Last week, I wrote about Islington woman Ann Sparling, 47.
Ann lives in a 4th floor Islington council flat with her daughter, who is 15 and her son, who is 17. Ann has serious osteoarthritis in her knees. She’s had surgery several times. She walks with crutches. She is in constant pain.
There is no lift in Ann’s building. She must use the stairs to leave the building.
Ann can’t walk up and down these stairs. She recently stayed in the flat for 41 days straight, because her knees were bad and she found the stairs impossible. Occasionally, on a better day, Ann’s children help her down the stairs so that she can go outside. They hold onto her as she walks the steps. Ann’s children are her carers. They help her in and out of the bath and do the shopping, and so on.
Ann lives in fear of fire, or an emergency, because she can’t leave the flat by herself. She’s trapped.
I went to see Ann on Sunday. These are the stairs that she is expected to navigate:
Ann first asked Islington council to move her to an accessible flat three years ago. Nothing happened.
Last week, when people started tweeting this post, things started to happen – after a fashion. A council officer called Ann to collect her details and note down her difficulties. The council sent Ann a form for an occupational therapy assessment.
That was a start.
Ann’s problems will only be solved, of course, when she is moved to an accessible flat.
The council was reluctant to give me a timeframe for that, or to get down to specifics.
Any specifics, that is.
I asked the council several times how many sick, disabled and elderly people are stuck in the isolated and potentially lethal situation described here. I’ve asked the council about this several times.
This is crucial. Since my last post, people in different parts of the country have been in touch to say that disabled family members have indeed been stuck in inaccessible flats.
Ann says that the officer who spoke to her last week wondered the same thing: “[the officer said] it makes you wonder how many people are in the same way.”
Islington council refuses to answer questions about the number of people in Ann’s situation. Nor will the council say what plans it has in place to make sure that people who live in inaccessible housing can get out in an emergency. Does the council even know who and where everybody in this sort of situation is?
I think that the council does not.
The council sent me the usual We’re In A Housing Crisis statement – as opposed to answers:
“London is in the grip of a major housing crisis…There is a desperate need for secure, genuinely affordable housing to help people in very difficult circumstances…The council is doing everything it can to help tackle this problem and help residents into safe, genuinely affordable homes…” etc, etc.
That, as I say, is a statement, not an answer. I know London is in the grip of a housing crisis. Problem is that disabled people and people in poverty are expected to take the deadly fallout.
It’s a fire risk as much as anything, how’s she going to get out of the building? Whatever happened to Landlords owing a ‘Duty of Care’ ?
Precisely. And how many other people are in this situation?
Sounds as if this could be a subject for an FoI request. At the very least this would put the council in the position of denying the request, or simply admitting that it just doesn’t have the figures required – neither position is a particularly positive one for the council.
Whilst it may be arguably somewhat tasteless to mention the tragedy of Grenfell, the people in this situation are equally vulnerable. and could also so easily, and so needlessly become victims of some disaster. Grenfell, and this situation are directly results of government, both local and national, not listening to the concerns the people who live in social housing. One has to ask the question as to whether these kinds of situaitions would arise at all if it were tenants in control of their homes and not bureaucrats who don’t have the first clue.
It is all about money, not about human safety or even about human health, (apart from the Parker Morris standards used in the 1960s, most people in social housing of very pokey dimensions) which I consider to be a scandal.
Perhaps contacting the local MP might make some waves? I don’t know what part of Islington this lady lives, but whether it’s Islington North or Islington South, both have pretty heavyweight MPs who claim to have the interests of people like Ann’s interests at heart.
Time to test this?
Me and trev will protest outside the building, Alison can provide the care , Paddi can tackle the powers that be while Kate deals with highlighting the issues.
Just need a decent name maybe ” The Bruised Angels” ?
Haha, the Dole-ite Martyrs,you can be King Dole 🙂
Lol yes Dole-ite Martyrs it is, I was yearning for another moniker to add to my collection, just a case of convincing those at the JCP now that they should respect my title and act accordingly. From what I gather that is how the other lot did it.
Kindly enlighten us as to the meaning of:
1) HRM
2) K.O.D. – is it “King of Dole”? Trev has already taken the kingship. You could be the queen?
HRM=His Royal Majesty .
Is that the pleb’s version of His Majesty or His Royal Highness?
HRH =Her Royal Highness
HRM =His Royal Majesty
Not really understanding your point to be honest how do mean is that the plebs version ?
King = His Majesty
Prince = His Royal Highness
His Royal Majesty? Never heard of it!
His Royal Majesty (formal) A title of respect used when referring to a king.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/His_Royal_Majesty
It is a moot point now, I abdicated.
Technically, we’re not all on the dole.
You could be King Dole. That’s a good name. I expect Sourchimp would like to style himself as Reverend or Doctor Dole. I’m not being Queen Sick, though.
Good luck finding the train fare to get to London!
On a more practical note, what about starting an online Parliamentary petition? If there are enough signatures, MPs have to debate it.
There is a Bus from Derby to London often at times it cost £1 there and £1 back
https://www.sn-ap.com just a case of getting it the right time.
I used it last year going to Leysdown on the isle of sheppy to see a mate, right dump it was, stayed in this so called villa in a disused holiday camp over looking a filled in swimming pool where a child drowned.
I had heard about Pie and mash but not Pie and liqueur until then.Wont be going back that’s for sure too many cockneys for my liking, bro lol
When does this bus run? 3am?
What did you expect them to drink on the Isle of Sheppey at that time of day? Polish beer?
I’ve heard parts of Derby are a right dump, too, and you can buy a house there for £1.
The bus runs various times at off peak times is when it is a £1 and when I went there was only 2 of us on bus both ways.
Yes Derby like most Cities has run down areas.
Was confused by your remark on drink then realised why.
Maybe I have spelt it wrong but pie and liquer is some sort of greenish looking gravy they pour over the pies made from the leftovers after they have boiled jellied eels would have thought you would know that.
Oh, yes, my mistake. I’ve never heard of Pie and Liquer.
You would’ve thought I should’ve known it? Oh, no! Slap on the wrists!
I have a lot of swotting up to do before I become an expert on all things Cockney.
N.B. We had pie and mash at our local cafe once and there was a green sauce – must’ve been the “liquer”.
Yes you can buy houses and businesses for a token £1 up and down the country and Derby is no exception.
Good luck finding a house, flat, room, garage or sewer for £1 anywhere within 50 miles of London.
There was a protest about mouldy tower blocks few years ago, not too far from me. The residents draped banners down the sides of the buildings. I’m not sure what happened. Now we have lots of empty 1960s blocks being demolished and replaced with private housing. I guess you can’t win.
N.B. The phrase is “Trev and I”.
Sorry Trev and you ! 🙂
@Sour Chimp and Alison.
First of all, Sour Chimp, I am sorry that you had to endure a trip to the Isle of Sheppey, nobody should have to go through that ordeal – LOL.
To both of you, pie, mash and liquor with a side dish of jellied eals is an old cockney staple dish from sarth London. The liquor is a sauce made from butter, cornflour, chicken stock, chopped parsely and garlic
Thanks will not be returning anytime soon if I can help it, the people were friendly enough and some parts of the island were interesting, I am sure there is a banksy in a world war 2 bunker at the end of the island if you know the area, be interested to know if it was. And only used to swimming in the north sea it was surprising how warm the sea is down there.
But where I stayed it was depressing sight ex holiday park let to go into decay and the villas converted into flats.
Despite all the seemingly poverty what really caught my eye was the amount of £50 notes everyone seemed to pull out the wallet, hardly ever see £50 notes round here and if you do happen to try to use one often most local shops will not take them and security called lol
Unless you’re Mike Ashley, a £50 note usually means money stored outside of a bank account. Possible reasons include:
– because you don’t have a bank account;
– so you can keep claiming low-income benefits;
– because you’re getting paid in cash for working in the grey/black economy.
My mum always seemed to have £50 notes floating about after she retired. She didn’t know or want to know how to use a cash machine, so she had to go to the bank in person to take out money from her account. Then the shops phased out cheques and she didn’t want or understand debit cards. So a trip to the supermarket involved carrying cash. She had to spend £50 in the supermarket in order to get a free home delivery. So she’d buy 3 weeks of groceries at a time, pay £50 in cash and not have to worry about carrying things home with a painful knee/hip/back and a duff arm…Yes, I did shop for her in the end.
That makes sense I guess, it is known as a retreat for criminals.
Thanks for that, Andy!
Liquor tasted good when I tried it.
An online petition is a good idea, but you need to get at least 100,000 people to sign it, and for some reason, petitions dealing with issues such as this don’t seem to attract much support, especially, it would seem, from those who stand most to benefit from supporting them. Don’t quite know why this is, but I’ll hazard a guess that many people in dire straits feel so ground down and depressed, plus don’t believe that anyone cares that it results in an understandable state of apathy. Government and landlords know this, which is why things like complaints processes are so circuitous and long winded etc.
However, petitions on their own aren’t really enough, as there is little that can replace direct action, trouble is that most people claiming benefits don’t want to rock the boat because, whether real or imagined, they understandably believe their security could be under threat, and when you’ve got next to nothing and your whole life depends on what is a pretty unreliable UC derived income stream that could literally be stopped or fail, then perhaps there are more immediate concerns.
But this shouldn’t stop us, as it’s always good to talk about these things, and share ideas, and who knows, other people might start to take an interest.
I like all the name suggestions, but I’m unsure how Dole-ite Martyrs would translate into Welsh! (Though ‘Merthyron y Clwt’ would come close. I was involved in a group called Sgint a ways back which did a fair bit of picketing outside various Jobcentres in Valley towns, which was quite a bit of fun. We also provided support to people who wanted to appeal, or just someone to accompany them to an interview with their advisor – it’s amazing the effect of someone in a suit turning up with a claimant has on DWP advisors, especially when it appears that you know more about DWP regulations than they do!
I’m not technically a claimant as I’m living on a legacy from my father, but my standard of living isn’t much different from someone on UC. I’m hoping to be able to get some kind of job, but the prospects aren’t that good for a 61 year old long-term unemployed person, unless I’m really lucky and get taken on by the council’s employment agency and get short term contracts with them. Maybe my Welsh language skills would help, as there are an increasing number of jobs where being able to speak Welsh is essential and given the nature of most people doing that kind of work for the council in Cardiff, they are usually just passing through on their way to a much better job in the National Assembly or with some other government agency or the media. I certainly don’t relish the prospect of going on UC.
I certainly have no issues in being able to deal with the powers that be, I have certainly made a real pain of myself on occasions, and have involved Welsh Assembly politicians when faced by inaction and in one case, blatant incompetence by my landlord when a friend suffering from an episode of mental illness was just allowed to deteriorate despite my contacting them, and them just dismissing it as ‘anti-social behaviour’. It’s amazing how fast housing associations act when they think they might be under direct scrutiny by a housing minister. Works every time! You can deduce from that that I’m no respector of official complaints procedures, as they take well over a year to exhaust, and that’s far too long.
Whilst on that subject, anyone see in the news that the government seems to have suddenly started to take poor people seriously, announcing a new strategy to abolish homlessness and also to revise communications between social landlords and tenant in Englan ? The cynic in me is wondering why, and if this is the start of a charm offensive because the Tories are thinking of holding a general election? It just seems really odd that after 8 years of bashing the poor, the sick and disabled that now they seem to to be doing something of a U turn and seeking to curry favour with us plebs.I’m suspicious, very suspicious.
So we got the North, the South, the West and the Midlands branches sorted just need the Eastern branch to give a shout. I am very much for a principled non violent direct action but very happy to rock boats and sail close to the wind against the powers that be, whoever they are, in order to seek justice.
Yes it is often best to go straight to the top in any fight than go through lengthy time consuming processes and MP.s are supposed to work for us so always worth getting them involved, everyone’s more interested in covering backs than solving problems nowadays.
I seem to have knack. I noticed last week that a Tesco store a few miles away were selling a brand of cigarettes for £7.50 YET my local Tesco has been selling them for £8,00 since January and the only other store close by which is a COOP sells them for £8.00 as well.
So yesterday I saw the manager in the store and asked why there was such a huge difference, he mumbled something about they charge differently in other stores, so my parting comment was a cynical person would say your running a monopoly with COOP.
Well blow me I went to the store today and the cigarettes are now £7.50 !
I must be saving thousands of ££££££££££ to the community and now considering if it is worth a email to the CEO asking for a token refund having been overcharged since January.
I sincerely hope there are signs a general election is on the horizon, my crystal ball a few months ago predicted October but that was probably more borne out of desperation.
The only way to solve and stop many homeless issues is to remove benefit sanctions and that does not appear to be on the cards as far as the conservatives are concerned.
I’m intrigued that you’re buying full-price, fully-taxed, fully-legal cigarettes, unlike most of the smokers round here!
I buy from reputable dealers only ensure quality, there is a lot of fakes floating about.
To be honest I can actually detest smoking tobacco but it increases the amount of THC released if mixed with Cannabis as opposed to just smoking a pure joint and helps to reduce the amount of cannabis I use if I did smoke it pure.
If Cannabis was legalised I would probably stop smoking tobacco altogether and take up vaporising Cannabis.
It costs roughly £4 an ounce to produce and a ounce of Cannabis and that would last me comfortably 2 weeks if smoking using without tobacco.
Cannabis has anti cancer properties so it seems to kill any damage the tobacco might do.
Sourchimp, I respect your personal choices. However, beware that the anti-cancer properties of cannabis are unlikely to entirely reverse the damage done to your lungs by smoking two substances on a daily basis.
I know habits and addictions are very hard to break. The NHS offers stop-smoking services and so do Boots and most pharmacies. The statistics show that you’re more likely to quit successfully if you have some help/support, rather than if you do it alone.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stop-smoking-treatments/
https://www.boots.com/smoking-cutting-down-advice/smoking-control-cutting-down-service-selector
You are correct that vaping is much less damaging to your lungs than smoking. I wouldn’t recommend cannabis to anyone, but, as an existing user, it could be worthwhile to gradually move from smoking cannabis into vaping or hash or oils. That would better protect your lungs from the damaging effects of inhaling smoke all the time.
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/cannabis-the-facts/
https://www.talktofrank.com/drug/cannabis
Many other things have anti-cancer properties, not just cannabis. Just the other day, there was an article in the news about how vegetables of the “brassica” family (cabbage, brussels, kale) release anti-cancer chemicals into the colon as you digest them, reducing your chances of developing bowel cancer:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45171651
I wonder if you’ve been eating your 5 a day? If not, perhaps you’d like to try growing your own vegetables? Or tomatoes?
My mum grew a tomato plant from a seed in a supermarket tomato once. It grew from a seedling to the ceiling in just 6 months! She lined the inside of a cardboard box with a plastic bag and put soil from the garden inside. She put the plant in a south-facing window. It produced lots of cherry tomatoes, which my parents loved! (I didn’t like tomatoes at the time).
How long does your £7.50 of cigarettes last you anyway?
Time to quit?
I haven’t seen a £50 note for donkeys years, wasn’t sure if they still existed!
Forget the cigarettes Chimp, rolling bacci is what you need, much cheaper in the long run plus you can sometimes get Duty Free now & then.
Yes, Trev. Sourchimp is one of very few smokers not tempted by Duty Free. You don’t have to roll your own to go Duty Free, of course. I’m not encouraging anybody down that path – I’d encourage you all to quit! It’s just that it seems a near-universal practice among people I know/have known/see/have seen/heard talking on the bus….
The only time I smoked rolling tobacco was one of several visits at her majesty’s pleasure when I was sewing mailbags to pay for it, civvies were a luxury then. I also find rolling tobacco too damp with bud and goes rough and bitty if allowed to dry out too much.
I am not ashamed of my time in prison it was very much an unforgettable experience for various reasons but if I explain one occasion was me telling the judge to fuck off after telling me to sell my synthesiser I had just brought which my excuse for not paying to pay a fine for riding a pushbike with no lights or reflectors. If you can imagine how Vivian would look and react from the young ones as I was led down, that would be me.
I have also been a Russian soldier in a prison of war camp, during WW2 always remember being driven up to the gates, getting off the bus and being confronted by barbed wire and German guards.
I was then led through to a billet where I had to change clothing and then they shaved my hair and extremely long pony tail off.
Sourchimp, are you seriously telling us you were a prisoner of war during World War 2??? That would make you about 100 years old now!!!
Yes I was a prisoner of war during WW2 and I accurately described my first experience of entering the camp.
The following day a few hundred of us were all herded into a large hall where some other prisoners dressed up in drag and put on a cabaret show.
We were all given cigarettes and told to puff up and make as much smoke as possible. Then I had to shout at the top of my voice “get em off” What I failed to mention however was this was as an extra in a film called jenny’s war.
And the annoying thing was I was in real actual prison when it was aired on TV so I never got to see it.
As the film was a flop it was it was never shown on TV again, since the internet began I searched online for any clips but nothing, but then 2 years ago someone posted the film online you tube and finally got to see myself although the quality is poor I knew exactly where I was stood during filming.
I got an extra £20 on top for having to have my hair cut and losing the pony tail, never did grow it back.
OK That makes more sense.
Next time, bike safely.
Talking of transport I have been looking into getting small pony rather than a dog as a companion and house train it, I have seen some that would fit in my flat not sure what they like with stairs though.
So if I do go to work it solves my transport issue extend my range and easily park it up with some hay.
Unlike dogs I would not have to pick up its mess, no tax or insurance and it is legal to ride a horse drunk or stoned.
Sounds like a tv advert.
If it’s small enough to get into your home, I hope you don’t weigh much!
Thornberry or Corbyn. Have actually copied Thornberry into correspondence with the council leader & deputy for housing etc. Will escalate it with her if the council doesn’t move itself.
FOI is the only answer to the wider questions for the reasons you outline.
I don’t think it’s tasteless to mention Grenfell. I think that disaster is on a lot of minds and rightly so. That can’t happen again – to one person, to ten, to a hundred. Ever.
I reckon this isa major nationalproblem. We don’t need high rise flats,we need thousands morebungalows for a growing elderlyppopulation.
Ha-ha-ha! Good luck finding space for bungalows, Trev!!! Good luck getting past the NIMBYs. We can’t even get an airport runway built! We’ll have to send our olds over to Poland to live in a self-build amidst the mushrooms and wild garlic…
What we REALLY need are LIFTS!!!
Sheffield recently heralded the fact they were solving the homeless problem by converting £20.000 shipping containers into basically pre fab bungalows.
Theirs a subliminal irony to that solution.
I’m not in favour of skimping on the quality of new housing. As Padi rightly says, it’s relatively inexpensive for our country to build proper housing. The high cost is in the land.
If we get social housing built in shipping containers, Kate will soon blog about grandmothers in windowless shipping containers suffering poor insulation from the cold and struggling to pay high heating bills, with no second entrance/exit in case of fire, no sunlight, no space for personal possessions, no space for the grandchildren to visit, etc. We’ll soon be asking ourselves why we lowered our standards to the point that we allowed the poor to be housed in shipping containers! What does that say about our values as a country? The Queen lives in a castle while ordinary families have to make do with a shipping container!
I think ordinary people deserve decent quality housing. If we have space for shipping containers, we have space for a few flats. Lets build proper housing and give our working people some jobs in the process.
Poland’s out, as the UK is allegedly leaving the EU, and besides the atmosphere towards immigrants in Poland is turning quite nasty.
Building the new runway just adds to the housing crisis, as there will be a need to demolish a lot of good housing to build it, and it’s doubtful if it’s really needed. Why not increase capacity at other airports around the country – the Welsh government would be cock a hoop to have some flights directed to Cardiff Wales Airport as they effectively nationalised it a few years ago and it’s costing us rather a lot of money as tax payers. Besides which, after Brexit who is going to be able to afford a foreign holiday, or endure all the queuing at customs? It’ll be back to holidays in Back-Garden-On-Sea again!
Low rise flats, no more than 4 storeys high with reliable lifts and high tenant involvement in management in a real sense. Ideally bungalows, but they take up a lot of space, and there is nothing inherently wrong with the ‘skyscraper in the park’ notion, just so long as the park is delivered, and the skyscraper has a 24 hour concierge service and lifts that work ALL the time. That would work well for all except those with families who need low to medium rise with plenty of green space and decently sized gardens.
NIMBYs are always a bit of an issue, but not an insurmountable problem. At the end of the day, any competent council could deal with NIMBYs in the same manner as they currently deal with poor people who they are about to evict who are protesting – they ignore them. At the very least NIMBYs are not facing losing their homes.
Alison, I know there is a shortage of such bungalows as my sister and her husband are in desperate need of one. She is registered disabled after having a brain haemorrhage about 20 years ago, and now (in her early 70s) also has Lupus so her feet are badly swollen and she has difficulty wal;king and getting up/down stairs. Her husband is 79 and has Emphysema. I’m trying to help find them somewhere syitable but it isn’t easy because there is a shortage of suitable dwellings AND they are both very stubborn and set in their ways and resistant to change, reluctant to move, even though it makes sense as they can’t keep up to living in a 3 bed semi that they’ve lived in for 50 years, kids all now flown the nest, garden front & rear to maintain, steps up to the garden path from the gate, stairs internally up to bedrooms/bathroom. If they will consider moving (which they will have to soon) then they’ll want somewhere not far away from the same area that they are used to but places are very limited.
