The time to bury bad news? Well certainly the time to do the dirty deal The Tories are quietly slipping in legislation about free school meals after a dirty deal with the DUP. Because it won't happen in N. Ireland In legislation that will get voted on tomorrow, immediately following the Spring Statement, the Tories are set to cut the threshold for free school meals for the children of families on Universal Credit to £7,400 per year The threshold will represent a ‘cliff edge’, meaning that if families earn a penny over it, they will have their entitlement to free school meals removed completely. In contrast, in order to fund school lunches for one child for a year, said families would need to cough up an extra £1,100. But not in N Ireland evolvepolitics.com/tories-to-shamelessly-exempt-northern-ireland-from-savage-free-school-meals-cuts-to-protect-dup-deal/ I've no doubt there will be other actions.
The trouble with universal credit is that families can move in and out of it very quickly. Once they lose their UC, they have to reapply. That's when they go down to the £7400 limit. Of course, the government wouldn't tell you that.
I watched a thing about a family on basic wage last night and they said sometimes they didn't qualify for any help because of the way Universal Credit was calculated and husband's wages were taken as twice or something one month. Does anyone understand how the whole thing works?
It's to do with whether five weeks in the month rather than four. To do with which day you are paid, so sometimes there are five Fridays instead of four. Then you have to reapply for universal credit the next month or week. That can also cause problems for free school meals in the new system. They've known about it for ages, but done nothing about it.
Watching Victoria Derbyshire discussing the cuts in widowed parents benefits. They used to be entitled to money until the youngest child was 18 or left full time education. Now they get 18 months and less money per week.
Nasty text she read out. "No wonder our welfare system is in a mess." Heartless person. He's right about no getting back to normal as well. Six months after my husband died my next door neighbour, who hadn't spoken to me for six months, asked me if I was getting used to my new lifestyle. After my response, he has avoided me even more.
This is interesting. I hadn't realised Neill's other job was chairman of the Telegraph group. Explains a lot.
"Credit where credit’s due: despite being the Chairman of the group that owns two major pro-Tory publications – The Telegraph and The Spectator – the BBC’s Daily Politics host Andrew Neil is never afraid to hold both sides of the argument to account with forensic and sometimes painfully persistent questioning. And Neil’s interrogation of an increasingly flustered Tory MP over her party’s systematic, and blatantly obvious underfunding of the NHS on today’s Daily Politics was a joy to behold.
Today’s unfortunate Tory MP to be thrown to the wolves was Claire Perry, the MP for Devizes – and it’s safe to say her limp refutations to Neil’s probing questions on the Tores’ management of the NHS certainly won’t have given viewers any more reasons whatsoever to trust the Tories’ with our health service."
"And she talks about changes that are happening next week. Yes, we will actually see pensioners getting a boost to their pension next week, families, 31 million taxpayers will get an income tax cut and two million people living on the national living wage will get a pay rise. That’s Conservatives delivering for everyone."
May's response. She's proud that there are two million people living on the national living wage. Only those over 25 live on that; those under 25 still get the minimum wage.