UKIP hate the unemployed.

In 2013 UKIP described the unemployed as a  “a parasitic underclass of scroungers”.

UKIP’s welfare policies include forced unpaid work for all Housing and Council Tax Benefit claimants, Incapacity Benefit (now ESA) slashed to Job Seeker’s Allowance rates and childcare support for working parents demolished.

 

To add to this UKIP Welfare Policy is also 

• Non means-tested “basic cash benefit” for low earners and unemployed. Jobseekers allowance and incapacity benefit is scrapped.

• Child benefit for the first three children only.

• No benefits for anyone who has not lived in the UK for five years.

For the  2014 elections (UKIP site) these policies stand unchanged :

• Enrol unemployed welfare claimants onto community schemes or retraining workfare programmes.

That is, unpaid workfare.

• Make welfare a safety net for the needy, not a bed for the lazy. Benefits only available to those who have lived here for over 5 years.

That is, yet more scapegoating of the out-of-work – and ‘foreigners’.

from Ipswich Unemployed Action

 

More room for rich foreigners as government cuts Disabled Students Allowance

Some readers may find the above headline a bit strong, but please be assured – this is what it means.

Vox Political became aware of this story in two contrasting ways, as follows.

Firstly, from The Guardian: “From September 2015 [the government] will only pay for support for students with specific learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, if their needs are ‘complex’, although the definition of this, and who decides it, remains unclear.

“It will no longer pay for standard computers for disabled students, or for much of the higher specification IT it now subsidises.

“And it will no longer fund non-specialist help, likely to include note-takers and learning mentors. The costs of specialist accommodation will be met only in exceptional circumstances.”

Paddy Turner, of the National Association of Disability Practitioners (NADP) is quoted: “This is going to have a disastrous effect on students with specific learning difficulties because it looks very clear that [universities minister David Willetts] is trying to remove them from the DSA. It looks like a knee-jerk reaction to recent reports that specific learning difficulties and dyslexia aren’t really disabilities at all.”

Thanks to Vox Political

I wonder if UKIP’s policies or even the 3rd Reichs policies will/would differ?

This will make for an interesting court case.

From other socially responsible people who shall remain valued.

Freedom of speech?

A couple of days ago, blogger Michael Abberton  got a visit from the police. As reported in the Guardian:

“He was told he had not committed any crimes and no action was taken against him, but he was asked to delete some of his tweets, particularly a tongue-in-cheek one on 10 reasons to vote for Ukip, such as scrapping paid maternity leave and raising income tax for the poorest 88% of Britons.”

Michael described his experience in his own blog here. As he put it:

“…they said this was in relation to a complaint that had been made by a certain political party in relation to tweets I had published about them and one tweet in particular which talked about ten reasons to vote for them. The PC wanted to know if I had made that poster.”

from Paul Bernal’s blog

Brassed Off!

 

What a wonderful night! I cried all through the second set,( not easy when full of cold) sent me straight back to the strike.

Seemed very fitting for the 30th (Yes 30th) anniversary of this event.

Thanks to Julia and Sue for a wonderful present, even though it was not my birthday.

M.E. Awareness day

Irene Sendler verses Al Gore

M.E. awareness month

The month of May is “ME Awareness Month”, with May 12th being the particular day, and I have also seen the week starting May 11th designated as ME awareness week.

ME is classified by the World Health Organisation as a neurologically-based disease. It is of unknown cause, although there are several theories including viral and environmental agents. There is no known cure.

Unfortunately, in the UK the NHS seems to have ignored the WHO’s classification of ME as a specifically neurological illness, and has lumped ME together with any and all unexplained tiredness and fatigue, which can in fact be caused by a number of things, including Lyme Disease, Lupus, vitamin B12 deficiency and Pernicious Anaemia, Thyroid and adrenal problems, Sjögren’s, PCOS and other endocrine diseases, MS, fibromyalgia, depression and more, and has called the whole collection CFS, MEcfs or cfsME.

Within the umbrella of CFS there is obviously a vast spectrum of symptoms which range in severity, from those who are experiencing a mild loss of ‘get up and go’ to those who are in constant pain and utterly bedbound and unable to care for themselves, and since it is an umbrella term, treatments that may be helpful for mild types of CFS, such as GET – graded exercise and CBT – cognitive behavioural therapy, are wholly inappropriate and can be harmful for those who actually have ME.