Of course, bungalows are very popular and, in an ideal world, we’d all have one in our old age. It’s just not practical when there’s so little space to build on. Ground-floor flats for the disabled and flats several storeys above would make better use of the available land.
My late mum lived in a second-floor flat until she died. It was OK because she had a lift that always worked.
It’s not always practical for elderly people to move house. It’s physically and mentally demanding, even for a young person. I feel we often lose sight of the importance of the family connection. Sometimes a child needs to move back home, even for a short time. Sometimes a spare bedroom is required for a carer or for family members providing live-in care. Family homes need to be versatile enough to cope with these changes. It is not practical for people to move house every time there’s a change of circumstances.
Of course, suitable and accessible housing needs to be available to all. We need to sort out the housing supply for our own elderly people before we let in the rest of the European population to compete with us for our dwindling supply of housing.
It is madness trev, it would only take a little joined up thinking to ensure for every family social home there should be a bungalow available when children have fled the nest and folk are ready to downsize, this would free up properties for the new generation.
And I can understand the reluctance to move to move in warden controlled flats I want to keep my independence as long as possible.
I hate flats they are not good at all, we are all too crowded in, we all deserve a garden and some space.
We can’t all hate flats, Sourchimp. Where would we live?
If everybody were to get a bungalow, we’d need ZERO immigration! A pull-up-the-drawbridge system!
You say you want to get rid of our fields and open space, so that we have enough housing for ALL the people who wish to come here. I went walking in an open space yesterday and had a think about that.
I go to a field on a hill and sometimes walk in a meadow with cows in it. That’s the only way I can sort out my thoughts and find a reason to keep on living. Where would I be without these open spaces? Dead, that’s where.
So I will do whatever it takes to protect these sacred spaces from anybody who threatens them, including the pro-immigrant, pro-European, pro-bungalow lobby like you.
I am not proposing we urbanise the whole of the UK, but think Alison rather than a few dejected looking cows staring back you will see a sea of telly tubby style homes with many people from many cultures waving back, smiling at you.
No thanks. I’d take the cows over the humans any day. I need somewhere to get away from the endless human faces. N.B. Europeans don’t smile at strangers. They GLARE!!!
In the first instance it’s the Council to blame, but this situation could also be seen as part of the wider effects of Austerity, for which the Tories and 40 years of neoliberalism are to blame.
“Neoliberalism is to blame for the state of modern Britain”
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jh2-QlG2bl0/W3GTXUSSUSI/AAAAAAAAHCA/mIgrj8tx6v0RFT_Ff-zXCJgkhcSeCr1XwCLcBGAs/s1600/Neoliberalism%2BBankers%2BCrisis%2BAusterity%2BBrexit.png
“…..Probably the biggest factor of all is the Westminster political establishment’s ideological obsession with hard-right neoliberal dogma.
Ever since 1979 neoliberalism has ruled the roost in Westminster. The only period in the last four decades where it’s not been Tories pushing hard-right, pro-privatisation, anti-worker, social housing wrecking, bank deregulating neoliberal dogma was 1997-2010 when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown pushed the same ideological madness, but with doses of welfare economics and public service investment to soften the consequences of their adherence to Thatcherite economic dogma.”
“…..However, when the Lib-Dems enabled the Tories back into power in 2010 the Coalition government immediately set about implementing an audacious strategy of prescribing the cause of the financial sector crisis as their so-called solution to the crisis.
So instead of a much needed rebalancing of the economy away from hard-right neoliberal dogma, the Tories actually doubled down on neoliberalism with their ideologically driven austerity agenda.”
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2018/08/neoliberalism-is-to-blame-for-state-of.html
and
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2015/04/austerity-is-con.html
It is also the fault of the developer for not putting a lift in a 4-storey building. What was he/she thinking? How would people move in and out? What would they do about elderly and disabled residents and guests? What about big suitcases? What if someone bought a new sofa, mattress or bed? At the very least, it would be incredibly inconvenient for the residents!
I agree the council needs to act, be made to act and be punished for not acting.
Transport for London ought to get on with installing lifts in busy stations. Modernisation ground to a halt when we lost Ken as Mayor.
5-storey building, I meant to say.
The developer can only really be held liable for not delivering a contract, and if the council specified a five storey building without a lift, then that is what the contractor is obliged to build or be in breach of contract.
Very rarely are things such as convenience or even ‘livability’ come into play when designing homes for the poor. Even the most enlightened of social landlords seem to be dominated by the idea that people graciously allowed to live in social housing should be grateful for what they get.
It’s all about money, and this won’t change until we have a society that basically denotes that land has no intrinsic value, can be owned by no-one, (which means that it is owned collectively, and use of it decided collectively) and that housing is a fundamental right of the citizen, so no rents, but rather a tenant pays for the cost of the build, and then once that is paid of, a smaller sum to pay for the upkeep. That might all sound a bit alien, and though land having no intrinsic value hasn’t been a reality since probably hunter gatherer times, the ‘no rent’ model of social housing was that proposed by Ebenezer Howard when championing the garden city concept – and I think it was even applied in Letchworth, though I may be mistaken. He wrote a book about it, which can be downloaded for free here:
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24228177M/Garden_cities_of_to-morrow
We clearly know that neither the state, or the capitalist market system can adequately provide the housing we need so perhaps it’s time to try a different approach so that we get the kind of housing we need.
The Statehas a responsibility to provide housing because they seized the Common Land and burnt down our hovels during the Inclosures and created a nation oflandless peasants.
And they would’ve chained you up in the stocks for having no job.
Hm. That’s an interesting point, Padi.
Lots of low-rise council blocks near me have no lift. They’re only 3 storeys, but that’s still too high for the disabled and very inconvenient for luggage, buggies, furniture, etc.
I guess lifts did not feature in the planning of council housing. That needs to change.
It’s the council at fault, in the 80’s they sold off loads of council properties and never rebuilt new properties. This was the biggest mistake of any government ever. Affordable property is a con by developers, they start by saying so many affordable but just get the number lowered after they start. Buyers stayed in the 3 years then moved on some kept the property and let it out others sold it to reduce the amount of a new mortgage. Some that kept upgrading ended up back where they started in an ever-dwindling stock of council housing.
There was an item on local tv news yesterday saying that in Yorkshire some Councils had met the Government target for house building, a few of them have exceeded it, and others are behind. I think it said Leeds Council have missed the target by 16% but they are saying they want the Govt. to allow them to borrow money to build Council houses that people can afford to live in.
“Affordable” housing? IT’S NOT REALLY AFFORDABLE ANYWAY!!!
That’s because of the way in which social housing is financed. Housing that ordinary people can genuinely afford isn’t profitable for developers, which is why Ebenezer Howard and others like him adopted a different funding model. Housing shouldn’t really be about making profits, or it being a financial asset, but it being a basic human need. It shouldn’t be beyond human whit to take the average human life span as a basis for calculating how much a decent living space can cost and still be easily affordable for even the poorest worker, (so long as a society’s minimum wage is genuinely enough to live on, and not just survive, (and the UK’s min wage doesn’t even cover that). Add the costs of maintenance and perhaps a percent or so for admin costs and it should be possible to arrive at a figure as an average that needs to be spent to provide a citizen with a home, which they then pay off a number of years. Even though they will never own the property, it could be arranged that ownership is transferred to a trust in perpetuity and the rents, instead of going to graping landlords, is used to support a very localised welfare system. It’s not my idea, but the original idea behinfd developments like Letchworth Garden City and other similar developments around the world. Maybe if the nazis hadn’t come into power in Germany in the mid 1930s and WW2 hadn’t happened we would have had far more of these kinds of quite radical ways of providing homes for people of modest means that isn’t owned by either private landlords or the state – both of whom ultimately are law unto themselves. About the only slight exception I would suggest is in a situation where we had real local democracy and where social housing (which should be as Nye Bevan originally conceived it, as for everyone, no matter how rich, or poor they were) is something that has to remain publicly owned in perpetuity. For people who really have a burning desire to own their own homes, and many people do, not because it could be an asset, but because it gives people a wonderful feeling of freedom. Anyone should not only be able to aspire to owning their own home, but to affording it too. Even in places like London not so long ago there was a scheme that allowed people of modest means to both build and own their own homes at relatively low cost using a building method that should be, in my opinion, more widely utilised.
http://www.segalselfbuild.co.uk/projects/waltersway,lewis.html
Those homes are no longer cheap to buy and of course also now have a kind of chic appeal, but the way they were built and how affordable they are to build, as well as being essentially easy to build could offer a way for more people to own their own home. Land prices are crucial, as they were in the case of these homes in Lewisham (well Honor Oak Park actually, not far from the station), as they were built on land that no developers wanted as it was relatively small, and on a slope with trees.
There are lots of ways of providing people with decent homes that they can genuinely afford, but we don’t seem to be too good at doing that in the UK. Denmark as huge developments of co-operative housing and in Vienna I think something like 60% of people, of all income groups, live in social housing. Most social housing in the UK is pretty damned awful in terms of how it’s built and its design, and architects that want to design social housing projects have to go abroad to Europe if they want to see their designs built. There have been some really spectacular schemes built by architects in the past. such as the Byker Wall, and the estate where this video was filmed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQntAabtNuE
Yes, you are correct Alison. Affordable housing isn’t really affordable, and in reality no housing for ordinary people will ever be affordable if capitalist economics are allowed to hold sway. I once was chatting to a friend who worked for a housing association as a housing officer, and he said that the notion of affordability is decided by people like barristers, who earn at least £300 per hour – this informs ideas about affordability. I also remember some years ago when I was involved in the tenants movement in Wales where affordabilty was being discussed – Shelter Cymru was of the opinion that it should be no more than 25% of an average income, but the Welsh Tenants’ Federation was of the opinion that it should be no more than 15%. I knew who I supported. Housing has to be paid for, but decent housing should last several people’s lifetimes, so perhaps it should be paid for over that kind of period too? That way rents could be both easily affordable, and not need any kind of subsidy.
I think “affordable” should be based on how many £s a low-paid household can pay on rent without going hungry or taking out an overdraft/loan. It doesn’t seem sensible to use a % of a wage – it should be determined by subtracting the cost of groceries and bills from a typical low wage (perhaps the minimum wage). The calculation for a 2 bedroom home could be based on expenses for a couple with one or two children, whereas the calculation for a studio flat could be based on a single person’s living costs.
Valid points Alison, but the saner system I suggest would provide rents that would be affordable to everyone as the payback period would be over at least 60 years and could be more, thus allowing rents to be very low. Of course, on the other hand, at the moment people on the minimum wage aren’t paid anywhere near enough. If you look at places like Norway, even very menial jobs pay enough to live a decent life on without having to work three jobs and unsocial hours, but then they have a culture that is work to live and family focused and also quite egalitarian. We could learn a lot from the Scandinavian countries.
More than anything my comment was more of a debate starter, but I wanted to suggest that any scheme should have it that there are no subsidies, as they can be taken away, and also can lead to the kind of scroungers rhetoric we are all too familiar with.
1 person in this situation is 1 person too many. How anyone can live with themselves knowing someone is in this predicament is beyond me.
Prisoners get to leave their cells each day,some have lifts for wheelchairs and those with disabilities are often on the ground floor so for Ann the situation is far worse in that regard.
If it were me I would make paper air-planes throw them out the window asking for help to go to the shops if no one else was available eventually it might embarrass someone into taking action.
I did shopping for my neighbour when she was housebound and I expect Ann’s son and daughter and neighbours would do the same for her.
The problem is social isolation, lack of exercise, loss of dignity and inability to go anywhere. For example, my neighbour is a Quaker and goes to Meeting on Sundays and Tuesdays. She no longer had the opportunity to practice her religion when she couldn’t go out. She also needs daily exercise to keep up her circulation, legs and general health. Plodding about on the landing didn’t provide enough exercise for her. The week the lift broke down was a week of sunny and warm weather. She wanted to go out!
A lady who used to live across the road once took a tin of paint down to the Housing Department and started painting over all the windows because she was so fed up with being ignored by the council!!!!! (No I don’t recommend that course of action, but it sounded very funny.)
I think everyone has snapping point, I remember a farmer who sprayed the council building with cow dung and another who did the same to a bank.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1370620/NatWest-pays-dung-protest-farmer-300000.html
Seems like they are suggesting to improve the tenants health is cheaper and more cost effective than to improve access in the building but how long will it take for that happen, if at all, and all the time sat unable to leave the building unable to fend themselves relying on help that might not always be there.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! That farmer story is a funny one!!! I wonder how far he got on his tractor before the police caught up with him!!!
It sounds like you reached your snapping point at your last Universal Credit seminar. I have some sympathy with that. They do try to scare people senseless at some of these seminars, as if that will motivate people to get a job.
When’s the dreaded Universal Credit seminar you’re supposed to go to? Don’t bring any cow dung!
Next Tuesday is when they expect me to attend the group session. I have several options open to me and each option does not involve sitting through the crap they want to waste my time with.
Here is thing it goes just a bit deeper than just sitting through some crap talk.
I have been excused from Job searching along with others to attend this talk, now nowhere in law does it say that this is a condition for obtaining benefit.
We would all agree they would look rather silly if I was sanctioned for refusing to be taught how to claim Universal Credit,
The whole point of this exercise is to off load the responsibility of dealing with claimants as cheaply as possible.
During the session they will pressure folk into signing up to some shit pointless useless course under the illusion they will lose benefit if they do not agree in order to secure EU funding to keep their own failing business propped up.
Those that sign up take the pressure off the JCP.
All these contracts will end in 2020 if we leave the EU and these businesses will have to wind down and be looking for work themselves.
A last gasp bite at the cherry to make money for shareholders by stealing from the EU under the pretence they are helping.
It is part of the stealth plan to entirely privatise the welfare system.
So I am in a way fighting for the work coaches jobs they should be applauding my efforts.
I am sure when I tell them I am the King of the Dole they should respect that and allow to me go home after demanding to sign on before the course starts and I refuse to be complicit in this scam and will inform everyone in the room while at it.
Ok good luck for next Tuesday. If you’re going to show up anyway, maybe just sit through it and keep your mouth shut?
Thanks, hopefully relying on more than luck, I appreciate your concern.
Look at this
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/506707/response/1211890/attach/html/2/986%20Reply.pdf.html
This is the reply and acknowledgement that they have now closed the Job shop (I wonder why ?) and also the unlawful form has now been deleted and no longer exists, what a surprise.
But what is more telling is this sentence,
“Any incident in DWP premises regardless is reported and investigated
appropriately. ”
No where in the request was it ever asked about any incident and clearly they have let the cat out the bag as to whom they have spoken with.
This Jobseekers direction is in retaliation to me having them close the Job Shop down but they missed the fact I have it on record I am not suited to group information sessions.
This is why it is so impotent that I fight the JSD/GIS however trivial it might seem to others this is harassment.
Sourchimp, I think the “incident” sentence is an attempt to answer your question about insurance.
It is possible that is what they are referring to but I have my doubts.
There is a lot to be said about non-violent direct action. When it becomes obvious that trying the officially sanctioned methods of getting redress fail, then what alternative do people have? However, anyone contemplating doing such things as painting slogans or painting over windows needs to consider is that it would be quite possible that they’d be charged with criminal damage – not that I’m suggesting that this is allowed to deter anyone from going down that route, but to suggest that they include this possibility in their game plan and take full advantage and use it as an opportunity to heighten awareness of the issue(s) involved. Better still to let the target organisation aware that you are aware of this, and then perhaps they may get of their backsides and actually deal with the original complaint, and not go down the legal prosecution route fearful of bad publicity.
However, this kind of action should be something of a last resort when all other avenues have been thoroughly exhausted.
Good point, Padi.
In this case, the lady was already known to have problems. She needed help and they knew she needed help. As Sourchimp put it, she reached her “snapping point”.
Oh agreed, and in cases such as this where it’s an isolated individual then this is going to happen as a spontaneous event.
Really it would be better if there were campaign groups up and down the country who exist essentially to help people negotiate the system who have a set of procedures in place that they work through that can escalate to act of non-violent direct action where it is warranted.
I’ve been a member of a group that operated in this way, and the procedure was initially to try to take the most reasonable steps possible, such as writing to the organisation, arranging face to face meetings and repeating this procedure for the first six months or so.
We’d then organise protests in the street outside their premises, (they were all well known high steet names) and we’d keep the pressure up on them by putting out press releases and holding our protests at weekends when news is thin on the ground, that usually got us a spot on local radio, but also occasionally on TV too. As part of these demonstrations we’d also collect people’s signatures on a petition, which gave us a chance to explain what the protest was about, and what we were about as a group. If the company still refused to budge, we’d escalate actions, and perhaps go out in the wee small hours and spray slogans and out movement’s logo on the company’s windows or steel shutters.
Some even then still refused to budge, so we had to think of a way of escalating it further; we started to superglue the locks so they couldn’t open in the morning.
Some tried to hoodwink us by saying that they weren’t profitable enough to yield to our demands, but we were ahead of them, and had checked up on how profitable they were at Companies House! So we knew if they could afford to pay for what we were demanding. in one particular campaign we ultimately had to escalate it to the level where we were going around in broad daylight supergluing shop doors of the company’s branches so they couldn’t shut at closing time – that was really hairy, but it’s quite amazing how no-one notices if you do things as if it was a perfectly normal thing to do -weird! All I can say of that particular day of action when two of us started in Swansea and worked our way across South Wales to Cwmbran was we just didn’t get caught or even challenged. Truly bizarre, and both of us thought we might get collared for it, (which we’d use to our advantage).
Soon after that the company yielded to our demands realising that doing that was much cheaper than trying to battle it out – though they also lost a lot of trade when we explained to potential customers the policies of the company that we objected to – many people decided there and then to go and shop somewhere else.
The above is pretty extreme, and most of our campaigning got results after a picket or two, or even by visiting the shop concerned and explaining things. The important thing to remember at all times is that actions are against organisations, not individuals, (though if indivuduals make stupid or contentious comments, they become fair game for a response) and violence against people is completely out of the question.
Yes, Padi, I remember those protests well. I stuck to the slow and steady march to Westminster, but I remember seeing on TV the bin smashing a bank, the sit-in at a luxury shop, etc. At the end of our march, we discovered the Ritz Hotel had been vandalised!
It was a very effective nationwide campaign. I’m still aware that Boots is not an ethical company and I’ve never been to Top Shop since!
I think this is very unacceptable.
I mentioned before that my neighbour couldn’t go out for a week because the lift broke down. I’m pleased to say the lift is fixed and she’s going out again.
When I was growing up, my childminder told me she knew someone who lived at the top of a local 24-storey council block and couldn’t go out because the lift didn’t work.
In theory, it must be possible to sue the council for failing to make adaptations to a building so that it’s accessible to disabled people. The council could fit an external lift (there are a few on private houses in wealthy parts) or a stairlift, if the stairwell is big enough.
Yes I agree there will be surely something somewhere that makes this situation unlawful I am sure. If not it should be.
They do/used to do free legal advice in my area once a week. There is/was usually a housing lawyer available.
Of course, you’d need to be able to get outside to attend!
It might help if the Tories at least spent the money that has been set aside for housing. The Tories caused the housing crisis. They have refused to build sufficient council homes. Now as we learn this week, ‘Housing Secretary Sajid Javid is facing fresh questions about his leadership after it emerged he failed to spend huge sums of affordable housing cash for two years running.
The Tory minister surrendered a total of £292m allocated for desperately-needed affordable homes over the course of two years, despite the country being in the grip of a housing crisis.’ I’m not why he didn’t spend the £292 Million, perhaps he was taking part in some sort of ministerial competition ?The one where you try not to spend your budget for the year, and the department which gives the most back to the Treasury is the winner.
Over £800 million earmarked for housing returned to treasury.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/10/housing-budget-817-million-unspent-astonished-mps
How can that be justified? I suppose the MP’s salaries & expenses have to be paid somehow, and the House of Lords champagne bill doesn’t pay for itself…never mind that people are living in inadequate housing. All those poor people and disabled need to jolly-well pull their socks up. Neoliberalism at its best.
Don’t forget MPs’ 11% pay rise. They had no trouble finding money for that!
No home? Get on yer bike…
I don’t suppose many Tory homeowners want to see house prices fall. Surely it wouldn’t be in their interests to increase supply!
Many of them don’t believe in council housing anyway.
Note that “affordable” is not equal to “social”.
Must this person be at the top of the list for rehousing? Not if the council have anything to say there will be many suitable 3-bed ground floor flats or bungalows that are suitable but she will be on a list and possibly has to bid on any property and she and her siblings will come after all the immigrants who get these properties just because they come to the UK for what they claim to be a better lifestyle.
All human beings have a tendency to try to improve their lot in life and I always ask myself if the tables were turned would I be any different.
Good luck I say to anyone and everyone we are not the problem it is the the few that are that control the majority of our wealth and lands that are the real enemy.
It’s not fair if someone comes from an existing family house in Poland and gets a second house, this time in England, while British families are living in B&Bs/sofa-surfing/living in a car.
Yes, BRITISH PEOPLE SHOULD COME AHEAD OF IMMIGRANTS!!!
When do we leave the EU? I do wish we’d get on with it.
Instead, politicians want a second referendum.
