Mass Unemployment Coming, Calls for “Permanent Increase in Universal Credit.”
- The wait for Benefits.
- The low level of Benefits, and problems about local Housing Allowance (Housing Benefit).
- The way ‘Legacy Benefits’ claimants are being punished by not getting the £20 a week rise that Universal Credit claimants have got until they move on to the new system. Then they will also get a special “run on payment.
People have underlined the way Universal Credit (UC) is based on the assumption that work is “Out there” and that people need to be “nudged” (that is, if need be, threatened with destitution, ‘sanctions”) to get it.
The 35-hour a week jobsearch is one part of the UC system.
Another is various courses, now called the Work and Health Programme.
FInally there is the poverty created by low benefit levels – even with the ‘top up’ for those on UC, which those on Job Seekers Allowance and other ‘Legacy Benefits’ are refused.
Everybody knows – I only have to go out of the front door and walk to the town centre and look at the state of the shops, and see the small numbers of passengers on the buses – that there have been mass job losses.
The Government is recruiting Work Coaches to meet the rise in claims.
It is said that their role models are going to be saintly folk in a certain Yorkshire Jobcentre, always ready to help claimants and deal with the occasional scamp.
Totals of the out-of-work are set to rise further.
Today we hear more confirmation of the arrival of mass unemployment, suggesting that we are on the verge of a ” Great Depression”.
Readers will note that because this is going to affect more than the usual ne’er do wells Tories are calling for a rise in Universal Credit rates.
End of UK furlough scheme ‘means needless loss of 2m jobs’
Two million viable jobs will be needlessly lost under the government’s plan to end its flagship jobs support scheme, Boris Johnson is being warned on Sunday, amid cross-party demands for further emergency help.
After confirmation that Britain has entered the deepest recession since records began, new analysis seen by the Observer finds that as many as 3 million jobs will still be reliant on the government’s furlough scheme by the time it is closed at the end of October.
While 1 million jobs will be lost permanently as a result of the pandemic’s impact and changing demand, it finds that the remainder could be saved in the long run by adopting a successor to the furlough scheme focused on viable jobs in the hospitality, entertainment and construction sectors.
The new research, drawn up by the Institute for permanent increase in universal credit warns that simply withdrawing the furlough scheme with nothing in its place will cause unemployment at levels “not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s”. It also calls for major increases in universal credit to help those who are out of a job – an idea that is gaining support among Tory MPs.
You read it right,
Meanwhile, support is growing on the Tory benches for a permanent increase in universal credit to help those out of work. Stephen McPartland, a Tory MP who led a successful rebellion against tax credit cuts in 2015, said: “We have to support those who will be losing their jobs and universal credit needs to change if it is going to provide that support. It is clear what needs to be done, but the political will to find the funds has just not been there.”
Pressure is building outside parliament. Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “We’re already supporting one person every two minutes on a redundancy issue. As the furlough scheme ends, that number could snowball. Failure to act now risks long-term social and economic scarring that could take decades to recover from. It’s crucial the government takes further steps to prevent redundancies and strengthen the safety net for people who’ve struggled as a result of this crisis.”
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, warned that the number of over-50s who were made redundant and then completely fell out of employment was already rising sharply. “We fear that unless the government intervenes to help, unemployment among older shielded workers is set to soar,” she said.
Read the calls again….
…to help those out of work. Stephen McPartland, a Tory MP who led a successful rebellion against tax credit cuts in 2015, said: “We have to support those who will be losing their jobs and universal credit needs to change if it is going to provide that support. It is clear what needs to be done, but the political will to find the funds has just not been there.”
Pressure is building outside parliament. Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “We’re already supporting one person every two minutes on a redundancy issue. As the furlough scheme ends, that number could snowball. Failure to act now risks long-term social and economic scarring that could take decades to recover from. It’s crucial the government takes further steps to prevent redundancies and strengthen the safety net for people who’ve struggled as a result of this crisis.”
Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, warned that the number of over-50s who were made redundant and then completely fell out of employment was already rising sharply. “We fear that unless the government intervenes to help, unemployment among older shielded workers is set to soar,” she said.
Here is the IPPR report and recommendations:
Ipswich Unemployed Action. 
Scrap Universal Credit, abolish Sanctions, close all Jobcentres permanently, replace with Unconditional Basic Income of at least £100 per week paid weekly plus Housing Benefit for those who need it.
trev
August 16, 2020 at 4:10 pm
Fantastic! And like most fantasy as far removed from earthly reality as a quasar.
L. Puller
August 17, 2020 at 5:43 am
Then what do you suggest L.Puller if we are to avoid thousands/millions of Sanctions and the resulting rent arrears, evictions, suicides, child poverty, foodbanks etc. Why do people have to wait 5 weeks (or more) for their Universal Credit? What’s the point of hiring thousands of extra Work Coaches to bully people into applying for jobs with 8 million unemployed and no jobs? Why spend Billions keeping Jobcentres open when Benefits can be paid automatically? What’s your solution?
trev
August 17, 2020 at 8:47 am
There are too many, and there are going to be, far too many unemployed for the current rates of benefits to stand. The government need to abandon their punitive benefit policies, and look at the reality of the situation. Or we are going to see civil unrest in this country on a scale not seen since the Poll Tax Riots.
Jeff Smith
August 16, 2020 at 4:15 pm
Not only the possibility of civil unrest but an obviously dysfunctional society with increased poverty, crime, homelessness, begging, suicides, foodbanks struggling to meet demand. But will the Tories listen or continue to stick their heads in the sand? And will Labour wake up and start demanding change as a matter of urgency? The pandemic isn’t even over yet and then we’ve got Brexit to face. If they want to leave a Benefits system in place then it has to be easily accessible, non-punitive, and generous enough for people to live on. Lowering the State Pension age would also make more sense as would Pension Credits from age 60.
trev
August 16, 2020 at 5:15 pm
Interesting point, I said almost as soon as the lockdown first started and the Tories started ballsing up I could see riots on the scale of the London Riots, watch the spaces guys! I really think these big street parties/ raves could b only the start of it
katrehman
August 16, 2020 at 7:15 pm
When a government fails in leadership we all fail as a nation.Everyone pay’s.
ken
August 16, 2020 at 7:23 pm
Does anyone think that this is it, that finally the tide could turn and things will start to improve for the unemployed and those like myself living in in work poverty?
katrehman
August 16, 2020 at 5:12 pm
It might get worse before it gets better. But the way things are heading things could get as worse as they can do before the tide turns. The future does not look good.
trev
August 16, 2020 at 5:19 pm
@katrehman: They will have to improve. This can’t be sustainable, and the Tories know it.
Tom Sutton
August 16, 2020 at 6:37 pm
Perhaps the Opposition will notice the situation and they might eventually mention doing something about it? Saying that Universal Credit needs a “overhaul” was an understatement.
trev
August 16, 2020 at 6:44 pm
No. After the second world war people said the same thing but carried on living in poverty and slums for decades.
Realist
August 17, 2020 at 5:56 am
@realist – That’s not true. There were massive building programmes after the war. Slums were demolished and the first housing estates put up in their place. Labour and Nye Bevan, in their finest hour, founded the NHS. And there were many other positive changes, in education, employment conditions etc. If the will to do so is there, then great changes can be made.
Jeff Smith
August 17, 2020 at 10:54 am
[…] Mass Unemployment Coming, Calls for “Permanent Increase in Universal Credit.” […]
Mass Unemployment Coming, Calls for “Permanent Increase in Universal Credit.” | sdbast
August 16, 2020 at 6:14 pm
scrapped the uc claimant commitment, cancelled all benefits sanctions
don’t make us go to the job centre regularly, to offer a good service, without having to put up with chances kicking off, 6-12 months signing depending on our needs, whether we have disabilities etc,
Giving everyone a work allowance would be a good start.
my_final_username
August 16, 2020 at 7:15 pm
Some are saying
Now is the time to bring in a Universal Basic Income
The government’s furlough and self-employed support schemes are messy and incomplete, and have provided welcome, if temporary, relief for many, but they are not set to last, and are not the long-term solution we need.
https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/sian-berry-column-on-universal-basic-income-1-6788879
This is dreadful and another fine mess,Kat mentions in work poverty this should never have been allowed to happen.The welfare state has been turned into a rodeo ride for those on benefits but people arn’t falling into a proper paid job and whats been said about the over 50’s has really hurt and very possible all but signed them off for all but good.If the Government says that what will someone taking somone on think its hardly selling age.
ken
August 16, 2020 at 7:20 pm
“Some are saying Now is the time to bring in a Universal Basic Income”
A great many are saying it Ken, but not Sir Starmer or Sir Duncan-Smith.
trev
August 16, 2020 at 7:45 pm
But at least we have Tory MP Stephen McPartland calling for change, along with the CAB and Age UK. How long before others get aboard? I don’t even know who the Shadow Social Security person is but there must be one.
trev
August 16, 2020 at 9:03 pm
It’s someone called Jonathan Reynolds apparently:
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/labours-new-dwp-shadow-attacked-for-toxic-comments-on-social-security/
trev
August 16, 2020 at 9:07 pm
Yet the Institute for Economic Affairs, the free-market think tank, has long liked the idea, because then everybody will be free to get as rich as they liked, earn as much as the can, all will have a very basic income, without any need to redistribute wealth from the rich to poor.
Ian Duncan Smith might even like a little top to his salary, as he would also get it – it is universal.
Andrew Coates
August 16, 2020 at 9:29 pm
Yes if it was truly ‘Universal’ then the likes of IDS would also get it, perhaps there could be a Clause to say that it would be deducted from MPs expenses and from Lords’ daily allowance. I see Jonathan Reynolds claimed over 200K in expenses. And should people receive it whilst in prison? Put IDS behind bars for Crimes against Humanity then he won’t get it if that was the case!
trev
August 16, 2020 at 9:48 pm
Ken I think this crisis has brought it home how hollow the government’s spiell is, all the record numbers of ppl in work, we all knew it’s shit zero hours gig jobs and not secure and this proved it!
They knew exactly what they were doing making UC so dreadful that ppl took the jobs and endured, or like me made sacrifices ( in my case, to rent a room instead of a flat since that’s all I could afford without state help), and in my case to keep doing a job that’s bad for me physically and just praying I keep going, in a way I’m ” lucky” as a cleaner in a school my jobs secure and I got paid through the lockdown, at least my job isn’t zero hours and I’m guaranteed payment every 27th of month, same amount every month, and believe me that’s a luxury after my last job where the boss regularly bounced our pay cheques!
