My father had sired 5 children before he was 30 years old, as his children were born towards the end of the 50's and the beginning of the 60 his output was symptomatic of the fact that working class people were having fewer children. His breeding rate was unimpressive in comparison to the 15-20 babies that many of my earlier ancestors were baring even at the beginning of the 20th century.
I was a late comer to the breeding game, I was 35 when my first child was born and 36 when my last child was born, my wife is some years younger than I am but at 29 and 30 when the boys were born she left the biological clock ticking dangerously low before becoming a mother.
Attending parent / teacher evenings in school my wife and I didn't stand out as old parents, indeed we were in the median range of parents, we are typically part of what has been described as The Demographic Time Bomb where the number of younger people available to service the needs of the elderly for care, pensions etc is diminished. Added to this is the fact that children born to older parents and smaller families are, themselves, likely to be less healthy than those born to younger parents and larger families, because of both biological and practical reasons - so they may add to the general burden of care rather than contribute to familial care.
There are three things that can help offset the demographic time bomb; immigration (young people being invited into our community to make up the lack of native youngsters); encouraging parenthood at a younger age and encouraging youngsters to have larger families. That all three are opposed by those who are most likely to suffer when the demographic time bomb explodes appears to me to be total madness!
Showing posts with label Benefits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Benefits. Show all posts
31/03/2013
Stop the Benefits Scroungers
With the Westminster government intending to hammer benefits
claimants on Monday I thought that this picture published on Twitter by @RCdeWinter is quite pertinent, despite the fact that it
relates to the USA (however Walmart is, of course, the parent company of ASDA on
our side of the pond).
@wallbngr54 they're disgusting hypocrites #Walmart #Waltons twitter.com/RCdeWinter/sta…
— RC deWinter (@RCdeWinter) March 31, 2013
If companies pay so little to their employees that they have
to depend on state handouts in order to have a basic standard of living then it
is not those in receipt of benefits who are the cheats and scroungers so
despised by The Daily Mail and its ilk, but the owners of these companies who
abuse the benefits system as a means to boost their profits by underpaying
their staff.
If the government really wanted to tackle the benefits bill
for fiscal, rather than ideological, reasons then they would increase the
minimum wage to a level where a working couple with an average amount of
children wouldn't need to claim any state support.
Before the usual suspects accuse me of socialist ranting or
bolstering the left, I would point out that I am a fiscal conservative, and
this post makes a free market point.
The welfare state should support those in
greatest need, not one of the wealthiest families in the world and a company
that relies on huge state subsidies in order to pay its workforce is not
working in either the true private sector or in a free market economy. If paying a fair wage would make the company unprofitable (doubtful) then they should go bust - which would be a boon for the thousands of small companies that their abuse of state subsidies squeeze out of the market place!
07/12/2012
Do I take Sugar?
Whenever there is a news item about people who live with a disability a representative pops up on the telly to speak on their behalf!
Where do these representatives come from?
Who elects them?
Who selects them?
I am very hard of hearing and I have up to 50 absence epileptic fits a day, but I have never, ever, been approached by any organisation purporting to represent my disabilities before they give evidence on my behalf to the National Assembly or Westminster Committees. When I see these people representing me on BBC Democracy Live I wonder how on earth they were selected to speak for me because they haven't got a fucking clue about the realities of living with hearing loss or epilepsy in rural north Wales.
Who are Epilepsy Wales/Epilepsi Cymru? I have lived with epilepsy for 40 years without this organisation ever aproaching me or asking my opinion about epeleptic issues! Apparently Wales Council for the Deaf is a lead organistaion in informing the Assembly about hearing loss issues - sorry for the pun, but as a deaf person, I've never heard from them!
Today's news about the closure of another two Remploy factories in Wales is apparently supported by SCOPE a charity that has grand ideas about some disability utopia, but doesn't have a realistic clue about the realities of living with a disability!
How many people who live with a disability voted for the Scope Representative to "speak for them" in support of a Tory attack on real people whose only chance of a job is in a Remploy factory?
I agree with IDS, most people with a disability can work! Disabled people should have work. Working is a good therapy, but the idea that I can compete in an open jobs market is a total fallacy. Be honest – given the choice of employing a healthy young 17 year old or 50+ deaf epileptic – who would you give the job to?
Sorry SCOPE, but your trendy lefty lovey attitude towards disability doesn't help me!
The only way that I can get a job is if I can get an employer that discriminates in my favour – like Remploy!
The only way that I can be represented is if I am consulted as a disabled person -rather than be represented by the wheelchair pusher who is asked does he take sugar and answers, wrongly, on my behalf - like Scope!
03/12/2012
Is the government reducing benefits costs by killing claimants?
This is a press release from Disabled People Against Cuts Caerdydd which will be holding a memorial protest today for those who have died as the result of the Westminster Government's draconian treatment of disabled and chronically sick people as part of their benefits cuts policies.
Disabled People Against Cuts Caerdydd and supporters will gather at the Aneurin Bevan Statue, Queen Street at 5 pm on Monday 3rd December. The event will include the lighting of 1000 candles to remember welsh disabled and sick people who died last year shortly after being told that they were fit for work and having benefits cut by an Atos 'work capability assessment. It may also include 'direct action' such as blocking roads.
The National Day of Remembrance for those killed by ATOS has been supported by disability campaigning organisations including Disabled People Against Cuts, Black Triangle and others. 29 MPs signed an Early Day Motion in support off the day including Welsh MPs, Martin Caton, Anne Clwyd, Jonathan Edwards and Albert Owen.
http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2012-13/687
According to an FOI (Freedom of Information) response publicised by the Daily Mail journalist Sonia Poulton on October 7, the current weekly average Atos/DWP death toll of people found fit for work after an ESA work capability assessment now stands at 73 people per week.
A FOI in April revealed in 2011 an average of 32 dying a week after failing test for new incapacity benefit. More than a thousand sickness benefit claimants died last year after being told to get a job.