CBT can be useful for people not coping well with any long term chronic illness but should not be touted as a main treatment for ME in the way that it is, based on the faulty assumption that CFS is inevitably linked to caused by psychological factors, and GET is harmful to PWME who have the key symptom of Post exertional malaise.

This situation has been exacerbated by the psychiatric establishment which has greedily claimed all ‘CFS’ patients as their own, baselessly alleging that all CFS must be related to mental and emotional factors.

Thus the tendency is to treat all CFS patients as though they are all suffering from an unexplained, probably psychologically-based, rather than neurologically-based illness, regardless of the severity, and further to fail to investigate thoroughly or adequately in order to rule out any other cause (such as those listed above).

There is no definitive test for ME yet (largely because genuine research has been so scarce), and so ME should never be diagnosed until every other possible cause has been eliminated.

The classification of ME together with any unexplained CFS is a nonsense which means that people who actually have curable and treatable diseases aren’t getting the help they could and should be able to expect, while those with ME are simply treated with disdain instead of receiving the palliative care they need.

This is a wholly unacceptable situation for everybody involved, which helps no-one, except those few outspoken psychiatrists who like to gain notoriety by making the psychological case and denying the reality of the suffering.

A friend has also pointed out that MS, asthma, duodenal ulcers and other illnesses were all considered psychiatric problems before biomedical caught up.

Thanks to “life for beginners” for the reminder and the post.

Freepost!

All freepost mail is paid for by UKIP.

UKIP take money from Foreigner

UKIP DONOR DEMETRI MARCHESSINI VOICES REPELLENT VIEWS ON RAPE, HOMOSEXUALITY, AND STILL THE PARTY TAKE HIS MONEY

originally posted by Marmite on “Liverpool anti-fascists”

Demetri Marchessini thinks it is fine for a husband to rape his wife, that homosexuality is a sin and that women should not be allowed to wear trousers, yet Ukip are still happily taking his cash, it has been revealed.

UKIP distanced themselves from the wealthy shipping and investment magnet in May last year after he published a book –Women in Trousers: A Rear View – airing his charming views. The party also didn’t appear overly keen to be connected to the Greek tycoon in January this year when he claimed “sodomy has always been a crime”. But Channel 4 News has reported that, despite Marchessini’s controversial outbursts, Ukip has since accepted at least one other donation from him.

In renewed embarrassment for the beleaguered party it was revealed Ukip received a further £5,000 from Marchessini four months ago – after the party’s apparent falling out with the businessman over his views on homosexuality and women’s rights.

In an interview Wednesday with Michael Crick, Marchessini created fresh trauma for the party by voicing more of his eyebrow-raising views.

He argued there is no such thing as marital rape, saying: “If you make love on Friday and make love Sunday, you can’t say Saturday is rape.”

He said women should be banned from wearing trousers (a favourite line of his) because they “discourage love-making”. Women, he said, should only be allowed to wear skirts, because “that is the only way the world is going to continue. Because if they don’t men are going to stop f***ing them.”

Additionally, apparently “there is no such thing as fidelity in homosexual relationships.”

Asked whether Ukip should be taking cash from a donor with such repellent views, leader Nigel Farage replied: “Possibly not.”

Lies, Dam Lies and Statistics

With many thanks to the brilliant Benefits And Work.

Benefits and Work has obtained documents via the Freedom of Information Act that may undermine claims by Atos that its staff were the subject of nearly two thousand episodes of assault or abuse, including death threats, by claimants in 2013 alone. Atos used the claim to justify wanting to exit early from the contract to carry out work capability assessments (WCAs).

Atos claimed that they were experiencing around 1,956 incidents throughout the year.

This was, by any standards, a very serious accusation.

Characterising thousands of sick and disabled claimants as violent thugs that Atos could no longer expose its staff to is likely to have increased the level of prejudice against benefits claimants. It may even have contributed to a rise in the number of violent hate-crimes committed against disabled people.

Three of the most important figures from our point of view, are:

Security called/police called’ 215

Threat made to staff ‐ direct or implied 110

Staff assaulted 5

Readers can decide for themselves whether they believe Atos’ claims by downloading the whole year’s figures here.

Thanks to “same difference” for the original post.

Pilgrimage to Capitalism!

Thanks to “Kicking the Cat”

Return Racism

Farage shows respect for ‘his’ country

C1983, UKIP want this picture banned, wonder why?