Soldato
As a centrist, I've been politically homeless for over a decade. I wish the LibDems could inspire something with someone outside of the topical effort to legalise pot.
After 16 years i've left local gov
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Yep, who do you vote for if you neither want to see the country ruined by reckless cuts or reckless spending? Where’s the middle ground?
Soldato
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Yeah Universal Credit is some truly lol kek material. Truly.
I understand the governments need to reform try fix things / improve stuff etc. Universal Credit has some pros, but at the end of the day it's a total shambles and should have been rolled out MUCH slower.
Even Iain Duncan Smith quit over their absolute shambles of a show they've got going on.
Caporegime
Yeah met a Swedish woman and moved there, rather than her move here. East london.
I can't speak of reported cases where people have been getting less money but afaik the premise behind it is to encourage more personal responsibility, rather than have the state nannying people on benefits by automatically paying their bills and stuff.
Soldato
My friend is a social worker at a hospital, she spends 99% of her time writing appeals and going to court hearings to get dying and sick people the money they need to live. The process can take over a year to be resolved, it takes on average 33 weeks to get a court hearing date, that's after numerous written reconsiderations and appeals. Not surprisingly many of the patients have died in that time.
New DWP statistics: more than 80 people are dying each month shortly after being declared ‘fit for work'
The department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has just published figures showing that between 2011 and 2014, 2,380 people died shortly after being declared ‘fit for work’.
270 former IB/SDA claimants died shortly (scans are conducted fortnightly for ESA and six-weekly for IB/SDA) after being declared fit for work and having their benefits withdrawn.
1,340 ESA claimants who had recently completed appeals against the fit for work assessment died.
Total number of ESA off-flows with date of death
at the same time(3)
50,580
But yeah lmao...
Same here, my only experience with the Job Centre and DWP was under Labour.
There were security guards, people I knew were getting sanctioned and no money for weeks. I even got sanctioned for not applying for a job that was too far away and not on a bus route; I did however find 15 more and provided evidence to the advisory, "sorry Mr Fubsy, I have no choice but to stop your payments for failing to adhere to the agreement".
Mental illness was also infesting every part of my life during that period as well.
So when people hate on the Tories for all of this, my personal experience under Labour with TB/GB makes me extremely cynical. Life is just **** when you can't provide for yourself or get a job.
Nah, he quit because it was getting too toxic even for him.
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Soldato
Here's some stories to cheer you up! Taken from here.
*Note I didn't copy and paste them all, it was taking too long to highlight on my tablet.
Conor Cribbin, 25 years old. The student suffered from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and his medical card was stopped in the period leading up to his suicide. He had also learned just days prior that he had failed to secure a college grant. According to his father, Conor was in low spirits in the days beforehand. He added: “He couldn’t get his medication for his ADHD.”
Mark Cotton, 54 years old. Lost both his legs due to a medical condition. Died in an apparent suicide fewer than 48 hours after being told an allowance to pay his carer was being cut from nine hours a week to only three.
Terry McGarvey, 48 years old. Dangerously ill from polycytheamia, Terry asked for an ambulance to be called during his Work Capability Assessment. He knew that he wasn’t well enough to attend his WCA but feared that his benefits would be stopped if he did not.
He died the following day.
Elaine Lowe, 53 years old. Suffering from COPD and fearful of losing her benefits. In desperation, Elaine chose to commit suicide.
Mark Wood, 44 years old. Found fit for work by Atos, against his Doctors advice and assertions that he had complex mental health problems. Starved to death after benefits stopped, weighing only 5st 8lb when he died.
Paul Reekie, 48 years old, the Leith based Poet and Author. Suffered from severe depression. Committed suicide after DWP stopped his benefits due to an Atos ‘fit for work’ decision.
Leanne Chambers, 30 years old. Suffered depression for many years which took a turn for the worst when she was called in for a WCA. Leanne committed suicide soon after.
Karen Sherlock, 44 years old. Multiple health issues. Found fit for work by Atos and denied benefits. Fought a long battle to get placed into the support group of ESA. Karen died the following month of a heart attack.
Carl Payne, 42 years old. Fears of losing his lifeline benefits due to welfare reform led this Father of two to take his own life.
Tim Salter, 53 years old. Blind and suffering from Agoraphobia. Tim hanged himself after Atos found him fit for work and stopped his benefits.
Edward Jacques, 47 years old. years old and suffering from HIV and Hepatitis C. Edward had a history of severe depression and self-harm. He took a fatal overdose after Atos found him fit for work and stopped his benefits.
Linda Wootton, 49 years old. years old. A double heart and lung transplant patient. Died just nine days after the government found her fit for work, their refusal letter arriving as she lay desperately ill in her hospital bed.
Steven Cawthra, 55 years old. His benefits stopped by the DWP and with rising debts, he saw suicide as the only way out of a desperate situation
Elenore Tatton, 39 years old. Died just weeks after the government found her fit for work.
