Tag Archives: poverty

Globalisation and privatisation are pushing UK families into poverty

Need a miracle: this is YOU, the day after tomorrow.

Here’s a terrifying article by Brett Christophers (who?) originally in The Guardian.

The author examines the reasons rent, food and energy prices aren’t coming down, if household incomes are.

His answers can be summed up in two words: globalisation and privatisation.

He tells us:

Profits have reached record levels… [but] the cost of living crisis reflects the combination of higher prices for essentials with household incomes that are at best standing still.

Part of the reason that UK companies are generating record profits is precisely because they are successfully keeping wage costs down.

It has long been understood that across an economy at large, companies cannot simply drive down wages and expect profits to hold up in the medium or long term. After all, workers are also consumers. Lower wages mean a lower capacity to consume.

Then he hits us with the reason the big UK firms have managed to avoid this threat to their profits:

Much more than is the case in other countries, such firms tend to be distinguished by one of two key features, both of which insulate the companies in question from the potentially negative impact of UK wage stagnation.

The first is their geography. Companies in the FTSE 100 index derive less than a quarter of their revenues from the UK – a remarkably small share. In other words, domestic demand conditions are largely irrelevant to their fortunes.

That this is true of the UK’s big oil and gas companies, BP and Shell, whose profits are at all-time highs, is well known. But it is no less true of profit heavyweights in other sectors such as AstraZeneca, BAE Systems, British American Tobacco (BAT) and Unilever.

That’s globalisation – these firms operate in other countries where wages are higher and can therefore charge what they like. If UK households default on their energy bills, their lights will go out and the energy firms’ bosses won’t think twice about it.

The second key feature of many leading UK firms is less often discussed. This is the non-discretionary nature of the expenditure that households incur in consuming their services: expenditure such as loan payments, housing rent and utility bills.

Many of these companies have been in the news for their profits, too – companies such as HSBC, Centrica, Thames Water and Annington Homes. Their household customers, many (and, in some cases, all) of whom are located in the UK, are essentially captive: they must make payments, whether wages are rising or not.

In the case of the disproportionate prominence of firms earning revenue in the form of non-discretionary household expenditure, the explanation is … : privatisation. In the 1980s and 1990s, both Conservative and New Labour administrations went about privatising publicly owned assets that occasioned regular household payments – principally housing and utilities – with a gusto and comprehensiveness unparalleled elsewhere in the global north.

So successive Tory and New Labour governments have created a situation in which working households are now being held hostage by the corporations that have effective monopolies on the goods and services we need, simply to be able to live.

I lived through the period when Margaret Thatcher was privatising everything in sight, and when globalisation was the buzzword for the economy. I knew it would end badly for people like myself – and that’s exactly what is happening.

But far too many of my fellow citizens were taken in by the weasel words of Thatcher, Major, Blair and all their fellow-travellers; people who subsequently became extremely rich by forcing us to struggle.

And now, future generations will pay. And pay. And pay…

But if you ask young people today what they think, most of them will say they aren’t interested in politics and it has nothing to do with them.

Source: If UK wages are going down, why aren’t rent, food and energy prices coming down too?

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Cost-of-living crisis: Tories demand clampdown on people who steal to eat

Tory Kit Malthouse: his party has inflicted poverty on millions and now he is determined that if anybody is driven to steal food, just so they can eat, police should prosecute them with the full force of the law rather than exercise their discretion to deliver justice.

The Tory government has opened up a rift with the new Chief Inspector of Constabulary over people who steal to eat because of the cost-of-living crisis.

“The impact of poverty, and the impact of lack of opportunity for people, does lead to an increase in crime. There’s no two ways about that,” Andy Cooke, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said.

He said officers should use their “discretion” when deciding whether to prosecute people who steal in order to eat: “What they’ve got to bear in mind is what is the best thing for the community, and that individual, in the way they deal with those issues.”

But he insisted he was not advocating an amnesty for people who commit crimes of poverty, nor “giving a carte blanche for people to go out shoplifting”. Instead, he advised officers to make sure such matters of law enforcement are “dealt with in the best way possible”.

The Guardian found at least one police representative who agreed with this approach:

One chief constable whose area includes pockets of poverty agreed with Cooke. “There is a difference between a first-time offender who steals bread, cheese or milk to eat, and someone stealing to feed an addiction,” they said. “Police are there to help people in extreme need, that’s why we joined. We can signpost them to a food bank or help like that.”

But the Tory government takes a different view – Policing Minister Kit Malthouse wants to crack down hard on the people his party’s policies have driven into poverty.

On Thursday’s (May 19) morning interview round, he told LBC: “I wrote to chief constables just a year or so ago saying they should not be ignoring those seemingly small crimes.

