Northern remainers

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To Stockport jobcentre, where I recently talked at length with Des, who is 60.

There’s a transcript from our discussion below. I post it as an example of a kind of flip side to social and mainstream Brexit hysteria – the right side of the Upside Down if you will. For every extremist, politician, party loyalist and media type who is losing their grip over Brexit, there is someone who is looking at the world like a grownup. It is easy to forget this in a world where overkill is the default.

Des was an ex-warehouse worker who’d been made redundant two years ago. Des wasn’t claiming benefits. He’d been living on redundancy money and savings since he’d lost his job.

His money was running out, though. Des used the jobcentre computers most days to look for work, because he didn’t have a computer at home:

“Five years to go until I retire. I still feel I got to work. I can’t afford it right now (not working). You’ve got people who work until they’re 80. You’ve got these in supermarkets now – some of them working until they’re 80 to make ends meet…. I might have to end up doing agency.”

Des was concerned about returning to warehouse work at his age. The work was physically tough: lifting, packing and long days on your feet.

Des had signed up to an agency which had texted him about 12-hour shifts. Des didn’t like the idea of 12 hours on the trot at the age of 60. Who would? He had enough to keep going for now:

“I just didn’t fancy getting up and doing a 12 hour day today… I’ve never done that. [I’ve done] 8 hours – 8 to 5. This would have been … could have been finishing about 11 tonight…”

We talked about Brexit.

Des said he wanted to remain. This was mostly because Des was worried about prices going up when England left Europe.

Des thought entirely in terms of the day-to-day cost of living.:

“I want to stay in… because I keep thinking only things will get dearer. I keep thinking they’re dear enough now.”

 

“I want things to go more in quantity for the same price. It’s all wrong now…I do have some luck when I can go around the supermarkets and getting your best reductions and get things a bit cheaper.”

————

Here’s Des when we spoke on July 4:

“It’s been two years… since I had a job… a warehouse. Mind you, I could have had a job today – off an agency. Said start as soon as possible, but it was a 12 hour shift and I didn’t fancy doing that right away…12 hour shift… in Reddish. It would have been [the same sort of warehouse work]. They don’t give much away on the phone. I didn’t fancy a 12 hour shift. I’ve done 8 hours, but a 12 hour shift.. they give you all sorts of strange things in the 12 hours, you know…

“That was on the phone. The agency texts you and says can you start as soon as possible. Mind you, I got an interview with another place last week, but they said they won’t let you know until the middle of July…cause they got to see everybody else as well you know… when I went to McVitie’s, they text you right away if they wanted you or not, but this one makes you wait before they… they probably say no, cause I am not too clever with their texts… their paperwork, it was like foreign with me and they haven’t got to time discuss things with you…

“I’ve been doing straightforward warehouse work – picking [sic], packing and all that. I’ve only been in the warehouse for the last ten years. Before that, I was in publishing, sort of, in a warehouse and that was just sort of everyday stuff. No skill or anything. I’ve been in mainly no-skilled jobs, so the other company is a bigger company, so I’ll be lucky if I get in there. You see I’ve gone from small to getting bigger and bigger [companies]. They expect you to have more knowledge [written and computer skills]. You see where you haven’t got that…

“I’m not on any [benefits] yet, because I’ve got too much [in savings] to claim… because I’ve been working all my life, it is only the last two years [that I haven’t been working]. I got redundancy, but I haven’t got enough to retire… if you’ve got less than £100k, you probably haven’t got enough…I keep doing lots of shortcuts [saving on spending] and hoping for the best you know…

“I’m 60. Five years to go until I retire. I still feel I got to work. I can’t afford it right now [not working]. You’ve got people who work until they’re 80. You’ve got these in supermarkets now – some of them working until they’re 80 to make ends meet… I might have to end up doing agency. I just didn’t fancy getting up and doing a 12 hour day today… I’ve never done that… 8 hours, 8 to 5 this would have been … could have been finishing about 11 tonight…

“That’ll be every day, really. It didn’t say [what sort of work]. Some jobs say what you’ll be doing, but it [this agency] doesn’t say much on the phone. If [you’re] available and all that – it’s up to you whether you want to go or not…

“I come in [to the jobcentre] every day… you see you’ve got to delete things [jobs Des has applied for] and I can’t do that at home, because I haven’t got a computer…so jobsearching… when I win the lottery, I will buy a computer and then you can do loads of things at home you know…save you a lot of time. I’ve got a mobile… I’ve just got the basic [phone]… they say if you get that… I forgot what they call [it] – yeah, smartphone, you can do it on there, but I can’t claim [benefits] until I get to the £16,000 or lower [in savings] but you don’t want to get that low. That’s when you’ll be scraping the barrel you know…

“I keep thinking [I’d like to earn] £12,000 a year, because I was on minimum wage, so I come out with about £12,000 a year….roughly get £1000 a month. That could have been after tax… I kept thinking I’d get £12000 a year. I’d be happy if I could get that now…

“You can soon spend £16,000. I pay for me own house… just pay the bills, you know. Yeah so…I’ve got to see what happens next week. I’ll have to grab the job thing… Two years [without work]. You don’t want to be too rusty… it’s like I’ve got to get back into a routine and working through the holidays.

