Labour lost. Stop the infighting. People can’t afford lefty petulance.

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Am gracing you all with the tweets below, because I can’t stand the Labour intra-party bitching I’m seeing on twitter and facebook (could be a certain irony in going on twitter to attack people for being on twitter, but let’s do it).

Labour failed for a million reasons, supreme among which was and is a poisonous and self-indulgent factionalism that couldn’t be less interesting to 99.9% of the rest of us.

The main moral of the teachings below: get off fucking twitter and go and do something useful for the many people in poverty who really will need support when Boris Johnson gets going (those already making such contributions are of course excused from this instruction. Go well).

The harsh truth: outside of lefty and Labour circles, nobody gives a damn what goes on in those circles. I’ve been talking to people at jobcentres and foodbanks for over 10 years and literally nobody has ever said anything along the lines of, “how about that Owen Jones then,” or, “isn’t Margaret Hodge a witch,” or “yay, Novara media,” or “oh, Jeremy Corbyn,” or, “can I get involved in my local Labour branch,” or “how do I join Unite,” or anything remotely near those. People say things like, “I’m in arrears and they’re going to evict me,” and “I’m at court next week for council tax,” and, “I only got 2 days’ work this week and they didn’t text me this morning, so I’m fucked.”

So:

 

 

 

So that’s twitter told. Simple stuff, I know, but surely no less sophisticated than a tweet in which some thinker calls Jonathan Freedland a prick, or Owen Jones a cock, or Watson a fanny, or Corbyn a bellend, or whatever.

How you can help

Going to add to this list – here are some activist groups that I work with and you can get involved in. Leave your politics and views (and goddamned phone) at home, and put people who need support at front and centre:

Kilburn unemployed workers’ group – user-led benefits support group which holds a weekly meeting and clinic for people who are struggling with what remains of the benefits “system.” Leaflets regularly at jobcentres.

Stockport United Against Austerity – same as above, in Stockport.

Charlotte’s weekly leafleting, advice and food parcels session at Ashton Under Lyne jobcentre.

Focus E15: weekly leafleting session outside Wilko on the Stratford Broadway. Hand out leaflets. Talk with the many people who have shocking housing problems. Offer to go to housing meetings at the council if people want that.

There will also be your local foodbank(s) – usually plural. If there are limits to the time you can spare, make donations.

Etc

PS – took the Get Over It out of the heading because misinterpretation. The rest of it – carry on. Am in the last couple of weeks of finishing my book, so normal service will resume in the New Year.

323 thoughts on “Labour lost. Stop the infighting. People can’t afford lefty petulance.”

  1. Widespread poverty all across Tory Britain

    40% increase in one year of children fed by Colchester foodbank:

    https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/colchester-foodbank-trussell-trust-mike-beckett-child-poverty-1-6515976

    Number of children accessing Perthshire foodbank increases by a third:

    https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/perth-kinross/1136632/photo-updatenumber-of-children-accessing-perthshire-foodbanks-increases-by-a-third/

    Barry Sheerman calls for action to help the poor in Kirklees:

    https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/mp-calls-action-help-needy-17757667

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    • I am shortly moving to another part of the country Trev and it’s hectic and stressful, but I try to read most of the links you put up. Thanks for them.

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      • Moving house is very stressful anyway in my experience, I switched cities just a few years ago, but to another part of the country sounds like added stress! But it’s also an exiting time, new horizons an all that. I hope you have someone to help you with the task, or some contacts where you’re heading. Good luck with it all anyway. I sometimes think I’d like to move to another country altogether and escape from this Tory hell-hole. Wishful thinking.

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  2. Number of children in poverty up by 400,000 in last five years:

    https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/article/number-of-children-in-poverty-up-by-400-000-in-last-five-years

    Typical Tory response to growing poverty, i.e. Total denial:

    https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/education/schools/news/108107/priti-patel-condemned-claiming-government-should-not-be-blamed

    https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/news/104338/labour-fury-philip-hammond-rejects-claim

    https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/social-affairs/welfare/news/109706/boris-johnson-told-focus-poverty-instead-eye-catching

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    • The elite dining club that has given £130m+ in donations to the Tories.