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2012/04/32-die-a-week-after-failing-in.html
There have been numerous horror stories in the media of people with terminal illnesses (in one infamous case even someone in a coma) being declared fit for work by ATOS and having their benefits cut.
Recent Stories:
'A GRIEVING boy of 13 has accused Atos of killing his disabled dad. Kieran McArdle told the Daily Record in a harrowing letter how his father Brian, 57, collapsed and died the day after his disability benefits were stopped. He had been assessed by Atos and deemed “fit for work”'
http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2012/11/01/atos-benefits-bullies-killed-my-sick-dad-says-devastated-kieran-mcardle-13/
'A cancer sufferer, who had her benefits cut by government officials who said she was fit to work, has died'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19433535
'I sought this debate in order to raise the case of one of my constituents, Colin Traynor, who was epileptic. He was assessed as fit for work, yet died less than four months later' (Michael Meacher MP)
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2012-09-13a.532.0
Disabled People Against Cuts Caerdydd and supporters will gather at the Aneurin Bevan Statue, Queen Street at 5 pm on Monday 3rd December. The event will include the lighting of 1000 candles to remember welsh disabled and sick people who died last year shortly after being told that they were fit for work and having benefits cut by an Atos 'work capability assessment. It may also include 'direct action' such as blocking roads.
The National Day of Remembrance for those killed by ATOS has been supported by disability campaigning organisations including Disabled People Against Cuts, Black Triangle and others. 29 MPs signed an Early Day Motion in support off the day including Welsh MPs, Martin Caton, Anne Clwyd, Jonathan Edwards and Albert Owen.
http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2012-13/687
According to an FOI (Freedom of Information) response publicised by the Daily Mail journalist Sonia Poulton on October 7, the current weekly average Atos/DWP death toll of people found fit for work after an ESA work capability assessment now stands at 73 people per week.
A FOI in April revealed in 2011 an average of 32 dying a week after failing test for new incapacity benefit. More than a thousand sickness benefit claimants died last year after being told to get a job.
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2012/04/32-die-a-week-after-failing-in.html
There have been numerous horror stories in the media of people with terminal illnesses (in one infamous case even someone in a coma) being declared fit for work by ATOS and having their benefits cut.
Recent Stories:
'A GRIEVING boy of 13 has accused Atos of killing his disabled dad. Kieran McArdle told the Daily Record in a harrowing letter how his father Brian, 57, collapsed and died the day after his disability benefits were stopped. He had been assessed by Atos and deemed “fit for work”'
http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2012/11/01/atos-benefits-bullies-killed-my-sick-dad-says-devastated-kieran-mcardle-13/
'A cancer sufferer, who had her benefits cut by government officials who said she was fit to work, has died'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19433535
'I sought this debate in order to raise the case of one of my constituents, Colin Traynor, who was epileptic. He was assessed as fit for work, yet died less than four months later' (Michael Meacher MP)
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2012-09-13a.532.0
15/10/2012
A Christmas Boost to the Economy
Gideon Osborne wants to cut back on benefits in order to do what he wants to do with the economy.
There is one really pathetic state benefit that he should tackle if he is serious about boosting the economy. The Christmas Bonus.
The Christmas Bonus is £10 that is paid to all benefit recipients in late November, it was first paid in the 1970's; I can't recall if it was Mr Heath or Mr Wilson's government who introduced it, but I can remember my Grandmother being thrilled to bits because the £10 enabled her to buy a pair of socks for all of her descendants – the first time she had been able to buy all her kids and grandkids a Christmas present. The Christmas Bonus is still £10 forty years later – it probably costs more than £10 to distribute it and in this day and age ten quid is hardly a bonus of any real value to the recipient. Abolishing the Christmas Bonus would be a sensible saving if one just wants to cut the benefits bill. Let's be honest a tenner at Christmas isn't really a benefit anymore! Ditching the payment and the cost of paying it would make serious inroads into the benefits bill! On the other hand – the best way of boosting the UK economy in the run-up to the important Christmas quarter would be to update the Christmas bonus to a sum that enabled grannies to buy gifts for all their descendents again! Giving every scrounging bastard, older person, tax credit parent, disabled individual, single mum etc a £2K Christmas bonus - that will be spent rather than saved will result in a HUGE boost to the economy! And therein lies the problem of the Tory attitude to solving the economic downturn in these islands' prosperity – the idea that the economy is top down as it use to be 200 years ago, that the "poor" depend on those higher up the financial / social scale is wrong in this day and age. It isn't so now! The way that the mass economy works is that the things that sell best are the things that we ALL must have – if we are on the dole or on a £5K per week – for the economy to grow we must enable the poorest to buy! In a mass international market – the mass is the key to economic success, not the elite – The Cameron / Gideon axis doesn't get this modern truism and is, therefore, bound to fail.01/10/2010
Benefits Abroad
I was surprised to hear on BBC news 24 that the British Government has launched a hotline in a bid to track down British benefit fraudsters living in Portugal. I couldn't understand what benefits it was possible to claim, honestly or fraudulently, if one moved to Portugal. After Googling I eventually found out from the PA that the biggest problem was people on means-tested benefits going abroad but failing to declare their absence, and individuals working while claiming sickness benefits.
There was a time that benefits could only be claimed by signing on at a benefits office weekly or fortnightly and that benefits moneys could only be obtained by cashing a Giro or a benefit payment book in a named post office; making falsely claiming benefits whilst living abroad rather difficult. As a reward to political backers from the banking community Tony Blair and New Labour decided to make benefits automatically payable into bank accounts, in order to force the 20% of people who didn't have bank accounts in 1997 to open one; so that the poor could be ripped off by punitive bank charges. A very socialist policy!
A silly thought, perhaps, but wouldn't it be better to go back to a system of signing on and getting your cash from a named PO, rather than setting up foreign hotlines for ex-pats to shop their neighbours?
