YAY! I'm going to be cured!

That's right! I'm going to be cured with a stroke of a pen! I'll get right out of my wheelchair and be the same as everyone else!

Yes, with a stroke of a pen, someone is going to cure what even science cannot cure. Damn lazy doctors, why did they not think of that?

Under the proposed PIP (Personal Independent Payment) rules, wheelchair users will no longer be entitled to help as, apparently, a wheelchair means we no longer have any moblity problems.

This is despite the fact that NHS wheelchairs are not up to the job. I was informed by WCS that their concern is not how you mange outdoors; they only need to make sure you can wheel around indoors.


To catch a train we have to give 24 hrs notice and we can only catch the train at the time we have booked it for (freedom of choice, anyone?)

So if we miss the train we could be stuck as they do not have to put us on it. Oh, and no arriving last minute: we're expected to be there 30 mins early.

Article: Telegraph

Trains often have 1, maybe 2, wheelchair spaces on them. So if another one is there - or bikes or luggage or a pram - chances are you'll be dumped between carriages.

And don't forget, not all train stations are accessible.
We'd better avoid mentioning London Underground.


Buses? Well, that depends. Are they accessible everywhere? Answer is no.

Do they have a ramp and, if they have, will it always work or will the driver be willing to get out of his seat to lower it? Answer: no. (Spotting the theme yet?)

Cartoon: Crippen

Will we try to board the bus and find out we can't because of a buggy? Answer: YES.


Cars:  When your legs don't work this tend to cause problems with driving (check out next time what people do with those pesky leg things in a car.)

So, often, mobility allowance goes towards an adapted car with hand controls to avoid the above issues.


Outdoors, we all know that the world or even the UK is exactly flat and smooth! Level footpaths everywhere, with proper dropped kerbs, no?

Answer: the only flat smooth surfaces are inside shopping centres. But you've got to get there first (see above.)


Indoors, now: you want to try something? Sit on a computer chair and ask someone to tie your legs together. Without moving them at all or putting them down, get onto your couch. Don't bum shuffle or wiggle; that's cheating! I can see you!

Now try repeating it back from the couch. This is the time when you pray your neighbour can't peep through your window; they might think you've got into bondage ... if they blush next time you see them, you'll know they peeked.

If you mastered that one, now on the chair again grab hoover with both hands and hoover - well, the 1m reach in front of you because it is kinda tricky to move when you need both hands to do that, but both hands are holding the hoover (throwing it doesn't get the floor clean!)

Phew! After that you need a coffee or something! Pick kettle up in hand - uh, oh, only one hand to get around - fill it with water, balance carefully, turn on kettle.

Back to tap. Empty cup. Well, that's easy. Fill cup with boiling water ... one hand thing again, try moving carefully, spill hot water down self, argh!

Great. Not only does your neighbour think you're indulging in afternoon bondage, now you look like you wet yourself.

Bugger it. Grab bottle of wine, stay still, open said bottle, have a drink and be grateful you don't have mobility problems!


Now that's my light-hearted look and I haven't even covered what it is really like ... but do you still think the new PIP proposals and cuts to DLA are fair?

Looks like Maxine won't get ESA ;)

By THC.

On The Tenth Day of Xmas, My True Love Gave To Me... Ten Layabouts a-Leaping

"There are thousands of people who have a mobility car and are perfectly well. I know lots of people who are off sick on disability and manage to dance at parties and do the gardening".

How often have you heard that? Is it really that easy to get Incapacity Benefit or its replacement Employment Support Allowance (ESA) or Disability Living Allowance (DLA)? Alicia Duffy has a different experience.

I was recently required to attend a work capability assessment (WCA), administered by the controversial ATOS healthcare. The assessment is meant to decide if somebody is eligible for employment and support allowance - the main benefit for people unable to work due to illness or disability - and, if so, whether they should have to undertake “work related activity” such as training and careers advice.


