The excerpts below are from another interview I recorded last week at Oldham foodbank. I’ll post the full transcript when I’ve finished it.
The interview below was with an Oldham woman called Michelle, 38. Michelle had two daughters aged 13 and 17.
I post this to make the point again that Universal Credit is designed to start claimants off in debt and to keep them there. People are utterly powerless within that. They feel that they can’t fight or negotiate with the DWP.
Michelle applied for Universal Credit in October last year. She had to wait about ten weeks for her first payment (she’s also still waiting to hear the outcome of a Maximus medical assessment which she took at that time).
That long wait for Universal Credit had the usual devastating knock-on effects – the knock-on effects which push Universal Credit claimants into debt from the off.
First problem: while Michelle was waiting for a first UC payment, she went into rent arrears (she rents a place from First Choice Homes at £330 a month). She is now paying those arrears off at about £20 a month. That money comes out of her Universal Credit.
Second problem: because of the delay to the start of her Universal Credit, Michelle had to take out a Universal Credit advance loan to cover costs. She’s paying that back now at about £40 a month. She said she took out a second loan to cover costs as well.
Third problem: Michelle’s child tax credit claim was moved to Universal Credit and the DWP when she made her Universal Credit claim. Like a number of women I’ve interviewed now, Michelle was informed out of the blue that she had been overpaid child tax credits and would have to pay the money back. Without warning, the DWP started to deduct nearly £50 a month from her Universal Credit. There was no negotiation, or discussion with Michelle about these deductions, or about amounts she could realistically afford to pay while still supporting her two kids. The money was simply removed from Michelle’s Universal Credit.
I’ve heard that story time and time again. It’s obscene. These are people in financial hardship. They have children. They can’t make a case with anyone. They’re not even invited to make a case. Nobody wants to hear from them.
I’m making a simple point here, but I’ll make it again and again.
With its delays, loan culture (people in hardship must apply for advance loans while waiting for their first UC payments and then pay that money back) and these random, unexpected deductions for debts from people’s benefit accounts, Universal Credit is designed to ensure that people who have no money start their benefit claims in debt to the state and under real pressure. They are forced to take out advance loans, because their first payments are delayed for months. They are forced into rent arrears while they wait for their first Universal Credit housing costs payments. Money is deducted from their Universal Credit accounts without warning or discussion.
People’s powerlessness in this is disgusting, as I say. They have no choice but to follow the DWP’s line. Organisations such as the DWP have total authority in these scenarios. There is something very disturbing about this. We should all find it disturbing – a government department’s magisterial dismissing of and disinterest in those people who most rely on it.
I asked Michelle if she’d talked to the DWP about reducing some of the repayment amounts, or if anyone had talked to her about manageable amounts before actually taking the money from her.
She said:
“Oh, no, no, no. They just tell you. They don’t ask. They don’t discuss it with you. They just tell you,”
and:
“Just don’t think it’d make a difference really [ringing the DWP to negotiate repayments]. It would just make me worry more…And I suffer from stress and anxiety and panic attacks so…it’s just hard,”
and:
“I just can’t get used to it. It’s just so hard. They should tell you they’re going to do it [deduct money for debt repayments] but they didn’t… because a week before you get paid, you can go onto your [Universal Credit] journal and it tells you how much you’re getting that month. I went on that month and it just told me they were taking it out.”
I wonder why we allow this bullying. The world is run by sociopaths. This isn’t about deciding whether people are deserving or not deserving of support, or whatever the hell it is that policy thinks it is doing. It’s about the state declaring open season on people who claim benefits. They’re the acceptable targets. The normal rules of courtesy or even basic civil human interaction don’t apply.
But the DWP don’t see it like that. To them, leaving people in financial hardship
‘encourages’ them to find work. It’s the use of sheer destitution as a weapon to club the unemployed into submision.
Well put. Just need to get the wider population to understand that.
I see it slightly differently.
I think the policy is in no doubt at all that it is open season on benefit claimants.
My local housing dept. seems to believe that the poor do not need to be treated professionally or with respect. If you approach them, you feel like they’ve agreed to use you as their punching bag. They don’t even say anything professional when they answer the phone – just “hello”.
The thought of having to go on UC at some point further down the line, following any change in circumstances or a break in JSA claim, is enough to put me off from accepting any short-term work, so in that respect it’s not helping people into work, it’s preventing them from taking work!
Ironically Trev that is very true. Far from helping people find work, you have a lot of unemployed, so poor thay can hardly manage as it is on JSA. They know what Universal Credit is like. Having seen others in a terrible state with all the delays.
So they do everything they can to avoid going on it. It may be a couple of years yet until the transfers start by all accounts because of the slow-down of the rollout.
Trev that is so true for everyone in this position. If you take something short term at minimum wage, it makes no real money. So you can’t save much or anything really.
Then if it comes to an end and you have to claim Universal Credit, it means long delays and being half-starved before you see any actual money. Plus a detailed enquiry from the DWP as to why you resigned, before you get anything at all. If you start any other short-term temporary jobs during this time, it stops your original UC claim stone-dead. And you have to start all over again with a new online claim, 10 week plus delay, all the documents again, another enquiry as to why you left, waiting and waiting. Unbelievably stupid system and not practical at all.
At the centre of Universal Credit and it’s brutal approach to claimants is the DWP so-called ‘nudge’ psychology, so beloved of Iain Duncan Smith and his Social Justice group.
That there is a significant number of the unskilled working-class, who will be reluctant to work at all if they are given the chance of living on benefits instead.
Their lack of education or marketable skills, means that most of the jobs these people could get will be low-paid, difficult, and physically demanding. They will never really want to do these jobs, and so the state must force them to do so, with a challenging benefits system.
Too true John. A lot of this is class-based. You’ve got the image of the council estate where there is mass unemployment, feral kids and everyone lays in bed until the middle of the afternoon.
Some of us do sleep in the day. We have depression, made worse by DWP. Sleeping in the day is also a feature of ME, MS, cancer fatigue, Parkinsons, medication for chronic pain…
It near-impossible to rent or buy a home without a job. So where do people live when they’re too sick to work? Oh, that’s right. Social housing.
People also sleep in the day when they work in the night.
Why is there mass unemployment? Because the rich fired the poor and gave their jobs to foreigners. It started under Thatcher. So why blame the poor? If you want people on council estates to have jobs, ask people in gated mansions why they don’t hire them.
My mum hired a lady who lived on a council estate. She was my childminder for years.
I’m not even going to comment on describing an innocent child as “feral”.
Spot on there Larry. That’s been the driver behind a lot of this. The skiving working class, 3 generations workless, tats lager and hoodies.
Baz, have you ever heard the expression “the idle Rich”? If work is so great why don’t the rich do it?
Hoodies are warm and affordable. Generations wouldn’t have been workless if it wasn’t for Thatcher. You should see how much the middle classes drink! (Not to mention the cocaine.) These days, dodging a sanction is a job in itself. 35 hours per week of “job search”. So it doesn’t count as “skiving”.
Larry, that’s the same sort of Class hatred spewed out by Osborne & Cameron a few years ago, and what a pair of vile Tory pricks they are. Just pure propaganda designed to divide the Working Class. That old trick of Divide & Rule.
And sadly there are plenty of right-wing working class still supporting the Tories.
It seems very strange to me that the old, (very old) idea that in order to get the rich to work harder, you pay them more, but to get the poor to work harder, you pay them less. Perhaps we should be taking a leaf out of Norway’s book where even the lowliest jobs pay enough to live on. But then, Norway prides itself on being a civilised country, the more that the UK becomes like the USA the more I struggle to see the UK as civilised.
The whole lack of marketable skills thing is something that the government could, and should be involving itself in. It certainly used to, as there was the Training Opportunities Scheme, run by the now defunct Manpowr Services Commission, a body specifically set up to project the UK’s future skills needs and shortages and to offer high quality training and retraining in government run Skillcentres up and down the UK. It was expensive, as decent training is, but it actually did offer opportunities for people to retrain and get the jobs that needed workers.
No one in work should need to resort to benefits, especially through a system as degrading as UC. If the government is so concerned about people being encouraged to live on benefits, (as if) then perhaps they should be raising the minimum wage to £12 or £13 an hour, removing the subsidy from the huge employers like Tesco who currently pay little more than the minimum, and then focus the subsidies on smaller employers who sometimes struggle to pay wages.
It is true that we are told we lack the skills we need, but then we’re also told we’re not willing to do the unskilled jobs that employers can’t fill with immigrants anymore. So I don’t know what to believe.
Unfortunately a lot of people have tended to go along with the government spin. That it is always better to be in work than on benefits. There is a tendency to think that claimants perhaps ought to be pushed into work, for their own good.
Pushed into work for our own good. Of course, that’s the PWE.
Universal Credit is completely over the top. It’s just making things hard for people for the sake of shoving them off benefits. God knows what would be happening if it wasn’t for the foodbanks. No money, no food and no concern from the DWP.
Too right Oliver. The foodbanks are the heroes in this. People would have just starved else.
That’s scary. I had to sue HMRC for disability discrimination after 6 years of them trying to take “overpayments” of WTC which they absolutely weren’t entitled to. Only after engaging lawyers (who complimented me on my legal knowledge/wording) and getting to 24hrs of issuing court proceedings did HMRC eventually settle with a written apology, refund of money, financial settlement etc. In the meantime they lied, stonewalled, broke the solicitor’s code of practice and more…
I only sued because HMRC changed my tax code to steal the money. But I had 5 years of evidence of appealing, complaining, etc… If DWP can just yank the money for alleged overpayments, where’s the right of appeal? Where’s the due process?
If you think the DWP have done something wrong like claim you owe them money fill in this form https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/683380/if-you-disagree-with-a-decision-made-by-dwp.PDF
If you want action fast then give them a date in the box on Part 6 saying legal action will commence on DATE and so they don’t lose a page staple them all together.
But at what cost ? Legal Aid is now very difficult if not impossible to get. They’ve cut that as well.
If you don’t want a page to get lost, put your National Insurance number on it.
Don’t take the advice on the form to ask for a Mandatory Reconsideration only by phone. Always put it in writing.
I never got an acknowledgement letter after asking for a Mandatory Reconsideration. I heard NOTHING for months.
Corbyn & Co. have decided to keep a low profile on Universal Credit.
If it’s true that Debbie Abrahams has been sidelined because she thought so differently, then that is very wrong. She was very good on the whole benefits situation.