Not just politicians Alison, more and more people are seeing that Brexit is an extremely silly idea.
Immigrants don’t get any kind of priority, as social housing allocation is needs based, and it only appears that migrants get housed before ‘local’ people, and that appearance is carefully nurtured by the likes of the Daily Mail, UKIP and the extreme right.
If there was enough social housing there would be no problem at all, indeed, in the heyday of the 70s it was very easy to move around the country because there was plentiful social housing and people could do swaps, or transfers. That can’t be done now, sadly, and that is the basic cause of the crisis in social housing.
IMMIGRANTS ARE NOT TO BLAME! DON’T SUPPORT THE EXTREME RIGHT – DON’T SCAPEGOAT IMMIGRANTS!
Padi, I’m not supporting the far right, but I’m not going to bury my head in the sand either! The way the social housing system works is that anyone from anywhere in the EU receives the same priority as British people. Therefore, a disabled child can come to Britain and get housed before a British non-disabled child. It’s a fact.
We don’t have enough space to build social housing for everybody who wants to live here. We need to give priority to those already here.
We’re not going to solve these problems by pretending they don’t exist.
As for Brexit, I only know one regretter and he’s more of a not-sure-what-I’d-do-now. While the remainers by and large want a second referendum, the vast majority of leave voters still want to get leave, as passionately as ever.
There is more than enough space to provide social housing for everyone, less than 10% of the land area of the UK is built on, and that includes the road network. It’s really just a matter of political will.
And the idea, which someone might also suggest, that we can’t afford it is equally misleading. The UK is a phenomenally wealthy country, easily able to afford an adequate amount of decent social housing, an unconditional basic income and state pensions at age 60 for all. It won’t happen, because most of the population are stupid enough to believe the crap peddled to them by the likes of the Daily Mail, dodgy right-wing politicians.
I don’t care if someone from Europe has an equal chance of getting social housing in the UK, as if they are here, it’s likely they are working, paying national insurance and taxes, which entitles them to the same treatment as UK citizens.
As a sceptical Remainer, I want more than a second referendum, I want to see the whole stupid project abandoned, as it will be a disaster. And anyway, it’s likely that within a very short time the UK would be reapplying anyway, as the demographics within less than 5 years will be overwhelmingly pro Europe.
You may well think you don’t support the far right, but you seem to have embraced both their rhetoric, and their reasoning – that’s precisely how they work, gradually shifting the agenda so that their anti immigrant agenda seems more and more reasonable.
Padi, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the EU.
I agree with your point about there being money for social housing, just not enough political will. I also agree that I wouldn’t blame an individual for accepting work in another country and making use of the public services there.
However, I disagree with you about available land. It may be that a statistician found a way to show 90% of our land as “available” for building, but that includes gardens, parks, playing fields, farmland, wind farms, even the space between blocks of flats! There may be space in North Wales and parts of Scotland, but we have reached capacity in London and the Home Counties. We need to limit the future growth of our population.
I don’t read the Daily Mail or the Daily Express or the Sun. I get 98% of my news from the BBC, both on the TV and on the BBC website. I have been known to read the Guardian on the internet, as well.
The BBC is nothing more than a propaganda machine for the establishment ?
You would have to look deeper than the BBC for the real truth, that is for sure.
But lets say immigration was stopped overnight, what about the illegal immigrants, they will still come.
Lets say we managed somehow to stop those, then population will still increase, the problem of overcrowding and lack of homes will still be with us.
Unless you decide then to deport everyone not born in this country but then all these vital services that rely on migrants would collapse.
So then you would say limit the number of children we all should have but then we find the younger generation are working to pay for a majority ageing population and you only have to look at china to see where that could lead us.
The 60 million acres of the UK are broadly comprised of 42 million acres of “agricultural” land, 12 million acres of what is called natural waste (mountains, bog, moor and so on) and six million acres of the urban plot (houses, shops, businesses)
We could triple the amount of available land for homes if we took 12 million acres from agricultural land and used vertical farms and instead of going back to vertical homes.
Local stores can grow vegetables on the roof and sell fresh in-store, we can grow clean meat in labs again freeing land. We are only limited by our imagination and the political will.
1) No I don’t believe in factory farming. Animals are entitled to walk in a field. If their field is too big for the preferences of the migrating human population, perhaps the migrating humans wishing to live in their field should go somewhere else instead.
2) Human beings need open space. It’s necessary for our mental health.
3) Nobody is talking about deporting all the foreigners already here. Nobody is talking about ending ALL immigration. Why do pro-Europeans view these things in extremes only? I am talking about a sensible policy going forward: an end to Free Movement. A policy for EU citizens more like the policy we already have for people from outside the EU. We don’t have NO Indians coming here, just because they have to undergo checks and conditions!
4) Why SHOULD we lose our “waste” land so that people from other countries can choose to come here? I’d like to keep my local heath, commons and parks. I think I’m entitled to that. My preferences should come before the desire of people from other countries who wish to come and live here, or to buy up our housing for investment purposes only. For a start, people need somewhere to walk the dog. They are our open spaces and we were here first! If our country is getting too crowded, we need to limit future immigration.
5) We have such a low birth rate that it would be pointless to limit the number of children people can have.
6) If European countries are so desperate for young people to pay tax and care for the eldery, why are so many young people unemployed, underemployed and struggling to stay in work? Ask any young EU citizen and he/she will tell you all about how there are no jobs at home. We can only pay tax if there is work available for us to do!
7) While it is true that people need to pay bills, it is not very practical for young people to change country in order to get a job. They end up living too far away to provide care and support for their ageing parents. It makes the ageing population problem worse, not better.
8) Sourchimp, is there any media outlet that you approve of? Any source of “truth” other than your good self? Where do you get your news from?
“Sanctions and Homelessness: Universal Credit in Action.”
https://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/2018/08/14/sanctions-and-homelessness-universal-credit-in-action/
Yes, Trev, this is a dreadful story.
More about it here:
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/dwp-culture-sanction-universal-credit-benefits/
This is someone who really snapped recently.
http://nyebevannews.co.uk/a-young-woman-sets-fire-to-herself-in-tory-run-barnet-council/
Sadly, I’m not surprised to read about this. If my local housing department is anything to go by, council staff make you feel suicidal on purpose, in order to discourage you from:
a) asking for anything
b) challenging their decision-making
Suicide is a serious risk if you have any face-to-face or telephone dealings with your local housing department. A few years ago, there was a story of a woman who killed herself the day after she went to visit her local housing department. I had to go to A&E because I was suicidal days after visiting mine.
There is no customer service whatsoever at our local housing departments. They are staffed by sub-human beasts who love nothing more than to bully the general public. Poverty and homelessness are interpreted as signs of weakness. There is no accountability, no management, no professional conduct, no rules. Nothing is recorded. The culture is that all telephone-callers and all visitors to the housing department are scroungers.
If you work at any of our dear housing departments and you disagree with any of my comments, please do chip in and say so. I’d love to hear from anybody from any of our housing departments who actually gives a stuff about anybody they are meant to be “helping”.
More on this story here,
https://skwawkbox.org/2018/08/21/barnet-tragedy-unravels-string-of-suicide-attempts-in-council-offices-failed-security-alarms-not-working/
“security checks already in place because of earlier attempted suicides in the building.”
Seems it is not an isolated incident but the main stream media are just not reporting these cases.
It’s a shame the article deals so much with the health and safety procedures but so little with the BEHAVIOUR of COUNCIL STAFF that leads people to feel the need to kill themselves. My experience is that BULLYING has replaced any semblance of customer service and vulnerable people are considered FAIR GAME.
I received an eviction on my birthday one year. I walked down to the housing office and showed it to the “lady” (sub-human beast) behind the counter. She read my details and said, “Oh, is it your birthday today?” BUT SHE COULD NOT EVEN BRING HERSELF TO WISH ME A HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! That would be far too much a deviation from the requisite BULLYING. She could not bring herself to remove her eyes from the table/floor either, even for a second. That just might make me feel an iota more important than the nearest spec of dust on the floor.
What about New Labour 2 ? Get the old gang back, Tony, Gordon, John and Peter.
No thanks.
I think we’ve had enough of the neoliberal agenda David, that’s why we’re in this mess, and why Corbyn is our only hope of restoring some real Socialism.
Someone somewhere always wants to bring back Tony Blair.
Some people want to bring back hanging too, and NationalService. I’d like to bring back Nationalization, pre-decimal currency and Webster’s Green Lable.
The wider use of sanctions and the Work Capability Assessment were introduced under New Labour. New Labour let the problems with the current system slip in while they were in power.
In 2010, it seemed to me that all three main parties had identical plans for welfare: there were too many “scroungers”, so people must be made to do more for their dole. Nobody attributed the rise in benefit claims to the rise in EU job-seekers coming to the UK. Yet I know EU citizens. Many of them did and still do claim British benefits. I’m not blaming foreigners for our problems. I’m simply saying that more job-seekers brings more claims for Jobseekers’ Allowance.
But the fatal flaw in your argument is that EU citizens can only claim benefits for 3 months if they are unemployed, and if they don’t find a job in that time they have to leave the UK. Since 2014 EEA citizens have to have lived in the UK for at least 3 months before they can claim income based benefits, and even then they can only claim them for 91 days. Try fact checking Alison. There may be a handful of EEA citzens who have been claiming since before 2014 but they will be very few in number and besides, EEA citizens are here, by and large, to work.
Padi, you can see that I was talking about 2010. There were no limits on EU citizens claiming benefits then.
Don’t forget there are EU citizens receiving ESA, DLA/PIP, etc. There’s no 3-month rule.
Most people come here TO WORK or TO STUDY, but they don’t necessarily find a job straight away, especially if they have poor English. Before the time limits were introduced, some EU citizens did receive JSA for a long time.
Even now, you can work but also receive benefits, e.g. Housing Benefit. So people who come here “to work” don’t necessarily receive nothing from the state.
Also, in 2010, we were in the middle of an economic recession. Like many people, I lost my job and had to claim to survive. When employers began hiring again, they tended to prefer temporary contracts over permanent ones. There was an increased use of zero-hours contracts. There was a rise in claims between short-term jobs. There was also a rise in people claiming in-work benefits.
It seems like the government observed these changes but decided to blame US for the situation we were living through. How many times have I heard politicians, a GP, etc. saying we, the poor, need to “take responsibility for our lives”? What do they think we are doing?
“I have a job but I’m not earning enough to live on. I’ll try to claim in-work benefits.”
“I accepted a job but I only get 3 hours of work each week. I can’t pay bills. I’m in debt. I’d better give up this job and claim benefits instead.”
I know an EU citizen who accepted a job that involved one month of work for NO PAY, on the basis that she might get a paid job at the end of it. She had to resign after 2 weeks because she wasn’t treated well at all. She was working wearing gloves because the employer wouldn’t turn on the heating!
Shared on social networking and hoping for some updates with a positive outcome.Can’t disabled action organisations or advocacy groups speak up and put the pressure on ?
I’m sure they already do Jana, but really it’s up to people like us to speak up and put the pressure on. We can all e-mail out political representatives, and get our friends to do that too. Also, it’s quite easy to start a campaign on one of the online campaign groups such as Avaaz or 38 Degrees, and anyone can start a petition on the UK central goverenment’s dedicated petition site.
Ipswich Unemployed Action.
Campaigning for Unemployed Rights.
It’s Official: Nine times more people sanctioned under Universal Credit.
https://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/2018/08/17/its-official-nine-times-more-people-sanctioned-under-universal-credit/
The latest from Charlotte Hughes about the goings-on at Ashton-Under-Lyne Jobcentre:
“Forced to travel miles to attend a DWP mandatory course. Five month wait for Universal Credit payment. The system isn’t working..”
https://thepoorsideof.life/2018/08/16/forced-to-travel-miles-to-attend-a-dwp-mandatory-courseclaimants-not-informed-they-have-been-migrated-to-universal-credit-universal-credit-isnt-working-for-those-most-in-need/
“Bad landlords, bad communication, DWP intimidation. Universal credit strikes again.”
https://thepoorsideof.life/2018/08/09/bad-landlords-bad-communication-universal-credit-payments-stopped-with-no-explanation-universal-credit-strikes-again/
Must say was surprised when I read Charlotte was not allowed to run for the local labour council due to council tax arrears so much for the many and not the few.
Frustrates me when I read of some of the stories where claimants share their stories and can clearly see where they have been lied to and victims of blatant maladministration.
Thanks for these links, Trev. From the top one, I’d like to highlight something:
“We spoke to a woman that had been told that she had been migrated over to Universal Credit without her knowledge. She’s worried how she will survive. Would it not be too much to ask that the DWP inform all claimants at least a few weeks before they are transferred over? Apparently it is.”
Beware!
From the second article, I’d like to highlight this:
“As soon as I arrived this morning Roy was already there having a conversation with a lady that I hadn’t seen before. She told me that upon applying for Universal Credit she had been advised that there was no sickness element within the Universal Credit framework. Luckily she knew that this wasn’t the case so she appealed this decision and won. She stated that they were nothing but a ‘bunch of liars, and they push you from pillar to post’. To be honest, this isn’t unusual but it shouldn’t be happening at all.”
Perhaps our expert Sourchimp can clarify the rules on applying for Universal Credit if you’re sick? (If he’s not too busy preparing for his big day on Tuesday.)
That is a tall order Alison, I personally have been avoiding getting to grips fully yet with Universal Credit and my main area of focus and knowledge has been single JSA 24 years and older jobseekers and eventually 24 years and older Universal Credit Jobseekers that is who I am and will be by 2023 if its not scrapped and is what I need to understand more than anything else.
So though I have some knowledge of being ill and disabled on benefits and getting to grips with some elements of Universal Credit for my specific group which seems to be a moving target at the moment with all the patches they keep applying, I cannot speak with any great authority on the subject but surely can find the answer to specific questions.
I am sure you have far more knowledge than me about claiming benefits while ill/ disabled.
I am well prepared just sailing close to the wind tends to get the old adrenalin going even at the best of times but thankfully Cannabis helps me to remain calm and relaxed.
I have every confidence I can now go to my regular signing place and have the session cancelled before I was due to attend and allowed to sign on one to one with a work coach.
Once I have pointed out where they have failed in procedure and maladministration it is difficult to see how they could refuse.
You mentioned earier tha t you have a crystal ball, Can’t you get a sick note for that?sou nds painful.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
It’s one of the long-term effects of smoking cannabis. Either a crystal ball or the delusion that you have one. Also, the delusion that you were alive and serving time as a prisoner of war during World War II.
No I wasn’t suggesting any delusion, just expressing tes ticular concern. I have had a pas t life recall too
, ancient Egypt 1300BC, killed by a crocodile a t age 24. Saw It all.
I’m surprised all the bud hasn’t cured it yet.
Do you think the Bud would cure your beliefs ?
My “beliefs” are a sign of my wellness and vitality 🙂
Do you go back to the same past life trev or you have many previous lives?
Is it something you have homed in on and developed or it just happens without any effort on your part?
Only painful when I walk trev and the rattling gets annoying, I went to see the Doctor with it after it, he took one look he said it should clear up in future and refused to sign me off sick.
I feel like I’m having my leg pulled.
Exactly what I said to the Doctor, except in my case it was Bollocks.
Glad your sense of humour is still alive and well!
That one worked for you in your 2-3-hour row with the manager, didn’t it, Sourchimp?
How can you tell us that cannabis keeps you calm and relaxed if you feel compelled to leap up and make a scene every time a stupid speaker at a stupid seminar tells you something you disagree with? Calm and relaxed would be to park your @rse on a chair and shut the f up, just like everybody else does!
Alison I am calm and relaxed when I speak my mind, it is they that get stroppy and angry, they tend to have a hair trigger at any hint of dissent.
What about at the job room? Everybody else stood in a queue and traipsed around looking at job adverts in a calm and relaxed manner, but you had to make a fuss, demand to see the manager and refuse to go in! That doesn’t sound very calm and relaxed to me!
Alison they have what is called an unacceptable behaviour policy so I have to remain calm. I can assure you they would take any opportunity to spring that one on me.
Only have experienced access to that particular one, though I suspect I will have had several others. I simply asked to be allowed to see more, last thing at night as head sank into pillow, but you have to ask in the right way, and it has to be borne of an earnest desire to have further understanding and a yearning to gain a deeper awareness, rather than out of mere curiosity in a frivolous sense. I was deeply & heavily engrossed in the subject of ancient Egypt at the time, wiout th…phones going dicky….*without* even suspecting I had lived there. An OOBE ensued, and I was back there. That was in 2008 and I can still remember details of the experience. Have also visited the past onaouple couple* of other occasions but not my own pastlives so far as I am aware. Visited my GG Grandad in late 1800s, communicated at length & he revealed to me what happened to him & where he’s buried, which had been a mystery as he just disappeared from the records when we researching our family tree.
I had an early signing today at 9.0am , new adviser ive never seen before, no “job shop” bollocks, just a normal signing interview & I signed on the electronic pad instead of on paper like last time. He was a real stickler/jobsworth, asked me loads of stupid questions, what sort of work am I looking for, how long have I been claiming, have I recently left a job, do I need help with jobsearch, am I attending anywhere for help, blah blah fucking blah.Luckily I had printed off my jobsearch evidence, almost didnt bother as no one asked for it last time and Ias lead to believe that the so called job shop quickfire signing was going to be in place for the rest of Summer, but obviously it’s not. Had also been told I’d be signing on paper for a few weeks/months too but that is also bol cks.Lo I wish they would make their minds up. I don’t think they know wtf they are doing, unless it’s to deliberately mess people around & trip them up.
One word trev it is the JCP mantra “botherabilty” keep the bastards squirming and on edge.
Trev, I agree they don’t know what the f they’re doing, but well done for being prepared.
I wonder how His Royal Majesty is getting on at the Universal Credit seminar. He’s been very quiet since the weekend!
Had a horrible 36 hours to be honest, a woman was killed at the bottom of my road in car accident they had to close the whole shopping area off and men in white coats were slowing picking their way down the road which I thought was strange.
Then my daughter txt me told me it was her best friend from school who had died she was 8 months pregnant I knew her and family quite well, she would often come round to the house and play in the garden with her brothers, turns out she was scattered all down the street after falling out or being dragged from the car after the first impact, which explains why the chaps in whites coats were out they were looking for human remains.
Her brother died about 5 years ago in car accident he was in the back of a van he and his brother had stolen. It crashed into the river Derwent and his brother ran off, he was found the next day drowned, still inside the locked van.
Then some sick bastard posted some picture on Facebook of her remains so my mind has been elsewhere to be honest but he was made to take them down so probably another murder on the horizon if you knew the area in question, they are travellers and like to dish out their own justice.
Wow, very Sorry to hear that mate, it certainlyputs things into perspective when things like that happen out of the blue, its a reminder if we needed one of the fragility of life.
It surely does put things into perceptive trev, sad way to go, this is why I refuse to be driven anywhere unless I absolutely 100% trust the driver and that normally means me.
Had a problem with this a few years back when I was given a notified vacancy to apply for a job going up and down the country in mini bus dismantling shop shelving I explained I have Amaxophobia and cannot be a passenger in a car after being involved in a accident when I was not driving, they were having non of it would not drop the direction without evidence, like I could get evidence it happened 25 odd years ago no sympathy whatsoever, so I went to the appointment rather than fight them at the time and the interviewer rang up to cancel because they had an accident in the mini bus on the M1 on the way to do the interviews.
Strange thing is on my notes I am classed as disabled due to my colour blindness and fear of heights but yet they required no evidence at all for those.
It always seems so weird and arbitrary how someone can be here one minute and gone the next. I was in a bad car crash once but luckily unhurt, but it was weird how it happened, I knew the driver was going too fast and was starting to scare me so I put my seat belt on (I was in the rear of the car) and not 5 minutes later BANG! he crashed into a camper van doing a u-turn on a dark unlit road, it was like time stood still for a moment, eery, like over in seconds but at the same time in slow motion. The car we were in was a complete write off. Other times I’ve had a phone call out the blue to say a mate has been killed in a bike crash or something, just does not compute, you struggle to take it in. Someone can just be going about their business as normal and then a minute later it’s all over, for know real reason it seems, just human error sometimes or stupidity or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It leaves me feeling like the saying “There but for the Grace of God go I”.
We roughly the same age trev so as you know as we get older you lose a lot of people along the way.
I have lost friends and family to suicides, murders ,accidents all come as a shock but overtime I just accepted it was a way of life and inevitable so not exactly desensitised to death always hurts but I have learned not to dwell on it any longer.
They say death wears many masks I often wonder what mask it will be when my time comes.
Yeah I’ve lost loads of people over the years, everything from acciden ts to heart attacks, cancer, suicides. Bu t I do believe in life after death, and reincarna tion, so tha t helps me deal with it.
Speaking of Death a funny fact appeared on my twitter feed,
” Last year the Conservatives made twice as much money from dead supporters as they did from living members.”
But yep I would love to experience a past life some memory or other, I do think about such things and tried in vain to develop a third eye although like you with the seat belt I have a feeling for synchronicity and can use it to my advantage to avoid trouble get deja-vu now and again and like to self analyse my dreams when I can remember them.
As I said previously (I think) I find quantum mechanics can go a long way to answering some of these questions and read Jung more than Frued more often than not.
Sorry to hear about all this, Sourchimp.
