Going hungry this christmas

This christmas many in this country will go hungry disgracefully. To be poor is not a crime – yet in Britain, the poor have been criminalized and demonized by a propaganda campaign that gives new meaning to the word 'vicious.' In the UK, with Christmas approaching, hunger stalks the land. An ever-increasing number of lives have been reduced to misery and despair, yet for those at the top, 'austerity' remains nothing more than a word in the dictionary. It is proof that British society has now officially departed the 21st century and is heading at high-speed towards the Victorian era of the late 19th century. This is the only conclusion to be drawn from a week in which it has been revealed that food poverty – or hunger, to use the proper word – is a fact of life for millions of UK citizens. A recently published report by an All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger and Food Poverty in Britain leaves no doubt that the UK in 2014 is governed by a gang of rich, privately educated sociopaths whose contempt for the poor is such that they are content to let them starve. That four million people in Britain are in danger of going hungry, that 500,000 children live in families that can’t afford to feed them, and that 325,000 adults do not get enough to eat, with close to a million forced to rely on food banks (charities set up to feed people unable to feed themselves), this is a despicable state of affairs. Moreover, the fact that it is happening in a country that presumes to lecture others on human rights and justice, this comes as yet more evidence of the rank hypocrisy and double-standards which lie at the heart of the British establishment. Compounding matters are the sentiments of Tory Baroness Anne Jenkin, which she expressed during the launch of the report. Calling to mind the infamous words of Marie Antoinette who, when informed of the desperate plight of the poor in Paris prior to the French Revolution, said, “Let them eat cake,” Baroness Jenkin postulated that one of the reasons was to claim that the poor do not know how to cook and should eat porrige . Tories breathtaking hate of the poor knows no boundaries. A recent excellent post by Johnny Void over at the void the report to food banks and their use has been published last week not surprisingly the real causes for food bank use's being on the increase were not spelt out. I'll allow Johnny to do this for us "The growth in foodbanks dates back to before the current Government weren’t elected as Labour’s decimation of the social security started to take its toll. The rise in benefit sanctions also began in the dying years of Labour’s administration as did the introduction of the despised Atos run Work Capability Assessment, designed to strip sickness and disability benefits from one million people. Alongside this Labour’s normalisation of workfare led to unprecedented numbers of people forced to work without pay. And then, as if things weren’t bad enough, along came Iain Duncan Smith. With him came the bedroom tax, council tax benefit cuts, the benefit cap, housing benefit cuts, freezes of almost all in and out of work benefits, more Atos tests for disability benefits, the scrapping of Crisis Loans and countless other measures all precision targeted at cutting the incomes of the poorest. Yet to read today’s report into foodbanks, you would think that none of this had ever happened. Instead it insists that the growth in people going hungry has been caused by market forces and modern economic conditions – beyond the control of us mere mortals and simply something that is here to stay no matter what we do. It is true that alongside the slow dismantling of the welfare state, the minimum wage stagnated whilst the cost of living for the very poorest soared. The erosion of social housing meant the greedy private rental sector became out of control as competition for low cost housing became ever more intense. As supermarket dominance grew, small local shops closed and with them out of the way food prices began to rise. A privatised energy market did exactly what you would expect from profit hungry vultures and fleeced their most voiceless customers, often elderly or disabled people who have no choice but to try and keep the heating on. Payday lenders and pawn shops started to appear on every high street. In some areas wherever you look you will see companies owned by the rich dressed up in pauper’s clothing as they attempt to wring every last penny of profit they can from the poor. All of these things are a direct result of government policies supported by all the major parties to allow the parasites of capital – landlords, supermarkets, energy companies and legal loan sharks – to run rampant in the name of the free market. But you won’t read that in today’s report either. Instead it proposes tinkering with the rules on prepay gas and electricity metres, vague and unspecific policies to slightly edge up the minimum wage and yet more patronising fucking garbage about cooking lessons and budgeting skills. Meanwhile calls for benefit payments to be made quicker are redundant when the government is planning a waiting period of up to six weeks for Universal Credit. This is not even mentioned in the report. They are not just willfully ignoring the cuts to social security that have already happened, but also the ones that are still set to come. The huge rise in the number of people who face benefits being stopped or sanctioned has mirrored almost exactly the growth of foodbanks. An ever more complex and draconian system now forces unemployed, sick and disabled claimants into pointless and irksome ‘work related activity’ for days, weeks and even months on end. Any breach of the rules means benefits are stopped. The report endorses this increased “responsibility to look for work”, calling it a “welcome move”. Instead it merely makes the same calls for improvements in communications with claimants and access to hardship payments that we have heard before. These bastards really think it is okay to leave someone in desperate poverty for missing a meeting with the Jobcentre as long as you write them a nice letter explaining why. This comes with a proposal for a condescending ‘yellow card’ warning system, which was first suggested by the Tory think tank the Policy Exchange. You can see their thinking on this one. Poor people like football after all, so it will be easy for our little minds to understand. Even this comes with conditions attached. Whilst they recommend claimants be given a warning with the chance to explain “their offence” before a sanction is applied, it suggests that this could come with an “additional requirement” to be met. This might as well be to go outside and hop on one leg for half an hour whilst quacking like a duck for all the good most Jobcentre requirements do to help people find work. Punishing people for their poverty is behind this idea, not helping them find jobs. Those behind the report are adamant that nothing can be done to halt the rise in the use of foodbanks. But abolishing benefit sanctions completely would slash the number of people going hungry in the UK overnight. As would scrapping the bedroom tax, council tax reform and halting George Osborne’s benefit freeze. In time honoured tradition however, politicians are clubbing together to say a functioning welfare state is over, time to move on and bring food parcels into the social security system. this. The growth of hunger in the UK did not happen by accident, it has been socially engineered. And the people who did that are the same vermin politicians who write reports telling us how terrible and inevitable it is." You can read the report at: http://foodpovertyinquiry.org/ with thanks to johnny void and his excellent blog over at http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/savage-cuts-to-benefits-go-ignored-in-flagship-foodbanks-report-they-really-think-we-are-fucking-idiots/

