Tag Archives: help

How do ‘community cooking events’ help us cope with rising energy bills?

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.

Source: DWP issues update on new cash for hundreds of thousands to help with rising energy bills

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Do you pay for energy using a pre-payment meter? Have you claimed energy benefits?

Apparently £25 million worth of energy benefits have not been claimed by people on pre-payment meters – even if they are struggling.

If you are one of these people, here’s some advice. Please watch:

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.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Cynical Liz Truss defends helping the rich rather than the poor – but nobody’s fooled

If Liz Truss thinks she’s fooling anybody, she is heading for a nasty awakening!

In a BBC interview, she was asked if she was on the side of bankers or the rest of us – and avoided answering.

Everybody knows this means she is on the side of the bankers and the rich – and her approach shows us that she cannot be trusted.

Watch the clip:

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.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Energy crisis: Tory government won’t help but wants you to use your common sense. Why?

The Conservative government has developed a curious rhetorical tic lately, as Maximilien Robespierre notes in his latest clip.

Instead of providing tangible help on the latest crisis they have triggered or escalated, ministers tell us to rely on our own common sense.

So in the Covid-19 crisis, mask-wearing was cast as a matter of choice. And now, with the cost of energy multiplying exponentially, they are refusing to provide advice.

They say we should rely on our own common sense.

Here’s the clip:

It’s an abrogation of responsibilty.

Political choices put the population in this mess, so politicians should grasp the nettle and offer us options to get out of it.

And saying the amount of energy we use is up to us, after experts have already said we need to cut back consumption by 15-30 per cent, is imbecilic.

This Writer’s advice is: don’t listen to them. Listen to the people offering real help, like the Iceland boss in the clip.

Apologies for the unusual layout of this article. I am away from my desk, writing this on my mobile phone, without access to my usual tools.

Why didn’t the government act on energy price cap increase earlier? It’s what we expected!

Martin Lewis: he’s been saying the government has been able to predict the rise in the energy price cap for months – so why hasn’t it acted to protect vulnerable people yet?

Here’s a good question, posed by a Facebook friend of This Writer:

“Why [announce the inflation-dictated energy price cap rise in] October? Is that because the inflation rate, by which pensions are increased the following April, is set in September?

“Whether its intended that way or not (and I’m a cynic, I’d say it is), pensioners won’t get the inflation rise caused by October’s and April’s energy price rises – until April 2024 – having to go a whole year with insufficient money.

“It might apply to other benefits too.”

Can you see anything wrong with the reasoning here – especially when we knew the rise was coming and could predict exactly what it would be.

That’s what Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis says, anyway (along with very many other pertinent points) in this clip:

So there’s no reason for the government to deprive pensioners (and possibly benefit recipients) of inflation-linked pensions and benefits – or, indeed, to have delayed mitigating measures until after a new prime minister is sworn in.

And now we know that – possibly at least in part because of this failure – the number of people in fuel poverty, spending more than 10 per cent of their income on energy bills, is likely to almost double, from 4.3 million to 8.9 million within 12 months.

The price cap is now set to rise from £1,971 per year to £3,549 per year on October 1, and is projected to rise to an excruciating peak of £6,616 – almost double again what it is rising to reach in October.

Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has said options for further household support packages are being drawn up – but we are also expected to cut our electricity use by between 15 and 30 per cent, according to our means.

To me, this suggests that the Tories are preparing to blame members of the public if they die of cold this winter, by pretending that they didn’t cut their energy use enough.

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.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Tory minister says no to freezing energy bills – but will ‘targeted packages’ work?

James Heappey: he doesn’t want to freeze energy bills, and looks delighted to be threatening you with poverty.

This is real Tory dedication to profit over people: they don’t want to freeze rocketing energy bills, even when an energy firm asks them to.

Scottish Power boss Keith Anderson called on Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng to consider the plan, and has also submitted it to Scottish First Secretary Nicola Sturgeon.

But Armed Forces Minister James Heappey has already said Kwarteng isn’t seriously considering the proposal, which is expected to cost £100 billion.

It seems he’s upset about paying such an “eye-watering” sum to keep us all out of destitution.

Instead, he supports a vague idea put forward by both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, to provide “targeted” help to those who need it most.

Who’s willing to bet that this means rich people get the lion’s share of the cash?

Remember the “targeted” help Sunak announced in May? He promised £400 to every home.

It was only after we read the small print that we realised people who own several homes would receive the £400 several times.

So the richest people got to benefit more, while the poorest were put at risk of mental illness, worrying about how to make ends meet.

Tory doubletalk – screwing you over since 2010.

Source: Not right to freeze energy bills despite ‘really expensive winter’ to come, minister says

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.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Cost of living crisis: good news if you receive tax credits

Rule change: tax credit claimants who can show an entitlement to tax credits will receive payments to help cope with the cost of living crisis.

