Universal Credit Cut: Real Issues are Low Benefits and Failing Social Security System.
This was the alt-right reaction:
Universal credit: MPs urge PM to keep £20 benefit ‘lifeline’
MPs have urged Boris Johnson to extend benefit increases worth £20 a week.
A non-binding Labour motion calling for the universal credit top-up to be kept in place beyond 31 March passed by 278 votes to none after a Commons debate.
Six Tory MPs defied party orders to abstain and voted with Labour, adding to the pressure on the PM on the issue.
The prime minister said the government had provided £280bn worth of support during the pandemic but all measures would be kept under “constant review”.
The motion, which will not automatically lead to a change in policy, was put forward by Labour as a way to put additional pressure on the government to continue the increase, worth £1,000 a year.
The Guardian reports,
Ministers consider climbdown over ending universal credit boost
The Treasury is considering a partial climbdown over plans to end the boost to universal credit amid pressure from the work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, and after six Conservative MPs defied a call to abstain on a non-binding vote in the Commons.
Boris Johnson also hinted at a rethink over the £20-a-week uplift, which is due to end in April, saying the government wanted to ensure “people don’t suffer as a result of the economic consequences of the pandemic”.
The welfare minister, Will Quince, said a decision would be made closer to the 3 March budget because of the uncertain economic outlook. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Ipswich Unemployed Action. 
The Government may well be forced into a U-turn on this but they sure as hell won’t give an increase to so-called “legacy Benefits”, despite Johnson’s previous waffle about “levelling up” the inequalities that exist in the UK.
trev
January 19, 2021 at 11:22 am
It’s inexcusable to ignore the legacy claimants like this. But very much part of an obvious strategy
.Boris Johnson said a few days ago, that people should transfer to the ‘new system’, if they want to gain the advantages of it. He chose to forget, that this is not immediately possible for many disabled people.
Who make up the bulk of the remaining 2 million legacy claimants.
There are around 200,000 legacy JSA claimants left, and they might as well be at the Alamo for all the government cares.
Jeff Smith
January 19, 2021 at 2:11 pm
Universal Credit has been a disaster from the start, expensive and difficult to develop and implement, and disastrously complicated, inadequate and punitive for the end user. UC is unfit for purpose, as is any Social Security system that relies on threats and punishment to make it work. What sort of Social Security system is it that makes people poorer, pushes the poor in destitution, creates huge amounts of poverty nationally and directly causes the exponential growth in foodbanks?
trev
January 19, 2021 at 11:28 am
Punitive benefit sanctions, welfare conditionality, and the social abuse of unemployed people in Britain: Transforming claimants into offenders?
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/spol.12577
trev
January 19, 2021 at 12:11 pm
I entirely agree Trev. This is what is fundamentally wrong with Universal Credit. The Tories try to disguise the truth by pretending it is about efficiency, cost-saving, or getting people into work. The underlying principle of Universal Credit, is to control and discipline the unemployed. And this is why it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to reform the system.
Jeff Smith
January 19, 2021 at 2:19 pm
Here’s a good article from 2018…
“Universal credit? If Iain Duncan Smith is an architect of anything, it’s misery”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/12/universal-credit-iain-duncan-smith
trev
January 19, 2021 at 2:36 pm
And another one from 2016…
“The Iain Duncan Smith legacy? Universal credit will not transform welfare”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2016/mar/19/iain-duncan-smith-legacy
What a bloody shambles. Who in their right minds would have embarked on such an over-ambitious project to begin with? And who in their right minds would have entrusted such a project to Iain Duncan Smith ffs?
trev
January 19, 2021 at 2:43 pm
From 2017, this:
“Four reasons why welfare reform is a delusion”
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/four-reasons-why-welfare-reform-is-a-delusion/
trev
January 19, 2021 at 4:00 pm
“Time to look again at Basic Income – seriously”
https://www.thearticle.com/time-to-look-again-at-basic-income-seriously
trev
January 19, 2021 at 11:38 am
State Pension Age hits 66 – isn’t it time to consider allowing early access for those who desperately need it?
September 30, 2020
https://pensionsandsavings.com/state-pension-age-hits-66-isnt-it-time-to-consider-allowing-early-access-for-those-who-desperately-need-it/
trev
January 19, 2021 at 12:01 pm
State pension age has now risen to 66: Should people be allowed to draw state pension early but receive smaller payouts?
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-8810399/Should-people-allowed-draw-state-pension-early.html
trev
January 19, 2021 at 12:06 pm
”
Over-50s who lose jobs much more likely to stay unemployed, study finds
Amelia Hill
the Guardian
Older people more than twice as likely to be unemployed for two years or longer if they lose job
People aged over 50 who lose their jobs are significantly more likely to suffer long-term unemployment than other age groups, analysis has revealed.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/18/over-50s-who-lose-jobs-much-more-likely-to-stay-unemployed-study-finds
trev
January 20, 2021 at 10:23 pm
Reblogged this on Tory Britain! .
A6er
January 19, 2021 at 1:05 pm
[…] Universal Credit Cut: Real Issues are Low Benefits and Failing Social Security System. […]
Universal Credit Cut: Real Issues are Low Benefits and Failing Social Security System. | sdbast
January 19, 2021 at 1:43 pm
No shortage of criticism of the Tories’ catastrophic mismanagement of our Social Security system.
Here’s another one from 2019:
“We’ve had 10 years of misery. Only the Tories offer no solutions”
Patrick Butler
the Guardian
“Catastrophic universal credit and rising child poverty are in the sights of other parties. The Conservatives’ plans remain vague
Only one of the main parties regards the UK social security system as essentially fit for purpose – unsurprisingly the Conservative party, which has overseen it for the past nine years. After £34bn of benefit cuts since 2010, serial problems with its flagship benefit system, universal credit, and rising destitution among its poorest citizens, its manifesto message is broadly “we’ll give you more of the same”.
”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/10/welfare-misery-tories-universal-credit-child-poverty
trev
January 19, 2021 at 4:25 pm
Adherence to Civil Service Commissioner’s rules for Work Coach Recruitment
18 Jan 2021
This guidance replaces previous PCS advice.
Some members have received letters from DWP which tell them that:
“All of DWP’s Work Coach recruitment in September and October was treated as a single recruitment campaign by the Civil Service Commission. The application form which you submitted to us as your first application was considered and scored but did not score sufficiently highly for you to progress to interview. You were notified of this outcome by email. The score from this initial application should have been applied to your second and any subsequent applications which you made for the September/October Work Coach vacancies as they were all within a single recruitment campaign. However due to a system error you were invited to an interview from a later application which you made for the same recruitment campaign and then subsequently made a job offer in error for a Work Coach role.”
