’s sick and disabled, the unemployed and the working poor – and he’ll be a lot less tired, poor man.

Perhaps he could even get all his front-bench colleagues to do the same, and we’d all be a lot better off.
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Post by Redflag Thu Jan 31, 2013 7:55 am

The Tories display in the H.O.C. tells you all you need to know about the discombobulated, bouncing monkeys
people that sit on the gov't benches and the back benches too for IDS to say that the opposition was discombobulated, bouncing monkeys
he need not look any further that his own benches to see "A BUNCH OF BRAYING DONKEYS so I think Kettle & Black come to mind.
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Post by boatlady Thu Jan 31, 2013 4:22 pm

Rather pleased to hear he's having a rough time - only wish he had piles as well
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Post by Phil Hornby Thu Jan 31, 2013 4:28 pm

On the subject of pains in the a*se, I think you'll find that Tory Cabinet Ministers only 'develop haemorrhoids' - having piles being far too common and fit only for plebs... Very Happy

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Post by Redflag Thu Jan 31, 2013 6:25 pm

boatlady wrote:Rather pleased to hear he's having a rough time - only wish he had piles as well

I would imagine they call them Haemorrhoids that what they get for sitting on there A**ES for so long.
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Post by boatlady Thu Jan 31, 2013 7:14 pm

Call them what they like, I just hope they're uncomfortable
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Post by Redflag Fri Feb 01, 2013 9:40 am

boatlady wrote:Call them what they like, I just hope they're uncomfortable

I pray they are VERY PAINFUL and bleeding ha ha ha.
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Post by Ivan Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:59 pm

Benefit cuts: Monday will be the day that defines this government

Extracts from an article by Polly Toynbee:-

An avalanche of benefit cuts will hit the same households over and over. Disability living allowance starts converting into personal independence payment with a target to remove 500,000 people in new ATOS medical tests. Jobcentre staff are under orders to find any sanction to knock people off benefits. New obstacles are strewn in their path: people must apply for their benefits online from computers they don't possess; many of these claimants are semi-literate. There will be no more crisis loans, only a card for buying food, with not a penny for bus fares.

IDS knows that 660,000 tenants with a spare room can never be found smaller properties; they will pay the extra or fall into debt and arrears until they are evicted. From Monday, most of the poorest get a new bill of an average £138 for council tax. Landlords expect mayhem when tenants are paid rent directly every month: pilots show many fall into debt.

Legal aid is being removed for advice on benefits, housing, divorce, debt, education and employment, and the budget of Citizens Advice for such cases falls from £22m to £3m. The few emergency cases still covered – families facing instant eviction – can only use a phone service, not face-to-face legal help. Law centres will close. There will be no help on school exclusions, landlord or employer harassment, or failure to pay wages.

Even some of the 30% who always vote Tory might be appalled if they weren't so well deceived by their ministers, MPs and newspapers, who lie knowingly and deliberately. They should know that historians will record the earthquake of social destruction that happened in their name, while they read of nothing but "scroungers" and the "soaring benefit bill".


For the full article and reader comments:-
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Post by skwalker1964 Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:16 am

Great article, but she's a little out of date with the PIP target. McVey said last December that of the first 550,000 disabled people assessed, 330,000 would be disqualified.

That's deciding in advance, regardless of test outcomes, that around 58% of those tested will be kicked off the benefit - when we have disability benefit fraud of 0.5-0.8%.

If that's continued through all 3.2 million disability benefit claimants, that equates to around 1.9 million people being deprived of essential benefits.
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Post by oftenwrong Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:51 am

The spiteful Tories aren't even original with their plans for stripping the last vestiges of dignity from people who can't fight back. The pre-determined survey paradigm reached the UK from our transatlantic cousins, via McKinsey and Company's London outpost.

In many Companies, line-Managers are required to assess each of their staff annually and submit a written report to the HR Director. Department Managers are specifically instructed that they may not diplomatically grade all their underlings somewhere around the middle of the scale, but MUST place a fixed percentage at the top end, and a similar proportion in the "failing" category.

Such nice people to do business with.
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Post by bobby Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:11 pm

We keep hearing from the gobs of the Tory liars, Herr Cameron, Gideon Osborne and the Tosser Clegg, how much better off the poorest are with their new Tax reduction.

My wife had a conversation with a friend who’s Daughter is one of those who is to benefit from said tax reduction, Her husband is a postman and a claimant of Tax credits, what she says is that prior to the tax reduction, many if not most of those on the lower incomes are/where in receipt of Tax credit, and all the tax reduction is doing is to put them on a lower rate of tax credit or removing it all together, and the bottom line figure for their income remains relatively unaltered.

