Feral Councillors!

by Durruti Column

IT's deeply worrying to hear that Greater Manchester has one of the highest rates of hospital admissions with malnutrition* in England, 1.5 times higher than the national average. Learning that there were 588 hospital admissions in our area with a primary or secondary diagnosis of malnutrition in 2015/16, a rate of 21 per 100,000 people, compared to a rates of 15 per 100,000 across England.  These shocking statistics naturally drew me to the scandalous plight of many of our councillors, many of whom are forced to seek out alternative sources of nutrition to bulk out  their obviously insufficient tax payer subsidised post meeting buffets.   Persistent reports that councillors near delirious with early onset malnutrition  have resorted to scavenging from local restaurants to prevent starvation keep surfacing on social media. '

'You can hardly move at the local soup kitchen for councillors pan handling for a bowl of soup and a roll - where are they all flocking from ?, reported one regular Food Bank user who did not want to be named , adding '   It's time the government or Bob Geldof stepped in with another Live Aid!  Shocking reports of aggressive town centre begging by councillors without portfolio has led some to believe that the councillors expenses are quite obviously inadequate and need an immediate public inquiry and recalibration.  'You can see the poor souls staggering out of local public house racked with exhaustion and overwork.  One of them does a whole three hours work every other week .  The lovies are so tired that they keep falling asleep in meetings.  If it wasn't for the expenses form being passed round and waking them up at the end of the meetings some of them would be there all night.   I don't know how they manages to keep going?   ‘Some of the poor dears barley manage to get into a restaurant more than four or five times a week it's a wonder they aren't forced into spending their own money sometimes', said a town centre zero hours contract cleaner.

One shamefaced councillor who wish to remain anonymous described an ugly incident behind No.1 Riverside last week when a pack of feral councillors intimidated local beggars away from the closely located supermarket food skips.   ‘There's  just not enough dustbins and food skips in the town centre to supply demand any more.   It's a ghetto out there - it's us or the street beggars !', she added through clenched teeth. Few people realise just how difficult it is becoming for our poor local councillors to survive in a such a highly charged and  toxic competitive environment.  It's been reported that some town centre street corners have two , three , sometimes more, individuals cynically competing in trying to extort more money from the public purse.

'Your average professional parasite hardly get a look in any more because of these new arrivals.  Councillors cornered the market on conning the public out of their hard earned cash for decades and we deeply resent these newcomers stealing our pitches', complained another tearful and near destitute councillor of twenty years standing.  'Peoples priorities have all gone astray.  I've three full time jobs , remuneration from a dozen committee posts and the lucrative income from housing benefits on several dozen properties to scrape by on yet the local proles would still far rather donate to feed the hungry kids of a frozen single mum sitting in the rain who's been sanctioned for being two minutes late at the job centre than subsidise meals for us decent hard up councillors!  What's wrong with 'em !  It's a diabolical liberty!    Some of us have been using the same sob story to voters for decades without any public scrutiny and we don't see why just because the towns social fabric is collapsing around us that our personal gravy train should be jeopardised.   It'll end in communism you mark my words!'.

Distressingly reports that some of our local councillors have been forced by dire circumstances and near destitution into working for a living although highly unlikely can not be discounted altogether.   A recent public service announcement warns locals not to give cash to any hungry or dishevelled councillors who may wander into the town centre delirious with hunger.   'Don't give public handouts to councillors', said a spokesperson , ‘It will simply feed their addiction.  They can't help themselves - Universal Credit and destitution is good enough for the majority of our hard working dedicated town centre beggars.  Councillors are no different and it really is time they started contributing to our local economy rather than expecting repeated public handouts'.

If you see a councillor aggressively demanding more money from the public purse in a public area.  Do not approach them - and most certainly do not vote for them since this will only encourage their recidivist anti-social behaviour - Keep calm and remember that a new Public Space Protection Order is in force to protect innocent members of the public from serial scammers & fraudsters.

* malnutrition

NOUN: lack of proper nutrition, caused by not having enough to eat, not eating enough of the right things, or being unable to use the food that one does eat.

