Don’t make a cuppa during the Queen’s Speech – you might miss it!

Tags

Angela Eagle, Coalition, Conservative, David Cameron, Democrat, government, inadequate, Labour, legislation, legislative, Lib Dem, Liberal, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Nick Clegg, Parliament, programme, Queen's speech, state opening, Tories, Tory, Vox Political

Frack Cameron: In advance of a new bill to allow fracking under private homes, Greenpeace did this to David Cameron’s Chipping Norton home. Fair comment?

Picture the scene if you can: Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty is seated, getting on with monarchical business. A staff member knocks and enters with an envelope from Downing Street, containing the proposed text of the Queen’s Speech, which is swiftly opened.

HM takes out a single piece of paper, scans it, turns it over (the back is blank). She speaks:

“Is this it?”

Yup. We could well be about to hear the shortest Queen’s Speech in the history of broadcasting. The evening news bulletins will probably be able to broadcast it in its entirety, instead of the usual excerpts.

Only 11 new bills are to go before Parliament. They involve:

• Plans to change the pension system (again), split among two bills – look out, pensioners!
• A bill to make it easier for companies to frack for gas under private property – look out, homeowners!
• Measures to implement a promise to provide up to £2,000 worth of free childcare – probably not enough.
• A proposed right for voters to recall their MP – to be judged by other MPs if the rumours are correct. Corruption?
• The outlawing of “modern slavery” – except, one presumes, that enshrined in law by this government’s own Mandatory Work Activity schemes.
• Powers to tackle lawyers and other professionals who help criminal gangs – clearly, in this world of government-aided tax evasion (for example), they are helping the wrong criminal gangs.
• Measures to tackle the abuse of zero-hours contracts – one can’t help feeling that the Tories were shamed into this one by bad publicity.
• Legal protection for people carrying out “good deeds” such as volunteering or planning local events, who become involved in liability claims. Can you spot the opportunities for corruption in this?
• The curb on public sector employees claiming huge redundancy payments and then taking new jobs in the same sector, that was mentioned on this blog recently.
• Help for pub landlords.
• And a plan to charge 5p for plastic bags in England – copying a successful scheme in Wales. Doesn’t this government mock Wales as a failure? Why, then, is it copying Wales?

Six more bills have been carried over from the last Parliamentary session – which wasn’t exactly brimming with work either.

Considering the scale of the problems facing the UK – many of which have arisen because of Coalition government policies – it is a hopelessly inadequate programme of government.

David Cameron and Nick (who?) Clegg have claimed it shows the government is still capable of “taking bold steps”. Baby steps, more like!

Angela Eagle, Labour’s shadow leader of the House of Commons, responded: “Just because the government announced it’s a bold programme, that does not mean actually that it is.”

What do you think? Do you think the bills listed above with do anything to solve Britain’s biggest problems?

I don’t.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

Advertisements

UKIP and the Conservatives – more similarities than differences?

Tags

all in this together, anti, BBC, benefit, campaign, Conservative, council, David Bishop, David Cameron, divide, divisive, election, Europe, gay, go home, Harry Perry, Islam, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Nigel Farage, one nation, pension, people, politics, racism, scrounger, skiver, Theresa May, Tories, Tory, UKIP, Unite, Vox Political

No control: Nigel Farage in front of one of his party’s anti-immigration posters. He says he doesn’t hate foreigners; judge for yourself. [Image: BBC]

Isn’t it interesting that the first of the large political organisations to descend into UKIP-style racism is the Conservative Party?

The BBC has reported that both have lost council candidates after they made anti-Islamic comments on the social media.

From UKIP, Harry Perry (candidate in the Offerton Ward, Stockport) was suspended after calling for Pakistan to be “nuked”, saying David Cameron was a “gay-loving nutcase”, Muslims were “devil’s kids” and homosexuality an “abomination before God”.

UKIP’s official line is that it has started disciplinary proceedings against this man and did not condone his “crackpot” views.

Nigel Farage has admitted his party contains “some idiots”, but added that the reporting of such problems within UKIP was “disproportionate”.

Then along came David Bishop (candidate in Brentwood South, Essex) to prove that the Tories have these problems too.

This man has resigned from the party after passing messages including one that said Islam was “the religion of… rape” and another that read “How CAN a gay guy keep a straight face?”

In a statement, he said, “I recognise that someone standing for public office should show leadership and seek to unite communities, not divide them.”

Isn’t dividing communities what both the Conservatives and UKIP are best at?

Self-preservation society: The Tory “all in it together” attitude, clarified here by Conservative poster-boy Michael Caine.

The Conservatives want you to believe that “We are all in this together”, but it seems clear that some of us are more “in this” than others – are we all “in this” with the “scroungers”, or “skivers” (the Tory label for people their policies have forced out of work and onto the state benefits for which they have paid all their lives)? Are we all “in this” with our fellow citizens who were unfortunate enough not to “sound British” (like those who were stop-checked during Theresa May’s ‘Go Home’ van campaign last summer)? They were encouraging people to accuse their neighbours; how divisive can they get?

What about the changes to pensions? Are the MPs who have “transitional” protection that will allow them to draw their extremely large, taxpayer-funded pensions at the same time as they always expected “in this” with those of us who are now having to work six years longer than we planned?

Of course not.

As for UKIP, try this comment from a UKIP supporter on the Vox Political Facebook page: “Britain is now full of multiregional people from other countries, by winning their vote he can sort out the rubbish later & give Britain back to the English!”

(English? I wonder how the Welsh, Northern Irish, and particularly the referendum-bound Scottish react to that.)

This person continued: “Not racist, just plain common sense!!!! The British want their Britain back.”