If that is so, and I have no reason to dispute what was told to my wife, it seems we have more Tory smoke and mirrors.

I must say that I find it quite obscene how people who are reasonably well off can praise such a move from the Tories, their only motive can be to fool people into continuing supporting them in the belief they are actually giving something to the poor or to justify the cuts to the workers who would otherwise administer the Tax credit system.
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Post by oftenwrong Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:35 pm

"I must say that I find it quite obscene how people who are reasonably well off can praise such a move from the Tories ...."

Quite correct, bobby, "obscene" seems the obvious description. But these are birds of a feather, with a common interest in preserving their own prosperity at whatever cost. It's the JOB of a right-wing government to present those policies in the best light, and the pleasurable task of our National Press to support that endeavour. THAT is where any realistic opposition needs to begin.

Fleet Street once again resists any move to hold it to account.
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Post by sickchip Tue Apr 02, 2013 1:51 am

Excellent article here by George Monbiot:-

“This government, whose mismanagement of the economy has forced so many into the arms of the state, blames the sick, the unemployed, the underpaid for a crisis caused by the feral elite – and punishes them accordingly. Most of those affected by the bedroom tax, introduced today, are disabled. Thousands will be driven from their homes, and many more pushed towards destitution. Relief for the poor from council tax will be clipped; legal aid for civil cases cut off. Yet at the end of this week those making more than £150,000 a year will have their income tax cut.

Two days later, benefit payments for the poorest will be cut in real terms. A week after that, thousands of families who live in towns and boroughs where property prices are high will be forced out of their homes by the total benefits cap. What we are witnessing is raw economic warfare by the rich against the poor.

So the age-old question comes knocking: why does the decent majority allow itself to be governed by a brutal, antisocial minority? Part of the reason is that the minority controls the story. As John Harris explained in ‘The Guardian’, large numbers (including many who depend on it) have been persuaded that most recipients of social security are feckless, profligate fraudsters. Despite everything that has happened over the last two years, Rupert Murdoch, Lord Rothermere and the other media barons still seem to be running the country. Their relentless propaganda, using exceptional and shocking cases to characterise an entire social class, remains highly effective. Divide and rule is as potent as it has ever been.”


For the whole article:-
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Post by Ivan Tue Apr 02, 2013 4:48 pm

Here's the latest Tory idea to “make work pay” – they're considering a cut in the the minimum wage! You couldn’t make it up. Twisted Evil

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Post by Ivan Tue Apr 02, 2013 5:31 pm

10 lies we're told about welfare

by Ricky Tomlinson

“Welfare reform, my arse. Has Jim Royle parked his chair, feet up, telly on, in the corridors between the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions? Employing him as adviser can be the only explanation for the utter rubbish that boils forth from this government on welfare.

Who else could have dreamed up the bedroom tax, a policy so stupid it forces people to leave their homes and drag themselves around the country in search of nonexistent one-bedroom flats?

That one has to be the result of too many hours in front of Jeremy Kyle (no offence) with the heating on full and a can of super-strength lager. It seems as if that is how this government views ordinary people: feckless and useless – poor, because they brought it on themselves, deliberately.

Maybe the cabinet is confused. Twenty-three millionaires in the one room can get like that. But do you know what, enough. Let's call this government's welfare policy what it is – wrong, nasty and dishonest.

Off the top of my head, I can list 10 porkies they are spinning to justify the latest stage of their attack on our 70-year-old welfare state.”


You can read the porkies here:-
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The assault on the poor and disabled - Page 2 Empty Re: The assault on the poor and disabled

Post by Mel Wed Apr 03, 2013 6:49 pm

"Fleet Street once again resists any move to hold it to account."

There will be NO resistance from anywhere OW I fear, let alone the press.
The pain will continue to be meted out to those who are unable to defend themselves. Roll on 2015.
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Post by Deadly Nightshade Wed Apr 03, 2013 7:04 pm

Ivan wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The minimum wage could be cut as part of efforts to reinvigorate the economy, the prime minister's spokesman said this morning.

However, the move was thrown into doubt when unconfirmed reports emerged that it was set to rise again after all - possibly marking a quick government retreat.

Right-wing members of the Cabinet have long demanded a cut to the minimum wage to encourage small and medium sized business to employ more staff and boost profits.


