A Class War Welcome For Iain Duncan Smith.

A call from The void:   

       

      Iain Duncan Smith is hosting a Jobs Fair at Chingford Assembly Hall, Station Road, Chingford, E4 this Friday November 14th.  Class War will be welcoming him from 10am and are planing to make a day of it.  Speakers including the future Chingford MP Marina Pepper, – the local Class War candidate – along with John McArdle from the Black Triangle campaign are expected to speak at noon.  Expect vengeance.  Please spread the word and help make this big.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

On The Road To A Sweatshop Economy.

     Yesterday saw the launch of Iain Duncan Smith's, ( I. D. S. Idiot Dickhead Smith.) Help To Work scheme. The idea is to help 2.3 million unemployed into approximately 500,000 vacancies, that works out at approximately 5 people chasing every job, of course it varies from area to area. In high unemployment areas the figure is much worse. How is IDS going to shove those 2.3 million into those 500,000 vacancies? Well by forcing people to work for six months doing community work, for no wages, if they refuse, stop their jobseekers allowance for 4 weeks, and if the refuse again, then stop their allowance for 13 weeks, so it's deprivation, or work for nothing. Another of I D S's ideas is to get longterm unemployed to sign on every day, can you imagine the queues at job centres, or will he employ extra staff at the centres, that might help bring done unemployment.

     If you are sentenced by a court for an offence, say assault, the maximum community service you would do, would be 300 hours, but those unemployed will be forced to do more than twice this, 780 hours. Obviously in this society, to be unemployed is worse than assaulting somebody.

        Whichever measure is used, there are nowhere near enough vacancies to enable everyone currently looking for a job to find one. Of course that doesn't matter, the idea is to get people used to working for nothing, then they might be extremely grateful when they are offered a crap job with crap wages. It is all part of the plan to create a sweatshop UK. The UK corporate bosses love Idiot Dickhead Smith.

        The fact that they have launched their “Flagship” policy, doesn't mean that it will work, as usual it will be ill thought out, ill prepared, under funded, under manned, and result in chaos, as well as heaping stress on enormous numbers of people. From ATOS, to Workfare, to the bedroom tax, to Help To Work, it is all about co-ercing people to accept the unacceptable, a low wage economy, and big bucks for employers.

        It seems that the lauch has, as predicted, has seen chaos on its first day. This from The Void: 

       Despite wildly optimistic claims from the DWP, today’s launch of mass workfare seems to be in chaos behind the scenes.  With barely any information yet available on the scheme it appears that the flagship Help To Work programme has no-one actually running it, no guidance for companies involved and no real plan to deal with the huge influx of claimants to Jobcentres from daily signing.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Fumbling Fiddlers.

      It's amazing, isn't it, those who spout about putting the economy in our country on a sound footing, and claim to be the people to run the country efficiently, are the ones who make a dog's dinner of everything they touch. Of course I'm talking about our millionaire lords and masters in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption. The only thing they are doing with a any degree of success is siphoning all the wealth of this country into the bank accounts of their corporate friends. Well I suppose, to them that's all that matters. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors, slight of hand, fiddle and con tricks, in an attempt to keep the public confused. However, we are not confused, we are well aware of their charlatan characteristics, and greed driven arrogance, and to be aware, is a long way along the road to putting the problem right.

This from The Void:

   In yet more humiliation for Iain Duncan Smith’s bungled welfare reforms, Universal Jobmatch was judged the worst online jobs website at a recent industry awards ceremony.

      The government job-seeking website, which has been plagued by spam, scams and spoof vacancies, won the ‘Wooden Nora’ at last week’s National Online Recruitment Awards.  730 online recruitment websites were considered for awards with Universal Jobmatch being judged the worst.  According to The Guardian’s Diary the website was described as a “mongrel of a recruitment website” that “commits almost every online recruitment crime, and then some.”

       Universal Jobmatch was designed at huge cost – believed to be approaching almost £20 million.  Despite this the site has been plagued by technical problems as well as becoming home to thousands of flaky self-employment schemes, pyramid scams and fake job adverts used to harvest CVs and even commit identity theft.  It is hard to understand how Monster, the company paid to produce the website, could have produced something so atrocious that it is a laughing stock amongst recruitment professionals.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

  

The Brutal Bedroom Tax.

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        Iain Duncan Smith's arrogant bedroom tax, a plan to push people into the “right” size of house, according to his Orwellian formula of age and sex of children and “spare” bedrooms, is starting to produce the horrors that were predicted. Because of this dictatorial policy, we have already had one suicide, and tens of thousands of the poorest people in the UK are at risk of being forced into homelessness. According to information from 107 local authorities, 86,000 households have been forced to seek one bedroom accommodation, while in the last year only 33,000 were available. Here in Scotland, the district of Inverclyde is looking at a disaster. The council has stated that 1,100 households would be required to move to single bedroom accommodation, while only 96 were available last year.

      These families are having to take a 14% cut in their housing benefit until they find the “right” size one bedroom accommodation. A 14% cut in housing benefit to some of the most vulnerable people in our society, because of a policy that can't be implemented, is surely a brutal vindictive criminal act. The forced moving is brutal enough, but being forced to move when there is no where to move, and being hit by a cut in your housing benefit while waiting for that mythical one bedroom home, has no place in a civilised society. This policy is typical of the attitude of this millionaire cabal who are still living in the era of the landed gentry and “their” peasants, you and I, are their peasants and are not seen as “real” people. A home to them is a matter of their choice, a home to us peasants is a privilege for which we should be forever grateful. This millionaire cabal's answer to the problem is that, they don't have to move, they could take in a lodger, get employment or work extra hours.

      This callous shuffling of people to suit some economic grand plan, requires to be met with the same determination and organisation that won the 1915 rent strike, the same unity and solidarity the beat the 1989/90 poll tax. The bedroom tax is an ill conceived, unfair policy that will no nothing but cause misery and distress to thousands of families. This will affect whole communities as it will force the break up of families and force them out of homes and communities where they have lived for years. It can and must be beaten. Get organised, speak to your local anarchist federation, this is every bodies fight.

ann arky's home.

Lies Or Spin??

A thank you from change.org.

We did it!

     Iain Duncan Smith will be held to account for his misuse of Government statistics. 

      Last month Iain Duncan Smith told journalists that one million people are claiming benefits yet able to work. The problem was it wasn't strictly true. That's why 96,666 people -- including you -- signed the petition to demand the Work and Pensions Committee to hold Iain Duncan Smith to account for his use of government statistics on welfare. 

     This week the Committee announced they would do just that. Iain Duncan Smith will face questions by the Committee over his department's use of statistics. The New Statesman reported the story here. 

    The DWP have slipped the news out quietly, so if you are on Twitter please take a moment to spread the word about the victory. We are really proud that we started this petition. It's often feels like politicians get away with saying whatever they like and as two disabled people affected by the benefit changes, we're fed up with the spin. By starting this petition we've shown that everyone has the tools to call politicians out if they start spinning statistics. 

     It's important people know this - so please share the news on Twitter. Click here. 

      The inquiry is set to happen in June so we'll keep the petition open until then. We both hope to attend the session and see Iain Duncan Smith face some tough questions. We'll let you know how it goes. 

In the meantime - a big thank you for all your support!

Thank you,
Jayne Linney & Debbie Sayers

ann arky's home.

Murder By Legislation.

      The present government in pandering to the dictates of the financial Mafia have introduced numerous savage attacks on the living conditions of the ordinary people. Among some of the most brutal are, the ATOS attack on the disabled, the closing of Remploy factories, workfare slave labour legislation and the bedroom tax. This latter piece of legislation from the warped mind of rich well housed, Iain Duncan Smith, has just claimed its first death. Stephanie Bottrill forced to pay extra council tax because of spare rooms, in a house she had lived in for 18 years, couldn't take any more and threw herself in front of a lorry, she left a letter saying she could no longer afford to live and blamed the government for her death. I can't formulate my thoughts into words that would be adequate for this outrageous crime perpetrated on a 53 year old woman living alone. However, some people can:

ann arky's home.

Iain Duncan Smith, Rat-bag!!

