Aldeburgh Yacht Club: Tricks of the Dole Cheats Exposed.
We Expose Tricks of the Aldeburgh Yacht Club Dole Cheats.
Ipswich Unemployed Action has received exclusive preview material of tomorrow’s Channel Ipswich Unemployed Action’s Documentary on ‘Dole Cheats’.
Transcript:
” I say Bertie that looks a lot of wonga you’re putting on the nail.”
“Plenty from where that’s coming old Cheesewright. Emma’s just given us all a raise and that chap in SEETEC has paid us our dividends, and we’re all rolling in it.
Aunt Agatha has just booked her toodeling third holiday in the sunny side of the Caribbean.”
“But surely good ol’ David Blunkett is suffering under the strain?”
“Not at all old bean, been able to pay his bar bill at Annabel’s, at last.”
Voice.
“If I make a suggestion Sir. There are mutterings. The Heralds of the Red Dawn in Ipswich…”
“Mum’s the word Jeeves…”
Leave a Reply
Recent Comments
 | moroccan oil on Bedroom Tax, Now Even Frank Fi… |
 | Obi Wan Kenobi on Work Programme “Failing… |
 | Lumpenprole on Work Programme “Failing… |
| Lumpenprole on Work Programme “Failing… |
| Obi Wan Kenobi on Sanctions Report: Questions… |
Watching a4e
- The Work Programme - not workingThe Work and Pensions Committee has reported on the Work Programme, and its verdict is that it's not working for the long term unemployed and the most disadvantaged. The official account of it is here. The main points which I've picked out of it are:The government spent about £248m less than it anticipated on the WP in 2012 / 13 because the resul […]
Boycott Workfare
- ‘They could refer me to it whenever they liked’Job Centre Advisors routinely ignore their own rules; the process for challenging bad decisions is sometimes so obscure and long-winded that someone’s time on a placement is served before they get far enough to have the decision overturned. This person’s story highlights what a deeply frustrating process this can be. I was referred to Mandatory [...]
- Government must reveal workfare exploiters!Some great news: The government has lost its appeal and must reveal the organisations that have used Mandatory Work Activity, Work Experience, and Work Programme placements. That means we’re going to be able to show those organisations what we think of them profiting from free labour! The evidence the government submitted reveals what a huge [...]
You’re going to start the revolution by taking over the Aldeburgh Yacht Club? That’s novel.
Remember to give them all a slap on the wrist and a jolly good talking-to for being such naughty bourgeois people before sending them home.
Aldeburgh Yacht Club are bleeding filth. Now.. where did I put me bleeding teef…
If Aldeburgh Yacht Club offer you sardines for luncheon then whatever you do don’t eat them, because that’s a trap. You’ll be forever marked as lower-class, and they won’t take your coup seriously. If, however, they offer you rounds of cracked wheat bread spread with loganberry jam you can partake without danger.
I like sardines for tea, with a couple of boiled eggs and a bit of wattercress me.
Seriously.
what about scrambled eggs mixed with sardines or a soft egg and sardine/pilchard sandwich?
seriously
Sounds good to me.
Debate over Australia welfare ‘credit card’
“People stare when I bring out my Basics card,” said Barbara Shaw
Campaigners believe the income management system could make people’s lives harder
The Australian government is rolling out a radical new way of paying welfare benefits that may be instructive for other countries around the world.
Instead of being given cash or cheques, thousands of people are now issued with electronic “credit” cards.
The Basics cards, as they are called, can only be used to purchase “priority” items such as food, housing, clothing, education and health care.
The government calls the cards a form of income management. While some use the cards voluntarily, for others they are compulsory.
That is why this world-first system of welfare payments has won both praise and disapproval.
Compulsory income management was introduced by the government of John Howard in 2007 and was initially confined to the Northern Territories and parts of Queensland.
By forcing some onto the scheme, it represented a major change to the Australian welfare system.
Until that point, there were few restrictions placed on recipients over how they used their benefit payments.
Now the government believes the scheme is working so well, it is rolling it out across much of the country, at a cost of around A$1bn ($1.03bn; £660m).
‘Key tool’
The Basics card is a reusable “credit” card that makes people spend their welfare money at approved stores and businesses.
The card can only be used to buy essential items – it cannot be used to purchase gift vouchers, take cash out from a store or an ATM.
Money is electronically placed on the card once a fortnight, when people receive their benefit payments.
No more than A$1,500 can be spent per day. If money is not spent, it can be built up as savings.
Between 50% and 70% of income is “quarantined” in this way, depending on the individual’s circumstances. The rest is available as cash.
Crucially, it reduces the amount of discretionary income available for alcohol, gambling, tobacco and pornography.
Three main types of people use the cards: some young people, people referred by child protection authorities and people regarded by social workers as vulnerable to financial problems.
