Tag Archives: cuts

More than 40 Tory MPs demand extra funding for the councils they’ve been starving

Rubbish: will domestic refuse collections be cut back – again – if Rishi Sunak and his government refuse a plea from more than 40 Tory MPs for the restoration of funding to local councils?

Tory MPs who gleefully nodded through cuts totalling three-eighths of local council funding are now demanding extra cash so the same councils can fend off bankruptcy. Is it because this is an election year and they are afraid they’ll lose their Parliamentary seats?

More than 40 of them have joined dozens of others in demanding extra funding to avoid big cuts in council services.

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Here’s the BBC:

The group of 46 MPs, which is made up of 44 Conservatives as well as Labour’s Daniel Zeichner and Liberal Democrat Sarah Dyke, includes former ministers Priti Patel, Robert Jenrick, Greg Clark and Damian Green.

The letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove was co-ordinated by the County Councils Network and the County All-Party Parliamentary Group.

It urged the government to provide extra funding for local authorities ahead of a vote in the Commons next month “to ensure that the councils in our areas can continue to provide the services that our residents depend upon”.

There has been growing concern across the local government sector about council funding, with particular pressure on the cost of providing care for vulnerable adults and children, as well as housing services.

The government said it had announced a £64bn funding package for councils.

In December, the government announced the amount of funding it plans to make available to councils from April, and said it represented an average increase of 6.5% compared to the year before.

It is interesting that the Tory government said it was providing £64 billion in funding, when apparently the amount of cash it made available for councils fell from £41bn to just £26bn between 2010 and 2020.

Perhaps some of the extra cash is so-called ‘Levelling-Up’ money?

If so, Labour’s Luton North MP Sarah Owen has something to say about the way that money has been allocated:

Most of the response to the Tories’ call for cash has been ridicule – and for obvious reasons. They knew they were taking money away from local councils when they voted for austerity cuts to their funding, so they knew that services would be cut.

These responses therefore seem entirely appropriate:

Rishi Sunak is facing the possibility of another rebellion when Parliament is asked to approve a new funding deal for local councils in the near future.

It seems that these Tories have presented their government with a lose-lose situation: either set themselves up to lose the funding vote in Parliament, or set themselves up to lose the election when the amount of funding approved by Parliament turns out not to be enough.

Perhaps this is a good moment to remind you that the people of the UK can have all the public services they want. The only thing missing is the political will to provide it.

The UK is the fifth-richest economy in the world, meaning there is plenty of money available. Most of it is held by a small number of extremely rich millionaires and billionaires, many of whom would not object to paying a little more tax if it frees up money for public services.

But the Tory government – including some of the MPs now demanding more funding – is determined to cut taxes for the richest people, rather than increasing them.

This is a problem that the Tories created for us, with a plan to blame councils in the face of any backlash. Now it is backfiring onto them. Serves them right.


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A couple of comments to add perspective to Jeremy Hunt’s Budget

Jeremy Hunt: this image is from his financial statement last autumn but the suit is the same, apparently.

This is just to provide a little depth to the Budget coverage yesterday:

Does that give you a clearer picture? There will probably be more of this over the next few days, weeks and months.


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Cost of living crisis: 10 years of Tory benefit cuts are driving people deeper into debt

Sanction centre: people paying back debts to the benefit system are being penalised for being poor by the current Tory cost of living crisis because their situation forces them into the hands of high-interest doorstep lenders who will make their situation worse. Isn’t the benefit system supposed to keep people out of debt?

It is amazing that this has to be spelt out for people but, with us all having to deal with the Tory squeeze on our incomes, this may have evaded a few people.

The cost of living crisis has hit the poorest people and families worst, with people on benefits suffering the worst after 10 long years of punitive Tory cut after punitive Tory cut.

The Resolution Foundation has already pointed out that the poorest households are facing a higher rate of inflation than richer people.

This is because the rising cost of home services (like energy bills), transportation and food is having a greater effect on people with less income and fewer savings to pay for them; it’s not rocket science.

So the headline inflation rate for the lowest tenth of families is around 10.3 per cent, while it is 8.7 per cent for the richest tenth. This is the greatest disparity since cost of living data began to be collected at the start of this century.

Now the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has produced a study showing that a decade of social security cuts, underfunding, and punitive government debt collection terms are pushing low-income families – particularly benefit claimants – into financial crisis.

In many situations, people were forced to choose between feeding their loved ones and making their rent payments on time, as described in the study. 2.3 million homes had already gone without both.

Low-income individuals have resorted to borrowing, adding £12.5 billion in new debt in 2022 out of a total of £22 billion. They owe high-cost lenders, such as doorstep lenders and illegal loan sharks, a total of £3.5 billion, which jeopardises their future financial stability.