Members in this situation have been told: “In view of the circumstances DWP does not propose to withdraw your offer of your 12-month employment as a Work Coach and we have agreed with the Civil Service Commission an exception to the normal rules on fair and open competition. However, your continued employment in the role is conditional upon you agreeing that the following additions to your terms and conditions are acceptable to you, as they will apply to your 12-month appointment.”
PCS legal advice
PCS has taken legal advice for members in this situation. This advice is published below:
In summary, the DWP have asked employees to either accept revised terms and conditions of employment. This amounts to a proposal to vary their contract of employment. The employer states that if employees do not agree to the proposed revised terms and conditions of employment then they will have no alternative but to terminate their fixed post with the required notice under the contract.
Advice
I advised that the decision was ultimately up to each of your members. However, I can confirm that the employer can lawfully terminate these fixed term contracts with the appropriate notice.
A notice clause is included in the standard terms and conditions of employment and states:
“Unless a different notice period is agreed with you, the following notice periods will apply if you retire due to age, have your probationary appointment terminated or are dismissed (except for summary dismissal for an incident of gross misconduct where no notice is required):
If you retire on medical grounds by taking Ill Health Retirement, you will be given the period of notice set out in the table above, however the following minimum periods will also apply:
• five weeks during probationary service. This may be extended by up to a further three
weeks if you are considering an appeal; or
• nine weeks in other cases, unless a shorter period is agreed.
If your appointment is terminated compulsorily on grounds other than those details above, you will be given 3 months’ notice, or a period equal to the un-expired part of our fixed period of employment as specified in this contract, where this less.”
The DWP has indicated that if employees do not accept the revised terms, they will only provide them with five weeks’ notice because they are still in their probationary period. However, I believe there is an argument that the DWP would actually be required to dismiss them with three months’ notice because the reason for dismissal is unrelated to their probation period and may amount to their appointment being terminated “compulsorily on grounds other than those details above”.
Nevertheless, this part of my advice is unlikely to have any practical consequence (apart from internal PCS/DWP discussions) because the key aspect is whether the employer can lawfully terminate employees’ contracts of employment with notice. I confirm that, as you anticipated, the employer can lawfully terminate employees’ contracts with notice based on the notice provision in the fixed term contract.”
Updated PCS advice for members in this situation
DWP must adhere to the Civil Service Commission rules for recruitment. The ‘system error’ described in the letters given to members, and copied in this Briefing above, has affected over 50 new employees under Work Coach Recruitment who inadvertently received an advantage in the selection process. This breaches Civil Service Recruitment Principles for fair and open competition, but the Civil Service Commission have exceptionally granted DWP permission to employ the affected people, but on different contractual terms. The initial advice from the Commission was simply to give notice and terminate the contracts, but DWP, in acknowledgement that the error was theirs, sought permission to offer employment on the terms that would normally be offered where recruitment was not via a fair and open route. This means the people recruited “in error” will not be able to be offered permanency based on this recruitment exercise. However, DWP will be encouraging those affected to apply for future recruitment, which is expected to take place in all locations where the affected individuals are currently working. Re-applying, now with some work experience in the job role, should put the affected members in a position where their chances of being recruited through fair and open means is much improved.
DWP has worked with SSCL to understand and introduce a fix to the Applicant Tracking System which will prevent this happening again. As an additional step, and to safeguard against the future, DWP has agreed with SSCL that they will undertake a programme of learning on Fair and Open recruitment and will be looking to the Commission to provide this when they are able.
Members may now decide whether or not to accept the proposed variation and revised terms and conditions on the basis of the legal advice provided in this Briefing.
DWP will arrange meetings with each individual who has not accepted the revised terms and conditions to explain what has happened, answer questions and confirm the impact of these terms. This includes:
DWP will still be offering you a 12 month fixed term contract of employment – but it will be on new terms of ‘non-fair and open’. Your salary will remain the same.
On the new terms, your contract cannot become permanent even if DWP needs permanent work coaches.
On the new terms, if DWP needed to extend your contract beyond 12 months, the maximum period of employment cannot exceed 23 months. But if you have any linking non fair and open service this may reduce or not allow extension if DWP decides to extend
No decisions on extension have been taken. DWP advertised the roles as fixed term contract for 12 months – and that is what you have been given
On the new terms, you would not be eligible to apply for jobs which are only advertised internally within the CS. You will be able to apply for all jobs which are advertised externally. You should check CSjobs. Some Work Coach vacancies are still live and there may be more coming.
You have the right to be accompanied at the meeting by a Trade Union Representative (or work colleague) of your choice.
Unfortunately, PCS has to advise that should you refuse to accept the revised terms, then your fixed term contract will be terminated with the requisite notice, and you would be very unlikely to have any legal remedy.
PCS has requested that DWP correct the notice period to be given to 3 months in accordance with PCS legal advice for the DWP contract. DWP is taking legal advice before they respond.
Members that decide not to accept the revised terms should contact PCS at leeds@pcs.org in support of an appeal for 3 months’ notice rather than five weeks if this is not corrected by DWP.
Refusal to give 3 months’ notice may give you grounds for a ‘Wrongful Dismissal claim’ at an Employment Tribunal. But this would only give you up to 3 months’ pay: it would not restore your job.
superted
January 19, 2021 at 6:00 pm
Tories admit they’re looking at overhauling workers’ rights laws after Brexit
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng tweeted: “We are not going to lower the standards of workers’ rights.”
But he let slip to MPs on Tuesday that his department was looking at employment rules, including the working time directive which sets limits on the working week.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tories-admit-theyre-looking-overhauling-23347454
xclausx
January 19, 2021 at 6:57 pm
Rees Mogg said in the past that he would scrap the 48 hours per week limit.
trev
January 19, 2021 at 7:05 pm
Boris says the Labour Activists are like racists on Capital Hill.
The Tory racism is getting out of hand Boris.
Stepping Razor Sound Plate System
January 19, 2021 at 7:25 pm
The worse case of bullying is disability WCA as well as Universal Credit. Cure your illness by working.
Racist Dictatorship.
Stepping Razor Sound Plate System
January 19, 2021 at 7:27 pm
“Arbeit Macht Frei” the Tory mantra written in invisible ink above the door of every Jobcentre.
trev
January 19, 2021 at 7:33 pm
Rolled up into one easy Universal Credit Dictatorship Benefit.
Update to Mandatory Reconsideration: Sign to be in a gagging order – No bad word said against Universal Credit & The DWP & the Tories or the Tory Voters.
Stepping Razor Sound Plate System
January 19, 2021 at 7:36 pm
@trev – I was actually in a Working Links group, when the staff member (female ), said, without any irony ”Work Will Set You Free .” In reference to the fact that if we got a job, we wouldn’t have to do the course.
It caused some disquiet in the group, to hear this Nazi slogan parroted in this way. But typical of the way in which the unemployed were treated at the time.