According to the government, income management is “a key tool in supporting disengaged youth, long-term welfare payment recipients and people assessed as vulnerable, and is aimed at encouraging engagement, participation and responsibility”.
“I hate it,” said Barbara Shaw, a mother of three from Alice Springs, in central Australia. “It’s patronising and it stigmatises me as someone on welfare.”
At her local supermarket, she selects items and heads to the check-out to swipe the card.
“People stare when I bring out my Basics card,” she said. “Even the shop assistants roll their eyes when they see one. It’s embarrassing.”
At home in her indigenous compound on the outskirts of Alice Springs she makes a wider point.
“This is not only overtly paternalistic,” she said. “It’s also racist, as most people on income management are Aboriginal.”
Doing good?
While the government denies any racial motivation, the figures certainly support Barbara’s assertion that it is mostly indigenous people using them.
According to a recent Federal Parliamentary report, of the 17,000 people subject to income management in the Northern Territories, 90% are indigenous. In Western Australia, of the 232 people on the scheme, 60% are indigenous.
The government argues that the Aboriginal community has historically been more prone to abuses of welfare payments, especially through problems with alcohol and that they were therefore bound to feature more prominently in any system designed to change the way such income is spent.
Whether or not the scheme is racist, Paddy Gibson, a researcher at the University of Technology in Sydney, says there are doubts over whether it is having the desired effect.
“There’s no evidence that there’s less gambling in the Northern Territory. There’s no evidence there’s less drinking in the Northern Territory. Actually a lot of communities that I talk to believe there’s more alcoholism now,” he said.
Jenny Macklin, the Minister for Families, disagrees.
“It’s an additional tool to help families better manage their money in the interests of their children – to make sure that welfare payments are spent on the essentials of life,” she told the ABC television network.
“We’ve had it now operating for a few years; we know that it’s helpful. The individual stories are very positive.”
There are many people on the scheme who would support that view.
One of them is Karen Tremain, a single mother-of-two in the western city of Perth who suffered from depression and receives a disability allowance. She volunteered to take a Basics card.
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “Without income management we would probably have lost the house and we would have been on the streets. Now I know what money I have and I’ve even built up a little in the kitty to spend on a holiday.”
Unlike Barbara, Karen sees no indignity in using the card. “No, I don’t feel stigmatised. So many shops take them now, I look and act like every other shopper,” she said.
‘Individual responsibility’
When the government announced it was expanding the scheme to much of Australia, it prompted street protests in one low-income Sydney suburb.
Paddy Gibson, the university researcher, joined the activists against the cards.
“We think that the imposition of income management has the potential to make that person’s life harder, to make that person’s life worse,” he said.
He said people had been left begging the authorities to transfer money so they could buy things like jeans from shops that were not on the scheme.
But the government is determined to expand the use of the cards.
“Welfare should not be a destination or a way of life. The government is committed to progressively reforming the welfare system to foster individual responsibility,” said Jenny Macklin, the families minister.
Basics cards go much further than other government welfare programmes around the world.
The American Food Stamps scheme (renamed SNAP in 2008 in part to address the stigma associated with food stamps) is perhaps the closest equivalent.
Other countries have punitive measures, reducing or suspending payments if an individual fails to meet specific responsibilities, like enrolling children in school.
But none of these equates to Australia’s more holistic approach.
The Basics card imposes spending discipline on people across vast areas of their lives, removing a large degree of choice.
For many, that breaches an important philosophical principle in the relationship between state and citizen.
Basics Card
Can buy:
Food, clothes, health items, furniture, fuel
Can’t buy:
Alcohol, gambling, tobacco, gift vouchers, pornography
Article here.
Hello “BBC”
Yes, but not only in Australia – the “Welfare Credit Card” is about to happen in this country:
“Conservative-run Kensington and Chelsea council in London is proposing to issue credit-card style vouchers – or “gift cards” – in lieu of crisis loans, enabling recipients to buy items at certain shops, likely to be big retailers such as Tesco, Argos and Sainsbury’s. Some councils will put blocks on the cards preventing the purchase of alcohol and cigarettes. . .”
See the full details on this link:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/economics/2012/08/crackdown-crisis-loans-simultaneously-dystopian-and-victorian
This deserves broadcasting.
I bet there’s some little sneak making a tidy profit out of this scheme.
I see some naughty person (blush!) has reported A4greed to the ASA which has decided to uphold the complaint. The Guardian and Express report the story. Adjudication available on ASA website. Hope Enemma’s enjoying her cornflakes (may be porridge soon?).
Anyone else see anything on a pimp’s website worthy of complaint then it can be done (free and anonymously) by using the ASA website
http://www.asa.org.uk/
You’ve just beaten me to it, Gissajob, on The Guardian’s report about A4E:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/22/a4e-banned-social-purpose-company
It’s about time someone legally challenged A4E’s pretentious advertised claim to be “a social purpose company with one sole aim. To improve people’s lives around the world. We [A4E] do this by helping them find work, skills, direction – or whatever it is they need.”