Before I found the PA report I found a DirectGov site that informs claimants about which benefits they can claim abroad. There aren't that many, in fairness. You can continue to get Job Seekers Allowance if you go abroad to look for work for a very short time. If you work for the Government or a British Company abroad you can get things like Statutory Maternity Pay and Statutory Sick Pay – which, I suppose, is fair enough.
The abroad benefit that really tickled me, however, is the Winter Fuel Allowance. This a benefit paid to pensioners to make sure that they are able to heat their homes in winter. The weather in January in the Algarve, the Balearic Islands, Alicante etc is often hotter in January than it is in July and August in parts of Britain – so why on earth are wealthy ex-pat pensioners in these warm climates paid this benefit?
There was a time that benefits could only be claimed by signing on at a benefits office weekly or fortnightly and that benefits moneys could only be obtained by cashing a Giro or a benefit payment book in a named post office; making falsely claiming benefits whilst living abroad rather difficult. As a reward to political backers from the banking community Tony Blair and New Labour decided to make benefits automatically payable into bank accounts, in order to force the 20% of people who didn't have bank accounts in 1997 to open one; so that the poor could be ripped off by punitive bank charges. A very socialist policy!
A silly thought, perhaps, but wouldn't it be better to go back to a system of signing on and getting your cash from a named PO, rather than setting up foreign hotlines for ex-pats to shop their neighbours?
Before I found the PA report I found a DirectGov site that informs claimants about which benefits they can claim abroad. There aren't that many, in fairness. You can continue to get Job Seekers Allowance if you go abroad to look for work for a very short time. If you work for the Government or a British Company abroad you can get things like Statutory Maternity Pay and Statutory Sick Pay – which, I suppose, is fair enough.
The abroad benefit that really tickled me, however, is the Winter Fuel Allowance. This a benefit paid to pensioners to make sure that they are able to heat their homes in winter. The weather in January in the Algarve, the Balearic Islands, Alicante etc is often hotter in January than it is in July and August in parts of Britain – so why on earth are wealthy ex-pat pensioners in these warm climates paid this benefit?
04/08/2010
Reforming the Benefits System
Ian Duncan Smith has suggested that the Benefits System needs to be simplified. He has said that there are far too many benefits, that the system is complicated and that it puts too many claimants in a benefits trap where it isn't worth their while looking for jobs, because gaining a job will make them worse off!
The knee jerk reaction of the left wing is to moan that Mr Smith just wants to demonise those not in work in order to cut their benefits and save money!
I don't believe that this is so.
There is no doubt that some tabloids do demonise the out of work in a counterproductive way. The Daily Hate Mail thinks that anybody who is on Incapacity Benefit is a scrounger, a shirker and a cheat and takes every opportunity to vilify them. This makes it harder for a beneficiary of Incapacity Benefit to gain employment! Would you offer a job to a scrounger, a shirker and a cheat?
Demonization of those not in work is bad, and the Tories should encourage their supporters in the press to desist from it. Likewise the left should resist from condemning all benefit changes as an attack on the poor, because there is little doubt that the current benefits system is a complicated mess, that is a hindrance to the poor gaining meaningful employment!
With a coalition Tory government that depends on Liberal attitudes to benefits, and which may depend on the votes of sensible people from the opposition benches to offset Neanderthal views from its own benches the benefit system has never had a better chance to be dragged up to date. I hope that it is.
To save the there are no jobs to be had commentators from keyboard fatigue – I believe that the benefits system is in desperate need of reform whether the unemployment numbers go up, down or remain the same!
Making the system fair is as important as taking people out of the system, Plaid, SNP and sensible Labour MP's should seize the chance, to work with Mr Duncan Smith in order to create a benefits system that is worthy of today's circumstances!
The knee jerk reaction of the left wing is to moan that Mr Smith just wants to demonise those not in work in order to cut their benefits and save money!
I don't believe that this is so.
There is no doubt that some tabloids do demonise the out of work in a counterproductive way. The Daily Hate Mail thinks that anybody who is on Incapacity Benefit is a scrounger, a shirker and a cheat and takes every opportunity to vilify them. This makes it harder for a beneficiary of Incapacity Benefit to gain employment! Would you offer a job to a scrounger, a shirker and a cheat?
Demonization of those not in work is bad, and the Tories should encourage their supporters in the press to desist from it. Likewise the left should resist from condemning all benefit changes as an attack on the poor, because there is little doubt that the current benefits system is a complicated mess, that is a hindrance to the poor gaining meaningful employment!
With a coalition Tory government that depends on Liberal attitudes to benefits, and which may depend on the votes of sensible people from the opposition benches to offset Neanderthal views from its own benches the benefit system has never had a better chance to be dragged up to date. I hope that it is.
To save the there are no jobs to be had commentators from keyboard fatigue – I believe that the benefits system is in desperate need of reform whether the unemployment numbers go up, down or remain the same!
Making the system fair is as important as taking people out of the system, Plaid, SNP and sensible Labour MP's should seize the chance, to work with Mr Duncan Smith in order to create a benefits system that is worthy of today's circumstances!
04/07/2010
Who are the benefit scroungers who rip off Housing Benefit?
Who are the benefit scroungers who rip off Housing Benefit?
Obviously, the people to whom the multi billion pound benefit is paid!
But who it is actually paid to?
Despite what the Daily Hate Mail says, the benefit is not paid to unwaged people who live in rented accommodation, it is actually paid to the owners of the rented properties, some of whom are very rich individuals and most of whom make a killing from their property portfolios.
It is still possible to buy a 3 bedroom house in my area for £150K, a 25 year mortgage on such a property would be approximately £800 pcm. If we forget the 13th month for the sake of simplicity, that's £200 per week. Even with Cameron's cap on housing benefit a landlord can still scrounge a 100% profit out of a buy to let housing benefit house bought today, a good investment.
