Tag Archives: blame

Huge pay rise for bosses while workers struggle. Who’s causing inflation?

The real cause of inflation: prices have been rising to give chief executives of companies massive, inflation-busting pay rises.

It’s nice that the Tories aren’t even trying to present themselves as electable any more.

They have spent so much time and energy telling us that our wages have been driving inflation up that it is impossible for them to backtrack, now we can see that the real cause is the naked greed of company executives.

And they won’t take the logical steps to rectify the situation. Firstly, they need to legislate to stop the privatised utility firms (especially energy and water) engaging in brazen profiteering because they can always force the government to increase its subsidy to them.

Tories insist on supporting privatisation, meaning they refuse to allow privatised utilities to go back into public ownership and are forced to increase public funding for them whenever the millions and billions they hand to shareholders seem likely to drive them out of business.

Secondly, they need to do as Owen Jones suggests in the following clip:

“Tax them.”

Doesn’t it seem strange that, with the UK straining under the biggest taxes we’ve had in 70 or 80 years, the government is refusing to take money from those who are most able to bear that load without suffering any serious harm to their way of life?

So it seems to This Writer that they are actually doing the decent thing (albeit unrepentantly), admitting that they’ve done wrong and – by sticking with the policy – giving up.

They’re as good as saying, “We know we’ve done wrong. We’re going to keep on doing wrong until you remove our ability to do so.”

I, for one, can’t wait to get on with it.


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Aldi boss blames minimum wage for driving up the cost of groceries

Groceries: the boss of a supermarket chain whose sales leapt up by 27 per cent between December 2021 and December 2022 reckons it’s the minimum wage that’s pushing prices up.

[UPDATE: it seems the information about Aldi and it’s boss, on which this article was based – from the Telegraph – may not have been accurate. See this article for the evidence.]

How do you like this hypocrisy?

Giles Hurley, chief executive of Aldi in the UK and Ireland… has warned Downing Street that increases in the minimum wage will drive up food prices for shoppers.

How short-sighted, too!

He’s telling people who only want to be paid enough to afford the high cost of his groceries that it is their demand that is pushing up prices!

What a lot of hogwash. The lowest-paid people in the country cannot possible be to blame for these high costs.

And what’s the reason for this outburst? Well…

The comments come as supermarket chiefs fight back against claims the high rate of inflation is being used as a cover for making larger profits.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened an investigation into supermarkets over high food and fuel prices.

Regulators want to know whether there has been a failure in competition, forcing customers to overpay.

An investigation into the fuel market by the CMA has already found evidence of increased profit margins on petrol and diesel.

This seems likely. Instead of admitting profiteering, this fatcat has chosen to offload the blame onto people who don’t have a platform to speak in their defence.

The Morning Star offers the alternative viewpoint very well:

The chief beneficiaries of food and drink price inflation are the monopoly retailers.

Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda reaped more than £4bn profits in the last financial year. They have passed on most if not all of their cost increases to customers. But they are looking after those most in need — their shareholders.

Between them, the “big three” doled out £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, the biggest increase for seven years at Sainsbury’s, topped by the 60 per cent rise — including bonanza share buybacks — at Tesco; Asda has sent £75m to its main owners, the Qatari Investment Authority and Daniel Kretinsky.

Generous remuneration packages helped chief executives avoid a visit to the local foodbank last year: unrepentant Ken Murphy [Tesco chief executive] pocketed £4.5m, while Sainsbury’s chief executive Simon Roberts struggled by on £3m.

However, Asda chair and multimillionaire Lord Stuart Rose has declared his opposition to cost-of-living wage rises this year… for striking public-sector workers.

Let’s just see what the CMA investigation says, shall we?

Source: Minimum wage rises risk driving up the cost of groceries, says Aldi boss


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Now Labour is falsely claiming benefit claimants are stopping others from getting help

Jonathan Ashworth: his claim that a crackdown on benefit fraud could have funded an extra cost-of-living payment is false.