Before I was due to attend the group information session (GIS) I went to the job centre and asked for the Manager. Previously I have asked for copy of ALL the data they DWP hold on me. About 1000 pages arrived through my letterbox.
I showed them the record they hold where the work coach who I had a previous problem with states that I was unsuitable for GIS .
Showed them the rules and regulations that state they must check beforehand before assigning anyone on the GIS for safety reasons.
Showed them where it clearly states in the rules,
35. Given this customers can object to being dealt with in a group
environment and this must be respected. Alternatives to the group session
should be available where requested for JSA customers only.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/123985/response/303663/attach/html/17/Group%20Session%20Guidance%2026.01.12.pdf.html
5. There is no mandatory requirement for claimants to attend a Group
Information Session and as such DMA action does not apply. If a claimant
does not attend their Group Information Session their claim must not be
closed.
Jobseeker Directions for Group Information Sessions
11. By law claimants cannot be mandated to attend a Group Information
Session by means of a Jobseeker Direction, unless the Personal Adviser can
demonstrate that attendance at the Group Information Session will:
assist the claimant to find employment; or improve the claimant to find employment.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/123502/response/300482/attach/html/4/3b%20Group%20Information%20Sessions.pdf.html
I said that at the moment I would like to keep it informal and ask if they could cancel the GIS and make other arrangements for me.
They went off for a while came back and said the manager who can cancel this GIS is not in today go to the provider and ask for a private session which put me on the back foot somewhat ,clearly this so called manager had no idea at all, he had the ability to cancel but I feel this is more a case of pride on his part not to yield so I told him I will be putting a full complaint as this was unlawful took his details and went to the GIS.
Now if I had some savings I am 100% confident I would win my case if I just went home at this point and probably would not hear anything about it again, it has happened before a few years ago when they threw me off a course for refusing to sign some papers.
But I need my money on the day so I always have multiple backup plans and knew for a fact that the provider would not offer me a private session the manager had got it all twisted it was for the JCP to provide an alternative method not the provider.
So I got to the door and had to buzz to get in went to reception and the first thing they said sign the book………..erm no……..you have to sign the book it is law…………..no it is not law………yes it is law you have to sign it…………..no it is not , do I have to sign a book when I go anywhere else like libraries, cafes , cinemas, jobcentres….. but if there is a fire……………..yes if there is a fire and I do not sign the book then no fireman will have to risk his life saving me but if I do sign your book and leave and forget to sign out then I will be breaking the law and putting the fireman lives at risk.
Generally at this point I can see cogs whirling in the back of their minds ……….OK so can I speak to whoever is in charge of the GIS please.
So I spoke to the chap explained that the job centre was failing its duty to protect him his clients and myself showed him the notes on my record that I was not suitable for GIS, I have undiagnosed O.D.D and possibly some more useful labels, and them shown him the regulations.
He said he will put me down as participated if I wished to leave,which I did.
The course was to last 90 mins where the recommended length by the JCP is 1 hour due to claimants getting listless it involved listening about Universal Credit (not a job market activity) and signing up to 2 courses from a list on a form they were handing out, now If I refuse to put my signature in their logbook what chance do you think they have singing me up to a course lol
They only get paid if I put my signature on the form.
So now I will send my complaint directly to my MP to pass onto the DWP and hopefully have it put on record that I am not to be referred to GIS in the future and an apology from the whoever set this up, they broke several laws and ignored regulations and maybe I will also push for a payment for the stress and alarm.
Essentially what is happening is due to staff shortages holidays, Universal credit courses and sickness (the DWP have the highest sick rate in any government department.) and lack of money, they are trying to offload the responsibility onto third party providers who can secure EU funding to pay for it, they are scratching each others back and defrauding the EU if the truth ever came out.
Lets say at this point if I physically attacked the provider or another client then not only would he be looking for compensation so would I.
Duty of care for all concerned,
I wonder what the courses are about that they want you to sign up to? Are they further information about Univeral Credit or standard job-preparation courses?
I take it from what you wrote that the trainer will write you down as having attended. Am I correct? If so, you were lucky!
If your MP investigates your complaint, presumably it will come to light that you were written down as attending when you did not in fact attend. Then the next time they’ll have to write you down as not attending and refer you for a sanction.
At work, they sometimes do mandatory training courses as well. They are not very good at excusing anybody, even when the course content clashes with mental health issues. Sometimes a person has to take the day off sick or sign in and go home. It’s a stupid system.
There are always characters at work who really RELISH telling everybody how the upcoming course is MANDATORY and you CANNOT be excused, even before any of us ask not to go! I don’t know what we can do about that, really. It’s an ugly part of human nature. In relation to the benefits system, we see this ugly part of human nature in all the commentary about how there are too many people “getting away with it” on benefits. They say people must be FORCED to take the very first available job, no matter how poorly suited it is to the applicant in question. They say people on sick benefit should be FORCED to return to work, whether they are well enough or not.
My religion attempts to teach people to suppress this ugly part of their nature and instead nurture characteristics like generosity and compassion. Often, the desire to punish others for “getting away with it” is rooted in envy. By acknowledging our own envy, we can unravel our resentful thoughts and try to become more compassionate, accommodating people.
It sounds like today’s trainer demonstrated compassion by allowing you to be excused from a group session you really didn’t want to go to. Considering he did the right thing, in your favour, I wonder whether it’s really fair to submit a complaint? It could get him into trouble for being nice to you! Maybe you could save the complaint for someone who DIDN’T show you compassion?
It’s no wonder that there are so many mental health problems about nowadays. My personal view is that there are more and more things we are required to do in exchange for our incomes and benefits. There is less and less flexibility if we really don’t like something. As I always say, the job is easy. It’s everything else: office politics, mandatory courses, away days, etc.
Nowadays, they even write you up for a disciplinary if you go off sick!
Not compassion Alison at all I refused to sign anything which means I was not a commodity any longer and would disrupt his efforts to get the others who attended to sign up.
There should have been 9 off us only 4 turned up so that’s a potential 5 claimants who could be sanctioned and 5 more numbers from the unemployment figures plus the savings they will make.
Not sure about envy Alison I see freedom as a flower and will be submitting my complaint asap.
I refuse to be captained by a ship of fools I asked this manager what could this GIS offer me and he could not say other than it will benefit you, how can he know it will benefit me if he does not know what it is about.
I started to go into my knowledge of the jobs market and when I came to saying what is the largest industry today I stopped myself and then looked at him for an answer…………..he looked fazed thought for a while you know what he said,
Construction confuckingstruction omfg he chose what could be described as the smallest industry that is in decline and crisis.
Sourchimp, construction is a thriving and growing industry because there is so much housebuilding going on.
It sounds to me as though you are desperately seeking to create drama and conflict in what must be an otherwise empty life. Let’s hope the Jobcentre oblige. Otherwise, it looks like you will have to resort to the sort of things that desperately lonely old people do to extract interaction from their neighbours. For example, an acquaintance of mine has taken to making complaints to his landlord because his neighbour has the audacity to turn on a light switch! He claims she has a loud manner of operating a pull-cord light switch. If he hears an isolated sound from the flat below, he gets out his hammer and pounds on his floor in the middle of the night!
Alison sometimes people treat others as mirrors when they try to be cruel and throw insults at them.Your just exposing your own foibles.
You are often way off the mark obviously cannot be bothered to check facts cast wild aspersions and quite an unsavoury character at times.
Hm. This is quite a reaction to a comment I made!
I don’t remember insulting you, Sourchimp, so perhaps you might like to explain what has offended you.
What I’m reading is a bunch of insults directed at me:
“You are often way off the mark obviously cannot be bothered to check facts cast wild aspersions and quite an unsavoury character at times.”
There’s no point in just hurling insults, Sourchimp. Either tell us what it is you disagree with or stick to the subject under discussion.
I was not “trying to be cruel”. If you feel that I said something “cruel”, I do apologise. I can assure you it was not intended that way.
Perhaps you’d like to tell us what came across to you as “cruel”. Maybe a comment of mine read a different way from how it was intended. Let’s try to get to the bottom of this.
Alison
“It sounds to me as though you are desperately seeking to create drama and conflict in what must be an otherwise empty life. ”
If that is not an insult and an attempt to be hurtful then forgive me for interpreting it that way, I sure you would agree on reflection most of the general population would.
“cannot be bothered to check facts ” speaks for itself in most conversations we have had. see your comment regarding my so called contradictory account of this jobseekers direction and there you did not have to even reach for your favourite search engine.
Unsavoury character at times please see above. Some of your comments are unpalatable as I am sure mine are to you.
In this case, checking facts does involve asking you to clarify things and that’s exactly what I did. I’m not sure why I was accused of “not bothering to check facts”, therefore.
Your personal experience is not on Google, so I don’t see how that is relevant.
Calling me an “unsavoury” character seems an over-reaction. I wonder why it is necessary for you to toss around insults so much?
You do make a lot of complaints about the Jobcentre, yet my impression is that they treat you very well! They did not sanction you, they excused you from the job room and they excused you from your Universal Credit training. I thought you would have been delighted that you were excused! Instead, you really surprised me with your indignation!
Some people do seek meaning in their lives by writing lots of complaint letters, especially when they grow older and stop working. My late mum was a good example of this! When she had no job to go to any more, she filled her mornings pounding on her typewriter about how she didn’t like this, that and the other. In the end, she wrote a letter of complaint to her electricity provider because they asked her to step outside her own door and read her own electricity meter!
I’m sorry I upset you or came across as cruel or insulting when I suggested you might have a tendency this way yourself.
Previously, you told me that cannabis keeps you calm and relaxed. What I am seeing is a very high-strung man with anger issues. It’s not a very good advert for cannabis! You might benefit from therapy, rather than relying entirely on medication. Perhaps it might be time for you to visit your GP.
Can imagine how a MP, lawyer, solicitor welfare rights etc life must be banging away on a keyboard raising issues and debating all day long about nuances in Law.
I am human Alison so things do anger me but it is how you channel that energy which is important and can be a positive energy.
I’m not getting much positive energy from you right now!
Maybe you could pay a visit to your MP or a welfare rights office and see how they react to the severity and gravity of your grievance. I’m sure they will be only too happy to have a moan about all the people who contact them every week with spurious complaints, taking up their time so they have less opportunity to work on “genuine cases”. My local MP once said on TV that the constituents who visit her in her surgery blame the government for things that are their own fault. That line of thinking would probably lead her to the conclusion that you wouldn’t have had to make a complaint if you were willing to cooperate with the system like everybody else, and you wouldn’t have had to cooperate with the system if you spent your time finding yourself a job, instead of smoking weed all day. And you wouldn’t have needed to smoke weed all day if you were willing to avail yourself of our state-funded health services…At the very least, I’m sure she’d ask you what you are doing to help yourself.
“My local MP once said on TV that the constituents who visit her in her surgery blame the government for things that are their own fault”
I am sure you would agree that the DWP are within a MPs remit, this is a genuine case if you think otherwise it does not change my mind unless you have a valid argument and so far you haven’t come up with anything of substance.
Again taking the mirror analogy your accusing me of being an obsessive complainer and yet you have obsessively complained about me.
OK well if your case is so genuine and your MP is so certain to agree with you, off you go to your MP’s surgery this weekend. We’ll wait with baited breath for the outcome.
I don’t remember expressing a view of my own, as I don’t really know enough about your circumstances.
I can assure you I have never ever submitted a formal complaint about you ever!
Well I think the only way we can settle this without it resorting to a slanging match everyday is if you come up here and move in with me , see how it goes, you will save loads in rent I am close to a church, fields and cows and I guess the kicker for you would be no foreigners.
I send a copy of my letter via Email to my MP who then passes it to the PA to deal with so it does not take up any of their time and is standard practice.
Sourchimp, are you asking me to move in with you??? Are you mad???
I hope you’re joking.
This isn’t what I would call a “slanging match”. All I am doing is making comments on what you are telling us. I’m trying to be quite measured and restrained. You get very easily provoked and very easily outraged. You don’t seem to like it at all if anybody questions you or disagrees with you.
This invitation to move in with you is your strangest reaction yet!
It would make sound economical sense for sure and you seem to be the ying to my yang.
I am not too demanding physically if that is your worry, although if your just going to lie there like sack of potatoes I would have to reconsider.
I cook and clean and pretty much take care of myself, very much low maintenance I guess some would say.
Always happy to be the home maker if you wish to peruse a career.
You could be right, I might be slightly off whack I have recently changed my meds to a different strain.
Still smiling though so yep all gud innit.
Definitely ditch the latest “strain”! What is it? Magic mushrooms?
If you want to spend your life with someone, you’ll have to tackle the anger and you’ll have to go out and meet people. Tip: if they criticise you, don’t flip!
I’d still recommend a trip to the doctor.
No Power Africa.
https://www.seedsman.com/en/power-africa
A sativia dominant strain but I prefer Indicas.
I do not feel suicidal nor depressed but that does not mean I do not find life a struggle at times if I did find myself going that way I would take some Magic Mushrooms in micro doses, I would not go for the full on blown trip like I used to.
If you feel depressed or suicidal, you need to go to the doctor, not the dealer.
Don’t you think you’ve lost enough of your grip on reality already? You’re already asking random people from the internet to move in with you!
If you get any worse, they’re likely to declare you mentally incapacitated. Then they will take away all of your money and all of your weed and possibly put you in a care home as well.
They’ll have to section you in a mental hospital, at least for a few weeks, so they can assess whether your insane behaviour is due to dementia or drugs.
The police might lock you up for drugs, as well.
Alison the police are not interested in people taking cannabis for medicinal purposes the world has moved on, you appear to be stuck in the 1930s and fell hook line and sinker for reefer madness propaganda.
If the police did storm my home with the daily mail in tow and I was sectioned for my comments, I would say it would be bizarre to say the least but nothing I cannot handle.
I would use the opportunity to work on improving the MH services and NHS from the inside much the same as I try with improving the DWP services from the inside.
I am fairly sure they would prescribe me cannabis and psychotropics as alternative medicines once I have made my case.
If not I would put in a complaint.
Alison earch the UK job market by sector and you might gain some insight.
And to make me feel even more important than I actually am here is a copy of my complaint letter.
——————————————————————————————
I wish to draw to your attention to some of my recent experiences at the Job centre where I feel I have been the victim of maladministration leading to possible hardship.
I attended my usual work search review and a work coach who I have never met before handed me a form which was a JSD ( Jobseekers direction) to attend a GIS (group information session) at futures. I asked why I was being asked to attend this GIS and was told it was to learn about claiming Universal Credit.
I objected to this as I am on JSA and may not be on Universal Credit untill 2020 if at all moreover I fully understand how to claim Universal Credit, welfare is a topic of my interests and fully aware learning to claim Universal Credit is not a Job market related activity and would not improve my chances of finding employment.
I was handed this JSD without taking into account of any of my circumstances at all, no discussion whatsoever this was pre-prepared jobseekers direction by a Work coach I had never met before.
Jobseeker Directions for Group Information Sessions
11. By law claimants cannot be mandated to attend a Group Information
Session by means of a Jobseeker Direction, unless the Personal Adviser can
demonstrate that attendance at the Group Information Session will:
assist the claimant to find employment; or improve the claimant to find employment.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/123502/response/300482/attach/html/4/3b%20Group%20Information%20Sessions.pdf.html
You have it on your records that on the 28/11/2017 a work coach placed a note on my file that I am not suitable for group sessions.
27. Previewing customers due to attend group sessions is an integral part of
managing risk to staff and customers.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/123502/response/300482/attach/html/4/3b%20Group%20Information%20Sessions.pdf.html
I am have problems in group environments that makes me not suitable and requested a private session instead but I was refused.
35. Given this customers can object to being dealt with in a group
environment and this must be respected. Alternatives to the group session
should be available where requested for JSA customers only.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/123502/response/300482/attach/html/4/3b%20Group%20Information%20Sessions.pdf.html
I raised the points with the work coach and they disagreed so I asked to see the manager. The manager pretty much echoed what the work coach said and ignored the points I was trying to raise.
I was left with no choice other than to comply due to what I believe was maladministration putting myself and others at risk or choose not to attend which would lead to hardship.
I printed of some of the information and went to see the manager again if they would cancel the JSD and offer me a private session instead but again they refused to take any action but told me attend the session and they would give me a private session which I did but they were unable to do that as it was not in their remit.
As a satisfactory resolution I ask that it is recorded on the system that I am not to be referred to Group information sessions in the future and an explanation why due process was not followed and a reassurance this will not occur again.
———————————————————————————————————–
Not many people are fully aware of their rights and it prevents them speaking up for fear of losing money but it does not have to be that way, for example I could have accepted the offer sat there called bullshit on what ever they said dominate the session, be disruptive, trigger, annoy and upset folk like YOU then be asked to leave which has happened on a few occasions but not get sanctioned.
I participated and that was all that was required by law but I do not want to put others through that so I think it is in everyone’s interest I get this finally resolved.
I documented this fully because I know how annoying it can be when I find a thread that seems to fit some issues I have but does not fully outline everything and so left in the dark, Maybe someone might gain something from my experience and use it to solve an issue they are having, maybe not, but hey as long as it makes me feel impotent then that is a positive feeling is it not or do you feel your impotence is lacking somewhat and envy might be at play here ?
Never forget Alison the most important person in the world is YOU.
Sourchimp, if you feel strongly about it, I’m sure it’s right that you make your complaint.
However, I am confused. You said yesterday that you were allowed to go home, but in your complaint letter and in the comment underneath it today you talk about being required to sit through the training session. I’m not sure you can complain about being made to sit through a training session if in fact you were allowed to go home. But hey! Say whatever you like!
As I said before, I find it strange that you wish to complain even though you were excused from the session anyway. I would have thought it better to save your complaint for a time when you do not get your own way. I wonder if you can see where I’m coming from, or if this comment will only provoke more of an angry reaction.
You mentioned before that you thought you had Oppositional Defiance Disorder. What I observe is that you do not respond well to criticism. Do you think that’s fair? Or do you think you handle criticism well?
I wonder also if you are a bit of a compulsive complainer. What do you think?
To be honest Alison you will have to point it be far much easier for me to see where I said something contradictory, I did not sit through any course yesterday at all.
If I have then said something that is contradictory I will be more than happy to clarify as I would not want to mislead anyone.
Thank you for clarifying, Sourchimp.
I was impressed with the tone of your complaint letter, particularly the final paragraph. It was calm and measured.
I thought it would have been better to at least mention the fact that the Jobcentre did review the situation at the time and they decided in your favour.
Alison to be clear here the Job centre did not decide in my favour at all they left me with no choice other than to attend the GIS which was at an entirely different location to the Job centre or lose my money while I asked for a mandatory reconsideration.
Really? So why haven’t you lost any money? Why aren’t you asking for a Mandatory Reconsideration?
Alison reread what I have been saying, there you will find the answer.
I always ring after signing on to make sure my money has been actioned, yesterday I rang the main help line and was told that I failed to sign on and no payment was going out.
Right, to put this into context this will be the 6th time this happened due to so called clerical errors in the past year but given the events of the previous day I wondered if they had finally snapped and a doubt had unlawfully been raised.
In the past I have a same day payment made unlike the fiasco with my JSA28 which I got compensation for having to wait over the weekend.
If I did have a doubt raised which is always a possibility when yo sail close to the wind it would be annoying more than anything that my track record was broken but I have every confidence of having it overturned on mandatory reconsideration.
Unlike most welfare advice that tends to be reactive I prefer to be proactive to avoids doubts in the first place.
So I got a call back from my local job centre main manager telling me my slip had been lost and that was probably why my money had not gone in, they then mentioned the GIS. Rather than go through it all I just said when they told me it was about Universal Credit I left.
They were taken aback about like you Alison why would I not want to lean about how to claim Universal credit but rather than go through it all over the phone I brought the subject back to my money.
They then said I will make sure your money goes in on Friday and started to make what can only be described as a chocking sound before hanging up.
Before the day was out I rang up the main helpline again to see if they had made any changes and there was a note on my records saying es630 or something has been used to make direct payment to my bank Thursday.
Today I rang back the main helpline and still no payment had been actioned but he read through the notes noted that I was excused from job seeking for this week they had updated the evidence(Curios) and cleared the screen and put in the direct payment himself and within 2 hours it was in my bank Today.
So when I see the manager again next time I can say at least something positive came from all this………for me anyway.
And by then my complaint should have answered.
I know exactly what they intended on doing and would have waited until Friday when I rang up again to put my money in but I am ahead of them on that one.
Aren’t you lucky that they did what you wanted? So why on earth would you want to complain about them?
Choking sound? Perhaps the person on the other end of the phone had a cough. Or perhaps you were being laughed at. Neither explanation would surprise me.
It sounds to me like they suspect you have a problem with mental capacity, so they just excuse you from all the conditionality and punishment they dish out on everybody else. If they get a hysterical, angry reaction from you (like I get for saying these things), they won’t tell you that’s what’s really going on.
As long as they are playing to my tune then I do not mind what they think.
Oh good.
Is it only my opinion that bothers you, then?
What bothers me Alison is your trying to trivialise what is a very worrying situation.
and an important point I am raising.
Lets say you got someone who is known to be violent in stressful situations refuses to “voluntarily” attend “voluntarily” opportunities so you decide to use a unlawful (FACT) Jobseekers direction to attend a group information session do you not think that is negligence ?