They don’t care about in work poverty thrir answer would be work more hours! In a funny way work does pay even though I’m in poverty, I know I’ll never be sanctioned lol! But it’s no way to live
I would love to see a Universal basic income, with housing help for those who need it, it would make such a difference, I could eat and pay the bills while looking for a more suitable job! A girl can dream….
katrehman
August 16, 2020 at 9:43 pm
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/tesco-staff-scrub-shops-next-22396288
no job is safe anymore id not be surprised if they slashed the education budget and get the teachers to do the cleaning.
gdp is over 100% when the interest rate rises there will be massive cuts to everything to pay for all this crap!
and it has not even started yet you wait till end of the year when it hits the fan.
and imo the dwp will go full hit squad mode and maximum conditionality even if you are 1 min late to a appointment signing on every day and anything else they can con you in to believing you have no choice but to do as they say or else.
if they dont do that then really there is not point at all of the jcp work coaches and conditionality sanctions and performance based bonuses.
they do not give a crap if you sign off with no job and stave to death on the street a work coaches job is to get you of benefits any way they can.
https://www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/news-features/139/main-news/135681/%E2%80%98no-remorse%E2%80%99-from-dwp-over-social-security-deaths-says-oldham-mp
superted
August 16, 2020 at 10:03 pm
I agree with surperted. Without the money being there the only thing left to do is to screw the people who need the money in the hope that pain and misery will drive them into work. My bet is an even more rigid form of conditionality to drive people into what David Freud called “mini-jobs”, i.e., an hour here and hour there, which after travel and other costs are considered don’t allow people to earn enough to make any difference to their lives. Imagine having to do three or four mini-jobs every day, starting at five in the morning and finishing at midnight. This is what happens now in America where all this conditionality and flexibility shite got imported from during the Cameron years.
Jamjar
August 17, 2020 at 6:02 am
Reblogged this on Tory Britain!.
A6er
August 16, 2020 at 9:05 pm
Jam jar this is me and people I work with. I use to have 3 mini jobs, the 6.30 to 9am cleaning shift, a 12 noon to 1.15pm lunchtime play leader role and my evening cleaning shift 3.15 to 5.45pm, had I been claiming UC I’D have had to look for yet another mini job of 4 hours a week to bring it up to 35! Now I just do the 2 cleaning shifts. My colleague does the same cleaning shifts as me, then she goes on to clean a private nursery 7pm til 9pm. She’s 63 and has had a hip replacement op!
katrehman
August 17, 2020 at 11:09 am
@katrehman _ Isn’t there some rule with Universal Credit that if you are earning above the Administrative Threshold amount, then they can’t make you do any worksearch ? Even if your actual work hours are less than 35 per week ?
George Mortimer
August 17, 2020 at 12:42 pm
Yeah, if you earn the equivalent of the minimum wage at 35 hours a week you are excluded from jobsearch activities.
Denni
August 17, 2020 at 2:26 pm
Administrative Earnings Threshold
The level of earnings where work search or work availability requirements must not be imposed. For single claimants it is the monthly equivalent of £5 plus the applicable amount of the jobseeker’s allowance personal allowance for a single person aged 25 or over and for couples it is the monthly equivalent of £10 plus the applicable amount of the jobseeker’s allowance personal allowance for a couple where both members are aged 18 or over.
Denni
August 17, 2020 at 2:30 pm
Universal Credit – expected hours of work and Conditionality Earnings Threshold policy
Summary This explains the policy for determining the work-related requirements to be placed on claimants and/or partners who are already in work and receiving earnings
Conditionality Earnings Threshold
The Conditionality Earnings Threshold (CET) has been introduced to determine the requirements placed on individuals who are in work and receive earnings, or are in a household with earnings. The CET ensures that claimants earning above a certain level won’t be asked to carry out work-related activity. The CET is individually assessed, flexible and reflects a claimant’s individual circumstances (for example, health or caring responsibilities). If no restriction applies, the default position is that each claimant’s CET is calculated at 35 hours a week multiplied by the hourly rate of the National Minimum Wage. Claimants earning below this threshold, or in a household with earnings below the household threshold, will normally be placed in either the Intensive Work Search or Light Touch regimes depending on the level of their individual or household earnings. Where a work coach has agreed that a claimant may restrict the number of hours they will be expected to undertake work search activities each week, this figure will be used to calculate their individual CET.
Administrative Earnings Threshold
The Administrative Earnings Threshold (AET) has been introduced to ensure that only claimants on no income or very low income will receive intensive support. The current AET has been set at £338 per month for a single person and £541 for a couple based on gross taxable pay. Unlike the CET, the individual/household AET are static amounts that are not variable. The AET will need to be increased each April in line with JSA rates (where the JSA rate has been uprated). Claimants who are part of a couple can be allocated to different regimes and the earnings of one partner can affect the regime allocation of another
Sariaq
August 17, 2020 at 2:37 pm
You have to be earning ABOVE the minimum wage at 35 hours a week which is important because a ‘regular week’ will be ON the minimum wage x 35 not above it.
Ali
August 17, 2020 at 2:40 pm
Take that back, work search only appears to apply if you earn BELOW the threshold. All very confusing but when did the DWP ever intend to confuse 😉
Ali
August 17, 2020 at 2:44 pm
The extra £20 a week to UC is due to end next April. Imagine what’s going to happen if all UC payments fall by £80 a month. all at the same time, overnight. There would be hell up. My bet is that the government won’t have the balls to take that money away fearful of the bad publicity.
Jabberwock
August 17, 2020 at 5:46 am
Hell to pay for in what way? Cities on fire? Coates will write up an article? Wow, scary. UC claimants are just going to have to take it on chin just the the lecacy JSA claimants are doing at present.
Carol King
August 17, 2020 at 7:17 am
The might of Coates is the fear and the dread of the whole bourgeoisie.
Though to be serious it would be hard to see how they would manage a public £20 a week pay cut for millions of people.
The real value of benefits has gone down over the years by ‘freezes’, by failing to keep in line with wages, by rises based on measures of inflation that ignore the increase in the cost of things claimants pay for, by making claimants pay a percentage of council tax without giving them the extra money to do so (something Eric Pickles dreamt up after eating a fine repast of a whole roast hog and drinking a barrel of ginger wine), ‘localising’ housing benefit, (local housing allowance) so it often does not cover full rent, and by making public transport fares go up and up.
They have yet to try an explicit cut in benefits, something only done, if I have read right, during the Great Depression.
Andrew Coates
August 17, 2020 at 8:23 am
Aaaargh Eric Pickles! I’d forgotten about him. What a bastard.
trev
August 17, 2020 at 8:51 am
It depends how they ‘spin it’ – temporary measure as part of an emergency Covid-19 package, furlough will be long gone, and the “economy will be on a stronger footing, low inflation etc.” The media can just ignore it and like everything else no one gives a monkey’s unless it affects them personally. Someone might pen a letter to the Guardian, Poly Toynbee may wring her hands from her luxury Tuscany villa, but at the end of the day it will quickly blow over and UC – £20 quickly becomes the ‘new normal’. Besides, we don’t know the state of play come April 2021.
Shona from Huddersfield
August 17, 2020 at 9:22 am
@Carol King: Don’t underestimate the influence of the Ipsissimus Of Ipswich, member of the Illuminati.
He is not known as the Hidden Master for nothing.
Zephirus
August 17, 2020 at 11:02 am
Boris Johnson has a large majority now because the “Red Wall” in the North collapsed, i.e., dozens of formerly loyal Labour voting constituencies switched side and voted for the Conservatives. Imagine then what will happen in such areas if Covid-19 is still suppressing the economy, unemployment sky high, and the Tories take £80.00 a month AWAY from people struggling under the coronavirus shadow thorough no fault of their own. The Red Wall will spring up at the next general election and Keir Starmer will be moving into 10 Downing Street. So if the Conservatives want to give Labour the best shot in the arm the party could possibly receive taking £20 a week away from the poorest of the poor during a time of economic failure and plague, well, something like that should do the trick in spades!
Archangel
August 17, 2020 at 11:31 am
The Traitors who voted Tory deserve all they get, full English Brexit with all the trimmings.
trev
August 17, 2020 at 11:34 am
@ trev
So everybody who didn’t vote Labour is a traitor? A traitor to who? What treason or betrayal did people commit who couldn’t find it in their hearts to vote for a Labour party led by Jeremy Corbyn? You’ve got the boot on the wrong foot, sport.
IT WAS THE LABOUR PARTY WHICH BETRAYED THE LARGER LABOUR ELECTORATE BY PICKING A CONSPICUOUS DUD AS PARTY LEADER AND BELIEVING THAT THE BRITISH PEOPLE WOULD SLAVISHLY VOTE TO MAKE SUCH A CHARACTER LEADER OF THE COUNTRY AND THEIR PRIME MINISTER.
It any “treason” was committed it was by Labour zealots determinedly trying to foist waste of space Jezza down previously loyal Labour party voter’s throats, when it was obvious from the get-go that Corbyn had absolutely no chance whatsoever of getting Labour back into power, damning the poor and the needy to continue to live under the Conservatives for five or more years.
If you lose an election you won’t win the next one by blaming the British people for failing to vote for you.
Looking to where you fell short and failed to convince rather than blaming others for not thinking like you.
Stevie N.
August 17, 2020 at 12:50 pm
@ Stevie N.
The reason that the so-called “Red Wall” turned against Labour and pro-Tory was because of Brexit, pure and simple, Boris Johnson’s slogan “Get Brexit Done” is what did the trick. And the reason why the traditional Labour-voting Northern Working Class wanted to get Brexit done is because they are mostly racist and xenophobic, and fell for Farage’s propaganda that the plight of the white English workers is all the fault of immigrants.
trev
August 17, 2020 at 1:29 pm
To say that the white working-class is “racist and xenophobic” is a load of old cobblers, and you know it, trev. The white working-class are tired of that old trope. Protectionist, yes. Don’t we all protect our best interests. Counties are protectionist. The white working-class also don’t want to ‘compete’ for resources.
Why would you want to compete for resources? Why would you want to be set-up to compete for resources? Like some sort of animal put into a ring to fight for the pleasure of the upper-classes. The white-working class are tribal. But aren’t all people tribal, don’t we all ‘identify’ with certain groups/’tribes’. The white-working class do not want to be usurped. Would you want to be driven from your homeland? In no way, however does any of thi make the white working-class racist and xenophobic. They simply fear for their and their children’s future. But you are correct in saying that Brexit was all about immigration. The white-working class, the hard core Labour vote, have no truck with (mass) immigration. They don’t want to live in ‘multicultural’ hellholes. The only Labour party members who are in favour are the ‘champagne socialists’, the phoney lefties who are not affected by ‘bread and butter’ issues such as access to healthcare, schools, housing since their children all attend private schools, they have private healthcare and they are property owners. The ‘Red Wall’ did the right thing by voting for Brexit. Like when a cow is down and the farmer is giving it a kicking it doesn’t plead for a further beating. Voting to Remain would be like asking for a further kicking. The white working-class also knew that Corbyn would have opened the floodgates to immigration. Despite an onslaught of pro-EU propaganda from the BBC and the rest of the mainstream media the white working-classes still voted for Brexit. The also recognised that there are many vested interests out there who benefit financially from the EU; interests who would sell them out for their own gain. The white-working classes are to be congratulated. The white working-classes sure ain’t stupid. They did do the right thing, whether you want to recognise that or not is your prerogative, trev.
Grace & Winston
August 17, 2020 at 2:14 pm
Anybody who speaks for the whole ‘white working class’ and praises their support for their Tory masters and shining the shoes of Brexit Boris is an utter pillock.
