Making work pay, what a con

The Tories and the government’s whole idea about making work pay I’ve discovered me a complete lie. The whole idea pushed by Iain Duncan Smith tat no one should be able to gain more being on benefits than in work. Already this is ridiculous as many are in work who claims benefits due to low pay. Much like myself I am a part time office worker doing 16 hours a week at present and claim working tax credits to top up my pitiful pay. This still puts me way below the average wage of a worker in Britain coming in just shy of 10k a year. This week I’ve been notified that my working tax credits are to be lowered or cut if you like by £200 from what I got last year. My pay is a tiny amount above the minimum wage I would not be claiming tax credits if I was earning a decent wage so the idea I’m earning too muc is stupid. The government or HMRC if you like claim I have earnt too much in the last year so I shouldn’t get so much next year. Making work pay therefore is an absolute joke my wages have not gone up or down in the last year and as a result I’ve applied for working tax credits once again so how has HMRC worked out I shouldn’t get the same as last year? Is this down to inflation or government cuts? In which case I am highly dubious that my extra £200 will help the government all that much. But of course this is not about paying of far deficit or anything like that it is a clear attack on the poorest in society. Rhetoricof a general strike is one thinglets see some action and something which can provide hope to many struggling by today. I will no doubt have to cut back on some of the things I spend on in a month cutting back on some of the things I enjoy to make up the short fall. I am also disabled registered blind and do get a extra component to my working tax credits yet this really isn’t much and I am still struggling by every month to live. I do live with my mum at present as no where cheap enough to move out to so I am hoping my cut in benefits wont mean I can no longer pay my mum rent. How this works out that I should be one of the people to pay for the private sector and the bankers mess I do not know but as we know big business’s run off laughing to themselves to the banks evading and avoiding tax to the tune of billions. Fair? I think not. This has really fucked me off if I’m honest and made me realise how little fight back there has been to the cuts. A couple of marches from A to B to listen to Ed Miliband and a 1 day public sector strike are not what I call an effective fight back. Many people are angry and growing angrier by th week. With the bedroom tax no more than a plaything to the mainstream parties who can say how bad it is a actual fightback is still needed desperately. No wonder unions are not looking to fight back most of the leaders are on good money and the cuts are not affecting them as yet. Change is going to have to come from below the unorganised I feel. No political party seems prepared to stand up and fight back so it is left to the down trodden and the disenfranchised to fight back. Unions are one thing but when they are offering no lead to fight back we could do with the money some of their full timers are on but their advice of sitting back and waiting for a labour gov is frankly insulting to many of us who’re struggling. I’ve had enough if you have to join me in the fight to change things. We need a new way of doing things work has never paid for many people and is even less now its time for change in 2013!

Labours hypocrisy on benefits

Labour today intend to vote against the benefit cap of RPI + 1% which in effect is a real terms cut. This on the face of it sounds great go on Labour the labour left cheer we have our party back, labour stands up for the poor. Slow down there this is nothing of the sort. Labour still support a benefit cap just disagrees on the way it fits that’s all. Do you really think if they were in gov they’d be acting any differently? Take these quotes from Ed Ball’s article in the Guardian this morning and you can hear their similarities with the Tories ideas. Labour has fallen or rather backed up the Tories in the scrounger vs. strivers rhetoric so common among capitalist politicians nowadays. Take some of these quotes I found in this Guardian article by Ed Balls. “Of course we need spending cuts and tax rise’s to get the deficit down” He goes on.... We also need a welfare system that works. And for Labour, that means any reform of the system must pass three tests. First, it must pay more to be in work than live on benefits, both for the individual and the Exchequer. Labour introduced a minimum wage alongside tax credits to help ensure work pays. But this government's deep cuts to tax credits already mean that thousands of working parents are now better off if they quit their jobs, while cuts to childcare support mean thousands of mums and dads are struggling to afford to take up full-time work. The implementation of the government’s flagship universal credit is already proving to be a shambles with Iain Duncan Smith’s own Cabinet colleagues warning this week that it is a “disaster waiting to happen”. Meanwhile the government's benefits cap could also end up costing more than it saves. Labour supports the principle of a benefits cap but this government's crude 'one size fits all' cap - with the same level in London as the rest of the country - will simply lead to taxpayers funding the cost of rising homelessness as families living in high cost areas are turfed out of their homes. Second we must get tough on the scourge of long-term unemployment by matching rights with responsibilities. A One Nation approach to welfare reform means government has a responsibility to help people into work and support those who cannot, but those who can work must be required to take up jobs or lose benefits as a result – no ifs or buts. Tackling long-term unemployment will be a top priority for the next Labour government because we know from the 1980s that it has a scarring effect on individuals and communities, damages our economy and society, and builds up long-term costs for the taxpayer. All this could have come straight out of IDS’s mouth but a labour front bench politician I just think it says it all. Forcing you into an unpaid position or you will lose your benefits is slave labour there is no two ways about it. You have no choice in the matter. So whether you are labour or Tory workfare or workfare plus the results will be the same. Labour does not recognise that low pay is at issue here a huge issue that most people receiving benefits are actually in work. They talk of long term unemployment but have no answer to those themselves only more workfare and Tory light ideas. How anyone can support labour still I do not know. Their policies are bankrupt and their ideas are straight from the Tories. We as socialists cannot give any support to labour and must build TUSC as an alternative. Those who say only Labour can beat the Tories is wrong I’m sure the liberals were telling the newly formed Labour party in the 20th century only we can beat the Tories yet look what happened. We must be brave must be bold and confident let’s not settle for lesser evilism or labour are not as cruel line. Let’s kick the cuts coalition out and build a working class, socialist alternative with TUSC. With quotes from this Guardian Piece http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/69052/ed_balls_britain_needs_real_welfare_reform_that_is_tough_fair_and_that_works.html For more information on TUSC and how you can get involved check out www.tusc.org.uk