Jeff Smith
January 20, 2021 at 12:50 pm
And IDS used that phrase in a speech about the Work Programme back in 2010.
trev
January 20, 2021 at 1:36 pm
DISABLED LIVES MATTER
BLACK DISABLED LIVES MATTER
Stepping Razor Sound Plate System
January 19, 2021 at 7:28 pm
TORY DICTATORSHIP & RACISM MATTERS
Stepping Razor Sound Plate System
January 19, 2021 at 7:28 pm
Opposition is a threat to the Tories dictatorship.
Stepping Razor Sound Plate System
January 19, 2021 at 7:29 pm
Now the Cabinet’s Disability Unit is under threat with the Disability Minister Justin Tomlinson.
Stepping Razor Sound Plate System
January 19, 2021 at 7:30 pm
Boris is more thick & stupid than Donald Trump – Like we didn’t know that already.
Stepping Razor Sound Plate System
January 19, 2021 at 7:37 pm
Tories risk return to ‘nasty party’ era if Universal Credit cut by £20-a-week
Former Government homelessness adviser Dame Louise Casey piled pressure on Boris Johnson to extend the temporary hike, as a cut could ‘take the knees out’ from under millions of families
Dame Louise said the country had been “torn to shreds” by the pandemic and called on ministers to draw up plans to deal with the fallout.
“The wounds it’s inflicted on the country are far deeper and greater than anything I’ve ever seen in my lifetime in terms of ordinary folk having to claim Universal Credit, ordinary people having to turn to food banks, ordinary people becoming homeless,” she said.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tories-risk-return-nasty-party-23350231
xclausx
January 20, 2021 at 8:37 am
Tories risk return to ‘nasty party’ era ? I didn’t know that era had ever ended, they’ve always been the Nasty Party!
trev
January 20, 2021 at 10:20 am
They have always been the ‘nasty party’, and this business of cutting Universal Credit by £20 just shows it once again. But if they keep pushing things like this, we are going to see a return to the Poll Tax disaster.
And the Tories never really recovered from that.
George M
January 20, 2021 at 12:38 pm
Here’s an article about Basic Income, I don’t know if the facts & figures are correct but it’s food for thought…
https://basicincome.org/news/2020/09/the-cost-of-a-full-basic-income-for-the-united-kingdom-would-be-67-billion-per-year-3-4-of-gdp/
trev
January 20, 2021 at 2:16 pm
Possible alternatives to a dysfunctional punitive underpaid Benefits system, or additional source of support ???
https://citizensincome.org/
trev
January 20, 2021 at 2:21 pm
“A universal basic income should be the post-pandemic legacy we leave the next generation”
“Now, more than ever, we need a state that lifts people out of poverty and gives them the equality of opportunity to live a prosperous life”
Christine Jardine
.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/universal-basic-income-coronavirus-pandemic-nhs-liberal-democrats-b404498.html
trev
January 20, 2021 at 2:24 pm
Universal Basic Income would be the most humane, sensible idea. No doubt one day in the future, it will become the norm. But it strikes at the heart of Tory beliefs about work and society. Which is why I don’t think we will be seeing UBI any time soon.
Jeff Smith
January 20, 2021 at 6:15 pm
Over-50s caught in ‘unemployment trap’
Published 14 November 2017
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41984581
Over-50s more likely to face long-term unemployment, data shows (2019)
https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/news/articles/over-50s-more-likely-to-face-long-term-unemployment
Number of unemployed older workers increased by a third during lockdown, data suggests
23 Nov 2020
https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/news/articles/number-of-unemployed-older-workers-increased-by-a-third-during-lockdown
Number of unemployed people in UK over 50 rises by third, figures suggest
Amelia Hill
the Guardian
There are now 91,000 more unemployed older people than there were 12 months ago
The number of unemployed people aged over 50 in the UK has increased by a third in the past year, according to analysis of official figures.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/23/number-of-unemployed-people-in-uk-over-50-rises-by-third-figures-suggest
Over-50s who lose jobs much more likely to stay unemployed, study finds
Older people more than twice as likely to be unemployed for two years or longer if they lose job
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/18/over-50s-who-lose-jobs-much-more-likely-to-stay-unemployed-study-finds
ISN’T IT TIME TO LOWER STATE PENSION AGE ?????
trev
January 20, 2021 at 10:58 pm
This is a rather mute subject while employers are allowed to continue using un-monitored hiring practices.
What age group that gets hired is very much the construct of a belief the hirer has. This is also aided and abetted by the government practice of offering employers financial incentives to hire under 24s.
For instance if an employer has had a bad experience of hiring too many under 24s, the knee jerk reaction is to hire from the other age groups. Another instance is the belief maturity makes for a better worker.
I could literally go on such is the amount of so called iron clad beliefs but this is enough to get the point.
The best place to demonstrate this hiring point is in the comparison between working for a single business and an agency.
The only reason why we are seeing this story currently again is solely because over 50s are more likely to suffer badly as a consequence of getting infected which to an employer translate into cost.
The furlough scheme is both a benefit and a curse and probably most notably is only actioned by an employer if it proves its the better financial option over running at full capacity.
Doug
January 21, 2021 at 11:42 am
The restart scheme will sort that out. some on here don’t beieve the sheme will work.
Me and my co workers are over 50, the younger ones are not so good with time.
xclausx
January 21, 2021 at 12:23 pm
Out of interest what do you actually do for a living, xclausx?
House Martin
January 21, 2021 at 1:42 pm
@ xclausx
If the Restart scheme does work it’ll be the first Government employment scheme that has ever worked or done any good. More likely it will be a colossal waste of public money.
trev
January 21, 2021 at 2:26 pm
But what’s the point of having thousands of mostly unemployable 50s/60s year olds clogging up the Benefits system whilst constantly subject to conditionality and at risk of Sanctions when they could be classed as semi-retired with access to some State Pension exempt from pointless jobsearch requirements?
trev
January 22, 2021 at 4:53 pm
GPs in England see a big drop in common cold and influenza cases.
http://tapnewswire.com/2021/01/gps-in-england-see-big-drop-in-common-cold-and-flu-cases/
Cloverleaf
January 21, 2021 at 12:15 pm
Why would Colds and Flu be misdiagnosed as Covid19 if it isn’t for Nefarious reasons!
Tigerlily
January 21, 2021 at 12:34 pm
@ Tigerlily
Perhaps it’s not misdiagnosis, Flu cases may have fallen because more people than normal have been given the flu jab as it’s normally over 65s I think but this year it’s been given to the over50s.
trev
January 21, 2021 at 2:17 pm
No such things as colds and flu!!
xclausx
January 21, 2021 at 12:54 pm
True xclausx, how can your body de-toxifying itself be contagious to other people, complete rubbish!