  

     It is always pleasant when some ordinary person gets a chance to speak their mind to one of those charlatans from the parasitic political class. It is even more pleasant when you hear the audience applaud that opinion.

ann arky's home.

£53 a week?

       Almost half a million people signed the petition asking Iain Duncan Smith to put put up or shut up. Spouting he could live on £53 a week for a year, but so far he has refused to follow that through by actually doing it. He may find the adjustment somewhat difficult, as at present his daily income is slightly more than four times that  figure of £53 he states he could live on for a week. A part from his daily income of approximately £225, there is also the perks that go with being one of the boys in that millionaires' club, The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption. A nice little number if you can get it.

This from Change.org

460,000 people is a lot of people!

On Monday the Department of Work and Pensions found out just what that looks like when I delivered the petition calling on Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53 a week right to their doorstep.

Share the photos of the delivery with your friends on Facebook here. 

Iain Duncan Smith still refuses to respond to the petition but I have no doubt he felt its impact. In fact his department was so surprised by how many journalists turned up at the delivery they went into lockdown for 15 minutes before they conceded they had to open the doors and let us in!

When I started the petition I didn't think that he would actually take up the challenge, although there is nothing to prevent him from doing it. The point was to highlight the hypocrisy of our politicians living lives of real privilege while lecturing others on what poverty feels like.

This petition was about taking back the control of the debate -- and we did that! 

Last week the petition was reported over 250 times in national media. Press from every major outlet turned out to report the delivery. 

We gave a platform for people affected by the welfare changes to tell their stories. I want to say a special thank you to Heather Simpson, Eileen Short and Ian Mortimer Jones who accompanied me at the delivery. Eileen and Heather campaign with the anti-bedroom tax group and Ian campaigns for the WOW petition - please check out their campaigns. 

And finally I want to thank you and everyone who supported this petition. We brought the debate back to the doorstep of power, and even though they attempted to drag it into the gutter, their actions lacked conviction and confidence, reflecting an establishment rattled by a very modern form of democracy -- people power online.

Ten days ago I was at home getting frustrated about another out of touch politician saying something dismissive on the radio. A week later I was stood in front of five TV cameras getting a chance to tell a different side of the story -- all because I started a petition on Change.org. I sincerely hope this has inspired you as much as it has inspired me. 

I am leaving the petition open so people can still sign it. Iain Duncan Smith will be returning to Parliament next week -- it would be good to clock up even more signers before then!  

Thank you for your support,
Dominic

ann arky's home.

WORKING POVERTY, TODAY'S PATTERN.

      Iain Duncan Smith, our well heeled, Works and Pensions Secretary, recently stated that poverty was the result of “ worklessness and welfare dependency, addiction, educational failure, debt or family breakdown” Strange that he should put worklessness first, considering that recent figures show that in this country we have more than 6 million working families living in poverty. We also have approximately 5 million adults living in poverty from homes where nobody works. So bang goes that theory that if you are unemployed and you get a job, whizz-bang, you're out of poverty. Another little fact about working gets you out of poverty, almost one third of children living in poverty in this country, come from working homes.

     It is obvious to any ordinary person that in-work poverty is as much a problem as is out of work poverty, in this system of capitalism. Even the apoligists for capitalism can't help but see that when you have one fifth of women and one seventh of men working for less than £7 an hour, you are goping to have working families in poverty. The situation is getting worse by the month, as “austerity” bites, and incomes shrink, more and more people are having to claim “tax credits”, (tax payers subsides to employers who don't pay a living wage).

     There is also the wild claim that our country is riddled with families who have never worked, yet the true figures state that only 2% of all working age households contain no one who has never worked.

     Of course their ideological thinking to create a UK sweatshop economy, pushes them to say, get them off benefit and into work and the poverty problem is solved, it would not cross their tiny twisted minds to say that they are being paid too little. Nor do they open their eyes to the fact that shouting about getting people into work, when there are no jobs, doesn't fit rational thinking. Then again, this is capitalism and those making the legislation are mainly millionaires with bundles of shares in the corporate world and a vested interest to keep wages down and profits up to fatten there bank accounts and those of their shareholder friends.

ann arky's home.