“We first of all believe the law should be blind and police officers should operate without fear or favour in prosecution of the law.”

What did you expect? Tory policy has been to privatise the prison service, remember.

Perhaps they want to fill those prisons for their private business cronies.

And one more thing:

Isn’t it hypocritical for the Tories to want harsh action against people suffering as a result of their policies – but think it is hardly worth mentioning when their own leader ignores their policies in order to have a big party?

Source: Officers should use discretion over stealing to eat, says police watchdog | Police | The Guardian

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As NI rise bites your wages, have you realised yet the Tory plan was always to impoverish you?

Money: Boris Johnson and the super-rich have it because they took it from you. It was their plan from the start – even before the financial crash of 2008. And they tricked you with lies into voting to impoverish yourself.

Somebody’s bound to call it a perfect storm; it is perfect as far as the Conservatives are concerned.

Let’s see if we can get our ducks in the right line…

First we had the financial crisis, caused by bankers who have since become Conservative MPs. The Conservative-led Coalition government that slithered into office by blaming this mess on Labour (despite the fact that Tory bankers caused it) then claimed austerity was the solution.

And what did austerity do? It squeezed money out of the poor and gave it to the rich.

A knock-on effect of the financial crash was that banks were told to cut interest rates, almost to nothing. This meant there was no point in saving money because the only people who could benefit from the interest on their savings were the super-rich.

Then the Tories foisted Brexit on us. People like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg said leaving the EU would bring billions of pounds back into the UK, to be used on things the population really want, like investing in the National Health Service.

In fact, Brexit has cost the UK £800 million per week – and rising. It has tied the UK’s businesses up in red tape, despite that Tories having claimed that they were getting rid of burdensome bureaucracy.

And Brexit is a major contributor to the cost of living crisis. It has created huge pressures on the food supply chain (for example) due to high bureaucracy and a shortage of lorry drivers to bring goods into the country (this being worsened by the Tories’ hatred of foreign-born workers).

Food prices have, unsurprisingly, rocketed. Energy prices are also rocketing because of a shortage of supply. Both have been worsened by the war between Russia and Ukraine and decisions by western nations to boycott Russian gas and goods.

The Tories’ response to these pressures on ordinary families has been to cut wages wherever they can and to raise tax by increasing National Insurance. They have offered nothing to people on benefits or to pensioners, meaning the UK is facing the biggest cut in living standards since records began,

Their justification for the NI rise is that it will subsidise investment in the NHS and Social Care – a slap in the face for everybody who thought money saved by leaving the EU would do that. And the claim is a myth anyway:

And more of us are paying more tax already – because the Tories have frozen the thresholds at which people pay different rates of tax. Even though pay is rising below inflation, increases will push incomes above the levels at which they pay different tax rates, meaning the government will take more of your money in tax, just when you need to keep more in your pocket:

They say they’re going to introduce measures to ease the burden of the tax rises in July. Why not immediately?

And they say they’re going to cut Income Tax by one penny (to 19p in the pound) in time for the next general election. But is that really going to help people? How much money will it put backin the pockets of the poorly-paid when they’re already losing so much to inflated prices and higher taxes?

Put it all together and you can see that this was the plan all along: to multiply the incomes of the already-wealthy while restricting those of the working majority, then to increase prices and taxes to levels that won’t affect the rich but will plunge the vast majority into poverty.

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Gary Neville’s attack on Rishi Sunak after Spring Statement threatens 1.3 million with poverty

NOT smiling: Gary Neville.

Gary Neville has excoriated Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak after analysis of his Spring Statement has found 1.3million people – including half a million children – will be dragged below the poverty line.

Analysis by the Resolution Foundation think tank has calculated that the typical working-age household will see their real income fall 4 per cent next year – a loss of £1,100.

Benefits will rise at less than half inflation.

A promised 1p cut on income tax from 2024 should only impact those on salaries between £49,100 and £50,300, the experts have said.

The Manchester United legend – and enthusiastic political commentator – had a few things to say about this:

He posted on social media: “Hey Rishi Sunak you’ve just pushed 1.3m people into absolute poverty this year including 500,000 children. UC [ Universal Credit ] rise abolished , NI [National Insurance] increase, not feeding children in a pandemic etc.

“You’re building a truly great record of achievements. Keep smiling for those photo opportunities.”

Yes, Sunak can keep smiling.

We’ll see if he can still smile when it’s time for his mugshot to be taken.

Source: Gary Neville launches scathing attack on Rishi Sunak and tells Tory MP to “keep smiling”

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Tories slammed over cost of living crisis they created

Loadsamoney: but it has all gone to the wrong people. Boris Johnson doesn’t care but as public opinion turns, he may soon suffer for his insensitivity.

