Cameron’s crackdown on immigrant benefits is just another grubby con

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andy burnham, benefit, claim, Coalition, con, Conservative, crackdown, David Cameron, Democrat, hoodwink, immigrant, immigration, Labour, Lib Dem, Liberal, migrant, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, months, National Health Service, NHS, politics, privatisation, privatise, restrict, sale, sell-off, six, speech, three, Tories, Tory, unemployment, Vox Political, work

[Picture: I Am Incorrigible blog – http://imincorrigible.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/evidence-not-ideology-benefit-tourism-the-problem-only-fruitloops-and-tories-can-see/ – which agrees that benefit tourism is a non issue and distraction from the UK’s real problems.]

The UK is to cut the amount of time EU migrants without realistic job prospects can claim benefits from six to three months, according to David Cameron – who seems desperate to take attention away from Andy Burnham’s speech today on the Coalition’s unwanted privatisation of the National Health Service.

According to the BBC, Cameron said the “magnetic pull” of UK benefits needed addressing to attract people for the right reasons.

But the announcement seems to be deliberately confusing.

It seems this restriction will only apply to people born abroad who have had a job in this country and then lost it. They are the only migrant group currently allowed to claim JSA for six months before the benefit is cut off “unless they [have] very clear job prospects”, as Cameron put it in the BBC article.

EU migrants who were claiming benefits in their own countries must fill in an E303 form in order to receive benefits at the destination country – which are issued at the same rates as in their country of origin for a total of three months only. Failure to find employment in that time means the loss of the benefit or a return to the country of origin.

The BBC article is vague about this; it’s as if Auntie – and Cameron – are trying to hoodwink you (shurely shome mishtake? – Ed) into thinking he is restricting benefits for people who come here looking for work, which is something he cannot do.

Perhaps Cameron is trying to avoid the embarrassment created by his last attempt to claim he was doing something about immigration; he announced five proposals, one of which related to all employers (quadrupling fines for those that do not pay the minimum wage), while the other four were already part of the law of this land.

That little Con was exposed very quickly, on this blog and others.

Note also that he is still trying to say people are coming here from abroad in order to claim our benefits.

That is a lie.

From Vox Political‘s article last year: “UK citizens are a greater drain on the state than immigrants from Europe. Between 1995 and 2011 EEA immigrants paid in 4 per cent more than they took out, whereas native-born Brits only paid in 93 per cent of what they received. Between 2001 and 2011 recent EEA immigrants contributed 34 per cent more than they took out, a net contribution of £22bn.”

Considering the timing of this announcement, it seems likely that Cameron wanted something to take attention away from Andy Burnham’s speech on the Coalition’s dirty little backroom deals to privatise more of the NHS, reported on this blog earlier today.

He must be scraping the bottom of the barrel.

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Give the public a say before selling off the NHS, demands Burnham

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andy burnham, Coalition, consent, Conservative, contract, David Cameron, Democrat, dishonest, full, government, health, Jeremy Hunt, Labour, Lib Dem, Liberal, long term, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, National Health Service, next, NHS, Parliament, people, permission, politics, privatisation, privatise, public, reverse, sale, say, sell-off, sick, term, tie, top down reorganisation, Tories, Tory, unacceptable, voice, Vox Political

Scheming, lice-ridden vermin: All the airbrushing in the world could not erase the brutal, calculating dishonesty of the Conservative 2010 election poster.

This guy has been impressive from the get-go: Today (Tuesday) Andy Burnham will call on the Coalition to put its plans for further NHS privatisation on hold until there is clear evidence that the public wants the health service to be sold off.

The speech in Manchester is being timed to take place before the Conservative-led government signs a series of new NHS contracts that will – underhandedly – tie the hands of a future government.

Sly little devils, aren’t they?

The British public has never given its consent for far-reaching and forced privatisation of services – and that’s what Mr Burnham will be saying.

He will point out that the forced privatisation of the NHS is entering new territory and becoming harder to reverse: Contracts are being signed that will run throughout the next Parliament and beyond, tying the hands of the next government in a crucial area of public policy.

Not only is this unacceptable to Labour, but it has never been accepted by the public, and Mr Burnham will say that comedy Prime Minister David Cameron needs to be reminded that the NHS does not belong to him but to the British people – and he never received our permission to put it up for sale.

He will remind everybody that Cameron was dishonest about his privatisation plans before the last election. Cameron said there would be “no top-down reorganisation”.

If he wants to continue to force privatisation through, he should seek the consent of the public at the 2015 Election, Mr Burnham will say.

And he will contrast the increasingly fragmented and privatised travesty that Cameron wants to force on you – where service has become a postcode lottery dependent on the cost-effectiveness of providing certain forms of healthcare in your locality – with a public, integrated NHS as Labour intends to re-form it.

It was confirmed last week that NHS spending on private-sector and other providers has exceeded £10 billion for the first time.

“For all its faults, it is a service that is based on people not profits,” Mr Burnham will say. “That principle sets our health service apart and was famously celebrated two years ago at the Opening Ceremony of our Olympic Games.

“When his reorganisation hit trouble and was paused, David Cameron explicitly promised that it would not lead to more forced privatisation of services. But… on his watch, NHS privatisation is being forced through at pace and scale.

“Commissioners have been ordered to put all services out to the market.

“NHS spending on private and other providers has gone through the £10 billion barrier for the first time.

“When did the British public ever give their consent for this?

“It is indefensible for the character of the country’s most valued institution to be changed in this way without the public being given a say.”

Among the long-lasting agreements due to be signed by the Coalition in a bid to tie the next government into its privatisation of services are two contracts for cancer care in Staffordshire lasting no less than 10 years and worth a massive £1.2 billion; a five-year contract worth £800 million for the care of older people in Cambridge; and a contract in Oxford and Milton Keynes set to begin a month before the General Election for medical staffing.

The last of these is using a ‘reverse auction’ process where the lowest bidder wins, confirming fears of a ‘race to the bottom’ culture and contradicting claims from the Government of no competition on price in the NHS.

Once again Labour shows us that there is no depth to which the Cameron administration will not stoop. This time they are using the summer Parliamentary recess to sign contracts intended to prevent any future government from restoring our health service and reversing the appalling damage they have done so that they and their friends can profit from the suffering and sickness of the poor.

They could not do more damage if they were a filthy, sickening, scheming plague of lice-ridden vermin; in fact, that is exactly what they resemble.

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Do parents even know their children’s school data has been given away?

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absence, attainment, Big Brother Watch, Civil Liberties, Coalition, confidential, Conservative, data, Deloitte, Democrat, ethnic, exam, exclusion, free school meal, gender, government, health record, language, Lib Dem, Liberal, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Mumsnet, National Pupil Database, NPD, Owen Boswarva, people, politics, pupil, sale, school, sell, SEN, sold, special educational needs, tax record, test, Tories, Tory, Vox Political

Fellow blogger and Vox Political reader Owen Boswarva has delivered frightening proof of the way parents have been sidelined by Michael Gove’s Department for Education, in order to give away – not even sell – confidential information about our children to private companies.

Mr Boswarva said he had written a blog post about the issue last year, in which he stated his concern about “the low profile of DfE’s NPD initiative. Most of the consultation responses are from organisations with an interest in re-using the data, leavened by some cautionary advice from civil society groups. There are only a couple of responses from schools and a half-dozen or so responses from individual parents (consistently opposed to the proposals).” [Emphasis mine]

“There appears to have been no concerted effort to bring the consultation or the NPD initiative to the attention of parents or pupils (i.e. the data subjects themselves). This is a quote from one of the parents who did respond: ‘I am shocked and appalled that I wasn’t notified about this consultation through my child’s school — I read about it on Twitter of all things. A letter should have gone to every single parent explaining the proposals and how to respond to this consultation.’

“(Now imagine that sentiment amplified via Mumsnet …)”

His full article is available here and makes absorbing reading as it features all of the responses to what the DfE (laughably) called its “consultation”.

In his comment to VP, Mr Boswarva wrote: “Some civil liberties organisations (including Big Brother Watch) did respond to the DfE consultation… The implemented access regime is not quite as bad as the original proposals, but I agree we should be concerned.

“For me the main issue is that parents (and pupils themselves, who are the actual data subjects) are unaware of how the personal data is being shared with third-party organisations.