Yes. I for one would like to know more about the Abrahams situation. Labour’s Pause And Fix Universal Credit concept is utter horseshit. You can’t fix a system that was actually designed to push people into debt and rub them into the ground. It’s working perfectly as far as its policy champions are concerned.
I must say I struggle to imagine Debbie as a bully. It doesn’t seem to fit with her personality at all.
I wouldn’t think twice if someone said they were bullied by John Bercow or Gordon Brown. But Debbie? Really?
Don’t say we didn’t tell you. #StayInLabour
You told us that Debbie was a bully? When?
It seems the Stay In Labour people have been complaining that Labour are getting too nice!
Universal Credit was expected to be heavily criticized by Labour in a Common’s debate today on the subject of removal of free school dinners as a result of changes to UC earnings threshold. Huddersfield Colne Valley MP Thelma Walker describes UC as a failure. Don’t know if the debate has taken place (or if it will be reported on the news) as I when I looked at BBC Parliament tv channel this morning it was some Euro stuff.
John McDonnell criticised Universal Credit in his response to Philip Hammond’s Spring Statement.
Good, glad to hear it. It just beggars belief that the Tories can get away with spending £16 Billion on Universal Credit whilst at the same time imposing sever Austerity cutting everything else to the bone and bleating on about the country being skint. Incredible.
Spot on, Trev.
The Tories swear that black is white. They are either in complete denial or are downright liars:
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/tory-propaganda-vs-actual-reality.html
Universal Credit is a whole new attitude to benefit claimants. Victorian morality and 21st century online claiming combined. That is why it is so dangerous.
It’s the new DWP ideology, their whole ambition. Work, work, work and more work.
You see Work Coaches now, starry-eyed with praise for Universal Credit, as if some wonderful religious event is coming to pass. The wonderful world of work in all it’s glory. Duncan Smith as the Messiah, parting the waters of unemployment, and leading his flock on to the promised land of work, beloved work.
With the DWP, Universal Credit is not only about benefits, it’s about belief.
They should never had given Duncan Smith a blank piece of paper and said ‘ Go on then make up a new benefit system.’
With Labour looking stupid in the background.
Oh it wasn’t just any old blank piece of paper, it was on the back of Nick Clegg’s fag packet.
Those idiots in the LibDems. Their pathetic collaboration with the Tories started half of this.
The Tories just took them for mugs, and when it was over threw them away. Then the LibDems take most of the fall for it at the election. They should rename it the Judas Party.
Ah, Cleggy’s “fags”. Yep. Dreaming of a simpler state and frying his brain in the process. No wonder the result is such utter #£@%&*!!!
Corbyn is useless, or as they say in Moscow:
”Корбин бесполезен” – (Korbin bespolezen)
Nothing to do with this topic. Care to link your comment to the blog post we are discussing?
Perhaps you have a view on people suffering due to Universal Credit. Does it arouse any empathy or concern?
Or do you only care about talking down Corbyn?
Corbyn is useless on Universal Credit:
”Корбин бесполезен в отношении Универсального кредита”
(Korbin bespolezen v otnoshenii Universal’nogo kredita)
That’s better.
I notice it’s much longer in Russian!
Actually, it’s the Tories who are in cahoots with the Russians, not Corbyn:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/russian-oligarchs-alexander-litvinenko-sergei-skripal-tory-donations-marina-philip-hammond-a8250321.html
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tories-accept-30000-vladimir-putins-12009563
Corbyn + Momentum = Disaster
Labour + Progess = post-Blairism = Rightwing neoliberalism masquerading as Centrism = Disaster
Q.E.D.
Richard, we’re discussing Universal Credit, not Momentum.
Right on Comrade !
Korbin bespolezen – that’s quite catchy really. Particularly if you say it in a deep voice.
Or take your shirt off first. Then say it in a deep voice.
Yep, work as religion and never mind the suffering involved. Total nonsense.
A system where people are deliberately left short of money to push them off benefit.
I think it’s very cruel to leave people in these conditions. It doesn’t help them find work if they have no money for food or clothing.
It is just punishing them for being on benefits.
In the end the DWP don’t care about the cost of Universal Credit. It was always going to be expensive. They don’t really care if it saves money or not. There was never any real prospect of this. They don’t care if the official reports on it are bad.
In their view, the DWP are making positive changes to the world of work, and to society itself.
I think welfare/social security should have a set amount that they always pay you that covers your up-to-date cost of living and your actual rent. I don’t think they should be allowed to pay you less, whether because of sanctions or they calculated something again or they decided to call some of your benefit a loan.
Once they’ve calculated something, they shouldn’t be allowed to go back and change it. If you work, your employer can’t go back to you in a year’s time and ask for your wages back. That was why the banks said they were unable to claw back bonuses.
It strikes me that loan repayments and re-calculations are the latest way to wriggle out of paying the benefits that people are entitled to. I guess we’ve got used to sanctions now. People have become better at doing the right thing by the DWP and appealing when things go wrong. More people know they can ask for a Hardship Payment. So it would make sense that the DWP would be looking for new ways to reduce benefits.
I have a problem with the notion that the welfare state should seek ways to cut spending. To me, it’s a conflict of interest. I also don’t like the state turning into a loan shark.
No one, repeat no one should be subject to sanction. It achieves nothing, and is a human rights abuse, as the government has admitted that a sanction is likely to have a negative affect on someone’s health. To sanction people in the knowledge that it’s likely to affect their health just demonstrates how cruel the benefits system has become.
The sooner we have a sane system of universal basic income plus housing costs, (and rent controls, that seem to work very well in civilised countries, like Germany) the better things will be, as it will give people real choice, and probably more inclined to work, as they would know that they’d immediately be better off, without even having to think about it – and they’d also be free to refuse a job if some scumbag employer, (the vast majority of them) thought they could get away with paying less, regarding UBI as some kind of employer subsidy. In fact, I suspect that a lot of the opposition to UBI isn’t that it will cost a lot, (which it will, but our society can afford it, and still have huge sums left, if the rich are taxed properly) but that it will empower people, they’d be able to say no without impunity, which would be so liberating a feeling. I doubt that many would choose just to live on the basic income, as it’d be a pretty basic life, and the vast majority of us want something more than that and so would be prepared to work if the pay, conditions and hours were right. Heck, even ZHO contract might begin to make sense, and be seen as positive by workers, so long as they decided if and when they wanted to work.
Unconditional Universal Basic Income is realistically the only way forward for post-Industrial economies with an ever-increasing population andwith advances in technology automating more & more jobs. It is unsustainable for the 1% to maintain possession of the majority of wealth.
Of course it is. And in the future they will wonder why we didn’t do it.
It’s going to be a long hard road until then.
Universal Basic Income is hated by the Tory right-wing. It just means a load of people lazing around all day to them.
But it would provide people with the freedom & flexibility to work part-time jobs without losing out, or to still do full-time jobs where they are able & if they so wished. It would also save money on other things for the Government- no need to keep Jobcentres open, or to fund useless back-to-work schemes, no need for Working Tax Credits, and it would go some way towards ending poverty, which in turn would benefit the economy as people would be more affluent & able to buy things, & have a social life, go to pubs again, cafes, restaurants etc. At the moment I can’t even afford takeaways.
Takeaways generate so much litter that I think they should be more expensive than eating in the restaurant. Maybe they should take VAT off food consumed on the premises and put it on food served in takeaway packaging.
Some people would have to be a good deal less selfish. That’s for sure.
With zero-hours contracts, I think the government should introduce a minimum wage for being on call, i.e. available to work at short notice.
On JSA or universal credit as it has now come to be known, Food, Gas, Electric, Water, Council Tax, and other bills go up but Gideon froze benefits but claimants are still getting £73.10 per week to live on. I estimate the cost of living has gone up around 7% per year since the benefits freeze, if not more. The government keep changing the basket of goods but claimants are paid less.
Holding down the working-age benefits again this year was a cheap, nasty shot. In effect another benefit cut. But the Tories just don’t care. In their view this is all helping the people concerned. Like strong medecine. Tastes horrible, but does you the world of good.
I think they know full well that it’s not helping anyone, it’s really all about proping up Capitalism & protecting the rich at our expense, and they certainlydon’t carre how many people suffer or die as a result, we’re just Peasants to them, “Human Resources” to be used as cannon fodder or factory fodder, or political pawns, as it suits them.
Too right Trev. Cruel as it is, the Tories know exactly what they are doing. It’s just a pity that Clegg & Cable didn’t realise it.
Clegg knew. He pulled a fast one to get into power.
Meanwhile, in a report that should come as no surprise to readers of this blog, Disability News Service reports, DWP ignores freedom of information laws in bid to hide universal credit impact.
That is against the backdrop of DWP revealing “Between July and September last year, new [Housing Benefit] claimants [in Herefordshire] waited on average 29 days before their application was completed…”
The same Hereford Times piece, Delays hamper benefit claimants, adds ‘ A government spokesman said it constantly monitored local authorities’ performance, and would intervene if it dipped below acceptable standards.
He commented: “The evidence shows that the time it takes for local authorities to process most new housing benefit claims has remained stable for a number of years and we would intervene if anything changed.” ‘
It typifies the contempt this arrogant Government has both for the Law and the people of this country.
Even if you just take your rent in advance then the DWP would just divide the amount by 12 and sometimes less. They have been known to say we don’t care when you got the first payment it’s when you got the advance payment and people who had advance payments for several months were classed as getting the full amount when they got the first payment, the DWP soon back off when they get threatened with court, they don’t know if the person has been given money to pursue the case or what. If you take 3 advance payments for example over 3 months then each one has a separate start date and that’s what the DWP sometimes don’t get.
I don’t know why claimants don’t just fill in a NIL INCOME form or are they defunct now UC has become the main benefit? I cannot see why payments for rent cannot be paid to the claimant from day 1 or is this UC designed to cause misery, hardship and throw people on the streets?
I believe you can’t apply for a nil-income claim if you’re also applying for Universal Credit
It’s going to take a strong political will, time and money to scrap Universal Credit after full roll-out.
And honestly what sign is there of that ? From any of the political parties.
But it might take even more time & money to attempt to ‘fix’ it, so what’s the alternative, just leave it in place, stand back & watch Society fall apart? I think it should be ‘paused’, for ever. Replace it with a Universal Basic Income.
Universal Credit is JSA with all the escape holes that Duncan Smith saw, blocked up. So no being able to refuse work under 24 Hours or zero-hours. No excuses, got to do it under UC. 35 Hour jobsearch. Not being allowed to stay on part-time work, so constant pressure to find Work, More Work & Better Work. Unbelievable vicious sanctions. Claimant is trapped in a maze of misery.
