Interview with a Job Centre Advisor: sanction targets and corruption revealed
“@JobcentreMole is a Job Centre advisor who has taken to Twitter to speak out about the Job Centre’s unfair treatment of people who are claiming benefits. …I think that what he’s doing is very brave.” With the help of an insider, Slutocrat reveals the reality of how Job Centres treat people claiming benefits.
400,000 made destitute by new JSA sanctions regime
“Quite how someone left with no money is meant to clean, maintain or buy clothes for interviews, or pay for travel for interviews or pay for internet access to look for jobs …seems to be an unanswered question.” Birmingham Against the Cuts questions how sanctions are supposed to help people find work.
Will George Osborne’s Work Programme Type 2 work better than the Work Programme Type 1?
“This begs the question: what is the purpose of the Work Programme? Why are providers not already addressing issues such as drug addiction and illiteracy? In the view of current providers, are they not viable clients under the payment by results regime?” Andy Winter questions what the ‘new Work Programme’ says about the existing one.
Shouldn’t “Policy Exchange” be honest? “Propaganda Exchange” is more accurate
“I’m SICK of half truths and misleading sentences. Sick of cherry picked data that uses random figures to paint false pictures. Sick of assumptions about the labour market and fraud that just aren’t true.” Sue Marsh takes aim at a new report from Policy Exchange.
Do people really ‘get used to a life on benefits’?
“The cornerstone of the Coalition’s welfare reform agenda is the idea of ‘welfare dependency’…But how valid this is this assumption? Do people get used to a life on benefits?” Daniel Sage puts the Government’s welfare reforms to the test.
You supply the starving people Freud, we’ll feed them
Lord Freud shocked a hell of a lot of people on Monday when he claimed there was no causal link between rising poverty and an increase in the use of food banks to 500,000 people (at least – some think the true number is already higher). He claimed the rise in the use of food […]
Benefits paperwork overloading claimants
The paperwork for benefits claims is overloading claimants who have to prove they have limited capabilities for work and work related activity yet, are expected to manage a huge amount of paperwork. The picture above is the file containing paperwork for one Employment & Support Allowance claimant, next to it is a standard pack of […]
Frontline Friday 21st June 2013: Our favourite frontline blogs this week
Here’s our list of ten frontline blogs we’ve particularly liked from the week of 17th June 2013. Let us know which posts we’ve missed and which other bloggers we should be following for next week’s list.
You thought the bedroom tax was bad! The much worse benefit cap starts in 4 weeks!!
“It is a stupid and reckless policy based on political dogma with no economic rationale at all.” Joe Halewood explains why the overall benefit cap will actually cost the taxpayer more and should be abandoned.
Moral disgust, financial discipline and efficiency: Smartcards and 21st century welfare
During late 2012 a debate began on the discussion board of a group I belong to. It focused on developing local currencies and promoting local businesses through Smartcard technologies. What concerned me wasn’t the technology, but the attitudes that seeped casually around the edges of the discussion about the necessity and inevitability of smartcard use […]
Frontline Friday 24th May 2013: Our favourite frontline blogs this week
Here’s our list of ten frontline blogs we’ve particularly liked from the week of 20th May 2013. Let us know which posts we’ve missed and which other bloggers we should be following for next week’s list.
You are ‘infrahuman’ and your government thinks you are ‘stock’ – even if you voted for it
This is a sequel. Last October, Vox Political published Living under the threat of welfare reform, a personal account of the hardships suffered by just one disabled benefit claimant as a result of the Coalition government’s crude and unnecessary attacks on people who are unable to work and must rely on social security. The author expressed fears about […]
Six months in… welfare
It’s six months since we launched this version of Guerilla Policy. Here’s a selection of some of our favourite posts we’ve published in welfare – from the Work Programme to the Bedroom Tax, ‘strivers vs skivers’ to the social impact of cuts.
Why this government is failing the disabled AND the taxpayer (DLA vs PIP)
This post is written by Tanya Marlow. Tanya blogs at Thorns and Gold. It has also been guest posted on Sue Marsh’s Diary of a Benefit Scrounger. Sue writes that: “I wish every last person in the country could read this guest post by Tanya Marlow. A little truth to wash away the government lies […]
Top-middle-bottom
Too many people don’t get it and politicians don’t want to or can’t cope with alternative socio-economic views. Their ears are on default selection. You want to talk about the idea that public ownership of utilities is better than private and all they counter with – all they hear is Big State, Unions, Taxpayer Money […]
Nevermind the £53 p/w. How would IDS cope with the system?
Now that the petition calling for Iain Duncan Smith to prove he can live on £53 a week has been handed in to the Department of Work and Pensions by Change.org, we should start planning his experience of claiming benefits in more detail. Because it’s not just about the amount of money, is it? It’s also the absurd, unfair and unpredictable bureaucracy […]
PIP faces legal challenge!
“Please join us in countering the propaganda and mis-information our government are churning out today… Every challenge shows a few more people what is really going on in their name.” Sue Marsh sets out the facts about the Government’s welfare disability reforms.
Vile products
After Frederick West was convicted of despicable murders, no-one wrote a headline saying he was the ‘Vile Product of Home Ownership’. After Harold Shipman was convicted of mass murders, no-one wrote a headline saying he was the ‘Vile Product of Full Time Employment’. It is disgusting therefore that the Daily Mail produced the headline ‘Vile Product of Welfare […]
Guerilla Voice: Dividing lines
The story of the week has undoubtedly been class. One debate on class - the ‘strivers’ and ‘skivers’ argument - has been used by the political class to distract from the debate we should be having, about the widening inequalities in wealth, power and influence that have undermined our society and politics.
Open letter to the Telegraph
Dear Daily Telegraph, Yesterday you published an article by Allison Pearson (“Mick Philpot, a good reason to cut benefits” 3rd April) based on a press release issued over the Easter weekend by Conservative Central Office. (NB: NOT the DWP who are barred from issuing overtly political and partisan press releases). Your original story (900,000 choose to come off […]