Sunday, March 31, 2013

Tory Class War - Now It's 900,000 "Benefit Scrounging Scum!"

You are OK in Britain today if you are Conservative supporting banker, a shadow banker, a Tory supporting media tycoon, or maybe the head of some corporation, or part of the landed gentry etc. If you are lucky enough to be any of the aforementioned people you will be allowed to royally shaft the British economy with impunity escaping prosecution. Just as long as you are part of the ruling junta, the Tory elite or the hunting fraternity and as long as you keep making your large donations into the coffers of the Tory party, nothing bad will happen to you, all eyes are blind to your private financial shenanigans. You may have as many offshore accounts as you like, see Conservative peer, Lord Michael Ashcroft and Belize "operations" here. Of course he is not alone but I use him as an example because millions of pounds of Ashcroft's money was ploughed into the Tory marginals in order to sway the electorate to vote for the Tories in the 2010 general election, without Ashcroft's "dodgy millions" it is serious doubtful the Tories would be anywhere near government today!

Anyway according to the economically illiterate Cameron, gormless George Osborne and hapless Clegg here in Britain we shouldn't panic because we are "economically readjusting", well this is what the Tories and Lib Dems  tell us this when they can't think of anything else which explains their astonishing incompetence, their 44 policy u-turns and their frenzied vicious attacks on the poor, low waged, vulnerable, disabled and unemployed. Don't be fooled by them though, not only are they proven blatant liars it's plainly obvious that something far more sinister is actually taking place in our society. I truly believe that what we are actually witnessing is the reclassification of working class people by an out of control narcissistic and hopelessly incompetent government, who want to shove the working classes where they think they belong, back in workhouses, debtors prisons or tiny abodes.

This morning we have one of the the Tories mouthpieces, the Sunday Telegraph screaming at us that according to the government, 900,000 people choose to come off of sickness benefit ahead of tests!
Apparently 900,000 people have ceased to claim Incapacity Benefit (IB), so therefor this must be proof that the government's "policy" is actually working and everything is spiffing "dahling" mwah - mwah! Impressive eh? Until you look a little closer at the figures.


  • The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has actually confirmed that out of the 900,000 that have apparently stopped claiming IB, many get better ( some people do improve and when they do they stop claiming, contrary to popular opinion the vast majority of people are not idlers or benefit cheats) and/or they find work between submitting their first claim and their medical assessment.
  • The medical assessment is meant to take only 13 weeks maximum, but is now taking up to six months to process, which explains why the DWP have arrived at this figure. Far from being the success IDS is trying to hail it as, it is actually yet another failing policy at the DWP.
  • For Work and pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith to try and manipulate and deliberately mislead the public into thinking that his department have caught 900,000 people who were somehow defrauding the taxpayer, is disingenuous to say the least and downright dishonest at worse. 
  • The DWP makes no mention at all that the department pays private companies a premium and pays bonuses to their staff for every person they manage to kick off IB. 
  • The DWP have not released the cost to the taxpayer of paying private companies such as Atos to carry out these tests and what ratio these costs are to the funds they say they have saved!
  • The DWP also forget to mention that they are booting off terminally ill people and forcing them to work for nothing on workfare schemes, in order to make their figures look good and help manipulate the unemployment statistics.  Also if 900,000 people are coming off IB, where are they going? What benefit are they being directed at? If they really were this so called class of people who are scrounging and have been "languishing" unemployed for years on IB, is the government seriously suggesting that they have all suddenly found employers willing to take them on despite not having a work record, being sick and unemployed for years? Pull the other one IDS!