A maze of misery is right. When you design a system that is intended to be so psychopathically efficient, dotting every i and crossing every t, you inevitably end up with a system that is inheritantly inefficient by it’s scope & complexity, unmanageable by those who have to administer it and unworkable for the end-user,i.e. the Claimant. IDS & Lord Freud must have approached this like a cross between a warped Sociology experiment (with us as lab rats) and a computer program. Imagine the convoluted flow-charts they must have written, screwed up, discarded, rewritten, over & over again into the wee hours, with dogged determination to concoct the perfect Master Plan that would finally enslave us all. It’s the work of the Devil.
Some people on UC end up with three or four micro-jobs, at completely different things. A few hours in the supermarket, at the local dry-cleaners, as a cleaner early-morning, in the local bakery. Then when it all adds up to 35 Hours at Minimum Wage, Bingo ! Universal Credit throws them out again.
I think a lot of people, myself included, are absolutely dreading UC. We don’t have any choice but to accept the dwp are correct when they say we have been overpaid on child tax credits. Do they send out paperwork out detailing what is owed ?
By law, you should be entitled to a written explanation. Try asking for an explanation by letter.
“These are people in financial hardship. They have children. They can’t make a case with anyone. They’re not even invited to make a case. Nobody wants to hear from them.”
That makes me think of the plight Michael Gove’s birth mother may have been in when she gave him up for adoption.
Many years later as Secretary of State for Children, School & Families, Gove said that the big problem with social work in the UK was the amount of idealistic left-wing dogma that was force-fed to students. How to privatise child protection in six easy stages
Michael Gove is a twit. Look at the state he left our prisons in! I shudder at the thought of privatising child protection. You only need a few active brain cells to know it’s a very bad idea.
I don’t think I will ever understand the mentality of the Rightwing. It’s like they were all dropped on their heads as babies.
Oh dear, Corbyn has stepped left again, when he should have stepped right.
He reminds me of a bad dancer. Only Progress can save us from this.
Not sure what you mean by that Tom.
Tom R., how does your comment relate to the subject under discussion: Universal Credit?
And the “bad dancer” was Ed Balls not Corbyn!
I think you’ll find Trev, that Tom is alluding to Corbyn’s weak response over the Russian nerve agent attack.
Completely out of step with public opinion. Made Theresa May look good. You can do this sort of thing as a radical on the left of the party, but not as leader.
Again this goes to Corbyn’s flaky political judgement.
Yes, but we are currently discussing Universal Credit, not Corbyn, nor Russia.
Well as a member of the Public my opinion is that May is an hypocrite, puts on a good show of outrage & robust indignation but is still quite happy for the Tories to accept Russian money. Corbyn is being straight and trying not to add fuel to the fire, even if that does undermine May’s Crisis-revelling attempt at having a ‘Thatcher moment’.
Labour’s leader was slammed by his own MPs for not unequivocally blaming Moscow in a statement to Parliament.
Still nothing to do with this topic.
Have you read Kate’s blog post, about which we are discussing? Do you care about the people suffering as she has described?
If only we had the 48 Letters method like the Tories.
He’d be gone by now.
Well some of us are sick of hearing about how you can’t cope with losing in an election or two. I didn’t get my own way in 2015 or 2017, but I don’t call for a change to the electoral system, nor do I post endless comments about the wrong subject on internet forums. If you want to complain about Jeremy Corbyn, why can’t you do so on your #StayInLabour page?
Too right. Sooner they get Hilary Benn in there the better.
We might not vote for Hillary Benn.
It’s undemocratic to forcibly remove an elected leader, against the wishes of the majority of the party.
As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
Long gone mate.
Garry, Tony Benn would have been better.
There a comments on here about J.Corbyn. But then they lead on to whole welfare reform thing. Momentum can type up their devotions all they like. We won’t be silenced. Corbyn has shown no sign at all of being even slightly interested in Universal Credit or any of the issues that Kate has raised here on the blog. Now he’s botched this Russian business, further damaging Labour’s chances at the next election. It’s just not good enough.
Corbyn and his team have shown far more interest in welfare and housing than anyone else in Parliament.
Nobody is trying to silence you. If you want to take part in a discussion, it is the done thing to demonstrate some link between your comment and the subject under discussion. So I am more impressed when people do that. But you are free to go on all you like about whatever you like.
I personally belong to Momentum. Trev does not. I dare say most pro-Corbyn comments on this forum do not come from members of Momentum. We’re not orchestrating some sort of internet spin campaign.
It’s very simple for me. I am alive until I am put on Universal Credit.
I have been on SG ESA since having to give up work due to worsening mental health in 2009. For the first few years I was left alone to work hard in my weekly psychotherapy (which I’ve been getting on the NHS since 2003) and hope to be able to return to some part time work.
Then in 2014 it all started. Since then I have been bombarded with reassessments, for DLA, then ESA, then PIP. Each time having to go through being assumed fraudulent for months and the hellish torture that is for an child abuse survivor.
Far from being able to work towards better health, my mental health has collapsed. Part of me feels like my allotted time on the earth has run out. I have been in some form of treatment since I was 18. Over 30 years I have been to University, I have built up a business, I have been married and divorced, had kids. Basically I’ve been trying to live a normal life for many years but the bottom line is, I underwent what some therapists call ‘Soul Murder’ when I was a very young child and I may never be completely mentally healthy because of it.
My government doesn’t want to support me in my desire to remain alive.
I have absolutely no doubt that when I am moved on UC they will remove my LCWRA element and I will lose any transitional protection. I will then no doubt lose my PIP which is due for renewal next year and that will be the end of me being able to live a life I consider in any way bearable.
It’s hard to get out of bed and carry on breathing as it is. My own mind is the enemy I must battle every day. I have no friends and am unable to socialise at all, apart from my daughter who I barely see as she works and has her own social life, I have been totally without human company for 9 years. I will lose the will to live if I have to sit alone in a house I can’t afford with no dogs, which are the only living beings that ever touch me.
UC is £73 p/w
Rent /Water is £12 p/w
Bedroom tax £14 p/w (no 1 beds available in my area that accept dogs)
Gas/Electric minimum £10 p/w.
So that would mean no dog food, no TV, no internet, no car so I’d be housebound too.
I can’t wait till 2022. I will choose to die before then.
I feel for you Ali. I have some childhood issues too & I struggle to fit in to normal life. My problems cacan make it difficult to hold dow- a job, form relationships, make decisions, or form lasting friendships. I don’t socialize and I spend most of my time alone. I’ve been through psychotherapy & had lengthy periods on meds. but they won’t give me a sick note so i have to cope with claiming JSA. I find it helps to do a bit of part time voluntary work, it gets me out of the house & I meet other people. I volunteer at a foodbank, & have done other stuff in the past such as Oxfam. It’s something I recommend you to consider, it might help you.
Yes, I find that volunteering lifts my spirits as well.
My local foodbanks don’t want any more volunteers. I go to a church and through church I have made friends and found voluntary work and started going to social activities. All these things take my mind off the whole “I-have-no-money-shall-I-end-it-all?” conundrum.
I used to volunteer at an Oxfam shop in my teens and I really enjoyed it.
Yes I know what you mean. I was working at the foodbank today, I like going there, I feel I am doing something useful for others & that lifts you out of yourself & also meeting other people, some of whom have different problems to me. For instance, there was one guy a little older than me, a retired school teacher & a really nice bloke, who has had to stop coming now as he has cancer & has gonebback into treatment. Theres another guy, also Retired & comfortably well off, & a nice person who is very generous, but he has all sorts of health problems, gout & only one kidney. It certainly puts my problems into perspective & just goes to show that having money isn’t everything, & we all have our share of problems & difficulties in life. But we have a good natter & have a laugh while we’re there.
Thanks but I’m alone because contact with other people of any kind is impossible for me. I know that might seem unbelievable but such is the extent of my difficulties, I cant even cope with another human being within 6 feet of me. In the supermarket I have to wait on the other side of the aisle until people move and I cannot even stand in queues. I can’t talk to people because afterwards I get a huge internal backlash of self criticism that makes me suicidal. I can’t let people get to know me in case they find out how horrible I am – etc
I have been alone for years. I get therapy but I may never ‘recover’ I’m afraid voluntary work is completely out of the question right now.
Oh sorry to hear that. I was just trying to help. I dont know what to suggest, other than you continue with your therapy as you need professional help. In my case the p sychotherapy did me more harm than good & was the worst thing I’ve ever experience Without sounding patronising, there are other avenues you may wqnt to ex”plore such as self-help books or Meditation, even taking up artwork can be beneficial like painting for example, and also growing flowers & veg. if you haveva garden or an area for tubs & planters? Just a suggestion. I wish you well.
Dear Ali,
I know how you feel.
I’ve been there, too.
In 2012, they halved my Housing Benefit, leaving me to pay £90 per week in rent out of my benefits and savings. I live in a privately-rented flat, so I can be evicted any time and it would be near-impossible to find a landlord willing to take me on as a tenant with no job and so little benefit.
Like you, I started getting medical assessment letters from 2014 onwards. I went from January to May of 2017 with no benefit coming in at all, except the Housing Benefit that only covers half the rent.
I now send a doctor’s note to DWP every 2 months and so far that has put a stop to the assessment letters. Can you get a sick note from your GP?
I thought I would be dead a long time before now, but I’m still here. So please don’t give up.
Everybody is struggling with lack of money. We all pay for small things that are not considered essential. Please don’t give up your dogs. Please don’t end your life. You need your dogs and your dogs need you.
I am blessed not to have suffered childhood trauma myself, but my late mum was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress (PTSD) due to abuse she suffered as a child. So I understand how serious that can be and how many things it can affect.
I wonder if you have anyone to talk to about your problems. I wonder if you have friends who support you. I wonder if you attend a church or a local group of a volunteering job. I wonder if you find that these things lift your spirits. I do.
I always find that looking at pretty flowers makes me feel like life is worth living. With spring on its way, now is the perfect time. Do you like looking at flowers? I’m sure you must go for lots of walks with your dogs.
I will keep you in my prayers.
Very best wishes,
Alison
P.S.
Ali W, you have your dogs & I have my cats, they are like my companions & I have a responsibility to look after them, so i can’t end it all! I can’t leave my cats behind.And if you’re struggling for money foodbanks also have pet food too you know.