I asked then – and I ask now: “Does that include the Afro-Caribbean British, the Indian-British, the Pakistani-British, the southeast-Asian-British, the Polish-British (including both recent arrivals and those who stayed after World War II), British people whose racial origins are from any other part of the former British Empire or current Commonwealth – or just white Anglo-Saxon Britons like you and me, who are in fact descended from people of French and German origin?”

(Even this omits another foreign-descended group – those with Viking blood.)

I could never use my vote to support anyone who put forward such vile opinions; they are not “common sense” and the people spouting them are those who have no place here.

It doesn’t matter where our ancestors were born – we are all One Nation now.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

Is the state pension about to be privatised?

Tags

Atos, benefit, benefits, bereavement, capita, Coalition, Conservative, Democrat, Department, DWP, efficiency, G4S, government, Guardian, Iain Duncan Smith, Lib Dem, Liberal, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, National Health Service, NHS, operational, pension, Pensions, people, politics, privatise, review, Ros Altmann, saving, Serco, service, social security, spending, state, Tell Us Once, Tories, Tory, Universal Credit, Vox Political, welfare, work

The DWP could be about to privatise delivery of the state pension, according to a leaked report. Many may have missed this revelation because of today’s other, more high-profile events.

According to The Guardian, the Department for Work and Pensions is struggling to meet the demand for savings being placed on it by the government; the plan is to slash its operational spending from £9 billion per year in 2009 to £6.3 billion by 2016. This means a £1 billion cut in the 2014-15 financial year.

A leaked report entitled DWP Efficiency Review claims one way of doing this would involve “a review of the pension service’s current delivery model and alternative delivery models” – in other words, privatisation.

The money would still come from the taxpayer but a private company would deliver it to pensioners.

What could possibly go wrong with that idea? After all, involving private companies in public services has worked so well in the past, hasn’t it? Look at G4S with the Olympics, Atos with sickness and disability benefits, any of the many companies involved with the useless Work Programme, or indeed any of the companies currently raiding the English NHS for profit.

(Please be aware that the immediately preceding paragraph was loaded with so much sarcasm, it may now be dripping from your screen. Apologies if this is the case but Vox Political will not be held responsible for the damage. Contact Parliament’s IT service – which happens to be another example of what happens when you get private companies involved in taxpayer-funded services.)

The review will question whether the recently-launched ‘Tell Us Once’ bereavement service, that helps people report deaths in a way that ensures all necessary government departments are made aware, could be more efficient if outsourced. This will be a waste of time as the answer is, quite clearly, no.

Pensions expert Ros Altmann was quoted as saying she was concerned by the idea that firms like Capita, Serco or G4S could be brought in to administer £100bn in public money to millions of pensioners: “We’re dealing with a vulnerable group and a massive number of people, so I would be seriously concerned about outsourcing a service like this, which is working well, with a view that it might make some short-term savings.”

The trouble is, the DWP has to make a saving somewhere, and all the easy efficiencies have already been made, according to the leaked report.

Too crude an approach to future cuts could jeopardise the department’s capacity to roll out changes to pensions, child maintenance and disability benefits.

It is significant that Iain Duncan Smith’s flagship Universal Credit, which is dogged by delays and IT problems, is not part of the review.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political really needs your help.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

The benefit debate is a diversion – that’s why it will go on and on

Tags

allowance, banker, benefits street, blame, boss, build, Channel 4, Conservative, crisis, David Cameron, debate, dodge, economic, economy, Eton, flood, house, housing benefit, industrial, industry, job, jobless, jobseeker, low, Owen Jones, pay, private landlord, relief, rent, rip-off, strategy, subsidise, system, tax, tax haven, Tories, Tory, workless

How many of you tuned into the last episode of Benefits Street on Channel 4, and stayed on for the debate that followed?

Quite a few, I reckon.

They were worth watching, but the feeling that was left with this viewer (and I’ve been reviewing television for 20 years or more) is that we are talking ourselves around in circles – led by politicians with a vested interest in perpetuating the discussion.

They don’t want a solution. They want us to keep going over the same ground – which they have laid out for us with very specific limits – and they want to concentrate our anger about this issue so that we blame, not the people responsible – the tax dodgers who put money into tax havens that could be invested in British industry, the private landlords and low-paying bosses who are subsidised by the benefit system and the bankers who caused the economic crisis a few years ago – but the people who have been forced onto benefits through no fault of their own and are being persecuted for it by a punitive system that penalises them for failing to find jobs that really do not exist.

Look at the way David Cameron leapt forward with fistfuls of cash to pay for flood relief when Tory heartlands were affected, saying that money was no object and Britain is a rich country. We’re rich enough to look after the playing fields of Eton, but not our poorest citizens, according to his mentality. Property is worth more to him than people.

Why? Because the people who send their children to Eton are the people Cameron hopes will elect him (he can’t be re-elected; he didn’t win the 2010 election) in 2015. The unemployed are less likely to vote for him – in fact they are less likely to vote at all. It seems there is something about being rejected by society that instils a sense of listlessness and despair in the human psyche. People ask themselves: Why bother?

There are solutions, but it is cause for concern that we are not hearing about them from our MPs and politicians. Journalist Owen Jones came out with the clearest plan during the debate on Channel 4 last night, and it is well worth quoting in full.

He said: “Firstly let’s make it clear – work does not pay in this country. We hear that as a mantra, when most people in poverty get up in the morning and earn that poverty.

“We’re talking about people milking the system. Let’s talk about the low-paying bosses who are being subsidised with in-work benefits because, in the seventh-richest country on Earth, they won’t pay.

“If we’re talking about getting people into jobs I actually think we need to talk about solutions here. One in six workers in the last two years have claimed Jobseekers’ Allowance at some point; that’s a lack of security.