Cast your disgusted eyes over this:

Dr Ryan continues:

It’s true that benefit fraud and error accounted for four per cent of DWP payments during 2021-22 – around £8.6 billion.

But this may be explained by the fact that the Covid-19 crisis was ongoing during much of that time; fraudsters took advantage of the opportunities to claim Universal Credit that the government provided.

For comparison: in the last year before the Covid crisis, 2019-20, the Mirror article states that benefit fraud and error cost £4.4 billion (about 2.4 per cent), so we can see how much it rocketed during the pandemic years.

The Mirror article discusses a Parliamentary report last year (2022) stating that levels of fraud and error in the benefits system were “unacceptably high” and that it “is yet to show any sign of falling back to pre-pandemic levels”.

But that can hardly be surprising, considering the fact that the last Covid-19-related restrictions were not lifted until February that year.

Figures for 2022-23 are not yet available – which is unsurprising as it is less than a week since that financial year ended. It will be interesting to see the estimated level of benefit fraud for that period, compared with the previous year.

It should not be forgotten that the DWP is proactive in claiming back money that has been lost to benefit fraud, and reported savings of £2 billion over the last year due to correcting and preventing fraud and error.

Finally, it should be remembered that the DWP is notorious for underpaying people who are in genuine need. These underpayments amounted to £2.1 billion in 2021-22.

What may we conclude from the facts?

Try this:

The benefit system is almost entirely free of fraud and error, with only around two per cent recorded normally.

Overpayments to fraudsters who entered the system during the Covid-19 crisis are being recovered, with half the amount overpaid in 2021-22 already regained.

Many benefit overpayments are due to errors on the part of claimants whose health conditions make it hard for them to understand the complexities of the system. Those overpayments are caught and claimed back – causing “severe hardship” to the claimants.

The DWP also makes errors that affect payments.

Underpayments to people who deserve more meant £2.1 billion that should have been handed out in 2021-22 was not.

Therefore:

Ashworth’s sums are probably wrong.

But there is another aspect of this that everybody seems to be ignoring:

It doesn’t matter that his sums are wrong because the amount of fraud and error in the benefit system has nothing at all to do with cost-of-living hardship payments.

If the Conservative government wanted to give out an extra £300 payment to those of us who need it, that is what would happen.

It would simply tell the Bank of England to create the money (yes, out of thin air) and that cash would then be spent into our bank accounts at the appropriate time.

Any concerns about inflationary pressures could be eased by taxing a similar amount out of the system. The easiest way would be a wealth tax on the super-rich or corporations, but the way those people are racking up profits at the moment, it probably wouldn’t even be necessary to impose that; an equivalent amount may come back to the Treasury via current tax levels.

So Ashworth’s entire argument is nonsense. He – and the right-wing Labour leadership he represents – should be ashamed of even mentioning it.


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British people are more concerned about the UK economy than before Jeremy Hunt’s Budget

Last week’s Budget made people more concerned than reassured about their finances, with more than a third more concerned about the economy than before Jeremy Hunt’s speech, polling has found.

Ipsos discovered that people blame the Tory government for much of the UK’s current economic difficulty, while a separate poll for Opinium found that more than twice as many voters (43 per cent) would prefer a Labour government led by Keir Starmer to be running public services and the economy than the Tories (17 per cent).

Only 13 per cent of people said they felt more reassured about their personal finances after March 15, with 12 per cent saying the same on public services, the PA news agency said.

A mere 22 per cent said the Budget left them more reassured about the state of Britain’s economy, while 35 per cent said it had made them more concerned about the economy and public services and 37 per cent said they were more concerned about their own finances.

On individual policies, the energy price guarantee extension was backed by 74 per cent of people, while 70 per cent supported the fuel duty freeze and 59 per cent backed the expanded childcare package.