We need another election for Labour leader. Start from scratch, all new candidates.
First the unions. Then the non-union party members. Then the MP’s.
Total it up, whoever has the most votes is the leader. Fair and square.
Dave, we did all that twice. Corbyn won. He’s our leader. Accept it.
There is something very dodgy about having to have two elections to get the result you want.
Just listened to a Johnny Cash song, substitute the words ” San Quinton” with “Job Centre” and it sounds quite apt….”Job Centre I hate every inch of you, I’ve hated you since 1982…..etc. May your walls crumble and may I live to tell…” Haha 🙂
That is freaky shit Trev. I’m listening to the San Quentin album as well.
Haha! So many degrees of separation an all that 😉
Anyway I might have got it a bit wrong but something like that…”Job Centre may you rot & burn in hell, may your walls fall & may I live to tell…”
(I am psychic btw)
Ha-ha! Great song!
Here it is again, Jobcentre, just for you
Jobcentre, you’ve been livin’ hell to me.
I’ve seen ’em come and go and I’ve seen ’em die
And long ago I stopped askin’ why
Jobcentre, I hate every inch of you.
You’ve cut me and you’ve scarred me through and thru.
And I’ll walk out a wiser weaker man;
McVey why can’t you understand.
Jobcentre, what good do you think you do?
Do you think I’ll be different when you’re through?
You bend my heart and mind and you warp my soul;
Your stone walls turn my blood a little cold
Jobcentre, may you rot and burn in hell.
May your walls fall down and may I live to tell.
May all the world forget you ever stood.
And the world regret you did no good.
Jobcentre, you’ve been livin’ hell to me.
Ha-ha! Adam, very good!
Yay! That’s the one. Somebody should record it, or put it on youtube, it would go viral, and everyone could turn up at the jobcentre dressed in black to sign on.
‘We will never tolerate a threat to the life of British citizens’
You might want to have a look at Universal Credit then.
Too right. The Tories themselves are a threat to the lives of British citizens.
Question: What do you call a politician in a Russian Hat ?
Answer: Jeremy Corbyn
What’s that supposed to mean? We’re at the mercy of the most brutal and extreme Rightwing Government this country has ever seen and all you can do is make childish comments against the Labour leader?
I was going to say I didn’t see how it was relevant to the previous comment, but I couldn’t be bothered to say that yet again.
It’s not even Corbyn who is colluding with the Russians, it’s the Tories who are! They’ve taken bribes from wealthy Russian oligarchs so that money laundering can carry on.
On the one hand, we want our concerns about welfare reform to be heard. Yet, on the other hand, we are allowing trolls to hijack a discussion about welfare and turn it into a debate about Russia. Jeremy Corbyn’s response to Russia has nothing to do with welfare.
Yes, I realize that by responding to the Trolls it causes me to wander off topic, sorry about that, but it’s just that I feel that the more we allow these Trolls to undermine Labour the greater chance there is of the Tories staying in power, thenthe Benefits misery & Austerity continues. As you know Alison, the only way to end this hell-on-earth is to get a Leftwing Government in power.
Ok fair enough, Trev. You explained a link between the subjects.
I would point out, though, that the trolls are needing to wander off topic in order to criticise Jeremy Corbyn. That says a lot.
I wonder what the Progress view is on welfare and Universal Credit.
Ha Ha ! Good one. Ignore these humourless Momentum types. You should see our local meetings now, with Momentum preaching like vicars.
I don’t know where my comment went, but maybe it wasn’t worth posting.
In short, I wish the trolls would use their own Twitter page for their daily Corbyn drivel, instead of using the comments section of someone else’s unrelated blog post.
Also, please note this is not Momentum HQ. If you’ve got a grievance, please use the proper channels.
I’m not on UC, but I am on ESA, and currently fighting to get my PIP back. It was removed after an assessment that generated a report so full of errors that it was actually kind of funny. I’ve been without PIP for 5 months now, and my debt is in the thousands. My mental and physical health have deteriorated severely. A big part of that is the knowledge that no matter what I do, nothing will make a difference until I get to tribunal, and that once I do win, my award will end in June anyway, and I’ll have to reapply. We’re stuck in this system, powerless to do anything to change the constant incompetence (possibly malicious) that is blighting our lives. All we can do is continue to work through their cruel and dehumanising system, in order to survive.
Dreadful situation for anyone to be in Heather.
It’s astonishing really that the Tories were able to introduce all this in such a short space of time. And then get away with it somehow. They have almost wrecked the whole benefits system.
It took them a good 5 years or more to introduce Universal Credit, & it still isn’t complete. They have wrecked Benefis & Miliband allowed them to get away with it, plus us the people, if that happened in another country like Greece or France the people would have risen up and wrecked the Jobcenres, but not here, we’re too placid & already beaten down into submission.
Yeah, in real terms a couple of parliaments and the benefit system has been stuffed. Decades of the Welfare State down the drain. Question is who is going to change things back ? Not the Tories, and not Labour either. Once Universal Credit is in place it’s going to be a massive thing to change it. It is going to cost a lot of money.
I Agree Andrew. It’s bizarre how we went from a reasonably decent benefit system, which most people basically supported. To what we have now after a few years of the Tory / Coalition government. The media skivers/strivers campaign. The attack on disability as a concept. WCA tests, Atos & Maximus. And the hardening of public attitudes towards claimants of all types. These attitudes would have been considered extreme, but now they are mainstream.
Universal Credit reminds me of the Berlin Wall. For some months, while it was being built, there were still gaps in the wall in many areas. And you still had a good chance to escape.
But as the Wall progressed, it became more and more difficult to escape, and the gaps became smaller and smaller. Until finally the Wall was completely built.
Then there was no escape. Unless you wanted to risk your life with guard-towers, landmines and machine-guns.
It came down eventually though. All corrupt & unjust systems & institutions must one day crumble.
I still question the lack of urgency in Labour for doing anything about Universal Credit. A lot of people think that even if they do get in, they won’t do much about it. Maybe make a few small changes, but nothing major. Sounds about right.
So who do you suggest we vote for then Pete, if not Labour? Personally I like the Green Party, but I know we can’t get rid of the Tories by voting Green.I think Labour, under Corbyn & McDonnel, would replace UC with a Universal Basic Income (which the Green Party also supports), that’s what I’m hoping for anyway. The main reason for UC staying in place at the moment is to disguise hidden spending cuts, which Labour wouldnt need to do.
The Greens have ruled out people like me because of their policy to oppose Brexit. I want to leave the EU (properly).
The thing is, Trev, a vote for the Greens could let the Tories win in your constituency.
Oh I know, that’s what I’m getting at really. We have to vote Labour to get the Tories out, no two ways about it, and that’s an easy choice now that Labour has a proper Leftwing leadership &d direction. We can’t rid ourselves of the evil Tory menace by voting Green, or anyone else. That’s why I’m saying to all the people expressing dissatisfaction with Labour, well who else are you going to vote for then?
If people vote Labour at the moment, it shows that Jeremy Corbyn has our support. If people vote Green, Labour won’t do so well and Jeremy Corbyn will get the blame. Then the party is likely to move to the right again. That would leave us with no meaningful opposition to welfare reform from our main opposition party.
I agree we could be more bold.
It’s a shame Debbie stepped aside.
Debbie Abrahams was so active and determined it made the leadership look weak.
There is something very odd about the whole business.
Yeah. It was long ago decided that people who claimed benefits were going to get a rough ride from the government. This has been the attitude all along.
That and official indifference. Of which the latest example is blindly refusing to see any connection between the ‘welfare reforms’ and mass homelessness.
Official indifference? Or secretly gloating as those they detest die off one by one in the snow.
Denying any link between cause and effect = vain attempt to pull the wool…
Trouble is, with Brexit, nerve gas, Russians, & the new Cold War, and now Cambridge Analytica, what chance is there of getting Universal Credit back on the agenda and in the news? Nobody. even cares.
Absolutely Trev. And the roll-out will continue under the Tories.
It’s very much in their political interest for it to do so. Eventually it will lead to a substantial apparent fall in unemployment. When a single hour of work or workfare takes people out of the unemployed figures. Of course these aren’t real jobs, but taken at face value it will look as if they are.
And sanctions also go down in the statistics as a return to work.
I see Sport England are targeting people in lower-paid jobs in their new scheme to tackle inactivity in communities. Apparently ‘ certain groups such as those in lower-paid jobs…are less likely to be physically active in their everyday lives.’
Not suprising really after they have done 8 hours of heavy-lifting in a warehouse.
Or hours on their knees scrubbing floors. Or stood all day in some poundshop for minimum wage. Probably they don’t feel like a round of golf at the end of the day.
Or a spot of Polo.
Not many of the British poor have a horse/learn to ride.
Most of us probably not, but when I lived in Bradford there are horses all over the place, tethered grazing on grass verges, roundabouts, ridden up & down the estates by shirtless young men. Theres a massive amount of travellers , several generations, who have settled in Bradford but still keep horses. The Council & Police had special units & officers to deal with the horse problems & liase with Gypsy community.
Gypsies and Travellers are probably the only British low-income group with a tradition of horse ownership. Good for them.
It would be nice if they stayed on the right side of the law, though.
Don’t they take into account the nature of the job when deciding how physically active someone is?
Obesity is more of a problem the lower you go in the social hierarchy. That’s true is most countries in the Western World. There is more to it than just exercise, but it is true that middle-class children do far more sporting activities outside of school. Disabled people are more likely to have low-paid, sedentary jobs. It’s not clear whether they include the unemployed, sick and disabled in the low-income group that is less physically active. If you’re physically ill or disabled, no you probably won’t be very physically active. Nor if you are a new mum.
N.B. At my volunteering job, two people have jobs (on their feet all day) and they do LOTS of sport. One also has a dog to walk. The other two of us don’t work and don’t do any sport. So that would fit the statistics you quoted.
I don’t do any sport, never have done, I have zero interest in sports. But I walk most places as I can’t afford buses, & carry shopping for a mile or more. And in the past done some very physical jobs, after which I would be absolutely shattered, aching all over & barely had the strength to make my dinner or get out of the armchair. I would think it be office workers who need the exercise.
Jeremy Corbyn must be the only British MP ever to have had his own show on Iranian television. Remember Press TV ? Ah, those Mullah moments.
Absolute disgrace. And he was paid for this !
Agree. But he was just a radical lefty then with no thought about anything else.
So what Fred?