      “60 of the Leader’s Group donors are collectively worth at least £45.7 billion”.

      “More than 80% of funds raised by the Conservatives for the general election so far has come from the secretive Leader’s Group. For the past eighteen months, the Tories have failed to honour a pledge to publish details of the controversial club, after previous scandals.”

      “•Leader’s Group donors tied to the City of London have given more than £50 million since 2010, and just five wealthy hedge fund backers have collectively given more than £18 million.”

      https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/revealed-the-elite-dining-club-behind-130m-donations-to-the-tories/

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  10. Today’s Benefits 7 work bulletin has some interesting stuff in it about sanctions. it claims that sanctions of those on ESA and JSA have more or less stopped. In June 2019, the last month for which figures are available there were just 122 sanctions representing 0.04% of all ESA claimants, down from a high in April 2014 when 5,565 were sanctioned, or 1.04% of claimants.

    For JSA claimants, sanctions were 95 for the same month.

    However, and really no surprises here, sanctions remain high for those on UC, though even here the figures have dropped from a high of 9.3% to 2.4% but that still represents 38,181 people sanctioned – still way too high. even one would of course be too high.

    For a respectable body Benefits & Work don’t mince their words, and I was mildly shocked to read an opinion expressed in an item about a government minster apparently smirking whilst claimant deaths were being discussed at an enquiry:

    “The complete disbanding of the entire hate-driven department may be the only solution.”

    I think everyone here will heartily concur, and for once it seems that an organisation dealing with the fallout of government policy doesn’t see the unfolding atrocity as one of unintended consequences but of government intent. It’s nice to see that at least one advice/assistance agency isn’t in denial over the DWP’s and ultimately the government’s culpability in the horrors being perpetrated.

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  13. It’s getting to the stage when there isn’t a day goes by without some new, negative story about Universal Credit coming out.

    Along with all the other disasters this government is foisting on the country, seemingly willingly making a mess of the Brexit negotiations this government really is in the ca ca, knows it and is hell bent on totally destroying society as we know it.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/27/universal-credit-linked-psychological-stress-increase-study-benefits-uk

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  14. Official government statistics grossly underestimate England’s rough sleeping crisis, new figures show

    https://welfareweekly.com/official-government-statistics-grossly-underestimate-englands-rough-sleeping-crisis-new-figures-show/

    Official government rough sleeping estimate found to be only a fraction of the real figure

    https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2020/02/27/official-government-rough-sleeping-estimate-found-to-be-only-a-fraction-of-the-real-figure/

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  15. Ex SNP councillor knows what it’s like to be caught in Universal Credit turmoil

    “The benefits system exists to accelerate people into poverty,” said Paul. “It’s the only thing it excels at.

    “It’s a bare minimum, life supporting system – and it doesn’t even do that properly.

    “When on Universal Credit, you pay your bills and are forced to use a foodbank in order to have any sustenance.

    “It’s a completely broken system that doesn’t work as well as the one it replaced.”

    “The Tories are going to destroy society. They are making people desperate as possible so that they have to take crappy minimum wage jobs, many of which aren’t reliable.

    “People are going to be forced into such a desperate situation that they will turn to crime and drug dealing.”

    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/ex-snp-councillor-knows-what-21582850

