Public money is being thrown away on government-contracted scroungers

Tags

A4E, accountancy, accountant, allowance, avoid, backbencher, bedroom tax, benefit, Big Four, business, cap, Coalition, company, Conservative, contract, council tax, Deloitte, Department, DWP, employment, Ernst & Young, ESA, EU, european union, feckless, firm, food bank, foreign, G4S, government, idle, immigrant, immigration, in-work, incentive, Ingeus, KPMG, lazy, lie, Maximus, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, minister, mislead, parasite, payout, Pensions, people, politics, PricewaterhouseCoopers, private, provider, reassessment, sanction, scrounger, skiver, social security, support, tax, taxpayer, Tories, Tory, Treasury, unemployment, unum, uprating cap, Vox Political, welfare, welfare to work, work, Work Programme, work-related activity, Workfare, Working Links, zero hours contract

It turns out that some people really do get to lie around all day, doing nothing apart from watching the money rolling in.

Bloody scroungers.

I’m sorry to swear – and you know I’m not usually rude – but these Work Programme provider companies really get my goat.

The revelation that companies such as Ingeus, A4e and Working Links were getting undeserved ‘incentive’ money (see also the BBC’s article), rather than being paid by results as has been claimed loudly and repeatedly by Tory ministers and backbenchers, is nothing new to Vox Political – we first pointed out the problem in November 2012, more than 18 months ago.

You see, not only has this been going on ever since the Coalition government established welfare-to-work in its current form –

Not only have government ministers and backbenchers been lying to you about the payouts given to the profit-driven privately-owned provider companies –

Not only have these companies been sucking down on your hard-earned taxpayer cash as though they had done something to earn it –

But the people they were supposed to be helping – people who have been forced into ever-greater poverty by the benefit uprating cap, arbitrary and unfair benefit sanctions, the bedroom tax, the £26,000 cap on benefits for families, the imposition of council tax on even the poorest households (in England at least), the stress of continual reassessment (if they are ESA claimants in the work-related activity group), the humiliation of having to visit food banks and who knows what else…

The people who are desperate to get any kind of paying job, despite the fact that zero-hours contracts could make them worse-off than unemployment, due to the effect on in-work benefits, despite the fact that those in-work benefits are also being squeezed hard, and despite the fact that there are at least five jobseekers for every job that becomes available…

These are the people that government ministers, backbenchers and the right-wing press keep victimising with their endless attacks on “skivers”, “scroungers”, the “feckless”, the “idle” and the “lazy”!

If I was unemployed and my MP had been caught slagging me off while praising these good-for-nothing so-called work programme ‘providers’, I would make it my business to bring them before the public, lock them into some medieval stocks and pelt them with rotten vegetables. Public humiliation is the least they should get for this continual insult to common decency.

But wait! There’s more.

It turns out that, not only are these work programme providers a bunch of lazy good-for-nothing parasites, but many of them are also a bunch of foreigners who’ve come to the UK to take our jobs!

Ingeus is Australian. G4S is part-Danish. Maximus is American.

It seems that all the politically-fuelled and media-driven anger against immigration into the UK from the rest of the European Union and beyond may be designed to distract us all from the fact that foreign firms are immigrating here to take government jobs that should be yours, and to steal your tax money.

Nobody can say they’ve earned it, after all.

But let us not be unfair. It would be wrong to concentrate on welfare-to-work providers when all of government is riddled with foreign interlopers.

Look at the Treasury, where the ‘Big Four’ accountancy firms have been re-writing tax law to suit their tax-avoiding corporate clients for the last few years. They are Deloitte (American), PriceWaterhouseCoopers (part-American), Ernst & Young (part-American) and KPMG (Dutch).

And then there is the huge, criminal, foreign firm that has been advising the Department for Work and Pensions on ways to privatise the welfare state since the mid-1990s – a firm so controversial that there is currently a moratorium on the mention of its name in the national mainstream media. It is an American insurance giant called Unum.

The best that can be said of these five corporations is that – at least to the best of our knowledge – they do work for a living.

… In their own interest – not yours.