WCAs have been causing worry to many people, especially as stories spread of unfair decisions, inexpert assessments and simple bad treatment from ATOS employees. Disability message boards and support groups are full of people terrified of losing their benefits due to what is literally a box-ticking exercise - the medical professional simply selects the option on a computer screen that best meets the answer given, with no room for flexibility. Some of the most worried are people with severe mental illness.


Mental illness is hard to see, and especially hard to judge in a meeting of less than an hour. Most sufferers from severe illness - usually defined as including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other conditions where psychosis can be present - have spent years in the system, taking strong medication, being treated by specialist teams and often with periods of inpatient care. Despite this, they are still being called in for the WCA, often itself leading to deterioration in their conditions. When I had my assessment, I was only a few weeks out of hospital after a relapse.


My case highlights many of the contradictions in the WCA system. My husband works, so our income is too high for me to receive ESA payments; the only benefit I get from claiming is that basic national insurance contributions are made on my behalf. The total value of these contributions are around £13 a year. Even if I had managed to fool all the doctors, nurses and other professionals all these years, and the WCA exposed me as that modern folk-devil, the benefit fraudster, it would save the taxpayer very little. ATOS and the DWP have repeatedly refused to reveal how much each assessment costs, but it seems unlikely that it is less than £13.


The nurse who performed my assessment was not trained in mental health - ATOS does not employ any mental health nurses, despite “mental and behavioral disorders” being far and away the most claimed for group of illnesses, at around 35% of all claims. This has implications both for the amount of people wrongly deemed able to work, and the amount of people able to fool an untrained assessor into declaring them incapable.


As I also claim other benefits, I have faced many long and often irrelevant questions about my condition, repeatedly provided the same evidence and contact details for my specialist team who confirm details of my illness, and spent many hours researching the correct forms, claims and procedures. Not only is this upsetting and bad for my mental state, I am also constantly worried that I have made a mistake and that my income will be taken away or reclaimed, or that I could face criminal proceedings through an administrative mistake. I am lucky enough to be relatively educated, and to have a variable condition, meaning some days I am able to coherently put my case across. Many sufferers of severe mental illness are not so lucky.


Benefit claimants are routinely portrayed as “scroungers” and those of us reliant on the state for much of our income find ourselves stigmatised and afraid. Often these are some of the most vulnerable in society, and unable to stand up for themselves when faced with discrimination. Sufferers of severe mental illness often have to deal with the double jeopardy of being told on one side that they are malingering and should snap out of it and get back to work, and on the other that they are dangerous and need locking up. If they try to object to negative treatment, they can find their opinions and testimony discounted on the grounds of their mental illness, especially if they suffer from psychosis or other such severe symptoms.


Sufferers of severe mental illness are much more likely to be vulnerable and need extra support, and although there are many excellent services and charities working with and for them, the benefits system is not currently set up for their needs. It sometimes feels as if the government are working towards the ultimate Catch-22; if you can qualify for benefits by handling the hundreds of pages of form-filling, negotiating the maze of departments, offices and units, and convincing the GPs, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, civil servants and ATOS box-tickers, you’re not just fit for work. You’re good enough to be Minister for Social Security.

On The Sixth Day of Xmas, My True Love Gave To Me... A Lifetime of Fuel Poverty

I offered to write this blog based on my personal experience of living in “fuel poverty” and because we are about to have these new “smart meters” fitted.  I wanted the opportunity to explore precisely what a “smart meter” is and how it would impact on our family; hopefully alleviating our personal circumstances. What I found instead, was that we won’t ever lose the designation of “fuel poverty” living in our council flat and that the risks of smart meters currently outweigh any potential benefit they might have. 

The general definition of fuel poverty, the one encouraged by the media, is any household, which spends at least 10% of its income on heating. Whilst this basic definition does make for good headlines, it obscures just how many families are actually living in fuel poverty and how, precisely, we define the term. For once, the government’s definition is by far the best (pdf link)

A household is said to be in fuel poverty if it needs to spend more than 10% of its income on fuel to maintain a satisfactory heating regime (usually 21 degrees for the main living area, and 18 degrees for other occupied rooms). The “Fuel poverty ratio” is therefore defined as: Fuel poverty ratio = fuel costs (modelled usage x price) ÷ income.