“There was no press release or any other broad communication to the public when access to NPD data was expanded. (It’s worth noting that most of the broadsheets [newspapers] have been given access to Tier 2 pupil data themselves, so they are probably not keen to rock the boat.)

“If you want to get into the detail of what DfE is up to with the NPD, try this Deloitte report: National Pupil Database: Exploiting the benefits of releasing the data.”

I have yet to do so (time being against me) but I invite any readers with an interest to download the report, go through it, and report your findings.

I’m off to find a contact address for Mumsnet.

Addendum: I’ve amended this article after Mr Boswarva contacted me to point out that the DfE isn’t, in fact, selling pupil information – the department is giving it away for free. In my opinion this makes its actions even worse. What do you think? (Thanks are due to Mr Boswarva, whose full communication should appear in the comment column below.)

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School pupils’ details are being given away by the government

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absence, attainment, Coalition, confidential, Conservative, data, Democrat, ethnic, exam, exclusion, free school meal, gender, government, health record, language, Lib Dem, Liberal, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, National Pupil Database, NPD, people, politics, pupil, sale, school, sell, SEN, sold, special educational needs, tax record, test, Tories, Tory, Vox Political

Selling their future: Michael Gove’s Department for Education has put pupils’ confidential information up for sale.

Thanks are due to the Vox Political reader who flagged up the fact that, while plans to sell British citizens’ health records and tax details are currently delayed or in consideration, confidential information about our children is already being passed on to private companies.

Researchers and third-party organisations can apply for detailed information from the national pupil database (NPD), covering pupils at schools and colleges in England.

This includes test and exam results, details of prior attainment and progression at different key stages for pupils in the state sector, attainment data for students in non-maintained special schools, sixth-form and further education colleges, and information on pupils in independent schools, where available.

The database also includes information about pupils’ characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, first language, eligibility for free school meals, special educational needs (SEN), and pupil absence and exclusions.

Why would anyone want to use such information commercially?

Extracts of this data are available for use by any organisation or person who, “for the purpose of promoting the education or well-being of children in England”, are conducting research or analysis, producing statistics, or providing information, advice or guidance. To whom?

The available data is arranged into ‘tiers’, as follows:

• Tier 1 – the most sensitive personal information
• Tier 2 – other sensitive personal information, including less sensitive versions of tier 1 data
• Tier 3 – school-level data
• Tier 4 – other pupil-level data, for example, attainment, absence and exclusions

Users can even request bespoke extracts, with a member of the NPD Data Request team on hand to advise on the approvals process, and whether the information requested is available.

The NPD is also linked to the further and higher education sectors, using data from the individualised learner record (ILR) and Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) student record.

Users can request linked information in the following combinations:

• NPD linked to ILR data
• NPD linked to HESA student record
• NPD linked to both ILR and HESA
• Individualised learner record linked to HESA student record

You will not be consulted on whether you wish to allow your child’s information to be given away.

This means a huge amount of information about your children is now available to third parties and – considering the government guidance note from which this information is drawn is almost a month old – may already have been handed over.

Confidential information on – for example – exam and test results, special educational needs, absence and exclusions, and eligibility for free school meals could have a serious impact on a pupil’s prospects in adult life, if used to inform organisations that are hiring school leavers, for example.

There are safeguards. Organisations requesting information need to demonstrate that they comply with all relevant requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998, including proving that they are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office to process personal data or fall within an exemption, have appropriate security arrangements in place to process the data, intend to use the data only for a specified purpose, will keep the data only for a specified length of time, and will not share the data without our prior written approval.

Considering this government’s track record, how safe does that make you feel?

If you want to read the guidance note yourself, it may be found here.

Addendum: I’ve amended this article after Owen Boswarva contacted me to point out that the DfE isn’t, in fact, selling pupil information – the department is giving it away for free. In my opinion this makes its actions even worse. What do you think?

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The ‘Dunce of Downing Street’ can no longer rely on lies

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Andrew Lansley, bungle, Conservative, contempt, David Cameron, Downing Street, dunce, economy, England, government, Iain Duncan Smith, Jon Ashworth, Labour, lie, manifesto, Martin Rowson, mikesivier, NHS, Parliament, people, point of order, politics, Royal Mail, sale, share, Tories, Tory, Tribune, Vox Political

For someone who was educated at Eton and Oxford, it seems strange that David Cameron never learns his lesson.