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  19. Well, I experienced some mild/moderate stress, irritation and inconvenience today as I went into town as usual to do my dole-day shopping but when I went to the ATM I found that my JSA hadn’t been paid and there was nothing in my account. Off to the Jobcentre I went to chase it up. Told the woman on the ground floor what had happened and she wrote it down on an enquiry form, though I noticed there was a section for “time of enquiry” and she left that blank. I was told to sit and wait, after about 15 mins. was called to a desk by another woman who seemed distracted and didn’t even look at me. Then discovered that the first woman had written down my NI number incorrectly. Anyway, she looked on the system and ascertained that a mistake had been made by the dole clerk who signed me on on Tuesday and consequently my payment hadn’t been sent. She said she would rectify this by sending a same-day payment and it would be in my bank account “anytime between 3pm and midnight”, but explained that she couldn’t authorize that from the computer she was on, and it would have to be done from another computer at the signing desks across the room, but she couldn’t do that because a fault with the system wouldn’t recognize her password and she had been locked out of the system, so would have to wait until other staff returned from lunch. At one time they would have given me the money in cash, or Giro, at the ‘Personal Issue’ window,but that doesn’t seem to exist anymore. I got my money eventually, it was in my account by 5.00pm. But it just meant that I ended up walking a mile and half further than I would have done as I had to walk back home from the Jobcentre, wait an hour or two, then venture out again to the nearest free ATM at Aldi then do my shopping and walk back home again. FFS. Mistakes can happen but the words piss-up and brewery spring to mind, along with arse and elbow.

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    • Ahhh Trev! It was nice to read those final lines of yours to know that you’ve retained your cynicism and sense of humour in this vile environment.
      I’m buggered if I know how you do it, but glad that you do!

      Nobody knows what they are doing, but are still coming on like a steamroller, crushing anyone who gets in their way (ergo: does not meet impossible demands or worse; complains).

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  24. According to the Mirror, Universal Credit was a good and sensible idea. I beg to differ, it was/is a very bad idea indeed, over-ambitious, punitive and complicated, doomed to fail those unfortunate enough to have to use it. And Housing Benefit obviously needs to be entirely separate from other Benefits. Hardship should not take the form of a repayable loan, neither should the UC advance payments in lieu of the 5 weeks wait for claims to be processed. Money should be payable from day one of the claim, not as a bloody loan! I would have expected more from the Mirror. There is nothing remotely “sensible” about rolling six different Benefits into one payment, nothing at all.

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/voice-mirror-universal-credit-good-21651932

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    • The notion of monthly Benefits payments is also deeply flawed. The only way it could be feasible is if Benefits were paid at the correct level to begin with (which they’re not) i.e. at least £100 per week for a single unemployed person. JSA is currently paid fortnightly but it never lasts for a whole fortnight, you’re lucky if it gets you through the first week. Monthly payments, at current levels, would be doubly difficult to manage, even without deductions for loans and/or alleged overpayment of Tax Credits. Whoever dreamt up monthly payments obviously has not the first clue how poor people live and has no experience of living in poverty; Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Freud. Everyone involved since then is equally to blame; Esther McVey, David Gauke, David Cameron, George Osborne, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Amber Rudd, Therese Coffey, et al. Clueless rich fuckers, the lot of ’em, completely disconnected from reality. Damn them all.

      Reply ↓

      • I think there was a general consensus that a single monthly payment was in essence a ‘good idea’. What no-one, not even Labour had done was actually analyse sufficiently what the implications of such a change would be. About the only thing that was a ‘good idea’ was the single monthly payment, and even then purely as an idea. The reality is different.

        Right from the start there was huge criticism of the idea by experts who realised that the system was far too complex to embrace any such radical change. I remember at least one expert being interviewed on Radio 4 coming full out and questioning whether the system would work simply because it would be a ‘one size fits all’ approach which clearly is unfit for purpose when people vary so much. An IT system isn’t really going to cut it. And despite the appeal of the simple, the fact remained then, as it does now, that the benefits system is complicated because people’s lives are complicated. It’s known that under Blair welfare reform was briefly contemplated, but it was realised that it would have been a mammoth task to have done the job properly, let alone the potential damage to human rights. Only an idiot would have attempted to do it. Take a look at the online IT publication The Register, and you can go back to late 2011/early 2012 and see that there were already serious misgivings about UC.

        Another reason to have kept the system as it was, was that, despite its complexity, it had acquired that complexity over a substantial period of time, and a parallel system of expertise in dealing with the drawbacks of the complex system had grown up. Citizen’s Advice etc, and even informed ordinary people knew its pitfalls and how to deal with them. Even Jobcentre staff knew, and were empowered to deal with the issues that arose. You had a problem, you went and saw a human and the problem was usually sorted quickly. UC isn’t like that, it’s complex and there is also the penalising element which is a core element of UC. It’s such an integral part of UC that I am of the opinion that someone with a nasty mind spent some considerable time deliberately thinking out the system and making it very hard to challenge.

