It’s being reported that the government is putting £842 million more pounds into the Household Support Fund, which is said to help struggling families deal with the cost of living including food and energy costs.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will be dividing the money among English councils, which must use it to help people pay for energy bills or groceries.
The funding is said to be targeted at areas of the country “with the most vulnerable households” and it is being left up to the councils to decide how to spend it.
What I want to know is…
How is a ‘community cooking event’ or an ‘energy cafe’ – both ideas used by English councils – the best way to divide up this cash? Even voucher schemes and ‘energy saving packs’ spend money redundantly.
Wouldn’t it be better simply to provide the cash to those who need it most, and let them decide how to spend it?
The way this scheme is being (mis)managed, it seems to be an attempt to keep cash away from vulnerable families, rather than helping them.
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Money: the cost-of-living crisis means more cash is needed to cover the care of severely disabled people – but councils don’t have enough.
Here’s a little-known consequence of the cost-of-living crisis: disabled people are being evicted from charity-run care homes because local councils are refusing to pay increased costs.
These are people with severe disabilities whose care can cost anything between £85,000 and £150,000 per year.
The charity Leonard Cheshire said it had served 11 eviction notices on contracts with councils that had been under re-negotiation without agreement since February. Two were rescinded after councils agreed to pay uprated fees.
The fee increases reflect the rising costs of wages, energy and food due to the cost-of-living crisis that has been largely caused by the UK’s Conservative government, due to Brexit and energy privatisation that has led to failures to upgrade to cheap, locally-generated energy.
Leonard Cheshire has spent millions of pounds from its own reserves over the last few years, subsidising care services that councils have failed to fund adequately – but now says it can no longer afford to continue doing so.
Mencap has not evicted anybody because it generally doesn’t own the properties they occupy – but is subsidising one in five of the state-funded care packages it provides to 4,000 people – so that’s 800 of them. The cost to the charity is millions of pounds.
Evicted residents are unlikely to become homeless because their council or NHS funder has a duty to provide alternative care.
But the concern is that moving will disrupt the care that people get, and cheaper alternative arrangements will be of poorer quality or based far away from their family support network.
Ironically, the evictions are prompted by concerns that the level of council funding no longer guarantees basic safety and quality standards.
Inevitably, the government has claimed it provides plenty of money to support adult social care services – with the £7.5 billion available over two years constituting the biggest funding increase in UK history.
Conspicuously missing is any comment on whether this is enough money to cover the increased costs of care.
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Potential council tax rises could constitute the straw that breaks the camel’s back for UK residents struggling with the cost of living.
Here’s the team on Good Morning Britain, discussing whether people will end up living in prison – rather than their homes – serving sentences for non-payment:
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Liz Truss: her lunatic economic ideas created an economic black hole. Jeremy Hunt’s attempts to fill it are likely to harm us all – including people who say they can’t be bothered with politics.
This is another story about how politics affects you, even if you don’t want anything to do with it.
Councils in England are warning that the cuts Jeremy Hunt is likely to force on them – in a desperate bid to fill the financial black hole that Liz Truss created with her daft neoliberal trickle-down economic plan – will mean the cancellation of everyday services.
They mean services they provide that help you do the things you need to, every day.
The BBC is reporting that a survey of county councils suggests bus services, home care for the elderly and climate change projects are most likely to face the axe.
Other services under threat are leisure centres and parking.
So you will be faced with the added expense of driving to work – and spending a lot of time in traffic jams because many more vehicles will be on the roads.
If you have elderly relatives who need care, then you’ll be the one providing it. While their pensions and possibly other benefits will help financially, your free time will be wiped out.
And obviously any project that actually helps reduce the threat of climate change is vital for our future existence. Who knows what could be cancelled that may otherwise change the world for the better?
You won’t have anywhere to go to relieve the pressure on you because all the leisure centres will be closed.
And you wouldn’t be able to drive there anyway because so would all the car parks.
All because Liz Truss couldn’t do her sums, because 12 years of Tory rule made the UK vulnerable to energy and food price inflation, and because the Tories had spent all that time cutting council funding to the bone, so there is nothing left to tackle emergencies.