Doctors vote by huge majority for industrial action over pensions

In a highly significant move the BMA the British Medical association has vote for a clear majority for industrial action and action short of industrial action this June over a dispute over pensions. This is big news as Doctors are not known for their militancy and always have to be careful to keep public perception on their side. I think this could turn out to be one of the most significant parts to this dispute as people will say if the doctors are striking it must be pretty serious as they don’t take industrial action lightly then again no one does but doctors especially due to the nature of their job.
Doctors will stop providing non-urgent care for a day next month in the first industrial action by the profession for nearly 40 years.
The move comes after a majority of doctors voted in favour of action in a British Medical Association ballot of 104,000 members over pension changes.
The 24-hour day of action will take place on 21 June.
The union said emergency care would still take place, as doctors did not want to put patients at risk.
Of those balloted, half responded. Among the main groups of doctors the results were overwhelming.
Some 79% of GPs, 84% of hospital consultants and 92% of junior doctors who responded voted in favour.
By targeting non-urgent care, patients are likely to be affected in this way:
• Elective operations such as knee and hip replacements likely to be postponed
• GP practices to remain open, but routine appointments will not take place
• Hospital appointments for routine conditions expected to be cancelled
• Tests for critical conditions such as cancer will still be available
• A&E units and maternity services to run as normal


Contributions will rise the greatest for the highest earners. Those earning over £110,000 a year will end up contributing 14.5% of their salary.
Many may understand that approach, but doctors believe they are being unfairly targeted.
They point out that the top-paid civil servants will not be hit in the same way - and that perceived injustice has put the profession at loggerheads with the government.
It will be the first time since 1975 that doctors have taken industrial action.
It is not yet known whether the day of action will be followed by further ones.
Unions representing a host of health professionals, including paramedics, admin staff and porters, have already taken part in strikes over pension changes.
Patient safety 'safeguarded'
But the Royal College of Nursing, one of the most influential voices inside the NHS alongside the BMA, has yet to decide what it will do.
It has held a ballot where the majority rejected the government's pension changes, but the turnout was low.
Under the plans, which apply to England and Wales but could be introduced elsewhere in the UK, the age at which doctors retire would rise from 65 to 68 by 2015.
The contributions doctors have to make are also due to rise.
Which will mean just like other public sector workers they will be made to work longer, pay more and get less and none of this will benefit them in anyway it is going to help pay off the deficit, the deficit ordinary public sector workers did not cause. So I for one will be extending my solidarity with doctors on the day of action. No doubt the government will try and tar them as disruptive and all the other nonsense but they have been left with no other choice. A fair pension for all is fair whetehr your public or private sector. Let’s unite today for fair pensions and stop this robbery!

dramatic loss of police numbers to put country at risk

Alarming figures uncovered by Labour show ranks will plunge by 10,190 by 2013 as the Tory-led Coalition's budget squeeze intensifies.

The numbers look scarey and rightly so. THis is no small feet. This is a large amount of the front line officers being made redundant or moved elsewhere. THis is worrying news i feel as we enter another decade with huge major public events like the 2012 Olympics in London and the Royal wedding to name but a few. To have this dramatic loss in officers on the streets is not only worrying to the public for their safety but the countries tourism may end up falling due to tourists not feeling as safe as perhaps they once did.

Now i'm not a huge fan of the police as it goes. Their recent record on our streets back in December at the student tuitian fees protests and back a few years to the G20 protests when poor Ian Tomlison lost his life at the hands of a police officer. At last years student protests we will remember poor Alfie Meadows who suffered bleeding on the brain due to being battered savagely over the head by a police baton.