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 Vox Political books!
The second – Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

The first, Strong Words and Hard Times
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

The Coalition is creating serious problems and distracting you with phantoms

Tags

Annual Survey, ASHE, Bank of England, BBC News, beauty, bedroom tax, benefit, benefit cap, BoE, breasts, bribe, Bulgaria, business, business rate, catastrophe, Child Benefit, claimant, Coalition, Conservative, council, council tax, CPI, Croatia, cure, cut, David Cameron, debt, defence, Democrat, deodorise, earning, earnings, economic, economy, false, falsify, fiddle, figure, fiscal, flood, frack, fund, George Eaton, George Osborne, government, Heathrow, hours, household, housing bubble, IFS, immigrant, Income Tax, individual, industry, inflation, Institute, interest rate, invent, Jill Filipovic, job, jobseeker, Jonathan Portes, Jonathan Wilson, Keith Vaz, Lib Dem, Liberal, low-paid, Matthew Hancock, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, National Institute, national insurance, New Statesman, NIESR, pay, Personal Allowance, politics, pretend, problem, reassessment, retail, rise, Romania, RPI, salary, sanction, self-employed, shale gas, Social Research, storm, Studies, swoob, tax credit, The Guardian, Tories, Tory, unemployment, uprating, upturn, Vox Political, wage, weather, Workfare

According to the beauty industry, women must now start deodorising under their breasts.

I kid you not – it was in The Guardian.

Columnist Jill Filipovic hit the nail on the head when she wrote: “I can already hear your objections: ‘But the area under my boobs doesn’t stink!’ or ‘What kind of marketing genius not only came up with the term “swoob,” but actually thought half the world’s population might be dumb enough to buy into it?’ or simply, ‘This is a dumb product aimed at inventing an insecurity and then claiming to cure it.’

“You would be correct on all three points.

“In fact, inventing problems with women’s bodies and then offering a cure – if you pay up – is the primary purpose of the multi-billion dollar beauty industry.”

The simple fact is that you don’t really need to worry about smells down there – a good old soapy flannel will cure any such problems.

That’s not the point, though. The aim is to get you thinking about it and devoting your energy to it, rather than to other matters.

Now let’s translate that to politics.

We already know that all the scaremongering about Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants storming the country from January 1 was a crock. That bastion of good statistics, The Now Show, told us last week that the total number of Bulgarian immigrants in the last couple of weeks was “around two dozen so far”, according to their ambassador. In the first three months after our borders were opened to Croatians, 174 turned up.

Yet the government wanted you to believe they would flood our immigration service in their millions, “taking benefits and yet simultaneously also taking all the jobs”.

My use of language such as “storming” and “flood” is not accidental. By far the more serious threat to the UK in the early days of 2014 was the weather – and, guess what, not only was the government unprepared for the ferocity of the storms that swept our islands, the Coalition was in fact in the process of cutting funding for flood defence.

This would have gone unnoticed if the weather had behaved itself, because we would all have been distracted by the single Romanian immigrant who was ensnared by Keith Vaz in a ring of TV cameras at Heathrow Airport.

Now the Tories are telling us that our take-home pay is finally on the rise for all but the top 10 per cent of earners, with the rest of us seeing our wages rise by at least 2.5 per cent.

The government made its claims (up) by taking into account only cuts to income tax and national insurance, using data leading up to April last year, according to the BBC News website.

This kind of nonsense is easily overcome – New Statesman published the above chart, showing the real effect of changes to weekly income for people in various income groups, and also provided the reason for the government’s mistake (if that’s what it was).

“The data used … takes no account of the large benefit cuts introduced by the coalition, such as the real-terms cut in child benefit, the uprating of benefits in line with CPI inflation rather than RPI, and the cuts to tax credits,” writes the Statesman‘s George Eaton.”

He also pointed out that other major cuts such as the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, and the 10 per cent cut in council tax support were introduced after April 2013 and were not included in the Coalition figures.

Once all tax and benefit changes are taken into account, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that almost all families are worse off – and the Coalition also appears to have forgotten the five million low-paid workers who don’t earn enough to benefit from the increase in the personal allowance.

Skills and enterprise minister Matthew Hancock compounded the mistake in an exchange on Twitter with Jonathan Portes, director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR). Asked why his analysis “ignores more than four million people in work (the self-employed)”, Mr Hancock tweeted: “Analysis based on ONS ASHE survey of household earnings data”.

Wrong – as Mr Portes was quick to show: “Don’t you know the difference between household and individual earnings?”

Apparently not. ASHE (Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings) is a survey of employed individuals using their National Insurance numbers – not of households or the self-employed.

So the Coalition – and particularly the Tories – were trying to make us all feel good about the amount we earn.