“People in work (full or part time, public sector or private sector), students, mortgage holders and private renters voted to remain. Those who own their home outright, social renters, the retired and those looking after homes all voted to leave.”
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2016-eu-referendum
By the only real definition of working class, that is, those who work.
“The working class supports Brexit? This relies on defining “the working class” as white, low-skilled people who live in small English towns. Look at the electoral map of Labour’s heartlands: does red Manchester support Brexit? Do Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow and Newcastle? They didn’t in 2016 and they don’t now.”
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2019/02/labour-must-challenge-myth-working-class-supports-brexit
Now get back to cleaning Boris’s boots and save the ranting about ‘immigration’ (mostly ‘white’, from Eastern Europe) for your cronies over a pot of beer in the servants’ quarters.
Andrew Coates
August 17, 2020 at 2:45 pm
@ Grace & Winston
In my opinion (as a northern Working Class man) any Working Class person who is stupid enough to vote Tory deserves all they get, unfortunately it affects the rest of us too, which is why I called such people Traitors. In my book the Tories are Public Enemy Number One, “lower than vermin” (Bevan), and I would never vote for them under any circumstances whatsoever.
trev
August 17, 2020 at 3:24 pm
This is the Brexit the Bosses’ toadies voted for, the cheap food for the unemployed and poor,
“US hens have half the living space of UK birds and are dipped in chlorinated water after slaughter to kill bacteria growing on them as a result of the birds “literally sitting in each other’s waste”, according to a new video being launched today by the RSPCA.
Aiming to highlight the welfare differences between US and UK farm animals as trade talks resume between the two countries in September, the UK’s largest animal welfare charity is taking the unusual step of releasing a video that “exposes the realities of animal welfare” and warns consumers against US dairy, egg and meat imports.”
“In June however, Downing Street was accused of reopening the door to imports of chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef, after a leaked memo instructed ministers to have “no specific policy” on animal welfare in US trade talks.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/17/us-chickens-literally-sitting-in-each-others-waste-says-rspca-brexit
Andrew Coates
August 17, 2020 at 3:52 pm
“People in work (full or part time, public sector or private sector), students, mortgage holders and private renters voted to remain. Those who own their home outright, social renters, the retired and those looking after homes all voted to leave.” That is probably true, but then again it is just people voting out of self-interest. For what other reason do people cast their vote? The common good? The benefit of their fellow wo/man? 😀
Enya
August 17, 2020 at 2:54 pm
It is also strange to see those who own their home outright and social renters in the same camp. But, say hypothetically, what would be the position of those in-work and mortgaged when they had paid off the mortgage and retired? They would be voting for Brexit. That’s what!
Enya
August 17, 2020 at 3:00 pm
Hi Shona from Huddersfield 🙂 You are through to Ipswich Unemployed Action 🙂 What’s your point, caller? 🙂
Shock Jock
August 18, 2020 at 4:37 pm
George think you’re right, but I’d still have to have contact with a roach and would have to do what they said, apply for any jobs they tell me to, I could still face sanctions I think. Im not prepared to risk it.
katrehman
August 17, 2020 at 2:01 pm
Or the DWP will invent a new system of cryogenic freezing. And the long-term unemployed will be stored in suspension, saving benefit payments. Then they can be defrosted at some future time, when perhaps there is work again.
Darren
August 17, 2020 at 11:06 am
And if work proves not to be forthcoming insofar as the old stock is concerned then the protein and still viable vital organs of those in cryogenic suspension could be recycled/repurposed/reused to benefit those alive and unfrozen in what then would be the real world.
Walter 'Walt' Disney
August 17, 2020 at 2:02 pm
” In you go Superted, into the Cryogenic Chamber..”
” But I’m not signing anything ! ”
” Doesn’t matter… Guards put him in ! and set for minus 120 degrees. ”
Francis 6
August 17, 2020 at 1:22 pm
The Cryonics Institute advertises cryopreservation packages from $28,000 to $35,000.
Currently cryonics is not legally allowed to be carried out on living people.
Alcor offers two options, with a whole body preservation starting at a minimum policy of $200,000 and neuropreservation requires a minimum policy of $80,000.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/does-cryogenic-preservation-work-and-how-much-does-it-cost-everything-you-need-to-know_uk_582ed68ce4b09025ba31ddbb?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAASETmgBbhAENNB06L5KKu8eFPMjEh-UQfdg3c70o9t3Sb-e8CJ4Ly0U5EZYANHQBcOdE64hKmhkTt3FiqbAlFZriEpkVyijzsoiL5nNXz1QvaKhz-k2DULqfRObPy9mAL2MQXwYj78fHuwA_yxhauTXuvFkL-a2kwEBwbiTzI83
superted
August 17, 2020 at 1:28 pm
Thing is the water present in somatic cells, particularly brain cells, which cannot be extracted prior to freezing expands at sub-zero temperatures and irreparably damages those cells even after most of the blood in the circulatory system has been flushed and replaced by a solution of antifreeze fluid. Basically the brain turns to mush. So to reanimate a frozen body the aforementioned damage to somatic cells, especially brain cells, would have to be repaired and reversed. There is no known way to do anything remotely like this at present or ever likely to be in the future; it would be like building a living person from the dead cells of a corpse. It is unlikely to impossible that such corpsicles could ever be revived.
Quinn
August 17, 2020 at 2:18 pm
Superted has had both hands chopped off so that no matter how much pressure the jobcentre or provider put on him he can’t sign anything. Not a lot of people know that.
Samurai
August 17, 2020 at 2:21 pm
i just say no thanks as i am not required buy law and dwp regulations not to sign any 3rd party’s paperwork. contracts or enrollment forms for funding.
😉
superted
August 17, 2020 at 2:38 pm
Whose law? The DWP IS the Law!
Therese
August 17, 2020 at 2:48 pm
It is not a mandatory requirement for claimants to fill in or sign any provider
forms or documents when participating in a provider led mandatory activity or
programme.
Because it is not mandatory, there is no recorded data held detailing any
action DWP or a provider can take against those who have declined to sign
said forms or documents.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/310933/response/760040/attach/html/3/FOI%20152%20Rev.pdf.html
superted
August 17, 2020 at 2:52 pm
Just a load of legal flimflam. Regardless, it still remains a condition of claiming benefits that you do whatever the DWP tells you to. We own you! If your work coach says: “Jump!”, you ask: “How high?”.
Therese
August 17, 2020 at 3:06 pm
And just to be clear, you have NO legal rights whilst claiming benefits. You are subject to the DWP’s own rules and regulations. End of!
Therese
August 17, 2020 at 3:09 pm
i came ,they saw, i kicked there ass!
i have been doing this for the last ten years i have not had to stay at any provider since 2009.
superted
August 17, 2020 at 3:13 pm
I AM THE LAW!!!
Judge Dredd
August 17, 2020 at 5:45 pm
Welfare Weekly
Nearly 200,000 over 50s forced into ‘retiremennt’
https://welfareweekly.com/nearly-200000-over-50s-forced-into-retirement-since-the-covid-outbreak/
trev
August 17, 2020 at 3:40 pm
Andrew Coates
August 17, 2020 at 6:35 pm
I don’t see any particular action from the government about the coming jobs disaster. They are still going to stop the furlough scheme in October. But there seems to be no particular plan for what happens after this. When we are faced with mass unemployment.
Alan Turner
August 17, 2020 at 7:25 pm
@ Alan
Just the same old clap-trap:
Chancellor Rishi Sunak said the latest labour market figures showed government support measures were working to safeguard millions of jobs.
He added: “I’ve always been clear that we can’t protect every job, but through our Plan For Jobs we have a clear plan to protect, support and create jobs to ensure that nobody is left without hope.”
https://www.lep.co.uk/business/true-scale-unemployment-preston-revealed-2940556
But from Labour:
However, Labour are also calling on the government to make immediate changes to the benefits system, to ensure no one is forced into hardship.
Jonathan Reynolds MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said: ‘These figures show the severity of the crisis we are facing.
“Unfortunately these claimants will now discover the UK has one of the weakest out of work safety nets in the developed world.
“We support the changes the Government has made so far during the outbreak, but they do not match the scale of the crisis”
https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/unemployment-benefit-claims-soar-lancashire-18276068
trev
August 17, 2020 at 7:38 pm
And more clap-trap:
Minister for Employment Mims Davies MP said: “We know that people are worried about their livelihoods which is why we’ve put in place a Plan for Jobs.
“A crucial part of that is doubling the number of frontline Work Coaches so that every jobseeker gets support to find work as well as launching the Kickstart scheme to create hundreds of thousands of new, fully subsidised jobs for young people across the country”
https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/unemployment-benefit-claims-each-part-18610726
trev
August 17, 2020 at 7:49 pm
all work coaches do is sanction ppl or try to and send them on pointless provider courses making bath bombs ect ect.
over the years i must have been given about 5 jobs to apply for and show them proof that i did apply, not that they could check if it was real anyway gdpr! lol.
all they really do in my case is enter my ni number in to the lms to authorise my jsa payment.
13500 new wc are not going to do anything might as well buy traffic cones and put them in a chair behind a desk.
this is only going 2 ways full on conditionality psycho mode or just dont bother at all and give the amount of times they have tried to sanction me over the years it will be option 1 or give it a good go first and see what happens.
the dwp do not care if you live or die starving to death on the street so do not listen to what anyone says working for the dwp there all full of shit back stabbing psychopaths after a Christmas bonus and you are there little profit unit.!
superted
August 17, 2020 at 8:05 pm
Of the very few times a Work Coach has given me a job to apply for none have ever been suitable. One such job was nearly 20 miles away, out in the sticks with a poor bus service, meaning you’d have no chance in Winter and even on a good day would have taken me 2 hours, besides which it stipulated in the job description that applicants should either live nearby or have own transport. Why the hell she told me to apply for that God only knows!
trev
August 17, 2020 at 8:41 pm
it is because if you dont apply for it then they will raise a ase doubt for not applying for work but what they do not realise is it is only 1 job so if you have applied for other jobs and can prove this then the ase doubt will be dropped as wont win at a tribunal if you take it that far.
problem is most ppl dont bother to fight them and take the hit as they dont care if you can do the job or even get there in the first place it is a setup for you to fail on purpose.
one coach found a job 90mins away and told me to catch a bus as he had aa rout finder and said it was in range until i pointed out the bus has to stop at a thing called a bus stops so ppl can get on and off so it would take over 2hrs to get there on a bus and id have to catch another to where it was as i dont have a car!
i could go on but you get the idea of the nonsensical crap they try to come up with and set you up to fail from the first meeting.
and since the tribunal i dont have a work coach as no one wants me on there case load because if they try another sanction it will be going to a tribunal and if i win again it will cost them there job for gross misconduct like the last 2 i disposed of 😉
they tried to set me up for a sanction but had no idea i was the one pulling the strings and even showed them the foi requests from the dwp and carried on anyway and both lost there jobs and i got my £300 back. 😉
superted
August 17, 2020 at 9:21 pm
You could give every single claimant their very own coach who coaches that one person alone; what good though if there’s not a job for every single claimant??
katrehman
August 17, 2020 at 7:51 pm
Exactly. It just keeps the Coaches in work. And the G4SS guards. I wouldn’t mind if there were any jobs nearby, actually in the town where I live, but most are agency work situated at least 10 miles away, which doesn’t sound very far if you’ve got a car but by crappy public transport that equates to at least a 90 mins. journey, that’s 3 hours travelling per day on top of an 8 – 10 hour shift, 15 hours per week of walking, waiting, sitting on buses.
trev
August 17, 2020 at 8:00 pm
But Superted, don’t you agree on your commitment to apply for any jobs your advisor tells you to? And that you might be sanctioned if you fail to do so?
katrehman
August 17, 2020 at 10:19 pm
they never had any jobs in my county but yes if they give me a job to apply for i will and show them a email receipt it has been done.
got over 12000 now so any job to give me to apply for i have already done it 20 times anyway and all zero hr jobs and dont even get a interview so a total waste of time.
superted
August 17, 2020 at 10:32 pm
@katrehman – You have to make the applications, or be sanctioned. But there is nothing to say that these need be enthusiastic applications. And the result of a token but largely unimpressive application is that it doesn’t work. Not suprisingly. And there is so much of this nonsense going on in the benefit system at the moment. Because people are being forced to apply for unsuitable jobs that they don’t want to do.
