Immigration, the Conservatives and the Nazis

Originally posted on Beastrabban\'s Weblog:

In my last blog post, I discussed Grant Shapps’ attempt to rebrand the Tories as the ‘Workers’ Party’, and pointed out that this was exactly the same tactic the Nazis adopted in their attempt to win German workers away from the ‘Marxist’ socialism of the SPD – the German equivalent of the Labour party, the Communists, trade unions, Anarchists, Syndicalists and other genuine working class and socialist organisations.

Looking through the Nazis’ 25 point party programme, drawn up in 1920 by Hitler, Gottfried Feder and Anton Drexler, I found another similarity to the Nazis in the Tories attitude and policies towards immigration. The Nazis were, of course, bitterly hostile to non-German immigration. Point 8 of the party programme stated ‘Non-German immigration to be stopped.’ Point 4 of the programme stipulated that ‘Citizenship to be determined by race; no Jew to be a German.’ Point 5 demanded that ‘non-Germans in Germany…

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Phone Hacking Trial: Brooks on legitimate Sun Stories and turning down MPs’ Expenses – Martin Hickman

Originally posted on Inforrm's Blog:

Day 60:  Stories for which the Sun paid a civil servant thousands of pounds could have come from a variety of legitimate sources rather than a public official, the paper’s former editor Rebekah Brooks said today.

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Mark Wood: Had Food Phobia, Starved To Death After Atos Decision

Originally posted on Same Difference:

A “VULNERABLE and fragile” man starved to death four months after most of his benefits were stopped and he was left with just £40 a week to survive on.

Atos Healthcare – which assesses peoples’ ability to work on behalf of the Government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) – ruled that 44-year-old Mark Wood, from Bampton, was fit to work.

But at an inquest into his death, Oxford Coroner’s Court heard testimony that Mr Wood was far from fit to hold down a job.

Weighing just 5st 8lbs when he died of malnutrition in August last year, Mr Wood had obsessive compulsive disorder, Aspergers syndrome, phobias of food, pollution, paint fumes, and social situations, and cognitive behavioural problems.

His GP Nicolas Ward told yesterday’s proceedings: “He was an extremely vulnerable and fragile individual who was coping with life.

“Something pushed him or affected him in the time before he…

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The Nazis and Conservatives as Faux-Workers’ Parties

Originally posted on Beastrabban\'s Weblog:

A few days ago I posted a piece pointing out the similarity between workfare and the commercial exploitation of poor souls the Nazis imprisoned in the concentration camps as ‘anti-social elements’. These included not only Jews, but also the voluntarily unemployed – called the arbeitscheu – and political dissidents, which were mainly Communists, Socialists and trade unionists. Now it seems the Tories are attempting copy the Nazis’ propaganda tactics still further: Grant Shapps, the Tory chairman, wants to rebrand them as the ‘Worker’s Party’.

There is an excellent post at Another Angry Voice attacking this rebranding. See The bizarre Tory effort to rebrand themselves as “The Workers Party” at http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/tories-rebrand-workers-party.html.

The Tories attempt to rebrand themselves as the ‘Worker’s Party’ is exactly what Hitler did with the Nazi party. And that ain’t an exaggeration.

There’s an attempt by the Conservatives to claim that Fascism is a form of Socialism, like…

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A new low for the UK: disabled man starves to death

Originally posted on Pride's Purge:

(not satire – it’s the UK today!)

A severely disabled and sick man – who had his benefits stopped after ATOS found he was ‘fit’ for work – has died of malnutrition.

Mark Wood’s GP said if either ATOS or the Department for Work and Pensions had contacted him he would have said in his professional opinion Mr Wood was not fit for work.

But Mr Wood’s GP was not contacted by either ATOS or anyone from the DWP.

Here’s Mark Wood’s tragic story from the Oxford Mail:

Man starved after benefits were cut

So now in this country we’re leaving vulnerable people to literally starve to death.

A new low even for the Tories and Liberal Democrats, surely?

.

Please feel free to comment.

.