As time goes by house prices rise and rents rise too. Mortgage costs fluctuate but not by a huge amount. So if I had bought a house for £60k 12 years ago my mortgage repayments would now be about £250 pcm, £65 a week and I could be scrounging a 400% state profit from my investment, without taking into account the increased value of the initial investment. If my investment term was coming to its end I would probably be paying a mortgage of about £10 a week – and still be getting £400 per week rent – nice work if you can get it!
Many of the homes that are being rented for these giddy profits are former council houses, many of the people for whom the rents are being paid are the people who would have been housed by councils in days gone by - if the council housing stock hadn't been sold off.
Council House / Housing Association rents in this area are about £70 a week.
It is not rampant socialism or un-conservative to suggest that if the state is paying for housing the poorest in our communities that the state should get the best bang for its bucks. Paying Rachman type landlords to become multi millionaires from state benefits is not good stewardship of the public purse.
The £11 billion paid in housing benefit each year would build a hell of a lot of social housing. Using it to provide social housing would be the best economic answer to this part of the benefit overspend.
Obviously, the people to whom the multi billion pound benefit is paid!
But who it is actually paid to?
Despite what the Daily Hate Mail says, the benefit is not paid to unwaged people who live in rented accommodation, it is actually paid to the owners of the rented properties, some of whom are very rich individuals and most of whom make a killing from their property portfolios.
It is still possible to buy a 3 bedroom house in my area for £150K, a 25 year mortgage on such a property would be approximately £800 pcm. If we forget the 13th month for the sake of simplicity, that's £200 per week. Even with Cameron's cap on housing benefit a landlord can still scrounge a 100% profit out of a buy to let housing benefit house bought today, a good investment.
As time goes by house prices rise and rents rise too. Mortgage costs fluctuate but not by a huge amount. So if I had bought a house for £60k 12 years ago my mortgage repayments would now be about £250 pcm, £65 a week and I could be scrounging a 400% state profit from my investment, without taking into account the increased value of the initial investment. If my investment term was coming to its end I would probably be paying a mortgage of about £10 a week – and still be getting £400 per week rent – nice work if you can get it!
Many of the homes that are being rented for these giddy profits are former council houses, many of the people for whom the rents are being paid are the people who would have been housed by councils in days gone by - if the council housing stock hadn't been sold off.
Council House / Housing Association rents in this area are about £70 a week.
It is not rampant socialism or un-conservative to suggest that if the state is paying for housing the poorest in our communities that the state should get the best bang for its bucks. Paying Rachman type landlords to become multi millionaires from state benefits is not good stewardship of the public purse.
The £11 billion paid in housing benefit each year would build a hell of a lot of social housing. Using it to provide social housing would be the best economic answer to this part of the benefit overspend.
30/05/2010
Cohabiting? - No Sympathy for Laws!
Many moons ago a nursing colleague and I decided to leave the National Health Service in order to establish a private care home.
Whilst we were waiting for the registration process to go through its paces we signed on. Whilst awaiting registration we lived in the house which we hoped to turn into a care home. Because both of us did odd jobs for nursing agencies we never actually received any benefit payments, but we were warned that if we ever had a payment we would be investigated on the basis that both of us were living on the same premises and both of us were signing on as single people rather than as a couple.
When we protested that our relationship was totally business and not sexual, we were informed that co-habitation is sharing a table rather than sharing a bed and if we ate together (which we often did) we were a couple in benefit speak, and one of us had to claim as the head and the other had to claim as his partner.
Fortunately we never got any benefits so we were never prosecuted, but it's a sobering thought, I could have been prosecuted for living in sin with a bloke who I never, ever would have wished to sin with!
Many people on benefits have been fined and imprisoned for falsely claiming benefits as individuals whilst living in a relationship, some intentionally, some innocently, because they didn't realise what a relationship is in law!
Which brings one to the case of David Laws!
He claimed Parliamentary expenses to pay his gay lover rent. MP's are not allowed to claim for rental payments to their wives, their husbands, their girlfriends or their boyfriends or those who cohabit with them / share the same table as them.
I don't understand the sympathy Mr Laws seems to be receiving amongst the political class, I have no sympathy for him at all. A benefit claimant would be in court facing a fine or imprisonment for doing what he did!
At worst Mr Laws might get a slap on the wrist from a Parliamentary committee! Had he claimed that 40 grand as a state benifit rather than as a parliamentry perk he would be looking at time inside!
Whilst we were waiting for the registration process to go through its paces we signed on. Whilst awaiting registration we lived in the house which we hoped to turn into a care home. Because both of us did odd jobs for nursing agencies we never actually received any benefit payments, but we were warned that if we ever had a payment we would be investigated on the basis that both of us were living on the same premises and both of us were signing on as single people rather than as a couple.
When we protested that our relationship was totally business and not sexual, we were informed that co-habitation is sharing a table rather than sharing a bed and if we ate together (which we often did) we were a couple in benefit speak, and one of us had to claim as the head and the other had to claim as his partner.
Fortunately we never got any benefits so we were never prosecuted, but it's a sobering thought, I could have been prosecuted for living in sin with a bloke who I never, ever would have wished to sin with!
Many people on benefits have been fined and imprisoned for falsely claiming benefits as individuals whilst living in a relationship, some intentionally, some innocently, because they didn't realise what a relationship is in law!
Which brings one to the case of David Laws!
He claimed Parliamentary expenses to pay his gay lover rent. MP's are not allowed to claim for rental payments to their wives, their husbands, their girlfriends or their boyfriends or those who cohabit with them / share the same table as them.
I don't understand the sympathy Mr Laws seems to be receiving amongst the political class, I have no sympathy for him at all. A benefit claimant would be in court facing a fine or imprisonment for doing what he did!