Tom Sutton
August 17, 2020 at 11:06 pm
for i will and show them a email receipt it has been done.
Before they went recorded delivery “A doubt has arisen” and a letter at home saying that I was unsuccessful the other was on their desk.They don’t bother now with vacancies like they used too and you do need to keep proof of whats sent.
That coronavirus sandwich plant has been in the news.
https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2020/08/ms-sandwich-makers-threatened-with-pay-dock-if-they-self-isolated/
ken
August 17, 2020 at 11:38 pm
I have just ‘applied’ for a job in a ‘chicken processing plant’. It involves ‘welcoming the new arrivals’ i..e shacking them at the beginning of the line before they head of to a horrible death. I have also applied for jobs in abattoirs and fish processing plants. You gotta keep those job applications going 😀
Valerie the Vegan
August 18, 2020 at 8:27 am
The crème de la crème of clap-trap:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-plan-for-jobs-documents/a-plan-for-jobs-2020
https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/a-plan-for-jobs-2020
trev
August 17, 2020 at 8:47 pm
@trev- You can see that there are going to be problems, if you find yourself signing with an obviously struggling Work Coach. Too many claimants, not enough time, and the management breathing down their neck about targets ( sorry, ‘expectations’ ). They are faced with another quarterly appraisal, and they haven’t shifted many claimants from their list.The DWP are just as strict on their staff, none of them is more than a few bad results away from disciplinary proceedings for under-performance. So the Work Coach starts trying to shove every claimant they can into employment, a placement or anything else they can write up.
And of course you also have the ultra-keen new Work Coaches, and the departmental crawlers, trying to prove how good they are. Then comes the completely unsuitable, forced job application. and that old favourite ”It’s a job you can do..”, as if that says it all.
Jeff Smith
August 17, 2020 at 10:57 pm
Roaches freak out when they come up against a more reticent claimant who doesn’t fall for their usual shtick and is not so easy to remove from their list. As coachy would say: “It looks as if I am not doing my job”. These roach bastards are under pressure to get claimants off the book – that is the whole raison d’être [reason for being] of a work coach.
Chantelle D'Fleurs
August 18, 2020 at 8:15 am
I had the forced job application, done to me a few times, no regards about my disability and whether I can do the job safety, I have applied for every job the job centre give me, I wonder how many work coaches are kissing their managers asses.
None of the work coaches want to be on the other side ot the desk, being talked to like a piece of dirt, worthless, lazy etc.
my_final_username
August 18, 2020 at 11:07 am
On another note, what did you all think of the Yorkshire Jobcentres last night??
katrehman
August 18, 2020 at 6:14 am
Didn’t watch the second episode.
The Guardian TV guide had this, which put me off,
“It’s billed as ‘Yorkshire’s busiest Jobcentre”, but it might also be the loveliest. The saintly staff here are dedicated to helping out people like such as Gaz a 17-year old former cage fighter, and single mum Olivia, who’s had to give up her receptionist job to care for a child with special needs.”
Andrew Coates
August 18, 2020 at 6:56 am
They should have filmed it in Bradford rather than Leeds, would have been a lot more of an entertaining eye-opener in a down-to-earth depressing sort of way.
trev
August 18, 2020 at 9:54 am
Lovely indeed on camera lol…..
katrehman
August 18, 2020 at 10:37 am
@andrew coates – Presumably the TV crew went through every claimant in that jobcentre looking for the ones with the best dramatic potential.
Jeff Smith
August 18, 2020 at 12:30 pm
I forgot all about it Kat, was watching something on CBS Reality about a serial killer/rapist/arsonist dubbed the “Granny Killer” in America, which just like the Jobcentre was the stuff of nightmares!
trev
August 18, 2020 at 9:49 am
I was handled a job to apply for which I was clearly not suitable to do, because of my disability by one advisor this was way before univerial credit came into play.
Don’t get me started with A4e when it was no deal we were expected to apply for any and everything whether or not was suitable, whether we had disabilities, health issues, are what the staff wanted was outcome payments.
Some employers must be getting annoyed with people applying for jobs where there are not clearly suitable to do the job/
my_final_username
August 18, 2020 at 7:45 am
The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.
— Muhammad Ali
Thought for the Day
August 18, 2020 at 7:55 am
It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
— Henry David Thoreau
Another Thought for the Day
August 18, 2020 at 7:57 am
The man who views the world at sixty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life 😀
— trev’s mum
trev's mum
August 18, 2020 at 8:03 am
The man who views the world at sixty the same as he did at twenty has wasted forty years of his life 😀
— trev’s aunt (who can count, unlike his mum)
trev's aunt
August 18, 2020 at 8:08 am
https://www.pcs.org.uk/department-for-work-and-pensions/news/dwp-return-to-work-plans
“DWP has no current plans for any largescale return to the workplace for those working from home”
PCS
August 18, 2020 at 11:47 am
I know one thing, I’m claiming from home from now on.
Dave Blunt
August 18, 2020 at 12:26 pm
Thing is that 60% of DWP staff don’t work from home.
Knobby Joker
August 18, 2020 at 3:46 pm
DWP Return to Work plans
17 Aug 2020
Since the start of the Covid 19 crisis the majority of DWP staff have continued to work from their workplace. This remains the case. The main reason for this was that DWP did not have the technical equipment to facilitate large scale working from home in the way that other government departments did
A small number of staff were able to work from home from the outset. This number has gradually increased and now around 40% of DWP staff are working from home. This number is primarily made up of staff who were identified as vulnerable and placed on Special Leave With Pay at the start of the crisis. Over time DWP has acted to move these staff from SLWP to working from home as additional IT kits were supplied.
DWP has no current plans for any largescale return to the workplace for those working from home, though a small number have been allowed to move to working from the workplace where they have special circumstances (e.g. suffering mental health problems die to working from home) or if that is their preference. Another factor why DWP is not pushing for a largescale return to the workplace is that the space freed up by those working from home or on SLWP is being utilised to accommodate the thousands of new staff that DWP is currently recruiting. The need to maintain social distancing is another factor limiting the numbers that could be asked to return to the workplace. Where social distancing cannot be achieved in sites because there are too many staff on site some staff are being asked to work from home. Criteria have been drawn up to select staff for this.
In the longer term DWP is unlikely to make all its staff return to the workplace as it has learned that most DWP job roles can be done effectively at home. DWP faces a major accommodation problem as they try to recruit 17,000 staff and maintain social distancing. They are therefore running pilots currently where staff work some of the week in the office and some at home with a view to this becoming a more permanent arrangement. It therefore seems likely that a mixture of working from the workplace and working from home will continue for the foreseeable future. – PCS Union Site
Frank Taylor
August 18, 2020 at 12:58 pm
So the Jobcentres are not reopening any time soon, if ever. This could be a shift towards the end of Jobcentres, apart from some bright spark’s brainwave to hire thousands more extra staff! A decision that may have be revoked.
trev
August 18, 2020 at 1:07 pm
The idea behind Universal Credit was for claimants to manage their claims online and for them themselves to be managed online, via the Journal, by DWP staff remotely. This isn’t better than visiting a Jobcentre because people find it much easier to sanction somebody they haven’t met than someone they have, face to face. Also to be completely effective work-search details have to be maintained, online, via the Journal meaning you have to diarise everything you do precisely and regularly because you can’t delete any data once stored. Speaking personally I would much rather a fortnightly visit to the Jobcentre than being scrutinised and monitored by DWP personnel and/or knowledge based, artificially intelligent computer systems via the web digitally 24/7.
Be careful what you wish for.
Grok
August 18, 2020 at 3:44 pm
Good point, and no doubt an online system that also uses algorithms for grades and sanctions.
Andrew Coates
August 18, 2020 at 3:47 pm
A virtual prison. Then what we need is for UC to be scrapped altogether, but that is doubtful.
trev
August 18, 2020 at 3:56 pm
This is how sanctions work. Coachy ‘raises a doubt’. ‘Decision Maker’ in a remote office ‘allows’ the doubt. End of. Else the ‘decision maker’ ‘recommends a sanction’. Send to Coachy. Coachy can then apply the sanction: “We have decided that you failed to blah, blah. Your money will go down a bit from X to Y” or Coachy can decide not to apply the sanction: “We have decided that you failed to blah, blah. We have decided that a sanction would not be appropriate”.
Sarah
August 18, 2020 at 4:04 pm
When you are captured by enemy combatants your survival training teaches you to try and ‘humanise’ yourself with your captors. Let them see a human being not an enemy soldier. That way they are less likely
to do something ‘bad’ to you. With remote jobcentre staff and even worse ‘algorithms’ they don’t ‘see’ a flesh-and-blood human being in front of them only a NINO (National Insurance Number). You can’t sit across from a desk and say to them: “How could you do that to me?”.
"A.B." - Ex-SAS
August 18, 2020 at 4:15 pm
@ “A.B.” – Ex-SAS
Yes. That’s why it feels less bad to kill people with drones, missiles, bombs, mines, mortars, gas etc. When you can’t see the people and are isolated from the death and destruction you are causing it’s much easier to to terrible things to large numbers of people and then go home and sleep at night – just like it’s easier to shoot somebody a long way away with a rifle than stab them to death close up.
Manui dat cognitio vires
August 18, 2020 at 5:55 pm
what type of work would a work coach do at home. doesn’t sound very secure.
big bird
August 18, 2020 at 3:24 pm
They will sit in front of a mirror and practice frowning and asking themselves stupid questions.
trev
August 18, 2020 at 3:33 pm
Boris Johnson must ‘treble sick pay and boost Universal Credit to stop kids starving’
EXCLUSIVE: TUC boss tells the Sunday Mirror that kids will go hungry if the Government doesn’t increase benefit payments for their out of work parents
[BUT AS USUAL ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION OF JSA]
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-must-treble-sick-22528507
trev
August 18, 2020 at 3:29 pm
@trev – People on JSA are the forgotten claimants. An inconvenient reminder of the long-running, expensive disaster of Universal Credit. Everyone should have been transferred years ago. The DWP know people don’t want to transfer voluntarily, to what is basically an online prison for the unemployed. And they can’t force them with their Mandatory Migration programme, because it’s all been stopped in its tracks by coronavirus.