On Brexit

“[Government is] not helpful really, no… I want to stay in…[Europe] because I keep thinking only things will get dearer. I keep thinking they’re dear enough now… I just want them to sell them a lot of things…

“TV licence – we’ve got to pay for all these TV people to get a pay rise. They get loads of money as it is…a million a year… they’re the ones that need to drop down a bit… [they get paid] far too much (Gary Lineker), because the pensioners are still going to have to pay [for a TV licence].

“The over 75s are going to have to pay a [TV licence] fee, because Gary and that still want that pay rise…can’t afford it…because we’ve still got to pay these… I would say get rid of them and get somebody who can do it for a bit cheaper these programmes…that’s what you want to do. If they demand too much money, get rid of them and get people who demand less money and then things would be a bit cheaper…he [Lineker] could still live on half a million a year. He probably got a lot of money from when he was playing put in the bank somewhere. It’s not like they’re short on money. I can’t stand he’s demanding more money and of course the poor get poorer…

“I don’t know whether another government can sort out, like Labour. I don’t know… the one that we’ve got now seems like it is only for the rich… we want to get rid of the Conservatives and put in Labour, or Liberal, or whatever.

“I thought they were doing all right – the minimum wage, they brought out the minimum wage and somehow they got back onto Conservative and things go downhill again… so I don’t know who is supporting them… Conservative – you just don’t feel you’re getting anywhere. You want to get rid of them. It’s the rich that support them…I don’t know when the next election is…I can vote…

“I keep thinking things are going to get dearer. They are dear enough now. It is less for your money and I don’t know whether that will change…I just don’t know what they are doing now. You pay the same and you get less for your money.

“I want things to go more in quantity for the same price. It’s all wrong now…I do have some luck when I can go around the supermarkets and getting your best reductions and get things a bit cheaper. I did go to Tesco and get some pork chops for cheaper, but it was the final day so you had to eat them then… you do have to be quick at times.”

121 thoughts on “Northern remainers”

  1. I sympathise with Des, I’m pretty much in the same boat. The only jobs I can find to apply for are Warehouse, Order Picking/Packing, Production line, most are many miles away, many of them involve shift work, some are 12 hour shifts, and I have arthritis in my foot, a stomach hernia, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, and am prone to Anxiety & Depression, there’s no way I could do that sort of work for those hours even if I could get there. I still apply anyway just to avoid Sanctions. It’s a living nightmare and I wish I could Retire. I can’t see Brexit improving the situation.

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    • P.S. The difference between myself and Des is that I don’t have any savings so am living on just my JSA, and I have been unemployed for longer than two years.

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  3. another invaluable pos.t and best wishes to Des (and trev).

    as a Leaver, I’d say Des is entitled to his opinion, but the reason that the only jobs on offer to him are 12 hours a day is because there is no shortage of migrants from the EU willing to work under those conditions. If we cut the supply of migrants at the low wage end, then employers will either have to start offering better conditions and wages, or automate, or go elsewhere. I don’t see how, were we to continue to be in the EU with FOM, how the numbers get better for Des and trev. Tax take as a percentage of GDP is a multi-decade high, so there isn;’t lots of spare cash lying around waiting for Jeremy to pick up and distribute.

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    • Another factor is also that many traditional industries have disappeared over the last few decades, and whereas different regions had specialist industries/manufacturers where people had jobs for life there are now just things like warehousing /distribution often situated on the outskirts with agency staff working awkward shifts with no tea breaks, no holiday pay, some pay the same rate whether it’s days, nights, Sundays, bank holidays etc. In West Yorkshire it used to be woollen textile mills and engineering, big firms that employed 3,500 people in one factory, jobs for everyone; production, drivers cleaners, labourers, canteen staff, office staff, apprentices etc. There were jobs more suitable for older workers, such as ‘bobbin ligger’, who pushed a wooden cart about and collected all the bobbins and stacked them up in a pile, nice & steady at your own pace, no one on your back, no targets, time to put the kettle on…all those jobs have gone now. South Yorkshire it was coal mining and steel foundries, Lancashire it was cotton mills, Midlands/Birmingham /Coventry was motorcycle production (I also remember the Panther motorbike factory that used to be in Cleckheaton nr. Bradford, and Royal Enfield in Redditch). Other parts of the country had fishing, ship building, etc. Now all there is Warehousing, for Amazon, Asks, XPO Logistics etc. Target driven, shit boring, stressfull, shift work, miles out of town.

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  4. In reply to Dipper, Nigel Lawson, Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1989 cut the higher rate of income tax, at a stroke, from 60% to 40%, (it now stands at 45%).

    If you hold to the view that taxes must be raised before money can be spent on improving the lot of the working class, then fight for reversal of that tax giveaway to the well-heeled. Tax the rich instead of borrowing from the rich.

