Tory welfare cuts will impoverish 200,000 children next year and more than 600,00 in 2020

Not on here they won't!!!!!!! wink

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/dec/10/food-bank-opens-young-people-benefit-sanctions-liverpool

A food bank specially for 16 to 25 year olds who have been hit by benefit cuts, and feel awkward going to normal food banks.
Nobody can deny that this is as a result of this government's cutbacks, although I am sure some will try.

speye.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/conservatives-to-close-all-dv-refuges/

This is very scary - another law of unintended consequences? Or is it?

Over 40,000 have signed the petition.
Have you?

www.change.org/p/house-of-lords-insist-the-government-keep-its-target-to-reduce-child-poverty-in-the-uk/sponsors/new?source_location=petitions_show_components_action_panel_wrapper

A petition to the House of Lords to stop child poverty measurements being changed to suit the government.

www.change.org/p/house-of-lords-insist-the-government-keep-its-target-to-reduce-child-poverty-in-the-uk

www.rt.com/uk/325212-poor-households-rich-spending/

This is on Russia Today. I find it quite appalling. It does not make us sound like a first world country.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/government-to-strip-children-whose-parents-die-of-right-to-stay-in-their-council-home-a6767846.html

Another way to punish council house tenants.

It can't be justified Jen, perhaps the right wing supporters will try though,

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35063040

There are some appalling figures in here. 21% of those who have benfits stopped end up homeless as a result.
How can that be justified?

Yes definitely lower Jen. Many children are suffering now

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/dec/08/bedroom-tax-harming-childrens-learning-amid-stress-and-hunger-experts-claim

Not only them, Annie.

www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/anger-after-heartless-thieves-steal-10568929

I think this is possibly lower, although Osborne and IDS could do something about the need for food banks.

Just as one thinks they have sunk so low - they go lower

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tories-branded-arrogant-trying-ban-6971278

This is how the Tories are going to try to get round the House of Lords scrutiny on bills they want to push through. Punishment for making Osborne think again.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/iain-duncan-smith-blasted-claiming-6964518

Why is IDS still in charge of the welfare cuts? He cannot even get his facts right.

beastrabban.wordpress.com/2015/12/05/conservatives-want-primary-schoolchildren-to-be-taught-to-work-not-live-on-benefits/

The latest idea to get people off welfare.
Of course, it will be a while before they see the results.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/23/austerity-robbing-poor-george-osborne

Welcome to Austeria.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/keep-your-hands-lottery-fund-6877494

If he tries this, I will not be the only one not playing the lottery any more, I would imagine.
All he has to do is keep corporation tax at 20%, which is already the lowest in the EU, maybe even the world, and keep the top rate of tax as it is.

Why does he think that people want him to take money from the poor, or charities.

Why is Cameron talking about the finance now? He is giving all Osborne's speech.

Agreed, MamaCaz, unfortunately. Must have been wishful thinking on my part.

You could well be right about the floating of ideas, Jen, but I don't have much faith in the "faithful" to point out the flaws. They seem to have overlooked, deliberately or otherwise, one hell of a lot of major flaws so far.

Do you think he just floats ideas to see what sort of reception they get from the faithful?
Even Tories should be able to see the flaw in that idea.

Jen - it beggars belief, doesn't it!

It's rumoured that Osborne is going to say that all people in receipt of housing benefit will have to pay 10% of it themselves. Everyone. Pensioners included.

And for those of working age that would be on top of any bedroom tax they have to pay!

Whether or not he does indeed do this remains to be seen, but the mere thought of it is very worrying indeed.

Roseq, you are definitely cleverer than this idiot.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/22/softening-tax-credit-blow-funded-housing-benefit-cuts

How does cutting housing benefit help people who do not have their tax credits cut as much as he was going to?

Been catching up on stuff I recorded over the last few weeks.
There was a Dispatches programme about benefits. They interviewed people who had been sanctioned for silly reasons.
If you are in a universal credit area, they sanction you if you are not looking for full time work when you are on part time work. One man was sanctioned for only working thirty hours a week on minimum wage, as full time is considered to be thirty seven.
One man had his hours increased from ten to twenty, and told them he could not attend his interview as he was working, so was sanctioned.

The stupidest part of it is that it was admitted that many people who work for the DWP claim benefits - I think they said 50% - because they do not earn enough to live on. They could be sanctioned by someone else working in the same office, as they are not trying hard enough to get better paid work.
You couldn't make it up.

He's going to present a budget that is going to impose spending cuts that will hammer this country into the ground, that is what he is going to do. He is clearly on a mission to reduce public spending to a massive degree. It will have an impact on so many things that we take for granted. (Take a look at the list of services on your local authority website - and contemplate the prospect that many of them are going to disappear - libraries, leisure centres and many more. It's nothing to do with deficit and debt reduction and everything to do with ideological "rolling back the state", making life a lot more difficult for the poor (and those "hard working families") and allowing only the rich to thrive. He makes Margaret Thatcher look warm and cuddly. It is clear that Osborne is driving this agenda and that Cameron is just a baby- faced puppet.