Now this is not a rant about the police and their heavy handed tactics but just outlining my thoughts recently on them. But i do still feel despite all this that removing officers from the street wont benifit us in the long run. People like to feel safe on their streets and in their homes and this decision by this tory lead government will not help this feeling of insecurity in their own country.

I myself as a disabled person like to know there is the access of the police to protect us if i need to call upon them for any reason at all. As i am perhaps more vunrable than others in society being visually impaired i perhaps feel the police are more important to me than others.

So these cuts to police spending and front line services will be putting the country further at risk from attacks of terrorism and other such major criminal offences we hear about every day.

Even the police as they are at the moment are over stretched, when my mum tried to contact them to report a intimadation from someone else she was told no one could take her report right now as they didnt have enough units to deal with the problem. If this is how it is now, how is it going to be like after these huge policing cuts ?

Unemployed figure hits 2.5 million yet still no concern from government

Worrying signs today as the unemployed people rose by 35 thousand up to October to hit 2.5 Million people across the country. With the job cuts not set to really bite in hard to the new year where it is estimated half a million jobs will be going in the public sector with a similar amount in the private sector as they are inter-related i can see the unemployed figures hitting and breaking 3 million by the end of next year.

Shouldnt this be a concern to people ? and not least the government who this shows even more that their plan for cutting fast and deep into public sepdning is having a negative affect.

We only hear yesterday that inflation has hit a record high in recent times with teh cost of food and clothing and furniture hitting high prices.

What more concerns me is the VAT rise coming in in January will cripple consumer confidence and spending- which i made reference to in a previous blog post. All together we are in fora very rough ride in the foreseeable future with this tory lead government.

I just hope for everyones sakes they have a plan B. Something tells me they dont or dont want to face the prospect of needing one as they are so hell bent on pushing through these cuts they havent stopped to think waht might happen if this doesnt work and we end up going backwards. Which from where i am sitting is very likely to happen. With growth slowing and unemployment rising are the signs not clear now their plan is not working ?

why not much talk of the VAT rise in Jan ?

To me this is very important, will affect each and everyone of us. Rich or poor. Probably poor more so as they have little disposable income anyway to start with. But i know we have all the student tuitian fees debarcle which i have blogged time after time on but this will be the next bomb shell the condems will land on us for sure.

Vat from January will be rising from its current position of 17.5% to 20%. That extra few percent could tip things over the edge for people. NOt only will this cripple consumer spending confidence it will also have an affect with putting business's out of business as they tryt o compete with added pressures of putting up VAT.

The last Labour government dropped the VAT percent down to 15%. This did little to the naked eye it seemed but it did boost spending for a little bit. Combined with schemes like teh car scrapage scheme and the boiler scrapage schemes this helped a bit of growth appear in the economy.

The choice of the coalition to raise this figure to 20% will not help consumer spending confidence and will hurt a lot of people most motably the poorest in society who struggle to make ends meet as it is.

I am fully aware that if labour had been in power now they also wantedto put up VAT. This was one of Alastair Darlings plans. I feel both parties who are and would have been in power are wrong and lowering tax's at this time on goods that are essential woudl help people out a bit and lessen the squeeze that there is on people right now.

The rise in VAT will again hit families the hardest i feel as they have the biggest weekly outgoings with feeding a family of 4 for example. Food and petrol prices are already going up alarmingly quickly and this will only further put people under the strain.

I just thought i'd throw the VAT debate back into the ring as over christmas and the holidays people better make the most of the rate of VAT as it will go up in January as i have outlined above.

The media and their relentless attacks on benifit cheats

This article i had to blog about
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/public-accounts/2010/10/anti-benefits-160-media

it hits the name on the head when it comes to how i feel. I am not for one moment suggesting benifit cheats should not be gone after, they should. But

and this is a big but.. i'm registered blind as many of you may or may not know. Registered as disabled, i claim disability living allowance fiarly and squarly. I dont claim for anything i shouldnt. I have just paid back over £1000 in over claiment, in a purely honest mistake of being at a resedential college whilst still claiming. I found out just as i was leaving college that i was not meant to be getting this extra money. I was never told of this and i'm sure many others have made the same mistake.

The issue was the care part of my DLA was meantt o go to the college, as i was in residential college and got all things paid for whilst i was there. This was fair enough and i notified the DWP who set me up repaying the money over time.

I have no issue with this at all. But i cannot stand how the media and certain political bloggers like to group us disabled people, most of whom are totally honest and up front with their claiments as benifit cheats. I find this unfair and often offensive. I understand the deficit needs to be cut but why do the disabled and less well off have to suffer at the expense of wealthy tax dodgers and over paid and risk taking bankers.

Is it because the disabled and the less well off are easy target ? are we less likely to kick up a fuss?

well let me tell you Mr Osbourne, Myself and many others this wednesday will be taking to the streets of Westminster to protest against proposed cuts in disabled benifits which could ultimatly cost lives.