Would you feel safe and secure in this group session off premises no security in a small room with people twitching rocking and shaking and looking like they are about to kick off?
At least the JCP have an army of knuckle dragger’s to step in ,these third party providers do not.
Its called duty of care for all concerned.
I have recieved a message back from the resolution team which is faster than normal and been asked to upload this JSD as they do not have it on record and descibe the manager who I spoke to.
I did ask him to resolve this informally, I did give him a chance.
No I’m not trying to trivialise anything. You clearly have a problem and you really need to try to seek help to address your anger issues and get better, instead of expecting the whole world to bend over backwards for you all the time.
The world is a stressful place, Sourchimp. You need to learn to keep your cool. The NHS provides help with this free of charge. You can go to cognitive behaviour therapy. You can try a medication that might actually work for you. (I’m not getting the impression that cannabis is doing you any good. Maybe you feel calm after smoking a joint, but it isn’t stabilising your mood effectively in the long run.)
People criticise one another all the time. It’s part of daily life. You need to build up a bit of resilience, so that you don’t have a meltdown all the time.
I think you need to broaden your definition of what constitutes anger and loosing cool on social media platforms.
I’m guessing your definition would include just about everything on the internet, then!
Alison I am not complaining for the hell of it, if you read my letter I am asking for a resolution not using it just to have a moan.
There is an issue that needs addressing in my life so I am tackling it. I cannot see why this is such a big issue in your life for you.
It’s certainly not a big issue in my life. It’s more of a relief from everything else!
However, I do wonder what further resolution you hope to achieve. They’ve already excused you from the seminar/group session. What more can they do?
Prevent any further reoccurrences? If you fully read what I have wrote they never excused me from anything I merely asked the chap who was taking the course to mark me down as attended.
Presumably they thought they were preventing the occurrence by letting you get out of it. I observe they didn’t even require proof from a medical professional of your need to avoid group sessions! That seems to me very generous on their part.
I’m sure it’s worth a shot to fire off a complaint letter. Problem is, they might review the situation and decide they should have demanded more from you. Think how it might sound if the Daily Mail reported that an ergophobic drug addict got excused from any training whatsoever while receiving his full Jobseeker’s Allowance! There are different points of view of these things. My approach would be to avoid doing anything to rock the boat.
But why debate it with me? If you’re confident in your course of action, go ahead with it!
Thank you for your blessing to go ahead.
In light of this I will also be putting in a claim of negligence or even gross negligence and will be demanding disciplinary action against the manager and hopefully more compo so I can smoke myself into a coma.
Imagine if I used my noggin how much compensation I could have got if I attacked someone at the GIS wow and whoever I attacked would also have a claim to make win win there for all and I would know then they would never ask me to go again to GIS that is for sure.
Is it money that you’re after? Be careful. You can be prosecuted if you make a nuisance of yourself because you’re hoping to get some compensation. They might kick you off your benefits if they think that’s what you’re up to.
Just wanted to add this in case anyone faces the same predicament.
If the claimant does take the Jobseeker Direction,
this only requires attendance at the initial discussion; it does not require the claimant to participate in the provision.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/114206/response/278898/attach/3/Jobseekers%20Directions.pdf
Ok just an update so I can feel important again it has been a while since I put in my complaint.
All my points were upheld, a full apology and recommendation staff training and change the way they select claimants in the future for GIS.
A prominent note placed on my claim telling work coaches not to refer to me GIS and this is the bonus I never asked for but gratefully received not be referred to third parties any more.
So a result and maybe a sign they are softening the regime somewhat, we have had 2 deaths recently a 22 year old girl set herself on fire in a hostel and man shot himself with crossbow as the bailiffs were about to reposes his home.
I’m so pleased for you that you’ve had such a positive response to your complaint, and I’m so pleased also that you are happy with it.
This shows why it is important to try to follow the complaints procedure, before giving up or resorting to suicide.
I am happy Alison because the effort I put in to getting myself to this point will now be rewarded many times over.
Also I hope my efforts to improve the way the jobcentre approaches vulnerable claimants in regards to GIS and JSD and third party providers might indeed save a life or at the least offer some comfort, the same with closing the job room down and issuing complimentary slips to evidence forms have been handed in.
Very sorry to hear of the suicides of these two people. Every life lost is a tragedy and every death is one too many. I wish every condolence to their families, friends and loved ones.
Sadly, this is yet another illustration of the dire state of housing in our country. We really must do better.
Lot of new work Coaches around these days. Often long-term ex-unemployed themselves. DWP recruits them on one-year contracts.
Yep they are also dragging staff from the back offices to cover staff shortages.
40% of JCP staff will soon be claiming Universal credit soon wonder how they get on .
I also spoke to one of the guards today asked him if was full time and he said no…..then I went on to explain to him how Universal Credit was messed up causing hardship and deaths and soon he will be at the counter like the rest of us.
I think at this point he had an epiphany moment and asked me more, turned out to be a decent chap in the end.
I’m very glad to hear there’s some humanity and compassion alive and well at your local Jobcentre.
My very limited experience with my local Jobcentre has been entirely positive. The staff seem to retain their compassion. It’s the council where the staff are just hard-hearted beasts. Seriously! I’ve never met a good one at the council yet!
Well all I can say is your lucky to have a positive experience from the JCP most do not, maybe if or when your ever under the full might of the regime you might change your mind.
Sourchimp, I am also very impressed with how well you have been treated by your Jobcentre. I am surprised by your reactions to things. It makes me wonder about you.
It’s like my acquaintance. All he has to complain about is the sound of his neighbour’s light switch. Yet he will eagerly portray himself as the long-suffering victim of a nightmare neighbour!
Yep, botheration, all the stuff he was asking was irrelevant & unnecessary, they already have all my details on their system. I think it’s sometimes about attempting to validate their own job, to make it appear that they do something and that their job is necessary,wwhich it isn’t. They could shut down all the Jobcentres for what use they are. Just have an old style dole office for the purpose of providing a signature, which is all that is needed. The rest of it is just superfluous bullshit , could also have an option of signing online, easy peasy.
In a way trev like ripples in a pond my FOI on job shop might have had some bearing your end because it makes them look like idiots so my apologies if you preferred it that way.
Shop-window adverts go out of date quickly. Maybe the work experience programme has finished for the summer. So they’re not printing off a lot of new job adverts.
Presumably there was a lull in vacancies on Find a Job, so they brought in some shop window adverts for you to apply for instead. Maybe vacancies on Find a Job have picked up again.
Personally, I can’t imagine they’ll keep the job shop as a permanent fixture. It requires too much effort on their part. It’s not very environmental to print all that paper, either. Perhaps it’s an annual summer gimmick only.
yep the good old days of supplementary benefit when job centres were separate from signing on, giro over counter straight to post office no waiting, no paying back loans so much simpler and probably cheaper to administer than what we have now.
There is no significant effect on the job market since those days and changes in fact some evidence suggests it having a negative impact, as for tackling fraud the DWP admitted to losing far money due to incompetences than it loses due to fraud.
They need investigating not us !
I would prefer a system more like the one you describe here, Sourchimp. I don’t see the point in dishing out so much punishment on people at the bottom of the pile. I think a weekly income from benefits, small as it is, should be a certainty.
I’m not convinced this convoluted system of sanctions, hardship payments, mandatory reconsiderations and appeals is good value for the taxpayer. I’m not happy about some of the “courses” we’ve paying for. There’s so much fraud in the back-to-work industry.
I think we need to focus our attention on the conduct of our national employers. We need to ask a lot more questions about who they hire, who they DON’T hire (older workers, the disabled, etc.), who they fire, how fair their hire-fire systems are, and whether they even comply with national employment law.
From my own experience, I can see that many people are driven out of their jobs by employers hoping to save money. Unless the fired employee has the strength to undergo the tribunal process, the employer gets away with any number of breaches of union-negotiated, national employment laws and procedures that are meant to protect the worker. This needs to stop. We need to REGULATE employers and their hire-fire practices.
I would also like to see fired employees able to claim benefits WHILE APPEALING, instead of being required to seek ANY JOB at the same time as fighting for their old job back. I had to go into severe debt and borrow a lot of money from my family to cover my living costs while appealing against my previous employer. It took a year for me to achieve my first payout. Although technically I could have claimed Jobseeker’s Allowance, I would have had to apply for all sorts of new jobs and attend courses, training, etc. In practice it would have been far too much for me to deal with both processes.
Yes it was a lot better and more humane back then practically impossible to lose your benefits.
Although saying that it has just reminded me me when in the early 80s on supplementary benefit I lost half my money for 6 months for getting the sack from a job, but I won the appeal and got all my benefit backdated.
Should never let them deny your right to benefit but I can understand why you chose not to.
Trev, if your new Work Coach kept asking you things already on the Jobcentre’s computer system, perhaps the system wasn’t fully up and running yet?
Perhaps he was being strict with you because he couldn’t see your history of good behaviour!
They do not have any record of anyone’s good behaviour, it that is the case then mine is impeccable, never misses an appointment, always on time, no doubts raised never any concern over my job searching, it is rare to see any work coach on a regular basis nowadays I have not seen the same work coach for more than 3 occasions for a good 4 years.
Sourchimp, your behaviour is not impeccable at all. You were offered the opportunity to be excused from a seminar today that you didn’t want to go to. Most people would politely say thank you. Instead, you decided to refuse to write your name on a piece of paper and you now intend to submit a complaint (about what it’s not clear).
Perhaps you think all this makes you look important. I think it makes you look childish and rather silly.
It doesn’t matter how much you do they are never happy and never will be until you stop claiming and sign off. No matter how much job search you do, how many interviews you’ve had, how many schemes & courses you’ve attended, how many hoops you’ve jumped through, you just can’t win. Having said that though, I used to fight against the system all the time, always kicking off and complaining about something and writing to MPs etc but it gets to the stage where fighting them becomes harder work than complying, and the resulting stress & negativity really affects you at least as much if not more than if you had said nowt and just done what was required. That doesn’t mean that I’ve given in though, I just give them the *impression* that I’m complying but am really just winging it and coasting through it. I’ve done all their pointless schemes and unpaid work placements etc. I do voluntary work of my own accord, I do jobsearch…but none of it will make any difference to my employability, and all the time in my head I am thinking “fuck you”. Meanwhile, time rolls on, the months drift into years and before I know it I’ll be Retired. Also, as time goes on and you get older you become even more unemployable, your health slowly declines and no one is going to employ you, and sending me on a ‘Health/Work Programme’ isn’t going to change that fact.
Anyway, all that aside, I now have a new predicament that I was previously unaware existed but which must affect thousands of people who are in the same boat. By the end of this week I shall (most likely) be the subject of a Debt Relief Order (DRO), that means that I cannot afford to risk having any changes to my financial circumstances in the next 12 months, or the Order will be revoked and I’ll be liable to repay my debts at a minimum of £50 per month. If I make it through the next 12 months without any significant changes then my debts will be written off. In the meantime however, I have to claim JSA in order to survive, and that of course means I must apply for jobs, jobs I don’t want to get because I’ll be a lot worse off! If I got a job, or won some money on a lottery, or received an inheritance etc. my DRO would be revoked. Now there’s little chance of any of those things happening, but if I did get offered a job that I’ve applied for I’d be in a tricky situation.
Your right trev it is hard work pushing against a governmental department with the budget and resources the size of a small country and can be a lot less stressful than going through all the crap I do. I do see the common sense in just keeping my head down and not make waves I also know your savvy enough to get through it without all the shit I go through.
There are millions of quotes to choose from that succinctly say in few words why I do what I do, this is one such quote,
Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.
– Leonardo da Vinci
Yes it is an awkward situation with the DRO worth getting through the year unemployed then if you do manage to secure work after finished paying at least you not any debt hanging over your head.
I’ve heard of this predicament before: people face hefty debt repayments if they move off Jobseeker’s Allowance. I don’t know a great deal about it, though.
I wonder if you can stay protected by the Debt Relief Order if you only earn a low income or only work part time? If you haven’t been to Citizen’s Advice, I would recommend you pay them a visit. If you have indeed gone to Citizen’s Advice, I wonder if they had anything helpful to say about what happens if you get a job?
I agree with you about picking your battles. We can’t complain against everything.
It was all done through the CAB, they said if I get a job to go back& they’ll reassess my income & expenditure, If it turns out I have £50 per month left after everything else has been paid then I have to inform the Receiver and the DRO will be cancelled and I’ll have to make arrangements to repaymdebts s. So basically that’s if after working all I haweek I have £12.50 left over I have to pay off my debts, so it’s not worth me getting a job.
I’m not convinced you’ll have any money left at all if you take a job, especially after years on the dole. Take a zero-hours contract and you’ll have less.
I just searched on Find A Job using the Advanced Search and after entering all the words to exclude in the search terms it returned just 2 jobs within a 10 mile radius posted in last 24 hours, one for a self-employed Painter & Decorater and one for a part-time Cleaner. And the JCP wonder why I haven’t found a job! At this rate I’ll have no problem making it through the next 12 months.
Trev, don’t worry about your debt. If you find a job, it’s only likely to be minimum wage or part time. You’ll have to pay rent and council tax before anybody says you have a spare £50 per month.
Same here trev 24 Jobs in last 3 days and those I could apply for are all out of my range, more than 90 minutes away and would cost me £70 a week in transport costs.
Once I do the calculations for minimum wage at 35 hours if chose to travel more than 90 minutes I would be £11 per week better off, but then taking into account extra washing and consuming more food I would be worse off.
There is now way I can do a 35 hour week on basically the same money I get now.
No amount of CVs or bullshit courses and talks can change that.
Where’s the lucky town with all the jobs, then?
This applies to many towns and cities warehouses and factories whatever are generally located on the outskirts for cheap rent meaning they are poorly served by public transport and generally require you have your own car
Well somebody must live nearby! A lot of people live in the outskirts, too, because it’s cheaper.
No ones lives near to them they are located in huge industrial estates often far away from homes.
This is the reality…. we have shops, cafes bookmakers and all that but those Vacancies are often filled in house and never really advertised.
Where are you located Alison ? I am sure it will be the same situation
I live in London.
Last time I looked on Universal Jobmatch, there were quite a few gardening jobs in London, but many of the adverts only listed the location as “London” or even “London and South East”!
Round here, shops, cafes, pubs and bookmakers usually advertise their vacancies in their windows.
I have a 8 mile walk to find those type of shop windows we only have few food shops around here.
Thankfully Universal Jobmatch is now gone replaced by Find a Job which is a decent job portal in that it better reflects the Job Market and not filled with crap like UJM and other search sites.
At the moment there are 180,000 Jobs advertised in the country and they expect at the peak it will reach 250,000 which is far less than 1.2 million normally found on UJM, reed,total,indeed etc
Different world London, was shocked when I asked where the nearest Greggs was and all I got was blank stares.
Oh, Sourchimp! I could give you the location of my nearest 5 Greggs. One is on my own high street! You must’ve stopped people who didn’t speak English.
Surprised the Greggs chain is that far south tbh I was basing the reaction of folk on the Isle of sheppy I spoke to when that way more than anything.
When I went I drove up to somewhere near Scotland once I had to ask for directions in Newcastle. I could not fathom what the local Geordie’s were saying at all I have watched biker grove so I thought I could handle it but they sounded like aliens.
It was only when I went into a Asian corner store and asked there could I understand what I was being told.
Maybe the good people of the Isle of Sheppey had no luck getting Greggs to take a £50 note. Or maybe they just couldn’t fathom your broad Derbyshire accent.
I hope not, I was born and raised in Nottingham but I live in Derby now.
Both City’s are rivals and though only being separated by 14 miles we have distinct dialects, although my part of country it is not as distinctive and colourful as say Newcastle Birmingham Liverpool accents and slightly bland.
In Derby they say “hi-ya ” and they get a” hi-ya back” in Nottingham we say “ey up ows it guin” and we get back”not to bad messen ows u guin” sometimes appended by “me duck” but I never say me duck ever lol.
Another thing I noticed in Nottingham everyone is at the door waiting for the bus to stop but in Derby they all wait for it be completely stopped before even getting off the chair.
Round here, we all wait for the bus to stop before we stand up, otherwise we fall over!
Sorry to hear that.
I’m glad to hear Find a Job is better. A lot of the ads on Universal Jobmatch were just agency adverts: send in your cv and we might find you a gardening job somewhere within the Greater London area. Greater London is 30 miles wide. I like to have a better idea of where I’m going before I apply for a job.
As for job ads that said “London and South East”…presumably they’d phone you and ask if you lived within range of the vacancy. “The South East” would include everywhere from Salisbury Plain to the Isle of Sheppey! I’m sure there are lots of middle-of-nowhere tv masts and industrial estates somewhere in the “South East” area.
These sorts of ads would be more about agencies trying to collect cvs, without having a specific vacancy to post.
Presumably your local food shops get inundated with cvs every day from people who walk in and ask if there are any vacancies.
No, with it being a close tight knit community those jobs are never displayed often take up by family and friends as is the case with lot of jobs fill the vacancies in-house.
You’ll have to make a few friends…unless you don’t fancy working anyway.
I am more likely to end up self employed again more than working for others the way the current job market is.
What’s your line of business?
I used to be a high wire juggling act until I lost me balls.
There used to be a guy who sat on the pavement and juggled in front of a change cup. Could be an option for you.
I am in my mid 50s, not worked for the past 6 years. Before then I was a home-maker for 21 years so I am not exactly a prime candidate when there is lots of people chasing the same Job younger with experience.
Then my location and the fact there are no local Jobs at all compounds the problem.
I am being a realist and pragmatic that I might never work again. 🙂
Considering I have to live on a pittance for the next 11 years and under constant attack from the DWP it is not something I am exactly relishing.
But I will not go down with a fight.
I top up my income playing online poker, (perfectly legal btw) costs me nothing to play I do not gamble my own money, gambling is a mugs game, I play free games only and can win £10-£20 a week and sometimes hundreds, won an all expenses trip to Dublin last year £500 spending money and £500 buy in the tournament unfortunately I did not win anything.
I guess you’re saying it’s more a lack of suitable jobs in general, rather than a location issue?
I know you and Trev both have health barriers to work and maybe ought to qualify for health-related benefits, were the system a more sensible one.
I’m glad you’ve found a hobby in poker-playing and I’m glad you’ve been winning some money doing that.
Yes lack of suitable Jobs within my range/location.
No fear me going on the sick it would mean seeing a Doctor. It should be my decision if I do not feel well enough to work not having to be judged by a Doctor let alone having to go through those cruel vicious assessments.
The irony or dichotomy, if that is the right word, you need an awful lot of strength to get through the process of claiming sick.
To be honest Alison if it were not for poker supplementing my income I would not be here…….. it pays for my Internet.
I agree it does take a lot of strength to claim sick and disability benefits.
It seems they didn’t need a doctor to tell them you weren’t suitable for group training sessions. Most employers would class this within the “mental health” bracket from their point of view. Nowadays, just about every job requires you to attend a group training session from time to time: subjects include health and safety, security, refresher training, equality and diversity, etc. They’d want to know that you’d have a problem attending some of these sessions, all of which would be compulsory, of course.
Having said that, some employers are better at being supportive than others.
I am a manual worker highly unlikely I would be having a group session about anything, just this is your job get on with it.
I am comfortable in any group environment, if it was part of the job role then I would have no problem, I just have a problem with those sponsored by the DWP.
If your work contract said group sessions were voluntary and you should be offered alternative arrangements if requested would you not go to your union if you were being threatened with the sack after asking for an alternative arrangement and refused?
Sourchimp, if you get a job, manual or clerical, you typically have to go to a 1 or 2-day group induction before you can start your job. Induction typically involves company policy, motivational speeches, fire safety, security, etc. Then there are compulsory refresher training sessions on these things, usually several times a year.
Shows you how long I have been out the Job market then bit of an overkill for lets say street cleaner but if that what it takes nowadays !
Personally, I haven’t applied for a job as a street-cleaner, so I’m not certain what they go through by way of induction. I know there was a TV programme following some real-life Romanians living in London. One Romanian approached another, asking where he got his job sweeping streets. The street-cleaner gave the name of the employment agency. The job-seeker paid a visit but was told his English wasn’t good enough for a job cleaning the streets! So it’s hard to predict what the requirements will be.
I’ve never, ever had a work contract that said anything about group sessions being voluntary. I think that’s unique to the DWP.
You could approach a union rep, but it would be luck of the draw as to whether you got any sympathy from the union. You might find yourself less of a priority than, say, someone being fired for attending chemotherapy.
Most companies don’t care much about the unions anymore, unfortunately.
Some jobs require all their applicants to attend a group interview.
It is a location issue though,m amongst other factors. I’ve just been looking at a job advert on Indeed but it is on the outskirts of Wakefield/Huddersfield in a place called Grange Moor and would take at least an hour to get there IF the buses are on time, and if it’s not snowing or there’s any roadworks, in winter time it would be an awful journey, but still I was willing to maybe consider applying, until I read it and saw that it involves working a 3pm – 11pm shift! No way of getting back home at that time of night. I looked at another one yesterday, again in a far-flung place in the middle of nowhere, right up at Emley Moor where the TV mast is, too far out of the way. There’s hardly ever any jobs within the town that you can get to easily without a car.