Today in Prime Minister’s Questions he got on the wrong side of an argument on the Coalition government’s botched sale of the Royal Mail and committed every MP’s cardinal offence: He knowingly lied to Parliament.

Ed Miliband had caught him out with a question about share prices, pointing out that Royal Mail shares had been sold far too cheaply. Referring to Cameron, he described the Prime Minister as “not so much the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’, more the ‘Dunce of Downing Street’.

Cameron hotly denied that his government had bungled the sale, and in response to Miliband’s claim that nobody had wanted it, he told Parliament that Labour had planned to do the same. “It’s in their manifesto!” he ejaculated.

It isn’t.

I have a copy of Labour’s 2010 manifesto on my computer, so I was able to check it immediately and found no mention of any such sell-off. Cameron was inaccurate.

Not only that, but unless the memory cheats, this is not the first time Cameron has made such a claim. His advisors would certainly have informed him of any inaccuracies, so any repetition is a conscious decision. Cameron was lying.

This blog has covered the offence known as Contempt of Parliament in considerable detail before (mostly in relation to serial offender Iain Duncan Smith). By rights, anybody misleading Parliament who does not apologise and put the record straight should be expelled from the House. The current government seems to be ignoring this (for obvious reasons).

Labour’s Jon Ashworth raised a point of order after PMQs, demanding that Cameron return to the Commons to correct himself. Fat chance.

A spokesperson insisted that the language in the Labour manifesto was “similar” to a 2009 plan by Lord Mandelson to sell off 30 per cent of the Royal Mail and prepare the remainder for modernisation.

This means nothing. If it isn’t in the manifesto, Cameron can’t claim that it is.

But then, Cameron seems very confused about manifesto pledges. He once claimed that Andrew Lansley’s reorganisation of the NHS in England had been a part of the Conservative Party’s 2010 manifesto, for example – despite having himself ordered that nobody should mention it in the run-up to that year’s election, in case it put voters off supporting the Tories.

I leave you with Martin Rowson’s cartoon on the Royal Mail sale, for Tribune magazine.

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Will the government really penalise GPs whose patients opt out of data sharing?

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anonymise, bid, bma, British Medical Association, bullied, bully, Care Quality Commission, care.data, CCG, clinical commissioning group, common, company, Conservative, Daniel Poulter, data, disease, doctor, Extraction Service, firm, form, General Patient, government, GP, GPES, GPonline.com, health, Health and Social Care Information Centre, healthcare, inform, Information Commissioner, investigate, investigation, Jeremy Hunt, letter, medConfidential, medical, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, National Health Service, NHS, opt out, penalise, people, pharmaceutical, politics, private, privatisation, privatise, profit, RCGP, record, reprisal, Research, Rosie Cooper, sale, screen, secretary, sell, share, sharing, sick, sold, threat, Tim Kelsey, Tories, Tory, undercut, Vox Political

It seems the government has found a way to dissuade GPs from letting patients opt out of having their medical records sold to private firms – the threat of penalties or even an investigation into the way they run their practice.

Vox Political revealed earlier this month that the government is planning to make a profit from selling the private records of NHS patients in England to healthcare and pharmaceutical firms.

The records are said to be ‘anonymised’, but in fact anyone buying your details will be able to identify you.

The system, originally called the General Patient Extraction Service (GPES), now the Health and Social Care Information Centre, may also be described as the care.data scheme. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt wants you to think the information will be used for medical research and screening for common diseases, but in fact it could be used by private health companies as evidence of failures by the National Health Service, and could help them undercut NHS bids to continue running those services – accelerating the privatisation that nobody wanted.

Patients have the right to withhold their data, but they must specifically inform their medical practice of their wishes. This is why medConfidential created a web page containing a special opt-out form, along with a form letter in various formats, allowing patients to opt out themselves, their children and any adults for whom they are responsible.

Now GPs are living in fear of reprisals if they don’t deliver enough details to the new system.

