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Tuesday, 8 November 2016

Bedroom tax Supreme Court judgement Weds 9 November 2016

Guest blog post from WinVisible (Women with visible and invisible disabilities)
 
Come and support disabled people & carers, single mums & kids fleeing domestic violence, and all hit by the bedroom tax:
 
Bedroom tax Supreme Court judgement
Wed 9 Nov 2016
 
·          9.15 am - 9.30 am photocall – Charlotte & Jason Carmichael (Southport, Merseyside), and
Sue and Paul Rutherford
(Pembrokeshire Wales) are coming to London for the ruling
·          9.30 go in to Court 1 to hear the announcement
·          9.45 Judgement announced -- livestreamed here

at the Supreme Court
Parliament Square, London SW1P 3BD
opp. Westminster Abbey, corner of Victoria St
(Tube Station: Westminster)
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Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group Statement against reduced overall benefit cap, 7 November 2016

The following statement was delivered by leaflet and read out over 'bullhorn' outside Kilburn Jobcentre on Monday 7 November, the day the reduced overall benefit cap came in.

Reject the weak and rotten ideas of Tory hypocrites!


We say: No to caps on welfare — yes to rent controls


Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group are protesting 11am till Noon Monday 7 November 2016 outside Kilburn Jobcentre, as it's the first day of the welfare cap limiting families to a maximum of £20k a year in benefits (£23K if in London), which includes Housing costs.

Originally under David Cameron and George Osborne, a cap of £26k pa was introduced as it was the "average wage" .. the latest are "the average wage AFTER TAX" ... what will be the next excuse to bring it down? Please note that MPs when asked to just take the average wage themselves, have stuck to their £74,962 per year of TAXPAYERS money (PLUS generous expenses) ... so one rule for the sufferers of laws, another for the lawmakers! Sheer hypocrisy! Happily Cameron out of Parliament and Osborne shunted out of cabinet. Ha ha!

Most of the benefits money goes to private landlords, so the claimants never see most of that money. If council houses were available with low-cost rents then the Housing Benefit bill would be cut at a stroke and there wouldn't be such a hoo-ha about it. Houses ARE being built... but so call 'luxury flats,' by big private developers; and that is causing 'legal' 'Social Cleansing'. We should be taking these properties over for our own class, not for the rich. Public buildings and land should not be sold off on the cheap... National and Local Government deliberately allow the shutdown of public Fire Stations, Libraries, Hospitals, Community Centres, etc,, so we have no places to meet, to not be safe and educated, while the Rich can build their gated communities. Even they are being ripped off... boo hoo.

At last, Sir Phillip Green is being chased legally for taking workers' pensions... the Olympic Stadium was for instance sold to West Ham Football Club for practically nothing and now the TAXPAYER has to pay an additional £50 MILLION to compensate for ill-designed so-called 'retractable seats'. What an oversight by so-called Overseers of the public purse! A resignation has at last occurred. These Private 'Wealth Creators' must be laughing their heads off at your average person. Don't let them divide us ... let's imprison the REAL thieves and take their properties and land back. They are ok with chucking us into underfunded and dangerous jails!

The destructive lingering ideas of Iain Duncan Smith should be dumped. He had to resign in humiliation as Secretary of State for Work & Pensions as he had planned to take money off sick people who need higher toilet seats ... yes this is how they look for savings... instead of stopping the White Elephants of HS2 for example £60 BILLION), Trident (£100 BILLION) etc.

Jeremy Corbyn has promised to allow council housing programme, and to scrap the Work Capability Assessment. The SNP and Green Party voted against Welfare Reform & Work Bill 2015. Before Corbyn's leadership, Labour abstentions allowed that Bill to be passed. Waiting for a 2020 election isn't plausible... we must find parties and organisations NOW that oppose rubbish views and thieving laws. Theresa May is a very weak Prime Minister who doesn't show she knows what she is saying and doing... probably why she won't give a "running commentary on Brexit" for instance... a Government that won't explain itself isn't government. The legal challenge in the High Court may have scuppered her plans. Hee hee!

Let's have an opposition with clear thoughts and reasonable goals FOR US! Workers whether employed or not, must stick together and fix OUR housing problem, not accept Private NON-affordable housing. Let's dump the unravelling right-wing views of the real skiver — the Lazy Rich! An early General Election may rid us of MPs like already dumped Esther McVey!