Tigerlily
January 21, 2021 at 1:05 pm
No not anymore!
Cloverleaf
January 21, 2021 at 1:41 pm
According to the paperwork I received from the NHS on average 11,000 people per year die of Flu in England and thousands more are hospitalized. I had my flu jab last Monday. They wouldn’t be providing people with vaccinations for nothing.
trev
January 21, 2021 at 2:23 pm
Homelessness on the cruel streets of Los Angeles.
All American presidents can hang their heads in shame for this human catastrophe.
Cloverleaf
January 21, 2021 at 1:57 pm
They provide vaccinations purely for profit, big pharmafia make trillions out of vaccines every year.
Cloverleaf
January 21, 2021 at 3:19 pm
Sorry but as you know I don’t subscribe to your paranoid anti-vax, anti-lockdown, Covid-denial, conspiracy views. Vaccinations save lives, and in this instance also helps to prevent the NHS from becoming totally overwhelmed. If you get offered the flu vaccine or the Covid vaccine you should take it in my opinion. Though I do agree that the big Pharmaceutical companies make far too much money, the solution would be to Nationalize them.
trev
January 21, 2021 at 3:42 pm
I have never had the flu vaccine and never will, never had the flu in my life which I put down to regular exercise, vitamins c and d. Simples.
Cloverleaf
January 21, 2021 at 3:54 pm
If you properly get flu you will know about it. I had it about 12 years ago or more, really bad, could have been swine flu not sure but it floored me, was in bed for 3 weeks and it probably took about 4 or 5 weeks in total before I was over it. A genuine case of the flu is much worse than a bad cold.
trev
January 21, 2021 at 4:09 pm
Anti-Lockdown isn’t a conspiracy theory. The longer lockdown goes on the worse the fall out for the working class, the disabled and the unemployed will be, it’s unbelievable that you seem unable to see that. Where do you think the money for UBI or any of that is going to come from after this?
KJ
January 24, 2021 at 5:06 am
How come the Lurgy hasn’t decimated the homeless populations, they would be one of the first to succumb to it!
Tigerlily
January 21, 2021 at 3:39 pm
Emergency plans were put in place to get them off the streets and into temporary accommodation.
trev
January 21, 2021 at 3:45 pm
Thought they had all been turfed out back onto the streets and with the new mootation they should be dropping like flies!
Tigerlily
January 21, 2021 at 5:19 pm
I read that they were being turfed out back on the streets but I haven’t seen any homeless people hanging around the usual old haunts in my town so don’t know where they’ve all gone if that’s the case. The Mission is still closed. There’s no beggars outside the supermarkets. It’s like a ghost town. But if you were sleeping rough in this weather you would probably die of hyperthermia.
trev
January 21, 2021 at 6:20 pm
We’re the ones that you see standing,
Outside the Jobcentre Plus,
We wait there in rain or shine,
Without making any fuss.
We’ve been claiming now for many years,
Loyal to the end,
Not so much customers,
More of a benefit friend.
We know the Work Coaches all by name,
The G4S guards as well,
If there’s anything dodgy going on,
We’re always the first to tell.
We know all the regulations,
And have printed FOIs,
In case some newbie Work Coach,
Tries to take us by suprise.
We’ve been on all the courses.
And it hasn’t done a thing.
We’ve rung all the employers,
Now there’s no-one left to ring.
So spare a thought as you go past,
And see us in a line,
Legacy Claimants signing-on,
One more time…..
Random Poet
January 21, 2021 at 4:17 pm
Boris Johnson to face vote on workers’ rights after Tories admit review underway
The Opposition Day motion calls on the Government to specifically rule out any changes to the 48-hour working week, rest breaks at work, or holiday pay entitlements, which could leave families worse off and risk the safety of workers such as hauliers and airline staff.
It also calls for “fire and rehire” tactics to be banned.
“This could see people across the country worse off, losing out on holiday pay and working longer hours.
“Scrapping the 48-hour working week cap could mean many key workers feel pressured to work excessive hours.
xclausx
January 21, 2021 at 4:34 pm
DWP announce dates for staff moves to Treforest
21 Jan 2021
The DWP announced plans in May 2018 to open a new, large, non-customer facing hub site in South Wales at Ty Taf, Treforest
The proposal indicated that the following sites were to act as “feeder” sites to the Treforest hub
Caerphilly, Crown Buildings;
Cardiff, Gabalfa;
Cwmbran, Glyndwr House;
Merthyr Tydfil, Ty Bethesda;
Newport, Sovereign House; and
Tonypandy, Thistle House.
From the outset the GEC argued against this proposal as it was clear that moves on this scale would, at worst, result in large scale redundancy, and at best cause serious inconvenience to very many staff, recognising the location of the proposed site, coupled with access to the public transport system.
Today’s announcement
Despite our continued expressions of serious concerns about the whole strategy the DWP have decided that it is their intention to go ahead and announce the decision today to move the following sites at the following times to Treforest:
Merthyr Tydfil, Ty Bethesda – July 2021
Cardiff, Gabalfa – September 2021
Today the DWP are announcing Tranche 1 of three sets of planned moves. Tranches 2 and 3 are planned as follows:
Tranche 2 by March 2022 -Caerphilly, Crown Buildings; and Tonypandy Thistle House
Tranche 3 by March 2023 – Cwmbran, Glyndwr House; and Newport Sovereign House
PCS has made it clear that now is the wrong time to even consider embarking on a proposal of this scale. Whilst the country is gripped in the peak of a deadly pandemic, particularly in the South Wales area which is experiencing some of the worst casualty rates due to corona-virus19, now is the wrong time to be making an announcement which will have a life changing impact on many of the staff affected.
Although we secured a one week delay in the announcement to allow us time to develop plans to support members at this difficult time, DWP would not concede any further ground. The Department are insisting that they go ahead with the announcement in order that they are able to maximise the time that they have to conduct one to one meetings with staff in advance of decisions to empty the non Jobcentre areas of the Merthyr site and the whole of the Gabalfa site.
PCS Campaign Activity
PCS continues to oppose the wholescale moves of our members to Treforest. At a time when the department is having to acquire further workplaces to house more staff to deliver more services to the public, we believe it is short-sighted to lose the space for DWP staff to work in these 6 local communities. We will continue to campaign against any potential for members to lose their jobs and on the widescale detrimental and discriminatory impact of the plans on large sections of our members, which we do not believe have been properly addressed.
PCS group officers will be directly supporting our local reps help members deal with the impact of the announcement today and and will continue to provide support to local reps and the members affected.
The Department has agreed that we can have facilities to meet with all members impacted by the decision to move staff to Treforest. We have organised meetings on Teams as outlined below where members will have the opportunity to hear from the PCS negotiators involved in the talks about Treforest including the DWP group president, Martin Cavanagh and discuss next steps.