Universal Credit - the bureaucratic nightmare!

A mind at the end of its tether - claiming Univeral Credit

By Steve (Starlord) Fisher



Iain Duncan Smith promised that Universal Credit would 'make work pay' and make the transition into and out of paid work seamless. This has not been my experience here or elsewhere. The whole system is not fit for purpose - it is a bureaucratic nightmare! Weber's 'iron cage' of bureaucracy! The unemployed now needs the skills of a Philadelphia lawyer in order to negotiate the system.

As a self-employed consultant, I've been helping a client (who turned to me in desperation), to move from paid work back onto Universal Credit. He'd been working as a manual worker for six months and his contract came to an end. However, it has proved a bit of farce despite our doing everything correctly.

The same day his employment ended we contacted the DWP and I was happily surprised that his claim was still open. This made matters easier, or so we thought. It was my understanding that a UC claim is kept open for 6 months to facilitate movement in and out of paid work and unemployment. Any longer, and UC is automatically closed necessitating the making of a fresh claim. Apparently it can be longer, anything from 6 months up to a maximum of 8 months. It all depends on exactly when work begins and ends and where it falls within a UC monthly commencement or start-up period and end period. We thought this 'good fortune' would make it easier to make a claim. That, after all, is one of the avowed claims of UC, to make the transition in and out of paid work fluid and seamless. So we thought that was that, but the reality it couldn't have been further from the truth.

He signed-on for a couple of weeks and received a letter telling him that his UC claim had ended! We phoned the UC help-line only to be told, eventually, that they had indeed cancelled his claim, in error. His claim had 10 days before expiry, and so I speculated the most likely scenario was that his claim had been terminated, automatically, because the paperwork from Ashton Jobcentre did not reach the relevant department in time, ie within 10 days. The help-line agreed this was the most likely scenario. We were told they may be able to 'rebuild his claim'. They said he could make a complaint. As it turned-out there was nothing they could do and he would now have to make a fresh claim. But any such claim commences only from the moment it is made. What about the last few weeks then? That's why it is imperative that one make a fresh claim as soon as possible because it won't be backdated.

When he signed-on he was told he was due a payment, but what did this mean now it had been cancelled? He received an award payment of zero. I already knew he would not receive a payment until mid-January despite what he thought because the first 7 days don't count and it is paid 1 month in arrears making for a 5 week wait at best. But does this fresh claim include the last few weeks of a claim that never was, even while signing-on at Ashton Jobcentre?

We resigned ourselves to making a fresh UC claim and would have to wait and see how this farce worked-out.

So, on Tuesday 21st December 2016 we tried without success to make an online UC application. That's how it's done these days. I'd already heard about the online completion time limit. We had 20-40 minutes to complete it. Exceed this and everything's lost. One must start again playing the UC version of 'snakes and ladders'. There is no option to save and return later as with other online systems.

The online form is a poor-mans version of a HMRC Tax Return. Very poorly designed, with poor 'error-handling'. It's almost as if it's been designed to fail, to put people off making an application in the first place, and even when one does try it often fails for other reasons. The software is very fragile. But how typical was our experience?

We had no trouble finishing within the time limit. However, we ran into a different but related problem. We were well prepared and had almost finished. We were just entering banking details when the bloody system crashed, telling us to try again later or continue with the current application. However, there is no way to continue. One is forced to abandon the current attempt and start again, but even that's not easy. We tried again only to be told a claim was already in process, that we would have wait 20 minutes for the current application to expire or continue with it, but as said this was not possible. So we had to twiddle our thumbs for 20 minutes and begin again just like poor old Michael Finnegan. This time we were moving at speed knowing exactly what to do only to find it failed within minutes returning us to the beginning yet again. Yet another 20 minutes of thumb twiddling. I tried again but we were getting nowhere fast. I suggested we try again tomorrow when we could phone the UC help-line if this happened again.