        Workfare has in essence disappeared as a discrete feature of the social security system, but it’s instead embedded within Universal Credit. If slave labour isn’t intended as a punitive measure, I don’t know what is. I don’t think thus far that UC has been used in any major way to undercut the wages of already underpaid workers, or to supply free labour to grasping employers, but the power is there, ready and waiting and difficult if not impossible to challenge.

        You’re right about the monthly payment being difficult to manage. I manage, just about, but I sometimes have to ignore some of the less pressing bills for a while, which isn’t ideal, and shouldn’t have to be done. but I’m an educated, fairly confident person who can deal with the harassment of the likes of Welsh Water or TV Licencing. I’m less convinced that the single payment is actually that big of a problem, but certainly it should be a free choice option to have rent paid directly to landlords, and that the sums paid are subject to ring fencing, so nothing can be taken from the rent to pay loans etc. I also think that benefits that are designed simply for living on should be just for that, and that the putting of attachments on them for debt repayment should be outlawed. As you say Trev, it’s money for living on, nothing else. And of course, the levels of benefit paid are pitifully small, insufficient.

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    • That said, if I do go down with Coronavirus I’m not going to risk losing my JSA and being transferred to Universal Credit by missing a signing appointment at the Jobcentre. I’ll make it to sign-on even if I’m at death’s door. Many people are saying the same. To avoid this happening the Government needs to immediately suspend Benefits conditions and immediately introduce automatic payments for the foreseeable future.

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  29. Did a spot of panic-buying with my last quid this aft. Called in B&M and bought a packet of Lemsip, panic over. If I’m still alive next Friday I might buy a bottle of Scotch, and the obligatory bog rolls, then I’ll be totally prepped for the End Times.

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  31. I have emailed my MP to clarify the position regarding JSA claimants and Corona virus as the official DWP advice seems aimed at UC and doesn’t mention JSA. it does say that people won’t be Sanctioned if ill or self-isolating so long as they inform Jobcentre in good time, but what about if you’re taken ill at short notice and miss a signing appointment? Also, if you do miss a JSA signing appointment does that trigger a transfer to Universal Credit? Suggested that Jobcentres be closed to the public for time being and Benefits conditionality be suspended, and automatic payments be made for the foreseeable future. Otherwise many of us still have to meet jobsearch requirements which means going to public libraries or Jobcentres to use computers, for those of us who have limited internet access.

    Reply ↓

    • Well that was a fucking waste of time, here’s the reply from my MP:

      “I am sorry to hear about your concerns, we understand this is a very stressful time. I am afraid as an MPs office we cannot advise on procedure or what your entitlement would be. If you would like advice of information on this matter, we suggest you contact the Citizens Advice Bureau. I hope they can support you with your queries.

      Kind regards”

      Why do I even bother voting for these cunts?

      Reply ↓

    • This was despite the fact that I pointed out to him that many JSA claimants, including myself, are saying that they are willing to breach self-isolation and attend signing appointments for fear of being transferred to UC. I also pointed out the obvious health risks of keeping Jobcentres open to the public, likewise with public libraries where jobsearch is concerned. I wasn’t enquiring about MY entitlement, but about how the situation affects ALL JSA claimants and Jobseekers! FFS. Just goes to show that the MPs on their cushy £82 Grand don’t give a fuck about us and basically we’re on our own.

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  38. DWP have now put it on their Twitter:

    “People receiving benefits do not have to attend jobcentre appointments for three months, starting from Thu 19 Mar 2020”

    “People will continue to receive their benefits as normal, but all requirements to attend the jobcentre in person are suspended”

    https://twitter.com/dwppressoffice?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

    It doesn’t say which Benefits, are we to assume it also applies to JSA or is it just Universal Credit? Surely they need to inform every claimant individually in writing.