To join the appropriate meeting see the information below:
Merthyr PCS members’ meeting 10am Friday 22 January
Microsoft Teams meeting. Join on your computer or mobile app or call in (audio only) +44 20 3787 4277,,823917329# Phone Conference ID: 823 917 329#
Gabalfa PCS members meeting 11am Friday 22 January
Microsoft Teams meeting. Join on your computer or mobile app or call in (audio only) +44 20 3787 4277,,417523983# Phone Conference ID: 417 523 983#
Caerphilly, Tonypandy, Newport and Cwmbran PCS members meeting 12 noon Friday 22 January
Microsoft Teams meeting, join on your computer or mobile app or call in (audio only) +44 20 3787 4277,,930702496# Phone Conference ID: 930 702 496#
superted
January 21, 2021 at 5:48 pm
Andrew Coates
January 21, 2021 at 6:07 pm
With the cost of everything going up it’s no wonder.
xclausx
January 21, 2021 at 6:14 pm
Same thing happened here the foodbank moved into another warehouse three times bigger in 2019 and now we’ve run out of space in that one too.
trev
January 21, 2021 at 6:14 pm
People are not making enough money to pay their rent: My Wigan Pier
After 30 years in the fire service, Nobby Clarke, 62, now helps feed people in need as well as help run an emergency night shelter in Coventry. He tells Maryam Qaiser how people are struggling to pay their rent.
When I retired I got roped into helping with the city’s night shelter in 2013 and 2014. The shelters were run through the churches. Back then there were a lot less people on the streets, there were about 20 odd people, but as time has gone on there has been an increase in people.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/people-not-making-enough-money-20843727
xclausx
January 21, 2021 at 6:22 pm
We will create a UK without the need for food banks
We support a nationwide network of food banks and together we provide emergency food and support to people locked in poverty, and campaign for change to end the need for food banks in the UK.
In the UK, more than 14 million people are living in poverty – including 4.5 million children. We support more than 1,200 food bank centres in the UK
Introducing this report brings with it mixed emotions – a sense of awe about what has been achieved by volunteers, staff, and partners during this very challenging time, but also sadness and concern at the further rise in already increasing levels of need for food banks’ support that the pandemic has triggered.
25pages
Click to access coronavirus-impact-report-final.pdf
xclausx
January 21, 2021 at 6:38 pm
Andrew Coates
January 21, 2021 at 9:48 pm
What’s up with that one!!
xclausx
January 21, 2021 at 6:51 pm
Not sure what to make of this, who the fuck are Futurelearn ? What’s Adzuna got to do with it? I smell bullshit.
Big Issue founder launches jobs and training service for unemployed
The founder of The Big Issue magazine is launching a new jobs and training service for people hit by unemployment in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
By Greg Wright
Monday, 18th January 2021, 4:55 am
Lord John Bird has joined forces with jobs site Adzuna and online training organisation FutureLearn to offer help such as free or discounted training in areas such as digital skills.
The initiative is the latest venture by The Big Issue’s Ride Out Recession Alliance (RORA), which is campaigning to tackle unemployment.
Lord Bird said: “We set up RORA to aid and abet the Government and society to prevent mass homelessness caused by Covid-19 poverty. Talking about what is happening to the newly unemployed is no longer enough.
“Because we appreciate that things are tough right now, we want to help those facing unemployment with discounted and free training and thousands of job opportunities, all in one place.”
Susannah Belcher, chief operations officer at FutureLearn, said: “The Ride Out Recession Alliance is a fantastic campaign that we are proud to support.
“We’re on a mission to transform access to education in order to build a better future and, in partnership with The Big Issue, we’re aiming to connect valuable, in-demand courses with people who need the most support navigating the challenges of the current UK job market.”
Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, said: “We’re a huge advocate of The Big Issue’s campaign to help the unemployed and those at risk of becoming unemployed to upskill, gain confidence and find their next job.
“Worryingly, the recession has affected lower-paid workers most severely and supporting these groups is vital. We hope to share our tools and tips for Big Issue subscribers and work collaboratively to provide more routes into employment for the millions of people affected by the pandemic”
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/big-issue-founder-launches-jobs-and-training-service-unemployed-3103442
trev
January 21, 2021 at 9:33 pm
”
About FutureLearn
Our values
Our values guide how we design and build FutureLearn.
Be open
We’re transparent with our learners, our partners and each other about what we’re doing and why.
Empower others
We help our learners, our partners and each other be the best they can be, welcoming anyone to the FutureLearn community.
Learn together
We listen to and address the needs of our learners and partners, celebrating our successes and learning from our failures.
Think big
We strive to transform education – and change our learners’ lives, our partners’ businesses and the world in the process.
Have fun
We make online learning enjoyable for our learners and our partners alike, and have fun while we’re doing it”
https://www.futurelearn.com/about-futurelearn/our-values
trev
January 21, 2021 at 9:40 pm
it is the same old shit via a different brand shovel with short courses 2-3-4 weeks to get as many in and out as possible, remember you are there profit unit!
An Introduction to Cryptography
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/cryptography
like wtf is that other than a documentary on using passwords it is just nonsensical crap just now online than sat in a providers office.
if you cant get a job it is going to be down the provider you go just now online! same as uc and the journal sanctions at the push of a button from a dwp sanction center.
yet this is what they wanted from the start ten years ago problem is computers phones and the internet are not free or factored in to benefit payments.
so if they want to give me a direction they can send me a fkn letter so i can send one back recorded delivery to tell them to go fuck them self right up there ass!
well it does say no phone or email but never got a reply from mr scribble and i said ill treat the staff the same way they all treat me like a piece of shit because i said no to them all, mandatory my ass!
superted
January 21, 2021 at 10:15 pm
Yeah Future Learn sounds like the modern online equivalent of a correspondence course. Get a fake Diploma in just 12 weeks.
“Someone said to me, ‘How did you get into the House of Lords?’ and I said, ‘By lying, cheating and stealing’.”
Lord John Bird
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bird,_Baron_Bird
trev
January 21, 2021 at 10:31 pm
but what are you going to do if a wc tells you to sign up to it as it is mandatory via dwp email or letter.
there was no jobs in the entire county so signed up anyway never seen that wc again pmsl.
superted
January 21, 2021 at 10:34 pm
I wouldn’t waste any of my data doing an online course with those tossers.