So on Wednesday 22nd December 2016 we tried again. Immediately we started we were told a claim was already in process and we would have to wait 20 minutes before we could continue, but I'd not done anything yet. I telephoned the DWP UC help-line and was told they'd been having problems yesterday. That explained that. Now the excuse, was that they were updating the system starting this afternoon at 16:00, with only minutes to go! The DWP officer thought we may have difficulty and it would be best to leave it to another day. However, I thought lets give it one more try and finally, success! I told my client to include all of these difficulties as part of his efforts to find work. However, one cannot save a copy. One does not get a receipt number or get an email confirmation. My client is told that he can expect a phonecall within 2 days to make an appointment at the Jobcentre. Of course, he's already done all of this!

My client has now been told that he's got a Jobcentre appointment for his UC claim and can expect his first payment at the beginning of February 2017, having started his claim on 30 November 2015, over two months ago. He is now in rent arrears and has been given his first a food-bank voucher  from his landlord. He now faces a gloomy Christmas, with no money, and wonders what was the point of taking temporary paid work, when all it does screws up your benefit claim and leaves you facing hardhip.  God help us, if this is what the government calls simplyfying things.

Protestors lay wreath at Ashton Jobcentre: staff called upon to show humanity and compassion!

Around 20 protestors including members from TAMESIDE AGAINST THE CUTS, Tameside Stop The Bedroom Tax & the Cuts, Tameside Unemployed Workers Alliance, Tameside Trades Union Council, & Tameside Green Party, gathered outside Ashton-under-Lyne Jobcentre on Thursday. These regular Thursday afternoon demonstrations, have been taking place since August, after a 19-year-old girl from Ashton had her benefit stopped after she informed an employer B&Q (where she'd been sent by the Jobcentre to work unpaid) that she was 23-weeks pregnant. More recently, a 32-year-old jobseeker was told by staff at Ashton Jobcentre that his benefit would be stopped if he continued to participate in the protest outside Ashton Jobcentre against unfair and illegal sanctions.

On Thursday, a wreath was laid outside the Jobcentre to highlight how benefit sanctions and cuts have led to suicides. A list of people whose deaths have been linked to benefits cuts, which was taken from the 'Black Triangle Campaign', was read out to the public. A representative from the trade union UNISON, also read out a letter that he was delivering to Ashton Jobcentre objecting to unfair sanctions and the beastly inhuman treatment that is being meted out jobseeker's. Rev. David Grey, a former friar of Gorton Monastery, dressed in a monks habit, made a speech outside the Jobcentre calling upon Jobcentre staff to show humanity and compassion towards the unmployed.

Although the government deny that there is a policy of targeting people for sanctioning, it is known that staff face disciplinary action if they don't sanction enough people. At one Jobcentre, Easter egg prizes were offered to staff who had sanctioned the most people.

While the UK is ranked as the sixth richest country on earth, a recent all-party report on foodbanks, has warned that Britain is 'stalked by hunger' caused by low pay, growing inequality and a harsh benefit sanctions as well as social break-down. The report says that benefit sanctions are the single biggest reason why the poor are resorting to foodbanks.

Ian Duncan Smith, Secretary for Work and Pensions, denies that welfare cuts are connected to financial hardship and suicides. He has accused Britain's largest food bank network, the Trussell Trust, of scaremongering. Other well-fed Tories have also scoffed at reports of hungry Britain, claiming that the poor don't know how to cook or that greater awareness of food banks, has led to increased demand. Yet the report says that severe hunger is leading to malnutrition and that there has been an increase in people scavenging for leftovers in restaurant and supermarket skips. Despite this indictment against Duncan Smith's vendetta against the poor and vulnerable, he was voted the most influential lay Roman Catholic by readers of the Tablet in 2010.

On Wednesday, a Labour motion to scrap the bedroom tax, was defeated in the Commons by 298 votes to 266, after 35 slimey LibDems, voted with the Tories to retain the tax despite promising earlier this year, to ditch the policy.