So they sulk in Caxton House, deliberately refuse them an equal benefit rate with Universal Credit.
And try to pretend the JSA claimants don’t exist.
Jeff Smith
August 18, 2020 at 5:41 pm
That’s very true Jeff, but you would expect those who are being critical of UC (in this case Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the TUC) and others such as members of the Opposition and the media, to not ignore those on JSA but it never gets a mention by anyone! And it’s not that often that we hear much criticism or commentary about UC from the Opposition apart from a few comments John Reynolds has made, and Starmer said that UC is in need of a overhaul, and that’s about all. It’s astonishing that the Tories have so easily got away with denying the £20 Covid increase to JSA claimants, and it seems from that article that even the TUC have abandoned us.
trev
August 18, 2020 at 6:46 pm
David Icke never stops talking about “the grave injustice being inflicted on legacy JSA claimants”. It is almost as if legacy JSA and UC are on different vibrational frequency planes. The harmonics are at odds.
Eve
August 18, 2020 at 6:57 pm
Surely they can’t just keep increasing Universal Credit and ignoring Jobseekers Allowance ?
Like some childish Tory game ?
At what point is Sir Keir Starmer going to say enough is enough, and put a stop to this ?
Jack Reid
August 18, 2020 at 5:47 pm
Andrew Coates
August 18, 2020 at 3:45 pm
I’ve been signing via post for about 4+ years after using my phone to record aggressive staff members. First ‘offense’ = 3 month ban from the JC, subsequent ‘offenses’ = 6 month ban. About 2 1/2 years ago they went mental and attempted to restrict the format of the jobsearch evidence I provide and sanctioned me for 10 weeks in a row. This resulted in a summons to court for non payment of council tax, rent arrears etc etc. When the 10 weeks of sanctions were finally found in my favour (about 4 months later) they gave up. I haven’t provided any jobsearch evidence for 2+ years, and they just keep sending me money.
BoredBoredBored
August 18, 2020 at 4:10 pm
Even in the Jobcentres certain claimants get away with not providing job-search evidence. If challenged they either simply shrug their shoulders/laugh/don’t respond. Certain claimants will also mention that they work part-time. Coachy will just smile and brush over it. You will have to figure out who these ‘certain claimants’ are, who appear to be on some sort of ‘Feather-Touch Regime’. It pays to spend some time on a Jobcentre wall.
Jobcentre Fly-on-the-Wall
August 18, 2020 at 4:28 pm
We need a General Claimants Strike. No more signing, no more jobsearch. Until the legacy claimants are paid an equal rate.
Darren
August 18, 2020 at 5:52 pm
How will that work when such a strike would only hurt the strikers themselves? The strike weapon only works if you can make those struck against suffer some kind of penalty, e.g., business closure. All a claimant strike would do would be to REDUCE the workload of the DWP and REDUCE money paid out by government in benefits when every striker contravening their claimant commitment got sanctioned.
What a daft idea.
Janet Jones
August 18, 2020 at 6:00 pm
No dafter than any of trev’s ideas.
Vote Corbynn
August 18, 2020 at 6:12 pm
Unlike yourself who obviously has no ideas.
trev
August 18, 2020 at 6:49 pm
@Janet Jones: No. I agree with Darren. If there was a General Claimant Strike it would cause political chaos, and mass disturbances. The whole system would implode, which would force an examination of how it is run.
Patrick H.
August 18, 2020 at 8:17 pm
@ Janet Jones
We live in a democracy where everybody over eighteen has the franchise and most people in the country are sensible, law abiding and decent people just trying to get by who accept the election of a government by the people as legitimate and lawful. That is why there will not be any “claimant strike” or anything remotely similar. Nothing to do with “brainwashing” or any lack of fire in the belly or whatever. I don’t believe that anybody reading these words really thinks that benefit claimants are going to start occupying or picketing Jobcentres en masse. And if they did not one single political party, trade union or member of parliament would be on their side. Surely people realise this don’t they? Most people are sane enough and savvy enough to know this is true surely?
Sea Swallow
August 19, 2020 at 8:48 am
@ Darren
We are powerless and they know it, that’s how they get away with it. In France they would have burned down the Jobcentres.
trev
August 18, 2020 at 6:55 pm
There must be something in the UK tap water (and maybe added to bottled water) that keeps us all medicated. We are docile. We are lobotomised. We have no mojo. We have no fight. We have no spirit. We have no get up a go… burn down the Jobcentre. We should all drink Evian like the French.
Carole
August 18, 2020 at 7:02 pm
Long time no see, trev. Still talking crap as usual aren’t you.
Dave Nellist
August 18, 2020 at 7:11 pm
Gosh, an unprovoked and unwarranted personal attack by an internet nobody, what a surprise!
trev
August 18, 2020 at 7:33 pm
You’ve got a thing about Jobcentres haven’t you trev? Is that what you’d like to see in the UK? Burning down Jobcentres? Really? And what would that achieve? Apart from winning you a custodial sentence behind bars for arson? You make me chuckle. Some mothers do ‘ave ’em.
Freeman Dyson
August 19, 2020 at 8:38 am
@ Freeman Dyson
I did not say that anyone should burn down the Jobcentres, obviously that is not something I can condone as it would be illegal and highly irresponsible. I merely remarked that is the kind of thing that our French comrades are often driven to do, whereas we Brits are far more moderate and reserved.
trev
August 19, 2020 at 8:55 am
Don’t try this…
France Nantes: Man burns himself to death at job centre
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21442879
trev
August 19, 2020 at 9:22 am
@ trev
I agree with you that you are powerless, mate.
Surgical Support
August 19, 2020 at 8:50 am
Ha, ha, ha. Claimants going on strike! Reminds me of the black sheriff in Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles who, when threatened with being lynched by some townsfolk, put his own pistol to his head and threatened to shoot himself unless they let him alone. A claimant’s strike. Jesus. Strike a light.
Vlad to be Glad
August 19, 2020 at 12:02 pm
I went pass the job centre I go to, 3 g4s stood outside doing not a lot, apart from taking 2 minutes fresh air.
my_final_username
August 18, 2020 at 7:21 pm
@trev: You keep posting sensible, thoughtful ideas Trev. Don’t let these idiots put you off. Unlike you, they have nothing useful to say.
Helen
August 18, 2020 at 8:20 pm
Agree, Helen.
Andrew Coates
August 18, 2020 at 9:44 pm
I agree too Trev don’t let the idiots shut u up x
katrehman
August 19, 2020 at 6:13 am
What sensible ideas has trev put forward? And where can I find them? I must have missed the posts which contained them and would very much like to acquaint myself with the thoughts of the great man. Thanks in advance for pointing me in the right direction.
Hadrian Wall
August 19, 2020 at 8:54 am
@Hadrian Wall – look for the posts of true socialist, a man of the people. Not afraid to stand up for the underdog with dignity and compassion. Someone who puts the interests of others first, modest in his own needs. With a strong concern for truth, justice and fairness in society.
Alan Turner
August 19, 2020 at 5:33 pm
Just reading the news and there are more job losses announced by Easyjet, jet2, Marks & Spencer, Pizza Express, and Yo Sushi. Many more to come no doubt.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/high-street-job-losses-hit-22543196
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53817598
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/yo-sushi-preparing-axe-250-22522327
https://metro.co.uk/2020/08/18/pizza-express-close-73-restaurants-putting-1100-jobs-risk-13146161/
https://www.flightglobal.com/networks/easyjet-confirms-axing-of-three-uk-bases/139795.article
trev
August 18, 2020 at 10:15 pm
Andrew Coates
August 19, 2020 at 6:05 am
I’d be a bit more impressed if Labour called for the legacy benefit claimants to get the extra £20 per week.
Tom Sutton
August 19, 2020 at 2:22 pm
Back in the day a friend of mine stagged a peaceful sit in at the housing offices refusing to move until something was done about her situation, I know we have covid but how about a claimants mass occupation
At JCP? AS a strike? With masks and gloves obviously. Would this be possible? I’m not sure, I haven’t signed on in nearly a decade now thankfully. …food for thought! Or working with maybe DPAC or another claimants group to march on London or even your local Town Hall /JCP if money is too tight for travel?
katrehman
August 19, 2020 at 6:19 am
I’M guessing that readers of my son’s comments don’t spend a lot of time reading the Conservative press. Well, I do – and it is often highly illuminating. Not least in their recent attitude to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. He was hailed as nothing less than a blue messiah when he renegotiated the Brexit deal last year and then won a near landslide in the December General Election.
How long ago that seems. Tory commentators and many MPs are deeply dischuffed with Mr Johnson, and not just because his Government made an even worse cock-up of the exams than the Scottish Government. Negotiations resumed this week over the withdrawal agreement with the European Union, and it is safe to say that expectations among the Conservative faithful are not high.
Indeed, Brexiter Tory MPs, like Iain Duncan Smith, fully expect a sell-out. They think Mr Johnson is preparing to accept a whole range of EU regulations even after we have left. This means no trade deals with free market America, no state aid to key industries, no low tax havens and a “betrayal” of fishing.
Tory MPs hoped that Boris would be tough on immigration, would cut taxes and rein back bureaucracy, while tackling political correctness and the nanny state. What they got was a bicycling PM who seems to be tough on motorists, not illegals. He has adopted what the Spectator columnist Christopher Snowden, calls “purse-lipped, micro-managing, finger-wagging, lemon-sucking, censorious, anti-business, killjoy policies” like the campaigns on obesity and sugar.
Not in their wildest dreams did true blue Tories expect their chosen one to increase public spending by more than any Labour government since 1945. Yet, this Government is currently paying the wages of half the working population through furlough, benefits and public sector employment. UK debt is now £2 trillion. Thank God Margaret Thatcher is not alive to see it.
Mr Johnson hasn’t even delivered on scrapping HS2, the fast rail line that most Tory MPs think is a white elephant. Instead, he is fantasising about building bridges between Scotland and Northern Ireland. Yet that is not going to keep the Union together. His Brexit deal, it is now clear, has created a gulf between the UK and Northern Ireland.
The province has remained in regulatory alignment with the European Union’s single market, which means that there must be the very border checks the PM promised would never happen. Worse, it has handed the SNP a genuine grievance: being denied access to markets with which Northern Ireland can trade seamlessly.
Tories are appalled by Mr Johnson’s lack of urgency on Scotland as support for independence grows. The former Tory leader, William Hague, said this week that if the PM doesn’t get his act together the UK will be finished within five years. Tories like Mr Hague think he allowed Nicola Sturgeon to play politics with the coronavirus.
What they didn’t anticipate was the cack-handed and contradictory approach taken by the UK Government. At first, the lockdown seemed to appeal to the British wartime spirit, which always goes down well on the Right. But far from winning a victory over this viral enemy, Britain has recorded the worst excess death rate in Europe and now the deepest recession.