At worst Mr Laws might get a slap on the wrist from a Parliamentary committee! Had he claimed that 40 grand as a state benifit rather than as a parliamentry perk he would be looking at time inside!
11/03/2009
Benefits Lottery?
Given the Bank of England's super low base interest rate and the growing disillusion with the National Lottery:
Which would be worth most to a 2.5 kids family - a year on incapacity benefit (including all extras) or a year's interest from a typical Wednesday's Lotto jackpot?
I'm not much good at sums, but I suspect that if a two parent two kids family, living in a rented house, won tonight's Lottery Jackpot they may be worse off by wining!
Which would be worth most to a 2.5 kids family - a year on incapacity benefit (including all extras) or a year's interest from a typical Wednesday's Lotto jackpot?
I'm not much good at sums, but I suspect that if a two parent two kids family, living in a rented house, won tonight's Lottery Jackpot they may be worse off by wining!
07/01/2009
Cold Weather payments
Older people may be eligible for a Cold Weather Payment for each week of very cold weather if they get Pension Credits.
Cold Weather Payment are also available to those getting Income Support or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance who have a child under five years old or get one of the following:
a pensioner premium, higher pensioner premium or enhanced pensioner premium
a disability premium or severe disability premium
a disabled child premium
Child Tax Credit that includes an individual element for a child or qualifying young person who is disabled or severely disabled.
Given how bitterly cold it has been over the past week, older people, disabled people and the parents of very young or disabled children might expect to receive the £25 Cold Weather payment this week. But they may be disappointed.
Before the payment is made the average temperature where you live has to be recorded as, or forecast to be, zero degrees Celsius or below over seven consecutive days during the period from 1 November to 31 March.
Specified Meteorological Office weather stations are used to obtain this information.
The specified station for north Wales is in RAF Valley. RAF Valley is not in a frost trap, and is not on a hill, it is close to the sea and is subject to quite a lot of heat creating traffic. Temperatures plummeted to -12 on Monday night in Dolwyddelan, Capel Curig and Henllan, they didn't get close to that in RAF Valley. So despite the bitter cold over the past seven days older people, the disabled, and parents with very young or disabled children in north Wales are very unlikely to get the cold weather payment.
Most specified stations in Britain are in places least likely to suffer the worst extremities of the cold weather.
It seems a bit silly to me, to make a benefit available "on paper" but then to skew it in a way that makes it unlikely that it will ever be paid by using the least likely places to suffer seven days bellow freezing as the weather stations for activating the payment.
Indeed it would be better to abolish the cold weather payment benefit all together, rather than to continue to con the vulnerable into thinking that they can risk putting the heating up on the strength of a benefit that, in effect, is non existent.
Cold Weather Payment are also available to those getting Income Support or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance who have a child under five years old or get one of the following:
a pensioner premium, higher pensioner premium or enhanced pensioner premium
a disability premium or severe disability premium
a disabled child premium
Child Tax Credit that includes an individual element for a child or qualifying young person who is disabled or severely disabled.
Given how bitterly cold it has been over the past week, older people, disabled people and the parents of very young or disabled children might expect to receive the £25 Cold Weather payment this week. But they may be disappointed.
Before the payment is made the average temperature where you live has to be recorded as, or forecast to be, zero degrees Celsius or below over seven consecutive days during the period from 1 November to 31 March.
Specified Meteorological Office weather stations are used to obtain this information.
The specified station for north Wales is in RAF Valley. RAF Valley is not in a frost trap, and is not on a hill, it is close to the sea and is subject to quite a lot of heat creating traffic. Temperatures plummeted to -12 on Monday night in Dolwyddelan, Capel Curig and Henllan, they didn't get close to that in RAF Valley. So despite the bitter cold over the past seven days older people, the disabled, and parents with very young or disabled children in north Wales are very unlikely to get the cold weather payment.
Most specified stations in Britain are in places least likely to suffer the worst extremities of the cold weather.
It seems a bit silly to me, to make a benefit available "on paper" but then to skew it in a way that makes it unlikely that it will ever be paid by using the least likely places to suffer seven days bellow freezing as the weather stations for activating the payment.
Indeed it would be better to abolish the cold weather payment benefit all together, rather than to continue to con the vulnerable into thinking that they can risk putting the heating up on the strength of a benefit that, in effect, is non existent.
22/07/2008
Its Pick-on-the-sick-time Again!
Incapacity Benefit is a horrible, cruel and devilish benefit.
It isn't a benefit in need of reform, it is a benefit that needs to be abolished and replace with a new system that is more appropriate to the needs of those who live with ill health or with a disability.
It is a negative benefit, because it underlines what a person can't do rather than what s/he can do.
Many people will be faced with a situation where illness or disability prevents them from continuing with their former careers. If a person loses a job in these circumstances that person will be entitled to incapacity benefit, but once one becomes entitled to IB they are placed into a category that says they are incapable of doing ANY work, not just their former work.
IB makes people ill.
Most of us have heard of the placebo effect, where taking a sugar pill makes patients better because they believe that something is being done to make them better.
The opposite of placebo happens too.
If you concentrate on the downside of an illness, mope about how bad things are and count your curses rather than your blessings, then you will become more ill than you need to be. By its negative emphasis on incapacity by encouraging people to look at the downside, IB can make people more ill than they need to be.
IB discourages people from attempting to improve their own health. There is a very unfunny joke that says that if Jesus went to Merthyr curing the lame and the sick he would be crucified by the benefits claimants. Unfunny it may be, but it makes a point:
If you lose your job because of ill health you are entitled to IB, you will be paid a bit more than those who are on job-seekers allowance. If you get better you lose your entitlement to IB and have to go onto the lower benefit. With little prospect of gaining a new job in the IB hot-spot areas you will, in effect, be punished for getting better.
There was a recent case in Pembrokeshire of a man who had suffered a genuine serious illness claiming benefits. His doctor told him to exercise in order to restore his health. He was filmed exercising and prosecuted for benefit fraud. The man might have been better off if he had ignored his doctor's advice and hadn't bothered with the health improving exercise regime.