Is that a serious question Trev ? On Iran ?
Are you saying we shouldn’t vote for him because he believes in foreign diplomacy ? Iran or no Iran I’d prefer a dozen Jeremy Corbyns to one Theresa May or Jacob Rees Mog or whoever it might be. It won’t stop me from voting Labour any more than the Conservative Party’s connections with Russian money-launderers will stop Tory supporters from voting for them. Keep your eye on the ball, Corbyn isn’t our enemy, the Tories are. Focus your criticism, and efforts, on attacking them not Jeremy Corbyn.
Trev, these trolls ARE Tories. They wouldn’t spend so much time undermining Jeremy Corbyn if they really wanted him to get into power.
Also, notice how little they care about the suffering caused to millions by the current government. Heartless Tories.
Fred, I think you’ll find that Trev is referring to the sheer irrelevance of your comment.
1) What has this got to do with Universal Credit, welfare or sport among low-income groups?
2) I don’t care about Iranian TV.
I do think Jeremy would do better to avoid hats at all really. That one he’s got at the moment looks like something he bought in Carnaby Street in 1966.
What about one of those French Berets, you know set at a jaunty angle ?
If you’ve got any spare hats, remember to donate them to your local homeless shelter.
My church has finished collecting underwear and is now collecting tampons etc. for the homeless people who have to sleep in our church because they have nowhere to live and no money to buy anything they need, thanks to the welfare and housing policies of the current government.
Imagine listening to people criticising a politician’s hat if you’re sitting on a cold pavement with no underpants on.
Imagine if you were female and you had your period but you had no product to use, so you had to walk around with soiled trousers. Imagine the shame. Do you think you would care about the style of Jeremy Corbyn’s hat?
He’d do far better to get a clean shave, and stop wearing those hats. Lose the whole beardy look, and go for something a bit younger.
Terry, I like Jeremy’s appearance. At least he looks authentic. Not like all these plastic look-alikes running scared of taunts from types like you. Go sort your own appearance.
Or something out of an Austin Powers film.
Many people can’t get to the cinema anymore because they have no money for a ticket.
There’s nowt wrong with it, it’s a nice cap, but who cares?
Yep, who cares?
THE POINT IS THAT MANY PEOPLE DON’T HAVE A HAT BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO MONEY BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO WAIT TEN WEEKS FOR UNIVERSAL CREDIT AND THEN THEY HARDLY GET ANY MONEY AFTER THE LOANS AND “OVERPAYMENTS” HAVE BEEN TAKEN OUT.
What does this have to do with Universal Credit?
Or more to the point what does it have to do with hats ?
Corbyn at PMQ today. Still not doiing any real damage to the Tories. Theresa May still had the edge.
A couple of Corbyn points looked promising, but then somehow it all just fizzled out.
Doesn’t it always ? You can’t fizzle your way to victory unfortunately.
Which seems to be the current master plan.
Real people don’t care about Prime Minister’s Questions. Real people don’t have time to watch it. It’s on during working hours or in the middle of the night. Come on. Real people are busy.
I think you’ll find they do care Alison. PMQs have always been a highly visible and important part of the Parliamentary process. It is widely reported across all the media, so there is no problem with access to this.
Performance at PMQ is widely seen as important for a Prime Minister.
I’ve been watching BBC News for an hour now. Nothing has been said about Prime Minister’s Questions. None of my friends and acquaintances ever mention it.
Even when PMQs makes the news, you only see a snippet.
I wish he’d stop doing that. Building everything up, and then suddenly it just all goes phut !
On the economy, unemployment, the Tories are going to win this unless Labour are very careful.
You think the Tories are going to win among the unemployed? Well suit yourself. Nothing better than the Tories convincing themselves they’re heading for a landslide and then coming up with the likes of the Dementia Tax to alienate their own voters.
I think you might be right there Tom. It’s by no means in the bag for Labour, and they are not just going to be able to cruise to victory.
As they seem to think. The Tories will fight it every inch of the way. All it needs is a couple more PR disasters near election time, and the Tories will sneak across the the finishing line once again.
Look back over the last few weeks. We’ve had the Czech business, then the Russians, now the Hat in the Newsnight backdrop. What next ?
If the MSM reported truthfully on the Tories involvement with the Russians they’d be out tomorrow and in jail – taking bribes from wealthy money-launderers to scupper Magnitsky powers and keep the Oligarchs in place in the City of London, whilst Rees Mogg (May’s puppet master) has £90 Million invested in Russian banks including onethat is blacklisted & under U.S. & E.U. sanctions…how the Hell are they getting away with it?
The Tories are in league with wealthy Russian Oligarchs and money-launderers. Read the following articles and make your own mind up:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tories-accept-30000-vladimir-putins-12009563
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/why-are-bbc-running-blatant-distraction.html
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/why-did-russian-embassy-back-theresa.html
https://politicalscrapbook.net/2018/03/jacob-rees-mogg-firm-manages-nearly-100m-invested-in-russia/
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/jacob-rees-mogg-has-millions-in-dodgy.html
See? Corbyn voters don’t make decisions based on hats! Corbyn voters do research and find evidence. Intelligent stuff.
P.s. the Czech business was made up, and no one with a brain gives a monkey’s toss about anyone’s hat.
All goes to image. Remember Michael Foot and the Deadly Donkey Jacket ? Corbyn can ill-afford to go around looking like something from Dr. Zhivago.
Corbyn’s image is right, otherwise he wouldn’t be winning votes.
The real reason you’re all obsessed with hats today is because Liz Truss said:
‘I think we need to be Tories with attitude. We are facing one of the most ridiculous opposition parties. A bunch of humourless, po-faced, hat-wearing socialists who insist on lecturing everyone else…”
Listen to the sounds of her obedient flock bleating her precious words all over the internet!
Shame she’s not worth listening to. She’s still stuck in her teens, rebelling against her father and obsessing about fashion. She thinks a few jeers about hats will bring all the Corbynites rushing over to the Tories. How naive. That must be why she joined the Tories.
‘Truss called for a “Tory revolution” led in industrial towns and port cities by a new generation of “Uber-riding, Airbnb-ing, Deliveroo-eating freedom-fighters” she dubbed “Tories with attitude”.’
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Has she seen the hideous uniforms that Deliveroo wear? AND THE FLOWERY SHORTS?! Surely she doesn’t prefer THAT over Jeremy Corbyn’s vintage hat?
In MY ideal world, those exact 3 companies wouldn’t take over the world. They would be banned.
Oh Liz, we can’t have you opening your door night after night to green zombies in paedo shorts! It’s time you learned how to COOK!
Still think lefties can’t laugh? Have a read of these comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/860oz4/liz_truss_this_generation_are_uberriding/
By the way, there’s a Tory MP called Chris Skidmore. Fond of u-turns or dare not wear the Deliveroo shorts?
I suppose most Tory MPs are a bit skiddy really. They pledge one thing then do another.
Too much Deliveroo in the back of your Uber…
Too much Deliveroo and you’ll get Uber too much Air BnB. (Comes with the skiddy…)
Yes Gary, I do remember Michael Foot, in fact I voted for him. It just goes to show how gullible people are to be so easily mislead by Media lies, Michael Foot wasn’t even wearing a Donkey Jacket! He looked perfectly presentable that day at the Cenotaph, shirt & tie, overcoat, no Donkey Jacket. The Establishment effectively ‘own’ or control most of the mainstream Media, and they will stop at nothing to prevent a Left wing government, hence the current attempts at doing a similar hatchet job on Jeremy Corbyn, and only fools buy into such nonsense.
Yes, only fools switch sides because of what someone is wearing.
Only a fool wouldn’t vote Corbyn just in case he wasn’t cool.
I must disagree Trev. Image is vital these days, more than ever. Particularly with the general public, who are mostly not party members, or even very interested in politics.
Corbyn keeps making mistakes, and just doesn’t seem to care how he presents himself.
The legacy of his days as a hard-left radical constantly at odds with his own party.
I don’t have a problem with Jeremy Corbyn’s appearance whatsoever, I’m not exactly a fashion guru myself! I don’t believe in judging a book by it’s cover anyway, but I don’t honestly think there is anything wrong with his appearance. If you want some smarmy clean-shaven type in a slick suit you could end up with someone like Tony Bair or David Cameron. I used to have a long bushy full beard, zztop style (or maybe Ben Gunn) for about 25 yrs & only shaved it off because beardsb became fashionable. I also had dreadlocks until I got older & went bald. If you’d have seen me in the 90s you’d have probably crossed the street, so perhaps I’m not the best person to comment on other people’s looks or dress sens
In my view, Jeremy Corbyn is stylish in a timeless way and that’s one of the reasons for his celebrity status among the general public. However, Liz Truss and people on this forum seem to have forgotten that life is not just about appearances. It’s about who you are inside. The fact that the Tories can spend days commenting on appearances on a forum that’s meant to be about Universal Credit just goes to show how grossly out of touch they are with the concerns and priorities of ordinary people.
I listened to Prime Minister’s Questions with my eyes closed. What I heard again and again from MPs were serious concerns about serious issues in their constituencies and across the country. Yet all the Tories took away from it was fashion.
Brexit was the one thing the Tories were determined to do well on, yet they have sold their constituents down the river with this latest climbdown deal. It only proves to the EU that, by being so typically obstinate in anything and everything, they’ll get exactly what they want: we’ll stay in the EU forever and their people can pour in forever. Who do you think the public will vote for? UKIP.
Why can’t the Tories be as tough as they are on welfare when it comes to dealing with the EU, while at the same time being as soft as they are with the EU when it comes to dealing with vulnerable people in desperate need of welfare/social security? We’ll never get the benefits bill down as long as foreign companies are allow to continue to operate in the UK with a policy of handing jobs to foreigners only.
As for my own party, Corbyn is just about the only Labour politician showing any understanding whatsoever of the need to stop this endless pandering to the EU. I’m having serious loyalty issues on the Brexit question because I think it was all this anti-Brexit nonsense from Labour MPs that allowed the Tories to slip in this Brexit U-turn and I despair of Labour ever showing one iota of respect for the democratic will of the British people.
Where is UKIP when you need them? Oh, that’s right. We haven’t been voting for them to begin with.