“What we need firstly is a massive house-building programme that would reduce the amount spent on Housing Benefit which, by the way, is not going into the pockets of these tenants – it’s lining the pockets of private landlords charging rip-off rents. If we build housing, it would create jobs and we would stimulate the economy as well.

“It goes the same with the need for an industrial strategy because what successive governments have done, and it started in the eighties, is let the secure jobs go to rot, if you like. Now, other countries like Germany, what they’ve done is had an industrial strategy. Instead of saying, ‘Hands off, let the market decide,’ they’ve said, ‘Actually we want to create jobs in renewable energy.’ Now we’ve just seen the floods; we’re going to have a lot more extreme weather, so let’s have an industrial strategy to go and create renewable energy jobs, giving people secure, dignified jobs, taking on the environmental crisis.

“These are solutions… We’ve got to change the debate we have at the moment where the real villains of the piece, like the tax dodgers who get away with not paying £25 billion a year in tax, like the private landlords and the low-paying bosses milking our welfare state, like the bankers who caused the economic disaster – they get away with it, but all we ever hear about is kicking people at the bottom.”

Absolutely right. And that’s all we’ll hear about it for the foreseeable future, as well. We won’t hear about returning to a full-employment society (which is perfectly possible), because that means the greedy rich will have less money for themselves in the short term.

In the long term, ensuring that there are properly-paid jobs for the most people, so they do not have to claim benefits, means that there is more money moving around the economy – and money makes money. The parasites – who are making a fortune unsustainably by working people hard and paying them poverty rations – would be just as rich in the long run, but they cannot bear to consider the possibility.

One has to consider whether they want to force people into poverty, just to make their own wealth seem more remarkable – the poverty trap as ego-trip, if you like.

But we won’t hear about that because it is politically inflammatory. Far better to set the lower classes against each other, laying blame on each other for problems that are caused by different people entirely – and laugh all the way to the offshore bank.

If I had to describe Britain to a foreigner, I would ask them to imagine a person being robbed outside a public lavatory, by the mayor of his town, while council workers started demolishing the building; the rich are destroying our public services and mugging us at the same time.

Very soon, the same people who are mugging you will be asking for your vote…

… while blaming you for problems they have done nothing to solve.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political strives to stand on its own merits.
But the site needs funds if it is to carry on.
Vox Political cannot continue without YOUR help.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

Hypocritical Tories plan attack on pensioners while protecting themselves

Tags

38 degrees, age, agreement, benefit cap, civil servant, class, Coalition, cold weather payment, committee, Conservative, Daily Mirror, Democrat, Department, discrimination, DWP, free bus pass, free TV licence, hypocrisy, hypocrite, Iain Duncan Smith, judge, Lib Dem, Liberal, life expectancy, location, means test, member, MP, national insurance, NI, Parliament, pensionable, pensioner, Pensions, petition, retire, ring fence, social, state pension, Tories, Tory, work

Someone’s raiding the pensions piggy-bank: Government changes mean the rich will be subsidised by the poor.

It seems the Conservatives cannot wait to betray their most loyal voting group. If you are a pensioner – beware!

As trailed on Vox Political last November, the Department for Work and Pensions appears to be planning to delete the cold weather payment from its chequebook, along with free bus passes and free TV licences.

We already know that the age at which the state pension will be paid is rising, meaning people will have to continue working for longer before they qualify for the £144/week payment (with a minimum National Insurance record of 30 full years). This is a betrayal of promises made by both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in their document ‘The Coalition: Our Programme for Government’.

Because life expectancy depends on where you live and your social class, this means many poorer people will enjoy only three-to-six years of retirement on average, while richer pensioners get 17-20 years of pension payments. That’s right – rich people even get a better deal from the state pension.

Meanwhile, the taxpayer is being asked to fund three-fifths of the pension scheme for members of Parliament, who qualify at the age of 60 after 20 years’ service (or after 15 years if aged between 60 and 65) and receive an average of £353/week (see House of Commons Library SN6283: MPs’ Pension Scheme – 2012 onwards).

MPs (along with civil servants and judges) will receive transitional protection as the pensionable age rises – meaning they won’t lose out. More than 700,000 working women, on the other hand, have received less than two years’ notice of changes that will deprive them of up to £7,500 per year.

Iain Duncan Smith announced at yesterday’s meeting of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee that he was considering removing benefits that are exclusively for pensioners, in order to bolster his Benefit Cap.

He said: “We need maximum flexibility with the cap. Pretty much all existing ringfences will have to disappear.”

Asked if pensioner benefits would be included in the cap, he said: “These are matters which are still under discussion.”

The Benefit Cap was hailed as a hugely popular policy after its introduction last year, but it is now questionable whether pensioners will be quite so enthusiastic.

Including pensioners’ benefits among those that are capped means they may have to be means tested in the future, as the number of pensioners grows – putting pressure on the £200 billion benefits budget.

The Daily Mirror reported that Treasury sources played down this prospect last night, saying the annual spend on pensioner benefits was dwarfed by other payments. This is disingenuous as the annual spend on pensions is more than on all the other benefits combined. Cutting pensioner benefits and forcing people to work longer before they receive their pensions will deprive senior citizens of billions of pounds.

While changes to pensioners’ benefits are still under discussion, changes to the age at which pensions are paid have already become law.

The hypocrisy of MPs in imposing new rules that disadvantage ordinary people while protecting themselves, judges and civil servants has led to the creation of a petition on the 38 Degrees website, calling for the changes to be reversed.

The petition states: “It is discrimination to impose ‘rules’ that disadvantage one group of people more than another. It is against the law to treat someone less favourably than someone else. How can this Government be allowed to get away with this?

