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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Did you think you were hard-hit by the pandemic? Unless you’re a parent of a disabled child, think again!
Families with disabled children suffered astonishing levels of deprivation during the Covid-19 crisis (so far) as the Conservative government abandoned them to whatever fate befell them.
Read this information from a survey by Contact, the charity for families with disabled children – and weep. It found that, among almost 3,000 families:
Nearly two-thirds (61%) say that caring responsibilities mean they or their partner has given up paid work, on average losing £21,270 from their family income.
In the last 12 months, almost a third of parent carers have gone without heating (30%) and food for themselves (37%). Half have gone without toys, presents and computer equipment for their children.
55% of respondents were shielding during lockdown. As a consequence of shielding, 30% report they got into debt or borrowed money, 15% got behind with mortgage payments, 10% used a foodbank for the first time and 7% lost their job.
Nearly a quarter (23%) of respondents claim Universal Credit and 40% of those said they are worse off since claiming, despite assurances from government that no one would be worse off.
92% of parent carers say going without affects their own health and a third (34%) saying it affects the health of their child.
Almost one in five say they have increased care commitments due to the pandemic that will impact their ability to earn money in the future.
So it seems the Tories have used the pandemic to hammer the people who needed help the most – while pretending they were ensuring that everybody would be helped.
Some might describe such behaviour as lower than verminous.
Sadly, it is on the very same verminous government that these families must rely for help now.
Contact is running a campaign for action, with steps including:
• An increase in Carer’s Allowance and child disability payments under Universal Credit.
• Energy companies to introduce a special tariff for households with sick and disabled children due to the rising bills facing families this winter.
• The government to invest in specialist independent advice services, to help families with disabled children claim what they are entitled to.
The first act you can take in the campaign is simple: write to your MP. Contact has set up a template email to make speaking out quick and easy.
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The disgrace – no, the word ‘disgrace’ isn’t strong enough: this is the Sun story that mentally scarred survivors of the Hillsborough disaster and the families of those who died. It wasn’t ‘The Truth’ at all; it was a pack of lies.
More than five years after a jury ruled that 96 people were killed unlawfully in the Hillsborough disaster – and that their behaviour did not contribute to the situation – police forces have agreed to pay compensation to more than 600 people for mental distress caused by the attempted cover-up.
I have two questions.
Firstly: why did it take so long for South Yorkshire and West Midlands police to agree to pay up?
Secondly: Why aren’t the Conservative Party and Rupert Murdoch’s News International paying compensation, too?
Let’s go into the circumstances:
We all know that the Hillsborough Disaster was a fatal human crush at an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, hosted at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium on April 15, 1989.
It happened due to gross negligence by match commander David Duckenfield of South Yorkshire Police.
The police service then attempted to hide the fact that its failures caused 96 deaths and 766 injuries – the worst disaster in UK sporting history – by trying to blame it on the fans who were injured and died, saying those people caused the tragedy by being drunk and misbehaving.
West Midlands was the force appointed to investigate the disaster, but has since been accused of malpractices and failures that have been subject to a long-running investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
Not only that, though: the prime minister of the day, the Conservative Margaret Thatcher, refused to release information that made the police look bad.
And The Sun, a newspaper published by Rupert Murdoch’s News International, published a story headlined The Truth that was nothing but a pack of lies, supporting the fantasy created by the police.
This Writer believes a strong argument could be made that the newspaper story – which led to The Sun being boycotted in Liverpool ever since – caused more distress, more anguish, to survivors, and to relatives and friends of the deceased, than the police cover-up on which it was based (although I know it could not have been written if the police and the Tory prime minister had not lied in the first place).
Civil claims for compensation due to malfeasance in public office by the two police forces were submitted in 2015, during inquests into the reasons the 96 died.
The claimants said the lies had caused them to suffer trauma and psychiatric damage, and the compensation is to cover not only those injuries but also the cost of treatment and counselling.
Those claims were made nearly six years ago and the payments haven’t been made yet (at the time of writing). So I repeat: why not?