John Walker, 57 years old. saddled with debt because of the bedroom tax, John took his own life.
Brian McArdle, 57 years old. Suffered a fatal heart attack the day after his disability benefits were stopped.
Stephen Hill, 53 years old. Died of a heart attack one month after being found fit for work, even though he was waiting for major heart surgery.
Jacqueline Harris, 53 years old. A former Nurse who could hardly walk was found fit for work by Atos and her benefits withdrawn. in desperation, she took her own life.
David Barr, 28 years old. Suffering from severe mental difficulties. Threw himself from a bridge after being found fit for work by Atos and failing his appeal.
David Groves, 56 years old. Died of a heart attack the night before taking his work capability assessment. His widow claimed that it was the stress that killed him.
Nicholas Peter Barker, 51 years old. Shot himself after being told his benefits were being stopped. He was unable to work after a brain haemorrhage left him paralysed down one side.
Mark and Helen Mullins, 48 and 59 years old. Forced to live on £57.50 a week and make 12 mile trips each week to get free vegetables to make soup. Mark and Helen both committed suicide.
Richard Sanderson, 44 years old. Unable to find a job and with his housing benefit cut forcing him to move, but with nowhere to go. Richard committed suicide.
Martin Rust, 36 years old. A schizophrenic man who killed himself two months after the government found him fit to work.
Craig Monk, 43 years old. A vulnerable gentleman and a partial amputee who slipped so far into poverty that he hanged himself.
Colin Traynor, 29 years old and suffering from epilepsy was stripped of his benefits. He appealed. Five weeks after his death his family found he had won his appeal
Where's the problem?
The whole Tory plan is for the poor to work themselves to death in servitude to the rich.
Seems it's starting to bear fruit. You all knew what you were voting for; nobody should be that surprised.
Labour are basically the Scarecrow needing a brain; the Tories are the Tin Man lacking a heart. It's a tough choice, but I'd rather vote for a party that has some form of social moral compass; the Tories care about nothing except money, power and privilege. Nothing.
Ubi is total fantasy pie in the sky nonsence.
Minimum wage for an adult over 25 is,currently £7.83 that equates to an annual salary of £16,286.40 for a full time worker....
If you wanted to pay that to the 81.1‰ if the population that are adults (2016 figures) (that's circa 53.7 million people) that would mean annual payments of circa 874.5 billion pounds annually.. ...
Total goverment spending in 2016 on everything, including existing welfare was 762.3 billion
And of course Ubi could not 'universally' replace all existing welfare either as extra payments would still be required for families with lots of children and certain disabled people for example.....
UBI would overnight double governmental spending requiring massive, unprecedented changes to taxation. It would course a whole host of issues around .... Including but not limited to increasing immigration of thoose seeking UBI, increasing asking emigration of thoose skilled who would have to pay considerably higher taxes to support Ubi payments, incentivising people to stay away from regular employment with a bit a bit of work in the 'untaxed' part of the economy being preferable and causing massive problems with inflation and ensuring UBI remained enough to be considered a 'basic income' ... He'll why not just go a bit more Socialist and bring in prices controls as well whilst you are at it?
The belief that it would be desirable to more than double government spending (and therefore taxation even if it is just partially taxing back what is handed out) is lunacy, especially if done unilaterally as a country with high rates of immigration.
Edit: yes some of the figures should be billions not millions....
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Soldato
Is the solution that we just need to massively depopulate the country? Let the people on the bottom rungs die off without any state aid?
Caporegime
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Clearly not. What kind of messed up "solution" is that?
Soldato
No I'm just wondering really. If the current solution is causing people to die because they don't get enough money, but spending more money isn't an option because there isn't any more, what is the *actual* long term sustainable option?
Caporegime
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Make corporations actually pay corporation tax, so there is money?
Soldato
How do you do that and prevent them from simply leaving the country to a more favourable nation?
Soldato
never gonna happen lolz
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Deleted member 66701
Universal income and equality of opportunity in education.
But yet strangely you take frequent pot shots at brexit that would allow the UK goverment to restrict the ability of companies to report UK sources profits elsewhere in the EU under freedom of movement of goods and services.... Like was recently reported with Netflix?
(not that brexit necessarily will improve such matters but it offers a route to them that the UK could not consider in the EU)
I've dealt with universal (basis) income already.... It's not plausible in the UK, especially as if implemented unilaterally and would involve total govement spending increasing by a factor or circa 100%to provide even adults in with a minimum wage income.
How exactly do you think you can achieve equality of opportunity re education? Some people are just not a clever or academic as others....
If you have inner city school, whoose student come with a whole host of issues from their parents including, but not limited to, criminality, drug alcohol dependancy, poor parental engagement, active hostility to learning, chaotic lifestyles, inter generational welfare dependancy etc how to you make these schools offer the same opportunities as schools elsewhere with less of these issues?
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Utter garbage and I'd know.
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