Government delays Welfare Reform Bill

The Government has been forced to delay the 2nd Reading of the flagship Bill in the Lords due to peers' concerns over the people affected.

DWP is suggesting other business has blocked progress but the surprise postponement till September from Tues will also give the Government time to lobby peers and answer the queries raised in DA's legal challenge.

from Disability Alliance, via Benefit Scrounging Scum.

And by Sunday 17th if I hadn't read this on BSS I would not have known about it, because it has not been reported in the mainstream media!

We're doomed.

They're saying that Prince Charles pissed Tony Blair off with his interfering. I like Charles for having pissed of architects who make ugly buildings, and even more now that I've learned that he got up Blair's nose. Yay Charles!

In other political news in a leaked memo Eric Pickles has warned the current Prime Minister that welfare reforms could make 40,000 people homeless, and ultimately cost more money than they save. Some sense slipping through the blitzkrieg of propaganda from IDS's DWP.

One wag on the Guardian website has suggested the homeless move into vacated Habitat and Thortons. Habitat is already furnished as another commenter points out, though they doubt the homeless folk would appreciate the class of furniture in that now insolvent business. Both commentators seem to have forgotten that the government has just decided to make squatting illegal, so moving into unoccupied building is not on the cards. Besides have you seen the red tape involved in housing here? Hundred's of years of unscrupulous landlords have left the housing market massively over-regulated and hostile to most of their tenants. I was aghast to learn that you almost never get your bond back in this country if you're renting. In NZ you almost always get it back.

They just don't have a clue, do they? If ever there was an example of a university graduate being full of themselves, filled with theories and ideologies, but no practical understanding of how anything works it's David Cameron. He just has no idea what he's doing, no idea how to run the country or the economy. And, lord save us, the opposition are no better.

We're doomed! We really are doomed. Unless maybe Charles get's stuck into IDS and the ConDem coalition: "I say! Leave one's fucking people alone, you monstrous carbuncle!" (in my dreams, eh).

GPs suddenly competent

The government, past and present, has never been confident that my GP is able to assess my fitness for work and has taken that responsibility out of their hands - so that the responsibility rests with a privately employed GP (salary?) who sees me once, for 45 minutes, prods me a few times and asks a couple of questions, and with no continuity or history, no x-rays or referrals to specialists or reports from psychologists (I repeated gave them the contact details for my psychologist and they have never contacted her) or any of that other broad base that my GP works from.

But now, now the GPs are competent to run the entire NHS!

NHS 'to undergo radical overhaul' (BBC)

Why not go the whole hog and let my physician make the decisions that so deeply affect my life rather than a stranger! They've been treating me for eight years now, they haven't always been able to help, but that very fact is an important part of the picture when it comes to my fitness to work. Give my GP the right to assess my benefit claim!

The real cost of the Budget

So the Guardian scoops today:

Budget will cost 1.3m jobs - Treasury Exclusive:
Leaked government data concerning next five years shows hidden costs of austerity drive.

So where are those millions of jobs for those currently on incapacitated going to come from?

~

The BBC has picked up on it:

Forecast suggests 600,000 public sector jobs to go.
Some 600,000 jobs are expected to be lost in the public sector over the next five years, the Office for Budget Responsibility has said.

Leaked Treasury documents had suggested last week's Budget could increase unemployment by up to 1.3 million.

So, the Welfare Madness Begins

News began to filter out today (strategic press releases by the government's spin doctors) about plans to target people on Incapacity Benefit. Anyone getting this benefit is suspected of malingering. Too many people could do some work and so all of us are going to be scrutinised more closely. By whom one wonders? Given that my regular doctors and specialists are at a loss to do anything about my symptoms I wonder how I will be judged by someone tasked at cutting benefits. What criteria are going to be applied? (And who the fuck would employ me). How are they going to test how anxiety and depression affect my ability to work? So far I have no confidence at all that my pain will be taken seriously by any doctor whose agenda is to force people back into work - my pain doesn't show up in the tests I've had so far because the tests are simply not geared for it. (I need to write about this, but some other time).

We need to be clear that the point here is reduce spending.

Budgets are being cut everywhere which will include the NHS. This is going to create considerable conflict. On one hand reductions in spending will cause unemployment to rise. They want this because it will force wages down (though not for senior executives or merchant banker, eh). More people will be 'signing on', and less people will be processing their applications. Overpayments will go up (currently official mistakes make up one third of benefit overpayments).

On the other hand the system for testing the incapacitated will have to be beefed up (paid for how?) and this will push people off the IB on onto Job Seekers Allowance (or what ever it is rebranded to), which costs a lot less (£25 per week in my case). These people will be entering the job market with some incapacity (though perhaps not enough to keep them out of full-time employment). They will not be able to compete with all the able bodied people in the high unemployment situation, and this means subsisting on JSA - which is considerably less than IB. This in turn will mean a higher demand on social services at a time when those services are being cut. Being a job seeker is demanding, so stress on the incapacitated will increase. Many people have been incapacitated by stress related illnesses such as depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue. So increasing the stress means more people will be in crisis, but now they have been judged fit to work so there is no safety net.

Another thing is that at present one has to be looking for full-time work to qualify for JSA. So these people who cannot, and won't be expected to, seek full-time work are going to be covered how? Presumably the details will emerge over time, but the next few days and weeks are going to be uncomfortable for many people, me included.

A lot of sick people are going to end up falling through the cracks. This is going to be a disaster for them, but the real costs will be hidden and it will be a PR victory for a government a wee bit short on popularity. Though the way they are covering up the massive reduction in benefit fraud may be cited as a counter-example.