That’s the distraction. What are we supposed to be ignoring?

Would it be David Cameron’s attempt to bribe councils into allowing shale gas companies to frack their land? Councils that back fracking will get to keep all the business rates collected from the schemes – rather than the usual 50 per cent.

He has also claimed that fracking can boost the economy and encourage businesses into the country, in a further bid to talk down dissent.

Or is it the growing threat of a rise in interest rates, which may be triggered when official unemployment figures – which have been fiddled by increased sanctions on jobseekers, rigged reassessments of benefit claimants, a new scheme to increase the number of people and time spent on Workfare, and the fake economic upturn created by George Osborne’s housing bubble – drop to seven per cent?

It seems possible that the government – especially the Tory part of it – would want to keep people from considering the implications of an interest rate rise that is based on false figures.

As Vox Political commenter Jonathan Wilson wrote yesterday: “If the BOE bases its decisions on incorrect manipulated data that presents a false ‘good news’ analysis then potentially it could do something based on it that would have catastrophic consequences.

“For example if its unemployment rate test is reached, and wages were going up by X per cent against a Y per cent inflation rate which predicted that an interest rate rise of Z per cent would have no general effect and not impact on house prices nor significantly increase repossessions (when X per cent is over-inflated by the top 1 per cent of earners, Y per cent is unrealistically low due to, say, the 50 quid green reduction and/or shops massively discounting to inflate purchases/turnover and not profit) and when it does, instead of tapping on the breaks lightly it slams the gears into reverse while still traveling forward… repossessions go up hugely, house prices suffer a major downward re-evaluation (due to tens of thousands of repossessions hitting the auction rooms) debt rates hit the roof, people stop buying white goods and make do with last year’s iPad/phone/tv/sofa, major retail goes tits up, Amazon goes to the wall, the delivery market and post collapses… etc etc.

“And all because the government fiddled the figures.”

Perhaps Mr Cameron doesn’t want us thinking about that when we could be deodorising our breasts instead.

Show your support for Vox Political!
The site 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:

Welfare benefits: ‘The Lords regret…’

Tags

appeal, Atos, benefit, benefits, biopsychosocial, building regulations, Chris Grayling, Coalition, Conservative, David Freud, Department for Work and Pensions, disability, Disability Living Allowance, disabled, DLA, DWP, electrical safety, Employment and Support Allowance, ESA, government, Iain Duncan Smith, Jobseeker's Allowance, JSA, Labour, Lord, Maria Miller, mark hoban, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Parliament, people, Personal Independence Payment, PIP, politics, reassessment, Social Fund, statutory instrument, suicide, Tories, Tory, unemployment, Universal Credit, unum, Vox Political, welfare, Welfare Reform Act, Workfare

If the Palace of Westminster ever had a rat infestation it must be personified in the body of David Freud.

This deadly pest, who is likely to cause disease and infirmity among many of the lower-earning members of society, began his political career when he was appointed by the Labour Party to review the welfare to work system – and he led Labour well off-track in doing so.

His recommendations called for more private sector involvement in the welfare system – which already had considerable interference from Unum and Atos, as readers of this and other blogs will be aware. He wanted to force most people receiving benefits to take part in some form of employment – or prepare for it – as a condition of receiving support.

This is, of course – counter-intuitive. If they could find employment, they wouldn’t be claiming benefits – so what kind of work would they be required to do? It turns out we discovered the answer during his tenure with the government: Illegally-coerced work. Slave labour.

Having done as much damage as he could with Labour, Freud jumped ship to the Conservative Party, like the rat that he is. It is as the Conservative Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the House of Lords that he has done the most damage.

It is well-known that the Tories have adopted his disastrous ideas wholesale, and the involvement of Atos, with its work capability assessment pushing the Unum-inspired biopsychosocial model of “it’s all in your mind” healthcare on the seriously-ill, has grossly inflated the death – and suicide – rate among Employment and Support Allowance claimants.

These deaths are on Freud’s conscience, just as much as they are on Iain Duncan Smith’s, Chris Grayling’s, Maria Miller’s, and Mark Hoban’s, to name just a few.

I mention the above because this loathsome creature is even now lurching towards the House of Lords to inflict even more damaging changes to the social security system in the form of a series of statutory instruments. For those who are unfamiliar with the Parliamentary process, these set out the rules that form the nitty-gritty, the details of legislation that are underpinned by Acts of Parliament. Crucially, they do not require an affirmative vote to pass into law.