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Socialist Criticism of the Financial Sector from 1986

Originally posted on Beastrabban\'s Weblog:

The present savage cuts to the welfare state by the Tories and their Coalition partners are legitimated by an appeal to the massive debt created by the financial crisis of four years ago. The root cause of this was ultimately the wholesale deregulation of the financial sector by Thatcher’s government, a policy that was carried on by Major’s, Blair’s and Brown’s administrations, and which the Coalition today promotes even further. The conspiracy/ parapolitics magazine, Lobster, has also carried a number of articles showing how the Tories’ preference for the financial sector has severely damaged British manufacturing industry. This was clear from as long ago as 1986, when the book Socialist Enterprise: Reclaiming the Economy, by Diana Gilhespy, Ken Jones, Ton Manwaring, Henry Neuberger, and Adam Sharples, was published. Looking through it recently, I found this passage criticising the rise of the financial sector and the harmful effect it…

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Iain Duncan Smith’s new plan to prolong child poverty

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addiction, afford, allowance, benefit, bill, breakdown, child, childcare, Chris Goulden, Coalition, Conservative, consultation, credit, cut, debt, Democrat, Department, draft, DWP, education, employed, employment, families, family, fuel, government, housing, Iain Duncan Smith, IDS, income, inflation, job, jobless, joseph rowntree foundation, JRF, lending, Lib Dem, Liberal, low income, Low Pay Commission, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, minimum wage, part-time, payday, Pensions, people, personal, place, plan, politics, poverty, proposal, pupil premium, sanction, school meal, social security, strategy, tax, teacher, Tories, Tory, unemployed, unemployment, union, Universal Credit, uprating, Vox Political, water, welfare, work, working, workless

Iain Duncan Smith wants to talk about child poverty – but how can we take him seriously when he starts the discussion with a lie?

“Recent analysis reveals that children are three times as likely to be in poverty in a workless family and there are now fewer children living in workless households than at any time since records began, having fallen by 274,000 since 2010,” according to the Department for Work and Pensions’ press release on the new consultation.

Oh really?

According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), child poverty will rise from 2.5 million to 3.2 million during the 2010-2015 Parliament – around 24 per cent of all the children in the UK. By 2020, if the rise is not stopped, it will increase to four million – around 30 per centof all children in the UK.

Under the Coalition government, the number of people in working families who are living in poverty – at 6.7 million – has exceeded the number in workless and retired families who are in poverty – 6.3 million – for the first time.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has measured poverty, using several indicators, for more than 15 years; its figures are far more likely to be accurate than those of the government, which is still defining poverty as an income of less than 60 per cent of median (average) earnings. Average earnings are falling, so fewer people are defined as being in poverty – but that doesn’t make the money in their pockets go any further.

“The previous government’s target to halve child poverty by 2010 was not achieved,” states the DWP press release. Then it comes out with more nonsense: “The government is committed to ending child poverty in the UK by 2020 and the draft child poverty strategy sets out the government’s commitment to tackle poverty at its source.” From the JRF figures alone, we know that government policy is worsening the situation – or has everyone forgotten that 80,000 children woke up homeless last Christmas morning?

Let’s look at the government’s plans.

The DWP claims “reforming the welfare system through Universal Credit… will lift up to 300,000 children out of poverty, and cover 70 per cent of childcare costs for every hour worked”. But we know that Universal Credit is effectively a benefit cut for everyone put onto it; they won’t get as much as they do on the current benefits, and the one per cent uprating limit means falling further into poverty every year. Also, we found out this week that the housing element will be subject to sanctions if people in part-time jobs cannot persuade their employers to give them more hours of work. The claim is ridiculous.

The DWP claims the government will will increase investment in the Pupil Premium, provide free school meals for all infant school children from September this year, improve teacher quality, fund 15 hours of free early education places per week for all three- and four-year-old children and extend 15 hours of free education and care per week to two-year-olds from low income families. None of these measures will do anything to “tackle poverty at its source”. Tackling poverty at its source means ending the causes of poverty, not putting crude metaphorical sticking-plasters over the effects – which could be removed at any time in the future.

The DWP claims the government will cut tax for 25 million people by increasing the personal tax allowance, and cut income tax for those on the minimum wage by almost two-thirds. This means people will have more money in their pocket – but will it be enough, when benefit cuts and sanctions are taken into account? Will their pay increase with the rate of inflation? There is no guarantee that it will. And this move means the government will collect less tax, limiting its ability to provide services such as poverty-reduction measures.

The DWP claims the government will reduce water and fuel costs, and attack housing costs by building more homes. The first two measures may be seen as responses to aggressive policy-making by the Labour Party, and the last will only improve matters if the new dwellings are provided as social housing. Much of the extra spending commitment is made for 2015 onwards, when the Conservative-led Coalition may not even be in office.

These are plans to prolong poverty, not end it.

It is notable that the DWP press release repeats many of the proposals in an attempt to pretend it is doing more. Take a look at the list and count for yourself the number of times it mentions fuel/energy bills (three times) and free school meals (twice).