Taken from link above posted by Ivan,

I wonder how they would feel if we the Gen Pop long demanded them to take a significant cut in their wages/expenses ~ That way the nonsense they promised to deliver to get into power such as reducing the deficit may happen instead of acting like they're playing the numbers game on Countdown instead of managing the countries economy.
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Post by oftenwrong Wed Apr 03, 2013 7:42 pm

Give the Tories a Second Term and we'll see The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 repealed.
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Post by boatlady Wed Apr 03, 2013 7:47 pm

That would be funny, if it was funny lol!
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Post by Mel Wed Apr 03, 2013 9:12 pm

"Give the Tories a Second Term and we'll see The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 repealed."

That statement would not be far from reality. Gestapo comes to mind.
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Post by skwalker1964 Wed Apr 03, 2013 10:36 pm

Mel wrote:"Give the Tories a Second Term and we'll see The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 repealed."

That statement would not be far from reality. Gestapo comes to mind.

With the rushed-through and retrospective workfare legislation, it's already effectively happened..
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Post by oftenwrong Thu Apr 04, 2013 7:43 pm

George Gideon Osborne is now able to say what he has always thought privately, "You give money to The Poor and then all they do is set fire to their children."
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Post by Phil Hornby Thu Apr 04, 2013 8:26 pm

Shocked There are going to be some very unhappy people about if Britain gives Cameron another term in 2015, simply because Miliband isn't able to overcome the handicap of not being able to counter successfully the Tory- compliant media's propaganda...
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Post by oftenwrong Thu Apr 04, 2013 10:43 pm

Only a heart of stone could avoid laughing at the prospect of a Press Complaint Authority that worked.
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Post by Ivan Fri Apr 05, 2013 2:14 pm

Truth and Lies about Poverty: Infographics

Maybe our resident Tory trolls, who accuse me of using disreputable sources and "making things up as I go along", would care to study these statistics from the Baptist, Methodist and United Reformed Churches, instead of swallowing shyte from the likes of Peter Hitchens and 'The Daily Mail':-

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Post by Phil Hornby Fri Apr 05, 2013 2:47 pm

Those figures can't be right. After all, they are nothing like the stats that the Tories tell us about. And what about all those black people and other foreigners? Surely none of them work at all, do they...? Shocked
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Post by Tosh Fri Apr 05, 2013 3:39 pm

The poor are being protected by our nuclear deterrent from an attack by North Korean immigrants.
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Post by oftenwrong Fri Apr 05, 2013 5:32 pm

"The poor are being protected by our nuclear deterrent...."

IDS won't be happy to learn about such a frivolous waste of taxpayers' money.
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Post by Ivan Sun Apr 07, 2013 4:21 pm

This is an Australian trying to alert her fellow citizens of the crap they might have to face if they elect a right-wing government in their general election in September:-

Be Warned

by Kay Rollison

“This has been a black week for those on welfare in Britain. We can’t let the same thing happen in Australia.

The British Conservative government is demolishing the welfare state, brick by brick. A series of changes, scarcely reported here, make it even harder for people who are poor, unemployed or have a disability. They include a bedroom tax – I kid you not – that public housing tenants have to pay if they have a spare room. Many will be forced out of houses they have lived in for years. There’s an arbitrary cap on benefits, reduction of the council tax benefit and a host of other cuts like no legal aid for civil cases. And by the way, there’s a tax cut for the rich.

As far as I know, none of these specific changes figured in the Conservative’s election campaign. The policies are accompanied by flagrant attacks in the mainstream media on people living on welfare; apparently welfare is to blame for the horrific death of six children at the hands of their father. Welfare is a ‘lifestyle choice’, according to ‘The Daily Mail’.

What we see here is the almost inevitable result of neo-liberal ideology at work. You can’t tax the rich – indeed they need tax cuts – because they are supposed to be creating the wealth which pays for the safety net for the poor whom the system (inevitably) disadvantages. Only they aren’t creating wealth – there’s a recession. So there’s a vicious circle, with less revenue to pay for the safety net, which is increasingly expensive, and less and less affordable … unless you tax the rich, which is ruled out by definition.”


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Post by oftenwrong Sun Apr 07, 2013 7:12 pm

My good friend, Doctor Strabismus of Utrecht, commenting upon the current Tory strategy with regard to Welfare provision, thinks it would be different if all Benefits Claimants, by coincidence, had black skin.

The Civilised World would then be united in condemning The British Tory-led Government's Apartheid methods.
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