Incapacity Benefit replaces the benefits of getting better!
The worst thing about IB is the fact that it is a benefit that is so often abused, not by those who claim it but by governments.
From Thatcher through Major, Blair and Brown, governments have urged people to accept this negative health benefit rather than unemployment benefits because the sick and disabled don't count in official unemployment totals. It is a good benefit for massaging true unemployment figures.
It is also a good benefit for vicious political rhetoric that points the finger at the sick and disabled who receive it and show them up to be examples of those who are too lazy to get of their backsides and help themselves.
Is there an easer group to kick than those that benefits policies have brought so low?
The latest Government Green Paper aimed at “tackling” Incapacity Benefit is at least the fourth attempt by the Labour Government to deal with the problem. We had a similar Green Paper almost two years to the day ago!
The latest proposals are just finger pointing rhetoric again, rather than a real attempt to deal with a real problem.
It will fail because finger pointing exercises are bound to fail.
The fact is that the majority of people on IB are genuinely ill.
Look at the IB hot spots and compare their life expectancy rates! People die younger in these areas because of poor health!
Much has been made over the past few weeks about the fact that Glasgow East has both the lowest life expectancy in the UK and the highest rate of IB claims – the people of Glasgow East are not dying young in order to fiddle the social, they are dying young because of genuine poor health!
Of course something must be done for the 3 million people who receive this sickening benefit.
People suffering from poor health need help to fulfil their full potential.
Comprehensive health improvement campaigns that are not linked to benefit reduction are needed in the most deprived areas.
Good employment prospects need to be made available for those wishing to leave health based benefits.
But no government will provide the real answer to the real problem, because the real answers are not cheep and they don't appeal to Sun, Express and Daily Mail readers.
It is so much easier to leave the poor, the sick and the disabled on the scrapheap, to point fingers and to call names!
It isn't a benefit in need of reform, it is a benefit that needs to be abolished and replace with a new system that is more appropriate to the needs of those who live with ill health or with a disability.
It is a negative benefit, because it underlines what a person can't do rather than what s/he can do.
Many people will be faced with a situation where illness or disability prevents them from continuing with their former careers. If a person loses a job in these circumstances that person will be entitled to incapacity benefit, but once one becomes entitled to IB they are placed into a category that says they are incapable of doing ANY work, not just their former work.
IB makes people ill.
Most of us have heard of the placebo effect, where taking a sugar pill makes patients better because they believe that something is being done to make them better.
The opposite of placebo happens too.
If you concentrate on the downside of an illness, mope about how bad things are and count your curses rather than your blessings, then you will become more ill than you need to be. By its negative emphasis on incapacity by encouraging people to look at the downside, IB can make people more ill than they need to be.
IB discourages people from attempting to improve their own health. There is a very unfunny joke that says that if Jesus went to Merthyr curing the lame and the sick he would be crucified by the benefits claimants. Unfunny it may be, but it makes a point:
If you lose your job because of ill health you are entitled to IB, you will be paid a bit more than those who are on job-seekers allowance. If you get better you lose your entitlement to IB and have to go onto the lower benefit. With little prospect of gaining a new job in the IB hot-spot areas you will, in effect, be punished for getting better.
There was a recent case in Pembrokeshire of a man who had suffered a genuine serious illness claiming benefits. His doctor told him to exercise in order to restore his health. He was filmed exercising and prosecuted for benefit fraud. The man might have been better off if he had ignored his doctor's advice and hadn't bothered with the health improving exercise regime.
Incapacity Benefit replaces the benefits of getting better!
The worst thing about IB is the fact that it is a benefit that is so often abused, not by those who claim it but by governments.
From Thatcher through Major, Blair and Brown, governments have urged people to accept this negative health benefit rather than unemployment benefits because the sick and disabled don't count in official unemployment totals. It is a good benefit for massaging true unemployment figures.
It is also a good benefit for vicious political rhetoric that points the finger at the sick and disabled who receive it and show them up to be examples of those who are too lazy to get of their backsides and help themselves.
Is there an easer group to kick than those that benefits policies have brought so low?
The latest Government Green Paper aimed at “tackling” Incapacity Benefit is at least the fourth attempt by the Labour Government to deal with the problem. We had a similar Green Paper almost two years to the day ago!
The latest proposals are just finger pointing rhetoric again, rather than a real attempt to deal with a real problem.
It will fail because finger pointing exercises are bound to fail.
The fact is that the majority of people on IB are genuinely ill.
Look at the IB hot spots and compare their life expectancy rates! People die younger in these areas because of poor health!
Much has been made over the past few weeks about the fact that Glasgow East has both the lowest life expectancy in the UK and the highest rate of IB claims – the people of Glasgow East are not dying young in order to fiddle the social, they are dying young because of genuine poor health!
Of course something must be done for the 3 million people who receive this sickening benefit.
People suffering from poor health need help to fulfil their full potential.
Comprehensive health improvement campaigns that are not linked to benefit reduction are needed in the most deprived areas.
Good employment prospects need to be made available for those wishing to leave health based benefits.
But no government will provide the real answer to the real problem, because the real answers are not cheep and they don't appeal to Sun, Express and Daily Mail readers.
It is so much easier to leave the poor, the sick and the disabled on the scrapheap, to point fingers and to call names!
18/06/2008
Free 0800 costs the poorest £400 million
I very rarely read the Daily Mirror, but using my National Assembly Bus pass on the train today (thanks IWJ), I picked up a copy of Monday's edition. (You need to look at the "clean carriages" issue IWJ).
Amongst all the usual celeb crap there was one very worrying item in the paper:
Most people, who I know, always make the same complaint about BT telephone bills - the bill was huge but the actual cost of the calls was a negligible part of the bill. It's the "extras" that cost! Because of this problem, apparently over 2 million households no longer have a land line, they depend on mobiles alone.
