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Things that are slipping quietly in whilst the press focus on the Russian poisoning

(46 Posts)
trisher Sun 18-Mar-18 10:52:20

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.

durhamjen Sat 31-Mar-18 23:19:42

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/03/31/income-inequality-in-the-uk-looks-to-be-getting-worse-and-we-were-already-doing-badly/

Something else not on the radar that should be.

Morgana Sat 31-Mar-18 20:28:00

She just lies all the time now Nasty Woman (T. May).

durhamjen Sat 31-Mar-18 11:07:18

"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.

What pay rise are MPs getting after tomorrow?

trisher Sat 31-Mar-18 10:43:25

And Theresa May fails to answer an MPs question about cutting free school meals and subsidising MPs catering facilities evolvepolitics.com/watch-labour-mp-asks-why-tories-cut-subsidised-food-for-poor-kids-but-not-for-mps-theresa-mays-response-is-shocking-video/

durhamjen Sat 31-Mar-18 10:32:33

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/31/national-minimum-wage-rise-still-fails-to-cover-living-costs-study-show

Minimum wage going up by 33p an hour. I wonder who worked out that that was sufficient to keep poor people in their place.

durhamjen Fri 30-Mar-18 15:45:10

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/28/may-considers-banning-city-of-london-from-selling-russian-debt

Kind of her to give them lots of notice and announce it in the MSM.

durhamjen Fri 30-Mar-18 15:44:15

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/28/senior-tory-mps-accused-of-accepting-money-from-former-soviet-states

durhamjen Fri 30-Mar-18 12:49:15

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."

durhamjen Mon 26-Mar-18 10:28:39

Will McVey be open to listening? What?

durhamjen Mon 26-Mar-18 10:27:44

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.

trisher Mon 26-Mar-18 10:19:53

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.

durhamjen Sat 24-Mar-18 21:48:30

www.theguardian.com/world/series/global-laundromat

A Danish bank closed down Russian accounts when they found out in 2013.
Why haven't we?

durhamjen Sat 24-Mar-18 21:46:15

Here's something else that wasn't on the news, I don't think, or thought not to be important enough.

www.google.com/url?q=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/20/british-banks-handled-vast-sums-of-laundered-russian-money&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwj4ypvm9YXaAhUBxKYKHai7DY8QFggLMAI&client=internal-uds-cse&cx=007466294097402385199:m2ealvuxh1i&usg=AOvVaw1yo3Kge-ZAxqpfce1svXhu

durhamjen Sat 24-Mar-18 21:43:58

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.

trisher Fri 23-Mar-18 11:09:48

So pleased it wasn't just me! I'd been child minding and thought maybe my brain was just exhausted and there was some reasonable explanation.

whitewave Fri 23-Mar-18 11:03:55

I saw that trisher and no it didn’t make any sense

trisher Fri 23-Mar-18 11:02:08

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?

durhamjen Fri 23-Mar-18 00:26:25

www.independent.co.uk/voices/dwp-esa-pip-disability-sickness-payment-underpaid-iain-duncan-smith-a8266721.html

Some disabled people have lost out on £20,000.

durhamjen Tue 20-Mar-18 20:34:15

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.

More bad news.

www.24housing.co.uk/news/near-21m-hotel-bill-for-grenfell-survivors-and-evacuees/

trisher Sun 18-Mar-18 20:18:01

trouble!!! Not double!

trisher Sun 18-Mar-18 20:17:11

But people will lose their free meals who are not living in areas where universal credit isn't yet applied ja. Does that mean they will get them back when Universal Credit is applied? Or that they will get them back once roll-out is complete? When will that be? And will they have them during the waiting period when they don't get paid anything?
That's the double with articles they make sweeping statements and don't address details.

janeainsworth Sun 18-Mar-18 20:04:19

Hi trisher
Did you notice the quotation marks in my post that you quoted from?
Here’s another quote from the full fact article:
“The Department of Education has made clear that no one who currently gets free school meals as part of the early rollout of Universal Credit will lose their entitlement once the rollout is complete. The people who will be subject to the means test are future Universal Credit claimants.

It’s also worth pointing out that the government has never said that the policy of allowing everyone on Universal Credit to access free school meals would be permanent.”

My italics.

trisher Sun 18-Mar-18 19:40:51

janeainsworth In fact, under Universal Credit, 50,000 more children will receive school meals by 2022 than would have done under the previous benefits system.
I'm sure that will be of great comfort to the people in areas not yet covered by universal credit who will lose their free meals in 2018. And be greeted with cries of joy by those waiting weeks for Universal Credit and trying to feed their children without a free school meal, in fact without any money whatsoever.
The question suppose Granny23 is why it was classed as EVEL? I didn't say that the DUP voted on it only that it wasn't applied to N.Ireland as another way of ensuring their coninued support, another bribe in fact, like the money they were given before.

eazybee Sun 18-Mar-18 14:53:51

I believe school meals are free for all children up to and including Year 2, brought in by Nick Clegg.

MaizieD Sun 18-Mar-18 14:41:35

Consider for a minute that every active and vocal Scottish/Welsh/Irish Nationalist is considered an Enemy of the State, as they are campaigning (democratically) for the break up of the UK. Active members of CND, anti fracking and other similar groups who engage in peaceful protests/marches etc. can also find they are under surveillance by 'our' secret services.

Surveillance of (for want of a better word) 'dissidents' goes back many, many years; to the 18th century and probably much earlier. As does penetration of 'dissident' groups by undercover government agents. It's the unpleasant underbelly of governments of any party . The very real worry is what use the government intends to make of the information.

In a way, the revelations about Cambridge Analytica and their use of data obtained by mining social media make this worry more real. So many people lay bare their lives and thoughts on social media without any thought as to how the information they're disclosing and the ideas they're proclaiming could be used against them.

I believe the tory party has already expressed an interest in using the services of Cambridge Analytica...