What the government really means is the following factors:

1. Income Indicators:
1. Disposable income
2. Proportion of children, working age adults and pensioners living in households with low incomes (absolute and relative).
3. Winter fuel payments
4. Cold weather payments.
2. Fuel Price Indicators:
1. Actual expenditure on fuel as a percentage of the total income of the lowest 30% income groups.
2. Fuel prices
3. Number of customers on prepayment meters.
4. Fuel debt.
5. Customers switching suppliers.
3.  Housing Indicators:
1. Energy efficiency of the housing stock of the lowest 30% of income groups.
2. Occupancy levels
3. Excess winter deaths
4. Expenditure on, and number of households helped through Warm Front
5. Uptake of the Carbon Emission Reduction Target
6. Local Authority housing investment on energy efficiency improvements. 

Obviously, this can be subsumed into three easier-to-digest points and more media-friendly: “the energy efficiency of the property (and therefore, the energy required to heat and power the home), the cost of energy, and household income”but actually seeing that the government includes “excess winter deaths” is a starker reminder of what society actually means by fuel poverty. It isn’t the inability to keep your living room a constant 21 degrees. It’s the inability to heat your house and the impact that can have on your very survival. It’s also about the failure of society to ensure that housing isn’t damp, poorly insulated with little or no heating.  The cuts to benefits, tax credits and rising unemployment will result in more families living in fuel poverty.  It is the simple formula of decreasing income = increasing fuel poverty.

       

Picture Credit

Under these guidelines, I live in fuel poverty; not because we spend 10% of our income on heating but, rather, because our council house is so badly insulated and draught-proofed that turning the heating on is a waste of energy and money. Instead, I am writing this blog whilst wearing long underwear, two sweaters and a dressing gown and today isn’t particularly cold or windy. 


This is the reality for millions of households across the UK; academic and media discourse on “fuel poverty” simply doesn’t cover the real problems. It doesn’t change the fact that our main source of “heat” is one storage heater in the living room, which hasn’t worked for two years and neither our local council nor our energy provider will take responsibility for it being broken. 


Instead, we use oil radiators that we bought from Amazon in place of the 2 small fan heaters the council grudgingly supplied last winter after 3 weeks of daily complaints. 2 small fan heaters won’t warm up a bathroom, never mind a 2-bed council flat, which has failed every energy inspection going. [On the infrared scanners of our building, every flat turns up bright red. Bright red means we have no energy efficiency whatsoever]. To be fair, we do have panel heaters in the bedroom and if you sit next to them, you can stay warmish but, really, how are 4 people supposed to function if they can’t move more than 5 feet from the radiator without several layers of clothing?

         We are lucky insofar as we can afford to purchase the necessary layers of fleece undergarments and dressing gowns to keep warm. Many of the people living in fuel poverty, including a large number of neighbours on fixed pensions or benefits, have neither the cash nor the resources to keep warm. Warm Front, a government grant program, can help those who live in England and meet the qualifying benefits with purchasing loft insulation, draught proofing, or cavity wall insulation. 


Our flat is built out of cement. There is no way to add cavity wall insulation [and clearly no loft]. We cannot have gas central heating as our building has more floors than legally allowed for gas central heating. We are lucky as we live in Scotland and the Scottish government has, through their devolved powers, created a much stricter definition of fuel poverty [which accounts for the greater numbers of people living in Scotland (pdf) who are classed as living in fuel poverty than in England or Wales] but have also put into place policies for homelessness and fuel poverty which have resulted in our building being signed up for a pilot of a new heating system that should make our flat warmer for less money. 


However, these fabulous new policies are dependent on the proper implementation by local authorities. In the current upgrade of our new heating system, 15 flats have been left with no heating for months and no one taking responsibility for what is clearly a cock-up of epic proportions [or a level of incompetence generally only seen in sit-coms].