Most Conservatives loath the imposition of masks, which the Daily Mail commentator, Peter Hitchens, calls “muzzles”, and which libertarians think are pointless impediments. Many Tory voters spend their holidays in France and the letters columns are full of people complaining about being forced back to Blighty even from regions of France where Covid is almost non-existent.
Yet this Conservative Government kept Britain’s airports open during the worst phase of the pandemic, allowing 18 million travellers to come to Britain largely unchecked, including a number from Covid hot spots like Italy and China. And don’t even mention track and trace.
The exams debacle was the final straw. Tory MPs want the head of the Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, on a plate for his chaotic U-turn, but the real criticism is of the Prime Minister. He should surely have seen this coming after the chaos in Scotland. It seems to many as if Mr Johnson isn’t really in charge.
His presentation has been lamentable, and even is greatest fans are disappointed with his bumbling delivery and lack of grip. He was never a detail man, and everyone knew he flew by the seat of his pants – that’s when he managed to keep them on.
Conservatives are pretty forgiving to politicians who think like they do, have the same instincts on nation and values. What is especially damaging is a growing sense that Mr Johnson is just not really a Conservative at all. They expected him to take a tough line with the statue topplers and culture warriors of Black Lives Matters. But instead of banging heads, he avoided confrontation and made only a routine condemnation of vandalism. He allowed Winston Churchill himself to be boxed up in Parliament Square. How could it come to this?
Part of the problem, I think, is that many Conservatives believed what Labour said about Mr Johnson – that he was a bit of a racist, misogynist, homophobic right winger. The most “right-wing prime minister in British history” as Labour’s John Mc Donnell called him. This he never was.
Colourful phrases about Burqa-wearers looking like letter boxes does not a white supremacist make. When he was London mayor, he was careful to keep the black and ethnic community onside and he used to lead LGBT marches wearing a pink stetson. When he became PM he installed more BAME ministers than all previous UK governments combined. You wont hear Mr Johnson using Daily Mail rhetoric about immigrants, he genuinely believes in state intervention and he is quietly a bit of a Europhile. Far from being a free market ideologue, Boris Johnson is a liberal, patrician Tory – more like Michael Heseltine, Brexit aside, than Margaret Thatcher.
The final insult was this Tory Prime Minister ennobling Claire Fox, a former Revolutionary Communist who used to support the objectives of the IRA. That was the final straw. As the Tory commentator Brian Monteith put it, many Conservatives now feel that they “voted Boris and got Corbyn”.
trev’s mum
trev's mum writes
August 19, 2020 at 8:05 am
I’M guessing that readers of my son’s comments don’t spend a lot of time reading the Conservative press. Well, I do – and it is often highly illuminating. Not least in their recent attitude to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. He was hailed as nothing less than a blue messiah when he renegotiated the Brexit deal last year and then won a near landslide in the December General Election.
How long ago that seems. Tory commentators and many MPs are deeply dis-chuffed with Mr Johnson, and not just because his Government made an even worse cock-up of the exams than the Scottish Government. Negotiations resumed this week over the withdrawal agreement with the European Union, and it is safe to say that expectations among the Conservative faithful are not high.
Indeed, Brexiter Tory MPs, like Iain Duncan Smith, fully expect a sell-out. They think Mr Johnson is preparing to accept a whole range of EU regulations even after we have left. This means no trade deals with free market America, no state aid to key industries, no low tax havens and a “betrayal” of fishing.
Tory MPs hoped that Boris would be tough on immigration, would cut taxes and rein back bureaucracy, while tackling political correctness and the nanny state. What they got was a bicycling PM who seems to be tough on motorists, not illegals. He has adopted what the Spectator columnist Christopher Snowden, calls “purse-lipped, micro-managing, finger-wagging, lemon-sucking, censorious, anti-business, killjoy policies” like the campaigns on obesity and sugar.
Not in their wildest dreams did true blue Tories expect their chosen one to increase public spending by more than any Labour government since 1945. Yet, this Government is currently paying the wages of half the working population through furlough, benefits and public sector employment. UK debt is now £2 trillion. Thank God Margaret Thatcher is not alive to see it.
Mr Johnson hasn’t even delivered on scrapping HS2, the fast rail line that most Tory MPs think is a white elephant. Instead, he is fantasising about building bridges between Scotland and Northern Ireland. Yet that is not going to keep the Union together. His Brexit deal, it is now clear, has created a gulf between the UK and Northern Ireland.
The province has remained in regulatory alignment with the European Union’s single market, which means that there must be the very border checks the PM promised would never happen. Worse, it has handed the SNP a genuine grievance: being denied access to markets with which Northern Ireland can trade seamlessly.
Tories are appalled by Mr Johnson’s lack of urgency on Scotland as support for independence grows. The former Tory leader, William Hague, said this week that if the PM doesn’t get his act together the UK will be finished within five years. Tories like Mr Hague think he allowed Nicola Sturgeon to play politics with the coronavirus.
What they didn’t anticipate was the cack-handed and contradictory approach taken by the UK Government. At first, the lockdown seemed to appeal to the British wartime spirit, which always goes down well on the Right. But far from winning a victory over this viral enemy, Britain has recorded the worst excess death rate in Europe and now the deepest recession.
Most Conservatives loath the imposition of masks, which the Daily Mail commentator, Peter Hitchens, calls “muzzles”, and which libertarians think are pointless impediments. Many Tory voters spend their holidays in France and the letters columns are full of people complaining about being forced back to Blighty even from regions of France where Covid is almost non-existent.
Yet this Conservative Government kept Britain’s airports open during the worst phase of the pandemic, allowing 18 million travellers to come to Britain largely unchecked, including a number from Covid hot spots like Italy and China. And don’t even mention track and trace.
The exams debacle was the final straw. Tory MPs want the head of the Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, on a plate for his chaotic U-turn, but the real criticism is of the Prime Minister. He should surely have seen this coming after the chaos in Scotland. It seems to many as if Mr Johnson isn’t really in charge.
His presentation has been lamentable, and even is greatest fans are disappointed with his bumbling delivery and lack of grip. He was never a detail man, and everyone knew he flew by the seat of his pants – that’s when he managed to keep them on.
Conservatives are pretty forgiving to politicians who think like they do, have the same instincts on nation and values. What is especially damaging is a growing sense that Mr Johnson is just not really a Conservative at all. They expected him to take a tough line with the statue topplers and culture warriors of Black Lives Matters. But instead of banging heads, he avoided confrontation and made only a routine condemnation of vandalism. He allowed Winston Churchill himself to be boxed up in Parliament Square. How could it come to this?
Part of the problem, I think, is that many Conservatives believed what Labour said about Mr Johnson – that he was a bit of a racist, misogynist, homophobic right winger. The most “right-wing prime minister in British history” as Labour’s John Mc Donnell called him. This he never was.
Colourful phrases about Burqa-wearers looking like letter boxes does not a white supremacist make. When he was London mayor, he was careful to keep the black and ethnic community onside and he used to lead LGBT marches wearing a pink stetson. When he became PM he installed more BAME ministers than all previous UK governments combined. You wont hear Mr Johnson using Daily Mail rhetoric about immigrants, he genuinely believes in state intervention and he is quietly a bit of a Europhile. Far from being a free market ideologue, Boris Johnson is a liberal, patrician Tory – more like Michael Heseltine, Brexit aside, than Margaret Thatcher.
The final insult was this Tory Prime Minister ennobling Claire Fox, a former Revolutionary Communist who used to support the objectives of the IRA. That was the final straw. As the Tory commentator Brian Monteith put it, many Conservatives now feel that they “voted Boris and got Corbyn”.
trev’s mumx
trev's mum writes
August 19, 2020 at 8:07 am
Check this out. What a load of old cobblers!
Private sector to deliver ‘new online, one-to-one job finding support service’.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/private_sector_to_deliver_new_on
jj joop
August 19, 2020 at 11:34 am
Well, currently, you can refuse to use any website or web-based service which plants cookies on your computer for any purpose. So you can say not to such a service if you want to I would imagine. Unless it’s just another common-to-garden Employment Agency knock-off where they send you vacancies and you apply separately. Man. If this goes ahead people will be bombarded by the shitest vacancies going and then some.
Boise
August 19, 2020 at 11:58 am
i get about 50 jobs per day sent via total jobs and cv library i could apply for every single one and id still not get a interview or a reply lol.
same old shit just delivered with a different brand shovel
superted
August 19, 2020 at 1:11 pm
Their the some of the best along with indeed.Find a job is the worst I’ve seen.Their looking for people like Kat for cleaning jobs with experience.As you say there’s nothing.
ken
August 19, 2020 at 6:33 pm
What? Online bullying by the private sector poverty pimps! Could this be the final nail in the coffin for the Department for Withholding Payments I wonder.
Cloverleaf
August 19, 2020 at 2:11 pm
It could be…….for The Department Without Pity.
Pete
August 19, 2020 at 2:56 pm
FOI Request fobbed-off with this reply:
1. Please provide all information held concerning how claimants who have do not have com-
puter skil s or access to a computer wil benefit from the one-to-one job finding support service.
2. Please provide all information held on the ‘additional intrensive support’ for those who have
been unemployed for at least three months.
3. Please provide details of the statutory provisions that al ow the details of claimants to be
passed to the private sector and information on the role of private sector in any sanctioning re-
gime related to the new service.
Yours faithfully,
J Roberts
DWP Response:
Regarding question 1 and 2 of your Freedom of Information request, I can confirm that the
Department holds the information you are seeking. However, Section 22 of the Freedom of
Information Act exempts this information from disclosure. This is because the information is
intended for publication at a future date.
This exemption requires the public interest for and against disclosure to be weighed in the bal-
ance. There is a public interest in information being released as soon as possible. However, I
am satisfied that there is a strong public interest in permitting public authorities to publish in-
formation in a manner and form and at a time of their own choosing. It is a part of the effective
conduct of public affairs that the general publication of information is a conveniently planned
and managed activity within the reasonable control of public authorities. I am satisfied that in
the instance the Department has a reasonable entitlement to make its own arrangements to do
so.
Regarding question 3 of your Freedom of Information request, I can confirm that the legislation
covering the administration of sanctions is already in the public domain and can be found on
http://www.legislation.gov.uk:
The Welfare Reform Act 2012
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/5/section/26/enacted
Universal Credit Regulations 2013 (S.I. 2013/376)
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/376/contents/made
If you have any queries about this letter please contact me quoting the reference number
above.
Yours sincerely,
DWP Central FoI Team
trev
August 19, 2020 at 11:50 am
Typical DWP, they tried to get the whole FOI thing scrapped a couple of years back. But its become too established now, and they couldn’t do it.
Jack Reid
August 19, 2020 at 2:52 pm
In this case Jack they seem to be claiming that it is in the public’s best interest not to disclose the requested information until at a later date, which makes no sense at all.
trev
August 19, 2020 at 3:06 pm
there going to give them the email address that you use to make a uc claim but under gdpr they will need you permission to send it to a 3rd party.
tho in the past they just sent whatever they had to providers thus why i do not give them anything anymore as cant send jack if they dont have it in the first place.
i doubt the foi will show up until it has all started rolling out and all will be told it is mandatory or else!
superted
August 19, 2020 at 3:27 pm
Strange that the disability organisations like DPAC have said nothing about the legacy claimants losing £20 per week. I posted a polite question about this on the DPAC site, pointing out it might prevent some of these forthcoming evictions, if ESA / JSA claimants had this extra money. DPAC just blanked out my question.