The government reforms to incapacity benefit will result in severe hardship for hundreds of thousands of households living outside the south of England, according to research published by Sheffield Hallam University in Incapacity Benefit Reform.
The report by Christina Beatty and Steve Fothergill of the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research finds:
  • By 2014 the reforms to the incapacity benefit system – a tougher medical test, the re-testing of existing claimants and the time-limiting of entitlement to non-means tested benefit – will cut incapacity claimant numbers by nearly one million, of which more than 800,000 will be existing incapacity claimants who will lose their entitlement. These figures are based on experience in the areas where the reforms have been piloted and on the Department of Work and Pensions’ own assumptions about the impact of the reforms.
  • Nearly 600,000 incapacity claimants will be pushed out of the benefits system entirely, either because they will fall foul of the time limit on non-means tested entitlement or because they fail to qualify for other means-tested benefits.
  • The reform will increase the numbers on Jobseeker’s Allowance by almost 300,000 claimants. Combined with the new requirement on many incapacity claimants to engage in ‘work-related activity’, the increase in compulsory labour market engagement will be around 900,000.
  • The highly skewed distribution of incapacity claimants across the country means that the older industrial areas of the North, Scotland and Wales will be most affected. The reforms will barely impact on the most prosperous parts of southern England. The reforms will have the greatest impact in areas that have been struggling for years to cope with job loss and where the prospects of former claimants finding work are weakest. Merthyr Tydfil, Easington in County Durham, Liverpool and Glasgow are likely to be hit 10 times harder than Kingston upon Thames in London or Wokingham in Berkshire.
One of the co-authors, Steve Fothergill, said: ‘The estimates show that the coalition government is presiding over a national welfare reform that will impact principally on individuals and communities outside its own political heartlands.
‘In terms of the numbers affected and the scale and severity of the impact, the reforms to incapacity benefits that are underway are probably the most far-reaching changes to the benefits system for at least a generation. They will impoverish vast numbers of households and cause untold distress in countless more. The incapacity benefit numbers need to be brought down, but this is not the way.’
The full report is available at the Sheffield Hallam University website.


The Tory led government are gradually dehumanising the poor in the eyes of the general public by deliberately splitting the working class in order to push through their draconian measures.  It is why David Cameron deliberately chooses to use emotive terms like "strivers" and "idlers" (good vs bad). The coalition government are deliberately demonising certain sections of society and by making them appear worthless and a drag on resources they can then use these people to divide the working classes in a classic tactic known as "divide and rule". Same method that Cameron is using to deliberately stoke up fears over immigration. Indigenous population - good, immigrants - bad. Note he never ever refers to the amount of tax that immigrants pay into the Treasury, never speaks of the fact that actually immigrants claim fewer benefits. He chooses to omit this information because it doesn't fit in with what he wants people to to believe.

Cameron has deliberately set about making those in work feel superior to those who are unemployed, he is a soul sucking manipulating liar. At first, and during his opposition years he put on a huge act to make himself appear to be "good old Dave" and "affable Dave" even forgoing his  Dom. Romane Conti 1997  for a while in favour of a pint of bitter,  he set out to make people believe that he is one of them, all the while though he was hooking and reeling them in by playing mind games and stoking their fears by making them resent their friends and neighbours.  However, do not be fooled, Cameron and his ilk have a very lowly opinion of all working class. To this government the working class and even the middle class has but one use, Cameron wants their votes at election times, once he has these, you will become a drain on resources and he will remove as much as he can from you and your children, welfare, NHS, education etc including your dignity, until it is election time again, then he will come slithering back like the lying snake in the grass he really is!

If you are poor you will be viewed by Tories and their supporters as the "underclass" and the "undeserving poor"! If you live in social housing, you must stick steadfast to Tory Law and not get ideas above your station by having a spare bedroom (for whatever reason). Don't whine that you need the spare room because you care for a severely disabled family member because it will make no difference whatsoever, just remember, if you are not rich, or your parents were not part of the aristocracy and have not had the benefit of wealth passed down through the ages, wealth and land gained from the looting and pillaging of our countryside, you are not worthy of having a spare room, you must live all crammed into a smallest place possible - get used to it after all, we are mere plebs and are unsightly blemishes on the Tory landscape of "England's Green and Pleasant Land" and as such,  must be treated with utter contempt.

You must be prepared to move from your *home* at a moments notice should a family member fly the nest or get married, or even die, your house is no longer classified as your home, so don't form any attachment to it, don't get too comfortable, remember you do not deserve a home, you are part of the undeserving poor and as such must be ready to up sticks and leave to live anywhere this heartless cruel government choose to put you. It doesn't matter if they are uprooting you from your neighbourhood,  friends, relatives and support network, which often allows parents to go to work. It doesn't even matter that there are simply no smaller properties to move into, if the Tories can inflict pain and distress upon you simply because you are poor, they they will do so, this is as much in their breeding as the love of killing wild animals for fun is!

 Don't bother decorating your home either, or keeping the garden up improving the look of the neighbourhood,  just let it fall to rack and ruin because its a waste of your time, you effort and your money and that is money and effort you will need when this government keeps herding you out of your home and moving you on every few years as your circumstances change. The government have also conveniently ignored the fact that moving takes a lot of money, there are at the very least vans to hire and if you cannot drive, then you hire an expensive removal firm, who pays for all of this? Who pays for the disconnection and reconnection of gas cookers and gas fires etc? Who pays for the refitting of carpets and flooring and curtains and furniture which is suddenly too big for the smaller property you have been forced to move into?