In fact, the only measures that are likely to help reduce the causes of poverty are far down the list: Increasing access to affordable credit by expanding credit unions and cracking down on payday lending (at the very bottom – and we’ll have to see whether this really happens because payday lenders are generous donors to the Conservative party); and reviewing – mark that word, ‘reviewing’ – the national minimum wage, meaning that the government might increase the minimum wage in accordance with Low Pay Commission recommendations.

The DWP press release quotes Iain Duncan Smith, who said the consultation re-states the government’s commitment to tackle poverty at its source, “be it worklessness, family breakdown, educational failure, addiction or debt”.

The measures he has proposed will not improve anybody’s chance of finding a job, nor will they prevent family breakdown, or addiction. The plans for education have yet to be tested and may not work. The plan for debt involves annoying Conservative Party donors.

The JRF has responded to the consultation diplomatically, but there can be no mistaking the impatience behind the words of Chris Goulden, head of poverty research. He said: “Given that it has been over a year since the initial consultation on child poverty measures, we are disappointed that the government is now going to take even longer to agree what those indicators will be.

“With one in four families expected to be in poverty by 2020, a renewed strategy to address child poverty is vital. Any effective strategy should be based on evidence and contain measures to reduce the cost of living and improve family incomes. However, until those measures are agreed, it is difficult to see how the government can move forward.”

Don’t be too concerned about moving forward, Chris.

This government is backsliding.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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Coalition to impose sanctions on housing benefit

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allowance, benefit, benefit cap, betray, Department, DWP, employ, employment, ESA, fair, full-time, hardworking, housing benefit, Inside Housing, job, Jobseeker's Allowance, JSA, landlord, minimum wage, part-time, Pensions, rule, sanction, support, tenant, Universal Credit, uprating, work

Part-time workers who are judged to be doing too little to find full-time work could have their Housing Benefit sanctioned by the government when Universal Credit comes into full force, according to Inside Housing.

The revelation is the latest in a long line of benefit betrayals to be inflicted on the poor by the Coalition government. The new development also means landlords stand to lose out.

The Department for Work and Pensions has confirmed to Inside Housing that under Universal Credit, where a tenant is working less than 35 hours per week at minimum wage and is not eligible for JSA or ESA, then the housing element can be sanctioned instead.

It seems clear that the government is determined that it should be able to take income away from everyone who is not being properly paid by their employer. Does this seem fair to you?

Under the present system, Housing Benefit is paid direct to landlords, meaning sanctions against tenants can only be applied to out-of-work benefits like Jobseekers’ Allowance or Employment and Support Allowance. The aim is to use Universal Credit to spread the threat of sanctions so that it covers people in low-paid work as well. Would you consider any government that did this to be standing up “for hardworking people”?

The article quotes a DWP spokesperson who said: “It is only right that people claiming benefits should be aware that not sticking to the rules can have a consequence.”

This, of course, assumes that a person is breaking the rules if their employer refuses to improve their working conditions… but we know that the government has altered working conditions to ensure that employers are under no pressure to do so; the benefit cap, and the one per cent limit on the annual uprating of benefits have ensured that people without jobs will become continually worse-off, so those who are in work cannot demand pay increases for fear of being handed their P45s and told that someone else will do their job for less.

Are these the actions of a government that believes we are “all in it together”?

If anybody thinks they can find justification for this behaviour, please get in touch.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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Phone Hacking Trial: Brooks approved payments to public officials for stories, court hears – Martin Hickman

Originally posted on Inforrm's Blog:

Day 59: One of Rupert Murdoch’s most senior executives told a court today that she authorised payments to public officials in return for information for stories in his British newspapers.

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Cameron Blocks EU Funding for Food Banks

Originally posted on Beastrabban\'s Weblog:

Cameron contemplates the poor from the standpoint of his own privileged background.

Yesterday’s I carried the story that the EU had voted funds to be available for spending on food banks across the EU, including in Britain. Their offer of help was, however, refused by Cameron, who declared that funding for food banks was best done at the national level. So basically, Cameron and the Coalition refused their money because he doesn’t want the EU superstate interfering in this part of British politics. He’s obviously afraid of appearing beholden to the EU when he goes up against the Europhobic section of his party, and UKIP. He wants the poor to starve, so that he can cow them into submission while appearing as the strong man of British nationalism and independence.

There is thus absolutely no reason why anyone, who was unemployed, or whose job is insecure, to vote for any…

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