We also don’t meet the guidelines for a “vulnerable” (pdf) household [depending on who actually writes the definition of vulnerable].I would have thought a severely asthmatic child would cut it but she aged out on her 5^th birthday [but failed to age out of the asthma clinic at the same time. I’m with her asthma consultant on this and not the civil servant who came up with such an arbitrary number]. 


Technically, I have a disability but it isn’t severe enough to count for purposes of the DLA so I don’t meet the criteria either even though my disability is worsened when my joints are cold, and, let’s face it, in rainy Scotland that’s an all the time occurrence. We are all under the age of retirement so don’t count that way. The guidelines also don’t take into account the very gendered (pdf) nature of poor heating; specifically on post-menopausal women who do not regulate the body temperature as efficiently as other adults.

         Our storage heaters, supposedly the most “energy-efficient and cheap to run” of heating systems are absolutely useless. They presume an adult in the house all day, one who goes to bed at 7 pm, just as the heat starts to fade before recharging over-night. Granted, it is cheaper to store the heat at night but I don’t go to bed at 7 pm and there is no point in having a warm house during the day, as the only occupant is a cat who possesses a fur coat. 


We are not, however, the not-so-proud owners of pre-payment meters: households with prepayment (pdf) meters are more likely live in fuel poverty as those without gas heating.  Prepayment meters have traditionally been installed in houses for debt management; rather than disconnection but they are the most expensive way to manage energy with built-in above-the-odds administration costs and a base price higher than average. Many vulnerable families have shown a preference for pre-payment meters because of the ability to manage energy consumption more effectively but charging these families a higher rate ensures that more families (pdf) with prepayment meters are living in fuel poverty than families not.

At least these old-school prepayment meters did have the safety measure of requiring court orders to be forcibly installed into households while there was also some attempt to hold energy companies liable for providing energy to vulnerable households. The new generation “smart meters” are smart in name-only.

Ignoring the other major problems with smart meters, which includes their susceptibility to cyber-attack (pdf) at an unprecedented scale and the problems with data protection and privacy, the number one problem for consumers is the remote “off” switch which means energy companies can switch customers to prepayment tariffs without the intervention of the courts or any real outside monitoring agency. (pdf)


This assumes that the household is genuinely in arrears and not, as many of us know to our misfortune, that the energy supplier is completely incompetent in terms of actually managing billing and double-checking potential typos where a household ends up with a bill for £456 987 a month. [Or, in my personal case, where the energy supplier had copied the wrong identity numbers on every storage heater in our previous flat wherein I was being charged for the hallway lighting and not my personal consumption. 


It took 3 years and 17 phones calls to Scottish Power to sort this out. In the end, I got a thank you card, another 4 years down the line, for bringing this “minor fault” to their attention].The secondary purposes of smart meters, and ones I have yet to hear mentioned in our council communications concerning their installation in our flat includes “supporting interruptible tariffs and implementing rolling power cuts (pdf) at times of supply shortage."


What this actually means is that it allows energy companies more freedom to charge customers variable rates without too much intervention. Rolling power-cuts are self-explanatory in their problems.

I am so incensed by the failure of our council to adequately explain what these “smart meters” really do [and the not insignificant fact that I don’t trust my local council to plant a tree without cocking it up spectacularly], I think its more appropriate to quote  [and paraphrase some of the answers of Mumsnetter Tianc, who has read all of these documents]:

1) Smart Meters will have an In-Home Display (IHD) so the consumer can easily see how much power they are consuming.

a.       The technology already exists, is a lot cheaper and lacks the evil “off-switch.”

2.  Smart Meters will probably create a record of your power usage at half-hourly intervals:

a.       Why do we need this information and who does it actually benefit? It’s not the consumer in terms of “accurate monthly bills” so what are the real implications for privacy and personal security?

3.  Power companies claim Smart Meters will help them manage three specific pressures:

a.       Power companies and DECC would like to curb total consumer demand for power. Smart Meters are unnecessary to do this (although accurate monthly billing would help)

b.      Electricity companies would like to smooth loads by shifting demand way from peak times. Half-hourly Smart Meters might enable them to influence consumers through Time-of-Use tariffs. Smart Meters plus HANs may allow the companies to control switch-off of your appliances.

c.        Apart from Economy 7, the price consumers pay doesn’t directly reflect the wholesale price so electricity suppliers carry risk when they buy. They’d like to shed this risk by passing on price changes, using half-hourly Smart Meter data.