The government  have stopped the provision of you applying for help with such costs, you'll be lucky if you get a couple of vouchers f you can spend in Asda  and don't even think of taking the government on in court because they have stopped legal aid for advice on benefits, housing, debt, education and employment. Coincidental? Don't you believe it, they knew there would be claims against the government so to stop people claiming that they are being treated unfairly the Tories have removed your rights. (Still think unions are a bad thing?)   If the local authority cannot find you a smaller property to downsize too, you will still be charged the bedroom tax, there is no way out for you, you have been had over a barrel by this government.

So much for Cameron offering parenting lessons (which have been a huge waste of time and resources), isn't the most logical first step to a happy healthy environment to raise a child a secure loving family home? How can anyone provide that knowing they may be forced out at any time simply because they are poor and cannot afford the government's bedroom tax on their family? It just completely makes a mockery out of all Cameron has said, but then Cameron lies and this is yet more proof of that.

It must be clearly understood that the idea of the "unwashed" being remotely comfortable in their homes is an anathema  to Cameron, Osborne and Clegg and members of the Conservative cabinet, government and their supporters, to them, the ordinary person living in a council house is just "benefit scrounging scum", an idler, or a shirker and they must be shown their place and kept in it above all else.

The truly shocking mystery here is that the Liberal Democrats who once prided themselves on being socially cogent, are actually helping the Conservatives to carry out this blatant attack on the working class, the poor, the vulnerable, the disabled, the low waged and the unemployed. How will the Liberal Democrat party ever be able to position itself to being on the left of Labour in order to pick up their protest votes ever again? And where is the deputy Prime Minister the leader of the so called Liberal Democrat party right now when the government he supports intends to bring in the bedroom tax which will penalise not only those on benefits but the working poor by placing them in a hopeless situation of which they can do absolutely nothing about? When poor people are going to start being forced to pay for spare rooms out of money they just do not have? Well good old Nick is away in Davos in Switzerland, in the millionaire ski resort where he and his family are nice and warm and safe and sound enjoying themselves, money no object and staying in his family's 20 room mansion!

Next week when this government deliberately heap misery onto already struggling families, there will be hundreds of thousands of people worse off. Yet last week Iain Duncan-Smith was claiming in the Telegraph that this appalling government is not cutting welfare. Perhaps he should tell that to the thousands that who are going to be hit by several changes which will see them lose the fight to survive, many will eventually be evicted, others will enter poverty as they go without food to pay for the bedroom tax, the Tory poll tax Mk 2, cuts to working family tax credits and the changes to Disability Living Allowance?

Tell that to the people who will suddenly find themselves homeless and face the prospect of having their children taken into care.

It's obvious what the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats think of the working class, however, what is a mystery is why any working class person can allow themselves to be so taken in and manipulated by the Tory lies, deceit as to actually vote for them.
The struggle of the working classes is well documented, perhaps some should read it before they pass judgement on others, perhaps they should understand the struggle and how unions were formed and helped to raise the living standards of the working classes too? Before it is too late, today they come for the poor, the sick, the unemployed and the disabled, tomorrow it will be you they come for!

This government is trying to use you to legitimise the dismantling of the welfare state, a system that was put in place to care for people regardless of class or riches. It was to enable assistance should you fall ill and cannot work, the NHS was also born to help everyone get proper medical attention. Some can work with help and others can't, this was why the Disability Living Allowance came into existence (introduced by a Tory government), it helps people stay independent, it helps some to stay in work, take that away and you take the meas away which actually enables people to work.

The day we as a society begin to judge someone else on their monetary worth, (which is what Cameron & Co are doing), is the day we have failed as human beings.

Stop assuming disabled people, the low paid, the unemployed and immigrants etc are stealing from you, they are not, they just need help to carry on living a decent life. We simply cannot allow David Cameron to take away this country's dignity. If this happens, then I truly fear what we are bequeathing future generations!

This is class war, a war that David Cameron has chosen to fight and one that for all our sakes and all our tomorrows, he must never be allowed to win!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

900,000 is in fact 900,000 legitimate incapacity benefit claimants ie the hidden unemployed that were made to disappear..its documented by sheffield hallam university just last year in a document called the true level of unemployment
its over 3.4 million..