Today he is bringing the following:

Universal Credit Regulations 2013 – seting out entitlement to, and calculation of, an award of Universal Credit, the new single payment for people who are out of work or working on a low income.

Because no vote is necessary, it is impossible to block this instrument. However, Baroness Sherlock is to move an addition to the motion: “this House regrets that the Regulations will not achieve their aim of making work pay for all and in fact will provide lower work incentives for 2.1 million households; will have the effect of penalising savers; will result in a cut in childcare support for working families; will result in cuts to the income of some of the poorest and most vulnerable in the country and will have a disproportionate impact on women and lone parent families; do not meet the needs of disabled people; do not provide adequate treatment of small businesses and the self-employed; and risk pushing many families into arrears and homelessness.”

In other words, they will do the exact opposite of whatever Lord Freud and his Tory paymasters are saying.

A similar amendment has been proposed to the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) Regulations 2013, expressing concern about the impact of replacing Disability Living Allowance with the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), under the rules for entitlement and calculation they lay down.

Lord McKenzie of Luton will move: “this House is concerned about the impact of the replacement of Disability Living Allowance with Personal Independence Payment; is concerned about the lack of a full impact assessment on carers; regrets the lack of a cumulative impact assessment of all the changes hitting disabled people; regrets the fact that vital safeguards have not been introduced to ensure that additional pressure is not put on carers, that people do not lose their freedom to work and that they are not driven to already-stretched NHS or social care services; believes that while Disability Living Allowance needed reform it should have been started with the needs of disabled people and not with a budget cut; notes that some 600,000 fewer people will be in receipt of Personal Independence Payment by May 2018 compared to those who would have been entitled under Disability Living Allowance; and further notes that some 25,000 disabled people could be forced to give up their jobs because they can no longer afford the extra costs of getting to work.”

Don’t be under any illusions – the government will vote down these amendments. It will be up to us – those who are directly affected by these changes – to monitor what happens and reveal the truth of these statements.

There are other statutory instruments due to go through today. The Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations 2013 and Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2013 limit both benefits so they will only be payable based on a person’s National Insurance contribution record; those who do not qualify on that basis will instead claim Universal Credit.

The Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2013 address the administration of all these benefits, revising the appeals process so that claimants must first apply for a disputed decision to be reconsidered by a decision maker (i.e. an internal review) before they can make an appeal to an external tribunal. This is the much-lamented rule that, it has been claimed, will dump appellants onto Jobseekers’ Allowance – even though they cannot possibly find work – until their reassessment has taken place.

The Social Security (Payments on Account of Benefit) Regulations 2013 introduce two new types of payment to replace Social Fund payments, either for an advance payment of benefit or as a loan to buy a household item. They outline the criteria which the Secretary of State must use when determining whether or not to make them.

And the Social Security (Loss of Benefit) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 support changes introduced by the Welfare Reform Act 2012, including sanctions of up to 3 years’ loss of benefit that may be imposed following conviction for a benefit fraud offence.

It is clear that this is a toxic mixture of changes, designed to bring as much misery as possible down on an already-downtrodden sector of society.

Oh, and if this was not bad enough, it will be followed by a debate on the Building Regulations &c. (Amendment) Regulations 2012, which includes another Motion to Regret: “This House regrets Her Majesty’s Government’s decision… to change the provisions on electrical safety in the home, which will be detrimental to public safety.”

Detrimental to public safety. We have a government that sets out to do more harm than good.

Any peers taking part in these debates should be ashamed to be part of such a debased administration.

What they are doing is criminal – we discovered yesterday that this is exactly true, when Cait Reilly won her case against the illegal Workfare scheme that has been forced on thousands of jobseekers, and would have been forced on thousands more if it had not been challenged.

Unfortunately, this out-of-control government’s reaction was to change the law to suit itself.

This is what happens when villains are allowed to make up the rules.

Postscript: As I type this, I’m listening to Prime Minister’s Questions. He just mentioned the Conservative candidate in the Eastleigh by-election, using the now-boring “Ronseal” comparison as someone who “does exactly what it says on the tin”. Look at the amendments to the regulation before the Lords today; it is clear that the Tories do exactly the opposite of what it says on the tin.

Perhaps a better word than “Ronseal” would be “unhinged“.