People
on state benefits generally don't live lives of luxury and idleness,
however much government ministers and right wing tabloid newspapers
would have others believe. Amid a high-profile taxpayer-funded
'targeting benefit cheats' media campaign, a 2006 report by Joseph
Rowntree Foundation pointed out that an understanding of why people
feel the need to cheat the system must inform future tax and benefit
reform.(2) Meanwhile, the 'allowable earnings limit' for single
people aged 24+ on unemployment benefit/JSA had not increased from £5
per week since 1988. (It still has not!) That out-of-work benefit
levels have not kept up with earnings and/or the greed and tardiness
of utility companies and landlords cannot be laid at the feet of just
one government — it has been going on since 1988!
Meanwhile,
an upsurge of early morning queues outside CAB offices on high
streets demonstrated the reality of masses of people in economic
crisis. Yet now, with cuts in central government grants to local
authorities, CAB offices have been moved off high roads where estate
agent offices now festoon 'up-market' areas and legal loan shark offices
and bettings offices litter less glamorous ones. And as 'talking with
people dealing with public sector cuts' blogger and Honorary Member
of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group Member Kate Belgrave reports, 'It
can be really hard to get welfare advice'.(3)
But
there is 'good advice' and 'bad advice' both for citizens and
governments and opposition parties wanting to 'reform the welfare
state'. American health insurance company company Unum (formerly Unum
Provident) has been 'advising' successive UK governments on 'welfare
reform' since at least the mid-1990's,(4) and Labour Party Deputy
Leadership contender Caroline Flint MP declares in her 'interests'
that she has staff and office space sponsored by lobbyist firm
Sovereign Strategy. Sovereign Strategy clients include Maximus, a
corporation that profits from the 'welfare to work' industry.(5)
While
we might anticipate Camden Council taking Geoffrey and Carol's
eviction as their cue to sell a vacant property, we would commend
anyone concerned about the level of their fuel bills to consult Fuel
Poverty Action: Tel: 07751 748 026/07586 482 157; Email:
fuelpovertyaction@gmail.com;
Website: http://www.fuelpovertyaction.org.uk/ (6)
Notes
and
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