4.  The Smart Grid is intended be an end-to-end control system, where power to individual devices and sockets in your smart house can be remotely controlled from the other end of the network by you, the power companies or third parties.

a.   A Smart Grid is a control system allowing appliances in your house to be remotely controlled by you, the power companies and anyone who can gain access to the Smart Grid. The power companies plan to use this to switch off your appliances at peak times, because this is cheaper and on, the face of it, more energy efficient that providing adequate peak supply.

b.   Smart Grids are a massive new vulnerability in critical infrastructure. They are profoundly vulnerable to hacking at all levels, from script kiddies to hostile states. They are also vulnerable to software error and failure of multiple apps to interoperate smoothly. The consequences of a software failure or attack or could be anything from your house burning down to sudden, catastrophic failure of critical national infrastructure.

This brilliant thread, which became a Mumsnet Classic, is a much funnier example of the general incompetence of energy suppliers. 

The conclusion here is pretty simple: 


1) cuts to benefits are going to result in more families living in fuel poverty 


 2) smart meters won’t help alleviate fuel property; in fact they are most likely going to make it worse [and that’s ignoring the whole cyber-attack issue which has me contemplating purchasing a Yurt somewhere warm]. 


The fuel poverty that already exists in the UK is utterly shameful but it will only get worse as energy companies get richer by increasing the prices and household incomes drop dramatically. 


Smart metering only gives energy companies more power to hurt vulnerable families economically. It doesn’t alleviate fuel poverty and it certainly doesn’t make it easier for consumers to cut their energy bills [cyber-attacks certainly won’t help the financial stability of consumers and rolling power-outages will effect vulnerable families more dramatically].

So, we are now stuck in a situation where more vulnerable people will have to make the choice between heating their homes and buying food; a pattern already emerging in our council flats as elderly residents are very concerned about the billing of our new “smart-meters” and are choosing not to turn on their heat at all. How many other vulnerable families will be making this choice this year as their tax credits, DLA, and other benefits are cut.

Of course, the new ConDems aren’t willing to recognise the actual reality of the lives of those living in fuel poverty [after all cutting DLA will dramatically impact those living in fuel poverty]; they have commissioned a report in 2010 which may redefine fuel poverty,  conveniently decreasing the actual number of people living in fuel poverty but doesn’t appearing to address the effect that their own cuts will have on families.

Granted this report, entitled Fuel Poverty: The Problem and Its Measurement, does acknowledge that fuel poverty is real and that it has severe negative impact on the health and well-being of the residents of the UK but it is also quite obviously a defence of the cuts to the most vulnerable and not a policy on increasing assistance. Apparently we have more “excess winter deaths” than other countries with colder climates; I’m not entirely sure we should be celebrating a decrease from 40 000 deaths in the 1970s to 27 000 deaths now. 

27 000 people dying each year simply because of “winter” is simply disgraceful. Personally, I worry about my neighbours surviving more than I care about the deficit. This is the consequence of the cuts: the very real harm to very real people that the ConDems are glossing over in favour of tax cuts for their wealthy friends.




By SGM

---

For Help with Fuel Poverty:

Warm Front England

Scotland Energy Assistance Package

Wales Home Energy Efficiency Scheme

Northern Ireland Warm Homes

Age UK

Shelter

For Further Information on Fuel Poverty:

Fuel Poverty

Department of Energy and Climate Change 

Fuel Poverty Monitoring Indicators 

Annual Report on Fuel Poverty 2011

Living in Wales Fuel Poverty 

---

On the Third Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave To Me ... Three Lifelines Cut

I'm 36 years old, married with 2 children and I'm disabled.