Council funding from central government – which makes up the vast majority of the money councils use – has been halved by the Tories since 2010.
And there are more services facing cuts: road maintenance, home-to-school transport, and opening hours of libraries and recycling centres may all be cut. Charges may be introduced to use public toilets and may be increased in car parks. You may be forced to wait longer for your rubbish and recycling to be collected (which may create a problem with vermin).
Apparently the best idea the Tories have is to raise the cap on council tax increases so local authorities can charge already-impoverished residents even more money for the meagre services they continue to offer.
And the Tory government of Rishi Sunak seems to be in denial. A spokesman has said Westminster gave £3.7 billion to councils last year, to shore up services. But that was before inflation went through the roof. How much was actually needed to maintain them at their proper level?
You won’t hear an answer from Downing Street. The press office there is all about damage control, not factual accuracy.
And when I mention damage control, I mean controlling any damage to the reputation of the Tory government – not controlling damage to the fabric of UK society.
Damaging our society has been Tory policy since before they slithered back into government in 2010.
But we still have people who say they’re not interested in politics and they don’t think politics have anything to do with them.
Someone should create a checklist to demonstrate exactly how badly they already have been affected by this country’s political choices – and how much worse it will be in the future.
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It’s an everybody-get-out-and-push committee, isn’t it?
All Hunt has done so far is cancel the changes that “spooked” (according to the BBC) the markets – and all this announcement tells us is that he doesn’t know what else to do.
Sadly, his appointments to the new committee offer little cause for joy.
Rupert Harrison of BlackRock, Gertjan Vlieghe of Element Capital, Sushil Wadhwani of PGIM Wadhwani and Karen Ward of JP Morgan Asset Management are all from the right-wing financial sector. Aren’t they exactly the kind of people whose ideas caused the problem?
Apparently new names will be added to the committee in the future. I look forward to hearing whether Martin Lewis, Richard Murphy, Simon Wren-Lewis or anybody else to whom This Site actually pays attention will be invited to join this new club.
And I can’t wait to see what happens when this committee advises Hunt to do something he doesn’t want to.
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Brexit isn’t working: That’s what Kent Council has found – but to mitigate the harm, the third-richest council in the UK is trying to steal ‘Levelling-up’ funding from areas of genuine need.
Kent Council has claimed a large amount of money to deal with problems that Brexit has caused its traffic management.
But the money isn’t being requested from a ‘Brexit consequences’ fund.
The application is for ‘Levelling-up’ funds.
Kent Council is the third-richest in the United Kingdom. It shouldn’t be claiming any ‘Levelling-up’ cash.
But it is, because Tories give money to Tories – and never do anything that genuinely helps the deprived.
To see how it works, watch the clip:
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Money: Rishi Sunak is offering cost of living payments of £800 for people with disabilities – but are government assurances that the payment won’t be taken by councils worth the time taken to provide them?
Are you convinced by this?
Concerns had been raised that people with disabilities will not gain any benefit from government payments of £650 for those on means-tested benefits, and another £150 for recipients of disability benefits.
This is because disabled people receiving social care provided in their own homes by their local council must make a financial contribution – usually everything above the minimum income of £94.15 per week.
So, in theory, all £800 of the cost-of-living support provided by the government could be taken by local authorities in care charges.
Challenged on this by Disability News Service, the Department for Health and Social Care has said it does not think the payment will be taken by councils.
The DHSC reckons that, because the payment is a one-off, it will not be considered as regular income and so will not be included in disabled people’s regular incomes and affect the so-called Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG).
That’s all very well – but why not simply make an announcement to that effect?
If the government stipulates that this money may not be considered in council’s calculations, then councils will have to accept that, and leave the cash alone.
Without such a rule, there is no cast-iron guarantee that this will happen. I wonder why the Tories haven’t bothered to make it already. And I wonder how many other people are in a similar situation.