BBC.

Q&A: Incapacity benefits explained.

"Some 2.6m people claim incapacity benefit, or its successor, the employment and support allowance, at an annual cost of about £12.5bn..."

Duncan Smith denies sickness benefit tests to triple.

"Iain Duncan Smith has denied reports that ministers are considering trebling "fitness to work" tests on people claiming incapacity benefit..."

Guardian

Welfare crackdown begins with drive to reduce incapacity benefit claims.

Coalition's plans include taking people off higher rate of benefits if tests reveal they are fit to do some work.

The Budget

Government opts for medical exams over form filling. Aims to put all people claiming Disability Living Allowance through examinations - presumably these examiners will be highly qualified experts in every kind of debilitating illness? Yeah right. Ha! not that I even qualify anyway.

Anyway. Comment here at Arbitrary Constant.

Housing benefit cap should not affect me either as I live in low cost housing. Note that the government is unable to reward people who save money, only to punish the profligate - and some people appear to have been very profligate indeed - if the stories can be believed!

Welfare Reform

The Guardian are at it again today:

George Osborne to axe benefits in race to slash deficit

Welfare targeted in £85bn package, but safeguards for education, defence and transport

This is an article with no content. Don't read it. It is a lot of speculation and reporting on the opinions of Tory think tanks. Total facts? One.

The government is going to announce a budget on Tuesday in which welfare will be targeted for reductions in the amount spent.

Despite all the feverish guessing, the papers do not know what the government is thinking. Note the words here are slightly different from the previous headline I discussed. Now it's not war and bombs, it's axes and slashes - we will be maimed, but not killed, which is an improvement I suppose.

So what are the media up to when they do this? They have no information to present so they basically make stuff up. This is creative writing, it is not investigative journalism. No one can provide pre-emptive analysis. Or perhaps this is gambling. One makes a prediction on the basis that there is a pay off for getting it right (in terms of kudos and perhaps readership, which sells advertising).

Now you have to add to the mix that the Government employs spin doctors who purposefully leak drips of news to the media. They do this to mainly to sustain the media interest in the Government - in promoting a brand the main thing is to keep their profile high; and these days the government is a brand. It also helps to soften the blow of negative news, and drags out positive effects.

So why do the media buy into the government's spin program?

Why do we buy into the media spin program?

I will also point out that in making massive reductions in spending unemployment is going to to increase. Labour pursued a low unemployment/high borrowing strategy. It did work all that well. The Con-Dems are about to pursue a high unemployment/low borrowing strategy. So spending on welfare is only going to rise as many more people claim unemployment benefits.

BTW My prediction, for what it is worth, is that the government will try to rebrand unemployment payments - which are already called Job Seeker's Allowance, which fools no one but does expose the role of Public Relations consultants in the government.

Conservative Welfare Reforms

It might pay to keep an eye on "The Blue Blog", especially if you are interested in welfare reform.

"If people genuinely can’t work, we’re going to look after them. But if they’re found fit to work, they will be transferred onto Jobseeker’s Allowance. From there, we will offer people targeted, tailored, personal support to get a job."

Pardon? How is this different from the current policy? In fact this is what happens now. These rich bastards have no idea what being incapacitated is like. Even if they were ill they would receive a much higher standard of care down at Harley St, have no fear of losing their homes, and know that they will never be forced to live on £9500 per year.

What we have here is rhetoric. Scary rhetoric because of course it will affect people's lives, and may of us will be anxious about being forced into worse straits than we're already in because some politician wants the electorate to think he or she is 'tough'.

I'd encourage everyone to comment on their blog - comment is free and most of the comments are by Tories so far. Let them know what you think!

Welfare Reform

The Independent's helpful headline: Osborne's Bombshell: Chancellor declares war on middle-class welfare (By Andrew Grice, Political Editor).

Great example of a paper going beyond commentary in order to provoke outrage and upset in readers. They all do this all the time. There is no simple reporting any more, if there ever was. All the media are striving with all their might to get an emotional reaction to the story, rather like the way advertising no longer informs you about the specifications or quality of a product but tried to create an image. Newspapers trade especially on stimulating our fight or flight response - driving us all towards anxiety, depression and the like. Note the language here: bombs, war, i.e. death, destruction, mayhem. Is this accurate or true? No. It is a lie. A lie designed to stimulate fear and keep you buying newspapers.

I need to be informed about changes in welfare because I am wholly dependent on it. Is there anywhere I can get the facts without the hyperbole and the emotional string pulling?

Welfare Review

I feared that a conservative government would institute a welfare reform aimed at taking benefits away from people, and this seems to be the drift of the Queen's speech as it relates to welfare.

It's hard not to start feeling anxious before any details are announced. All I can think is "Oh God, they're going to take away my benefit and make me get a job." Who would employ me, and for what? How long could it possibly last when I could seldom work 2 days in a row (at present capacity)? If I do work part-time then that adds a layer of complexity to my dealings with other agencies like the Council (who pay my rent via Housing Benefit).

I hate being so vulnerable to the machinations of politicians and bureaucrats. I can't tell them to fuck off because I'm so dependent on the handouts they give. I had just started getting used to my situation and was beginning to cope a bit better, but it seems like I'm never allowed to get too comfortable.

Well who knows, perhaps simplifying the benefits system will be an improvement. But here is my prediction:

When it all shakes down a lot of us will be worse off, and we will be jumping though a lot more hoops to get our daily bread.