Those who have given up the land line tend to be those who are on the lowest incomes.
But government cut backs mean that many services that use to be available through your local benefit office are now only available on the phone.
For example Social Fund Crisis Loans for all of Wales are now dealt with through the Llanelli Office. If you Live in Holyhead, Wrexham, Monmouth or Cardiff, and many other parts of Wales, you have no choice but to phone Llanelli to apply for a crisis payment.
The number is an 0800 one, costs nothing from a BT land-line. BUT you pay full network rates if you call from a mobile. If you get through, the cost of listening to "Greensleeves" (or other tinny music) and being told that "you have now moved down one place in the queue of 43 who are waiting" can cost a fortune. Sometimes it can cost much more than the value of the benefit that you want to claim.
According to the Mirror report calls to the Department of Work and Pensions (the benefits and unemployment service) cost mobile phone users up to £400,000,000 lastyear!
Some tips to anybody who finds themselves with this problem.
1) If you have friends or family with a land line, ask them to let you use their phone to make free 0800 calls.
2) 0800 calls are free from call boxes as well as land lines (if you can find an unvandalised one and can stand the smell of stale urine for 90 minutes)
3) JobCenter+ offices must, and CAB's might, allow you to use their phones to make free calls to benefit providers
4) Ask your local Labour Party representative why the Labour Party, of all parties, has allowed such a situation to arise!
Amongst all the usual celeb crap there was one very worrying item in the paper:
Most people, who I know, always make the same complaint about BT telephone bills - the bill was huge but the actual cost of the calls was a negligible part of the bill. It's the "extras" that cost! Because of this problem, apparently over 2 million households no longer have a land line, they depend on mobiles alone.
Those who have given up the land line tend to be those who are on the lowest incomes.
But government cut backs mean that many services that use to be available through your local benefit office are now only available on the phone.
For example Social Fund Crisis Loans for all of Wales are now dealt with through the Llanelli Office. If you Live in Holyhead, Wrexham, Monmouth or Cardiff, and many other parts of Wales, you have no choice but to phone Llanelli to apply for a crisis payment.
The number is an 0800 one, costs nothing from a BT land-line. BUT you pay full network rates if you call from a mobile. If you get through, the cost of listening to "Greensleeves" (or other tinny music) and being told that "you have now moved down one place in the queue of 43 who are waiting" can cost a fortune. Sometimes it can cost much more than the value of the benefit that you want to claim.
According to the Mirror report calls to the Department of Work and Pensions (the benefits and unemployment service) cost mobile phone users up to £400,000,000 lastyear!
Some tips to anybody who finds themselves with this problem.
1) If you have friends or family with a land line, ask them to let you use their phone to make free 0800 calls.
2) 0800 calls are free from call boxes as well as land lines (if you can find an unvandalised one and can stand the smell of stale urine for 90 minutes)
3) JobCenter+ offices must, and CAB's might, allow you to use their phones to make free calls to benefit providers
4) Ask your local Labour Party representative why the Labour Party, of all parties, has allowed such a situation to arise!
08/01/2008
Blaming the sick doesn't make things better!
Antur Waunfawr and Menter Fachwen are two world leading projects that enable people who live with learning disabilities to play a full and valuable role in their local communities. They provide things such as cafés and recycling services that enable some people with quite serious disabilities to work. It's fair to say that the work that some of the disabled workforce do is not commercial and that most of them still receive government benefits in order to enable them to have a basic standard of living. However the people with, sometimes, quite severe disabilities that work in Antur Waunfawr and Menter Fachwen do work and they do help provide a valuable service for their communities.
In comparison, the suggestion that almost a quarter of a million people in Wales and two and a half million people in the UK are too incapacitated to play any role in society is clearly absolutely wrong. It shouldn't be so, it doesn’t need to be so and it is absolutely immoral that it is so!
However the blame for incapacity should not be laid upon the so called incapacitated, it should be laid fairly and squarely on the present government and its Conservative predecessor who created incapacity as a means of reducing true unemployment figures.
The whole system that leads to incapacity is flawed. Lets take, for example, a registered nurse who develops epilepsy. Clearly s/he can't carry on with that job. Nobody wants a nurse who might have a fit just when s/he's about to stick an injection in your bum! So job lost on the grounds of ill health, automatic claim for short-term incapacity granted for six months. No help or advice is given within that first six month period to consider what else s/he can do other than nursing. At the end of the six months long-term incapacity kicks in.
Once you receive long-term incapacity benefit (ICB), the authorities (not you) have said that you are incapable of any work. If you apply for a job that you think that you could do, despite your illness, the application is a declaration that you are fit for work, so you may loose money by applying for a job that you might not get. Who in their right mind is going to take that risk?
You can't even apply for training in a new occupation whilst on ICB, because if you're able to train you're able to work, so if you train you loose out!
So when a deaf, epileptic, former nurse who can lip-read finds out that there is not a single Welsh language lipreading tutor in the whole of Wales, but is told that his family will be impoverished if he dares to go on a lipreading tutor's course, can you blame him for saying no to the opportunity? Can you blame him for being absolutely pissed off and disgusted that such an employment opportunity should be denied to him by bureaucratic intransigence and unfair financial risks?
Lets suppose you do take the risk of applying for a job, because you are so pissed off with not working and you really do want a job. The Mail, the Telegraph, Tory blogs, David Cameron and even Peter Hain have gone on so much about the lead swinging, work shy, lazy, scrounging, swindlers who claim ICB. So who in the hell will even give you an interview, never mind a job, when your CV says claiming ICB for the last 4 years? No sensible employer would want to employ the caricature of the ICB claimant that is rife in journalistic and political circles. Given the choice between an eastern European desperate for work to help his family back home and a lazy git who has fiddled the country for the last four years and will probably fiddle your business too, who would you employ?