“Because of this broken promise those of us affected are now being forced to work longer and wait longer to receive our state pension, which is an entitlement and something to which we have contributed, all of our working lives.

“These changes will also have a detrimental impact upon employment opportunities for young people. The longer we are being forced to work, the fewer jobs there will be for them. Is this an honourable way to treat people?

“The right to retire with financial security, at the age that has been promised throughout our working lives, has been denied.

“This broken promise is unfair, unnecessary and totally unacceptable. Ministers need to do a u-turn on this mean-spirited move and honour their word.”

The petition currently (February 4) has around 7,100 signatures. If you agree with it, please visit the 38 Degrees website and sign.

And don’t forget to mention it to anyone you know who is coming up to retirement age.

Vox Political believes pensioners should have the dignity of financial security.
Like them, the site needs funds to continue.
That’s why YOUR help is vital.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

What you’re not being told about Europe’s verdict on social security

Tags

73, allowance, Atos, bedroom tax, benefit, benefit cap, benefits, breach, Coalition, comfort, Conservative, Council of Europe, death, Democrat, Department, die, disability, disabled, dole, DWP, dying, employment, ESA, European Court of Human Rights, European Social Charter, fatality, government, health, Iain Duncan Smith, IB, IDS, Incapacity Benefit, international, Jobseeker's Allowance, Lib Dem, Liberal, lifestyle choice, lunacy, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, mortality, pension, Pensions, people, politics, report, returned to unit, RTU, sick, social security, State Pension Reform, support, Tories, Tory, tourism, tourist, treaties, treaty, unemployment, uprating, Vox Political, week, welfare, Welfare Reform Act, work, work capability assessment, Workfare

“Manifestly inadequate” are words that should ring in Iain Duncan Smith’s ears for some time to come.

They are the Council of Europe’s verdict on the UK’s social security system of payments for jobseekers, pensioners and recipients of both short- and long-term incapacity benefit.

The Council, an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation, is home to the European Court of Human Rights.

The finding was made in an annual review of the UK’s adherence to the council’s European Social Charter. If the UK’s Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition government takes no action to rectify the situation, then the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers may address a recommendation to the UK, asking it to change the situation in law or in practice. This is clearly a weak way of handling a situation that could affect the well-being of many millions of people.

But Council officials say national courts refer to these international standards when deciding on relevant cases, meaning benefit claimants could try to use the Council’s ruling to boost their case for a higher award.

In response, our ever-more-right-wing government could decide to withdraw from its dealings with the Council altogether, meaning our citizens would no longer have recourse to the European Court of Human Rights. Many Tories – like Philip Davies – have long held this desire!

The Daily Mail, of all rags, appears to have done its homework on this, stating: “JSA, ESA (both £67 a week) and pension (about £102) all fall well below the £138 a week, or £596 a month, that the Eurocrats have set as the benchmark.

“Because all three are below a second threshold of £110 a week, they are rated ‘manifestly inadequate’.”

The UK has signed treaties in which it has promised to adhere to the provisions of the European Social Charter, so the Council’s claim that its conclusions are legally binding are accurate.

But the Coalition government has never been one to accept rules made by anybody else, and the DWP – one of the worst offenders (see previous articles on Workfare, work capability assessments for people with mental health problems, and the Bedroom Tax) is trying to claim that the findings must only be “taken into account” (meaning they would be noted, but ignored).

In his own response, Iain Duncan Smith appears to have completely misunderstood the meaning of the judgement, providing yet another example of why he is rightly considered one of the Coalition government’s leading dunderheads.

“This government has made great strides in fixing the welfare system so that spending is brought under control. It’s lunacy for the Council of Europe to suggest welfare payments need to increase when we paid out £204 billion in benefits and pensions last year alone.”

He simply does not understand that talking about the whole amount paid by the government is irrelevant when it is the amount paid on a regular basis to individuals that is at issue.

The Council of Europe states that 40 per cent of the Eurostat median equivalised income is the level at which the benefits should be paid and, as a treaty signatory, the UK has agreed to meet this requirement. RTU’s opinion is of no consequence at all. He is in breach of an international treaty.

The ruling also undermines his claim that many people have made a lifestyle choice to live in comfort on the dole, and his party’s claim that foreign nationals have been immigrating to Britain for purposes of benefit tourism – income levels are too low for anyone in their right mind to consider it.

What nobody is telling you is that this report does not even take account of the changes to the UK’s social security system that were ushered in by RTU’s (we call him that in honour of his ignominious army career – it stands for Returned To Unit, the fate of officer candidates who didn’t make the grade) hopelessly ignorant and hideously draconian Welfare Reform Act.

These are conclusions based on the system before the Bedroom Tax, before the benefit cap, before the flat-rate state pension, and before the one per cent limit on benefit uprating.

The report states: “The Committee notes that these legislative developments (the Welfare Reform Act and the State Pension Reform) are outside the reference period. Therefore, it asks the next report to indicate how these have affected the personal coverage of social security risks – ie the percentage of the covered persons out of the total active population as well as the minimum levels of income-replacement benefits (unemployment, sickness, maternity and old-age).”

In particular, it singles out Employment and Support Allowance: “The Committee of Ministers observed that there was a toughening of the qualifying conditions for the entitlement to ESA on the one hand and a drastic reduction of its duration on the other, which could result in an outright reduction of protection offered by the sickness benefit.

“The Committee of Ministers invited the Government to show in its next report … that the obligations and sanctions under the work-related activity regime are of such a nature as not to unduly limit the protection afforded … to sick persons after the 13th week of sickness.”