But freezing income tax thresholds – so more people while pay higher rates of tax as their salaries and wages rise – and awarding an annual £1m prize for AI innovation had more opponents than supporters.

60 per cent of voters blame decisions by Hunt and Rishi Sunak for the current state of the economy.

But here’s the real kicker: two-thirds said economic policies over the last 13 years of Tory and Tory-led government are responsible.

The verdict is clear:

If Rishi Sunak thought this Budget would save the Tories from future electoral wipeout, he needs to think again.

Source: Brits now more concerned about state of UK economy than before budget, polling finds


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Is Liz Truss preparing to stab Kwasi Kwarteng in the back?

Knife: is Liz Truss plunging one of these into Kwasi Kwarteng’s back – metaphorically, at least?

Wow. New UK prime minister Liz Truss is already showing her vicious side. Who knew she had one?

In what is the BBC’s headline report at the time of writing, Truss lays as much blame for the failure of the Tory ‘fiscal event’ of September 23 on Kwarteng:

She added a decision to cut the top earner tax rate was a “decision that the chancellor made”. And she revealed it was not discussed with the whole cabinet beforehand.

She added that the cut was a decision made by Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng – prompting former cabinet minister and Boris Johnson loyalist Nadine Dorries to accuse her of throwing him “under a bus”.

Some commentators have picked up on this:

I’m not sure I want to envision Liz Truss “fingering” Kwasi Kwarteng, but I’m looking forward to his Tory conference speech tomorrow (October 3).

Will he retaliate?

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Now the Tories are blaming the results of their nightmare mini-budget on the social media

Watch this:

So there you have it: it’s all the fault of the social media.

I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.

Of course, he doesn’t mean mass-market sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or whatever, so they won’t be getting taxed properly, even now – he means sites like Vox Political, with our tiny (in comparison) audiences.

I never knew we were so influential.

Or do you think – is there a teeny, tiny, ever-so-slight, possibility that he might be mistaken?

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Kremlin works to deflect blame for Russian defeats in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin: meetings with the military have been cancelled, apparently while the Kremlin works to clear him of blame for defeats in Ukraine.

Meetings between Vladimir Putin and his top military officials have been postponed while the Kremlin tries to find a way to deflect blame for Russia’s recent defeats in Ukraine, it has been suggested.

According to an assessment published on Tuesday by the Institute for the Study of War*, the Kremlin is trying to clear Putin of any responsibility for Russia’s disastrous retreat and instead place the blame on “underinformed military advisors within Putin’s circle.”

If military advisors are “underinformed”, then one would imagine Putin would be desperate to hold these meetings, find out where the rot has set in, and put a stop to it.

But perhaps that is too reasonable a point of view.

Commentators, discussing the Russian rout earlier this week, have suggested that the defeats have a more structural basis – that, Russia now being in the hands of corrupt oligarchs who owe their positions to Putin, investment on military equipment has collapsed; they have kept as much cash as they could and invested only in the cheapest and shoddiest weaponry.

As a result, in the face of cutting-edge technology sent to Ukraine by western powers, Russian soldiers have been outmatched and forced to back away.

You can appreciate that such news would not be welcomed by the leader who had made it possible for this to happen.

With Russia, as always, it will be practically impossible to find out what’s really going on.

As ever, we’ll have to draw our conclusions from any changes in strategy over the next few weeks, if not months.

* A Washington-based think tank.

Source: Putin pushed off meetings with top military officials as the Kremlin tries to deflect blame for Russia’s disastrous retreat

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Tory ‘divide and rule’: Rishi Sunak jumps on the benefit-bashing bandwagon

Rishi Sunak: after blaming people who miss medical appointments for failures in the NHS, he’s now attacking benefit claimants for the UK’s economic shortcomings – even though most of them are in work.

Here’s another reason Rishi Sunak should never be prime minister – he wants to blame benefit claimants for his own failure to manage the UK’s economy.