The current system of dealing with illness / disability and employment is flawed - it is in desperate need of change in order to enable those who can contribute to society through mainstream employment to do so and in order to ensure that those who are unable to get out of benefits, for what ever reason, are encouraged and enabled to fulfil some sort of valued role in their communities.
If Wales can be inovative and lead the world by providing a valued role in society for those who would have been condemned to the back wards of the assylum thirty years ago, suerly we can do better for our 250,000 incapacitaed than resorting to blame and fiscal punishment!
In comparison, the suggestion that almost a quarter of a million people in Wales and two and a half million people in the UK are too incapacitated to play any role in society is clearly absolutely wrong. It shouldn't be so, it doesn’t need to be so and it is absolutely immoral that it is so!
However the blame for incapacity should not be laid upon the so called incapacitated, it should be laid fairly and squarely on the present government and its Conservative predecessor who created incapacity as a means of reducing true unemployment figures.
The whole system that leads to incapacity is flawed. Lets take, for example, a registered nurse who develops epilepsy. Clearly s/he can't carry on with that job. Nobody wants a nurse who might have a fit just when s/he's about to stick an injection in your bum! So job lost on the grounds of ill health, automatic claim for short-term incapacity granted for six months. No help or advice is given within that first six month period to consider what else s/he can do other than nursing. At the end of the six months long-term incapacity kicks in.
Once you receive long-term incapacity benefit (ICB), the authorities (not you) have said that you are incapable of any work. If you apply for a job that you think that you could do, despite your illness, the application is a declaration that you are fit for work, so you may loose money by applying for a job that you might not get. Who in their right mind is going to take that risk?
You can't even apply for training in a new occupation whilst on ICB, because if you're able to train you're able to work, so if you train you loose out!
So when a deaf, epileptic, former nurse who can lip-read finds out that there is not a single Welsh language lipreading tutor in the whole of Wales, but is told that his family will be impoverished if he dares to go on a lipreading tutor's course, can you blame him for saying no to the opportunity? Can you blame him for being absolutely pissed off and disgusted that such an employment opportunity should be denied to him by bureaucratic intransigence and unfair financial risks?
Lets suppose you do take the risk of applying for a job, because you are so pissed off with not working and you really do want a job. The Mail, the Telegraph, Tory blogs, David Cameron and even Peter Hain have gone on so much about the lead swinging, work shy, lazy, scrounging, swindlers who claim ICB. So who in the hell will even give you an interview, never mind a job, when your CV says claiming ICB for the last 4 years? No sensible employer would want to employ the caricature of the ICB claimant that is rife in journalistic and political circles. Given the choice between an eastern European desperate for work to help his family back home and a lazy git who has fiddled the country for the last four years and will probably fiddle your business too, who would you employ?
The current system of dealing with illness / disability and employment is flawed - it is in desperate need of change in order to enable those who can contribute to society through mainstream employment to do so and in order to ensure that those who are unable to get out of benefits, for what ever reason, are encouraged and enabled to fulfil some sort of valued role in their communities.
If Wales can be inovative and lead the world by providing a valued role in society for those who would have been condemned to the back wards of the assylum thirty years ago, suerly we can do better for our 250,000 incapacitaed than resorting to blame and fiscal punishment!
18/08/2007
The Myth of Child Poverty
There is much talk in left wing political circles about child poverty and ways to overcome it. No reasonable person wants to see a child live in, or bought up in poverty, but the whole idea of child poverty is a misnomer, it’s a fallacy, it's an euphemism it’s a lie. There is no such thing as child poverty. Children who live in poverty are poor because the adults who bring them up are poor. Adult poverty, parental poverty, is the real issue. But lefties can't tackle parental poverty because to do so would put them in the same camp as the right wing Tories who advocate benefit reform. Benefit reform is and always will be anathema to the left. Helping (rather than punishing) people on benefit will always be anathema to the right.
The left-wing think tank The Institute for Public Policy Research, has decided that one way of tackling child poverty would be to offer the equivalent of free school meals to children in community centers during school holidays (totally impractical in rural areas, of course) because the parents of those children who have free school meals in term time can't find the extra money to feed their kids a decent meal during holiday times (especially the long summer holidays). Sounds good in theory, but in reality it would just tighten the benefits trap.
The IPPR make a fair point, but wouldn't the sensible answer be to scrap free school meals altogether and give those on benefits an extra £14 per child per week 52 weeks a year in order to enable them to pay for school dinners and to buy food for their kids' lunches during holiday times?
Benefit dependency is the biggest cause of the parental poverty that causes child poverty. Benefit Plus - free dental care, free school meals, housing benefit, community care grants etc is the biggest cause of the benefits trap that maintains benefit dependency. Until both left and right accept that benefits need to be increased to a level that overcomes the need for Benefit Plus, the benefit trap will remain, parental poverty will remain and child poverty will never be defeated.
The left-wing think tank The Institute for Public Policy Research, has decided that one way of tackling child poverty would be to offer the equivalent of free school meals to children in community centers during school holidays (totally impractical in rural areas, of course) because the parents of those children who have free school meals in term time can't find the extra money to feed their kids a decent meal during holiday times (especially the long summer holidays). Sounds good in theory, but in reality it would just tighten the benefits trap.
The IPPR make a fair point, but wouldn't the sensible answer be to scrap free school meals altogether and give those on benefits an extra £14 per child per week 52 weeks a year in order to enable them to pay for school dinners and to buy food for their kids' lunches during holiday times?
Benefit dependency is the biggest cause of the parental poverty that causes child poverty. Benefit Plus - free dental care, free school meals, housing benefit, community care grants etc is the biggest cause of the benefits trap that maintains benefit dependency. Until both left and right accept that benefits need to be increased to a level that overcomes the need for Benefit Plus, the benefit trap will remain, parental poverty will remain and child poverty will never be defeated.
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