I wonder why ?
Jeff Smith
August 19, 2020 at 2:16 pm
Arguably, if claimants are to get a bonus for moving onto Universal Credit, shouldn’t they get a bonus for staying on Jobseeker’s Allowance ? Saving the cost of a transfer, and doing without the many advantages of Universal Credit. So that others can get jobs before them ?
Harold Pelham
August 19, 2020 at 2:26 pm
superted
August 19, 2020 at 2:35 pm
I wonder how many people will apply to be a work coach, or more likely be asked by their work coaches to apply for these jobs
my_final_username
August 20, 2020 at 9:29 am
German researchers will give a group of people £1,080 per month as part of an experiment to see whether universal basic income could work.
The study will see 120 people handed the cash with no means testing or limits on how it is spent, then monitored to see how their attitudes and behaviours change.
Another group of 1,380 people will not be given any money but will still have their attitudes and behaviours monitored, to see how they compare.
German researchers will give a group of 120 people £1,080 per month for three years as part of an experiment to see whether universal basic income could work (file image)
The experiment, which is being funded by an economic institute called My Basic Income using donations, will run for three years.
It comes as public support for basic income schemes rises across Europe amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Spain has already announced plans to introduce a scheme to kick-start its economy recovery, while a recent survey showed 55 per cent of Germans back the idea.
A similar survey in the UK back in May showed support at 51 per cent.
Jurgen Schupp, who is running the study, told Der Spiegel: ‘The debate about the basic income has so far been philosophical at best and a war of faith at worst.
It is – on both sides – shaped by clichés: Opponents claim that with a basic income people would stop working in order to sit on the couch with fast food and streaming services.
‘Proponents argue that people will continue to do fulfilling work, become more creative and charitable, and save democracy.
‘Incidentally, these stereotypes also flow into economic simulations as assumptions about the supposed costs and benefits of a basic income.
‘We can improve this if we replace these stereotypes with empirically proven knowledge and can therefore lead a more appropriate debate.’ – Daily Mail
Matthew G.
August 19, 2020 at 4:10 pm
@ Matthew G.
I could live quite adequately on £1,080 per month in this country, don’t know about in Germany. But if (in Uk) we got half that much, say £500 per month (in place of JSA) then that would provide me with the flexibility to do part-time or temporary work without fear of losing out and being worse off, whereas at the moment on Benefits I avoid doing part-time or temporary jobs because I would be worse off.
trev
August 19, 2020 at 6:47 pm
Me too, I don’t earn even 1000 a month!!! 500 is still more than one months pay for one cleaning contract: I could leave the early mng one, and live Comortably while I found another mini job or even a better job, I could probably take a break to study too
katrehman
August 20, 2020 at 6:12 am
This is what will be coming here when furlough ends!
Tigerlily
August 19, 2020 at 4:12 pm
Coronavirus: Staff in Greencore outbreak ‘using food banks’
Staff self-isolating after an outbreak of Covid-19 at a sandwich factory are having to use food banks and struggling with rent, a union has claimed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-53837308
ken
August 19, 2020 at 6:27 pm
They call me mad because I tell the truth.
An Old Man In A Chair
August 19, 2020 at 7:54 pm
Don Quixote had the same problem.
Sancho
August 20, 2020 at 10:07 am
ken
August 19, 2020 at 9:03 pm
This sort of thing has been happening for some time, even before Covid. The Jobcentre mentioned similar ‘opportunities’ to me a couple of times over the past two years or so. One was a large warehouse with a 6.00am start and I can’t remember if it was one or two weeks unpaid work before being guaranteed an interview. Another was at a well known biscuit manufacturers about 10 miles away and involved two weeks of unpaid onsite training followed by one week unpaid work before being guaranteed an interview for the job. I declined to take advantage of their offer. There’ll be more of this sort of thing to come no doubt.
trev
August 19, 2020 at 9:43 pm
These unpaid trials really debunk the slogans, a fair days work for a fair days pay, and also making work pay, I have long said, work indeed pays…. everyone but the poor sod actually DOING it, I wonder if employers risk assessments and insurances would cover any accidents these conscriptees have? Would they get adequate health and safety training?
katrehman
August 20, 2020 at 6:15 am
The Jobcentre is not telling you any lies when they say that “WORK PAYS”, it is YOU who make they false assumption that they mean that working will pay you. As you say, work DOES pay, just no those doing the actual work. The simple truth of the matter is that we live in a class society ruled by the ruling class. The class that produces wealth or makes the wealth of nature available is the working class – those who do the actual work. It is not moneylenders or landlords or those who invest capital in production that do work – they do no actual work and produce nothing.
As the saying goes, ‘only fools and horses work’
Josie
August 20, 2020 at 6:55 am
And if the Jobcentres were honest – which they are not – that is what they would be putting on their gaudy posters “JOBCENTRE PLUS – ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES WORK”.
Josie
August 20, 2020 at 6:58 am
Universal Credit does make work pay in the sense that you will always be at least 1p better off. The trouble is that UC doesn’t make work pay enough to make any difference unless the work has enough hours paid at a high enough rate.
Dobbin
August 20, 2020 at 10:00 am
I had an interview with B & Q for a warehouse job and really thought I’d got it. The following week I was told that they had given the post “internally” to somebody already working for them. Next week when I saw my Work Coach she told me about an “exiting opportunity” with B & Q which “might” lead to permanent work basically working for the company for four weeks for my benefits. Of course I refused. What a laugh! The company wouldn’t employ me for a wage but would welcome me with open arms if I came and worked for them for nothing! Get real people. Even when you’re unemployed and desperate there are certain lines that remain drawn in the sand and being made a fool of is one line I’m not prepared to cross.
Wrasse
August 20, 2020 at 10:06 am
“I feel completely worthless”
You will and I did on mandatory activity those two the manager and her assistant were very nasty,I was told “your one of my sucess stories bet you dont feel like one” it was very bad the bell was ringing upstairs and they were laughing downstairs.The manager said “I want it all” and was above herself and there was clear problems until two brave ladies spoke out the Jobcentre wern’t interested until then and the time spent at the providers offices after the complaints’.It affected my confidence the jobcentre musn’t have carried out any checks and theres always a pre negative air to the long term unemployed.
Always declare your disability exe you lose rights and as mentioned here.Never listen to the DWP who say you don’t have to tell them you will lose out on in work support and protection.
In the workplace, minority workers, older workers, and disabled workers are among the “protected groups” covered in Equal Rights legislation, and because of that status, they have legal recourse. Workplace bullies often avoid members of protected groups
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201301/are-you-easy-target-bullies
ken
August 20, 2020 at 8:21 pm
This has been going on for some time.
I knew a welder who did several months on one.
When he’d finished they said thank you very much and did not give him a job.
Andrew Coates
August 20, 2020 at 9:03 am
They did it to someone I know at Tesco and wasn’t offered an interview.
I was told that they had given the post “internally”
Some better companies’ do advertise recruit internally theres better support for mental health put on special duties, when not fully able and large break times often per hour and it’s a close teamwork built on trusting each other often a manager suggests someone or they use the agency reed employment.It’s all internal.
ken
August 20, 2020 at 11:49 am
anyone remember byte back computers in Bristol where a guy got the sack was sent to a provider and then was given a work placement where he was working b4 in the same job full time for his benefits.
holy shit kicked off over that on the void and there fb page was bombarded to the point they pulled out of workfair pmsl.
it is the same old crap over and over again! i have also been on so called courses where i was promised a interview at the end for a job in a service station, and it never happens. i was told at the end i lived in the wrong area.
superted
August 20, 2020 at 1:51 pm
The Void did an article back in 1014 on this Ted.
https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/fightback-against-byteback/
ken
August 20, 2020 at 5:37 pm
fook me im not that old pmsl 😉
superted
August 20, 2020 at 5:40 pm
Notice how those CCORN c**un**ts wouldn’t supply me with a face mask when I was working with toxic paint all day. Now I am expected to wear a face mask to pop round to the shops. Funny that 😉 What gives?
Fen Tiger
August 20, 2020 at 6:51 pm
For UC claimants only. No mention of legacy claimants.
Claimant commitments from July 1st 2020
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/claimant_commitments_from_july_1#incoming-1625493
jj joop
August 20, 2020 at 3:24 pm
This is deliberate ignoring of the legacy claimants. Can’t be anything else. As Jeff Smith and others have said, why isn’t more being said about this ? It’s not right, not at all. We’re still here on legacy JSA.
Pete
August 20, 2020 at 7:14 pm
”But, soft: behold ! Lo where it comes again !
I’ll cross it, though it blast me. – Stay, Legacy Claimant !
If thou hast any sound, or use a voice.
Speak to me ”.
The House Of Caxton
August 20, 2020 at 7:23 pm
We might as well be bloomin ghosts.
trev
August 20, 2020 at 7:30 pm
*rattles chains* *cries*
Legacy Claimant
August 20, 2020 at 8:22 pm
ken
August 20, 2020 at 8:30 pm
It may be quite some time before the Jobcentres reopen now that we’re entering a second wave of Coronavirus…
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1323663/Coronavirus-latest-second-wave-covid-19-deaths-UK-Boris-Johnson-update
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-second-wave-really-bumpy-22552967
trev
August 20, 2020 at 9:45 pm
” While the UK’s case total has shot up since lockdowns were lifted, the number of deaths has remained low.”
There is no second wave. Increased testing means more positive results. There is no new huge number of hospitalizations and no new huge number of deaths.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
Larry Grayson
August 20, 2020 at 10:01 pm
the flu wave in 2017-18 killed 50k plus as in excess death rates, did anyone wear a mask, nope there all full of shit and the proof is there if you bother to look for it.
cov19 has less death excess rates than the common normal flu season we are under the avg death rate for the last 5 years and the more they use there flawed test to get more positive tests the death rate goes down even lower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(United_States)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare
superted
August 20, 2020 at 10:06 pm
Someone I know was struggling to breath with the blue type mask with it on with sinus trouble but rather that then coronavirus.people don’t like them and pull them down.
ken
August 20, 2020 at 10:58 pm
Ken that’s interesting, I do have really bad sinus problems which got even worse after I tripped over a few years ago and needed my nose glued back together, wearing my mask at work (more to protect from disinfectant fumes) and out, I’ve been having a LOT of sinus pain!!
katrehman
August 21, 2020 at 5:54 am
If your nose has been whacked out of kilter, is crooked it is impossible to breathe wearing a face-nappy. Frgging ridiculous! TUUUNES!!