March 16 was a bad day in Parliament for Boris Johnson, even though he wasn’t there.

The cost of living crisis over which Johnson has presided underlined everything under discussion in (Deputy) Prime Minister’s Questions – and in the debate before it on the BBC’s Politics Live.

This Writer regrets being unable to bring you video of the exchanges due to a technical hitch.

But I do have audio!

First you will hear Jo Grady of the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) saying that solutions to poverty problems have been found – usually by people outside the government who genuinely have the public interest at heart. She goes on to slam the Tory government for overseeing stagnating pay, the proliferation of insecure work, insufficient benefits and energy prices spiralling.

“The idea that workers have to … be the shock absorbers of bad economic policies is unacceptable,” she says.

Then Alliance MP Stephen Farry can be heard in Parliament, pointing out that the 3.1 per cent increase in benefits agreed by the Tory government last September is “untenable” now inflation is pushing seven per cent.

Finally, you will hear Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner absolutely excoriating the government for its failures on all fronts.

While there are huge problems with the current version of the Labour Party, which is unlikely to do much to help ordinary working and working-class people if it comes into office, this sound track is worth hearing for Rayner’s words alone.

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More than two million people pay £61-per-month Tory ‘poverty tax’

Sanctions imposed by Tories on people claiming Universal Credit mean 2.02 million people are paying an average monthly ‘poverty tax’ of £61 from their benefit payments.

DWP figures show 46 per cent of the money was used to repay loans that the Tories force people to take because they won’t pay UC to anybody for five weeks after they make a claim.

Another 19 per cent was used to repay Tax Credits that the government overpaid people in the past and is refusing to write off.

According to The Welfare Times,

The figures were uncovered by SNP MP Chris Stephens, who is also a member of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee [who] said: “This is essentially a Poverty Tax on people who are struggling to heat their homes and put food on the table.

“Universal Credit is meant to be a subsistence benefit that covers basic living costs. If £60 a month is being taken away from it, when living costs are rising rapidly, how are people meant to subsist?”

The article stated that Tory government rules mean single adults over 25 get £324.84 per month, with additional payments for housing, children, and disability – but up to a quarter can be taken to pay DWP-created debts.

Repayments for social fund loans, hardship payments, integration loans, and other benefit overpayments may also be deducted.

Astonishingly, a DWP minister – David Rutley – responded to Mr Stephens by claiming the deductions were not debts – right after saying the aim was to “seek to balance recovery of debt against not causing hardship for claimants and their families.”

Apparently the DWP reduced the maximum deductable amount from 40 per cent to 25 per cent of monthly UC payments, and made them repayable over two years rather than just one.

But it still isn’t enough and, with the cost of living skyrocketing because of Tory political decisions, people are going to suffer. What will this government do about it?

It’s just another example of the fact that the Tories find it easier to bully poverty-stricken UK citizens than to sanction billionaires who may be connected to a warmongering foreign regime.

Source: Over 2 million on Universal Credit hit by £61-a-month ‘poverty tax’

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#BorisJohnson’s lies: he says your income has rocketed, so why can’t you afford to live?

This was perhaps the most offensive lie Boris Johnson told in Prime Minister’s Questions on January 5, 2022.

He said income inequality in the UK has fallen.

In a country where poverty is “steadily increasing”, according to the Office for National Statistics, while billionaires have boosted their own income massively, this is an insult to the millions of us who are struggling to make ends meet.

When one adds in the fact that he lied about child poverty – it is increasing, not decreasing – the insult is overwhelming.

Here’s the video evidence:

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Welsh Labour is finalising plans for UBI pilot that could slash poverty and galvanise the economy

Mark Drakeford: Wales’ First Minister has promised to devote the rest of his time in office to rolling out a Universal Basic Income that will lift everybody in Wales out of poverty.

While England suffers under Boris Johnson’s tyranny, Wales may soon prosper under a coalition of Labour and Plaid Cymru led by Mark Drakeford.

Flagship policy is Drakeford’s plan to roll out a Universal Basic Income that could slash poverty by at least 50 per cent in a stroke. A pilot is planned for the spring involving young people leaving care, with other groups to be added.

The aim seems to be to find a way of introducing it without provoking sanctions from the deeply neoliberal – and poverty-encouraging – UK government run by Tory Boris Johnson in Westminster.

It seems the aim is to present Johnson with an argument he can’t refute, like showing the plan improves economic activity by giving people more spending power – as indicated by research from the Autonomy think tank.

According to Autonomy’s report, an introductory UBI of just £60 per week for adults aged 18-65, across the whole of Wales, would immediately cut poverty in half – and child poverty by two-thirds (to 10 per cent from 28 per cent, currently the highest level in the UK).

Pensioners would get £175 on this system, and pensioner poverty would be cut by 61 per cent.