The government has actually done something nice for a change.

It has changed the eligibility rules for the bonus payment to help pay energy bills, announced by Rishi Sunak when he was Chancellor earlier this year.

For tax credits claimants to get the first cost of living payment of £326, they must have been entitled, or later found to be entitled, to tax credits for any day in the period between April 26 and May 25, 2022, rather than having received a payment between those dates.

It means claimants need not have been actually receiving tax credits during that qualifying period. They could also have been eligible for tax credits but had not yet had any money, or may later win an appeal that finds they would have been eligible during that timeframe.

The bad news is that the cost-of-living payments announced by Sunak have now been entirely swallowed up by the rise in the energy price cap that is expected in October, so households will still be worse-off.

Still, not enough help is better than no help at all, right?

At least, that seems to be the Tory government philosophy, as it is not even trying to find another solution until a new prime minister is sworn in on September 5.

Source: Cost of living: Huge DWP change to £326 payment means more people entitled to it

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.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Johnson’s ONE-point plan for Ukraine: copy everybody else’s then claim to be leading

‘Follow me,’ says Boris Johnson. ‘I’ve got a plan!’ And world leaders ignore him because he’s trying to steal their plan.

Boris Johnson – what a fraud.

Certain newspapers were touting what they said was Johnson’s new six-point plan to support Ukraine.

Here it is, as described by Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, who – it seems – can’t even spell ‘Ukraine’:

There’s just one problem: It’s not his plan.

He has merely waited to see what everybody else is doing and then tried to adopt it as his own.

This sums it up perfectly:

Some might say this is yet another attempt to seem to be doing something while actually obeying the wishes of his Russian masters and doing nothing.

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.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Energy prices have quadrupled and Kwarteng is lying about the government response

Kwasi Kwarteng: you can’t trust a word he says.

This is refreshing! The BBC is actually doing its job and checking government ministers’ claims against the facts!

Here’s the evidence:

In fact, the rebuttal from the Treasury was far harsher than the BBC misled us to believe, if you take Sam Coates’s word for it (and I’m inclined to):

Still, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. The fact that the BBC has actually checked a minister’s claim is a huge step forward for the quality of journalism at the Corporation.

Maybe they have. This Writer went on the course before embarking on a career in professional journalism. But then, I’m not related to anybody at the BBC, which is allegedly how most of their staff are recruited these days.

It is entirely possible, though, that the BBC’s sudden zeal for facts is merely a bid to hide the extremity of the disaster that the Tories have created over the 40 years since Margaret Thatcher started privatising energy suppliers:

And Kwarteng? He’s not bothered. He went off to Sky (presumably avoiding Mr Coates) and had good fun chatting with Islamophobe Trevor Philips about how sick and old people can eliminate the choice between heating and eating by putting on a few extra layers of clothes…

… so they end up doing neither:

The whole situation is reminiscent of the early-1970s oil crisis that led to power cuts across the UK.

That was during a Conservative government, too – Edward Heath’s.

He introduced a three-day working week in order to conserve electricity – and it seems Boris Johnson’s government has brought us back to that.

This has been a long time coming – and some of us have been warning about it, every step of the way.

The Tories privatised the energy suppliers on the promise that prices would stay low and systems would improve, in order to stay competitive. Instead, prices quadrupled and control of the new companies was bought by foreign firms, many of them wholly-owned by the governments of EU nations.

And then the UK left the EU, annoying those governments.

And now we are facing the threat of being deprived of our power supply.

It would not be possible if the UK had retained control of its own energy supply. But that’s another truth you won’t hear from Kwasi Kwarteng.

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.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Why is JEREMY HUNT doing more to demand help for working people to self-isolate than KEIR STARMER?

What’s wrong with this situation: the former Tory health secretary is doing more to demand financial support for people, who can’t otherwise afford to self-isolate with Covid-19 symptoms, than Labour Party leader Keir Starmer.

Read this:

The point is well made. Hunt has written a Twitter thread explaining the problem as he sees it, while Starmer has been sitting at home – self-isolating for a third time because he can afford it! – on his thumbs.

Here’s what Hunt said:

He’s not wrong, is he?

And he’s winning a lot of praise for it.

But, good as his points are, there’s an answer that trumps them.

It refers to the reason people can’t afford to self-isolate as matters stand at the moment.

Here it is:

It’s true. And we must remember that Jeremy Hunt was the Health Secretary at the time of Operation Cygnus, which demonstrated that the NHS would be overwhelmed if a pandemic infection happened – and he did absolutely nothing to rectify the situation.

So, while it is welcome that he is tinkering around the edges of it, we should remember that Hunt helped cause the wider problem in the first place.

Right?

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.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook