Low Pay Britain

I think quite a few well known politicians' seats appear to be a risk but there is plenty of time yet for big changes. As Harold Macmillan said "Events dear boy, events" so you never know what will change between now and the election - or not .

I would quite like two votes really jen although it is kind of you to give me permission to vote LibDem . I do find the Green's policies very attractive at times. Not surprising really as they are often recycled LibDem ones.

weownit.org.uk/privatisation-people-vs-politicians

Just to show how the parties think compared to the people.

www.thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/sheffield_students_occupy_nick_clegg_s_office

Nick Clegg might lose his seat this time.

Actually Durhamjen I do not think they do. I think the majority of voters still fail to make the link between low taxes and poor public services and welfare. Or if they do, because they are in work and healthy and do not see welfare issues as affecting them they vote with their pockets.

I joined the Liberal Party in 1962 and have been a member ever since. I feel very betrayed.

I appreciate that the Lib/Dems are a small minority party working with a much larger party that will inevitably make most of the running, but there have been too many occasions when the Lib Dems have just acquiesced without protest in policies that go against the fundamental principles of the party. University fees were a very particular case in point.

I am not sure how I will vote in May. Certainly not Conservative, Labour, Green or UKIP, which rather restricts my choice. DH has a mantra that if there is nobody you can vote for there is always someone you can vote against. The problem is I want to vote against the lot of them.

That's okay, then. You can vote LibDem again.

I voted LibDem jen and I don't feel betrayed.

But the majority of people have that desire. Unfortunately, we do not have a say in it.
The government has done what it has done on a minority vote, propped up by a few others who are going to lose their seats in May.
If you vote Green, your expectations aren't high. But people who voted LibDem were definitely betrayed.
The cabinet seems to have as little idea about the benefits fiasco as it had about the NHS changes, if we believe what they say. I do not.

Sorry I got my orders mixed up. What I meant to say was that until people put a desire for higher welfare standards ahead of their desire for low taxation nothing will change.

I do not understand, Flickety. How will preferring low welfare standards change things?

This government avowed policy is one of small government and low taxes. Like John Major it is harking back to some mythical past when families supported their own and all business was benevolent.

Unfortunately people vote for the Conservatives because they like the idea of low taxes and then squeal when the significance of what this means affects them and theirs. I hasten to say that I am not including contributors to this thread in that group. The only way things will change is when the voters realise that there is a direct link between low taxes and low welfare standards and decide to prefer the second to the first.

Good question, Eloethan.

It seems that something strange happens in most people's brains when they hear the word 'benefits' that supresses all feelings of either compassion or reasoned thinking. The Government is milking this for all it's worth (votes!!!), actively encouraging intolerance towards benefit claimants Just the language that they use is insulting and divisive (not to mention very misleading) and would be totally unacceptable if aimed at any other sector of society.
People need to wake up to what's happening, because when a Government is prepared to use a vulnerable, powerless sector of society as political pawns, it is the thin edge of the wedge IMHO.

We do not support these measures. Until recently the vast majority of the population did not know about them - and majority probably still don't.

When a political party stands for election it puts forward a broad policy like. We will encourage and help people, particularly the long term unemployed, to re-enter the labour market and may well then suggest some acceptable measures - retraining, back to work courses. They may mention sanctions for those who resist the positive measures, which all sound fine. That is what people make voting decisions on.

But the details of what they intend to do is never mentioned so we end up with an inhuman sanctions policy like the one we have now, which has killed at least 50 people already - well it gets them off the unemployment register.

How is it that people support these sorts of measures? Some people are not happy about them but I've met several who are wholeheartedly behind them.

Even prisoners are not denied food and heating (not that I think they should be).

I like Joe Halewood's final two sentences.

"Benefit sanctions are an amateurish, secret penal system which is more severe than the mainstream judicial system, but lacks its safeguards. It is time for everyone concerned for the rights of the citizen to demand their abolition. - See more at: www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/benefit-sanctions-britains-secret-penal-system#sthash.kFfwl27g.dpuf"

Another one, MamaCaz.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/03/tory-minister-inhuman-inflexibility-benefit-sanctions

MP for Grantham. I wonder what his majority is, and if they will deselect him next week.

Joe Halewood gave this link to the study on the effect of benefit sanctions in his latest blog:

www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/benefit-sanctions-britains-secret-penal-system

This is the link to his blog too, if you're interested.

https://speye.wordpress.com/

Even the DM has occasionally covered some of the appalling arbitrary sanctions, which means it really must be bad!

falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/how-85-of-tax-and-benefit-savings-have-been-at-the-expense-of-women

I think that it is terrible!
I actually looked up the numbers after TheFlatBox posted, as I thought that it might have been meals rather than people, but her number is correct.

Yes, it's too many. But the population of the UK is around 65 million, so not a huge percentage.

That is an enormous number. I didnt know it was as high as that.

We shouldnt accept it The flatBox but still there are politicians and spokespeople like the ghastly Edwina Currie who think that food banks are used because they are there, not because they are necessarily needed. We should all be asking our parliamentary candidates where they stand on this issue, I expect that ours will be crawling out of the woodwork soon as even he will have noticed that there is an election on the way.

1 million people dependent on food banks- Britain today. How can we accept this as a nation?

Utterly shameful in a so called civilised society. And still people will bleat on about benefit claimants and their 'big flat screen tv' and their cigarettes....it is not about the handful of people who cheat the system, it is about the poor devils who are let down. I pay for this and I want my money to help people, not starve them to death.

What a sad miserable end for someone that had done nobody any harm. It's shameful.

A mentally ill man in Oxford died from starvation as the result of 'sanctioning'
www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/28/man-starved-to-death-after-benefits-cut