The points made by Peter Stefanovic are self-explanatory but, sadly, nobody in the mainstream media or the top rank of UK politics seems to want to amplify them, so the public as a whole are exposed to an echo chamber of claimant blame – when most benefit claimants are actually in work or seeking it.

The fault lies with Sunak – not with the innocent people he is attacking.

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Secret DWP benefits survey cherry-picks respondents – so it can lay blame on claimants?

Too much Coffey: the Work and Pensions Secretary (right) seems to have commissioned a survey of benefit claimants in order to say their failure to budget properly has put them into hardship – not her insistence on providing starvation-level payments and using the slightest excuse to cut them off. Meanwhile, she parties.

The Department for Work and Pensions has launched a secret survey – sent only to specially cherry-picked claimants.

The reason seems to be to blame benefit recipients for any hardship they suffer, claiming that poor budgeting skills are the root of the problem rather than the political decision to fix payments at starvation levels – and then to use the flimsiest excuses to stop them.

The survey asks about debts claimants may have, what effect the debts have had on them and what support they need. It is the last question that has raised concerns, as Benefits and Work, which hoisted the red flag on this apparent scam, pointed out:

The full question and list of options is as follows:

What types of help or support, if any, would be most useful in helping you manage your finances?

  • Help with working out what money I have left to spend each/day/week/month.
  • Advice on how to spread my spending so I don’t run out of money
  • Advice on how to reduce my spending
  • Advice on how to reduce my debt
  • Advice on how to increase my income
  • Help with setting up a direct debit/standing order
  • Help with opening a bank account
  • Other (specify)

In this context, advice to increase my income is most likely to relate to those in employment.  In general claimants cannot increase their income unless there is a benefit they could be claiming that they are not aware of.

What is entirely missing from these options are the ones that would actually make a difference to claimants, such as:

  • Pay benefits at a rate that is enough to live on
  • Remove the 5 week waiting time for UC
  • End the long delays for PIP assessments and WCAs

Because there are no such options, this survey will produce results that say that, of claimants who are in debt:

X% say they need advice on working out what money they have left to spend

X% say they need advice on how to reduce their spending

X% say they need advice on how to reduce their debt

Whilst some people may indeed say in the ‘Other’ box that the help they need is a higher rate of benefits, this will not be listed as a percentage in outcomes as everyone’s answers will be worded differently.

In other words, all the support needs will be around claimants not understanding how to manage their money, rather than it being impossible to manage on the money they receive.

See how it works?

Benefits and Work has made Freedom of Information requests to ask how the claimants taking part in this survey are selected, how many are taking part and whether the results of the report are going to be published.

The logical conclusion to be drawn is that the DWP has been stung by having to reveal the findings of its secret report on how people on sickness and disability benefits are struggling with unmet needs.

Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey had repeatedly refused to publish the DWP-commissioned report on disabled people’s experiences of the benefit system – so the Commons Work and Pensions Committee ordered its authors to provide a copy to Parliament. It has now been published.

The report, received by the government in September 2020, stated that many people are using disability benefits such as PIP, which is intended to meet the additional costs of disability, for very basic needs such as food, rent and paying debts:

“The participant had kidney failure, arthritis in his back, legs and arms, depression and bulimia which caused chronic stomach pains. He lived alone in a flat rented from a Housing Association, using Housing Benefit. He was in the ESA Support Group and received PIP. He made monthly repayments for utility bill arrears and had a £5,000 bank loan which he could not afford to repay. His debt repayments meant he could not afford essential day-to-day living needs and used a foodbank. He found it difficult to wash independently due to his arthritis and needed a walk-in shower but could not afford one and seemed unaware that he may be eligible for support through the local authority. He also needed support with cooking and cleaning and received help from a cousin. His cousin would like to claim Carer’s Allowance but neither of them knew how to make an application. He had no other support networks close by.”