    Personally, I don’t hold to that view. I support Modern Money Theory (See in particular an excellent book, ‘Debt or Democracy’ by Mary Mellor). Money is only an imaginary concept that lubricates the process of human beings, as a social animal, coming together co-operatively to organise to fulfil all of our needs.

    However, I recognise that it takes time for rationality to overcome irrationalities (such as the one, ‘blame the migrants’), so in the meantime before we have popularised MMT, I’ll go along with, ‘squeeze the rich till the pips squeak’.

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    • Money might be an imaginary concept but it’s still a bugger when you’ve got none! I suppose we could say that material existence is something of an illusion. I try to remind myself of that when waiting to receive my fortnightly grilling in the Jobcentre.

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    • Abolish the Wages System! Workers produce all wealth, and therefore own what they produce, so why do they need money?

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      • Imagine a system whereby everyone has a job doing something that suits them, part-time say 3 days a week, for no money, but everything is free. Utopia? Or Communism? Alternatively, could just keep things the way they are but with a shorter working week and earlier Retirement.

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          • I hope so, good riddance to them, so long as the State can seize their Assets when they leave. Unless perhaps you mean scum like Jacob Rees Mogg who manages an investment portfolio of £90 Million which he has stashed in dodgy Russian banks, one of which has US & UN Sanctions against it for money laundering. Sooner Corbyn gets in the better.

  6. I have to sign on tomorrow and am already starting to feel a little anxious. I’m going to the library soon to print out my jobsearch evidence using my last two quid, but have just been doing a bit of last minute jobsearch on my phone, reading through all the daily job alert emails I receive from all the various job sites I’m registered with. I find that I have to read them slowly, or read them again, desperately trying to spot something I could get away with applying for. But most of them mean nothing to me, I don’t even understand what many of the job titles are, and when I read the job description it’s usually something I’m not qualified to do, and even if it is I imagine myself doing that job for those hours, and imagine the commute and what time I would have to get up, what time I would be likely to arrive back home, and what time I would have to go to bed, and how much time it would allow me to cook & eat a meal. After I’ve done all of that and taken it all in my heart sinks at the prospect, then I move on to the next email. I do this every day. Fucking pointless and depressing.

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      • This has always been the same. The two-property scandal was for many years, seen as a legitimate perk of being an MP. Along with country house repairs, duck-houses and moats. It’s only in very recent times, since the expenses scandal, that the worst of this has been stopped. But there were generations of MPs who had been claiming for these things for their whole career. Same with the House of Lords.
        Where peers currently get £310 per day just for signing the attendance register. They don’t have to speak in the House of Lords, or do anything else but sign. They can just go straight home again, and still get the £310. This has been going on for hundreds of years.

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  10. I arrived early at the Jobcentre this morning and sat outside having a roll-up whilst anxiously killing time before my signing appointment. Another fella sat down on the wall, smoking a rollie while he too waited, so I got chatting to him. He said he’d been abroad (don’t know if he’d been on holiday or what) and when he returned they put him on Universal Credit. He said his money is paid on time, and they deduct about £50 per month for the advance payment he’s had. He looked 10 years older than what he actually is, white hair and (rather unkempt) beard, a little over weight, and he told me he’s 53, I had assumed he was a bit older than me and looked early 60s. We both entered together and walked upstairs, this guy was out of breath when we sat down and he also mentioned that he is diabetic. He didn’t seem too bright to be honest and had no idea that the Pension age has been increased. What job he is capable of doing, or even getting, I don’t know. What’s the point of forcing people into the job market when they are ageing and in poor health? But at least my signing session went ok today, much to my relief, the Adviser /Dole Clerk didn’t have a go at me for a change and I was glad to get out of there. Mission accomplished for another fortnight. Now all I have to do is make it through to Friday on about £2 in coppers and a Bank balance of just 37p.

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    • I know another chap who is aged 65 and has been badgered into attending the Right Steps to Work course. Bloody pointless and ridiculous.

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        • All at the Taxpayers expense of course, plus I think they’re just milking what’s left of the European Social Fund, keeps some twats in a job for a while and puts some money into the private companies running these courses, but is it the DWP’s place to be doing that? I don’t think so.

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      • I thought Right Steps was just a voluntary course ? No sanctions or anything if you decide not to go on it.
        And at 65 surely this man has less than a year to his actual retirement at 66 ?
        It also shows the DWP attempting to ignore the actual retirement age, and try to lead people into working beyond it.

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        • Yes it’s voluntary but the JCP Advisers bully & badger folk into doing it or make it hard for you to refuse, or (as in my case) refer you to it without mentioning that it’s voluntary. My 12 months on Right Steps is up this week, and once I found it was voluntary I just decided to play along with it to keep the Jobcentre off my back for a year.

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          • Yes, the DWP are often strangely reluctant to admit when a course is not actually compulsory, but is voluntary. Always best to check. If they see someone they think doesn’t know that something is voluntary, they will automatically carry on as if it is. It works most times. I think one of the next things we are going to see is a determined campaign to try and discourage full retirement for as long as possible.