Cloverleaf
January 21, 2021 at 10:18 pm
And the point also is that you have to actually have online data in the form of a broadband connection to be able to do such courses. Many unemployed don’t have broadband and the libraries are all shut.
trev
January 21, 2021 at 10:34 pm
why do you think as soon as you make a claim for uc online you cant go back, because that is your new digital contract with the dwp.
it was your choice to make the claim like this so if they sanction you and cant afford the internet to update the journal end of claim in 7-14 days!
so it was your fault in the first place.
superted
January 21, 2021 at 10:51 pm
I’m hoping that I never have to make a claim for UC, think I’d rather live in a tent in the woods. Or hopefully someone in government circles will see the sense in giving older unemployed people the option of early access to the State Pension. Either that or I win the Lottery, or kick the bucket, anything but Universal Credit.
trev
January 21, 2021 at 10:57 pm
superted
January 21, 2021 at 11:12 pm
Ipswich MP: Labour politicised ’emotive’ Universal Credit debate
Tom Hunt
Within minutes the local Labour Party had predictably launched the following attack: “Ipswich’s Conservative MP failed to oppose cutting Universal Credit.”
Some Labour Party platforms went even further, with the national one stating: “Yesterday, 357 Conservative MPs chose to cut support for families in the middle of the pandemic.” I would be really grateful if someone from the Labour Party could explain to me how this isn’t a straight up lie.
How we provide support for those who need it the most during this pandemic is an incredibly complex issue and it’s very unfortunate that the Labour Party continue to attempt to politicise these issues in the way they have been.
https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/ipswich-mp-tom-hunt-universal-credit-column-6922142
Andrew Coates
January 22, 2021 at 8:17 am
The £20 increase brought the Benefit temporarily to the level it was supposed to have been at 7 years ago, what’s so “incredibly complex” about that?
trev
January 22, 2021 at 8:26 am
Trump told 30,000 lies in office and Johnson’s every utterance is disbelieved. But does it matter if our politicians lie to us?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/does-it-matter-politicians-lie-23366513
xclausx
January 22, 2021 at 12:55 pm
DWP Universal Credit childcare rules declared unlawful in single mum’s High Court victory
Universal Credit childcare rules have been declared unlawful by the High Court after a single mum’s landmark legal victory.
A top judge today ruled the policy of forcing claimants to pay for childcare first, then claim back the costs later, discriminates against women.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-universal-credit-childcare-rules-23365768
xclausx
January 22, 2021 at 11:33 am
Johnson offers £500 if you test positive!
Cloverleaf
January 22, 2021 at 12:12 pm
Everyone with Covid in England COULD be paid £500
Not everyone would get it.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/everyone-covid-england-could-paid-23363389
xclausx
January 22, 2021 at 12:23 pm
Last chance for self-employed workers to claim £7,500 Covid government grant
The third Self-Employed Income Support Scheme grant opened for applications on November 30, and you must make your claim on or before next Friday, January 29, to get it
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/last-chance-self-employed-workers-23365312
xclausx
January 22, 2021 at 12:50 pm
Not the unemployed that’s for sure.
Cloverleaf
January 22, 2021 at 12:52 pm
It;s not going to happen anyway!
xclausx
January 22, 2021 at 1:07 pm
A hand up or a slap down? Criminalising benefit claimants in Britain via strategies of surveillance, sanctions and deterrence
SAGE Journals
Abstract
“British policy-makers have increasingly sought to intensify and extend welfare conditionality. A distinctly more punitive turn was taken in 2012 to re-orientate the whole social security and employment services system to combine harsh sanctions with minimal mandatory support in order to prioritise moving individuals ‘off benefit and into work’ with the primary aim of reducing costs. This article questions the extent to which these changes can be explained by Wacquant’s (2009) theory of the ‘centaur state’ (a neoliberal head on an authoritarian body), which sees poverty criminalised via the advance of workfare.”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0261018317726622
trev
January 22, 2021 at 7:57 pm
Punitive benefit sanctions, welfare conditionality, and the social abuse of unemployed people in Britain: Transforming claimants into offenders?
Abstract
A defining feature of U.K. welfare reform since 2010 has been the concerted move towards greater compulsion and sanctioning, which has been interpreted by some social policy scholars as punitive and cruel. In this article, we borrow concepts from criminology and sociology to develop new interpretations of welfare conditionality. Based on data from a major Economic and Social Research Council‐funded qualitative longitudinal study (2014–2019), we document the suffering that unemployed claimants experienced because of harsh conditionality. We find that punitive welfare conditionality often caused symbolic and material suffering and sometimes had life‐threatening effects. We argue that a wide range of suffering induced by welfare conditionality can be understood as ‘social abuse’, including the demoralisation of the futile job‐search treadwheel and the self‐administered surveillance of the Universal Jobmatch panopticon. We identify a range of active claimant responses to state perpetrated harm, including acquiescence, adaptation, resistance, and disengagement. We conclude that punitive post‐2010 unemployment correction can be seen as a reinvention of failed historic forms of punishment for offenders.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/spol.12577#
trev
January 22, 2021 at 8:03 pm
From April 2020….
Coronavirus has improved the welfare system: there must be no going back
Patrick Butler
“The DWP may be slightly less punitive, but the social security system is still nasty and painfully outdated”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/21/coronavirus-improved-welfare-system-no-going-back
trev
January 22, 2021 at 8:10 pm
superted
January 23, 2021 at 12:08 am
Cant have job/work unless vaccinated, how about welfare to.
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-concerns-grow-over-number-of-carers-turning-down-vaccine-12195852
“Mr Somauroo says he’s now making it mandatory to take the vaccine within terms of conditions for new employees”.
If getting work wasnt hard enough, one employer has decided to make it harder despite no evidence proving being vaccinated will stop people transmitting the virus. Despite in this case, all its residents bar one being vaccinated already.
The question now if unchecked and not questioned is how long before other employers join the bandwagon, how long before government offers incentives to employers rather than people testing positive to enforce this. How long before government embraces this as a barrier to work, even add it to conditionality for receipt of benefits.
At a time this government had already spun the law perversely to make people not only de-consent from having their medical records shared but also withdraw consent from organs being harvested in the event of death, its hard not to see a government already looking to offer money for positive infection tests embracing this concept.
Doug
January 23, 2021 at 9:01 am
I suspect it’s just a small minority of people who don’t want the vaccine, most people I know can’t wait to get it, myself included. It ought to be mandatory for all Care workers and anyone in the Health sector unless they have a very good reason.
trev
January 23, 2021 at 10:02 am
Do the math Trev, 68 million population yet only 5.3% have since the start tested positive and only 0.14% have died in the UK.
If we look at purely infection Vs death as a result of we see only 2.7%.
Hardly deadly beyond the individual cases reported.
So its only the minority at serious risk of death, hardly worth spending billions on vaccines as what would happen if all the people with underlining health issues were gone or never existed in the first place.
Like the flu jab we are only prolonging life that would in the natural order of things see all health imperfection removed.
The vaccine protects the individual so if its all that and a bag of chips shouldn’t require anyone who wishes not to take it to have to otherwise the premise is mute is it not.