That’s going to be tricky for RTU – the last figures his department deigned to release showed that an average of 73 people a week were dying after going through his ideologically-motivated work capability assessment.

As stated at the start of this article, “manifestly inadequate” are words that should ring in Iain Duncan Smith’s ears for some time to come.

They describe the performance of his department in looking after the needs of British taxpayers who have fallen on hard times due to unemployment or illness – and also its treatment of pensioners.

They also describe, in the opinion of objective outsiders, his own performance as a British government minister.

Vox Political stands up for jobseekers, the ill and the old.
The site needs funds if it is to carry on doing so.
That’s why Vox Political needs YOUR help to continue.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

The great pensions rip-off

Tags

BBC, benefit, benefits, bus pass, class, Coalition, cold weather payment, Conservative, contract, couple's, CPI, Democrat, earnings, final salary scheme, flat rate, government, guarantee, health, inflation, Lib Dem, Liberal, life expectancy, means test, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, minimum income guarantee, National Federation, national insurance, Occupational Pensioners, out, pension, pension credit, Pensions, people, politics, poverty, rate, savings, social security, tax, Tories, Tory, triple-lock, TV licence, Vince Cable, Vox Political, workplace

Someone’s raiding the pensions piggy-bank: Government changes mean the rich will be subsidised by the poor. [Picture: The Guardian]

We all know that pensioners have a charmed life under the current government – right? Pensions take up around half the £160 billion social security budget and there are other perks like the cold weather payment during the winter months, free bus passes and free TV licences – right?

They get a triple-lock inflation guarantee, under which the state pension rises according to the highest of CPI inflation, the rise in earnings or 2.5 per cent. They get Pension Credit (otherwise known as the Minimum Income Guarantee) to ensure they receive a weekly minimum of more than £140.

So no matter what happens to the rest of us, they’re in clover – right?

Not really.

Just taking those examples, Tory Liam Fox wants to cut the cold weather payment down to nothing, and the Liberal Democrat Vince Cable wants to means-test or tax pensions. The free TV licence will disappear if the rising clamour to privatise the BBC receives government blessing.

Then there’s the fact that the age at which we can start drawing our pensions is rising – from 65 (for men) and 60 (for women) in 2010 to 68 (for both) by 2046, which may seem a long way into the future but in fact affects people from 2016 onwards.

The government is bringing this in because people are living longer, and this may seem like a reasonable idea – until one takes into account the fact that life expectancy is hugely dependant not only on where you live but on your social class as well.

For example, in Kensington and Chelsea, average male life expectancy in 2010 was 85.1 years, and average female life expectancy was 89.8 years. In Glasgow at the same time, average male life expectancy was 71.6 years – 13.5 less than men in Kensington and Chelsea – and average female life expectancy was 78 years – 11.8 years lower than in Kensington and Chelsea.

Between 2004 and 2010 the gap in life expectancy between the two places increased by one year and 1.7 years for men and women respectively, indicating that health inequalities across the UK are increasing.

Social class also has a huge effect on life expectancy, with people in higher managerial and professional occupations likely to live 3.5 years longer than those in routine occupations.

But they all pay National Insurance contributions for the same period of time – 30 years – in order to qualify for the state pension. This means working class people living in social housing are likely to be paying towards the pensions of upper-middle class professionals in penthouses, as well as their own.

Now the government is introducing the flat-rate pension for people reaching the state pension age who have made 35 years’ National Insurance contributions. The payment will be £144 per week at today’s prices.

People who have built up large savings for their retirement will be considerably better-off because pensions will no longer be means-tested (Pension Credit will be phased out).

Existing pensioners will remain in the old system and are likely to be worse-off than those who qualify for the new pension.

People aged in their 20s at the moment may also be worse-off than under the current system (so, even with pensions, the Coalition government has found a way to attack the young).

And people who have not paid National Insurance for at least seven years in total will not qualify for the new single-tier state pension at all.

Workers who belong to contracted-out final salary schemes pay lower NI contributions at present, but these will rise after 2016. Public sector workers in such schemes will have to pay more.

The couple’s pension rate, which is lower than the individual rate, is being phased out. This means around 30,000 women due to retire in and around 2016 are expected to lose out, as they were relying on their husband’s NI record for a state pension income and will no longer be entitled to it.

We already knew all of that.

Now, the National Federation of Occupational Pensioners says the government is proposing changes to workplace pension schemes that will undermine benefits, increase pension poverty and widen the gap between the private sector and public sector schemes, according to Mature Times.

The proposed changes mean companies will be allowed to change their scheme rules to remove the inflation link for pensions, increase their pension age and get rid of other benefits such as pensions for spouses. This significant downgrade of pension provision means scheme members could reach retirement and then realise that the expected return from their pensions has been severely reduced.

Put it all together and the less wealthy are being subjected to another rip-off – this one delayed until retirement. Who knows how much energy bills will cost by then? How many of us will have rent to pay, or mortgage payments to complete? How much will the weekly groceries cost? Will the equivalent of £144 per week be enough, by then?

And – in the current cutthroat times – how many of us will survive to find out?

Age UK predicts 200 pensioner deaths PER DAY this winter. Is Iain Duncan Smith happy now?

Tags

Age UK, allowance, benefit, benefits, bill, blood pressure, Coalition, companies, company, Conservative, cost, death, Department, Department for Work and Pensions, die, DWP, employment, energy, ESA, flu. chest infection, government, health, heart attack, heating, Iain Duncan Smith, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, pension, pensioner, Pensions, people, politics, price, problem, respiratory, sick, social Darwinist, social security, stroke, support, Tories, Tory, utility, Vox Political, welfare, winter, work

The Grimmer Reaper: If pensioners die in their thousands this winter, Iain Duncan Smith stands to profit from it. [Picture: Daily Mirror]

It is hard not to imagine Iain Duncan Smith salivating at the thought that 200 pensioners a day might die of the cold this winter.