Photo: John Rowley/Life.com

I have Herniated Discs, Degenerative Disc Disease, Facet Joint Syndrome and other illnesses that are yet to be diagnosed. I had a second MRI scan this week, following a series of losing consciousness and a constant tingling/loss of feeling in my left arm. I'm on heavy duty pain medication (MST morphine and Oramorph), as well as anti-depressants just to get me through the day.

I am unable to work due to my back problems and also the fact that I am a full-time carer for my disabled son, who will be 3 years old next May. He requires round-the-clock care but ’isn't disabled enough' to get more than 3 hours maximum of respite each week. Or none at all if, like this week, his support worker is ill. He struggles with change and wouldn't like a replacement so it's better that he goes without that care this week.

He goes to nursery for 4 hours a week, 2 separate sessions, but I have to go with him to care for him at both of those sessions. I have to walk with a stick to steady me when I'm out, or use his pushchair for support.

David Cameron with son Ivan.
Photo: Roger Taylor/Rex Features

We are currently in receipt of the highest level of DLA: my son for the care component, and mine is for the mobility component. My son also has issues with mobility but is too young to claim for any help yet. He has to wear specially made shoes, Piedro Boots, which we get for free, on NHS prescription. For now at least.

He has a heart condition (Teratology of Fallot) that was once life threatening before his first round of emergency heart surgery; bilateral glue ear; Pierre Robin sequence and we are awaiting further test results to look at his shoulders and neck. He has a narrowed airway and is fed by NG tube.

We also get Tax Credits. My husband has his own business but doesn't pay himself a wage.

I also get Carers’ Allowance for looking after our son for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year. I do all of his NG tube changes, order all of our medication, feed sets, liaise with all of the Health Care Professionals that are involved with his care. At the last count we were almost at 30.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if we lost our DLA or Tax Credit payments, even part of either, we'd be in trouble.

We can only just scrape through after all of the bills are paid.

I can't work. I can't sit for longer than 20 minutes, nor stand for more than a few minutes at a time.

So, what should I be doing?
Sending my son to work with my husband because he's not got a 'proper job' has he? He works for himself, from home. So should I go out and get a full time job, stop claiming for the benefits we are currently entitled to and then there wouldn't be a problem, would there?

Should I just stop caring for him so that he ends up in residential care? That way I can't scrounge off the tax payers: I can't claim benefits for him if I'm not caring for him, can I?

And what should I do about my own claims?
Perhaps I should just load myself up on pain meds and find myself a job. Any job. That way, when The Powers That Be stop my benefits, tell me that I'm not disabled enough to claim any more, send me for medicals that prove nothing at all, make me attend interviews and make me actively seek work....... that way the cuts won't matter to me.

What about the Children's Community Nurse who comes to see my son every two weeks? The SALT who comes every month? What about my Blue Badge? Are the government planning to do more rigorous tests to tell whether or not you actually qualify for it or if in actual fact, I can stagger to the shop which I want to go in, from the arse end of nowhere because there's no parking?

We go to the SureStart Stay and Play session in our village every single Thursday morning. Going there has played a huge role in my son’s development as he is approximately 18 months Globally Developmentally Delayed. He has learned to listen, to sit and to see that there are other children around who he can play with if he wants to.
Not only that, I have made three very close friends just by going there. Life as a parent can be lonely enough when you are on your own or your partner works. Being disabled and a carer as well, I’ve found it hard to get out and meet people, let alone forge friendships.
SureStart has been a life line for me and many of the other mums in the village.
It would be a crying shame to see the service taken away.


If I lose my DLA, Tax Credits and Carers’ Allowance, I will lose my home.


What exactly is it, that this Government wants me to do?


By Mouseface, guest blogger.

More information:

Think tank Demos has produced a report detailing the effects of cuts on real British households with disabilities, including an elderly couple facing eviction from their draughty home. You can download it here

If you still can't quite believe the viciousness of what's to come, read Zoe Williams's strong 7th Dec. article in the Guardian and follow her links..

What can I do?

Nothing seems to be working so far. Please sign Pat's Petition on our Petitions page. Use the Write To Them box (to the right of this page) to email your MP, Lords and MEPs. Please check with charities, unions and local support groups for protest actions you can join.