This is why some folk choose to live in tents and follow the work in these out of town hard to reach workplaces and makes sense in a way if you can handle it.
Would be able to save a lot of money up in a short space of time.
A tent is a false economy. They won’t hire you without a fixed address. You need a fully charged mobile phone and a reliable signal so they can text you to tell you whether you have work every morning. If you don’t have a wash or your uniform isn’t clean, you’ll be fired. If you suffer health problems due to exposure to the cold weather, you’ll be off sick too many times and you’ll get fired. How will they pay you without a bank account? How will you keep a bank account with no postal address? Where will you wash your clothes? Where will you charge your phone?
This for example
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/amazon-workers-sleep-tents-dunfermline-fife-scotland-a7467657.html
Many more do it up and down the country and obviously overcome the barriers you mention in various ways.
1) This is why it shouldn’t be made so difficult to stay on the dole.
2) Why has the SNP given Amazon any money?
3) The SNP or local council should undercut Amazon’s high transport fares by providing a local bus.
Excerpt from the aforementioned article about Amazon:
“Staff claimed to have been fined for returning one minute late after a lunch break and made to work four days in a row without sleep. One woman with breast cancer alleged she was put on a “performance improvement plan” and told her “personal life” was interfering with her work.”
Nobody’s allowed to be ill any more. Nobody’s allowed to be human. Tories want more and more strife for less and less pay. Disposable workers.
OK I see what you mean now. Thanks for these examples, Trev. I suppose these jobs are available precisely because they’re difficult to fill. Nowadays, I suppose a car is a necessity in many parts of our country.
There is a woman works in our local Subway branch, she must be in her sixties.
Forced in there on Universal Credit no doubt. It’s pitiful, the way she says
”Can I help ?” when you go in there, in this sad, tired voice. Eight hours on her feet all day. making salad, dragging the bread trays out from the oven. Making coffee, taking the money, scanning cards. Some black music on in the background, something about taking a brother to meet a mother, or it might have been taking his mother to meet a brother ? Loud anyway, and on all day. Not allowed to turn it off. You can see this woman is completely tuned-out. She’s cut the job down to the bare minimum. So next comes, ”Six inches or Footlong ?”.
With a younger woman this might have been the point for a joke. But this is no laughing matter. ”Bread ?” she goes. As if reciting some sort of list. Then you choose, while she watches glassy-eyed with boredom.
Then, ”Do you want a drink with that ?” She looks completely out of it. Grey hair untidy, looking past you into space. Then the last question, the final hurdle.
”Salad ?” And you’re done. You pay, and she slowly wraps-up the Sub. Out you go, into the traffic and the noise. Someone brushes past you into the shop, and as the door closes you hear her say, ”Can I help ?”
You painted a sad picture there Pete I only know to well, it would make a great opener for a Book.
She dreamed in her youth that one day she would become an artist little did she realise at the time, it would be a “Sandwich Artist”
I’ve only ever been in a Subway shop once in my life about 4 or 5 or more years ago, & I didn’t understand what they were talking about when they were asking me all the options. I could never work there.
Heads Up, Left-wing Twitter users:
“Malicious cloning of Corbyn-supporting Labour members’ Twitter accounts – have YOU been targeted?”
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/08/27/malicious-cloning-of-corbyn-supporting-labour-members-twitter-accounts-have-you-been-targeted/
It use to be common tactic in day gone by in chatrooms to clone someone, even had software that would actually make a post in others usernames.
Tracy Ann Oberman a Ex-EastEnders actress fell for it yesterday when a cloned account attacked her.
She got her followers to doxx the real user posted personal photos in tweets and tweeted to the real persons employers only then to realise that it was not the real person who attacked them.
They broke several laws, doxxing comes under serious crimes act now so interesting to see what will happen.
I’ve never even heard of doxxing
The term has been around for a few years, It comes from penetration testing IT networks or used for social engineering such as targetted spear phishing attacks and so on, in that you gather as much info as possible on your target and document it.
As in this case it has been used to expose or out someone who is a private individual.
I have always been interested in defence rather than attack but you have to know thy enemy, my brain is too old now to keep up with that game but it still interests me.
I’ve never heard the word “doxxing”, but I have heard people complain about their accounts being cloned and hijacked. Thing is, they often claim this happened when in fact they had a meltdown and said a lot of things they now regret!
Plausible deniability is the defence there but forensically it can be proved otherwise.
Found this petition to Corbyn about getting rid of UC. Probably won’t achieve anything unless we sign it by the millions, and een then it’s doubtful. Labour is just as culpable as the Tories in the introduction of UC.
https://www.change.org/p/jeremy-corbyn-mp-scrap-universal-credit
Trying to think of ways of making this issue massive, but have always considered that we will remain weak until people in work are also affected by UC. Unemployed people are a bugger to organise and build solidarity, but it’s just possible that a united front wih those in work could just be the ticket. But we need to make it the equivalent of the Poll Tax campaign, ony better, and have a clear idea of what we want in place of UC. (Oh and also make sure that w keep the Socialist Wankers Party out of the proceedings – we don’t need rape deenialists in our movement anyway! )
Sourchimp, or anyone really, even you Alison, if you can keep your anti foreigner invective under control. (BTW I’m Welsh, which means foreigner, does that count too?) I’d love to hear any ideas you have, Kate, If anyone here asks for my e-mail address, please let them have it. Thanks. We might not achieve anything, but solidarity is always good.
It is not fair though paddi, bloody Londoners coming up North stealing our homes and jobs, should stay where they belong.
I propose the Midlands should have a referendum to leave the UK and build a wall make the Londoners pay for it.
People who live in zero-immigration areas don’t really understand the issues.
Since we voted leave, EU immigration has halved and London house prices are FINALLY falling.
If you didn’t want to talk immigration, you shouldn’t have raised the subject.
Sourchimp, who do you think pays your dole and your rent, except London and the South East? If you want us to make you work all day building a wall in exchange for your dole, be my guest.
Good luck finding any “immigrants” from London “migrating” to Derbyshire to “steal” a job you don’t even have.
You do realise gregg’s will disappear from your high street when this Wall goes up ?
Is that a sacrifice your prepared to accept ?
What about when we start damming the waterways how much you prepared to pay for your water ?
Roll Royce has many people working and living in Derby who commute from London and return at the weekends, some eventually make the move permanently, this is the case all over the Northern Powerhouse and the trend is Londoners are indeed heading North for cheaper homes. Regardless of status.
Cheers Padi. I will. Am about at the end of my tether because of lack of political will to really change any of this.
On local and global level I feel safe to say were fucked for a long time to come and getting more fucked by the day as long as the tories remain in power that is for sure.
Then I have to ask how long will the damage done by fake austerity take to heal our population services and infrastructure, That is if Labour can become a viable opposition and get in power rather than keep splitting which is par for the course for them judging by history.
In theory the Tories could cling on for another 4 more years.
Jeremy Corbyn is not a spring chicken and getting deaths recently from all quarters does not help, if something did happen to him at this stage and he his seen very much the saviour then I think keyboard warriors would finally get of their arses and take to the streets up and down the country.
Be a shame if he went to down in history as the best prime minister that never was.
I wish I had as much faint in Corbyn as you have Sourchimp. He can make all sorts of noises while he is in opposition, (if indeed you can call it that) but if and when he got into government he would immediately have to start being the government and having to be that government to the whole of our society, and I doubt that poor people’s base concerns would count for much. If we want real change it is going to have to be people like us who are the movers and shakers. How we do that I don;t really have a clue, but it has to involve politicians. Whether we like it or not, they control government policy towards poverty, which at the moment probably receives next to no input from those most directly affected by poverty, the poor. The government are more used to involving organisations such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Shelter etc, but these are professional organisations staffed by people who can, at best, be described as middle class do-gooders who don’t really have the first clue about the lives and aspirations of ordinary people.
I was looking online just earlier today and it’s worrying that most of the largely online groups that were active in the past are now pretty much defunct – Johnny Void’s blog hasn’t been updated in over 18 months, and Boycott Workfare that was once a pretty effective co-ordinating group, hasn’t had any news posted for over a year. I know that Workfare in it’s old manifestation has disappeared, but I think we could well see a return once the economy goes down the tubes after Brexit happens – and I suspect we could see people being directed to bring the crops in, as there is already a shortage of people to do that.
Picketing Jobcentres is something that can be done, but most people going to these places just wan to go and sign on and then get away as fast as possible, and may well feel intimidated by being seen by JCP staff talking to activists. Picketing Labour constituency offices could be good, especially where the local incumbent is not pulling their weight, as it were.
Pretty much in agreement with what you said in previous posts paddi.
I am only taking the plunge this time and actually voting Labour and encouraging others to do so as they seem to be the only viable option that can remove the present government and Labours manifesto says they will remove benefit sanctions.
I seriously hold no faith with democracy so under no illusion at all but Jeremy Corbyn seems to be a genuine non career type politician more than most of late and many people of my age group and older seem to see him as the last great hope.
I am constantly wrestling with myself about actually voting as it goes against my whole way of thinking and feels like I am being a traitor to myself. But I have to bite the bullet on this one occasion and try and turn the cogs in my favour now I am nearing the home straight myself.
I am a frigging one man army at my Job centre. I declared war at the JCP a year or so ago after 2 years training to become a fighter after being radicalised on the work programme. I have no problem at all expressing my views to them about the cruel inhumane way they treat folk you cannot be sanctioned for expressing personal political or religious views but many people just sit there afraid to speak up ( I understand) but these Work coaches need to know the truth, how it really is effecting people what we really think those who are sat there with blank stares waiting to go up and the potential consequences of their actions.
If everyone started to speak up and everyone took action to push back be proactive rather than reactive we would eventually overwhelm them.
Yep was curious what happened to johnny void last thing I remember reading a good friend of his died, boycott workfare still tweets on occasion and frank zola is still pretty much active.
I have put a few FOIs since January to find out the rate these part time workers at the DWP on UC are sanctioned compared to the general public and should be getting a result soon after many accounts previously they refused me.
On whatdotheyknow any account that is asking this has been me but you have to be tenacious and just keep plugging away.
But yep going to those in power and not the minions is always the best option, take the fight to them to their doors if need be with non violent direct action.
If I had some cash (crowdfund ?) Park a few hearses outside Esther’s home with flower messages follow her everywhere she goes shame the fuckers on a daily basis same with those responsible for housing gather ye homeless and doss at friends family and work locations of those who can make decisions take the problems to them.
The protest against McVey sounds like a good idea, but hearses would be a bit expensive, but a few people dressed in black with a coffin… That’s the kind of demo that’s fun, gives people a laugh, which provides a chance to talk to people.
I’m always torn over the whole issue of voting. I voted Labour last time, for the first and last time. Labour are a regressive force in Wales, partly because they’ve been in power a local levels pretty much since the beginning of time and are as corrupt as hell. I usually vote Plaid Cymru , more in a sense of desperation than in any kind of hope they’ll actually achieve anything.
Thanks Kate. Not sure how much can be achieved, but I’m certainly up for having some fun whilst trying to make a change, and I know a few other people around and about who’s also be up for that too.
For me the fight is very much about removing conditionality (sanctions) from the welfare system. I see that would go a long way to fixing many issues, not all but a large proportion of them.
And the welfare reforms need a overall or scrapping and just keep the 1995 Job seeking act
If Universal Credit problems were ironed out and conditionality removed then in way it would become essentially a guaranteed minimum income which for various reason I think is better than a UBI.
I have helped a few people sign up to Universal Credit recently and surprised how good the UX (user experience) actually was.
It mirrors the same UX on the Find A Job, well designed and works well.
Now this is not your typical example but it does show how efficient it is.
Those who I have signed up do not work, nor do they claim, some live with parents and get by scrounging and others by other means.
They are part of those 5000,000 disfranchised youth who have failed to engage in the system and dropped off the radar.
As an incentive to re-engage them I mentioned if they signed up to Universal Credit they could have a few hundred pounds in their pockets within 24 hours and this was like a red rag to a bull, never seen so much enthusiasm.
So it took 5 minutes for them create an account and to complete the online application, they then received a phone call to go in next day with ID and they all got a same day advanced payment.
Keeping them engaged now is the hard part, hopefully the JCP will do as much as possible to ensure that will be the case.
Good points I noticed are on the UC account is you can can message your work coach directly and upload documents, so it to me seems actually a useful tool.
Shame you don’t encourage them to GET A JOB (before all these Londoners you claim are coming to take jobs that you can’t even find when you do your job search). Anyway, if it’s so easy to claim, why didn’t you help them do it earlier?
I just deal with the benefit side of things and will help them learn them how to use the Journal and Job search effectively and avoid falling foul of the benefit traps
Signed them up to Find A Job.But it is up to them what they want to do I will not push them either way, just help them along the way.
And that is how it should be yes ?
Well…it’s a shame they don’t have enough of a work ethic to try their hand at some of these jobs you say are attracting people from all over the country.
Why do they need to get a job Alison? Most of them, at best, would end up slaving in a supermarket or fast food joint for the pittance called the minimum wage. making money for their bosses.
Still, if they do decide to get a job, I’d strongly suggest that they join a union pronto, preferably a union like the IWW or United Voices of the World, (if they are in London).
There is so much more to life than work, especially the kind of work that saps the soul, as most work does. Useful work is a different matter, but sadly fat too much work isn’t useful at all, merely enriches the already obscenely rich.-
People need to get a job to pay tax to fund the NHS, welfare, schools, etc. I agree workers should have better protections and I agree it’s important to join a union, but we can’t expect our society to function properly if we all take out and give nothing back.
Are you saying this society is functioning properly now ?
Why do feel so reliant on the state, do you not think you would survive long without it? Do you think there are more evil people than good so we need a state to keep us safe?
Or are you saying this is the best we got and if that means forced slavery for all so we can keep propping up this corrupt selfish murdering establishment then so be it.
Good luck to any of us, should we try to live without help from the state!
It’s a shame neither you nor these young men you have been helping really acquired any ambition or work ethic during your/their formative years. It doesn’t say much for our state education system! We don’t make a decent life for ourselves and for others if we just live off the backs of other people’s hard work. Someone has to pay for the dole. Someone has to pick our fruit. Someone has to pay for our NHS. Someone has to work there. Etc. Etc.
I don’t know the individuals you helped. I agree with Padi that volunteering, education or training would be a great option for any of them. I’m not as motivated as I should be to get a job myself. We all have our faults. But the purpose of life is to look after ourselves and our families, not to sit around like a bum all day waiting for free money to drop into our laps.
When you were a child, people must have asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up. What did you say? Surely you didn’t sit in the classroom every day hoping to live rent-free off the backs of other people’s hard work? Didn’t your dad have a job? Didn’t your friends’ dads have jobs? Or has our society and its values really decayed so badly that grown men are posting on this forum that they don’t see the point in anybody getting a job?
Both my parents worked and both had a strong work ethic.
My Dad worked all his life at the same Job after finishing national service, 45 years he worked and never had a single day off, he sacrificed promotion and became the shop steward for the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers. He was known as Union Jack and would fight for workers rights.
Only time I ever really saw him come alive was when he was explaining how he managed to win cases for workers.
So I am very much a chip of the old block that way but when it came to my views on work and his views on work we were very much at odds and drove us apart.
The job he did apart from his Union work was dull and repetitive 2 years after retiring at 65 he was dead. This is all to common for workers like my Dad that when it ends they cannot cope with the loss of routine and find it difficult to adjust.
Some would say he was a working class hero, I would say he was a working class idiot. But I every respect for him doing what he believed was the right thing.
My generation Alison never believed there would be a future, nuclear war seemed inevitable at that time, we gave no thought of a future and we lived for very much for the moment and lived life to full and fuck working in factories and down the pit for what little time we had left on this planet.
I would rather live 20 years being free to provide for myself using the earths natural resources than 45 years as an extension to a machine.
Fuck it if society crumbles its shit anyway you might worry whose going to fill the shelves and what if your papers are not delivered on time and no ones there to man the petrol pumps fix your washer or TV, clean your street your windows and empty your bins cut your hair and paint your nails drive your bus and make your sandwiches
Do it your fucking self if you have to but don’t expect me to do it for you.
Excuse me but nobody paints my nails or delivers me a paper, thank you, Sourchimp. I don’t need petrol because I don’t have a car. I’m not asking you to be my slave and I think you’ll find your father wasn’t a slave either. He chose to work to earn his own money to pay his own bills. If you believe in living on the land, go live on the land. Don’t sit at home sneering at people who go to work every day while you sit on your bum in a house they gave you, living on the money they gave you from working hard and paying their taxes all their lives.
It is called making the most of what is available in order to survive.
I am happy and content and comfortable with who I am so why should I change to suit your fragile sensibilities .
It seems to me you hold a lot of resentment against others because you feel like you have been dealt a bad hand. Life is harsh cruel and hard work for us all regardless of class or privilege.
Sourchimp, it’s not just about me and what I think. Outside of the company of fellow anarchists, I think you’d find most people would have trouble with your anti-work ideology. I’m sorry to say this, but most people would think it rather childish to suggest we can all live off somebody else’s taxes and somebody else’s work. Imagine launching into a diatribe about “Ooh are you upset because I won’t paint your nails for you?”!!! Really, Sourchimp! Is this what you say to your Work Coach if you’re asked to find a job? It sounds like the sort of thing a 10-year-old boy would say because he doesn’t want to do his homework.
I am not anti work, I am anti slavery there is a big difference.
And if a 10 year old would rather play with friends or do something else other than homework in my world that is fine obviously in your world it is spare the rod spoil the child, even if only a metaphorical rod nowadays, a rod non the less.
Yes, I do believe in homework and discipline. You’re spot on there!
I wonder how you define “work” that isn’t “slavery”. To me, if you choose your job and receive a wage, it isn’t slavery. To me, slavery means being chained up, with no freedom to choose to leave. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to how you see “work” versus “slavery”?
To me, slavery means being chained up, with no freedom to choose to leave.
The chain are the establishment and I am not free to leave, there is no where else to go at the moment.
As I said my dad was a pretty much get your head down and get on with it, his favourite quote to me was “if you do not bend with the wind you will snap.
I am still standing straight and still refusing to bend with the wind and long may I continue to do so, if or when I am broken then my time is at an end I move on to the next stage in the journey and that is anyone’s guess as to what that might be.
I think this debate is pragmatism versus dogma more than anything else.
P.S. I clean my own windows, cut my own hair and make my own sandwiches, too.
Do you also make your nail polish and scissors and rear your meat for Sandwiches?
I don’t wear nail polish. I buy scissors and occasionally meat (and bread).
Alison, it may have escaped your notice that people on part time, zero hours contracts are unlikely to pay any income tax, and even for those on full time contracts paying the minimum wage the tax take will be minimal.
Anyone who looks at how wealth is generated in the UK will rapidly realise that it’s the big corporations that make the really substantial amounts of money, largely tax free. If the tax were shifted onto those who can afford it, i.e. the rich and the corporations, there would be more than enough to fund the NHS (especially if it adopted a more preventative approach) pay for welfare, (especially if this was a Universal Unconditional Basic Income) and for education as well as retirement at age 60. There is more than enough wealth in the UK to pay for all this and a lot more besides. And it woudln’t even have to result in the very rich losing all their wealth, as they’d still extremely rich even if they faced 90% or so taxation – which they did in the 1960s and 70s. Michael Moore’s film ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’ is possibly the best, and most entertaining explanation of this. Apologies for the poor quality of this stream, it’s the only one I could find at short notice – but it is still watchable:
http://watchdocumentaries.com/capitalism-a-love-story/
Padi, I’m not going to attempt to educate a 61-year-old man as to the value of work. If you haven’t grasped it by now, it seems a bit of a lost cause. Reading these posts from you and from Sourchimp about how it’s pointless to work, I wonder if all this “scrounger” rhetoric really is unfair at all. It does seem there are people in Britain today who think other people should pay their way in life and they should give nothing back in return. I’m sure Jeremy Kyle would have a great time with these views!
Alison – neither Sourchimp or myself diss the value of work, but we do question the value of much so called work that has zero benefit to ordinary people, or wider society. If you think that slaving away for the likes of Tesco for example it worthwhile work, then you’re a tad more deluded than I thought.
Yes, I’m 61. so I have a lot of experience of the world of work, and have done many different jobs, but most of them have been the kind of jobs that society would be, to be quite honest, much better off without. So I don’t need you to tell me the value of work, I already know.
Even though I am not employed, I still work quite hard, and I’m sure that Sourchimp does as well. That we reject most of the crap on offer from the capitalist system is maybe a reflection on our wisdom. Much of the time older workers have a hard time finding work is not because they are unwilling to work, but because they are adamant in their refusal to accept the kind of crap that younger workers have to endure.
As for Jeremy Kyle, if you haven’t grasped that his programme is part of the media’s campaign against the poor then you’re a fool. I’m actually quite disgusted that you should even mention it, and it does call into question whether some of the values you claim to have are in any way genuine. Quite simply, Jeremy Kyle and similar are poverty porn, programmes that only the scum of the earth see as worthy of entertainment value.
If you really shed some of your sometimes very blinkered thinking you’d realise that neither Sourchimp or I devalue work. quite the opposite. What we do question is the value of employment where we slave all day for a pittance whilst at the same time enriching an employer; basically that would be to condone theft. No one likes to be exploited like that.
