Some of the effects of Tory party policys

[ttosca]

The National Housing Federation has released a report highlighting the impact of 100 days of the bedroom tax in Merseyside:

? 26,500 households in Merseyside are affected by the bedroom tax, only 155 managed to downsize due to shortage of smaller homes.

? 19,055 disabled people in Merseyside are losing over £13m a year due to the bedroom tax. Some grants are available but for three months only.

? 14,000 Merseyside households fell into arrears with their rent in the first four weeks.

?The bedroom tax is hurting the most vulnerable people in Merseyside. It is time to face the facts and repeal this unfair policy now.? David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation

Read the National Housing Federation's summary here

bit.ly/1beczNM (includes a link to the pdf report)

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More than half of benefit claimants ruled fit to work ended up destitute !

MORE than HALF of people stripped of disability benefits after being ruled ?fit for work? by Atos Origin were left unemployed and without income, according to a Government study.

The Department for Work and Pensions - DWP, who hired the French IT firm to help them slash the benefits bill, have admitted finding out in a survey that 55 per cent of people who lost benefits in the crackdown had failed to find work.

Only 15 per cent were in jobs, with 30 per cent on other benefits.

The DWP claimed people left high and dry were given ?tailored support? to find jobs.

But the extent of the hardship suffered by the Atos victims in the study will only add to the growing public fury about the firm and their methods.

Atos have assessed patients with terminal illnesses as ?fit for work?. And thousands of victims of genuine, chronic conditions have complained of being humiliated by the company?s tests.

So far, Citizens Advice in Scotland have received a shocking 24,000 complaints about Atos, who rake in £110million a year from the taxpayer for their controversial work.

The extent of unemployment among people denied benefits after Atos assessments was revealed by the DWP after a Freedom of Information request.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/atos-scandal-benefits-bosses-admit-1344278?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer0762d&utm_medium=twitter

[ironman]

I thought it was a coalition?

[SilverOldie]

So it is Ironman but the OP is a Tory hating Labour supporter so won't let that stand in the way of yet another pointless rambling.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

No, not a Labour Supporter. Ttossa's affinities lie to the far left!

[Uptheairymountain]

One of the two parties has to be responsible. I very much doubt it's a Lib Dem policy!

[ttosca]

I thought it was a coalition?

It's a coalition in name, yes. Not that the Lib Dems were anything other than economic liberals, but it's the Tory party where these truly nasty policies come from. The LDs are now Tory lapdogs in an effort to show that coalition politics can work. This is their number one priority seeing as they will never win a majority outright.

So it is Ironman but the OP is a Tory hating Labour supporter so won't let that stand in the way of yet another pointless rambling.

I'm not a Labour supporter, and you shouldn't assume that I am just because I criticise the Tories.

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So anyone care to comment about the actual policies which are destroying so many lives, or is it more important to play Red team vs. Blue team?

Does anyone still think that the 'Bedroom tax' is a good policy?

Does anyone still think that the so-called welfare 'reform' is not being done in a way which demonizes the unemployed and puts legitimate claimants at risk of destitute?

[Madondogs]

I will comment. The replies to the op are childish I the extreme, obviously those posters lack the empathy to understand the traffic human consequences that lie behind the statistics. And since when has being a Labour supporter... Or even someone ' far to the Left' ( count me in on that) been a term of abuse.

[SilverOldie]

The comments aren't childish just because you disagree with them.

The Tories and their supporters are routinely abused on this forum so why not Labour or Communists?

[niceguy2]

@Madondogs. I think if you read more of Ttosca's ramblings posts, you may see why the replies are like that. All things considered I think the replies have been fairly tame.

What you'll probably see soon is a barbed attack on the fact I'm a supposedly right wing Tory lover who wants to see the poor hammered whilst the rich laugh all the way to the bank. When in reality I actually think of myself as fairly centre and I'm not even a big fan of the current coalition. But given Ttosca's is so left wing that he/she makes the Socialist Worker party look like UKIP, it's hard not to be accused of being right wing.

[ttosca]

Yes, yes, you're such a moderate nice guy for moderate policies and you're not really a big fan of the coalition, which is why you've pretty much defended almost every single coalition policy on here for the past couple of years.

It's a nice schtick, niceguy, but not really believable.

Can we talk about policies instead of this distraction about who is left-wing or who plays for what team or whatever?

[TabithaStephens]

Why are so many people in Merseyside on benefits, would seem to be a relevent question. And why do they consistently vote for Labour, when Labour does absolutely nothing to improve the area.

[Madondogs]

There were mass redundancies in Liverpool in the 80s and the area has never recovered. There is no manufacturing industry and high levels if unemployment.
As to why they vote labour, well it is traditionally a working class area, and people have historic loyalties.
During the 80s Liverpool council fought against the Tory policies and refused to make any council worker redundant .
I totally agree that since then the Labour Party / or government has done nothing for the working class .. In Liverpool or anywhere else in Britain, because they have follower a Blairite agenda, little different from the Tories.

[Madondogs]

And hi Ttosca you sound like my kind of gal

[TabithaStephens]

Did Liverpool council not consider the people of Liverpool who were paying for the council workers? Surely the council should work for the benefit of the people of Liverpool, not just their employees?

[Madondogs]

How would making even more people redundant benefit Liverpool ?

[MiniTheMinx]

And because its Merseyside no one can claim these people can move where there is cheaper housing. Great isn't it. Perhaps that is why it falls on deaf ears and those on the right are strangely silent.

The policy is short sighted as are other Tory policies, unless of course playing musical houses is part of some plan to kick start the economy! Maybe there is some logic in it. Make group A homeless, move in group B, Group B buy new white goods and default on rent, move in group C......