Families are already having a difficult time making their payments. Since October of last year, total personal debt arrears have more than quadrupled from £1.8 billion to £3.8 billion, and JRF anticipates that these arrears will continue to grow as interest rates rise.

Unsettlingly, the research discovered that the government is making life extremely difficult for people by exploiting the benefits system to collect some debts, sometimes at exorbitant rates. Families receiving assistance without these “debt deductions” suffer less than those who are obliged to have them.

JRF has suggested a simple way to ease the burden on these claimants: allow them to repay their debt more slowly while the cost of living crisis is ongoing, rather than cutting their income by a quarter every month.

And Universal Credit entitlements should increase to ensure that – at a bare minimum – people are able to afford the essentials when they fall on hard times.

This is, of course, entirely logical. The benefit system is intended to ensure that people don’t fall into debt at all – not simply to make them prey to loan sharks at a slower speed.

But we’re seeing no announcements about this from Rishi Sunak or Therese Coffey.

All we’ve had are big headlines about payouts to everybody, including £400 for every house – meaning people who own multiple dwellings receive that amount many times, in comparison with the poor who only have one.

This Site has stated it before: it’s a big subsidy for the rich. And the fact that the poor are being driven to loan sharks makes it all the more obscene.

Source: Tory cost of living crisis made worse by a decade of welfare cuts

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Join the #AudioRiot to stop the cut to Universal Credit

This is brilliant from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC):

Here are the details:

The government isn’t listening to what people are saying when we say Stop The Cuts to Universal Credit and give #20MoreForAll

So we need to start an #AudioRiot to make them hear us.

On
Tuesday 28th September
11:30am
Kings Cross Station
(Courtyard in front of station)
Euston Road
London
N1 9AL

Join our #AudioRiot and make some noise about the devastating changes to benefits which will have a huge impact on millions of peoples lives, including disabled people.

Bring everything you can that makes noise.
DPAC will be providing materials for you to take part too – but don’t let that stop you bringing:

Drums
Whistles
Cymbals
Bells
Klaxons
Loudspeakers

Everything you can!

 

Make some noise about the £20 cut to Universal Credit coming in September.

Make some noise about the reintroduction of sanctions and conditionality returning in October.

Make some noise about the discrimination against those on legacy benefits who never got the £20 to begin with.

Make some noise about the minimum income floor, the local area housing allowance and so much more

Make some noise about the disgraceful state of benefits in the UK overall.

This action will round off a series of events to raise awareness about the coming changes to benefits.

These include

Saturday 25th September 2021

Local Actions Nationwide

We are calling on all DPAC members, local groups & allies to mobilise is their areas to create an #AudioRiot of your own to resist the coming cuts and invite others to join the campaign.

Create your own orchestra with homemade instruments, create your own playlists and play them through phones/speakers, form a samba band – whatever works for you!

Send us details of your planned action, and we will promote it through our website, email network and social media channels.

And

Tuesday 28th September 2021
09:15 – 10:00 am

Vigil in support of those taking a Judicial Review of potential discrimination by DWP towards disabled people on legacy benefits.

Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London
WC2A 2LL

NEAREST STEP FREE STATION: Westminster

Online action

Details to follow

DPAC is aware that many of us in our community are still isolated, shielding, or even just protecting themselves and their loved ones; and cautious about taking part in public activism.

This is no barrier to taking part!! There will be online actions you can take

However, as our collective experience through since Covid entered our lives has taught us – disabled people need to have a central role in the discussions about how we build a future for us all that has a place for us all. That begins with defending what we have and building on it.

We have seen under successive governments of all stripes that the only way we can have any chance to secure that central role is to oppose government policies in the streets. We have been demonised, targeted and brutalised by attacks to our rights , services, living standards & working conditions for decades.

It is only by mobilising our community and allies in the face of theses attacks that we have been able to raise awareness and resist them.

And, that will be how we will continue to progress from here. With a view to reshaping the world to meet our aspirations.

In the streets.

 

Take part in the online day of action against Universal Credit sanctions

Today – July 1 – conditionality and sanctions return to the UK’s benefit system.

This means the two million people who signed up for Universal Credit because of the Covid-19 crisis will now be expected to show they are looking for work, and will be sanctioned if they fail to do so.

For the first time, they will experience what – for example – people with disabilities have suffered under the Conservatives for the last 10 years.

Some people are about to be rudely awakened from their previous complacency, I reckon!

Perhaps they would like to take part in this national day of action, organised by one of the larger representative organisations for people with disabilities, DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) under its banner of the Scrap Universal Credit Alliance (SUCA).