Meanwhile, have a look at this story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2187087/A4e-Emma-Harrison-Paying-8-6m-tax-payers-money-right-thing-do.html?ITO=1490
Interesting to note that the Daily Mail were not accepting readers comments on that story right from the start for “legal reasons”!
The ASA said: “Whilst we noted the ad made clear it was A4e’s intention to improve people’s lives by helping them secure employment or develop skills, we were concerned that individuals would understand the claim to mean A4e was a not-for-profit organisation.
Realy? What people need to improve their lives is the existence of an adequate level of proper paid jobs. Anything else is mere sales talk aimed at making profit.
Jobs are not generated by the Welfare-to-Work Industry – only profit at the expense of vulnerable unemployed people who are being savagely sanctioned at every turn. What a cruel juxtaposition that is.
It is very interesting to note that in some languages there is no difference between the words “advertising” and “propaganda”!!
My browser will not allow me to view the A4e website.
I first thought it was a typo of the web address, but no its A4e official website… not all services are reporting it as so at current… breaking news attack or fixed since?
Same here! AVG reports “blackhole exploit kit.” and refuses entry
Could it possibly be that someone doesn’t like them?
AVG says this:
Blackhole Exploit Kit is a threat that is spreading. It is currently ranked 1 in the world for online threats. Blackhole Exploit Kit has been detected by AVG on victims’ machines in 222 countries during the last month. There are currently 54968 websites in 138 countries that host Blackhole Exploit Kit.
Well done, a victory for the truth. Strikes me that the truth is not something that is not, in general, very highly prized in the Welfare to Work Industry.
Aaargh. “Strikes me that the truth is something that is not, in general”, etc.
Thanks JBS.
I’ve just heard that the ASA won’t follow up my other complaints:
1. One person into a job every 7 minutes (!)
2. £1.95 saved in benefits for every £1 given to A4greed
3. We don’t get anything unless we place people into a job (what – no attachment fees then?)
Apparently the page on which these unsubstantiated claims appears is deemed to be “PR material” and not advertising and as such outside of the ASA’s remit!
What on earth is the difference between “PR material” and advertising? A fine distinction is being made here, but I can’t see it. Maybe I’m too thick.
I’m staying away from A4e’s website because AVG Secure Search is still telling me that the risk involved in visiting it is high and that the risk comes from a Blackhole Exploit Kit (type 2170).
I had the Blackhole thing too – but yesterday. Seems cleaned up now. As for the semantics – I’m B******d if I know!.
But I think Enemma’s lot are looking stupid – even to the neutral observer, so mission accomplished.
FAO “JBS”
You ask what is the difference between “PR material” and advertising?
It’s about the same as the difference between the words “advertising” and “propaganda”.
In other words, and indeed in some other languages, there is NO difference – as I said earlier on!!!
anyone know what the jcp does after i have been on wp for 2 years?
Hello “Super Ted”
You want to know what will happen to you after two years on the Work Programme?
Assuming you are still without employment, you will then be “sentenced” by JCP to 6 months on the mandatory Community Action Programme.
I think it is possible that this may not always happen and may be down to whether things are able to be implemented exactly as our bigoted politicians want. This is why campaigns such as boycott workfare and the actions of the individual jobcentres are so important. Personally I do a fair bit of voluntary work(voluntary in the true sense of the word) and am trying to turn some of it into something I can make money from. As I have told the local jobcentre before if they try and stop me taking these important steps to sort my life out I am prepared to take them all the way to court if necessery although I suspect that in practice all I would have to do is write a strongly worded but polite letter to someone senior within the jobcentre as i have done so before. Basically although the politicians are extreemly prejudiced and unreasonable(since helping people find long term employment is far from their primary aim) some staff in local job centres are more reasonable and do generally want to help people although of course the sanction targets interfere with this and there is the occasional sadistic clerk. There are also I think a lot of clerks who are basically just going through the motions and of course they are more likely to pick on vulnerable people rather than those better able to stand up for themselves as was shown by the Guardians investigation showing disabled people being targeted for sanctions which is of course completely repulsive but is what we have come to expect in policies from the bigoted politicians. All of this has of course been stated by others elsewhere i think but i thought i’d say so anyway as i think its important for people to stand up for themselves and try and be positive.
my work programme is just sign on every 2 weeks, wonder what jcp/dwp will think off that value for money after 2 years hehehe lol
http://www.nucleus.org.uk/jsa-sanctions-declared-unlawful-by-the-high-court/
Wow! Really interesting! Deserves much wider publicity..
Thanks Janus.