Dancing in the Ruins part 2

Every time I get my scrounging allowance I have to consider how much to keep back until I next sign on, usually this is around £40. This is because I cannot guarantee when next I sign that I'm not going to find myself being told 'you haven't done enough to find work. If that were to happen I'd need something to try and keep me going until I could at least speak to the CAB and put in some kind of appeal - not that £40 would really cover me for the duration such a process would likely take. 

Now I'm not sure that this is how such a scenario would play out, but that lack of security, that lack of knowledge is really what the DWP thrives on. The same with the Work Programme. You are never really told how things work, when things happen and what you can do. You are given a Jobseeker's Agreement, but at the same time expected to undertake what is reasonable to find work - and you cannot presume the two are the same. I am given to believe, but of course I am not at all certain, that the adviser would refer the decision to stop payments to a behind-the-scenes decision maker and, more importantly, pay my benefit until that is resolved. However I have also been told, although this was many years ago, that's not the case and that one is presumed guilty: ie money is stopped until otherwise decided. Hence my budgeting.

This is a stupid way to live, and it seems this is how the whole country is now living this way, regardless of their income. Meanwhile we are forever told that we have lived beyond our means (by we, the scumdog millionaire politicians mean the poor, not themselves of course). Really? All of us? I remember trying to prise a thousand pound loan from Santander back in the day (I wanted a decent pc, and in fact still do - this thing is 6 years old and is creakier than a haunted house) and being refused. Probably for the best. The whole system is debt fuelled: stop borrowing and the lenders (which include Britain, I'm sure) go bust - and they can't pay their own creditors. Stop buying and businesses go bust: live beyond our means is exactly what they want. The politicians claim to venerate entrepreneurs as though they are the new gods, but what good is inventing a new car, fridge or tv, programming an aspirant (re: compliant) nation, and getting them to want your product if they are then told not to live beyond their means. Cognitive dissonance abounds.

Meanwhile we are still bombarded with junk mail credit invitations and pre-approvals (ok perhaps not quite so much), yet this phenomena was our fault? Bollocks. So why are we paying for it? Well because that's what greases the wheels of the system. As the politicians get ever more shrill in the face of failing austerity, we hear more and more that we have to pay down the deficit and that, bizarrely, we are accumulating millions of pounds of interest a day. How on earth can that be possible; even if we undertook the most rigid of austerity programmes the interest touted by these lunatic politicians (all with an 'i hate my European neighbours, jolly old england' mentality) we'd never be able to pay that off. 

80% of these cuts have yet to come into effect. The next couple of years are going to be hell; Universal Credit comes into effect next year. I fear the worse for that; it's going to be an administrative nightmare exacerbated by the government's smart idea of not employing people over here to man their call centres, despite us having an unemployment crisis. When I first started claiming ESA the line manager at the call centre had no idea about her job, the process or what was happening with my case. Even when the actual ESA processing people sorted out the claim, she still managed to avoid taking responsibility after making me run around to try and get a second sick note from my GP. I didn't need it, but she was convinced that the information I'd sent in would take weeks to reach the relevant department (it didn't, it was their the next day) and that the quickest way to sort it was to get and send in a fresh note. You can imagine that sort of thing really makes GP's happy.

Here, in the Telegraph (again, sorry), is an article with some worryingly bizarre Tory claims.

The plans include a new crackdown on housing benefit and a “mark two” system of universal credit to help push people off benefits back into full-time, rather than part-time, work. There are also understood to be a range of measures to encourage more women, particularly single mothers, to return to work. 

As if the recent cap on HB (though not on rent) wasn't serious enough in its implications, they want to consider further limits. It's perfectly clear the Tories just haven't got a clue: the welfare budget seems to be their plaything, their new chew toy. With more people being forced to find new accommodation all they are doing is moving problems around. As demand increases in 'cheaper' areas (assuming such places have openings for tenants on HB, of course), rents will of course increase (just in time for Tory scum landlords to profit.

A Downing Street source said: “There is some really radical thinking going on around welfare, which is the most successful area of government policy so far. Why should people only work part time? Why are young people who are out of work not living at home? Why are we incentivising people to have more children? 

Part time? As opposed to what? People are only working part time because that's all the hours their employers are offering. This doesn't even make sense? What's going on here? Who is incentivising people to have more kids? What on earth exists in this current climate that could possibly persuade any rational person to want kids or to have more? Who'd bring them into this world right now? Certainly not me.

Universal credit mark two? What does this even mean when we have yet to see mark one. Be afraid children, be very afraid.

I hear also that the unemployment figure has dropped by 45000 (to put it very simplistically). But I suspect this is more to do with seasonal work. What will the figure be come the Autumn - and once the Olympics/Jubilee madness has passed. What then? 45000 isn't that much and I suspect is more easily explained by this kind of work. Even if it's not seasonal, is it work that pays a wage someone can live on, for instance is it part time, or some other form of temp work. We certainly can't assume 45000 people have all found a good career that will last until they are allowed to retire.

However there is some good news! Perhaps the Salvation Army will get their contract revoked, though I'm sure with the good lord himself on their side (though not enough to actually do anything), that won't happen. 

As number six used to say: "be seeing you"!