DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

also, it's quite possible to belong to a class and have no class consciousness. historically, it's probably the norm rather than the exception.

Some of the points he's making, that you can't really get 'welfare' spending down without tackling low wages, lack of social housing and unemployment, are OTM and sensible and I'd hope he actually ends up doing something about all that. But it's tied up in this dog-whistling nonsense which helps to fuel right-wing myths as much as anything else.

That's what's so frustrating. He outlines why the current situation is unfair to workers, why it's wrong to demonise the unemployed and why getting more people into work is going to do more for the benefits budget than anything else, and then comes up with a load of half-baked Thatcherite solutions.

OTM x2

He's so inept it makes me weep.

http://www.rsablogs.org.uk/2013/enterprise/labour-puts-gun-head-welfare/

The point about welfare being effectively privatised is perceptive here.

"My sense is that welfare is now effectively privatised for many if not most - people fund themselves through credit cards, subsidisation from their partners, and small pots of savings and mortgage insurance."

These people are not the same people I think of when I think of welfare. The people I think of do not have credit cards or partners with money or savings or mortgages or insurance. They have dole money that is being cut if they have spare rooms. They have food banks. They have loan sharks.

yr partner doesn't need to have money if you live w/ them. this is the source of a lot of grief amongst ppl I know.

I dunno, the whole point of the welfare state is that it's intended to support everyone, not just the very poorest (although it's very rhetorically useful to Thatcherites of all colours to have people think the opposite).

The Tories were probably high-fiving each other throughout Miliband's speech.

i just heard the interview on the radio, i think they cut the bit where he explains how he's gonna get the private sector to come up with millions of living wage jobs

Or get landlords to reduce rents

Also it's just idiotic to believe that they are ever going to be able to out-hardman the Tories on benefits.

tough on benefits, tough on the causes of benefits

it must be really disappointing when you give a lengthy explanation of why benefits recipients aren't 100 per cent to blame for their worthless leech-like existence and then the news just runs with "Labour to cap benefits" as a headline. they'll be cross about that.

The benefit cap and the removal of universal child benefit etc are all part of a shitty recent phenomenon of opposition parties pledging to stick to the spending plans of the current government* for x years and refusing to see any policy or law as being reversible.

*I blame Tony Blair, even though he was lying when he said it.

Think you mean Gordon Brown, even though he was lying when he said it.

I think it was Tony's idea as part of the whole Becoming Electable thing.

Possibly, becoming unelectable was more Gordon's speciality

£73 a week for anyone who isnt a 19 yr old or whatever is pretty shitty

£73 a week for NOT DOING THE RIGHT THING. I'm suprised they don't cull them and have done with it.

The Tories SNP were probably high-fiving each other throughout Miliband's speech.

£72 a week, but if you get sanctioned for the most minor thing, you get £42 as a hardship payment and that can be over 3 months.

£72 seemed quite high to me at first, cos 10 years ago I was on the dole for a year and got £53 a week, but turns out according to an inflation calculator it's actually less in real terms (not by very much, but still, I wasn't expecting inflation to have made that much difference).

(when I say quite high, I mean relative to how much I got, not that it's a lot to live on or anything like that, but I wonder if there's a psychological effect there that makes people think benefit claimants are better off than they actually are)

I wonder if there's a psychological effect there that makes people think benefit claimants are better off than they actually are

Other than stupidity and malice?

There's def. something irrational that kicks in when times are hard, it's how you end up with Nazis et al.

Would maybe say ignorance rather than stupidity, but that's a minor quibble

Basically imagine you're a 'hardworking' person with an income of £400 a week. Your outgoings are £300 a week, leaving £100 for groceries, petrol/transport, entertainment. You mistakenly think the person on £72/week benefits to cover EVERYTHING that isn't rent or council tax is somehow at level pegging to you, and they're even more outraged by their crazy neighbour getting £106/week for being ill. So, filled with the self-righteousness of someone who's never had to claim, they blame the poor doley/sick person rather than downward pressure on wages from rich people who whine they can't afford to give you a raise *and* pay the mortgage on their third home. It's an amazing shell game, isn't it?

The benefit cap and the removal of universal child benefit etc are all part of a shitty recent phenomenon of opposition parties pledging to stick to the spending plans of the current government* for x years and refusing to see any policy or law as being reversible.

Parties? It's only Labour really, isn't it? I can't remember Osborne pledging to stick with the plans of the death throes of Brown's government.