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People who were told they’d receive a £150 council tax rebate in April have been betrayed by Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
He – and the Treasury – are now saying council taxpayers whose homes are in Bands A, B, C or D will receive the money from April.
In practical terms, people who pay by Direct Debit are first in the queue – but are not likely to get their cash until May or June.
Those who don’t – around a third of council taxpayers – may have to wait until September or later. They are being told to wait to be contacted by their councils to arrange payment – but that is expected to draw the process out even longer.
The Treasury is saying: “We’ve always been clear, including in our press notice and the leaflet which went out to millions of households, that the £150 council tax rebate to help with the cost of living would be paid ‘from’ April.”
This is a lie; the BBC has demonstrated that the wording of Treasury documentation changed between February and this month.
So those of us who were encouraged to believe a vital cash injection was on its way have been deceived by a Chancellor who is so rich personally that he has absolutely no concept of how important it is for people to receive government funding when the government originally promised it.
There is no justification for this. It’s irresponsible.
People are facing serious financial cash-flow difficulties because of conditions created by Sunak and by Tories before him – the largest number of tax rises in 40 years; Brexit-prompted price rises and inflation; energy price rises and so on.
They have ordered their household budgets in the belief that they would receive this council tax rebate at a particular time – and now that isn’t happening.
Unacceptable. Sunak is a cowboy, not a chancellor.
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Israeli apartheid: this barrier separates Israelis from Palestinians, who are treated as a lower class of human being by the government of Israel.
There is no way that Amnesty International is an anti-Semitic organisation. It simply is not possible when one considers the composition and purpose of that organisation.
The world’s largest human rights organisation, it has just published a report labelling Israel as an apartheid nation and demanding change:
It’s official. Amnesty has concluded that Israeli occupation authorities are enforcing a system of apartheid against ALL Palestinians living under their effective control – whether they live in Israel, occupied Palestine, or in other countries as refugeespic.twitter.com/TspoveeqNt
You can read the full report by following the link at the bottom of this article. It is sensible and balanced.
But when UK-based organisations that claim to represent British Jews caught sight of it, they made fools of themselves by denouncing Amnesty:
We have seen a copy of a report due to be released by @AmnestyUK tomorrow. We are shocked but not surprised by the content given the history of AI UK’s one-sided positioning on Israel. @bodpres and @JLC_uk Chair Keith Black have issued the following statement: pic.twitter.com/0X7NHzBxNd
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) January 31, 2022
“The report is completely biased and applies standards to Israel that are not applied to any other country.”
A lie.
“The emotive term “apartheid” against Israel is a preposterous slur.”
Another lie. Israeli apartheid is well-documented – not least in the Amnesty video that appears above.
“Despite AI UK’s claim to recognise the Jewish claim to self-determination… it does not support that right.”
A lie. Amnesty does not suggest that Jews should not have that right.
“It chooses to focus on demonising the one Jewish state, holding it to clear double standards.”
A lie. Amnesty’s report attempts to hold Israel to the same standards as any other nation.
“The situation for the Palestinian people is indeed distressing; this will not be alleviated by destroying Israel.”
There is nothing in the Amnesty report that even remotely suggests dismantling Israel.
“This is a bad faith report hostile to the very concept of Israel.”
I think we can all see who is acting in bad faith!
Like all controversial acts, the Amnesty report has attracted detractors (who follow the BoD/JLC attack line) and supporters. Let’s focus on the supporters because they are right:
Today Amnesty International published a report detailing what they describe as 'Israel's apartheid.'
This must be a wake-up call for leaders across Britain, Europe, and the United States.
It’s time to face up to the reality of the injustice suffered by the Palestinian people.
Amnesty International says Israel's treatment of Palestinians is a crime against humanity and is illegal under international law — adding that Israel's "domination" of Palestinians amounts to apartheid.https://t.co/op6YYaUilZ
The response by the Bod and the JLC has also led to another conclusion:
If the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council are prepared to falsely and maliciously accuse Amnesty International of "antisemitism" in order to discredit their report, isn't it just possible their accusations against Jeremy Corbyn were equally false and malicious?