The weekly protests outside Ashton Jobcentre, have attracted a great deal of attention from citizen journalists working within social media. Yet the local Tameside newspapers the Tameside (PRAVDATISER)  Advertiser  and the New Charter owned, Tameside Reporter and Chronicle, have shown scant interest in the campaign despite receiving regular briefings. A visit to Ashton Jobcentre made by Rachell Reeves, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and council leader, Kieran Quinn, in October, did however, receive press coverage.
https://foodpovertyinquiry.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/food-poverty-feeding-britain-final.pdf

Red Cross to distribute food parcels to hungry Brits!

GUESS WHO'S NOT GOING HUNGRY?

Cameron and Osborne dine out at Puccini's Pizzeria
e Ristorante, Swinton, Manchester, in September.

The international humanitarian organisation the British Red Cross, which helps people in crisis, recently announced that it plans to distribute food aid to the needy in Britain for the first time since WWII.

The number of people turning to food banks as emergency aid to feed their families, has more than tripled following the squeeze on benefits in April. The country's biggest food bank operator, the 'Trusell Trust', announced that they distributed food aid to 355,985 people, including nearly 120,000 children, between April and September compared with 113,264 during the same period in 2012. The Trust said that they had distributed more food aid to hungry Brits during those six months than in the whole of  2012. According to the Trust, increases in food and energy prices, pay freezes, the bedroom tax, cuts in council tax benefits and welfare changes in April, along with changes to the rules governing crisis loans, have all led to an increase in demand for emergency food aid. More than 650,000 people were referred to food banks over the period because of benefit changes - a fourfold increase - and another 117,000 were referred because of delays in paying their benefits.

The Trust told 'The Independent' newspaper that people using food banks, had started to return food that needed to be warmed up because they could not afford to switch on their electricity. The Trust, which operates around 400 food banks is calling for a public inquiry into the level of food poverty.

The one party state of Tameside in Greater Manchester, falls within the most deprived quartile counties of England. The fact that there will soon be at least 11 food banks, is a stark indicator of the dire financial difficulties which many people find themselves in. Members of the Tameside East Foodbank, are now a regular feature in many local supermarkets where they can be found handing out tickets asking customers to purchase items of food, such as milk, pasta sauces, tinned rice pudding, biscuits or snack bars, to help "local people in crisis."

Why so many people in Britain both in and out of work should find that they are unable to feed themselves when we live in the seventh richest nation on the planet, is absolutely diabolical and scandalous in the extreme. When people are facing homelessness and destitution in Britain due to welfare cuts and  the bedroom tax, this Tory government is far more concerned with bankers' mega-bonuses and in giving tax cuts to multi-millionaires. The taxpayer has already bailed out failing banks to the tune of £1.162 trillion.

Former Labour minister, Frank Field, who was appointed by Tony Blair to "think the unthinkable" regarding welfare reform, is now David Cameron's own Poverty Tsar. Although Labour laid the foundations for much of these Tory reforms, Field has spoken out about the danger of food banks becoming an "institutional part" of the welfare state. He told 'The Independent':

"Clearly something very serious is happening to people at the bottom of society which isn't picked up in the offical data. If you had said to me ten years ago that we would be discussing the use of food banks, I would have led you to a dark room to recover."

Although the Tory government claim that there is no robust evidence that welfare reforms are linked to the increased use of food banks and the government welfare adviser, former merchant banker, David Freud, has stated publicly that there is always infinite demand for a free good, Chris Mould, the executive chairman of the Trussell Trust, told the newspaper:

"The level of food povery in the UK is not acceptable. It's scandalous and it's causing deep distress to thousands of people. As a nation we need to accept that something is wrong and that we need to act now to stop UK hunger getting worse."

Eviction threats increase after launch of 'Bedroom Tax'. It's the poor that's paying for the financial crisis!

Just weeks after the introduction of the Tory 'bedroom tax', many tenants are struggling to pay the increase in their rent and are being threatened with eviction. Thousands are at risk of losing their homes as councils and housing associations have started to take action for rent arrears.