Personally I was so confused about Brexit that I abstained from voting as I couldn’t decide one way or the other. Upon reflection however, on balance I think it best that we leave simply because the EU was an attempt at rebuilding the tower of Babel, and was blatantly represented as such on a pro-EU poster in the past as well as in the design of the EU building, and as the tower of Babel was an affront to God I am opposed to the EU on that basis alone, though I have no objection to foreigners coming here to work. If/when we do leave the EU though, I will expect a return to the use of Imperial weights & measures; Pounds, Ounces, Pints, Gallons, Miles, Yards & inches etc. I would also like the pre-decimal currency to be reinstated, especially ten bob notes, threppny bits, tanners, shillings, half crowns, and 240 pennies to a Pound. If this is not done I shall write a stern letter (snail mail) to my MP.
Trev, the current decimal system is so, so much simpler than the old weights and measures! Still, I’d rather leave the EU properly and return to the old imperial system than keep the decimal system but put up with this endless cow-towing to the EU.
Nevertheless, leave or remain is not going to put food on the tables of the families having to go to the foodbank, especially as the government has given the job of making our new passports to the French. (Yet we don’t make theirs. That’s the thing about the EU. It’s all take, take, take.)
I think there is a very strong case for making passports free for all. It is not fair to expect people to find £80 in order to obtain an essential document. Nowadays, you need photographic ID to obtain housing, work, education, benefits…and soon even the vote! It is not fair to force those without £80 to struggle with all these things. Provision of the passport should be considered an essential public service, not a luxury item.
I understand your beef aboutBritish passports being printed in France, many Daily Mail reading Tories are also outraged about it too apparently , which is hilarious because they used to be printed by a State-owned British company until it was privatised by John Major in 1996 !
Too right Simon. Labour have got to get to grips with the reality of Corbyn’s public image . In today’s mass-media environment it does matter how he presents himself. How he speaks, how he looks, and how he acts. Policies are important, but so is presentation.
Corbyn is presenting himself right, otherwise he wouldn’t be winning votes.
Do we have to have a flood of negative comments about Corbyn day in and day out? Don’t you care about anything else?
Yet most people care about wages, benefits, housing, Brexit, transport, the NHS…not Russians, nor politicians’ hats.
It’s Momentum that will take him down in the end. As the election nears and things don’t improve, they’ll have a quiet word, and he’ll be gone.
If 36,000 people made a mistake, and 3000 people were correct, it would be wrong to join the 36000.
Labour won’t learn until 2022, when they are sitting in the wreckage of another election disaster wondering what went wrong.
Don’t vote Tory then. Simple.
Well I must say I can’t wait for spring. I’ve cleaned out the den, made a nice neat pile of the old chicken bones outside, and put down some fresh leaves.
This snow makes hunting an absolute breeze, rabbit tracks everywhere.
Have to be careful not to be seen though,as the dare I say, rather stylish reddish-brown of a fox does rather stand out against the snow.
Might take a walk to the village later on. Always good to look at the hen-houses in passing as it were. You never know…
Hello again, Mr Fox.
Don’t forget you will leave tracks in the snow as well. There were some fox tracks in my garden when there was snow on the ground. Here in London, it has all melted now.
I wonder if you have a view on Universal Credit? That’s what this discussion is supposed to be about. However, the humans are determined to make it a discussion about physical appearances instead. So strange!
Alison, how kind of you to remember me and my modest musings on the mysteries of existence. We are thoughtful creatures we foxes, and you would be suprised what ideas we have when out and about . I have often stopped on a moonlit night, looked upwards at the moon and wondered, are there other foxes up there, or indeed elsewhere in the universe ? Or seen the bats flying across the tree-tops and thought, is this all part of some higher plan of which we foxes can only see a small part ? I often think about such things, particularly when I am lying-low as it were, near the hen-houses.
Of course I am at something of a disadvantage when it comes to forming an opinion on Universal Credit. It does sound encouraging, a bit like Universal Chicken . ( Now that would be a good idea ! ). Obviously I’m a fox, and indeed I’ve never actually been unemployed I think they call it, where a human loses their job ?
Surely such an advanced species as humans, with all their knowledge and wisdom, would wish to see that everyone has enough food to eat, somewhere pleasant to live, and decent treatment by their fellow humans ?
A society in which all humans can rely on the universal credit of sympathy and
mutual respect. That would seem to me, a simple fox’s opinion, to be a good idea.
Yes, Mr Fox, Universal Credit is just like universal chicken. At first, it sounds like there will be chicken for all of us whenever we’re hungry. Then we discover that all the chickens have been moved to a giant factory, so there are no more hen houses to prey on. The giant factory is impossible to break into. It gives out no chicken whatsoever to anyone for nearly three months. When we FINALLY do get to have a little chicken, we discover that our portion is less meat and more bone.
It’s a truly fowl system.
Ho-ho-ho!
You feel like you’re walking on eggshells.
Long report about poverty on BBC News at Ten. Where did they go to? No other than Oldham! Kate, you must have done something right!
Lady in Oldham had no sanitary towels and had to sop it up with tissues! Fellow females will understand how useless that is. If you’re giving to a foodbank, buy some sanitary towels for the ladies out there.
Why was she so poor? She was on Universal Credit. Her income was counted twice in some months, leaving her with no benefits.
Tories and trolls, this is what real people worry about. Nobody mentioned hats.
Goodbye Owen. Only for speaking the truth. #StalinistPurge
Stalinist? Hardly. It’s all part of an internal plot by Rightwingers timed to ruin Labour’s chances in local elections in an attempt to blame and undermine Corbyn. Why else would Owen Smith suddenly pick this moment in time to express defiance?
Trev, that could have been their thinking. I doubt it will have the desired effect, though. Owen Smith is not very popular with the general public. Like me, I expect many people will be glad to see the back of him, from the front bench, at least.
Only Progress can save Labour now.
When will the party see sense ?
They have taken the left-hand path which always leads to disaster.
Progess are a party-within-a-party, a bunch of traitors conspiring to ruin Labour, and it’s time they were expelled. This latest stunt with Owen Smith shows just how low the Rightwing can stoop. They are despicable.
I am tired of always reading the same comments from Progress people. No matter what we are discussing, people come on here to whinge about how “only Progress can save the Labour Party”. Free speech is a wonderful thing, but perhaps we’ve heard enough?
As for Owen Smith, I voted to leave the EU, as did 40% of Labour voters. It feels like we are inundated by politicians claiming that Brexit must be reversed, that we’ve changed our minds, that we can’t leave the EU or a disaster will strike. The people who voted “remain” are spoilt for choice! Yet we voted for Brexit. We want it to happen. We don’t take too kindly to being denounced as extremist bigots by neo-liberal politicians. I really don’t see how it is helpful for any politician to denounce 52% of the electorate. That’s not a great way to attract votes!
Whether it’s about Corbyn or about Brexit, Owen Smith seems not to appreciate the value of democratic decision-making. He forced a second vote on Jeremy Corbyn and he wants to force a second vote on the EU. Once a vote has taken place, you’re supposed to respect the result, not force endless re-runs. I think Owen Smith should spend less time shouting because he didn’t get his own way and a little more time examining the difference between democracy and autocracy.
Take a look at Greece and Italy. The EU got rid of democratically elected governments and replaced them with people the Germans wanted. There are dark echoes of history in this sort of thing, more at home in countries the neo-liberals supposedly disapprove of. Yet the neo-liberals support the EU and want to overturn democracy to keep it. Likewise, they want to overturn democracy to remove Corbyn.
The shadow of Jeremy Corbyn lies heavy upon the Labour Party.
Many of us who have spent decades in the Political wilderness can finally now vote Labour again thanks to Jeremy Corbyn.
Labour is heading for the political wilderness under JC.
You lot are heading for the political wilderness.
Well Harold that’s not what the CBI think. Even they are backing Corbyn! The yy said that he is offering “Real world politics”, hardly political wilderness is it?
Really, Trev? That’s amazing! They’re the epitome of neo-liberal!
Are you sure someone wasn’t pulling your leg?
It’s perfectly true. I can’t post the links on my crappy phone but I will try do so when I’m at the Library tomorrow. I wouldn’t describe the CBI as neoliberal necessarily, but they are certainly Capitalists (obviously) and usually close supporters of the Tories, but May isn’t offering what they want from Brexit and Corbyn’s recent speech was received well by the CBI over his proposals regarding the Customs union.
Oh no! It’s about the EU! Now I DO believe it!
Theresa May has sold out to the EU and the immigrants are flooding back in. What more do the CBI want?
In my area, we have been deluged by new EU immigrants in just the past month. I am very concerned. Two out of every three people on the bus and on the street are talking in foreign languages. Two thirds of my neighbours are foreigners. How are we supposed to find a place to live and a job to do when we are competing with ALL THESE FOREIGNERS???
The CBI should try giving US a job for a change. Don’t say we won’t do those jobs because I know the truth. They recruit in foreign languages, in foreign countries and charging foreigners fees. A whole industry has grown up around this. When British jobseekers ask for a job, they get told it’s foreigners and foreign-language-speakers only.
The Rich are our enemy, not the foreigners.
Then it can’t be in our interest to do what the CBI want.
the CBI’s director general Carlyn Fairbairn saying this: “The Labour leader’s commitment to a customs union will put jobs and living standards first by remaining in a close economic relationship with the EU. It will help grow trade without accepting freedom of movement or payments to the EU.”
Or Stephen Martin, the director general of the Institute of Directors, saying this: “Labour has widened the debate today on the UK’s relationship with the EU post-Brexit, and many businesses, particularly manufacturers, will be pleased to hear the Opposition’s proposal to keep a customs union on the table.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/praise-for-jeremy-corbyn-from-the-cbi-and-the-iod-are-we-living-in-the-matrix-or-alice-in-wonderland-a8229606.html
Comprehensive customs union with the EU a ‘real world’ solution’
Carolyn Fairbairn welcomes the Labour Party’s backing for a comprehensive customs union with the EU.
http://www.cbi.org.uk/news/comprehensive-customs-union-with-the-eu-a-real-world-solution/
The shadow of endless whingeing lies heavy on the internet. He won. Get over it.
Never. We will never accept it. This isn’t true Labour.
Well whinge on till the cows come home, then.
People in Syria refused to accept it when things didn’t go their own way. Look what happened in Syria. They all started fighting one another and destroyed their own country.
Sometimes it’s better to learn to take it on the chin.
But it IS true Labour, i.e. moderate Leftwing Socialism as opposed
to Rightwing neoliberalism masquerading as Centrism. Why can’t you see that?
We need a third vote on Corbyn, I think that’s fair.
How can he carry on like this otherwise ?
I have never seen the Party so divided.