A more substantial (and, yes, more expensive) UBI rate would almost wipe out Welsh poverty entirely. It is suggested as a long-term goal for policymakers.

The report forecast that UBI could create £600 million of extra spending in Wales by putting more cash in the pockets of lower-income households – the group acknowledged to spend most of its income into the economy, rather than saving it.

This would generate tax income for the Welsh government, allowing it to push on with further progressive policies.

The income security provided by UBI will improve the nation’s health and increase life expectancy – people in Wales will be able to expect longer and healthier lives.

And people will enjoy more freedom to try new things like finding appropriate jobs, starting businesses of their own, or improving their education or skills. These are all things that the Tory system of means-tested and heavily-restricted benefits suppress.

And the Welsh people support it by a clear majority. Surveys show 69 per cent of the Welsh public want UBI, while only 11 per cent oppose it.

And the First Secretary of Wales, Mark Drakeford, has said he will devote the remainder of his time in office to rolling out UBI in Wales.

This could be hugely important, not just for Wales, but for UK politics as a whole.

As England sinks into the mire of Tory corruption, its people forced deeper and deeper into poverty by higher costs for groceries, commodities and – very soon – health care, they may find themselves staring across Offa’s Dyke at a land of healthy, happy, people in a country that is moving forward, not downward.

The Tories will do their best to obstruct it, of course, but they can’t stop it. Indeed, any overt attempt to do so will be rightly condemned as anti-democratic.

Done properly, it may stand as a demonstration of the harm being done by Tory – and Westminster Labour – neoliberalism that promised us increased wealth for the rich minority that would trickle down to the rest of us once they’d had enough but only proved that the rich minority never have enough and enjoy keeping the rest of us in poverty and misery anyway.

In short: this could be the pebble that starts an avalanche, overturning failed right-wing economics for good.

Or am I overstating it?

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Child charity says DWP is unlawfully demanding Universal Credit repayments

Any opportunity to persecute: the DWP has found a way to force suffering onto people who had to claim Universal Credit because of Covid-19.

This is another classic con from the Tory-run Department for Social Security.

Last year, the DWP suspended face-to-face identity checks for Universal Credit, in anticipation of a glut of claims as Covid-19 bit into people’s jobs.

But now the government department has reinstated identity checks – retrospectively – even demanding ID from people who have closed their claims and could not receive the notification.

As a result “significant” numbers of people have failed to provide this information within the DWP’s 14-day deadline and have been judged to have been overpaid amounts up to £13,000.

Worse, people who have uploaded proof of their identity to their online Universal Credit journal have discovered that their claim has still been terminated and demands made for repayment.

And to top it all off, the DWP has arranged with employers to have money deducted from claimants’ pay packets at a rate of up to 20 per cent of their earnings.

The Child Poverty Action Group is helping some of the people affected and said many of the cases involved people who were unaware the DWP wanted retrospective evidence because they were no longer claiming universal credit, and no longer checked their online journal for DWP messages.

CPAG said the DWP had presumed that claimants’ failure to respond to a request for evidence a year after they claimed meant they were not entitled to the award in the first place.

The charity says this behaviour by the DWP is unlawful.

The Guardian approached the DWP for comment and – in typical style – it avoided the issue.

A spokesperson asserted that it is “right and lawful” that the department seeks to recover payments to which claimants were not entitled.

It seems the DWP has nothing to say about the possibility that it is wrongly taking money from people who did not know that any attempt to contact them or prove their identity had been made – until money started disappearing from their bank accounts.

If cash went missing from my bank account, I would call it theft and take appropriate action.

But the best advice, for any of the 99,000 people who claimed Universal Credit and didn’t have a face-to-face interview, who hasn’t – to their knowledge – been contacted, is to get in touch with the DWP yourself.

Contact them by the fastest possible method to find out whether they want proof of ID. Provide some ID pre-emptively if you feel like it. And keep a personal record of the information you send, in case it is (accidentally?) deleted from the Universal Credit journal or a correspondence file.

Then, if anyone tries to deduct cash unilaterally, you’ll be able to provide evidence that you have done your part and it is the DWP that is at fault.

Turn the tables on them. That’ll be fun, won’t it?

Source: Universal credit claimants were sent unlawful demands to repay, says charity | Universal credit | The Guardian

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Universal Credit cut: did the Tories fail to assess the harm it will do because they already know?


This is fairly straightforward.

First:

But other people have assessed the impact and this is what they say:

Here’s another take on it:

So poverty will rocket and the sick will take the biggest hit.

And the Tories are hoping to avoid criticism by saying they haven’t done an official impact assessment.

It’s like children looking away from a huge mess and telling their parents they don’t see anything wrong.

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