Can’t find employment and dread the fortnightly grilling down the job centre? Can’t afford the bedroom tax so have to rely on food banks to get you and yours through the week? At the end of your tether because you’re waiting an age for the appeal against your Work Capability Assessment decision, which found you […]
Posts Tagged ‘Welfare Reform’
Judges overturn ATOS work capability assessment
May 26th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.Three cheers for the courts and mental health activists, none for the politicians and the Department of Work & Pensions. This week three judges ruled – as we all knew, but it required the courts to make it the law of the land – that the Government’s prescriptors, regulations and guidelines used to assess whether […]
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Welfare reform: give the public the facts, not go along with Tory lies
Apr 26th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.Labour’s recent slippage in the polls is partly because of the excessive timidity in declaring what the party really stands for, but also because of the way that Labour has been worsted over welfare reform. This reflects the Blairite Tendency’s efforts to out-right the Tories in playing to public prejudices over benefits – a contest it […]
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A brief history of Victorian welfare reform
Mar 7th, 2013 by David Osler.Back in the 1830s, the Tories and the forerunners of the Liberal Democrats were of one mind concerning the need for sweeping reform of Britain’s horrendously expensive welfare provision. Not only did the Speenhamland System constitute a direct incentive to indolence, but with the public finances in disarray after a series of ruinous military episodes in other […]
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Welfare reform: now Ed’s on side, keep the pressure on
Dec 13th, 2012 by Meric Apak.In October 2013 the biggest change to the benefits system since 1945 will begin. The changes are profound. Over 1 million people will be affected in the first 6 months alone and by the time the new system is fully in place, in 2017, it will be relied on by as many as 6 million […]
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Government now deducting benefits from those in work if they don’t find extra work
Oct 14th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.It has almost escaped notice that next year the government will be cutting benefits from those already in work – unless they can get extra work which may of course not be available. This will affect 1,400,000 people who are working part-time because they can’t get full-time work.
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Welfare reform: we can’t relax yet
Sep 16th, 2012 by Meric Apak.Cracks are appearing at the very top of Government. Yesterday’s Guardian has reported that Iain Duncan Smith, has been warned by his own advisers that a vital element of his flagship bill to simplify the benefits system is “unworkable and unfair”. I have collated a string of such media examples proving that campaigners against the welfare […]
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Cap rents not benefits
Jan 23rd, 2012 by Jon Lansman.Tony Blair was right. At least once. “Why don’t you tackle directly the excessive rents being charged by private landlords rather than making tenants the victim,” he wisely said when leader of the opposition. As the House of Lords are debating whether families should have their benefits capped at £26,000 per annum – regardless of how […]
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Welfare Reform Bill: why won’t anybody say it’s wrong in principle?
Jan 23rd, 2012 by David Osler.So many of London’s £1m-plus houses are occupied by workshy immigrant families of ten that whole swathes of Maida Vale have been transformed into vast welfare ghettoes, where Afsoomali has become the dominant spoken language on street after street. That, plus I understand that huge numbers of City Boys have jacked in all that private […]
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Liam Byrne’s Capitulation
Jan 5th, 2012 by Owen Jones.This is the kind of piece that delights Liam Byrne. It is an article of faith for the Blairite true believer that, the louder the left squeal, the more confident you should be that you’re doing the right thing. Another vindication is if the swivel-eyed hard right knuckle-draggers of the Daily Mail applaud you. So I’m […]