It said claimants with invisible disabilities such as mental health conditions often struggle even more than those with physical conditions to meet their basic needs:

“Participants with mental health conditions tended to report a wide variety of basic needs, health and care needs and social needs that were unmet. In comparison, those with profound learning disabilities and severe physical disabilities were typically in the group that identified having fewer unmet needs. While the latter group experienced a high level of need across a range of areas, these were usually being met through a combination of local authority support and informal support networks, usually parents who provided a high level of care.”

And the wellbeing of disabled claimants often depends primarily on being in a household in which another member has a well-paid job:

“The participant has recently moved in with her mother and sister, she had previously lived alone in a council-rented flat but had begun to feel isolated and found paying the rent and bills difficult so decided to move in with her mother. She has a range of health conditions and disabilities including Asperger syndrome, anxiety, ADHD, joint stiffness and IBS. She works 28 hours a week and receives PIP. Before moving to live with her mother she was concerned about how her income would cover essential day-to-day living costs. She also struggled with maintaining her personal hygiene and found it difficult to leave the house as she did not like going out alone. Moving in with her mother has helped her to meet all of her health-related needs.”

The reason Coffey and the DWP kept the report secret seems clear when one notes that last October – more than a year after receiving it – the Work and Pensions Secretary was lying to the public about the system it damns.

As Benefits and Work (again) details:

Coffey was telling the Conservative party conference that:

“PIP has certainly grown in a way that was not anticipated when it was introduced.

“To give you an example, three out of four young people who claim PIP have their primary reason being mental ill health.

“That in itself is 189,000 young people who currently receive benefit focused on that. There may be other benefits they receive as well.

“. . . people can think the benefit system is fair.

“And I think by being able to target that even more so to people who really need that support, may improve that prospect of public perception.”

Having been forced to release a report that shows – even in its watered-down form – that the benefit system is forcing hardship and related physical and psychological torture on claimants, including those who already have significant mental health problems (leading to a threat to life itself?), it seems Coffey has commissioned this new survey in order to manufacture a false justification for herself.

I think I’ll write her a letter. Let’s see how she justifies this web of deceit.

Source: DWP secret survey set to blame claimants for going cold and hungry

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Javid announces scheme to blame GPs for lack of face-to-face appointments

Smug: Javid’s new scheme won’t do enough to help GPs cope with demand for face-to-face appointments – but he’ll be able to use it to blame them when they don’t.

The Tory Health Secretary has announced funding to “help” GPs arrange more face-to-face appointments with patients, in response to complaints from the public.

But there are huge problems with the scheme – of course there are; it’s a Tory plan to divert blame for short-changing the NHS onto people working in the service and away from themselves.

So before you watch the video clip, read Jonathan Ashworth’s comment – and then the  response below:

So it’s not enough money to make a real difference in each GP practice, and the cash is taken from existing budgets, meaning some other part of the NHS will lose out. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, as the saying goes.

And there’s no acknowledgement of the reasons GPs are under pressure in the first place – all connected to Tory deprivation:

So the Tory governments of 2010 onward cut funding, closed GP practices, and put people off training as doctors.

The Tories knew there was a lack of manpower in GP surgeries since at least 2016.

There are nearly 2,000 fewer GPs than six years ago and the Tory plan will do nothing to change this.

He is setting up your local GP surgery to take the blame for future failures.

And of course he is denying it (because he has already been challenged):

Strangely, despite the BBC’s tweet, none of Javid’s comments in the article address the issue. Perhaps it was mentioned in a previous draft and edited out by a Tory in the Corporation’s hierarchy?

Still, we can all see what’s going on:

Here’s a snapshot of the current situation that Javid’s scheme is unlikely to help:

And this is telling: if Javid’s scheme is so good, why has he cried off speaking at the annual conference of the Royal College of GPs?

Some of us may have satirical fun with it…

… but in context this is shocking hypocrisy from the Tories. Here’s David Shepherd to explain:

It’s a very good question. But it’s just another one that the Tories won’t answer.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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