Doug
January 23, 2021 at 1:44 pm
Over 90,000 dead of Covid so far in UK and 2 Million worldwide, the NHS near breaking point. I prefer to follow the advice of the official health experts and qualified medical scientists rather than some conspiracy website or youtube video posted by some bloke on the internet, and I’m sure anyone with an ounce of sense will agree.
trev
January 23, 2021 at 1:52 pm
No conspiracy theory website or youtube video, just good old math using approved government statistics.
So either most of the population are immune or asymptomatic such is our daily interactions such as work, supermarkets, parks, airports, etc, etc. Lets also not forget material transference that supersedes even our physical interactions by quite a margin.
The 2.7% i gave earlier is a very tiny margin of those who tested positive and went on to die. In the sea of the UK population, its even tinier. Even the new uk variant have had the opportunity outside of lockdown to go wild but yet it has not happened.
0.14% of the population is nothing, not even note worthy when you consider births and deaths and immigration.
Now im not suggesting in any form that covid does not exist, nor does not kill people, nor opposing lockdown, nor opposing the vaccine. Im simply supplying the math that currently suggests its not that deadly to those who test positive and certainly not that deadly to the population with no underlining health issues.
Lastly remember all this data is mostly all without the effects of the vaccine.
Mammals are not the dominant species, microorganisms are and this latest virus has very far to go before it can be honestly considered truly deadly to all.
Doug
January 23, 2021 at 7:34 pm
As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK.
Now that more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall),
now lets see the cost benefit analysis for all the lock downs and the damage that will do to mortality rates and most nhs treatments being stopped ect ect ect.
it will never add up! we will never see it!
the government found a small wasps nest in the attic went in to panic mode and burned the hole house down to solve the problem so now everyone is screwed bar the 1%.
and now it is looking like they will get the emergency powers act passed again in march when it needs to be renewed for another 6 months.
well they did want it for 2 years but forced in to reviews every 6 months so nothing is going to change any time soon like i said weeks ago.
but hey the job centers wont be open either so no signing on so there is a up side to everything.
im 5 quid better off every 2 weeks i save in bus fair so can get a big mac meal 😉
superted
January 23, 2021 at 8:19 pm
Professor Calum Semple, a member of SAGE and NERVTAG said,
“The headline figure of 30% is dramatic but it’s not particularly helpful because the actual risk of death for any individual is actually quite small,” he told Sky News.
“If you are a person in your 80s and you’ve got multiple underlying problems, then yes the risk is much higher”.
“If you’re a 20-year-old, the risk is infinitesimally small to start with so you won’t notice an increase in risk.”
Doug
January 23, 2021 at 8:37 pm
@ Doug
Attempting to use mathematics to coldly dismiss 90,000+ deaths says more about you than anything else. If it weren’t for all the emergency procedures, the facemasks and lockdown restrictions, the massive ongoing concerted effort by the NHS, that 90,000 might have been 900,000.
@ superted
You might get Ecoli from the McDonald’s.
trev
January 23, 2021 at 8:50 pm
the numbers say it all trev you just seem only interested in covid numbers and bbc bollocks when the government even said the mortality rate is low overall and it is.
1300-1600 ppl die every day on the high end thats 584000 over 12 months.
Between 1 January and 31 December 2020, 550,238 deaths occurred in England.
so did not even get that high and no where near it.
In 2019, there were 530,841 deaths registered in England
so that tells me that only 20k more died last year than in 2019 ons government statistics.
why dont they put that on the bbc and also add this vaccine has never been licensed b4 this for use on humans because that is the truth and if it does go wrong all you will get is 120k from the government and left to rot on benefits.
i have been ran over twice buy road bikes and got food poisoning and letters from the nhs to sit in my box for 6 months because i am at high risk when they dont even know what was wrong with me in the first place lol.
at the end of the day no virus in history has been controlled or cured there are thousands of strains of corona viruses that mutate ever year thus why the flu jab changes but does not stop you getting it or carrying it.
they have had 90 years of the first discovery of corona viruses in the 1930s so no cure will be coming any time soon.
in the old days when you could only travel buy sale boat merchant ships would port and be quarantined for 40 days and have to stay in like a massive hotels for all inbound and if they left the 4 walls would be shot on site.
yet look at our airports ect these days if a virus did mutate and have a high mortality rate like 50% all ages no one could do anything about it once let loose and history proves that.
superted
January 23, 2021 at 9:36 pm
@ superted
Just wait until you are hospitalized with Covid, you won’t half change your tune then.
trev
January 23, 2021 at 10:09 pm
well from the official ons numbers on total mortality i have more chance of being hit in the head buy a asteroid at the bottom of the sea in my age range sorry to say the dwp is a much bigger threat to me atm and millions more.
and hospital food taste like crap id starve to death first, buy the time it gets to you it is steamed cold slop!
you can have a sandwich tho with no butter on brown bread so like eating cardboard.
superted
January 23, 2021 at 10:30 pm
superted
January 23, 2021 at 11:32 pm
“Attempting to use mathematics to coldly dismiss 90,000+ deaths says more about you than anything else”.
It’s called logic Trev. They use mathematics to lock us down. They use mathematics to open up. Everything they are doing is based to some extent on mathematics. This isn’t dismissing deaths, but ‘appeal to emotion’ arguments won’t get anyone anywhere. The dead can’t be brought back to life.
KJ
January 24, 2021 at 5:18 am
Trev
You really should think before making comments.
You cant go around saying “Attempting to use mathematics” when you yourself think its ok to just pluck 900’000 out of the air without any mathematical justification to assert the number you gave. Your action Trev is no less conspiratorial than the stories you protest about and say should be banned.
You just cant use the “well you cant prove he didnt exist” analogy and expect to get away with it.
I used numerical data released by the authorities/experts and the resultants i gave are like it or not, current and factual at time of release.
To answer your “coldly dismiss”, people die all the time by all means. Its a fact of life but heres the thing.
The Hong Kong Flu happened when people were as i said already dying of other things, when health and hygiene wasn’t what it is today, less to no lockdowns and a vaccine yet the species is still here and larger than ever. Believe it or not while many got really sick, the majority who were infected did not go onto die.
I live by being logical, not emotional so im sorry if this offends you but it does not taint the facts i have displayed.
Doug
January 24, 2021 at 9:19 am
@ kj (and Doug)
“it’s called logic”
No, it’s called Passive-Aggressive pedantry.
None of you are qualified to comment on the subject but you think you know better than the experts, better than the official figures.
trev
January 24, 2021 at 12:35 pm
@ Trev- You don’t need to be an expert to question the value of lockdowns and the damage they are doing in relation to the number of deaths. If you’re such a fan of experts why not have a listen to what economic experts, or social experts or mental health experts are saying about the damage being done by lockdown (which people like you and me will bear the brunt of, remember) or are they the wrong kind of experts for you?