Here’s what they’re about and what you can do:

There is now overwhelming evidence of both the serious harm that the sanctions regime inflicts on the most disadvantaged members of society and the fact that sanctions are punitive and counter-productive to the aim of getting people off benefits and into work.

Join the Scrap Universal Credit Alliance in our demands to:

#EndConditionality

#ScrapSanctions

#NoMoreBenefitDeaths

Ways you can get involved:

  • Get active on social media at 12 lunchtime on 1 July using the above hashtags and directed @DWP @justintomlinson @theresecoffey . You can find a list of findings, facts, stats and links for reference here: https://dpac.uk.net/2020/06/sanctions-findings-facts-stats-and-links/
  •  Write to your MP asking them to put pressure on the government not to restart conditionality and sanctions.
  • We encourage people to write to their MPs.
  • Write to your local paper
  • If you think you may be affected by conditionality restarting and putting your safety at risk because you still need to shield, it may be worth gathering what medical evidence you have (for example if you received a letter or correspondence from the NHS telling you to continue shielding until the end of July) and pro-actively sending it in to your job centre/adding it in to your Universal Credit journal. It is difficult to know what to do given the complete absence of information from the government.

Source: National [online] day of action against sanctions – 1st July – DPAC

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Fiction battles reality as Tory NHS cuts leave elderly woman with dementia on A&E trolley for hours

Jill Woolley: This former NHS worker, who has dementia, was forced to wait six hours for treatment on a trolley inches away from overworked NHS staff. That is what Tory cuts have done to the UK’s once-proud health service.

The fiction:

The reality:

A dementia-sufferer taken by ambulance to A&E at an over-stretched hospital endured six hours on a trolley as Tory austerity continues to wreck the NHS.

Photos show 88-year-old Jill Woolley – who worked for the health service as a doctor’s secretary – with other frail and elderly patients waiting side-by-side on trolleys crammed into the department.

Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth described Jill’s visit to A&E as “heartbreaking”. He added: “She should never have been treated like this. Boris Johnson should be utterly ashamed.

“Sadly, this is not a one-off case. This is happening to thousands of patients all the time. This is what happens from cutting 15,000 hospital beds, starving the NHS of cash and failing to recruit doctors, nurses and staff.

“This is not a winter crisis, it is a Tory-made crisis.”

And it is a crisis that will continue as long as we have a Conservative government.

But you can make a difference.

Vote for care. Vote for the NHS. Vote Labour.

Source: Ex-NHS worker with dementia, 88, left on A&E trolley for 6 hours due to Tory cuts – Mirror Online

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Deaths of homeless people hit record high – but Tories are STILL lying that they care

These snow effigies of homeless people were created in 2018 to demonstrate that rough sleepers were freezing to death [Image: @TrevorCoultMC on Twitter].

A record 726 homeless people died in 2018 due to Conservative government policies – and Tory mouthpieces Therese Coffey and Danny Finkelstein are still pretending their party cares.

The novice Work and Pensions Secretary and the former Tory speechwriter professed outrage at claims that the Conservatives were not compassionate (remember “compassionate Conservatism”?) and didn’t care in a stomach-turning display of hypocrisy on the BBC’s Politics Live.

Ms Coffey tried to blame the 22 per cent increase in deaths since 2017 on drug use. But why do people take drugs? They do it to escape the hell of their existence – a hell into which they have been forced by Tory policies.

Universal Credit, the Bedroom Tax, and cuts to sickness and disability benefits have all been engineered to make it impossible for people to afford to pay for their accommodation and to eat.

Have no doubt about this – the Tories have been deliberately levering poor people out of their homes. The evidence is in the policies and in their result.

If they really were trying to solve homelessness – as they vowed to do in 2017 – there would have been a 100 per cent fall in homelessness-related deaths, not a 22 per cent increase.

A record number of homeless people died last year, marking the biggest increase in deaths since reporting began, official data shows.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show an estimated 726 homeless people died in England and Wales in 2018. This is a 22% rise from 2017 and the highest surge since the data was first collected in 2013.

Drug-related deaths saw the biggest increase, rising by 55% since 2017.

Charities called for an urgent investigation into the deaths of vulnerable people, saying it was heartbreaking and that they should not die “unnoticed and unaccounted for”.

The mouthpieces rushed to cover their political rears on Politics Live, provoking a predictable reaction from This Writer:

Even The Guardian‘s Helen Pidd was finding excuses for the Tories, with a claim that defied reason:

And the simple fact is that deaths will continue to rise until homelessness becomes an automatic death sentence.

I said that was the plan when the Conservatives announced their plan to halve homelessness by 2022 and eliminate it by 2027 – and this is more evidence that I was right.

The answer to homelessness, and the problems that come with it, have been known for years – give these people a place to live! That would relieve burdens on the health service and also on the police and justice system – as has been proved in Utah.