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush 🟨🟥🥀🇵🇸 (@WarmongerHodges) February 1, 2022
The response from the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council to Amnesty International's report declaring Israel an apartheid state is a million times worse than anything Jeremy Corbyn said in response to the EHRC report into Labour's "antisemitism crisis".
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush 🟨🟥🥀🇵🇸 (@WarmongerHodges) February 1, 2022
It’s a fair point, which leads to a further issue: Keir Starmer’s support for apartheid Israel.
So come on, @Keir_Starmer, famous lawyer, explain forensically why you disagree with Amnesty International's finding that Israel's treatment of Palestinians amounts to apartheid.
— Glenn Barnacle-Milieu #DaveNellist4Erdington (@leftnotlabour) February 1, 2022
We shouldn’t hold our collective breath waiting for a response. Starmer is a coward and will run away from a challenge like this.
While we do wait, we can all read the Amnesty report.
We’ve had shortages of fruit and veg harvesters in farms, and are now seeing shortages of butchers and abattoir workers.
We’ve had shortages of nurses for years.
Our transport infrastructure is already suffering because of the shortage of hauliers, and now it is about to take a second hit because…
Local councils are saying they cannot pay drivers as much as haulage firms, meaning there won’t be any gritter lorries de-icing our highways during the winter:
Shortage of gritter drivers could leave motorists stuck on icy roads this winter, councils warn https://t.co/wo2BJppv6J
This could bring the UK to a total standstill – and in the depths of winter, when we’ll need food and supplies that allow us to heat our homes more than ever.
Of course, the reason councils can’t afford to pay gritter drivers is simply that the government doesn’t pay them enough grant money to be able to afford the new going rates. Any resulting tragedies must then be laid at Boris Johnson’s door.
According to Sky News:
Transport spokesman David Renard added: “While most councils have been able to keep services running, some may find that their gritting services are affected in the same way that some have seen waste collection services impacted.”
Although he stressed that councils will be trying to plan ahead to ensure their winter services are resilient, he warned additional training for this on-demand sector will “not alleviate the short-term pressure on frontline services”.
Given these courses take up to 16 weeks to complete, trained drivers won’t be hitting the roads before Christmas – fuelling fears that shortages could overshadow this year’s festivities.
Mr Renard said: “Fast-inflating HGV driver salaries in the private sector risks exacerbating issues in the public sector, with the rises potentially creating a retention as well as a recruitment problem for councils and their contractors.”
It should be remembered that the government has tried to lure drivers back from the EU with a temporary HGV visa scheme.
However – and possibly because they remember being stuck in a Kent car park over last Christmas, with no toilet or washing facilities – very few drivers have taken up the offer. Very few:
Last week @BorisJohnson told @mrdanwalker@BBCBreakfast that 127 EU workers had applied for temporary HGV visas in the UK. Yesterday Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said it was only 27. Why was this not raised with the Minister today? Surely BBC editorial guidelines require it? pic.twitter.com/wUzVNeuAVQ
This Writer saw a suggestion on the social media that even those 27 applications were not, in fact applicable.
The suggestion was that they were test applications relevant to each EU member state, made to ensure that the system was working properly!
And, of course, the Tories are also running into “sauce for the goose” arguments:
The @Conservatives are suddenly arguing that the shortage of HGV drivers is a consequence of poor pay and conditions. So presumably the same explanation applies re the shortage of nurses?
— Eva Feltham 💙 3.5% REJOINER FBPE FBPA #JohnsonOut (@MyGineration) October 10, 2021
Yes indeed – and we know that the government can’t blame poor pay and conditions for nurses on anybody else. It is therefore hypocritical of Johnson and his cronies to berate haulage firms over low pay when their derisory pay rise for NHS staff has now been translated into a pay cut by new conditions that their political choices have created.
All we can do now is hope for a mild winter.
If we get ice, there will be death on the roads – because of Boris Johnson and his godawful Brexit.
Worse still, the knock-on effect could bring death to our homes – and, depending on how often we all check on our neighbours, it could be weeks or months before we even know the total death toll.
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