According to a report in the 'Independent' newspaper, nearly a thousand people have received notice of arrears letters in Bradford. In Nottingham, more than a third of the housing association's tenants, now owe money for rent. Tenants in Barnsley and Leeds have been told by their housing authority that their homes are at risk and in Glasgow, Queens Cross Housing Association, have reported that 226 of the 291 tenants affected by the bedroom tax, have been unable to pay.

While many people in Britain are stuggling to make ends meet as the coalition government austerity policies continue to bite, it remains a boom time for those at the top. At a time when they've introduced the 'bedroom tax' and are squeezing the poor, the government are giving tax cuts to the rich. As from April, anyone earning over £1 million-a-year, will now get an annual tax cut of at least £42,295.  And where is the money coming from to pay for these tax cuts, you may ask? What is paying for these tax cuts, in part, are cuts in State benefits and public services. As Michael Meacher MP, pointed out in a letter to the Guardian last May, 77% of the budget deficit is being recouped by public expenditure cuts and benefit cuts and only 23% is being repaid by tax increases. More than half of that tax increase, is accounted for by the rise in VAT to 20%.

Other eminent figures have also pointed out how the rich have off-loaded the cost of the financial crisis onto the backs of the poor. In March 2011, the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, told a Treasury Select Committee : "The price of this financial crisis is being borne by people who absolutely did not cause it." In his BBC Today programme lecture in 2012, he blamed the banks for causing the financial crisis and "expressed surprise that the British people are not more angry with them." Michael Forster, senior analyst at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), has said that the UK government have chosen policies that were likely to fall on the backs of poor population groups.

Even though 10,000 families have been pushed into homelessness in the UK following housing benefit cuts and we are seeing 'austerity suicides', the government say that changes to the tax and benefit system will make people better off.  Since the Tory government came into office in May 2010, there has been a five-fold increase in food banks which dispense free food to the needy. This year, some 350,000 people, accessed emergency food aid in Britain.

Its not just people on benefits who are being hit by the Tories slash and burn policies. Far from targeting 'shirkers', the three-year benefit and tax credit cap doesn't mainly target the unemployed. More than 60%  of those who will lose out, are in work. Many people who are in work, are also being scandalously exploited. Pay packets of the average worker continue to fall in real terms, down by 8.5% since 2009. The lowest wage rises on record, were recorded for first three months to March. Full-time British workers also work  longer hours than anywhere else in Europe and often do unpaid overtime. However, the 'think-tank' The High Pay Centre, have pointed out that the typical salary of the chief executive of a FTSE 100 company was now 185 times greater than the average, while the share of income going to the wealthiest one-percent of the popualtion, now stands at 14% compared with 6% in 1979. There are more bankers at Barclays earning more than £1million, than there are executives at public companies across the whole of Japan. Britain is less equal in wages, wealth and life chances, than at any time since the 1920s,

In their book 'The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills', David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu, have looked at how different countries have managed the recession and how this has impacted on public health. In the book, Stuckler says: "If austerity had been run like a clinical trial, it would have been discontinued". The authors also point out that poorer public health is not a consequence of economic downturns, but a choice by the government of the country, and they note:

"Countries that slashed health and social protection budgets, like Greece, Italy and Spain, have seen starkley worse health outcomes than nations like Germany, Iceland and Sweden, which maintained their social safety nets and opted for stimulus over austerity." They also point out that there are enormous variations in suicide rates across countries.

The authors of this book say that the UK is "one of the clearest expressions of how austerity kills" with 'austerity suicides' on the increase. Yet they also point out that in Iceland, which suffered the worst banking crisis in history when all three of its biggest banks failed and total debt jumped to 800% of GDP, - "far worse than what any European country faces today, relative to the size of its economy" - had voted against paying for the recklessness of the bankers with large cuts in health and social protection systems and had took the decision to pay off its foreign creditors gradually instead of all at once through austerity. The authors also assert:

"Neither Iceland nor any other country that 'protected its people when they needed it most' did so at the cost of economic recovery. Iceland is now booming; unemployment is back below 4% and GDP growth is above 4% - far exceeding any of the other European countries that suffered major recessions."