Pensions are the most expensive part of the State benefit bill, taking up more than half of his budget. With the state pension at £110.15, he stands to save £137,467,200 per year, without having to lift a finger. The energy companies will get the blame, with soaring bills making it impossible for senior citizens to heat their homes.

This is a much better deal, even than the one he engineered with Employment and Support Allowance, in which at least 73 people have been dying every week because of poverty-related health or mental health problems brought on by DWP decisions, ; people on ESA for longer than 13 weeks get £100.15 per week, meaning a saving of only £380,169.40 per year.

Make no mistake – any pensioners who die will be counted as a “positive benefit outcome” in Smith’s twisted DWP world. The man himself has been described as a social Darwinist, meaning he expects natural selection to decide who lives. Survival of the fittest, the ones who make the smart decisions and do what they must – and the Devil take the hindmost.

The figures on pensioners come from a survey by Age UK that says more than three million older people are worried about winter heating, with nearly six million admitting fears about the rising price of energy.

“Cold temperatures can be very dangerous to older people’s health as they not only increase the likelihood and severity of flu, chest infections and other respiratory problems but they also raise blood pressure which puts people at greater risk of heart attacks and strokes,” the Age UK article states.

“This winter, 24,000 older people may not survive the cold weather – that’s 200 deaths a day that could be prevented. Contrary to public belief, about half (41 per cent) of all excess winter deaths are due to heart attack and strokes.

“Age UK’s new research reveals that whilst many older people are worried about staying warm at home, many are unaware of the severe health implications of being cold.

“Almost a quarter (22 per cent) of older people don’t realise that a number of serious health problems are made worse or brought on by the cold and this rose to 29 per cent amongst people aged 80 and over.”

Does Iain Duncan Smith know that?

“Less than one in 10 people aged 65 and over in the UK are aware that strokes can be brought on by the cold in winter, with only 14 per cent recognising that the cold can impact on heart attacks,” the article continues, so it is doubtful that he does. Iain Duncan Smith is 59.

Does he know that “living room temperatures should ideally be kept at 70F (21C) and above whereas bedroom temperatures should be kept at a minimum of 64F (18C)”? Probably not. He’s probably got someone to work these things out for him.

Besides urging older people and their friends and family to be prepared this winter, Age UK is also calling on MPs of all parties to support investment to boost the energy efficiency of older people’s homes and help them keep warm.

It would be welcome to see Iain Duncan Smith helping out here. It would also be a surprise.

That is why it is hard not to imagine Iain Duncan Smith salivating at the thought that 200 pensioners a day might die of the cold this winter.

The summer is heating up – but are the Conservatives melting down?

Tags

amend, andrew dilnot, association, authority, backbencher, Bank of England, BBC, benefit, conference, Conservative, contribution, David Cameron, debt, divisive, doubletalk, Education Secretary, EU, Europe, Eurosceptics, finance, financial, fireworks, Health Secretary, help to buy, Income Tax, Independent, ipsa, Jeremy Hunt, Labour, loons, Lord Howe, mad, marginal, Michael Gove, mortgage, MP, Nasty Party, National Association of Head Teachers, national insurance, NI, Olympic Games, Parliamentary, pay, public services, Queen, questionnaire, referendum, resign, responsbility, responsible, rise, Russell Hobby, Sir Mervyn King, social security, speech, standards, swivel-eyed, Tories, Tory, two-tier, uk statistics authority, union, unsustainable, water cannon, welfare

Swivel-eyed loon: And Jeremy Hunt is a member of the government, not a grassroots Conservative association.

The Conservative Party is eating itself from within. It is therefore an odd time for members to go into Labour marginal constituencies, trying to undermine support with a loaded questionnaire.

That, however, is exactly what we have seen this weekend. But then, what did you expect from the Party of Doubletalk? The Nasty Party? The Party that sows Divisive-ness wherever it can, while mouthing platitudes like “We’re all in it together”? The Party that claims it is responsible with the nation’s finances, while threatening to run up greater debts than any of its rivals ever did?

Let’s start on financial responsibility: Sir Mervyn King, who retires as Governor of the Bank of England next month, has warned that the ‘Help to Buy’ scheme for new mortgages must not be allowed to run indefinitely. The scheme has the state guaranteeing up to 15 per cent of a mortgage on homes worth up to £600,000, and is intended to run until 2017. Sir Mervyn’s fear is that the government will expose the taxpayer – that’s you and me – to billions of pounds of private mortgage debt. He said the UK must avoid what happened in the USA, where state-backed mortgage schemes had to be bailed out.

This particular scheme has already run into flak from those who claimed it was a “second-home subsidy” for the very rich. The new criticism raises fears that the Conservatives are actively engineering a situation that will create more unsustainable debt – and we all know what they do to resolve that kind of problem, don’t we?

They cut. Most particularly, they cut parts of the public services that help anyone who doesn’t earn at least £100,000 per year.

And no – before anyone pipes up with it – nobody receives that much on benefits.

For doubletalk, let’s look at Michael Gove. The Education Secretary was heckled and jeered when he appeared before the National Association of Head Teachers’ conference, where members passed a motion of no confidence in his policies.

The BBC quoted Russell Hobby, general secretary of the NAHT: “What I think he’s failed to pick up on is the short termism of the targets and the constant change, [which] means that people no longer feel that they’re doing the job that they came to do, which is to teach children.”

Mr Gove said he had been “delighted with the warmth and enthusiasm” that had greeted some of the government’s education policies.