You won’t like this, but I’m going to post it here anyway. I suggest you think about it.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwif2J-CpZjdAhWBI1AKHSk_BgoQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fafed.org.uk%2Fpublications%2Fstickers%2F&psig=AOvVaw2AAry0H9x9pf4KX4uU-hun&ust=1535838911754427
–
Padi, I agree Jeremy Kyle is unpleasant and I don’t watch his show, but I have seen it on rare occasions.
My point is that most of the general public will think you’re a big hypocrite to talk down work yet campaign for a bigger slice of the profits of other people. I have to say it softens my stance on welfare reform because we cannot have children growing up to believe other people owe them a living.
I think you do some of your more worthy campaigns a disservice because you have so little time for views you disagree with.
All together now,
Do they owe us a living?
Of course they do, of course they do.
Owe us a living?
Of course they do, of course they do.
Owe us a living?
OF COURSE THEY FUCKING DO.
A good read on why a lot of Jobs are bullshit
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-bullshit-jobs
Presumably you buy your food? Or do you keep a cow and make your own cheese in your own self-built dairy? What about your beans? Do you plant, tend and harvest them yourself? Or do you buy them from a supermarket in a tin?
I am not the one panicking that no one will be there to provide those things if the establishment crumbles, clearly you seem to have the need for everyone to be working for some reason.
Fuck taxes and giving back I am by right of birth a shareholder of this Earth. So I am merely claiming my dividends what is already owed to me as a shareholder.
Do they owe me a living ? Of course they do.
Essentially it all boils down to individual freedom, your happy to be chained to the system compliant obedient and heed to masters, fair enough, I am not.
I very much see the establishment as the enemy so at every available opportunity I will subvert it for my own ends. This is the only reason why I am voting and voting Labour, remember I am against organisations Labour are no different.
It is a necessary evil in order to turn the cog in my favour (Sanctions) and if or when that happens then I am done with politics altogether which is another necessary evil I have had to embrace recently to be one of the many butterfly’s flapping wings in order to bring about this change. Then I can go back to my carefree sedentary minimalist lifestyle.
We can do this the easy way and allow me and others like me our freedom or the hard way and try to punish me into submission, which way do you prefer?
Sourchimp, I’m definitely not trying to punish you! I’m not sure what gave you that idea!
I thought we were discussing ideology.
You are correct that things don’t get done if people don’t work. For example, we won’t have our collective transport: the bus if nobody will be our bus-driver. We could all drive our own cars…except we’d have nowhere to park, traffic wouldn’t move and we’d all die of air pollution. What would people do if they couldn’t afford a car?
It seems to me that you wouldn’t survive very long without your dole, so I don’t see why you would call for an end to the establishment that pays your dole. Good luck surviving without it!
Likewise, you wouldn’t eat without the labour of those who grow, harvest and sell your food. So it doesn’t make sense to me that you’d call for an end to it.
You said I was “panicking” about not having people to work for me. We all rely on the labours of others as well as ourselves. Without work, our power would go out, we’d have no food, the taps would run dry, we’d be walking through raw sewage to get down the street. This already happens in countries with a poorly-functioning state.
I wonder how you see our collective, shared services running without work? How do you think our bins will be emptied, for example?
I think an end to all work would be a big reason to panic! I expect you would panic a great deal to find your internet turned off, your lights gone out, your dole unpaid, your supermarket empty and no water in your tap! Am I wrong? Would you be fine about these things?
So it doesn’t seem very bright to advocate the end of all work. And I am surprised your approach is to make fun of my concerns. They seem very sensible to me!
I don’t buy your ideology just because you present it as being relaxed and defying authority. That might seem cool to a 10-year-old, but not to a me.
I am not trying to sell you anything at all Alison. My views are entirely my own interpretation of how I feel about the world and how I get by in my own way.
Your asking me what about your bins and NHS and buses sorry I cannot help you there, I do know I would get by fine without them.
I am a practising minimalist, I only need food water and shelter and MY medicine and pretty much nothing else so I think you will find the Earth is plentiful in that regard, the good lord provides does he not?
We are born, we consume, then we die, everything in between should be down to individual choice, after all the end result whatever we do in life will inevitably be the same for all of us when our time comes and we finally get to see what mask Death wears for us.
My Genetics survived hundred of thousand of years without the dole and or governments I am sure it will continue should they vanish.
Sourchimp, I wonder where you would put your rubbish if you didn’t have a bin.
You still don’t seem to get it that you wouldn’t have your food, water or shelter without organised labour, nor without the charity of those willing to give you your money.
As Christians, we believe we have a duty to serve one another. We also believe in obedience, discipline and hard work. As our vicar said today, we must understand the context as well as the individual Bible verse. In this case, I don’t think you can say that Christianity supports your approach to work, whether the Good Lord provides or not, because it doesn’t fit with the other teachings of the Bible.
I don’t think you would be just fine without your dole. As my friend said today, your ideas are not very practical.
No, I didn’t think you were trying to sell me anything!
I promise not to make any rubbish and clear up after me, everything I leave will be organic. I just get this this sneaky feeling food grows naturally without human intervention or organised labour.
Sure its not going to fall off the trees straight into my mouth I will have to pick them up at least. But then I could spend my life contemplating a more effective way of getting them into my mouth without even having to pick them up.
Maybe create a religion scare everyone they will go to hell if they do not do my bidding for I am now King the mouthpiece of God and ruler of all what you see.
Ensure my doctrines include obedience, discipline and hard work sit back and relax.
I have a sneaky feeling you’ll still have to wee and you’ll still have to poo. Somebody will still have to do something with it at the end of the pipe, otherwise your tap water will be brown!
If you’d like to be a farmer, be warned it’s very hard work! The animals will wake you up at 5 am, bleating and hollering for their breakfast. Then you’ll have to turn the cows out of the barn and spend 3 hours knee-deep in poo, mucking out after them! You’ll have to muck out troughs, milking sheds, etc. Remember you’ll be working 7 days a week. The animals will settle down to sleep at dusk, but you will have to look forward to hours of paperwork before you can go to bed. You will have bills to pay: most farmers find they struggle to earn enough to meet their expenses. You won’t be able to take days off sick because the animals will need to be fed, watered and milked every single day.
You won’t be the first person to claim to be the new Messiah and try to start his own religion! You’ll have a job convincing anybody that you’re the one, though. It might look like you could say the right things, but we believers have extremely high expectations of our messiahs! You’d be very unlikely to make the grade. Try walking on water, for example.
Are you saying my body waste is not organic and useful in various ways such as a fertiliser?
I am not flushing away anything for free thank you, its mine and no one else’s.
I will plough the fields and scatter the good seeds of the land and live a nomadic lifestyle more than a settled one.
I would not eat meat so need for all that messing about and noise. Obviously I would follow the seasons and overtime build up a mental map of where the best place is at any movement in time as the season change.
Use natural and temporary shelters as and when. But all that is a pipe dream unless we had a global mass extinction event and I survive.
But even then no doubt the whole process would start again.
So this is why it is important to me anyway not to look outwards but inwards for the answers, How we feel and think is what is important not wealth / material possessions other than the basic essentials. Shelter food and medicine.
In my mind I am free as bird and spend more time there than anywhere else, it is only when the oppressors bring me out of my shell and I have to deal with them life again becomes shit.
As I said I am by right of birth a shareholder of this Earth and owed a living so I have no sense of shame not putting back into the system financially but I do give back in other mysterious ways.
Here is actual footage of someone walking on water https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcBs0680Ek some people fall for the illusion, even today , same with David Blaine and levitation, mere trickery.
But if people want to believe in the illusion, then that is up to them, as long as it does affect me.
Not sure if I asked you Alison but do you believe the fossil records are accurate or our history only goes back 5000 years ?
And do you think Heaven and Hell are real places or just metaphors ?
I know a lot of Christians that would answer those differently just wondered what your conclusion is?
Obviously I would have to start to give some individuals privileges overtime so if the great unwashed start to see the lies I would need something to keep them in order.
But as long as we got enough of the bastards to do the real work then we make up some really really really impotent sounding titles and bullshit jobs so it looks like we are doing something ourselves. If they really start to kick off them eventually we will have to give them the illusion they have a choice and call it democracy.
Life is not all about hard hard work and drudgery there are other alternatives while maintaining a society and no more than any period in time we have the technology and knowledge to make it a reality without us all having to resort to going back to hunter gatherer days.
I am not evil, I believe in peace and helping others not for profit or reward but because it is the right thing to do. I have a lot of empathy and understanding and do not wish to force my views anyone else or I will have to take up arms and become the very thing I despise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualist_anarchism
Sourchimp, if you really were the Son of God, don’t you think the Good Lord would have taught you how to spell “important” by now?
Are you one of these people who gets their whole house connected to the internet because they can’t be bothered to open the fridge? Yet, near you, people choose to spend 4 hours hard at work ringing church bells! It must be such a mystery to you.
No, I don’t think you’re evil.
If you keep on saying you’re the new Messiah, the men in white coats will soon pay you a visit.
Yes I cannot wait until I can afford to buy my own robot that will go to work for me so I can get on with other things. My fridge however is still dumb.
I am sure my lack of education is obvious by know and my diction at the best of times reads like golum from lord of the rings, I have no doubt, but it gets the message across and that is what is “importent” than anything. 🙂
Found this polemic on work, it’s a long read, but I think it sums things up pretty well 🙂
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolition-of-work
Again Alison, I don’t really give a damn whether the general public think I’m a hypocrite or not. I don’t need the general public to validate me, I’ve always validated myself.
You still don’t seem to get it do you. you seem to think that work, any work, is better than not working. Most people are doing jobs that are absolutely pointless, such as working in fast food joints, supermarkets, banks, the armed forces etc, etc. Work is overrated, and certainly all workers work far too many hours. We’ve had the 8 hour day since the late 19th century, but still, more than a hundred years later it’s still more or less the standard measure of a working day. Why? Even by the 1890s people such as William Morris were of the opinion that workers only needed to work about four hours a day to supply their needs, and by our own time I suspect that we could supply our needs plentifully on a couple of hours work a day.
Read the article I linked to, Abolition of Work which proposes that we play more. Most work exists simply for the enrichment of the exploiters, and is, to be quite honest, the kind of work that only the really desperate would do – because who in their right minds would work for the likes of Tesco if they had a real choice?
Paradoxically, I think that the great minds behind the current welfare reforms could have inadvertantly done us all a great favour, as I think there could well be a huge backlash against it once it really starts to bite and hits those in work. The whole notion of work needs to be radically changed and we can learn a lot from the past. In the early industrial period, factory owners despaired of devout workers who took St Monday off, as it cut into their profits, but there was an even more devout group of workers who took St Tuesday off as well. These workers had worked enough to cover their needs, so why should they work any more to satisfy the bosses greed?
Once again, I don’t talk down work, but question whether it needs to be so prominent in our lives, and for what reason. Productivity is such now that there is plenty to go around without anyone needing to work more than a short time every day, yet there are more and more people being forced to work not only full time (35+)hours, but also compulsory overtime in some jobs, all when there are unemployed and underemployed people who would like to be able to be economically active.
Another good read is this article in support of the 4 hour day, though in reality I think it makes the case for an even shorter working day, but the 4 hour day has an historical relevance for the IWW, which was calling for a 4 hour day way back in the 1930s.
https://www.iww.org/history/library/misc/Bekken2000.
I don’t know why you fetishise work so much Alison, there are so many more rewarding things we could be doing. The very fact that most of us slave away just in order to enrich the boss class should give pause for thought. And why shouldn’t kids grow up in the belief that the world owes them a living? It’s not as if they asked to be born now, is it? And besides, don’t those kids own the world as much as anyone else, in which case shouldn’t they benefit from it as much as anyone else, just because they exist? I know it’s more complex than that, but I don’t see why providing everyone with the means for a basic living, as of right, should be so contentious – unless of course you’re wondering what the boss class, the ruling class and the royal parasites would do without slaves to not only service their every need, but to hand over most of the wealth they create as well.
Padi, if the vast majority of people don’t think like you, the question is why? It could be that you are twice as intelligent as everybody else…or not. What do you think?
I wonder how you would obtain your food, electricity and water in a world without work.
I don’t see your ideology running in any country in the world, so it can’t be that great, can it?
Read it again Alison. My last comment merely pointed out that you fetishise work and suggested that the obsession the world has with work is misplaced and that everyone works far too much, and that all needs could be satisfied with really quite minimal kinds of work. Also, this brings into question of defining what work actually is – and no, that’s not a stupid, facetious question.
I’m not on quite so much of a ‘primitivist’ tack as Sourchimp seems to be at times, as I do rather like my home comforts and things like internet etc, but whilst these things do require human activity, it doesn’t necessarily have to be regarded as work. And yes, I’ve worked for those things, but I’ve not pushed myself beyond a certain point because why should some parasite, politiican, boss, clergyman benefit from my efforts?
You may well have drunk the Kool Aid when it comes to swallowing what you’re told in church. Maybe you get some comfort from the idea that there is an imaginary person up in the sky who controls everything, but I think the evidence for there being such a person, apart from the delusions of far too many people, is rather scant. You castigate Sourchimp for his drug use, but it doesn’t seem to have affected his reasoning as much as your religion seems to have affected yours – Marx described religion as the opiate of the masses, and I can see why. Religion blinkers people, tells poor people not to worry, because though this world is horrible, the next world is wonderful. It’s deluded, as deluded as any other religious belief. Your god teaches you nothing. The Bible is a collection of half remembered nonsense that only fools would believe.
How does distaste of foreigners square with your Christianity Alison?.
Yo have said you don’t support UKIP, but you seem to have drunk the Kool Aid there too. as the video accompanying this article:
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/news-opinion/online-abuse-after-interviewing-ukips-15041049
Padi, I am not going to debate a load of abuse about my religion. You really are a very judgemental person and you are very intolerant of anybody who doesn’t agree with you. Listen to yourself!
If you want to debate with people, you need to learn how to RESPECT other people.
Pot, Kettle, Black Alison? You can give it out, but you can’t take it can you?
Padi, I don’t post ABUSE. There’s a difference. It’s a shame you can’t understand that.
What you say about me being a “judgemental, intolerant hypocrite” has nothing to do with me. It’s all about you. It’s a shame you can’t see that, either.
It’s also a shame you’ve got nothing better to do than troll people with lengthy personal insults that run as long as a book. It looks like you really could do with a job to go to, Padi. Something to keep you busy. Perhaps you’d even learn how to get along with people! Diversity can be a wonderful thing! We can all learn a lot from people of difference religions, politics and backgrounds, but you won’t discover that hiding behind your computer all night.
Alison considering you been mocking and ridiculing my beliefs recently it would hypocritical to complain when the tables are turned. Your views seem to belong to some sort Christian equivalent of ISIS.
I have been challenged and attacked all my life for my views and I am OK with that, it does not bother me at all, in fact it helps me in some ways.
If our masters pockets were not so deep we all could work half the hours for twice the pay retire at 60 and provide a basic income for all without conditions.
We could build more homes than we need to cope with future demand.
Now why the heck is that so controversial for you ?
No, Sourchimp, you know very well I did not call you a terrorist or anything like that. You know that is abuse.
It’s a shame because you very reasonably debated with me for a very long time, before Padi weighed in. I wonder why you chose to copy his approach? Does he look cool to you?
You asked me some very sensible, interesting and respectful questions about my religious beliefs yesterday. I was going to answer today, when I had a bit more time. Sadly, today, the tone of the debate has changed and I no longer feel comfortable sharing beliefs that are close to my heart. What a shame.
Finally, EVERYTHING I SAY DOES NOT REPRESENT THE OFFICIAL STANCE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND!!!
Well I feel like I have been terrorised I must say, I am still waiting on knife edge for the Daily Mail, the Police the DWP and the men in white coats to storm my flat at any moment.
No I am not jumping on the band wagon or copying anyone’s approach. I was going with the flow of the conversation and agreeing with Padi’s observations and comments, so yes you could say Padi’s cool by me.
However,
SOME HAVE FLAWS BIGGER THAN OTHERS. (humour)
What is worrying me right now is trev has not popped up recently he normally does on his signing day, hope the DWP have not ensnared him on a 24/7 8 day a week CV course.
Sourchimp, you really shouldn’t make light of the real suffering of real victims of real terrorism around the world. I think you owe them an apology.
Considering the low tone of debate, I think Trev is very wise (wiser than me!) to keep out of it.
Alison, just exactly where have I accused you of being a ‘judgemental, intolerant hypocrite’? Given that you have put it in quotation marks, I assume you mean to suggest that those are my words? Ever heard of libel?
Also, where exactly have I posted any abuse? I may have posted some less than complimentary sentiments about religion, but those are my opinions, and last time I looked I was allowed to express an opinion. That you don’t like that opinion is just too bad.
I don’t judge you at all Alison, but I have to admit that my feelings towards you are approaching that of pity, and I say that as someone who tries very hard to pity no-one, except perhaps those I consider as beyond redemption.
Looking over the posts on this thread there is only one person who comes anywhere near being a judgemental hypocrite, and also someone who is really quite intolerant. You’ve taken it upon yourself to judge both me and Sourchimp on numerous occasions. and you’ve also been quite abusive at times. As for intolerance, who is it who has constantly made comments that denigrate foreigners? Not Trev, not Sourchimp, nor me.
I don’t troll you Alison, but seek to criticise you in a similar manner to the way that you criticise me; in my case with a good deal less moralistic bombast than you.
This is my last word to you, as I can see that trying to debate with you is a complete and utter waste of my time.
You say you don’t know where you called me a “judgemental, intolerant hypocrite”. Then you carry on typing your usual diatribe and, lo and behold, you start telling me what a “judgemental, intolerant hypocrite” you think I am! It’s all there, Padi.
Have fun suing me for libel!
How many £hundreds are these people walking away with, as a same-day reward for signing up to Universal Credit? How many months’ worth of Universal Credit are they receiving? I’m all in favour of paying benefits to those in need, but this sounds like it could be a chance for any old s-d to wander in, write any old drivel and bingo! No checks. Just instant money! By the £hundreds! Some people spend £100 in one evening.
I’d rather see the state pay people weekly. £72 per week for signing up to Universal Credit would seem a more responsible way to help the poor. If nothing else, they would be better helped to manage their budget.
Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time before food banks get visits from people just days after spending their entire Advanced Payment (on what, nobody knows).
I am not responsible for these people Alison I merely signposted them, it is up to them and the JCP .
To be clear here, a few have never claimed benefit before,ever and do not rely on nor would ever go to a food bank.
If they fail to turn up to the first meeting then they will have to reclaim at some point and repay the advance at some point.
I think it is a good thing they have finally engaged with the system and hopefully the JCP will try to keep them engaged. I can see many more doing it up and down the country and probably the true unemployment figures might come to light for at least a month be interesting to know how many continue claiming but if it is only one, then I think it is worth it.
A typical amount was £300 and that is to be paid back at £26 per month once they receive their first payment at the start of October if the keep signing on.
Sadly I see a lot of them being sanctioned, as they will find the conditonality quite onerous, which of course it’s designed to be.
I don’t think anyone who really cares what the actual unemployment numbers are is fooled by official stats. Most will choose to believe government figures, which will of course be published by the usual mouthpieces. We don’t hear much about it these days, but those of us who lived through the 80s will remember that the media actually published all the various attempts of the government to mask the numbers by letting us know that the way of calculating the figures had changed. I don’t know if you’ve noticed those articles by seemingly puzzled, (I’d say clueless!) hacks about how there is low unemployment yet wages aren’t increasing as they should. There is no mystery, as the reason is that the unemployment level is probably something like three times the official figures, with another similar number being underemployed, doing part time zero hour jobs.
True unemployment in the UK could still be around the 3 – 4 million mark. Unemployment stats, as you say, don’t tell the whole story.
Far better for those young people would be training and activities rather than job search. It would also potentially result in far fewer sanctions as they’s actually be doing something they enjoyed, if the training and activities were voluntary and relevant. Most of them probably don’t have a clue what they want to do, or even what their potential is, as they are likely to be those who have been failed miserably by the education system.
I don’t trust the unemployment figures either, especially after just about every Tory MP announced local unemployment halved in just 6 months. I wrote to my local MP and asked how this was achieved, but, in response, all I got was waffle. It didn’t seem convincing to me. If unemployment could REALLY be HALVED that quickly, we’d KNOW how it happened!!!
I see where you are coming from, and I agree that UC isn’t the way to go. I’d also suggest that if we are to keep a system of unemployment benefits, then my choice would be a return to the old Unemployment Benefit that existed pre 1996. JSA isn’t bad, but is far more conditional that UB ever was! I was quite active in opposing the introduction of JSA in the mid 90s.
I disagree with you about UC being a better option than a Citizen’s Income. So long as it’s something for poor people it will be stigmatised, and the bureaucracy involved is hugely expensive and unnecessary. If it’s a universal it immediately removes the stigma, and if the most radical interpretation of a system of UBI is followed, such as that proposed by BIEN or the more radical German thinkers, or the system that was the subject of a European initiative then it’s transformational socially, and gets us away from the nonsense about work. Work as we know it now merely enriches those who already have far too much, and obscenely, is giving them more and more. It also defines work narrowly, and leads to people being defined by the work they do. In a modern society, spending some time chatting to an elderly member of the community, or helping keep the street you live on clean or being on the voluntary staff of the local library is as much work as slaving in Tesco, which is a multi national company that makes huge profits through exploiting the staff.