According to GPonline.com, Health minister Dr Daniel Poulter failed to rule out penalising GP practices with a higher-than-average proportion of patients opting out of new NHS data sharing arrangements.

In a written answer to Labour MP and health select committee member Rosie Cooper, Dr Poulter also refused to say what level of patient opt-out from the scheme would trigger an investigation.

Asked whether practices would be penalised, who would investigate practices with a high opt-out rate, and at what threshold this would apply, Mr Poulter said: “NHS England and the Health and Social Care Information Centre will work with the BMA, the RCGP, the Information Commissioner’s Office and with the Care Quality Commission to review and work with GP practices that have a high proportion of objections on a case-by-case basis.”

Ms Cooper took this as an admission that GPs were “being threatened and bullied into ensuring patients don’t choose to opt-out”.

Reacting on Twitter, NHS national director for patients and information Tim Kelsey ruled out fines for practices where large numbers of patients opt not to share data. He wrote: “Nobody is going to get fined if patients opt out.”

None of this offers a good reason for you to leave your medical records unprotected – in fact, it gives you more reasons to opt out than before, and might provide GPs with the excuse they need to retaliate.

Doctors have been pushed further and further by the Conservative-led government’s changes to the NHS. For example, they were told they would have a greater say in where the money went, as members of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), but that was not true – they don’t have the time to take part in such decisions so they have been handed over to firms that are often part of the private companies now offering services to the NHS (for a price).

Now they are being told they may face reprisals if they do not betray the principle of doctor-patient confidentiality.

But you can only push a person a certain distance before they push back.

How will NHS doctors in England respond?

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Want to know who we’ll be asked to fight in a few years? Find out who’s buying our weapons now!

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chemical weapon, civil war, Coalition, Conservative, Contra, David Cameron, Democrat, fighter, government, Iran, Iraq, jet, Kuwait, Labour, Liberal, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, nerve gas, Nicaragua, Parliament, people, politics, potassium fluoride, rebel, sale, Sarin, sell, sodium fluoride, Syria, Tories, Tory, Typhoon, United States, USA, Vince Cable, Vox Political

There is an easy way to stop wars with foreign countries: Stop selling them weapons!

If there’s one thing that all politicians believe, it seems, it is that history will teach us nothing.

That’s the only explanation possible for Vince Cable selling the ingredients to make chemical weapons to Syria, 10 months into that country’s civil war.

Does he not remember how the United States gave money, weapons and training to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war – then launched its own war against Iraq after that country got too big for its boots and invaded Kuwait? Does he not remember the 16 British firms that suppled weapons to that country?

The sale of weapons to foreign countries is always a bad move. Look at the Iran-Contra affair – again involving our good buddies the United States. Weapons were sold to Iran – so America was funding both sides of the Iran-Iraq war – and the proceeds used to fund the Contras in Nicaragua – another war!

Now we have a Tory-led Coalition government that wanted to get into that morally-dodgy but lucrative weapons-selling action, it seems.

So in January 2012, 10 months after violence erupted in Syria, Vince Cable licensed the exporting of potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride to the Syrian government – both chemicals being ingredients of nerve gas.

The chemicals were sold under licences that specified they should be used for making aluminium structures like window frames – but the government has refused to identify the licence holders. Dodgy!

Sarin, the gas thought to have been used in an attack last month that killed nearly 1,500 people, can be made from such ingredients.

This means that, in the same way as the United States with Iraq, it is entirely possible that the Coalition government wanted British troops to attack Syria in response to a situation that the Coalition government created!

And then, when Labour – along with Tory and Liberal Democrat rebels – actually put a stop to this insanity, some of these people actually had the front to try to steal the moral high ground, accusing them of perpetuating a war that was killing children!

Remember when Vox Political published an article last November, about David Cameron selling arms and aircraft to countries in the Middle East? It seems this is what comes of that sort of thing.

On that occasion, he was selling Typhoon jet fighters to Middle East nations. How long before we’re told we have to go and shoot down however many of them he managed to sell?