But he went on to say there would be no change of course: “What I have heard is repeated statements that the profession faces stress, and insufficient evidence about what can be done about it. What I haven’t heard over the last hour is a determination to be constructive. Critical yes, but not constructive.”

Doubletalk. At first he was saying one thing when we know he means something else entirely; then he went on to ignore what he had been told – by the experts – because it did not support his policy.

Meanwhile, of course, the Conservative Party is eating itself alive over Europe. There are so many angles to this, it’s hard to know where to begin!

We know that Conservative backbenchers tried to amend their own government’s Queen’s speech with a motion regretting the lack of intention to legislate for an in/out referendum on membership of the European Union, and we know that 116 of them voted in favour of that motion. That wasn’t anything like enough for it to pass, so David Cameron didn’t have to worry about resigning (as suggested in previous articles on this blog).

Next thing we knew, the Telegraph‘s political editor, James Kirkup, told us a government figure close to the Prime Minister had said the backbenchers had to vote the way they did because they had been ordered to do so by grassroots Conservative association members, and they were all “mad, swivel-eyed loons”.

Downing Street has denied that anybody said such a thing, but Kirkup has tweeted “I stand by my story” – and anyway, the damage has been done. Conservative association members were already at loggerheads with the Parliamentary party and the government, we’re told, because they believe their views are being ignored.

(One wonders what those views might, in fact, be. This could be one case in which ignoring the will of the people is actually the more sensible thing to do!)

Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, has said the Conservatives are “united” in their view of Europe – but then, Jeremy Hunt – as Health Secretary – told Parliament that spending on the NHS has risen in real terms since the Coalition came into office, and we know from Andrew Dilnot, head of the independent UK Statistics Authority, that this is not true.

Lord Howe, on the other hand, has accused Crime – sorry, Prime – Minister David Cameron of “running scared” of Eurosceptics and losing control of the party. This is the man whose resignation speech, which memorably included a comment that being sent to deal with the EU was like being in a cricket team whose captain had broken his bat, signalled the end of Margaret – later Baroness – Thatcher’s career as Prime Minister.

Who do we believe, the silly youngster or the boring old guy? That’s right – we believe the old guy who already brought down one Prime Minister. Perhaps he can do the same to another.

Meanwhile, we were told on Sunday that members of Parliament are all set to receive a pay rise of up to £20,000, starting in 2015, the year of the next general election. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has been considering an increase of between £10,000 and £20,000, with the lower figure most likely – despite a consultation revealing that some MPs (all Conservative) thought they were worth more than £100,000 per year.

Backbencher pay is around £65,000 per year at the moment. This means the pay rise they are likely to get is 15 per cent, while those Conservatives who wanted £100 grand expected a rise of 54 per cent.

Average pay rises for working people over the last year were less than one per cent.

Do you think this is appropriate remuneration for the political organisation that said “We’re all in it together?” Because I don’t.

And this is the time the Conservative Party decides to float a proposal for a two-tier benefit system, in a survey sent to residents of marginal seats held by Labour.

One question asked whether benefit payments should be the same, regardless of how many years a person has paid National Insurance or income tax. If people answered ‘no’, the next question asked what proportion of benefits should be dependent on a record of contribution.

This is insidious. If benefits become dependent on contribution, that means young people without a job will not qualify for benefits – they won’t have paid anything in, so won’t be able to take anything out. Also, what about the long-term sick and disabled (don’t start about fraud – eliminating the 0.4 per cent of fraudulent claims does not justify what the Conservative-led Coalition is already doing to 87/88 per cent of ESA claimants, or what it has started doing to PIP claimants)? Their claims are likely to continue long after their contributions run out.

This is, I think, a trick to allow rich people to get out of paying higher tax rates. Think about it – rich people pay more, therefore they subsidise public services, including social security benefits, for the poor. Get people to support benefit payments based on the amount of money people pay in and the rich get a nice fat tax cut while the poor get their benefits cut off.

Fair? All in it together?

There’s a lot of doubletalk, so sections are headed “helping with the cost of living” (they tend to make it impossible for people to meet that cost) or “making our welfare and benefits system fair” – Tories have never tried to do this in the entire history of that political party.

And respondents were asked to agree with one of two statements, which were: “If you work hard, it is possible to be very successful in Britain no matter what your background” and “In Britain today, people from some backgrounds will never have a real chance to be successful no matter how hard they work”. The correct answer is to agree with the second statement, of course. And this government of public schoolboys have every intention of pushing that situation to its utmost extreme, so if you are a middle-class social climber and you think there are opportunities for you under a Tory government, forget it.

The whole nightmarish rag is prefaced by a letter from David Cameron. It’s very funny if you accept that it’s full of doubletalk and nonsense. Let’s go through it together:

“I’d like to know what you think about some of the steps we’ve taken so far – and I’d like to know your ideas about what more the Government can do to help families like yours,” he begins. He means: I’d like to know what we can say in order to get you to vote for us in 2015. We’ll have no intention of carrying out any promise that does not advantage ourselves and our extremely rich friends. The correct response is: Your policies are ideologically-motivated twaddle that are causing critical damage to this country and its institutions. Your best action in the future will be to resign.

“I think helping people through tough economic times means making sure our welfare and benefits is [sic] fair. That means ensuring the system helps those who do the right thing and want to get on. That’s helping rich people through tough economic times. We’ll make welfare and benefits as unfair to the poor as we can. That means ensuring the system helps those who support us and are rich enough for us to want to help them. Your changes to welfare and benefits have led to thousands of deaths. That is not fair. You are breaking the system.