          • They’ve got no chance where I’m concerned, am willing the years away, can’t bloody wait to Retire!

          • Oh yes, they definitely want us to work until we drop:

            https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/201064/ihr11.pdf

            https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/help-and-support-for-older-workers/help-and-support-for-older-workers

            https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2014/08/Getting_On_-_Universal_Credit_and_older_workers.pdf

            The days of voluntarily taking early Retirement are over, unless you have savings or a Private Pension pot.

          • One of those pdf’s has a section on winding down for retirement where it says that the DWP have identified 60 as the “magic number” as the age when unemployed people see themselves as being ‘semi-retired ‘ and are content to stay on JSA, just going through the motions of job search. No kidding Sherlock. This is obviously something the DWP frowns upon and sees as a problem that needs to be addressed.

          • I think the idea that 60 is the age when people start to wind down to retirement was recognised under the last Labour government when there was a policy of placing people who had reached 60 on Pension Credit. This pretty much recognised people as retired at 60 without actually adding them to the ranks of the retired. The Tories have basically abolished this, and also increased the age when the state pension can be claimed. It seems to me a rather stupid move, as it’s hardly likely we in this age group are going to get those awful low paid jobs, even if we apply for them, and for a whole host of reasons. Many of us will have some health issues, and also we’re likely to be much more ‘bolshie’ when it comes to the type of manager often found in the lower paid sector – usually someone with half a brain and thinks they’re so much better than anyone else because they get 50p an hour more than the people on minimum wage whose lives they make a misery, and of course, the only people seemingly unaware of the rampant ageist nature of UK society are JCP+ advisors.

            Wouldn’t it be far better to put us older people, (i.e. those of us over 55) out to grass and create some opportunities for younger people?

          • Yes it’s time they got off our backs and made life a little easier for the older ones whether they are working or unemployed. For instance, they could introduce a lesser degree of compliance where job search requirements are concerned, or perhaps excuse older people from such requirements if they are doing voluntary work or if they have any health problems. Maybe that’s something Corbyn could address, no jobsearch for over 55s who have an allotment. Or perhaps Carers allowance for people who have cats to look after.

          • Love the idea that people who have cats to care for should get a Carer’s Allowance – that’s a brillliant idea Trev. I’d certainly sign up for that.

  16. ‘Broke’ – BBC2

    Working people struggling to survive…

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00071lq

    “Work, the best route out of poverty”

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/07/general-election-public-service-manifesto-pledges-social-security

    https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/4393xb/the-governments-fanatical-work-obsession-makes-it-deaf-to-criticism-on-poverty

    https://evolvepolitics.com/damning-new-research-completely-shatters-tory-claim-that-work-is-the-best-route-out-of-poverty/

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  17. It just goes to show what can happen when you let right-wing extremists introduce a new benefit system. One designed not to support the disabled and unemployed, but to throw them off benefits at the earliest opportunity. If you add up the deaths and the suffering this has caused, and continues to cause, it is an absolute scandal that it is being allowed to continue.

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  18. All this shit in the news about power outages, in Bradford it used to happen often, not even in a storm, just the sheer number of people wiring up their houses to lamp posts or bypassing the leccy meter for free power or growing weed, plus eejits breaking into substations to try nick 50,000 volt live copper cables. Suck it up yah.

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    • More comedy gold from the world of UK politics eh Trev? I imagine that will do wonders for UKIP’s voting figures, like wiping them out completely!

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  21. The DWP view is that older jobseekers should be more ‘flexible’ in terms of what they will take as a job. They know that the prospect of a decent paying full-time job is unlikely. Now with Universal Credit they can be pushed off into 6 Hours here and 10 hours there, as a so-called job. And they don’t even have to stay with the same companies. It can be different ones every few weeks. A magic roundabout of bits and pieces.

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    • And any earnings will be deducted from UC, clearly not “making work pay”. It’s a pity the Trade Descriptions Act doesn’t apply to Government claims about their policies.

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  23. I’ve been having a bit of an interesting debate on the Facebook ‘Walking the Breadline’ page where a post about how hard pressed DWP workers represented by PCS sorting out UC claims are going on strike over there being too much backlog and pressure of work etc. All basic and fine stuff, and something a half-decent union, such as the IWW, (though I doubt whether the IWW would want JCP+ workers as members, as they oppress workers, rather like security guards, prison guards and the police) would have dealt with ages ago, but there we go, it’s the PCS and they have their own methods. Anyway, in response to the report I made what I considered a fair comment about how the PCS should have really thrown their lot in with those that many of their members commonly refer for sanction doubts – i.e. people like us, UC/JSA claimants. Wow, did I stir up a bit of a hornet’s nest of denial, as well as being accused of attempting ‘divide & rule’. There is of course an element of divide and rule there, but the divisive ones, as most of us already know, are those working in JCP+ and who are PCS members. It was pointed out to me that the PCS are ‘at the forefront’ in the fight against UC, which to be fair, to a point, is true, but only where it impacts on their own membership. There is no evidence I’ve seen that suggests they’ve taken it further and shown solidarity with survivors of the sanctions regime, which only works because PCS members operate it. It seems those attempting to have a go at me had failed to notice the number of upticks I got, which, to be quite honest, surprised me a bit. This would suggest that my opinion of JPC+ workers is shared by many, and I think I’m on solid ground there, judging by the generally low opinions expressed about JCP+ workers on sites like this. Of course, as Kate often points out, shit attitudes towards people in need isn’t restricted to those who work for JCP+, but is widespread. What’s even more galling is that when you look a little into the background of these champions of the working class, (well, take a peek at their Facebook page) you see they’re members of every solidarity group going, but I’m very cynical, as I’ve had so many dealings with people like this, who join this group, and that group, in soldiarity, but when pressed they often prove to know next to nothing about the cause they purport to support! We have a saying in South Wales, “All mouth and no trousers”. I think it’s very apt in this situation.