WE, DANIEL BLAKE

Friday, 4 November 2016

One line in 92 page DWP 'consultation paper' proposes imposing 'mandatory' activity on all ESA claimants

(How about that for a lack of transparency?) 

by Dude Swheatie of Kwug — aka Alan Wheatley of the Green Party of England & Wales and London Green Left

(The below is based on a submission just now by the author to the Green Left Discuss e-list)

Disability News Service reports:
The Department for Work and Pensions is considering forcing all sick and disabled people on out-of-work disability benefits to take part in “mandatory” activity, its new green paper has revealed.
The suggestion of compulsory activity is revealed in a single line of the 92-page work, health and disability green paper, published this week....

This Green Paper 'consultation' closes at 11:45pm on 17 February 2017. The next Green Party of England & Wales Conference is not scheduled till March-April 2017.

Meanwhile, what is mental health charity Mind doing in bed with DWP?

And what have coroners said about claimant deaths?

In 2008 it was largely Green Left members (Anne Gray and me) that brought about a GPEW alternative to Labour's 'No-one written off' Green Paper. https://cse.google.com/cse?q=writing+off+workfare&ajaxSearch_submit.x=0&ajaxSearch_submit.y=0&cx=014602880548773237108%3Abfmqbz3c1w4&ie=UTF-8#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=writing%20off%20workfare&gsc.page=1

I propose that we at least republish those materials that were sat upon by national news media at the time. (Though I doubt that I would be able to contribute fresh this time around for health reasons, our 2008 publication is rich in background and can serve as 'we told you so' background to what has passed since.) Perhaps there could even be scope for 'Progressive Allaince' responses?

Alan Wheatley

PS:

"The [2008] consultation asks 29 questions, none of which are addressed to the impact of growing global recession and diminishing global resources upon employment. [Neither did they address anything about rewarding claimants.]" — https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/workfare-is-not-the-answer.html

"In September [2016], a book by disabled researcher Mo Stewart detailed the influence of the US insurance giant Unum over successive UK governments, and how it had undermined the social security system in order to boost the market for its own income protection policies." — http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/ministers-set-to-force-work-related-activity-on-everyone-in-esa-support-group/

See also

https://scottishunemployedworkers.net/2016/10/29/suwn-response-to-the-consultation-on-social-security-in-scotland/
http://www.reform.uk/event/a-welfare-state-that-works-for-all/

Wednesday, 2 November 2016

Film Screening: Weds 2 Nov on BAME women, trade union involvement and more!

Film screening: The Great Grunwick Strike 1976-78
Followed by a Panel Discussion
Time: 7:30pm-9:30pm
Venue: SOAS [School of Oriental & African Studies], Khalili Lecture Theatre, Lower Ground Floor, Thornhaugh Street, WC1H 0XG 
Postcode map: http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=529885&y=182040&z=0&sv=WC1H+0XG&st=2&pc=WC1H+0XG&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf
Transport for London Journeyplanner website: https://tfl.gov.uk/plan-a-journey/









Further details at Wembley Matters blog
http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/we-are-lions-has-opened-to-much-praise.html

Wednesday, 26 October 2016

Come, celebrate 5 years of Fuel Poverty Action! Thurs 3-11-16, 7pm onwards, in Brixton

Come and celebrate 5 years of Fuel Poverty Action
AGM Thursday 3 November
Brixton Pound Cafe, 77 Atlantic Rd, London SW9 8PU, Brixton tube
Please contact us re wheelchair access (it’s not great but is being worked on)

FPA was started in 2011. We've gone through a lot – and accomplished a lot – since then.  We have our eyes on the prize, and with our many allies we intend to make concrete gains this year.  We are welcoming new members, and people who want to work with us in other ways.
                                             
More than any other time in the past few years, fuel poverty and energy policy are in the headlines.

  • Will Theresa May really bring the bills down as she’s promising?  What pressure are she and the companies under – and how can we increase it? 
  • Would her plans dent the increase in deaths from fuel poverty due to government policy – on everything from benefits sanctions to housing?
  • How can we support the fight against fracking?
  • How can we expose the cost of Hinkley C as opposed to solar, wind and tidal power?
  • Why are people in arrears being forced onto Prepayment Meters and then forced to pay more than their better off neighbours – even after the proposed “cap”?
  • Why doesn’t London yet have a public energy company as Nottingham and Bristol do?
  • District Heating – How can we make sure that those who run it are held to account so that it's win-win for the climate and communities and not a PFI disaster? 
What is Fuel Poverty Action doing about all this?  What is our role, in a landscape of charities and lobbying organisations?
How are grassroots communities organising for our energy rights?
What is being done in other countries?
How can we speak out and defend ourselves and our environment?

Come along and raise your own issues, find out what’s happening, and consider how you might be part of it.

7 pm  Business and elections
7.15  Reports, activities, discussion
8.30 Social
Lovely Brixton Pound café food will be available (for sale) 
before the meeting and for the social at the end.
RSVP – Thank you!