And how much are these people getting, to make one of the claimants describe the payout as “insulting” in The Guardian‘s news article about it?
The behaviour of the police was shocking, and undermines public faith in the reliability of our law enforcement officers across the UK – not just in the forces concerned.
But – as mentioned above – they weren’t the only organisations caught lying; they weren’t the only people who deliberately caused further distress over Hillsborough.
Margaret Thatcher withheld information – which was as bad as lying because it presented a false impression that the police were blameless.
She was able to do so because she was prime minister at the time – and she was prime minister because she was leader of the Conservative Party that had formed the then-current government.
She died in 2013 but it seems perfectly reasonable to hold the Tories responsible for putting her in a position where she could distort the facts. Why has the Conservative Party avoided compensating these people?
And that Sun headline has gone down in the history of journalistic infamy. The disgust of the city of Liverpool – in perpetuity – is not enough. Why has News International not offered compensation as well?
All three of these organisations should have offered payouts voluntarily, considering the enormity of the harm they have done, but they didn’t.
The police are only paying up because they were forced to.
Perhaps that aspect of this tragedy is the most damning of all.
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Coward: Boris Johnson hid in a fridge once to evade difficult questions. Now he is resorting to flat-out lies.
How galling for the 14 million who voted for him to realise that Boris Johnson is such a craven coward.
He can’t even bear to meet people who have lost family members due to his mistakes – so he has made up a succession of reasons not to.
Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK may not have a snappy name but they do have a good reason for existence – they want an inquiry into the Johnson government’s decisions on the Coronavirus pandemic in the UK.
The organisation wisely distrusts Johnson’s claim that he will hold an inquiry “at the appropriate time” and has already issued a “letter before action”, warning that the group is considering litigation to secure an inquiry.
But a letter before action is not itself litigation.
So when Boris Johnson said, “It turns out that this particular group are currently in litigation with the government. I will certainly meet them once that litigation is concluded,” he was lying.
He had previously promised to meet them.
Perhaps he was hoping that most people would not know enough about court action to tell that he was telling a falsehood in order to run away from the potentially disastrous publicity a meeting would create.
It’s also possible that he was hoping his u-turn would not come to public attention.
This Writer is already on the record as saying it is unlikely an inquiry will take place. Politicians like Johnson say there will be one “at the appropriate time” when a crisis is ongoing and people are demanding it but, the instant the trouble is over, they insist that it would be better to put the matter behind us.
Let’s face it: Johnson is notoriously bad – embarrassing, in fact – when he doesn’t have a script to read out. He may be afraid he’ll say something that may be used against him later.
So he’s running away from a meeting he promised to attend.
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Did Stephen Crabb not read the memos when he was running the department responsible for benefits?
The Tories aren’t interested in keeping families out of poverty! They’re all about putting families in poverty – so they spend the rest of their lives working their fingers to the bone to get back out again (something they’ll never do, because they are more profitable for employers if they’re in debt).
A Conservative MP has called on the UK government to increase benefits for families for a year.
Stephen Crabb said increasing the child element of universal credit would help families at risk of poverty from the coronavirus crisis.
The former Work and Pensions Secretary said many families faced losing their jobs and a “big drop” in income.
The UK government said it was committed to supporting the lowest-paid families and had taken “significant steps”.
Crabb’s old minister – the DWP – soon put him straight:
The Department for Work and Pensions said: “The UK government is committed to supporting the lowest-paid families and has already taken significant steps including ending the benefit freeze and increasing work incentives.
“We understand the current challenges many are facing which is why we injected £6.5bn into the welfare system, including increasing universal credit and working tax credit by up to £1,040 a year, as well as rolling out income protection schemes, mortgage holidays and additional support for renters.”
Translation: “We made a show of putting money in. We know it isn’t enough. Tough.”
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A few coppers and some silver coins: all the Tories think you’re worth.
The Conservatives have put another 100,000 children into poverty – meaning 4.2 million are now living under the breadline.