    Reply ↓

    • I got a message on my UC Diary yesterday to inform me that instead of me attending the Jobcentre they’ll be phoning me and doing it that way.

      There is also a prominent message stating that UC will continue to be paid, and that they’l be in touch to discuss any arranged face-to-face meetings.

      Don’t know what the procedure is regarding those on JSA is, but I’d suggest e-mailing your advisor Trev, just to be sure.

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      • I only signed on a few days ago and everything was as normal but yes I will double-check prior to the next due appointment just to be on the safe side. Hope all’s well with you Padi.

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  39. Global economy is ruined. V-shaped recovery is a myth. Same for U-shaped one… I think that this economic collapsed will affect climate goals and governments will turn back to fosil fuels, ruining the world faster than ever.

    Reply ↓

    • An alternative might be to share the wealth and restructure society so that people can afford to buy available products and make use of available technology such as working from home via broadband, which at the moment many of us don’t have. We would all buy electric vehicles too if we had the money. Or be able to use public transport instead of having to walk everywhere. Introduce a unconditional basic income, provide free broadband, grants to buy electric vehicles, the possibilities are endless.

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    • Well he got the gig because the ‘Left’ Right and the Right had to ensure that Labour was not Labour; but Blair Labour. One of the ways to do it was the issue that has currently ousted Corbyn. God forbid that anyone should suggest that that matter is greater in the Con party than Labour!
      Even to mention that topic means that one validates it. Palestine? Go for it; no probs.
      Starmer is the go-to guy for a sanitized acceptable ‘Labour’, and anyone who says otherwise is just a looney Lefty, or a conspiracy theorist.

      (Hope you are all surviving our diseased world. This week, one harassment skittle was finally dealt with after six long months. Now for my ‘bi’-fecta dream: —which needs to be sure that the little orange turd across the Northern pond is dragged kicking and screaming from the White House——happy days!!!!)

      Starmer is acceptable Labour in a Conservative UK/world. He will take much longer to dislodge.

      Reply ↓

      • Great news on Trump’s defeat, though sadly not the end of ‘Trumpism’ and the American far-Right that he empowered:
        https://socialistresistance.org/why-the-democrats-have-won-one-battle-against-trump-but-cant-win-the-war/21118

        On the disease front, yeah I’m still ok, still working the foodbank (busier than ever), and I’ve even managed to quit smoking. Just found out in last couple of days that my next door neighbour is in critical care in Pakistan with Covid, he’s in his early 50s a bit overweight and diabetic, he flew out there a couple of weeks ago on the news of his mother falling ill, turns out she had Covid, he managed to get her to an hospital but she died three days ago and now he’s got it. I’m very worried for him, and so are his family here. Keep safe Linda.

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        • I don’t think the primary factor was the embrace of the so called Democrats was it?; it was to oust Trump. The voting levels make that clear, as they also do in showing the strong attempt by the Trumpists to keep the bastard in power.
          It was/is bizarre and unsettling to see the ‘normalization’ of vigilantism-the ‘militia’ (aka: Trump stormtroopers); those scary scum with their high powered weapons on deliberate full display.
          _____________
          I’m so damn sorry about your neighbour. Poor bloody sod, I hope he makes it, I really do.
          I have a small lung problem I grew up with, it wasn’t bad enough to bar me going out to Oz, but it does make me struggle to breath in a mask. A local company adapted their production to make masks for the NHS, and I contacted them. Their MD brought a few round for me. These are like welders masks; they go up over the forehead and under the chin, -there’s even a kind of ‘well’ area where you can where sunnies without the mask being impeded.
          It’s not bulletproof, but I feel more protected in it, irrespective of the fact that I look like a total plonker, it is worth it.
          I haven’t noticed ANY committed social distancing in my town from the very beginning (though where I was before was hit so badly. They did socially distance because they were scared). My mask and sanitizer is defensive; not to protect the clowns who don’t give a toss.

          I so respect your work in the foodbank Trev, What a vital tool this has been even in the ‘good’ times.
          You stay save as well.