“That’s why we’ve capped the amount an out-of-work household can receive in benefits, so this can’t be more than an average working family earns. Again I’d like to know what you think about the actions we’ve taken so far, and your ideas to the future.” It’s nothing near what an average working family earns, because they would be on benefits that top up their earnings to more than £31,000 – but you couldn’t cap at that level because almost nobody would have been knocked off the benefit books (all your talk about people taking more than £100,000 in benefits was nonsense). Resign, join a monastery and vow never to enter public life again.

There is no doubt about it – the cracks are beginning to show. Last summer, the Olympic Games gave us spectacular firework displays. As public unrest mounts, it seems likely that we’ll see even more spectacular fireworks this year – unplanned.

But then, that is why the Conservatives bought the water cannons that are being tested at Petersfield. When they go into use, we’ll all know what they really think of the general public.

Don’t blame the poor when the rich are bleeding you dry

Tags

abraham lincoln, andy burnham, benefit, cambridge, co-operation, Conservative, Daily Mail, Democrat, development, disability, douglas alexander, economic, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, Goebbels, harvard, illness, joseph rowntree foundation, Labour, Liam Byrne, Liberal, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, national, neoliberal, OECD, office, ONS, organisation, oxford, poor, statistics, Sun, Tories, Tory, Tory Lite, unemployment, Vox Political, welfare, yvette cooper

You know that things have come to a pretty pass when Labour Party supporters turn against the poor.

This has happened at a time when the number of people with money to spare has dropped dramatically, meaning more of our people have become poor.

The change may reasonably be blamed on Labour’s adherence to Liam Byrne’s diabolical welfare policy, that aims to continue where the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats leave off – demonising people who have done nothing wrong, unless you count illness, disability and unemployment as a personal choice.

It suggests that people of good heart are leaving the party in large numbers, allowing those who are left to turn it into what its critics have claimed it to be for a considerable time now: Tory Lite.

The change is identified in a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, that showed 47 per cent of Labour supporters surveyed in 2011 thought that, if benefits were less generous, people would learn to support themselves – up from 17 per cent in 1987.

The fact of the matter, of course, is that benefits are much less generous now than they were in the 1980s. In 1987, unemployment benefits totalled around 20 per cent of the average weekly wage; now they come to around 10 per cent – around half of what they were. But Labour supporters – Labour! – say they are too generous.

It looks like the Tories really are brainwashing people with their nonsense rhetoric, as repeated in newspapers that Labour supporters shouldn’t be reading, like The Sun and the Daily Mail. That good friend of the Conservative Party, Joseph Goebbels, was right – “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Of course, Goebbels added: “The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent.”

So those of us who are interested in the facts may be looking forward to hard times. It’s still better than being a fair-weather friend of social justice – only interested in the good of our fellows if it doesn’t impact on us.

But it is already impacting on everybody!

The Office for National Statistics, using Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) figures, has reported that the UK has plummeted down the international league table of economic well-being, from fifth to 12th within the six years up to 2011.

On a separate labour-market ranking, the country fell even further, dropping 12 places. In the labour market league table it ranked 21st out of 34 countries. Top of the league was Norway, which has just three per cent unemployment and, as I understand it, a thriving welfare state. Think about that.

The ONS noted changes to taxes and benefits as key factors in the drop.

This morning, one of Vox‘s longest-serving commentators reported that there is a change among the people around him; that those who argued against his criticism of the Conservative-led government are now turning to the Left. If so, it seems they are not turning to Labour.

Recently we have witnessed a movement to form a new political movement, representing socialist views but untarnished by the memory of New Labour’s 13 years of Neoliberal mistakes. Several contenders have cropped up but none of them will carry any weight at the next general election – instead, all they are likely to do is sap enough votes from Labour to let the Conservatives back into office again. That would be a calamity for the country.

No, the best thing to do is to take Labour back for the people it was meant to serve. First step in that direction must be to consign Liam Byrne and his vile mess of a welfare policy to the back benches, and design a new plan, attacking the causes of unemployment and workplace sickness and disability, rather than their symptoms. This is simple logic.

And we need to get people into the shadow cabinet who have actually held proper jobs. Look at Ed Miliband: Oxford graduate – short media career – Westminster job for Labour. Ed Balls: Oxford graduate (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) – short media career – Westminster job for Labour. Douglas Alexander: University graduate – six-month career as a solicitor – Westminster. Yvette Cooper: Oxford (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) – Westminster researcher job for Labour. Andy Burnham: Cambridge – researcher for Tessa Jowell. Many of these also went to Harvard.

Liam Byrne, the demon of the Labour Party: University (Politics and Modern History at Manchester) – Harvard – then work for a multinational consulting firm (Accenture) and then the Rothschild merchant bankers(!) before going to Labour to help lead its ‘New Labour’ business campaign. This man has nothing whatsoever to do with real working people.

When everybody in a particular group – in business, politics, socially, whatever – is from the same background, they tend to agree about key subjects. From the above group we can see that many of the Labour front bench have followed exactly the same career path. What do they know about working-class people? At least two of them – Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper, no less – graduated from the same Oxford degree course as David Cameron, the comedy Prime Minister.

No wonder people are having a hard time distinguishing between the two main parties and want a left-wing alternative.

It’s time for Labour to grow up and realise it needs to change. It must come back to its voting base and start to represent the people of the UK once again – rather than Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard graduates. If Ed Miliband wants to keep his position, he needs to clear out his shadow cabinet and get some fresh thinkers in. Someone recently mentioned Abraham Lincoln’s ‘cabinet of enemies’, and the fact that it was good for him to have opposing views at the heart of his government.

Until we get that in the Labour Party, maybe we should agree that the ‘Tory Lite’ criticisms are accurate.

What are you going to do about it, Labour?