    I did helpfully suggest a couple of ways that they could show solidarity with unemployed workers, such as refusing to refer people for sanction doubt, or to show visible solidarity with those involved in opposing UC, perhaps by turning up on pickets of JCP+ offices organised by other groups opposing UC and the dismantling of the social safety net in general – but I doubt they’ll take any notice, as these kinds of people are so ensconced in their own small bubble that they’re suffering from a bad case of solipsism.

    Personally I’d be cautiously welcoming of anything the PCS did that showed genuine solidarity with the people they deal with on a day to day basis, where they have the power to make someone’s life a misery. I know that not all JCP+ workers are complete bastards, but there seems to be precious little that the PCS is doing to shun those who do behave in this way, or to out them. If they came out of their bubble for long enough, they’d see that they are almost universally hated by those of us who have to deal with them in any significant way.

    As time goes on, the more and more I’m seeing that individual JCP+ advisors can excercise considerable discretion over the way they work – for instance, though there are guidelines that suggest that meetings be fortnightly, and weekly for the first 3 months of any claim, it’s ultimately down to the individual advisor what the frequency actually is, which is why I’ve had periods of up to a month between meetings. I suspect there is a similar discretion over whether they refer people for sanction doubt, and in one revealing chat I had with my advisor, it seems that those who are ill or who live chaotic lives, and therefore sometimes miss appointments, shouldn’t be sanctioned, but should simply have another appointment made for them.

    Given that, there is a lot that PCS members working for JCP+ could do to make the whole process of claiming UC much more humane. I’m sure that many of them are indeed under the lash of their line managers, but that is where the union comes in, or at least any half decent union, and bullying (which is a very widespread management strategy) should always be challenged. But, as we have seen so often, the PCS is another of those unions that hides behind the very ill thought out Thatcher era anti-union legislation which is actually rather easy to circumvent – so much so that those laws are actually a bit of a joke, in order to justify their relative inaction.

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    • Solidarity my arse. If they had an ounce of decency they wouldn’t be doing that job to begin with. I would estimate that 99% of JCP Advisers I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet are jobsworths, brainwashed cretins, or utter bastards. The G4ss goons on the other hand are ‘only obeying orders’. If it was up to me they’d all be facing a firing squad.

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    • Very true Padi, and part of the problem with Universal Credit has been the way that the PCS and other unions have basically gone along with it. Only in very recent times have Serwotka and others done anything to protest the genuine cruelty and hardship of Universal Credit. And even now the PCS are more concerned with DWP pay issues, and their members working conditions, than the brutal conditions of UC claimants. In the UC service centres they are really striking over staff workloads, rather than the uncaring harshness of the Universal Credit system.

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        • I’ve just been in Facebook, and noticed that I’ve had another 18 people have liked my comment.
          I’m not quite sure what they’d make of your desire to see them face a firing squad Trev, but they are fair game – the PCS seems to be a haven for the Trot left, and if they had any involvement in a revolution, I’m pretty sure they’d be the ones shooting the anarchists and libertarian socialists, like they did in Russia in 1919.

          As far as solidarity is concerned, it’s only the industrial unions that seem to want to genuinely consider unemployed workers are equals, but even there they tend to fall flat and don’t live up to their own hype very often – as a friend found out when she tried to seek support from the local IWW branch she was a member of – they asked if I could do it, (I’m not a member any more due to a difference of opinion) and they’d pay my expenses. I did it, and happily, and didn’t claim any money, as I have a bus pass. But the attitude of the IWW branch annoyed me somewhat. I’m always happy to show solidarity with my fellow workers, but it takes the biscuit a bit when you pay your union dues and get nothing in return.

          As far as the PCS is concerned, I’m a very harsh critic, but if they made even a token move towards showing solidarity I’d acknowledge it and make positive noises – but from the comments I got from those who are obviously active members, it’s clear that they’re so far up their own arses that they can’t see that it is they who are out of kilter, and not everyone else.

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          • And like Jeff said, they are only interested in protesting against their own plight, the working conditions and workload, but if that throws a spanner in the works and helps bring about the collapse of an unworkable system then all well and good. Boris, however, seems more interested in pandering to the Reactionary element of society by making lots of loud noises about that old chestnut of Law & Order, when in reality the Tories have cut the Justice system to the bone and so none of his promises will mean a thing. I think we can guess what his attitude to Social Security is.