The only place benefit reforms are fair is Iain Duncan Smith’s mind

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Ant, appeal, banker, BBC, bedroom tax, benefit, benefit cap, benefits, Coalition, Conservative, council house, council tax, Dec, Department for Work and Pensions, disability, disabled, DWP, economy, government, Iain Duncan Smith, let's get ready to rumble, Liberal, Liberal Democrat, living wage, Mandatory Work Activity, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, off, people, politics, rich, sale, sell, social security, tax, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, welfare, YouTube

Getting ready to rumble: These Bedroom Tax protesters aren’t going to take the government’s changes lying down – oh, sorry. This is Ant and Dec. But a video of Bedroom Tax protests, set to their ‘Let’s Get Ready To Rumble’, would make a strong point.

Newswatchers woke this morning to an announcement from DWP dictator Iain Duncan Smith that changes to the UK’s social security system that came into effect today are “fair”.

Was this an April Fool? One might reasonably think so, since he also trotted out the long-discredited line that it was about making sure “people find work always pays”. We all know that work won’t pay until people receive a living wage – the amount of benefit paid out by the government has nothing to do with that at all.

The measures, which are designed to put the squeeze on people who are genuinely poor and in need of state help, will actually ensure that families are around £900 a year worse off (some say “than when the Coalition entered government in 2010”, but some don’t).

The fact that they attack the poor shows that this government is intentionally ignoring the point – which is that those who caused the economic crash in the first place (bankers and the very rich) should by paying off the debts.

Instead, this government is giving a £100,000 tax handout to anyone on the top tax rate. Mr Smith’s ‘Mandatory Work Activity’ schemes drain hundreds of millions of pounds from the taxpayer and nearly £1 billion from the economy every year, while paying the vast majority of that money to rich business bosses, who ensure it is never seen again.

And Smith himself appears to have become confused about what he is trying to achieve. In the Telegraph, four days ago, he said: “If you listen to what I am saying, you will understand the reality is that this country is not cutting welfare, it is managing the growth at a lower level.” So the bill is increasing, is it?

But on the BBC website today he is quoted as saying the government was “trying to get control of the welfare bill and make sure it lowers.”

What is he doing, then – managing an increase or forcing a cut? Either way, the wrong people are being made to suffer.

In the same BBC article, a Liberal Democrat pensions minister called Steve Webb said the bedroom tax was supposed to help a quarter of a million people in Britain who are in “cramped, overcrowded accommodation – desperate for a family home and there aren’t enough homes and we’ve got to make better use of the houses we’ve got.”

Did the interviewer press him to admit that the Conservative policy of selling off council houses during the 1980s and 1990s was wrong? No. Opportunity missed there, BBC!

Remember: There isn’t enough social housing because the Tories sold it all off and pocketed the profit, rather than using it to build more. That’s why there isn’t enough to go around now. They created this situation.

And, if you’re in the overcrowded accommodation to which Mr Webb refers – or a victim of the Bedroom Tax, you are going to pay for it.

The simple fact of the Bedroom Tax is that it is a trap. The government says people can avoid paying it by moving to smaller accommodation, but this avoids the reality that such properties are not available – figures released by the Labour Party show that 97 per cent of the 600,000 affected households have nowhere else to go.

They have no choice but to take the loss in benefits and pay the difference themselves, while they appeal against the decision to include their household in those affected. Current advice is for everyone affected by the Bedroom Tax to appeal. Why make it easy for them?

The BBC website report goes on to damn the government’s other so-called “reforms” (the Conservatives use this word wrongly. A reform would make something better. These are simply cuts).

“It has been estimated that two million low income households [in England] will pay more, as a result of changes to council tax benefit,” the article states.

“Also from this month, most working-age benefits will increase by just one per cent – less than the likely rise in the cost of living.

“And later this month, an overall limit of £500 a week on claims is beginning in four London boroughs, and will come into force across England, Scotland and Wales over the coming months.”

Fair?

Only in the warped recesses of Mr Smith’s mind.

Those of you who watch the pop charts will know that Ant and Dec are enjoying considerable success with their new version of Let’s Get Ready To Rumble.

I mention this because there has to be enough footage of Saturday’s anti-bedroom tax demonstrations to make a decent video to synch up with that perfectly-titled track.

Would anybody like to put one together and post it on YouTube? It could be a smash hit.

In more ways than one.

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The High Street implosion is just beginning

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I had a look at the BBC News website’s business page yesterday. What do you think caught my eye?