In what way is it beneficial to pay out of work benefits instead of wages TabithaStephens?

[niceguy2]

I think you are mistaking me asking where the money comes from as defending the coalition.

As for policies, we've been round this merry go round so many times. You will say evil tory scum repeatedly whilst cut & pasting lots of articles in case I cannot click on a link. I will ask you ok...what would you do instead and where the money would come from?

You will brand me a right wing fascist for asking such a question and cut & paste some more articles on how it's all the rich bankers fault and life was all tickety boo before they destroyed the universe with their reckless gambling. A point even if it were true is neither here nor there anymore.

[TabithaStephens]

There's no point in keeping people in jobs that are no longer needed just to keep them off the unemployed figures. Liverpool MPs should be trying to attract investment into the area.

[ttosca]

niceguy-

I think you are mistaking me asking where the money comes from as defending the coalition.

No, no mistake, because the Coalition rationalises its sociopathic and counterproductive policies using the same line: "Where is the money going to come from?" You do the same. You defend the coalition policies as necessary. In reality, they are not necessary and are in fact, counter productive.

As for policies, we've been round this merry go round so many times. You will say evil tory scum repeatedly whilst cut & pasting lots of articles in case I cannot click on a link.

And you still don't seem to take any of it in. Have you apologised yet for getting it wrong - for almost two years - that austerity bloodletting will have a negative impact on growth and the economy as a whole? No, you haven't. The best you can grudgingly come up with is that some of the money cut on spending should be invested in growth.

I will ask you ok...what would you do instead and where the money would come from?

I've already explained to you many times that we're in the middle of a recession right now and that is our primary problem.

There is a difference between the deficit in the middle of a recession (which is always higher, due to lack of tax revenue and increased unemployments) and the deficit when 'normal' growth is resumed.

The coalition is pretending that the deficit is due to massive public over expenditure, when it isn't, because it wants to dismantle social security and reduce the size of the state.

If we stopped bloodletting and actually invested in the economy and put people back to work and got out of the recession, then a large part of the deficit would fix itself, because there would be a massive increase in tax revenue.

You will brand me a right wing fascist for asking such a question

No, but I'm starting to think you might be a troll or spend your time on here purposely to disrupt discussion. I've explained the basic facts to you a million times but you ignore them every time and stick your head in a sand.

and cut & paste some more articles on how it's all the rich bankers fault and life was all tickety boo before they destroyed the universe with their reckless gambling.

I've also addressed this point about a million times, too. Prior to the financial crisis, the deficit was high, but not drastically so (around 3%), and has historically been much higher many times before.

Furthermore, our accumulated debt/GDP was at a historical low point before the financial crisis.

I've explained these things to you a million times before, and I have shown you the charts and figures, and provided you with links to reputable links (such as the treasury) but you still ignore it and carry on with your nonsense -- as if the state of the economy is the fault of spending too much on health and education.

You're simply ridiculous.

[TabithaStephens]

What do you mean by "investing in the economy and putting people back to work"? Making up public sector jobs? Labour already tried that, it didn't work. We need to encourage private sector investment.

[Uptheairymountain]

I thought that having high levels of public sector employment did work. It kept the economy buoyant and also encouraged investment and employment in the private sector due to individual spending ability. It wasn't the Labour government's effort to have as many people in work as possible that caused the global recession and the cuts in the public sector are damaging the Coalition's fairly poor efforts at getting the UK out of recession, when so many other countries are recovering (obviously not including Greece etc). Now everyone's frightened to spend money because there's no job confidence.

[niceguy2]

High levels of public sector employment is fine as long as the private sector can sustain those jobs. Roughly half of our jobs nowadays seem to be public sector, it means the private sector have to fund those jobs somehow.

And given the dire straits of the economy, it's not really a surprise that right now we can't sustain those jobs. It's only logical that if the economy is bad and tax receipts collapse then the public sector which afterall is part of the economy also is affected. And when times are good, the opposite should also ring true as well.

What's wrong is when the public sector somehow think they should be immune from what's going on around them. That's simply not realistic.

[MiniTheMinx]

High levels of public sector employment is fine as long as the private sector can sustain those jobs. Roughly half of our jobs nowadays seem to be public sector, it means the private sector have to fund those jobs somehow

Interesting point but arse about face

47% of GDP is government spending. Even under neo-liberalism and despite calls for less government, the private sector leans on the government to spend. Less government spending shrinks public sector investment. Corporate welfare sits in direct contradiction to the idea of a small state and less spending. So what is actually happening is a call for corporate welfare, scrapping of regulations, checks & balances and a complete marketisation of human welfare, be in health, education and welfare.

It isn't that the private sector supports government spending, rather that the state supports the private sector.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

"It isn't that the private sector supports government spending, rather that the state supports the private sector"

Oh dear. When did you fall through the economic looking glass exactly?

[niceguy2]

Erm...i'm not sure how to respond to Mini's last sentence. Where do I start?

If you'd have said:

"...rather that the state influences the private sector" then I'd be with you.

[MiniTheMinx]

I don't know where to start with you two either !

Here's a link

If you listen to Professor Mariana Mazzucato approximately half way through that lecture (58 mins) it will explain how the state underpins the free market through state investment into R&D, subsidies and beneficial tax regimes. She isn't on the left, just in case you think its biased. Her argument is that the value is created through investment but the extraction of value goes to the private sector.

speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/2013/01/15/myth-free-market-capitalism-rest/

You might also find this interesting, again not a left source.
www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2011/04/29/why-the-private-sector-needs-the-government-to-spend-money/

Government spending after 1945 drove huge increases in GDP, drove down the debt to GDP because of how the money was invested (rather than just spent on war) & drove huge growth in the private sector despite progressive taxation.