          • Sure enough, there are plenty of recent news reports confirming that Boris Johnson is entirely in favour of keeping Universal Credit, is so far not interested in ending the 5 weeks wait for UC, and is absolutely disinterested in ending the Benefits freeze. True to form for a posh, rich, over-privileged, out-of-touch, uncaring Tory bastard.

  24. I looked at a copy of the Daily Express the other day while having a coffee in a local cafe. ( All the other papers were being read by customers). You could swear they were living in a different world. As you can imagine, it was all about Brexit, getting out of Europe. Not taking any nonsense from the French etc. But also emotional pleas about the dreadful state of adult social care in the UK. No mention that it is Tory cuts that have destroyed it. More as if it has just happened on its own somehow . Nothing about Universal Credit, people on benefits, the disabled, homelessness, child poverty, the drastic cuts to Legal Aid. But instead Royal News, Meghan Markle, gardening and the new Dairy Milk bar with 30% less fat. So much of reality filtered out. Is it any wonder that people who get their main news from these right-wing sources have so little awareness of the serious problems of poverty in this country ?

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    • That’s depressing. Sad but true. It’s like some people are living in a parallel universe. I met someone recently who didn’t know what a foodbank is.

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      • Yes, and once upon a time perhaps there was something of an excuse when sources of information were harder to get hold of, but even then, it was always wise to read a range of newspapers, remain highly sceptical and make up one’s own mind what one believed. Nowadays, with the internet, ignorance is a choice, and if people spent a few minutes each day really reading up on things they’d be so much wiser – heck, 99.9999% of what the EU has been accused of in the current interminable campaign would be completely rubbished – this list makes some interesting reading, and it’s no surprise that many of the Euromyths held a particular currency in the UK:

        https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/

        Reading it makes one wonder about the kind of morons who actually believe this kind of stuff, but then, as Jeff points out, there is a real lack of joined up thinking because so many people get their opinions third hand from the likes of the Express.

        It doesn’t help that most people in the UK are so abysmally educated. Instead of boring kids to death to the point that by the time they’re 13 they would prefer to mitch off, why not inspire them to learn by making it exciting, interesting and relevant, and basically concentrating on the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic, the so called 3 Rs.

        It’s not that skills aren’t important, but if employers want to exploit workers, not only should they have to pay them decently, they should also cough up for their training, and not expect the taxpayer to do it through the education system, whose sole function should be to turn out self-regulating human beings, preferably with built in crap detectors. What is currently called school should be a joyful time for kids, not the regimented and meticulously measured boot camp that suppresses individuality and imposes conformity it is. Get rid of school uniforms, get rid of testing, other than nationally recognised qualifications towards the end of a child’s school career, (and even then it shouldn’t be compulsory – there should be special adult colleges to cater for the many who are ‘late developers’), and get rid of teachers in suits and ties. Create an environment where respect, both ways, has to be earned, beyond basic courtesies and encourage an environment where it is difficult to tell just who is teaching and who is learning.

        Sorry to get a bit on my soap box, I’m still more than a little vexed about what has happened to the adult residential college I went to in the mid 80s. There is some good news in that a local archive is being created as a kind of memorial to the college. A group of us is working on a few projects aimed at memorialising the college, that is much to remember it by, but also as a repository for the embers of an idea that could be rekindled in the future. It’s a paradox that more and more of us involved with the project are seeing that the need for such colleges is just as great as it ever was – but it’s not a cheap option… No decent education is ever cheap. There is the much reduced Wikipedia article, which isn’t anything like as good as it once was:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleg_Harlech

        and also this more recent article about the documentary that’s currently being made:

        https://www.planetmagazine.org.uk/planet-extra/requiem-coleg-harlech

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  27. Am wondering just what the hell is going on in this country. We’ve got the Rightwing pursuing a no-deal Brexit whilst simultaneously pursuing an equally ruinous trade deal with the USA that they (the UK Gov.) have admitted will provide only a 0.1% growth in GDP over 15 years! So why the hell are they doing it? If all this goes ahead the country will be plunged into a level of poverty that will last for several generations. On top of that the NHS will be privatized. Meanwhile those in Westminster remain oblivious to the current suffering and plight of the poor. A small independent foodbank in Yorkshire has given out enough food in 12 months to provide almost a quarter of a million meals, that’s just in one town. That alone is not only a national disgrace but ought to be treated as a National emergency.

    https://skwawkbox.org/2019/08/14/bbc-world-service-govt-calculates-us-trade-deal-would-increase-uk-gdp-by-only-0-1-in-15-years/

    https://skwawkbox.org/2019/08/13/excl-vid-pt2-pidcock-you-just-hear-the-same-old-rubbish-johnsons-orwellian-doublespeak-on-harrowing-reality/

    https://t.co/us14NCv25E

    Reply ↓

  28. It would be something if the PCS decided that their union members were not going to apply any sanctions against claimants. And just refuse to do it.
    In the end Mark Serwotka and others need to ask themselves this question.
    Is it going to be morality or mortgages ?