That’s a surge of 600,000 since the Tories came back into office in 2010. Now almost one-third of UK children are living in poverty due to Tory starvation-austerity policies.
And the affected children are among a staggering 14.5 million UK citizens found to be in poverty in 2018-19 – the highest total since the statistics were first collected in 2002 and an increase of half a million in a single year.
Bear in mind also that poverty is a relative measure, being calculated on an individual’s, or a family’s, income as a percentage of the national average.
The national average income has been depressed by Conservative policies over the last 10 years, meaning fewer people are said to be in poverty now than would have been in the past – but they are still suffering from Tory starvation policies.
Worse is to come:
The coronavirus crisis is likely to cause a huge increase in poverty as families face job losses and falling earnings.
The Tory government simply hasn’t done enough to secure people’s income as the pandemic bites.
Income guarantees for employees depend on their employers signing up to them – and many have simply decided to lay off their workers instead, forcing them to claim Universal Credit.
Workers on zero-hours contracts and people who are self-employed have also been told to claim Universal Credit – creating a bottleneck of claimants queuing for attention online or on the phone.
Self-employed people have been offered the possibility of an income guarantee similar to that offered to employees (whose employers took up the offer) – in June, when they are likely to have fallen into serious debt.
All of this – and the huge level of poverty that they have already caused – could be prevented, simply by providing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) for everyone.
It’s simpler than the hugely-complicated systems the Tories are bringing in, and it also happens to be cheaper.
In fact, the only reason – that makes sense – for the Tories not to introduce UBI is that they enjoy forcing poverty on people, and they are taking the opportunity afforded by coronavirus to inflict as much of it on us as possible.
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Child poverty is skyrocketing under Conservative rule. It’s time for a change.
As Boris Johnson tried to woo business leaders, the Mirror has revealed shocking figures condemning the way the Conservatives have attacked working families.
Figures quoted by the paper show that child poverty in working families – that’s families where one or more parent has a job, remember – rose to 2.9 million cases last year. That’s an increase of 38 per cent since 2010.
Research by the TUC shows the number of children in poverty-hit homes has risen by 800,000 in that time. Bear in mind that this increase involved children who have since become poverty-stricken adults and new children who have been born into poverty during this period.
One in four children are affected – a quarter of our young people.
Food bank use has rocketed by 3,772 per cent under Tory rule, and the number of food banks operated by the UK’s largest such charity – the Trussell Trust – has rocketed from 57 to 425. That’s a 646 per cent increase.
Volunteers gave away 1,583,668 packages – 14,253,012 meals – in 2018/19, of which 577,618 went to children.
Tories love food banks.
Their existence means Conservative governments can continue cutting in-work benefits. They give the money saved away to the rich in tax breaks, rather than investing it in the UK’s economy or other services for the population.
Other factors in the increased use of food banks were weak wage growth and the insecurity of the work on offer.
Boris Johnson won’t have said anything about that to the CBI conference today (November 18); he doesn’t care.
As I write this, Jeremy Corbyn is addressing the CBI, offering “real change”.
If I were a business leader, I know who I would support.
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Nine out of every 10 homes for rent are too expensive for families on housing benefit or the equivalent, Local Housing Allowance – according to the National Housing Federation.
The report finds that 94 per cent of private rental properties are unaffordable for families on Housing Benefit, or the equivalent Local Housing Allowance (LHA).
It also found that 65 per cent of the families affected are in work – proving once again that the Tory mantra that “work is the best way out of poverty” is utter claptrap while they remain in office.
LHA was initially designed to cover the bottom 50 per cent of market rents – in any area. This was reduced to 30 per cent in 2011, after the Tory-led Coalition government came into power (with help from the Liberal Democrats). Rates were divorced from market rents altogether in 2013, and frozen in 2016.
One can only conclude that this was done to price benefit-dependent families out of the market. In the least-affordable parts of the UK – southern and eastern England – only one per cent of privately-rented properties are affordable to those on LHA.