An Education in Debt

My name is Lily , I’m fifteen and science is my thing. I really enjoy chemistry, physics and maths and I’ve always thought I would go to university and study something science based when I leave school. If you asked me today what that would be, I would say medicine.

Now, the Government say to have the country in debt is a bad thing, and that it reflects negatively upon the nation to be in this position. And yet it seems they want ME to get into HUGE debt.

How does that work? It doesn’t seem fair.

Because of cuts to their funding, universities will charge up to £9000 per year for tuition from September 2012. They are being forced into this. As well as tuition fees, I will need to take out a maintenance grant to cover my living costs. So much money. It frightens me. I know the Government will lend me the money upfront which I will have to pay back once I start earning above a certain amount.

If I take a 3 year course, I will be in debt of about £43,000.
I can’t even imagine what that looks like!
If I do a longer course, the money is obviously a lot more. The debt is intimidating.

Surely it is wrong to start our working lives with such a huge amount of debt?

Perhaps some of the politicians would like to know how this feels and repay their university fees? I expect not.

So should I still even consider university?
Maybe what I should focus on is a shorter course, then I’ll owe less money.
Maybe that’s the compromise.

I imagine there are some families where parents can pay for everything, making it an
easy choice. They will be able to go to Uni and do the courses they want.

A university education used to be based on academic qualifications, now it feels more linked to who has the right finances.

And surely education should be available to all?

I worry that things will change, fees might rise and the Government may change the way of paying the debt back. As much as my parents will help if they can, this is down to me, and I just don’t know if I can manage it.
Higher education is turning into a financial risk rather than something to aspire for.

I also feel very strongly that ambitions and life’s dreams are going to be thwarted because university seems such a risk.

Even worse, there might be a generation who grow up not having any as it is ingrained into them that their ambitions are pointless and unachievable.

There is also great pressure in choosing the right thing to do, Mr Rich from the BBC said,
“The size of debts means that it is increasingly important that students chose their university and course carefully. Basically you have one shot at this - you can return later in life, but it's a very expensive option. Get it right first time.”



It’s a daunting prospect, and I don’t know what to do.

***

Our guest blogger Lily's voice is just one of the many unheard, yet she speaks for many of the young generation.

These young people are told to work hard at school, to gain what academic qualifications they can in order to give them the best possible opportunities and choices.

Their choices are becoming more difficult and challenging: to further their academic study and face beginning a career smothered by debt; to join a increasingly longer unemployment line and come to be regarded as a scrounger; to be a part of the Workfare programme working for companies for a pittance with little opportunity for a job at the end. Just some of the real 'choices' available. Unless you have money.

I worry about the true impact of these cuts.

How many would-be doctors and medical specialists will consider other occupations? How many scientists and lawyers, teachers and civil engineers will society be missing due to the very real fear of debt? How many highly skilled professionals can our society afford to lose? What will be the cost to society if we have to constantly buy in specialists rather than create our own?
We run the risk of ending up with a society stuffed full of people with a raft of certificates, crippling debt, low self-esteem, broken dreams, and nothing more.

And these will be the parents and role models of the next generation.

If the Goverment really truly believed in giving young people real choice and real opportunities, they would consider the long term impact of tuition fees.

As Lily says, surely education should be available to all.

Benefit Scroungers - What Can We Do?

I live in one of the UK’s richer areas and I have become used to hearing about the dreadful benefit scroungers and bloody poor people causing all this global economy crap, but on a recent visit to my family who live in one of the poorest areas of Wales I was staggered to hear the same old myths being peddled there too.

My family live in the Rhondda Cynon in South Wales. An area of high unemployment and lower than National Average Wages.

In the 1980’s the area was brought to its knees when the coal mines were closed and thousands of jobs were lost. There were no efforts made to provide these people with new employment opportunities and the “generations of benefit claimants” culture was spawned.

After dinner and having a nice chat with my elderly disabled aunt (who receives a carer allowance which is paid to my cousins to help look after her. Uh-Oh!) the conversation turned to the economy and the cuts.