    Reply ↓

    • Ultimately it will be the mortgages that will win out, as even most of the so called socialists seem to want to prop up capitalism at the end of the day. People are also very fearful of doing anything that can be seen as ‘radical’ and even though non-violent direct action is perfectly legal, most people wouldn’t go within a mile of it for fear of being seen as being too radical.

      If the PCS wanted to, it could protest that benefit sanctions are a breach of a claimant’s human rights, and therefore they could, and should refuse to impose them, as they are both ethically and morally wrong. Which is why of course, the individual advisor doesn’t sanction a claimant, but refers them for a sanction doubt – a crafty sleight of hand designed to psychologically easy for the advisor to salve their conscience, as they aren’t actually imposing the sanction, but some unseen third party. We only need to remind ourselves about Stanley Milgram’s experiment to see that people will obey even some very chilling orders, especially when they are at some remove from the processes they are imposing.

      Knowing this to be the case and doing nothing actually makes the PCS complicit. I also think they’d find if they had the bit of backbone necessary to start refusing to sanction people they’d find that they’d have huge amounts of support, as there are even many Tories who have grave misgivings about sanctioning people – there is also the fact that sanctions are totally counter-productive, in consideration of which, how do those who are in favour of them justify their continued use, other than that they are sadistic individuals who derive pleasure at the thought of someone else’s suffering?

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      • There is also of course, a considerable difference in the economic circumstances of the average Work Coach and a typical claimant. Not only in the sense of the limited money available to the claimant on benefits, but a more profound psychological barrier based on relative personal security.
        Most claimants in my experience are renting flats or rooms in shared houses, or they are on a council estate. They don’t have any prospect of earning enough for a mortgage. They don’t have much, or anything in the way of savings. They don’t have a civil service pension to look forward to. This difference, this sense of the other, only increases the distance between claimant and Work Coach. Making it much easier to take a negative view of claimants, from the other side of the Jobcentre desk. And inevitably a reluctance to do anything which might damage a DWP career. They have far more to lose.
        And every day face what they regard as the personal disaster of unemployment…..at a distance.

        Reply ↓

        • Yeah Jeff that is true. End of the day the PCS are civil servants. They are not going to stop doing sanctions. Soon be fired if they did !

          Reply ↓

          • That’s only true of a very fortunate group of DWP workers who have permanent contracts. Increasingly they’re being employed on short term contracts, and many are actually claiming UC, which is what the PCS has been campaigning against – the only fly in the ointment of which is that they had a golden opportunity to take the fight further and champion the cause of everyone else as well in solidarity with us unemployed workers. But they didn’t, and did what trade unions typically do in the UK and merely fought their for their own sectional interests, and sod everyone else.

            There really isn’t that much real difference between a PCS member who is a JCP+ worker and us, and the PCS knows this. but quite why they are still cynically buying into the idea of divide and rule is beyond me, other than a suspicion that it’s some kind of cynical ploy by the Trot left who basically run the PCS to try and foment some kind of crisis in order to get us plebs to rise up, so that they can breeze in and take over the movement, as ‘vanguards’.

            The revolution, of course, goes sour, as us ungrateful plebs start to resent the bossing about, the night ‘disappearances’ and the general feeling that, whilst all animals are of course equal, there are some animals who are more equal than others.

            Ultimately, the kinds of action the PCS are taking are remarkably short sighted, as inevitably their jobs are going to be either automated, or increasingly be taken by people on part time zero hour contracts backed up by UC. This means that the workforce will become even more marginalised, and unable to afford the PCS union subs, as they are, like most UK unions, still stuck in a mid 20th century mindset. Only the more militant industrial unions are really championing the cause of the world’s most marginalised workers, unions like United Voices of the World, the Industrial Workers of the World, Independent Workers of Great Britain etc, some (like the IWW) have been around for over a century, and who have always fought for marginalised workers in ways that the more mainstream unions have not.

          • Still the majority Padi. In my local JC many are 20 years plus service, mortgage and full pension. Most of the people you get doing this are non-graduate, straight from school. No great enthusiasm. DWP seemed like a better idea than McDonald’s types.
            The drones of life. Uncreative, unimaginative in many cases. Have you noticed how they all look the same ? That washed-out DWP look of the true clerk.
            And it’s when you see them talking down to people who have nothing, that you see the psychological gap that still exists.

  29. My experience of UC has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. I signed on last Friday after it having been three weeks since my last signing, and another appointment was made for three weeks hence. It’s now been changed, and now the appointment has been moved back to 13th September, which means it will have been five weeks since my last appointment.

    Seems a bit weird, but I’m beginning to think they may be a bit short of Welsh speakers in that Jobcentre.