Analysis of data on private rental listings found that:
Only 7.54% of rental properties advertised in England are affordable to LHA claimants.
“Family-sized” properties, i.e. those with two or more bedrooms, are even less affordable, with only 6.5% being affordable at the relevant LHA rate.
Southern and Eastern parts of England are the least affordable areas.
In 2011, LHA was set to the 30th percentile of rents within Broad Rental Market Areas, meaning that claimants should have been able to afford 30% of the rental market in each BRMA. In 2019, the median percentage of the rental market that is affordable within a BRMA is only 5.9%.
Only 2.75% of rooms within shared accommodation are affordable at LHA. The shared accommodation rate is usually the only LHA rate that single people aged under 35 may claim.
The National Housing Federation has drawn the obvious conclusion – that Tory policies have pushed homelessness to record levels – and are pushing children into overcrowded and poor quality accommodation, like shipping containers and converted office blocks.
The organisation is demanding that the government LHA payments to cover at least the lowest-costing 30 per cent of privately-rented homes again. It also wants a £12.8 billion annual investment in building new social housing.
I think we all know what’s likely to happen about that: Nothing.
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Is James Brokenshire an imbecile, or does he think we are?
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government said the increase in homelessness since the Conservatives slithered into office in 2010 is not the result of government policy but is being driven by factors including the spread of psychoactive drugs such as spice, growth in non-UK nationals on the streets and family breakdown.
Oh, really?
Personally, I would have said it was due to income changes that made it impossible for renters to pay their landlords or for homeowners to keep up with their mortgage repayments and I would have said this was the result of policies including, but not limited to:
The Tory Bedroom Tax.
The Tory Universal Credit.
The Tory freeze (late a one per cent limit) on annual public sector pay increases.
The Tory squeeze on wages that forced them to plummet during the first half of the current decade.
Tory support for landlords that means they can force people to pay huge rents for accommodation that is unfit for human habitation.
And the electorate knows this.
Look at the responses to his claim:
Nuffink to do wiv us, guvnor. Blame all da drug addicts and one parent families. Tories: they never accept responsibility.https://t.co/d4X3eZkmA8
Close to the exit from Parliament which MPs use to go into Westminster tube station, tonight there are 6 people sleeping rough. It’s heart rending. And yet a government minister says the rise in homelessness is not result of government policies. Shameful. https://t.co/UPt73Q1vJ7
What's really depressing – and shameful – about this pathetic attempt to evade responsibility is that @JBrokenshire's own officials – some of whom will have worked on successful strategy to end rough sleeping in 2000s – will have told him it's untrue. https://t.co/iB3sA4Gmm6
TO BLAME FOR 169% INCREASE IN HOMELESSNESS SINCE 2010: Drug use Family breakdown Bloody foreigners Labour Mercury being in retrograde Sunshine Moonlight Good times Boogie
Oh, and the Tory plan to eliminate homelessness by 2027? It requires the death of anybody who is homeless.
Labour’s John Healey puts the real reasons for the rise in homelessness in a nutshell in the following clip:
We can end rough sleeping and it starts with getting every rough sleeper off the streets when the temperature drops. Today I spoke with @skynewsniall about our Labour plans to do just that pic.twitter.com/tx2dHd9KYW
“Oh, but we can’t support that, can we? It comes from that Jeremy Corbyn person and he’s a horrible Communist! All the newspapers and TV channels say it so it must be true, right?”
There’s a simple answer to the kind of person who says that – or anything similar to it.
Just point out that many of the people who are now sleeping rough were also persuaded to vote Conservative, in order to avoid the Labour policies that would have helped them avoid their current predicament.
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Yes, I used the words “burning injustices” in my headline to remind you that Theresa May said she would end them. Universal Credit is clear evidence that she intends to make them worse.
In a previous article, I explained why the planned changes to alleviate the hardships of the change from the so-called “legacy” benefits to Universal Credit are no good.
The Labour Party has created a video clip showing why Universal Credit – as administrated by the Conservatives – is a force for harm. You need to see it, so here it is:
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