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  41. The ongoing Punch & Judy show that is the Labour party:

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/we-cant-compromise-with-a-right-that-seeks-to-permanently-smash-labour-left

    https://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2020/12/01/morning-star-urges-no-compromise-with-a-right-that-seeks-to-permanently-smash-the-labour-left/

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/28/labour-britain-future-starmer-leftwing-ideas

    And the crux of the issue:

    https://beastrabban.wordpress.com/2020/11/30/rayner-threatens-purges-as-labour-members-revolt-against-leaderships-treatment-of-corbyn/

    https://beastrabban.wordpress.com/2020/11/30/real-jews-complain-of-anti-semitism-from-faux-jewish-jlm/

    https://beastrabban.wordpress.com/2020/11/30/introducing-naomi-wimborne-idrissi-one-of-the-wrong-type-of-jews/

    As for me, at this rate I’ll be voting Green, or not bother voting at all, what’s the point? But on the other hand neither approach gets rid of the evil Tory menace. Looking at things more philosophically, I’ll probably be dead in another 10 -15 years if Covid doesn’t get me, so why worry?

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    • I couldn’t read these links earlier because I knew the bloody thing would just irritate and depress me. Not much change this evening.

      I despised Thatcher, but I despise Blair even more, because he pretended/pretends to be something he very obviously is not.
      I knew this pseudo Left mob would not rest until they restored a conservative wannabe party.

      I mirror your comments in your final para Trev.

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      • It’s a complete shit-show, Starmer seems intent on wrecking Labour and whilst they’re all fighting amongst themselves we’re left to suffer the Tories. I think it’s time Labour split into two parties, the Left could form the ‘Real Labour party’ and with Union backing could properly oppose the Tories, whilst the Rightwing post-Blairite Neoliberals can wallow in their fake-Centrist cess-pit.

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  50. Message from John McDonnell about Left Labour Online Event ‘Tackling Truss’

    ” The scale of the cost-of-living crisis deepened over the summer whilst Boris Johnson went missing. And now we have a new PM in Liz Truss who is proposing a massive offensive on our rights rather than the action people urgently need to protect jobs and livelihoods. At the same time, she will continue an economic policy aimed only at guarding corporate super-profits and further push a reactionary divide-and-rule social agenda.”

    “This situation could quickly become not just an economic crisis, but an unprecedented social and political crisis, meaning that it’s vital we discuss now what challenges Truss’ agenda poses for our movement and what it represents, but also what opportunities for resistance and winning the alternative may open up in the weeks ahead.

    Please therefore join us on Wednesday September 7 at 7pm for a vital online discussion on ‘What Next?’ and let’s go forward together with our trade union and social movements, building the resistance, and ultimately changing the system too.”

    https://beastrabban.wordpress.com/2022/09/05/message-from-john-mcdonnell-about-left-labour-online-event-tackling-truss/

    Reply ↓

      • I know, the world’s gone mad. It doesn’t bode well. Liz Truss, far-Right Thatcherite and co-author of ‘Brittania Unchained’ and member of the Free Enterprise Group. In short, Satan personified.

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      • Dunno what to say. The despair is so profound.

        Apparently only around 141,000 people in the UK delivered this evil to us.

        I’ve had all the notifications of posts here for sometime btw. I’ve read some; ignored some, in the stupid bloody hope that it isn’t really happening if I don’t look at it. Stupid and ignorant.
        Ignorance it turns out isn’t bliss, -not if you have any kind of a conscience.

        Well, it couldn’t get any worse surely? Then it did.
        The only forlorn hope is that Thatcher Truss will be so brutal that she will bring abour her own political demise because the working class (what a stupid phrase), eejits, who put these people in power might start to realise what they have bloody well done.
        Then they’ll deliver us to the useless opposition fuckwits, and that will make the Cons look good again, and then…..

        Oh Christ.

        Reply ↓

        • Hello! It is pretty desperate, so I’ve been avoiding politics really and just getting stuck into dealing with issues on the ground etc. The papers are too awful to read I think. It’s like you say – there’s an endlessness to that end of things. Starmer is too useless for words

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