If we have a third vote, you’ll want a fourth one.
Our party wouldn’t be so divided if it weren’t for people like you trying to stir up division. You know you’re in a minority. You can’t demand that everything goes your own way.
Progress is the only real hope for Labour.
Sooner or later Momentum and all the people they have influenced will see this.
Our time will come. #StayInLabour
Richard, it’s Progress who are deliberately trying to divide the Party. Are you saying that Owen Smith’s decision to sack himself right at this particular moment isn’t being divisive? Why can’t you just be truthful about it?
It does indeed. But there is hope, Progress will save the Labour Party. The real party, not the fellow-travellers.
Progress will do no such thing because Progress is completely outnumbered. People in Progress need to learn that life doesn’t always go their own way.
Sooner or later it does. Once Corbyn is gone the way will be clear. We can rebuild the party on the basis of true socialism.
But Harry, it is true Socialism that Corbyn & McDonnel represent. The post-Blairites that Progess supports, people like Owen Smith, are Rightwing neoliberals, that’s not true Socialism! Why do you think that Corbyn is not a Socialist? I don’t understand your views at all. The very reason I am prepared to vote Labour again is precisely because Corbyn has steered the Party back to it’s Socialist origins.
Progress talk a lot of nonsense.
Yes, all very confusing double-talk from the post-Blairites:
https://www.redpepper.org.uk/the-rise-of-post-blairism/
Another interesting article, Trev. Two thoughts:
1) Blair was right for his era – these things change
2) I never, ever believed that Owen Smith was a leftie. Nor Sadiq Khan. Yes, at times they try to come across that way, but it’s always obvious where they really stand. You just take a good look at their faces and body language and you know what they really think. Failing that, their stance on Corbyn’s leadership is a dead giveaway.
Owen Smith started off under Corbyn as welfare spokesman. It was obvious to me that his attitude wasn’t that different from the Tories’.
Corbyn is a “true Centrist”:
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/centrism-is-bust.html
Another interesting article.
I find that so-called “centrism” isn’t really centre-ground at all. It tends to be all about what’s popular with the wealthy elite. Celebrities are exactly who it aims to please.
It is usually very neo-liberal, extremely pro-EU and very international in outlook, It advocates interfering in other countries in order to save the world. The Bob Geldoff type of thing (celebrity again).
“Centrism” tends to be very apathetic on austerity, welfare, jobs and public services. It will often argue that the British poor are not a priority because poverty is much worse overseas.
Nick Clegg and the tuition fees really demonstrated the whole problem with this ideology.
There was the scandal of English students paying three times as much as foreign students from within the EU in order to attend the same university in Scotland. Nick Clegg’s defence of such an injustice was that other EU countries might sue for discrimination if their students had to pay any more than the Scots. However, he completely overlooked the fact that English students might ALSO have a case for discrimination and he didn’t seem to consider it his job to stand up for THEM, despite the fact it’s English families who have been paying taxes in our country for decades.
The other problem with tuition fees is that university is education and most of today’s under-18s will go through it. Therefore, it should be treated as a public service. The argument that many more students go to university nowadays doesn’t really wash when you consider that the government already pays for the primary and secondary education of every child in the country.
It makes some sense for students to pay fees if their families are based in other countries. If graduates and their parents do not pay into the British tax system, it is right to ensure that they make a contribution to the cost of their education. However, for British students, it really is absurd to take the cost of their education and turn it into a personal debt. It’s a bit like making children take out loans to fund their primary school education. This is clearly a public service that should be funded by a central tax system.
People like Nick Clegg claim that free university is a subsidy for the rich, but this completely ignores the fact that rich people (ought to) pay a much higher level of tax.
Also, I do wish we would clear up this confusing “affordable” terminology when it comes to housing. The word “affordable” has been widely misused in order to mislead the public into thinking that market-price housing is somehow equivalent to council housing. It is not.
So-called “affordable housing” is nothing more than an overpriced product labelled as having 20% off. It brings new-build housing into the same price-range as existing housing stock of an equivalent size. It’s a bit like taking the latest i-Phone, putting a ridiculous price-tag on it and then claiming that it has a 20% discount. It does nothing whatsoever to link incomes with housing costs.
So why do we talk about “affordable housing” when we DO mean it? Can we at least preface with “genuinely” in order to keep the public aware of how widely the term is misused? Or else, can we find a new name for accommodation whose costs reflect wages rather than prices?
1. Dodgy Czech
2. Russian statement
3. Debbie Abrahams
4. Russian Hat
5. Owen Smith
6. Jewish Mural
#StayInLabour
Ha-ha! Are these six reasons to stay in Labour? Debbie Abrahams is.
lol, you’re grasping at straws there Gary, hats, Russians, & Czechs indeed! Hilarious. 😀
P.S.
You forgot to add Michael Foot’s invisible Donkey jacket to the list, you know, the one that didn’t even exist and was entirely made up by the Rightwing press, hahaha!
And these too Gary.
7. Brexit
8. Universal Credit
9. Beard
7. Brexit – a Blairite would alienate all the Labour leave voters, many of whom would then vote Tory
8. Universal Credit – do you really think a more convincing opponent would come from the right of Labour?
9. Beard – I hope you included this one as a joke, Maz! ❤ Beards
Jeremy Corbyn is the “figurehead of an anti-Semitic political culture” and there are “no safe spaces” for British Jews within the Labour Party, a top community leader has warned.
Being opposed to Israeli aggression is not the same thing as being anti-Semitic.
Well no one is forcing you to vote Labour Garry, if you’re not happy with what they’re offering or what they stand for then perhaps the Labour Party is not for you. Try the Conservatives instead, you might be happier with them icontinuous Austerity, Universal Credit, low wages & foodbanks is your bag .. personally I’ll be voting Labour though as I am opposed to those things and not so easily dissuaded by trolls and their slurs. It’s up to you.
Yes, I am also confused. We have #stayinlabour and proclamations of “we won’t be kicked out”, yet the same people are campaigning against our leader and denouncing much of our membership as communists, etc. I hesitate to encourage anyone to leave our party, lest it should be interpreted as some sort of pressure to go, and I value diversity of views, but I don’t understand their thinking. Maybe they’re of two minds themselves.
Well whoever said that is clearly making a mountain out of a molehill. The Jews barely get a mention in day-to-day politics. The race that attracts all the controversy these days is the Muslims.
This kind of thing is going to follow Corbyn all the way up to 2022. We need a new leader. #StayInLabour
Too right Malcolm. Corbyn has got to go before he takes the whole Labour party down with him.
It’s just one blunder after another.
I know one thing Malcolm, I’m not being forced out of the party after 20 years by a ragtag of communists and chancers. #StayInLabour
“I’m not going to be forced out of the party by a ragtag of real Socialists” more like.
We’re not being silenced or forced out by an elite clique of Blairites, either.
Nobody is forcing you out, Dave.
N.B. We’re not communists.
Nope!
This whole jewish business once again brings the party in disrepute. Makes us look like fools in front of the public. Momentum not saying much, not had their script written yet ?
#StayInLabour
We don’t have scripts, orchestrated responses or spin in Momentum. That’s all very Blairite. We’re an authentic, grass-roots collection of individuals.
I expressed my personal view a bit earlier: we must not put up with anti-semitism in the Labour Party (or anywhere else). I respect the fact that some people have been offended, but I do find their reaction a little over the top.
We must not overlook the steep rise of islamophobia in wider society.
Script, schmipdt. It’ll all blow over, & if not there’s plenty of Muslims who’ll vote Labour.
Labour MP Louise Ellman, former chair of Jewish Labour Movement, says the party is in crisis:
“Jeremy Corbyn has failed to take the correct action… it’s taken us to get to this crisis situation where you can hear the voices of the Jewish community in absolute fury and great distress… Jeremy has failed to act… we’re in a very bad place.”
Why are you constantly trying to undermine the Labour Party Garry? Why don’t you ever attack the Tories? Who’s side are on? This is Class War, it’s us or them, there is no middle ground.
Yep, you all talk like you’re Tories.
If the mainstream media and the Blairites put as much effort into attacking the Tories as they do into trying to smear Corbyn we might actually get somewhere.
Exactly.
Happy Easter everyone.
Don’t forget there are lots of services taking place at your local church over the next few days.
Yes, though it can be a bit disturbing if you live in a mousehole at the church. I suppose they are going to do that thing again where they all sing, and then somebody serious gives them a talk about something ?
But if you have any spare biscuits or sandwiches, do leave them discreetly on your way out. They won’t be wasted.
Happy Easter !
Oh, Churchmouse, I don’t think you’ll want anyone to discover the location of your mouse hole, otherwise that might be the end of you! There was a rumour that some other members of your species have been living it up inside of a sofa in the priest’s room…I think that sofa has been removed now.
This week, it’s been more about walking around looking at pictures of Jesus and His Cross, rather than listening to long talks. Did you hear the pretty music – and our best attempt at singing?
We were told that homelessness is London has risen by 23% over the past year. But the other humans aren’t too keen on my membership of Momentum. Hm. Seems they have a bad reputation. I only joined to support Jeremy Corbyn.
Alison, I’m only a mouse, but even I know that you must do what you think is right. Don’t be put off just because some other humans are making a lot of noise. I wondered what happened to the sofa in the priest’s room. It was quite cosy in there on a cold night, a pity really.
It would help you know, if the church let us have some straw and perhaps a small nesting box, in a quiet corner somewhere.
We wouldn’t bother anyone, and are we not all God’s creatures ?
Churchmouse, I know you like to make out that you’re above politics, but I think you secretly understand that we need someone like Jeremy Corbyn to offer something better for our country.
I don’t know where the sofa went, but you’re lucky you got out in time.
It’s the wrong time of year for straw in little boxes and I’m afraid we’re a bit too far away from true equality among all of God’s creatures. Some humans will be frightened if they see you running about after dark.
You must have noticed 80 homeless humans sleeping there once a week. Now that the weather is warmer, they have to settle for a doorway – you’re lucky you haven’t been thrown out as well!
Even without a little box of straw, you can share in the Messiah’s experience of life with no room at the inn.
But Trev, I think the problem is, looking round outside the Labour Party, people are concerned that this whole hard-left image is going to lose the election. An absolute disaster for so many people. Then the Tories will have another 5 years to finish off the remains of the welfare state, and privatise the NHS.
It would help if Corbyn had a deputy leader, with the general idea that after a couple of years in power he would hand over to a successor.