“UK retail sales fall in December“

It seems sales dropped off by 0.1 per cent (seasonally adjusted figure) last month, while the quantity of goods sold rose (rose? shurely shome mishtake, unless prices have magically dropped) by a worse-than-expected 0.3 per cent.

Isn’t December supposed to be the busiest shopping month of the year, with everyone rushing to buy Christmas presents and get the food in? I know the news wasn’t totally awful – sales were still up 0.7 per cent on the same time last year – but it does look like a darkening of the skies before the storm blows in.

Online sales increased, as one should reasonably expect – this is the current trend. But what I found worrying was the drop in sales of both clothing and food. They did “notably badly”, according to the BBC.

I would have thought these were two sales areas that would be relatively internet-proof. With clothing and food (and furniture), people like to see what they’re getting. They want to test it first, to make sure it fits their standards.

My concept of the High Street of the Future would have included clothes shops (or boutiques if you want to be all King’s Road about it), grocery stores (not necessarily supermarkets – how about farm-gate stores or farmers’ markets?), furniture stores, chemists and hairdressers/barbers. With possibly the odd gadget/technology shop for people who don’t trust the postman with fragile items. Also private doctor and dentist surgeries, for those who can afford to pay for them as the future gets worse for the NHS.

The rest will probably go. Blockbuster is closing 160 stores, according to the BBC business site today. That doesn’t surprise me in the least. Bosses should have seen the writing on the wall, when digital delivery became an option, and diversified into it. They didn’t; LoveFilm and the like took over and that was that. People who like holding physical copies of movies in their hands can get them from the glorified mail-order companies like Amazon, if they don’t mind giving their money to tax avoiders.

That’s why HMV lost the battle last week. Now I see that Game wants to buy some HMV stores. Wasn’t Game itself in danger of going out of business last April? I think it was, and I wouldn’t expect a business bought by such a firm to last very long, for that reason alone.

We have already discussed, in a previous article, the demise of Jessop’s.

To cap it all, panellists on the BBC’s Question Time last Thursday said a further 140 UK high street shopping chains were facing severe financial difficulty. One hundred and forty!

And that’s just at the moment.

What will happen after the government’s cuts to benefits kick in, ensuring that the poorest in the country, who use the highest proportion of their money as they receive it, have much, much less cash to spend?

Think of the rise in unemployment, as one retail chain after another hits the dirt. The growth in demand for social security (the government calls it “welfare”) benefits; the need to borrow even more money, increase the national debt even further; the increasing number of derelict buildings as our cities’ shops go empty – along with more and more homes, as families fail to keep up rent payments (their benefits won’t cover it) and they get kicked out onto the street; the lights going off across the UK as the Tory-led Coalition, helped by the Liberal Democrats, turns our home towns into ghost towns.

Let’s pause for a moment to remember that the Coalition government inherited an economy that was growing. It wasn’t booming, obviously, but it was going in the right direction. The very first thing this government did was kill that growth, and much of its economic policy since 2010 has been intended to make sure it stays dead.

To shrink the state. To starve the beast.

To end the social security system.

To privatise the NHS.

To increase unemployment.

To keep wages low – and maybe even find opportunities to cut them.

We’ve got two more years with these chumps in charge. That’s plenty of time to ruin the UK beyond repair – or at least so badly that it will take decades to recover.

I think it’s time to put serious effort into making life as difficult as possible for them. we’ve had a few demonstrations in London over the last couple of years – perhaps it’s time to start putting something up every week, even if it has to start with only a couple of people standing outside the Houses of Parliament with banners saying “Coalition Out” and “Resign”.

If they want information from you, in order to put their changes into practice, find a way to slow the process as much as possible – obviously not in situations where there’s a threat to life and limb, but in other administrative ways, why not? Think of it this way: They want to complicate your life – why not return the favour?

In employment law, there is an offence called ‘Constructive Dismissal’. This is when an employer contrives to make a particular employee’s working life so difficult that he or she is effectively forced out the door. There is no such offence relating to the way a nation treats its government.

I’m not an advocate of violence; I’ll take passive resistance every time.

So let’s constructively dismiss the Coalition.

How about it?