The Conservatives know this but refuse to take the appropriate action.

Therefore we may conclude that they are deliberately driving people to their deaths.

And there’s only one way to stop it – unless you are one of the thugs who consider rough sleepers to be targets for violence and would rather pour petrol on them and set them alight than help. And I don’t think Vox Political readers are thugs.

We need a Labour government, as soon as possible – or these Tory policy deaths will only increase.

Source: Homeless deaths in 2018 rise at highest level – ONS | Society | The Guardian

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Universal Credit staff to strike this week – but not over the state of the so-called ‘benefit’

If you think Department for Work and Pensions staff in Wolverhampton, Walsall and Stockport are striking over the appalling state of the so-called ‘benefit’ they are employed to enforce… think again.

They’re striking to get an improvement in their own working conditions.

Apparently people being forced to suffer because of the conditions forced on them will just have to fend for themselves. Charming!

According to Welfare Weekly, “Universal Credit staff working at two centres in Walsall and Wolverhampton will take two further days of strike action this week, after losing patience with the government in their campaign for more staff and better working conditions.

“The walk-out will take place between Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29, after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) refused to meet the demands of workers.

“Staff walked out in March 2019, accusing the DWP of treating them with “utter contempt”.”

So they should understand how UC claimants feel, then.

The Mirror has said the strike will be joined by workers at a call centre in Stockport.

Organiser the PCS union has said the action has been motivated by cuts, workload increases and the victimisation of union representatives.

It says this is making it impossible for its members to properly support UC claimants.

The DWP, on the other hand, has said staffing levels are sufficient but it will monitor the situation and hold regular meetings with the union, in order to resolve the issues.

Meanwhile, UC claimants will undoubtedly continue to suffer with benefit claims rejected on false pretences. Will the DWP try to use employees’ claims of overwork as an excuse?

Source: Universal Credit staff poised for further walk-outs

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Here are the reasons Theresa May’s ‘Stronger Towns Fund’ is a big ‘Brexit bribe’ boob

Yes, it’s time for the ‘liar liar’ image again: Theresa May is being economical with the truth regarding her ‘Stronger Towns Fund’ – again – it seems.


What do you think will happen to anything created via Theresa May’s ‘Stronger Towns Fund’?

Mrs May has announced that she is giving £1.6 billion to deprived towns whose electorate voted for Brexit – apparently independently of whether their predominantly-Labour MPs support her Brexit deal, in a bid to avoid criticisms that it is a bribe.

Big deal.

It isn’t as much as the EU funding that these areas are going to lose; it doesn’t cover the amount that the Tories have cut from local budgets; and it is to be spread over a six-year period, meaning the amount likely to be spent per area is a pittance.

It isn’t even as if ordinary local – poor – people will have a say in what happens with what cash does become available to them.

The money will be allocated according to the wishes of Local Enterprise Partnerships – committees composed of local councillors and business representatives.

And what will happen to whatever results from this funding?

People have been suggesting capital projects such as new sports centres could result.

I don’t know if that’s true, but I know what has happened to sports centres here in Mid Wales after the Tories took over in Westminster and cut funding to local authorities:

They’ve been sold off into private hands.

So I tend towards the belief that Mrs May is leading us all down the garden path.

It seems this is just another way of handing huge profit-making cash cows over to rich private businesspeople at the expense of the poor.


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Nailed: Jacob Rees-Mogg and his version of Christian values

Jacob Rees-Mogg and his nanny: The parents should take the blame.

Remember Tory darling Jacob Rees-Mogg’s appearance on Good Morning Britain, when he tried to justify his opposition to gay marriage and abortion – even in cases where pregnancy has occurred after rape – by referring to his Catholic Christian values?

Here’s the clip again:

Well, Iain Rowan of Sunderland had the perfect answer.

Writing in a newspaper (the name of which I don’t know because it isn’t mentioned in the following tweet, he stated:

For clarity, that’s: “Rees-Mogg justifies his opposition to gay marriage and abortion even in cases of rape on the basis of his Christian beliefs (Report, 7 September). So where is his opposition to welfare cuts on the grounds that Jesus went out of his way to demonstrate his compassion for the poor and the lame? When Jesus says ‘blessed are the peacemakers’, how does that fit with Rees-Mogg’s consistently voting for military intervention? Where are his statements on executive pay, reminding other MPs that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven? I thought being a committed Christian meant following the teachings of Jesus, rather than standing at the pick-and-mix counter in a sweetshop, only choosing the fizzy snakes.”

Strong words – and accurate.

And you know what?

If you take them from “Where is his opposition to welfare cuts”, they could be used to apply just as easily to that other well-known Tory “Christian” – Theresa May.


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