It’s the Rightwing & the media who have gone out of their way to portray Corbyn as being ” Hard Left” with all their childish slurs about Czechs, Russians, & even hats, when in fact he is a moderate & a Centrist in its truest sense. Only the Rightwing neoliberals would see Corbyn’s policies as being Hard Left.
Yes. The number of Labour members who voted for Corbyn versus Burnham/Kendall/Cooper shows that Corbyn is not considered extreme by most people.
I’m not keen on leaders who stand aside to deputies because the deputies tend to be poor performers in elections. It is important for a leader to go through the process of winning a leadership election and then being voted Prime Minister by the general public. Otherwise, we end up with Theresa May/Gordon Brown types: good in important positions as deputies but poor when it comes to appealing to the general public.
But Trev he has a long history as a radical. A lot of people see this as hard-left. It’s no good his supporters complaining when he keeps on making these mistakes. Look what we have had in the last few weeks. The Russian poisoning, Corbyn’s controversial response. That idiotic hat all over the media. Debbie Abrahams & Owen Jones. The Jewish mural scandal. It just goes on and on like a circus.
I have to agree with John Harris, Corbyn at least needs a younger deputy to offset some of this. Take some of the burden of the leadership off him.
Ohhhh dear…*sigh*…at the end of the day you can eithersupport Labour or support the Tories. As I’ve said before, this is all-out Class War and there is no middle ground, it’s us or them. And the more you continue to constantly attack. and slur Corbyn the more you are supporting our enemy, the evil Tory scum.V (and no one with a brain gives a monkey’s toss about anyones hat ffs)
Exactly! As I’ve said before, people have no home, no food and no toilet paper. Do you think they care about Jeremy Corbyn’s hat?
Some of you just want to get rid of our elected leader. You have been trying to oust him since the day he became leader.
No leader is going to be squeaky clean. No matter who it is, if you do enough digging, you will find something.
I do wish those of you who support/belong to Labour would spend less time undermining our leader and more time supporting him. Try making a list of all the good things about him for a change. Try posting something positive about Labour on the internet for a change. It’s no good complaining endlessly. Eventually, you’ll stop seeing the wood for the trees.
Who’s going to be persuaded to vote Labour by post after post about how bad you think our leader is? If you want Labour to win council seats next month, try telling the public why you’re so determined to stay in Labour, not all the reasons you don’t like it.
Why don’t you talk about how bad the Tories are? At my pensioners’ coffee morning today, we were talking about how dreadful it is that the police service is being cut back so much. The general public are unhappy about what the Tories are doing, not who runs the Labour Party.
PS.
Corbyn may yet be vindicated for his calm & measured response to allegations of Russian Nerve Agent poisoning. It’s not proven yet but it may not have been a nerve agent or the Russians, it’s looking like it was botulism food poisoning from buckwheat cereal! In which case Corbyn is owed an apology, as are the Russians, and Theresa May will have to resign.
If I were miserable enough, I would make a list of all the bad things about Theresa May. It would double the length of this webpage and bore you all senseless.
List-makers out there, turn your fire on the Tories for a change. It’s an open goal.
Yeah, a Deputy Leader Of The Opposition. And it should be a woman ideally, for gender balance.
So long as it’s not Diane Abbott. Glenda Jackson would have been good.
Is this you, John Harris, reporting from an estate not far from me in 2012?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z3R840GeA4U
Even then, top of Mr Ordinary’s agenda was leaving the EU. Shame Labour wasn’t listening. What’s changed? Still deaf on the EU.
I joined Labour a year after that film was made. I realised that apathy was losing me benefits and services.
But I live in private rental. Even now, Labour doesn’t come knocking. We seldom even get a flier. Wrong postcode. Written off as wealthy housing when in fact we’re poor people in tiny flats who can’t get on the housing list – or got on the housing list and got housed in private rental, which is allowed nowadays.
Meanwhile, Labour pound the streets of council estates, which are full of rich homeowners and Polish people (who can’t vote in general elections anyway). Towers in a central location, overlooking a park. All over the estate agents’ books. Council housing in name only, THANKS TO MAGGIE.
After a year of rising homelessness, the government is going to restore Housing Benefit for 18-21s.
If the Tories can avoid a Brexit disaster, and use Universal Credit to achieve so-called ‘full employment’ . Labour are going to have a real problem in 2022.
Universal Credit is a (very costly) shambles and a monumental disaster for all concerned. Do you think anyone affected by UC is going to vote Tory? Everyone on Benefits, the unemployed,the sick, disabled, low-paid workers, all the staff & volunteers at every foodbank, all the Council workers, teachers, NHS staff, and anyone connected with the Arts, everyone in the North of England, will all without a doubt vote Labour.
I agree with the gist of your comment, Trev, but “everyone in the North of England” is probably a little optimistic!
Some people will vote Tory simply because they want to leave the EU.
Well, most of the North anyway. You can virtually guarantee that absolutely no one in South Yorks. will vote Tory, same goes for Liverpool probably too, and most of the North East. Personally I think Brexit/EU will take a back seat to Austerity, Universal Credit, Benefit cuts, Sanctions, foodbanks etc. People have had enough.
Hopefully you’re right, Trev. I think Labour should focus on saving us from austerity and Universal Credit, instead of clamouring to have a second referendum or stay in the Customs Union or whatever. Corbyn definitely has the right idea. As for people like Owen Smith, they seem to have gone off on a tangent to try to overturn the public vote, both about Europe and about who leads the Labour Party. As for being trusted on the economy, if we ditch everything in favour of beating the Tories on economic credibility, we’ll soon BE the Tories and we’ll offer nothing better to the British people.
But Trev, they are still not really trusted on the economy. And all this Russian / Communist stuff does nothing to reduce this.
Plus it remains to be seen what Labour are going to do about Universal Credit and the whole welfare issue. If anything.
I don’t think Labour can take it for granted that everyone is automatically going to vote for Mr.Corbyn.
Oh, so a great big coup and shake-up at the top is going to improve our prospects, is it?
If you want to improve Labour’s chances, go post some leaflets in time for next month’s council elections. Or post something positive about Labour on the internet.
What Russian/Communist stuff? I think you need to stop reading the Sun & Daily Mail. Got any criticisms of the Tories?
But it’s not a disaster as far as the Tories are concerned.
It has been more expensive and delayed than they hoped.
But they have destroyed old-style unemployment, destroyed old-style disability benefits. Forced a situation where even the sickest are made to work. Put every claimant under strict control and discipline. Torn up the social contract that had lasted 70 years, and all in the space of two parliaments.
Theyve wrecked every aspect of Society. All the homelessness, foodbanks, suicides. Disgusting bastards. Whilst the richest people have increased their wealth by 300%. People won’t easily forget what the Tories have done.
And now they have sacked the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders. Why? Because she had a policy of BELIEVING EVERY VICTIM, against the alleged perves and molesters of the Establishment.
I don’t think the Tories can escape the Dickensian consequences of Universal Credit, full employment or not.
Homelessness in London has risen by 23% in one year.
My church has started collecting for the local foodbank.
Schools are having to hand out sanitary products to their pupils. Basic sanitation. Here in Britain in the 21st century.
The public do care about these things!
I know someone whose operation has been cancelled three times in a row, due to a shortage of beds. Each time, she was only informed on the day, having fasted the night before and having turned up at hospital. The latest time, she was in her hospital gown when they cancelled her operation, just minutes before it was due to begin. She has paid her taxes all her life. Now she has been in pain for months and she is still waiting for her operation.
Too right. I don’t hold with the view that Corbyn is above criticism.
It’s going to be neck and neck in 2022 unless Brexit turns out to be a real disaster.
Try criticizing the Tories instead then Richard for a change. Stop undermining Labour and scraping the barrel to try find ridiculous reasons to smear Corbyn. You lot are just doing the Tories job for them.
Talking about ‘Class War’ only aggravates the middle-class voters who will be essential if Corbyn wants to win. Blair knew this, and acted accordingly.
Left-wing hysteria, the Red Mob, is really off-putting to a lot of the general public.
Fuck Blair, I want a Revolution. It’s Class War alright, make no mistake. 50,000 deaths due to Tory welfare reforms. EAT THE RICH.
Waving the red flag of revolution is going to spoil things for the Party, before we get to the election. It’s aggressive, and it’s simply puts the average voter right off.
So does all this whingeing about Jeremy Corbyn.
A little Leftwing aggression is quite justified and to be expected in the face of the outright brutal savagery of this vicious Government.
Class War ? Rampaging yobs in the streets ?
I don’t think so.
Who’s rampaging? Who’s a yob? What a slur!
We’re not “rampaging on the streets”. We’re sitting on our phones having a civilised DEBATE about the best way to go out and VOTE.
Want to see yobs rampaging on the streets? Try Syria.
Go back to your ivory tower.
OK, David, I see that Trev said something that might explain your comments about street violence. So sorry to have misunderstood.
This forum is getting really confusing.
I never said anything about rampaging yobs, but if that’s what Tory policies eventually lead to, i. e. the total breakdown of Society, then no one should be surprised. The Class War is not something that I am declaring upon them, it’s what is being waged against us, and is what we are fighting against.
Sam, I’ve just read your comment again. I don’t think we were calling for a revolution!
Sorry, Sam. Yes, Trev did call for a revolution.
I disagree with him there.
But why should the Party have to put up with a second-rate leadership ? Do you know how many people have resigned since Corbyn took over in 2016 ?
With Debbie Abrahams and Owen Smith, it is 99.
99 resignations, just let that sink in.
Corbyn is steering us to disaster. Only Progress can save the Party. #StayInLabour
And membership has increased by how much, half a milli on?
New Labour’s spin machine continues to spin faster and faster, but no one is listening anymore.
Actually, who says they’re New Labour anyway? Perhaps they’re Tories.
Miliband was a third-rate leader but I never heard you complaining then. Funny that, isn’t it.
They complained more quietly then, but they did complain. Not about hats but about bacon sandwiches. We were told the sandwich lost him the election. Utter drivel.
If Corbyn was filmed eating a bacon sandwich no doubt they’d accuse him of anti-Semetism. Good job he’s vegetarian!
Good point, Trev! It might offend the Muslims as well.
I liked the fact I saw Jeremy Corbyn chopping vegetables before an election, whereas the other politicians rush to eat/drink all manner of unhealthy things and claim it’s their daily grub, only to get into power and rail against the obesity crisis.
It strikes me that Progress is talking down the Labour Party, on this forum at least, not trying to “save” it.