I did read somewhere that Osborne also endorsed that idea, not sure where though.

They did it in previous elections they lost to Blair and in 2010 they pledged immediate cuts then backtracked a fair bit in the run-up to the election.

xp

as is often the case, suzy : otm.

the problem aint benefits, its the the fucked up "pay" for those on the lower scales (i.e for example : my mum), who cant even pay for the basics after a weeks work.

the difference between working and claiming are so marginal that its easy to fall into the 'f*ck'em all' trap. as has my old ma ..

(and dont get me started on the whole apprenticeships piss take that is happening. companies are using apprens. for free labour for weekend/overtime as opposed to those on 'proper' contracts as apprens are basically free)

solution : the living wage as a min. for all irrespective of the status/hours.

the so called minimum wage is a fucking joke in 2013.

Does the 72 cover housing etc

No, rent is paid via housing benefit. For the £72 (£312/month), you've got to pay all the household bills (newly including a fraction of council tax), feed yourself, replace toiletries and go to job interviews/your shitty Workfare placement. Ask yourself if on this basis you could make a grand last three months?

Oh i know well its a bullshit amount, professional curiosity is all.

"(and dont get me started on the whole apprenticeships piss take that is happening. companies are using apprens. for free labour"

I have seen it at an electrical company I worked at. Kids getting paid £3ph and getting tasks like crawling through voids under buildings with asbestos risks. I used to tell them to get the fuck back into college.

bcz of the hours requirement for a level 2 gnvq the apprenticeship is becoming part of of the college course iirc

a lot of these are run in conjunction with colleges as far as i'm aware

When I said 'get back to college' I meant get out of this job, before it is too late.

i know, college tragically is ceasing to be the answer

If it is a competition between being an unemployable qualified electrician vs an unemployable student. I wish I had gone for the latter really.

No, rent is paid via housing benefit.

Even this isn't guaranteed to cover all of your rent, and is only going to get worse with bedroom tax, caps etc. I had to pay £5 a week rent out of my £53 a week JSA.

People are having to pay a lot more than £5 a week now. Doesn't help that rents are insanely high but God forbid the Labour Party should (seriously) do anything to counter that.

I have a council flat and my service charges run to about £13 a week (this includes caretaking, central heating, Freeview reception and hot water). If I were signing on, I'd have to pay them out of benefits because HB has only ever covered the basic rent charge. A friend living in an HA flat (single parent, gets DLA, not working because child is too young) is having to find £33/week out of her benefits to pay her service charges, which I consider unreasonable, because she's being charged a few quid a week for things like 'lift depreciation' and a whole panoply of items that council tenants are never asked to cover. The difference between my charges and hers sucks up the £20/week she receives in child benefit. This year, she's also had to find about £20/month for council tax. Until her kid starts a full school day, she really can't try for a job and the anxiety of having to live on much less than last year and the endless letters saying 'Surprise! We're going to chisel you in this new way!' are affecting her mental and physical health.

The government really isn't considering that it would be cheaper in the long run to make sure she has a reasonable standard of living during her child's early years. The knock-on effect of the cuts mean huge costs elsewhere, eg needing more health care. I know she spends every spare penny she has on getting her kid to library groups, nursery, and the like, just to make sure she isn't at a loss compared to the posh kids, because she deliberately chose a flat in a good school catchment. She makes nothing but good choices with the funds she does have, and it pisses me off to see people like her used as whipping boys by people who will never want for anything and don't actually give a shit about anyone else's children.

This might be a very thick sounding question so forgive me...but do governments have any sway over rent prices? Can they enforce a cap or anything?

JSA doesn't cover rent because that's what HB covers but when I was last unemployed and moved back in with my parents they cut my JSA in half because I wasn't paying rent

(not complaining since I was doing a lot better than most of the stories itt, just shrugging at the logic)

No, and you can thank the rotting corpse of Thatcher for that.

xpost

This might be a very thick sounding question so forgive me...but do governments have any sway over rent prices? Can they enforce a cap or anything?

The Tories de-regulated in 1989. So says Wiki. Don't know how it worked before that.

it pisses me off to see people like her used as whipping boys by people who will never want for anything and don't actually give a shit about anyone else's children.

Well that's Ed Miliband's Labour Party for you.

I met the Director of Policy for the Labour Party at a wedding last year and greatly regret not taking the opportunity to shake him repeatedly by his lapels and maybe slap him a few times.

Got an idea for a pic to put here, but probably too soon with emotions still running high.