Although Britain has a financial deficit brought about by the banking crisis, those who have criticised the government and its austerity policies, have suggested that the financial crisis has presented the Tories with the opportunity to dismantle the post-war British welfare state which is anathema to them and to marketise and covertly privatise what remains of public services. It is suggested that a core aim of the Cameron government, has been to hive off public services to their business buddies whose income will be sustained by public contracts and captive markets for essential services.

It is of interest to note that Britain's debt during the post-second world war period, was more than 200% of GDP, (far higher than any European country's today, bar Iceland) and the country's leaders responded by founding the welfare state - "paving the way for decades of prosperity and within ten years debt had halved."

Solihull single mother commits suicide over 'bedroom tax". She could not afford to live!

Amid all the brouhaha about Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement and Michael Gove's call for a referendum on Britain's continuing membership of the European Community, the tragic suicide of 53-year-old Stephanie Bottril from Solihull, was squeezed into a three minute slot on Sky TV.

Last Saturday, Stephanie left her home on Meriden Drive - Solihull, where she had lived for the past eighteen years - and walked to Junction 4 of the M6 motorway, where she threw herself under a lorry. Before killing herself she told neighbour's that she "simply couldn't afford to live anymore" and posted her keys and a suicide note through a neighbour's door, blaming the government's 'bedroom tax' for her death. "I don't blame anyone for me death expect (sic) the government" she wrote.

Under 'bedroom tax' rules, Stephanie was facing a welfare cut in her housing benefit because she had two spare rooms and she could not afford the extra £20 per week she was required to pay in order to retain her home. She told neighbours that she was 'tortured' about how she could afford the extra £20 per week and knew that she would have leave the home she loved, after losing a quarter of her £320-a-month housing benefit when her 23-year-old daughter, left home to live with her partner. Shortly before her death, a neighbour had taken her some barbecue food because she had not eaten for three days.

Mrs Bottril suffered from an auto-immune system deficiency condition known as Myasthenia gravis, which impacted on her ability to work but she was not receiving disability benefit. In a letter to her 27-year-old son, Steven, she said:

"Don't blame yourself for me ending my life, it is my life, the only people to blame are the government."

Although Mrs Bottril had been offered another property, she felt this was unsuitable because of poor transport links and she felt this would have isolated her from her family. Following Stephanie's death, the family issued a statement. Her son Steven told the Sunday People:

"She was fine before this bedroom tax. It was dreamt up by people living in offices and big houses. They have no idea the effect it has on people like my mum."

At a time when this verminous Tory government are taxing poor people for having so-called spare bedrooms, they have cut taxes for the rich and corporation tax for their business chums. As from April, anyone earning over £1 million-a-year will get an annual tax cut of at least £42,295.00. Yet there has been a five-fold increase in food banks since this government came into power in May 2010. The Labour MP Luciana Berger, recently told Parliament that 350,000 people had accessed emergency food aid this year in Britain.

While the government pursues its billionaires agenda of less tax for the rich, less regulation for business, less spending by the State and no cap on bankers bonuses, children are going hungry in Manchester. It is estimated that 91,000 children are living in severe poverty throughout Greater Manchester.

In the local authority area of Tameside, which according to figures published by the trade union UNISON, is one of the hardest places to find work in the North West, the registered social landlord New Charter Housing Trust Ltd, has already started to send out letters to their tenants who are in arrears with their 'bedroom tax', threatening legal action. These 'recovery proceedings' are being made in spite of comments made by New Charter boss, Ian Munro, that the tax should 'axed' and that it is both 'unfair and incompetent'. The housing boss has also stated that the housing company is in no position to rehouse many of its tenants, who are being forced to downsize. It is estimated that two-thirds of people affected by the bedroom tax nationally, are disabled.

In Solihull, the council Labour group leader, David Jamieson, said he was 'appalled' by the death of Stephanie Bottril and he urged the government to reconsider its 'bedroom tax' policy. Figures released earlier this year, show that UK suicide rates have markedly increased since the Tory government came into office. Just how many suicides it will take, before this government scraps this vile and iniquitous tax, remains to be seen.