Fighting the cuts to tax credits

Over the last few days IDS Ian Duncan Smith has come out to say too many people are dependent on tax credits and labour fueld this boom of tax credits. In one sense he has a point tax credits were used by new labour to fuel a credit boom which meant people could have a top up on their wages. Just like myself I do not earn nearly enough to even pay any forms of tax so I can claim tax credits with a extra disabled bonus to it which still isn’t much it means I get a extra 70 pounds a week roughly this does really help and puts money back in the economy. But it’s masked the true trend of peoples wages stagnating and falling back in many cases. The government subsidises low pay hand has done for many years now both labour and Tories have held down wages while executive pay has soared beyond imagination there’s a huge huge gap now between the low pay of ordinary working people and the bonus culture and huge telephone number salaries at the top. So its not that we are dependent on tax credits its more the fact our wages are so lowland poor we have to rely on a top up to even survive in today’s economy even tax credits aren’t enough for many now with more working poor having to use food banks and the like to just feed themselves. This is the cold reality of capitalism which is failing the 99%. The wealth of the 1% is streaming ahead and all these attacks we’re facing to tax credits now next in line are seeing a huge transfer of wealth from the poorest to the rich. The majority of people in receipt of tax credits like myself are in work be that part time or even full time this gets employers off the hook and means they are not forced to pay a decent wage to their works. The labour party’s sudden fascination with a “living wage” is another smokescreen as in affect the new living wage under labour would raise wages sure but would in affect create a new higher minimum wage which as we all know is pretty pathetic and really doesn’t help many at all. In fact many companies still get away with not paying a minimum wage still till this day. I blogged about this scandal a year or so ago and this still goes on in 2013. So why the labour party think a living wage would be the answer I don’t know. What we really need is a proper true living wage which’s linked o inflation rising with inflation so our money can buy back the goods we produce. Of course under capitalism this c an never happen as our social wage can never put the capitalists profits at risk we will always be limited to a certain amount of increase in our wages but what is certain it’ll never threaten the very existence of capitalist production itself where the unpaid labour of a wage labourer is more than what the capitalist gets back. Our wages are always a percentage of the work we do as the capitalist extracts their profits from our unpaid labour and are always trying to lower wages, increase the working day make us work faster and faster or such like. Ultimately the wage system can not meet the majority of peoples needs and does need over throwing too just like the whole capitalist system too. Profits extracted for the benefit of a few rich capitalists while using government subsidies in the form of tax credits means the rich are laughing all the way to the bank. Its time to expose the capitalist system for what it is, learn its inside workings through the teachings of Karl Marx and Frederich Engel’s and learn its weakness’ and how we can best change society to meet the needs of the majority.

The nothing for something culture

We are constantly told of the something for nothing culture which apparently infests our country with many people scrounging benefits and feeling a sense of entitlement. This is completely untrue of course and is a rhetoric driven by the ruling class with the capitalist controlled media aiding their assault on disabled people as one section of the society feeling the attacks hardest.

But I thought I’d twist this on its head and re name it the nothing for something culture where we are being asked to work for nothing in workfare schemes where big companies get cheap labour well for nothing.

The government of millionaires are quite happy for this society to carry on as many of them have financial benefits with such companies involved in the workfare scheme. Workfare is meant to help people find work but ultimately it is unpaid labour where the workers only get their benefits and if they refuse they may not even get that.

The battle to defeat workfare hasn’t gone away and a concerted effort to highlight the programme and how we can create real jobs with real wages needs to be addressed.

Many will ask so you oppose workfare so what is your alternative?

Well how about using some of that 750 billion big business is sitting on either tax it or say we’d nationalise them to run for need not profit providing socially useful jobs perhaps in the construction industry for a start. Rolling out a mass affordable house building project.

Other areas could be investing in our railways, a fully nationalised railway and public transport system run for the need of people not just the profits of a few fat cats at the tops of these private organisations.

The nothing for something culture has to end with the bankers laughing all the way to the bank with their bonus’s all be them not as large as before we do need to get organised to change society to benefit everybody on this planet.

Disabled people this week have been attacked in the news this week with the news that Iain Duncan Smith the work and pensions secretary for the government declaring half a million S DLA claimants are to be re assessed and those in least need will be losing their disability benefits. Even amputees who have lost limbs in illegal wars could see their benefits cut or removed entirely. Only the most genuine cases will be granted support and this will be constantly monitored I don’t imagine any life time indefinite claims will be granted. Forcing more disabled people into misery and poverty I wouldn’t be surprised if many feel it is too much to carry on with the cost of living and the challenges they already face feeling far too great. Life is a struggle to many disabled people myself included as a blind man we are not a drain on society and certainly don’t fester on long term benefits. I work two days a week on part time employment but I still don’t earn much but I try my best. IDS want us all to work harder and get less as a result. Its time this government was gone in my view.