My aunt stated that “the problem is all those who don’t want to work, the ones who are playing the system”.

I think my jaw dropped a little bit – yes, the problem with the UK economy is surely the 2-3% of all claimants playing the system, (TUC statistics 2011) not the banks, not the greedy big businesses intent on paying as little into the society as it can possibly get away with…no, it’s those bloody scroungers getting benefits.

I pointed out the £1.7bn is lost to benefit fraud per year pales in comparison with the whopping £20bn in unclaimed benefits.

I then pointed out that while the poor are fighting one another over the scraps, the rich just keep on getting richer and – to my eyes – ever more arrogant. Let’s have a little look at the deferment for taxation on Private Jets as an example of the sheer arrogance and “two fingers up” attitude of the ConDem government.

In George Osbourne’s Autumn Statement he announced that private jets will be exempt from the airline passenger tax (which comes into force in April 2012) until 2013. This essentially means that families flying to Spain for a week’s holiday will be paying the increased tax, but a person who owns a Learjet won’t have to worry about that pesky little payment for a further year.

A treasury spokesperson said:

"One of the things businesses say is that they need more time when we make changes to adapt to the transition"

Yes, it does take a bit time to get used to a change in tax, I sympathise – but wait! Hang ON! Shall we have a look at the changes being made to welfare payments for those people who are terminally ill? You know – actually dying?

Back in September, before the Welfare Reform Bill had even completed its parliamentary stages the DWP sent thousands of letters to ESA claimants warning them of changes to their payments. Changes such as – you’re not getting anything if you have been claiming ESA for 12 months. Full Stop. The End.

I don’t notice much of a “need more time when we make changes to adapt to the transition” in that letter. If you’ve been ill and on ESA for 12 months in April 2012, and the government have their way then that will be it. Finished. No more money for you – you disgusting cancer patient scrounger.

So back to the family chat. As my loved ones spluttered, I frothed. I frothed beautifully if I do say so myself. I told them about the slave labour which is the Workfare programme  leading my uncle to ask, “What? They work for Tesco – who pays their wages?”

The answer came: “The taxpayer!”

I told them about freezing of the basic and 30 hour elements of the WTC for three years – while inflation keeps going up. So that’s working families attacked – not the “benefit scroungers”.

One of my cousin’s friends (let’s call her Jane) has a daughter who was born prematurely and suffers with a terrible lung disease. During the general election she campaigned pretty hard for the Conservatives. I asked her at the time why on earth she was going to vote for a party that were likely to cut the benefits she received. She told me that she thought the tories would sort out the scroungers which would mean she would get more benefits herself, as she can prove that her daughter is very, very ill and that she simply cannot work as the little girl needs constant care.

I asked my cousin how Jane is and she’s already lost £400.00 per month as her daughter failed the testing criteria. Her hospital admissions have dropped you see, and so because Jane has managed to get her daughter’s condition to be more stable, this has resulted in a loss of income which is completely crippling the family financially.

My cousin told me that Jane had confided that a small part of her wonders if it would be better if she just let her little girl get sicker just so that everyone in the family can eat.

Seriously. What the actual FUCK?

I digress. As I frothed away, I realised that my family (who are not ignorant people by the way) were completely unaware of most of the cuts and proposed cuts – they were shocked at the attacks on the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.

Why? Well, I think that most of what is happening is under the radar. The opposition are losing the media battle (big surprise) and while the Daily Mail, Daily Express and The Sun are talking about the benefit thieves and glossing over the reality they’re doing the government a huge favour.

Think about it, newspaper owners (Murdoch, Dacre, Desmond for example) have a vested interest in keeping the rich rich, and they clearly couldn’t give a toss about the people who actually spend their money on the toilet paper they call journalism.








By a Guest Frother 


What can you do? 

You can challenge people who talk about the scroungers – chucking the fact in about the 1.7bn lost to fraud compared with the 20bn unclaimed.

You can stop buying or clicking online any newspaper which peddles these lies and distortions.

You can read the rest of this blog, you can sign the petitions, you can write to your MP.

You can Froth.