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  30. This might be old news to some, I think it happened under McVey, but has now been admitted in answer to a FOI request:

    https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/citizens-advice-signed-gagging-clause-in-return-for-share-of-51m-from-dwp/

    https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/08/16/proof-that-citizens-advice-signed-a-gagging-contract-in-exchange-for-51m-of-tory-government-money/

    Does this mean you can no longer trust the CAB to give the best impartial advice because the service they provide has to some extent been compromised?

    Reply ↓

    • Any advice they give now has basically been agreed with the DWP.
      I wonder how many times they have advised the claimant to ignore the Jobcentre and complain directly to their MP ?

      Reply ↓

      • It has certainly compromised the CAB as a giver of impartial advice, but perhaps more concerning is that there is now one less body that’s at the sharp end criticising government policies. Part of the problem here is that the CAB are a well known organisation that people take seriously. It’s all fine for some ‘left-wing’ thinktank, or the Joseph Rowntree Foundation or even UN Special Rapporteurs to publish damning reports, but these can easily be dismissed as people either haven’t heard of them, or the institution has already had a hatchet job done on it by the Tory press so people are already negatively preconditioned towards anything coming from those organisations.

        It’s sad that the CAB has fallen for this government ploy, for, as with many charities that now seem to be struggling, getting into bed with this noxious Tory government isn’t good for long term prospects. I no longer shop in most charity shops because of the way they colluded with Workfare, and I know that I’m not alone.

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  34. I’ve noticed some Tory types online saying that work is good for you, and insisting that some people WANT to continue working into old age, well maybe there are some people that do, but I’ve never met one. Oh, tell a lie, there was one guy where I did a mandatory work placement at Pets At Home about 3 years ago, a man in his early 70s who still did 35 hours a week on shifts. Good for him. Most people I’ve ever known can’t wait to Retire, many are hoping for Redundancy or looking at ways to reduce their hours/days, most hate their job and their lives and wish it was all over. That’s the distinct impression I’ve got over the last 6 decades of life anyway.

    Reply ↓

    • Me too Trev. And I distinctly noticed how cheerful some very fortunate local authority workers were who were on the cusp of retiring at 55, which some of those who’d been working for the council since the 1970s could afford to do.

      It’s fine if someone actually likes their job, (though I think those who actually like those mundane jobs in shops etc are just a little weird) and enjoys doing what they are doing, but that’s not true for most of us, who would far rather be taking things a little more easily as we get older. I’ve never really been overenthusiastic about someone profiting from my hard work ever since I realised that when I worked for a certain well know high street supermarket that I’d earned my weekly wage by lunchtime Tuesday, and that was based on profits made, not on total turnover. It constantly amazes me why shopworkers put up with the shit they get.

      Reply ↓

      • I don’t know what makes them think that employers would want to have a geriatric workforce anyway. I suppose it depends on the job, maybe a desk job for a IT savvy OAP, other than that it would be supermarket checkout, though they are being replaced with automatic ones, self-service scanners etc. and failing eyesight might be a problem, things like Glaucoma and cataracts are common in older folk, as is Arthritis. But the only jobs I see that I can apply for tend to be Production or Warehouse, target-driven fast-paced, they want younger people who can work fast not old codgers pottering about who keep having time off to attend hospital appointments. The reality is that many older “workers” would end up living on some form of unemployment Benefits instead of State Pension, which is just about saving money for the Government.

        Reply ↓

    • Short answer is they won’t Trev. The Tories seem to have lost all sense of sanity over Brexit, and I think your average crocodile would have more empathy and compassion.

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  37. It’s amazing the sheer arrogance of the Tories. They decide to raise the pension age to 75 with no consultation, and really that’s the end of it. It’s like Big Brother in George Orwell’s 1984. No opposition is tolerated. The Party has spoken.
    If this goes through the UK will have the oldest state retirement age in the world !

    ‘ We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable.’ George Orwell – 1984

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  38. How long before the pensioners are being called into the fields ?
    After all the younger European labour has gone ?

    Reply ↓

  40. I’m like most people, not an actual member of any political party. But I’ve got to say I’m not very impressed with the level of opposition provided by the Labour Party. It’s putting a lot of people off voting Labour, and I think will finally put many people off voting altogether in the next election.
    Mr.Corbyn had a – 40 rating as leader in a poll I saw the other day. Apparently this is bad beyond anything ever recorded ? But he doesn’t seem to care about even this all that much.

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  45. I thought it was impossible for Jeremy Corbyn to look any more ridiculous than he already does. Then I saw this morning’s picture in the Daily Mirror !!
    Corbyn staring with a crazy expression, eyes popping out, at some empty glasses on a table.
    Is Corbyn doing this on purpose ? Is he deliberately trying to look stupid ?
    Because he is succeeding.
    Really makes you want to vote Labour, not.

    Reply ↓

    • I haven’t seen it myself but I hardly think some newspaper snapshot has any relevance to the fact that both Corbyn and the Labour party (not to mention the country) are being fucked over by Swinson and the bloody LibDems (again). Boris is trying to shutdown Parliament so he can flog the UK to Trump, the LibDems are ready to help him, and Corbyn is the only one standing against them and for us.

      Reply ↓

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