A Ticket to Dottingham Please
August 21, 2020 at 9:18 am
Lockdown fears for Birmingham
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/20/coronavirus-cases-in-england-increase-by-27-in-a-week
trev
August 20, 2020 at 10:18 pm
But like your friend I still DO wear a mask, I tried paper ones and fabric, all the same!
katrehman
August 21, 2020 at 5:55 am
Experts predict when coronavirus second wave could hit Norfolk – and warn of higher death toll
https://www.greatyarmouthmercury.co.uk/news/norfolk-council-bosses-reveal-when-they-expect-second-coronavirus-wave-1-6799497
trev
August 20, 2020 at 10:28 pm
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/health-news/12374033/more-die-flu-coronavirus-seven-weeks/
‘FLU has killed more people in the UK than coronavirus for seven weeks in a row, new stats reveal today.
Almost five times as many people are now dying of influenza or pneumonia than Covid-19, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics.’
‘Most of those who lost their lives were 75 or older, with 38,578 people in this age group dying with the illness in total.’
Larry Grayson
August 20, 2020 at 11:15 pm
Thing is, Lal, flu is less contagious than coronavirus and although flu deaths are more numerous, now, than coronvirus deaths if coronavirus isn’t controlled and starts spreading like it was a few months ago the position would be reversed quickly and thousands upon thousands of citizens expire from coronavirus more than flu.
Isla St Clair
August 21, 2020 at 8:46 am
Keep your kilt on Isla and stick to the singing.
Wee Burnie
August 21, 2020 at 5:19 pm
We are the Legacy Claimants,
And we’re still here just the same,
Even though the staff in Caxton House,
Will not speak our name.
There are still two million claiming,
And that’s an awful lot !
Though the DWP do all that they can,
To try and pretend that it’s not.
We’re the ones that wouldn’t transfer,
To Universal Credit,
So they blanked us altogether,
In their spite-filled little edit.
When they left the Legacy Claimants,
Down twenty pounds a week,
Money they gave to everyone else,
What a fucking cheek !
But don’t think we’re going to keep quiet,
As you ignore us every day,
For what we want is justice,
The Legacy Claimants say.
An extra twenty pounds a week,
Without any further delay !
Random Poet
August 20, 2020 at 10:41 pm
Good work Random ! It’s time those bastards gave us the 20 quid and no mistake !
Frank Taylor
August 21, 2020 at 10:41 am
Coronavirus infection rate in England up by a third in one week
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-england-infections-nhs-test-and-trace-cases-a9679966.html
trev
August 21, 2020 at 7:15 am
Is the death rate up by a third in one week ?
Larry Grayson
August 21, 2020 at 4:58 pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-53819623
1,000+ applied for this job.
my_final_username
August 21, 2020 at 7:47 am
So another week passes and, for me, no contact from the Jobcentre. In the past the Work Coaches have pursued people like hounds after foxes, trying to make life as unsettled and uncomfortable as possible hoping to drive people into jobs that are useless or don’t exist. I’m gobsmacked that after nearly four months no-one has chased me up or asked for work-search evidence or whatever. My UC continues to be paid automatically. I live in the rural southwest – one small city and a host of hamlets, villages and small towns – where jobs are widely scattered and public transport expensive and poor – and am having real trouble finding a couple of jobs that I could do and commute to on a weekly basis. Never seen things as bad as this before, not even during the 80s when industry and manufacturing collapsed under Thatcher, in the country where I live, never to recover.
What strange and tragic days we seem to be living in.
Ro
August 21, 2020 at 8:42 am
I have not heard from my work coach either, my new work coach was meant to phone me up in April/May?
my_final_username
August 21, 2020 at 10:12 am
Look on the bright side. If they are not talking to you, you don’t have to speak to them.
Silence Is Golden
August 21, 2020 at 10:46 am
All claimants, in particular Superted, are now being monitored using Remote Viewing.
We know exactly what you are doing.
Unit 19 DWP Psy-Ops
August 21, 2020 at 10:50 am
DWP docked 35,000 people’s benefits at height of coronavirus despite ending sanctions
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dwp-cut-35000-peoples-benefits-22551950
superted
August 21, 2020 at 12:18 pm
Tories urged to strenghthen welfare protections after 6 million fall behind on bills due to Covid
“Hardest hit include carers, key workers, black people, people with disabilities and those who are shielding”
https://welfareweekly.com/tories-urged-to-strenghthen-welfare-protections-after-6-million-fall-behind-on-bills-due-to-covid/
trev
August 21, 2020 at 2:09 pm
Sensational Alex Harvey Band
Whitey Bulger
August 22, 2020 at 5:13 am
Extended ban on renters evictions extended for one month
katrehman
August 21, 2020 at 5:13 pm
This is just to prevent mass evictions on Christmas by all accounts. Families in the snow etc.
Tom Sutton
August 21, 2020 at 5:25 pm
Winter in the northern hemisphere always starts around 21st 22nd 23rd of December, white Christmases are a bit of a myth. The coldest months are generally but not always January and February, autumn 1993 comes to mind as an exception.
MouthyPedant
August 21, 2020 at 11:31 pm
@ Cloverleaf
“lamestream media”
That sounds like something Trump might say. It was published in The Independent, not generally known for Political bias or being overtly sensationalist.
trev
August 21, 2020 at 9:29 pm
The Man from Atlantis is more believable than anything you say trev.
Don Lemon
August 22, 2020 at 4:23 am
You’re having a laugh. The ‘Independent’ is actually worse than The Guardian.
Miss Popov
August 21, 2020 at 11:56 pm
We are headed for the disaster of mass unemployment, and all the government can do about it is wait until it happens. It seems as if there is absolutely no long-term planning going on at all. Something happens, and then they improvise a policy.
Graham T.
August 22, 2020 at 11:36 am
One of the problems of the welfare system in this country is that it fails to answer the most basic question of all. Do you really want to work ?
Richard Price
August 22, 2020 at 11:41 am
@richard price : Indeed Richard, and that is one of the most profound questions of all.
John Sandley
August 22, 2020 at 2:22 pm
Considering that pretty much every job these days is getting dozens or even hundreds of applications, even for more menial positions, I would say yes people do want to work.
Bond
August 22, 2020 at 9:09 pm
This will be interesting to see, recently we haven’t been able to get even agency cleaners to help us as we have 2 cleaners off shielding, a couple years ago we were recruiting for a cleaner. We had issues with cleaners not wanting to clean toilets, so they offered a ( paid) trial shift to a couple ppl. Exactly the same hourly rate as the rest of us. One woman saw a poo in a toilet unflushed. We would have been grateful it was in the loo, not smeared up the walls or done on the floor or urinals, no this woman immediately left! And I totally get why ppl don’t want the jobs, not only the disgusting factor, we e had the usual bullying this holiday, if we don’t do a good enough job the head will get rid of us all and bring contract cleaners in. I don’t bother to reply now, we all know it’s not happening any time soon…..
Our checklist includes, dusting the legs of teachers chairs, removing the bottom row of tidy trays and cleaning ( even though all the rows get dirty) , washing every bottle of paint in cupboards, scrubbing grouting round windows, removing every trace of sellotape and blue tack from surfaces, washing chairs, I’ve even taken a toothbrush and scrubbed radiator grilles with it but nothing we do is good enough. It has nothing to do with covideo cleaning and everything to do with the dictator we have as a head. She’s known as a tyrant in our town and the exodus of staff from our place is biblical …..
katrehman
August 23, 2020 at 9:06 am
Welfare is about so much more than unemployment like pensions, sickness, disability, childcare,etc,etc.
Up till covid19, only a mere 880’000 of the 20 million (4.4%) claiming one or more welfare benefits was ever under the expectation of the requirement to find work.Half of that number were on ESA requiring support into work meaning calculating employer stigma that only 2.2% were actually viable and ever likely to get paid work even if insecure and or poorly paid.
Any new entrants recently as we know came from a preexisting working background prior to covid19.
Anyway the mandatory requirement in order to receive unemployment entitlement is that you do all you can to find,apply for and attempt to secure work. DWP does not care whether or not you really want to work, they are simply telling the claimant they must by means of force and threat weaved into the regulations.
Ultimately it is the prospective employers who choose who does and does not work, not the claimant or DWP.
Doug
August 22, 2020 at 10:25 pm
you have to take “reasonable” steps as defined in either the welfare reform act 2012 or jsa regulations 1996. Ultimately the burden of proof for what is “unreasonable” falls on DWP, but obviously for a claimant waiting months to get to a tribunal and watch DWP fail to prove their case potentially involves alot of poverty.
Nobody
August 23, 2020 at 1:15 pm
superted
August 22, 2020 at 1:15 pm
There is rather too much cut and paste posting on this blog now. Gone is the rich political discourse, and intellectual argument, that used to be so much a hallmark of Ipswich Unemployed Action. Instead of a considered response to some important point of debate, a ridiculous video scraped from the very bottom of the internet barrel is posted. This says nothing, but goes rather to the limitations of those posting.
Clarissa Darnley-Villiers
August 22, 2020 at 2:30 pm
Really Clarissa,
Have you never heard the saying “a picture can paint a thousand words”.
Doug
August 22, 2020 at 9:58 pm
@Clarissa Darnley-Villiers: So true my dear, and it just goes to show the evil effects of television on society.
Fiona Balmont-Lacey
August 23, 2020 at 11:00 am
Well I’m out of data til Sep. Anything in the meantime posted by “trev” is NOT me.
trev
August 22, 2020 at 7:46 pm
trev what would you do on uc if you have no data left and a wc changes your cc online, ur fucked and said this many years ago esp with sanctions as well, on line only is not a option and is going to be used to just end uc claims left right and center.
superted
August 22, 2020 at 9:05 pm
I would ordinarily visit the library every day, or use the computers in the Jobcentre, either of which is a mile and half walk, so 3 miles a day, 6 days a week, in all weathers.
trev
September 2, 2020 at 10:41 am
Ha! Fooled you. Just topped up using a voucher purchased from a local garage.
trev
August 23, 2020 at 8:24 am
Three do a rolling 200mb free per month data package.
Three Marketing
August 23, 2020 at 1:18 pm
@katrehman: Reminds me of visit I made to the toilet facilities at the local Coach Station a couple of years ago. Inside was a council cleaner wearing a High-Vis vest, with a mop and one of those metal buckets for rinsing the mop out. There was a line of cubicles on the other side of the room. The cleaner opened the end one, and there was a despairing cry of ”Oh f*****g hell !! ” Inside the cubicle, it looked as if someone had backed a horse into it, and then let it do its business. It was all over the inside, on the floor, everywhere. At that moment everyone in there was very glad not to be a toilet cleaner. How he was going to clean this with his rinse-mop, I had no idea.
George Mortimer
August 23, 2020 at 11:22 am
The only solution is to install CCTV in toilet cubicles.
Voy Ouer
August 23, 2020 at 12:35 pm
George sounds sadly familiar and sadly we can’t install cctv in loos apparently it’s against these filthy creatures human rights, well even my cat understands he has to wee and poo in his litter tray…..
katrehman
August 23, 2020 at 1:33 pm
https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/how-to-deal-with-clients-who-expect-you-to-work-for-free-050047556.html
explain this to those work coaches and dwp
my_final_username
August 23, 2020 at 2:23 pm
i use my magic word NO! 😉
superted
August 23, 2020 at 3:06 pm