Importantly, UBI would, if implemented properly, abolish poverty. The problem so far is that most people’s ideas of UBI are based on lazy journalism, like those articles about the sum of money given to unemployed people in Finland. That’s been wrongly described as a UBI scheme when in fact it was far from being such – and the Finnish government was at pains to point out that it WASN’T a UBI scheme they were testing. The devil is very much in the detail.
Finally, the U in UBI should, correctly stand for Unconditional, and not Universal. UC and all such benefits are always going to be conditional, and as you point out, it’s the condtionality that is the worst aspect of UC – and I’d agree, this should be the focus of any opposition to UC. However, even here, any campaign would need to be completely clear right from the get go what an acceptable result of any campaign would be, (personally I would not be happy with any result that did not, at the very least, reduce conditonality to that contained in the test contained in the 95 Act, but I’d prefer complete removal of any conditionality) whether it should be an unemployment benefit, or should morph into a UBI system. The very last thing we should want is a fiasco like happened over the Poll Tax, (which is why it’s important to keep Trots and such like in check) where the ‘victory’ is pyrrhic and we get a poor compromise, which is what happened when council tax was introduced.
I remember going on a march through the town centre to the Jobcentre with all of us (about 200 people) shouting “JSA, NO WAY!”. It made no difference though.
It did work Trev eventually , that is why they finally replaced JSA and introduced Universal Credit.
Be careful what you wish for seems applicable here lol.
It sounds like Sourchimp’s seen the light! It sounds like he’s had a conversion to the “wonders” of Universal Credit, now that he’s realised £300 of free money might be up for grabs for all the local NEETs (aka bums).
Demonstrations don’t actually achieve much in terms of making change. They have great value in terms of shows of solidarity and as opportunities for those of a like mind to meet up, but they are no substitute for solid work on the ground.
It means back to the hard slog of picketing and giving out leaflets, and more importantly of all, talking to people and even more importantly, listening.
From what I remember about my campaigning against the introduction of JSA was two of us picketing Jobcentres in various places, and yes, it was pretty futile too!
Folk might know about this, but it’s an interesting account of unemployment benefits. Very sobering to learn that what we are facing these days is nothing new, and also reminds us that Labour, the TUC and the mainstream unions can be complete bastards too. Should emphasise why we need our own mass movement. It certainly comes to something when the PCS can show concern that DWP staff will be affected by the conditionality of UC, but has done nothing to curb their members involvement in administering sanctions.
Too right Padi ! The PCS are mainly concerned with DWP jobs and conditions. Their latest effort is to try and complain about the MOD guard service possibly going private. They won’t do anything to put their jobs / mortgages at risk.
There has also been far too much pathetic, head-down acceptance of the brutality of Universal Credit in particular by the so-called ‘Labour Party’. Personally I don’t care what Jeremy Corbyn thinks of Jerusalem. I do care that Labour are still not doing anything about any of the suffering and misery of Universal Credit. This should be Jeremy’s priority. Labour don’t give a damn for the unemployed. Miliband sold them out in 2012, and Corbyn would rather not say or do anything at all.
It’s also interesting to note that the PCS has a large infiltration of SWP/SP activists. Though the PCS is outside the TUC, it hasn’t sought any genuine solidarity with other unions outside that organisation such as the IWW or United Voices of the World, which have, despite their ideological differences, made common cause on many issues – but then I can’t see syndicalists and Trots having a lot of common ground really – as a friend jokingly pointed out, organisations like the SWP will intitially support us and then, when they get into power, line us up against a wall.’Cept he wasn’t really joking!.
I’m not sure that Corbyn really gives a second thought about the unemployed, thought that could of course change if enough of us organise – but as you will see if you read that history on the SUWN site, even when the unemployed organise and get big, they are still largely ignored. Worryingly, I’ve heard reliable allegations that even the IWW which claims to treat unemployed workers as equals is back peddling on this. Any detached observer would perhaps see some mileage in the PCS actually coming out and refusing to implement any sanctions, because as they significantly negatively affect human health, (and the government has chillingly admitted that, but still proceeds with the policy) they could be guilty of colluding with human rights abuses. A Nuremburg defence is no defence at all. At present their stance against sanctions is blatantly cynical, as it would seem that sanctions for the unemployed and those who are in work but don’t earn enough are fair game, unless of course they are PCS members working for the DWP.
What price solidarity?
Hmm, there was supposed to be a link to an article on the excellent Scottish Unemployed Workers Network site – damned tablet!
Here is is:
https://scottishunemployedworkers.net/history-of-unemployment/
Thanks for this, Padi. It looks like an interesting read.
It is, but read the online version as it’s substantially different to the pdf download – which I suspect has been abridged to make it a better pamphlet.
I’ll try and find other articles that are in a similar vein, especially those about workers fighting back and also how ordinary people have taken on landlords or solved their own housing crises. I know there has been quite a lot of activity in recent years, especially in London, but there has been a long history of this; in the First World War period there was mass action against eviction and rent rises that the people, initially at least, won, and the massive squatter movement immediately after WW2. We don’t get to hear about these stories, and I think they tend to be left out of school history curricula… I wonder why?
Well signing-on wasn’t too bad this week, I suppose, it was my usual Adviser back off her hols, though she did sneak in some snidey comment hinting about wanting/expecting to see improvement in my jobsearching and the results of it. I do all the jobsearching I’m supposed to do and I apply for jobs and I provide evidence, it’s not my fault I don’t get many replies or any interviews. They just have to say something for the sake of it, to try make it look like their job is valid in some way.
Been totally skint all week, surviving on what bits of food I’ve got left, ran out of baccy (and money) last weekend and, after smoking all my re-rolled dog-ends, have been using some out-of-date nicotine patches that one of my neigbours threw in the bin. It’ll soon be Friday and will have money again…for a short while. But the good news is I don’t have to pay the remainder of this year’s water bill as the CAB (bless them) included it as ‘arrears’ on my DRO application so Yorkshire Water wrote to me telling me not to pay any more of this year;s bill and they will send me a new bill next March. That will save me about £20 per month in the meantime 🙂
Fuck knows how I would cope if I did pay my debts.
After gas and electric and budgeting loans are taken from my benefits I get £80 per fortnight, I think I am going to have to have my gas cut off this year, no point being warm if starving I was 15 stone when started claiming again 6 years ago, I am now 12 stone and lost a lot of my muscle mass. I look like a frigging stick insect to what I was. Still my buttocks are like coconuts now I could crack a walnut with these bad boys.
Nicotine is a terrible bind, its easy for folk to say stop but a bloody hard habit to kick.
Giving up smoking is not at all easy. I smoked for 37 years in all, and tried on numerous occasions. I tried the nicotine gum, the patches and also cold turkey on a few occasions, but I couldn’t sustain it and ended up smoking again.
I eventually just decided to give up, and succeeded, that was six and a half years ago, and I guess I must have really just been ready to give up and determined. I must just have been in the right place to be able to do it.
I have yet to try to give up tobacco but always on my to-do list and hopefully like you my time will come to do so. If Cannabis were fully legalised I would have better chance of giving up tobacco.
If tobacco companies were shut down I would not complain but then the loss of revenue would hurt those who care so much for our health.
Always remember a holocaust survivor recounting how some in the camps would swap what little food they had that would jeep them alive for a few days more would swap it for tobacco so strong was the addiction.
Much like me and trev now I guess now lol
It took me several attempts over a period of 21 years before I succeeded, so yes, it does have a far bigger grip than many would credit.
I have to say that when it came to it, when I was finally determined to do it, it wasn’t as nasty an experience as I expected it to be. I think in all I only really had any strong cravings for about three days, but I was ready, so I guess that makes all the difference.
Nowadays I find it very difficult to be near anyone who smokes, especially if it’s indoors. I personally don’t care what other people do, they know what they are doing etc, it’s just that these days it makes me retch.
Might sound odd but I am the same when it comes to folk smoking plain cigarettes around me, I do not like the smell at all.
Remember the old saying? “No fags, no dope, no hope”. And, ” Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope”? Haha I don’t even bother with cannabis anymore but I remember the feeling very well.
Only takes a few seeds in a few places outdoors let nature takes its course and with the good lords blessing you can be harvesting a bountiful crop which can provide both money and medicine.
Amen to that !
Regarding your debts you might want to consider going down the same route as me, go to the CAB and make inquiries.
Trev I do not pay debts its cheaper….. nor water (should be free) I wait 5 years or so for the debt to be wiped automatically then start again, basically rinse repeat the bastards.
I have nothing of value now nor do I intend to have in future so no point chasing me for anything. I have lived like this since leaving home, avoiding debt has no psychological effect on me whatsoever in fact the reverse is the opposite I get a sense of enjoyment and satisfaction the boot is firmly on my foot.
The only hassle I ever get is having to put the letters they send in the bin.
Debt collectors have no legal powers whatsoever and court appointed bailiffs no I have no nothing of value. 🙂
One advantage to being a happy minimalist .
Well I admire your stance but I don’t think debts do automatically get wiped after 5 years, do they? I read somewhere that you have to have had no contact with them at all for 7 years before debts can be put on hold but even then there’s some way they can still pursue it. No contact would include not answering the door to them or their agents, not replying in writing or by phone , email, and not making even any token payments. But it’s up to you at end of the day, I just wanted to get it all sorted legit via CAB then it’s done with (eventually).
Regarding water bills, I had a friend years ago who refused to pay and they cut off his water supply. They kept contacting him to try make arrangements and even turned up one day with a plumber to try persuade him to sign some agreement & get the water back one but he wouldn’t listen. As they were there it started raining and he shouted “look there’s water everywhere, its free!”. He also lived in an underdwelling and there was a dripping overflow pipe from house above, so he placed a large plastic barrel there to collect the drips (plus rain went in there too) which he then used for drinking and washing. The plastic barrel was blue in colour and said Hazardous on the side and he dragged it out of the river just behind his house! He lived like that with no water supply for quite a few years, but he died in the end. There was hardly any furniture in his house, just one old armchair and a one-bar electric heater tipped on it’s side that he used to carefully balance a pan/kettle on! Highly dangerous! The house was crammed full of old vintage motorbikes & spare parts, even the kitchen cupboards. He ate food out of skips. Washed his clothes out in the back yard in an old tin bath with a posser, everything came out battleship grey. Quite a character.
No one has my phone number, all letters go into bin and no one apart from court appointed bailiffs have ever visited my home and that was only on one occasion and now they do not bother once they confirmed I had nothing of value.
I have everything I need and live comfortable just no wide screen TV jewellery or Vehicles, obviously they cannot take essential items like cooker fridge washing machine wardrobes sofas clothes and so on
It is illegal to disconnect water supply public dwellings but they can commercial premises and technically impossible for them to do that anyway in my case or they would be turning off the supply to the whole block.
My son works for Severn Trent Water.
Some debt does not go on your credit record and some debt stays even if you have paid and then have to chase up to have removed and then is irresponsible lending incorrect records and a few others way to challenge.
Some people are funny, aren’t they, Trev?
Water companies purify our water before we drink it, and our water bills also pay for our sewage to be filtered, treated and disposed of safely. There are a lot of excessive salaries and excessive profits among water companies, but we only have to look to other countries to see what happens when sewage collects in the street and the drinking water supplies are filthy. Water companies are essential to a healthy, clean society and somebody has to pay for them.
I remember when water was free and in public ownership toilets flushed and taps ran.
My older sister was saying that when she first got married and moved into their own house they didn’t pay Council Tax or Water Bills, it was all included in the annual Rates and the Water was Nationalized back then and the amount of Rates she paid was something like £12 per year! That was in 1968.
£12 then to nearly £1400 today roughly (water and council tax) talk about hyper inflation that’s taking the piss.
The Tory DWP war against the vulnerable continues…
“The targeting of claimants with mental health issues by the Social security system”
https://dpac.uk.net/2018/08/the-targeting-of-claimants-with-mental-health-issues-by-the-social-security-system/
“Universal Credit Failing People With Mental Health Problems.”
https://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/2018/09/04/universal-credit-failing-people-with-mental-health-problems/
“Universal credit leaves claimants with mental health problems ‘tangled in bureaucracy’”
https://www.disabledgo.com/blog/2018/07/universal-credit-leaves-claimants-with-mental-health-problems-tangled-in-bureaucracy/#.W4_VqyRKi1t
This is the latest poll from survation they are the only ones who rightly predicted the last GE results.
Labour Gains a Four Point Lead Over the Conservatives.
(Changes vs 7th July) CON 37% -1, LAB 41% +1, LD 6% -4, UKIP 7% +4, SNP 3% NC, GRE 2% NC, AP 4% -2
So it seems the public have not been fooled by the media bias and mud slinging and more than anything made Labours position stronger.
Yes, how can you meet the conditions for being fit to work if you’re actually ill awaiting assessment?
Good point Alison, I have no idea!
If you have no choice but to become a jobseeker then can have adjustments made to your claimant commitment so they take into consideration your health issues as to what work and hours are suitable.
That is correct, Sourchimp. That is what is supposed to happen.
However, the article was saying that sometimes the Work Coaches are not giving people adjustments like they are supposed to. So sick and disabled are being required to look for work for 35 hours per week and are getting sanctioned for missing an appointment at the Jobcentre.
The whole system for jobseekers is very much target driven towards getting off flow payments and not pampering to the ill and disabled.
Staff are trained to police the system and have very little knowledge of benefit law and regulations nor the actual proper process for making claimant commitments and that often includes the management never mind understanding health conditions.
Always seek legal advice before taking any action.
I’ve not been on here much lately due to the length of the comments thread and my faulty phone’s inability to scroll right through the comments without crashing. I’m in the local Community Library now, yes on a Sunday afternoon :p it’s actually open!
There’s an article of interest at the moment over on Ipswich Unemployed Action (also with a comments thread):
“Crunch Time for Failing Universal Credit Scheme.”
https://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/2018/09/08/crunch-time-for-failing-universal-credit-scheme/
The downside to the Judgement if it is same one superted is referring to and without reading it again I Think the judge in his summery said that if you complete your activities in less than the 35 hours then the Work coaches needs to increase the activities, so therefore 35 hours requirement is not set in stone as such if you take less than the 35 hours.
As for applying for Jobs then I have already argued successfully that on occasion it is not always possible to find anything suitable and therefore you not cannot be sanctioned on that basis alone.
The same goes for all the steps in your claimant commitment they are a roadmap not a contract !
Thanks for the link to the article. Shame about the lady in her 60s feeling suicidal due to lack of money.
Yep. Comments are getting too long. I’m trying to cut back on comments now, especially where they are irrelevant (drugs/religion/anarchism/EU).
Glad your library is still open. Mine is too, but we’ve had years of campaigns against reduced hours and plans to close another one. The council was going to close the least-used library in the area, but then they realised it was least-used because it was situated in a very deprived area, so they did a u-turn and kept it open.
Trevs phone crashes on long threads, you misread what he wrote.
I read it correctly, thank you, Sourchimp.
Then I clearly misread what you wrote and stand corrected.
Correct. My phone is knacked. But it is still ok for some job sites so I’ve been using it for making token job applications , click & apply, whilst sat at home. I’m in the Library now. I still have to appear to be seeking work of course to avoid sanctions but I don’t want a job during the next 12 months until my debts are written off. It’s easy enough though to just find some bullshit to click on for some crap job that I’m not likely to get anyway, often miles away.
There was also an article about this in the Guardian. Seems that the focus is on the system working properly(!) and paying out correctly. But even if the system does work properly, it will still not be as generous as Tax Credits, and it will be conditional. I notice there was no mention of conditionality.
This one aspect is bound to be a pretty big shock to many, especially those who have been regurgitating the standard Daily Heil line about benefit scroungers etc. This aspect alone could bring the scheme down. Another aspect that seems to have had scant consideration is the HMRC system that is behind the system working. It requires employers to be on the ball in feeding data about pay and hours worked into a computer system, and it all being co-ordinated with yet another computer system. Big employers won’t have much difficulty with this realtime system, but many small employers will. How many are still using PCs running Windows XP? We know from last year’s WannaCry attack that even some big organisations were caught out. partly because they were running XP, (though there was also the issue of a lack of security with people opening contaminated e-mails). Also, small employers will struggle with the sheer amount of work.
It’s also the case that the UC system isn’t as automated as we are led to believe, with much of the work still being done manually by permanent staff who are overworked and by badly trained temporary staff. I’ve even read that some of the backlog with claims is due to DWP staff going on holiday, and their workload effectively being left for their return. I began to wonder about this wonderful ‘digital by default’ system when I was last claiming when I had a chat with my advisor, and it seems that the backend computer system is one that’s been in place for many years, and is the same one that was used to send out our Giros back in the day. I’m pretty certain that system will work as well as the day it was introduced, but how well does if interface with the system used for managing UC, as well as the HMRC system used for the realtime information that is used to calculate the benefit to be paid? I’d take a guess that it will be humans doing much of the work of calculating actual benefit to be paid, and stressed out workers tend to make mistakes.
I really do hope that the system will work. but the DWPs constant (and grossly insulting) mantra that the system is working just fine tells us that there is something of a disconnect from what the DWP is telling us, and what many claimants actually experience. My fear is not that the system fails, (which I think it probably will) but that people are plunged into desperate situations because of it..
It’s also somewhat intriguing that UC has been welcomed across the political spectrum, but the voices of those mostly affected by the introduction of UC are nowhere to be heard in the mainstream.
I posted this already but the comment didn’t appear for some reason.
“Crunch Time for Failing Universal Credit Scheme.”
https://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/2018/09/08/crunch-time-for-failing-universal-credit-scheme/
Considering all the trouble poor people have with the Tax/DWP over working tax credit issues, and then consider this:
HMRC refuses to charge rich and powerful people with tax evasion to ‘avoid damaging their reputation’
“Last week, at an economic crime conference in Cambridge, a senior HMRC official admitted that the UK tax authority panders to the rich and powerful when chasing them for tax evasion so they can avoid “reputational damage“. If you ever had any doubt that in Britain there really is “one rule for them, and another for the rest of us“, this utterly astonishing admission by the UK’s tax authority proves it.”
https://evolvepolitics.com/hmrc-refuses-to-charge-rich-and-powerful-people-with-tax-evasion-to-avoid-damaging-their-reputation/
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/09/12/tax-offices-refuse-to-charge-rich-people-with-evasion-to-avoid-reputational-damage/
It sounds like the government have their priorities upside-down.
One rule for the Rich and another for the rest of us, as usual. If you claim Universal Credit and have worked recently they will automatically deduct amounts of money from your Benefits for alleged overpayment of Working Tax Credits and you will have one hell of a job challenging them or even getting through to them or getting any sense out of anyone. But if you’re rich they will be lenient on you.
It’s not much of an incentive to get a job because you don’t get to keep anything more than you were getting benefits.
Someone has heeded the call and took the fight to the doors of those who live in a bubble.
Good to see the Archbishop of Canterbury speaking out against Universal Credit.
Fair play, he got stuck in with a vengeance. That will really have angered the government and the Daily Mail.
He needs to remember that he has the power to excommunicate anyone from the Church of England. Either individually, or the Tory party as a whole.
Considering it is the Church got us to this point historically and they are in pedo crisis this is just cynical distraction tactic the hypocritical Church of England are major shareholders in Amazon, the very evil they speak of.
How did the Church “get us to this point historically”? We didn’t dream up Universal Credit, did we? (!)
Thank you for pointing out the Church has shares in Amazon. This isn’t the first time we’ve been found to hold shares in the very companies we speak out against. I remember the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke out against payday lenders, but it turned out the Church of England was a shareholder in some of them. We were told it was part of a package of investment: the Church couldn’t choose which companies to include. However, we shouldn’t be using standard investment packages if they’re full of companies we find distasteful. We need to put our collective money where our collective mouth is.
Talk about being part of the machine
http://uk.businessinsider.com/amazon-defends-worker-cage-patent-that-was-recently-unearthed-2018-9?r=US&IR=T
Well I hope they heed your words, I did read a comment by the Church where they defended this by saying being a major shareholder they can have more influence on the company but I think that is a weak argument.
I agree. I thought it was a very lame excuse.
“How did the Church “get us to this point historically”? We didn’t dream up Universal Credit, did we? (!)”
The Protestant Work Ethic was the main driving force behind the development of technology/science and the Industrial Revolution.
This in turned spawned wonderful human beings such as Baroness Stroud a fundamental Christian and brains behind the introduction of Universal Credit and welfare reforms.
https://www.prosperity-uk.com/speaker/baroness-stroud/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/02/conservatives-philippa-stroud-gay-cure
I don’t suppose we’d have Artificial Intelligence today without the achievements of the Industrial Revolution.
Re Baroness Stroud: I agree this is not good at all. I would consider it to be a perversion of the faith. However, it doesn’t sound like her church is part of the Church of England, so the Archbishop of Canterbury wouldn’t have any authority over it. Unfortunately, there are always people out there who interpret the Bible/Koran in an extreme and rather unholy way.
Ha-ha-ha!
Yes, Alan, I was pleased to hear it as well.
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