KJ
January 25, 2021 at 2:54 am
No benefits unless your vaxed? I think that’s going to happen, a warning.
This will include my employer and me. do I want to lose my job, end up unemployed NO.
GoV never said it would be compulsory.
xclausx
January 23, 2021 at 10:49 am
An employment tribunal? how long will that take, up to 14 months? NO!
xclausx
January 23, 2021 at 10:57 am
Doug, surely employers can be sued if they make the vaccine mandatory as a condition of employment?
Cloverleaf
January 23, 2021 at 12:56 pm
The Guardian view on the politics of welfare: actions, not just words
“Families face immiseration in a pandemic. They can’t hold on until a March budget. The chancellor needs to act and act now”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/21/the-guardian-view-on-the-politics-of-welfare-actions-not-just-words
trev
January 23, 2021 at 12:15 pm
Where’s The Ruddy Virus? Un-Freakin Believable!
http://tapnewswire.com/2021/01/wheres-the-ruddy-virus-un-freakin-believable/
Tigerlily
January 23, 2021 at 12:30 pm
Tap news wire is hardly a reliable source of information!
Covid-19: Stop anti-vaccination fake news online with new law says Labour
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54947661
trev
January 23, 2021 at 12:45 pm
Covid-19: Stop anti-vaccination fake news online with new law says Labour
Cloud cuckoo land. You can’t force these social media companies who aren’t even based in the UK to bend to your will. Even if they co-operate, you’ll just drive it underground, to the deep web or whatever. What is it about politicians and governments not having a clue about how the Internet works?
I was going to post a link to an old Johnny Void article about government incompetence over Internet porn, but it’s been taken down for some reason.
KJ
January 24, 2021 at 5:36 am
How anti-vaccine movements threaten global health
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48585036
trev
January 23, 2021 at 12:47 pm
Covid: What is the Oxford vaccine and how does it work?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/explainers-55044811
trev
January 23, 2021 at 12:50 pm
“project fear” says MP over new advert.
Cloverleaf
January 23, 2021 at 12:51 pm
The fear campaign continues, it dosn’t work with me either.
xclausx
January 23, 2021 at 1:26 pm
Voice of the Mirror: Typical Tories look to shift virus blame onto public with ad blitz
In typical Tory fashion, there is too little financial support being provided and the Government is trying to shift blame for is failures with a ‘stay at home’ as blitz on the public
xclausx
January 23, 2021 at 2:07 pm
Mark Steel: “The Tories finally have a clear message on the pandemic: It’s Your Fault”
You WON’T do as you’re told, so now they will fine you and ban you and we can’t have nice things.
Boris Johnson makes statements such as: “We gave you clear instructions all along.
“We told you to shake hands with infected people and never shake hands, to stay at home under ALL circumstances except for driving to beauty spots to check your eyes, to never go out but you must go to the pub, and you’re STILL not doing it right.”
Seventy per cent of people say they can’t afford to self-isolate as there’s no protection for anyone whose employer insists they come into work, and no protection of their homes if they can’t pay the rent.
So the rules are simple. You MUST stay at home, and if you’re thrown out of your home because you didn’t go to work, you MUST still stay at home, even though you haven’t got a home.
So you MUST break into someone else’s home and stay there, and having no work is no excuse for not going to work.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/mark-steel-the-tories-finally-23373217
xclausx
January 23, 2021 at 7:51 pm
Elderly care workers refusing C-19 vaccine in Uk.
Cloverleaf
January 23, 2021 at 1:32 pm
We seem to be creeping back to the usual blend of ignorance, backwards thinking, Covid-denial, anti-vax, anti-lockdown, disinformation and misinformation on here from the usual suspects. Imho such comments and those posting them ought to be blocked in the interests of public safety.
trev
January 23, 2021 at 1:42 pm
Show us the evidence. you can’t.
xclausx
January 23, 2021 at 1:50 pm
*Rolls eyes* watch the news, read the papers.
trev
January 23, 2021 at 1:54 pm
There you go again, equating an anti-lockdown stance with Covid denial and anti vax. The virus exists. It’s dangerous. The vaccine is the best way out of lockdown. But the lockdown approach is wrong, it is not working for this country, and it has to end sometime, and it will end, whether the vaccine does what it’s designed to do or not.
“such comments and those posting them ought to be blocked in the interests of public safety”.
Pretty much sums up the disgraceful authoritarian manner in which the majority of the left (and I’m on the left) have conducted themselves throughout this pandemic. If your blocking policy includes anyone who dares question lockdown as well as conspiracy theory nutters you’ll be left pretty much talking to yourself on here given you’re already responsible for about half the comments anyway.
KJ
January 25, 2021 at 3:17 am
Watch the BBC and read the gutter rags? No thanks I think I’ll pass.
Cloverleaf
January 23, 2021 at 2:17 pm
Alf Garnett confirms we hated the BBC and licence fee 50 years ago!
Cloverleaf
January 23, 2021 at 2:52 pm
And propaganda has been going on longer than that!
xclausx
January 23, 2021 at 3:06 pm
The character Alf Garnett was the butt of the joke! He was a Rightwing idiot, a Working Class Tory, the archetypal Reactionary nutcase that everyone laughed at.
trev
January 23, 2021 at 5:53 pm
Andrew Coates
January 23, 2021 at 8:50 pm
Alf the stereotypical Rightwing bigot, played marvellously by Warren Mitchell who was the total opposite! The irony is obviously lost on latter-day Rightwing gobshite, Alex Belfield.
trev
January 23, 2021 at 10:05 pm
superted
January 23, 2021 at 10:12 pm
Too right xclausx.
Cloverleaf
January 23, 2021 at 3:30 pm
The Poor Side of Life
https://thepoorsideof.life/2021/01/21/trumps-gone-boris-johnson-and-gavin-williamson-must-go-next
trev
January 23, 2021 at 5:55 pm
It’s this aspect of the vaccination programme that you should be concerned about:
Tory donor Lord Ashcroft’s outsourcing firm lands £350m vaccination contract
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/revealed-tory-donor-lord-ashcrofts-outsourcing-firm-given-350m-vaccination-contract/
‘Chumocracy’ and cronyism has been the defining factor of the Tories handling of the Covid pandemic.
trev
January 23, 2021 at 11:42 pm
Off topic but the world of work is not good. Before Xmas ours was the only school in our town that did not bring it’s cleaners in early one afternoon a week to deep clean, our head wouldn’t spend the money. Since lockdown began again, every cleaner has been in every day, our duties include deep cleaning and re deep cleaning areas that haven’t even been used, scraping glue off coat pegs and doors, one woman was told to go round and clean all the yellow wet floor signs, another future job is going on hands and knees to scrub a floor (no way!) 2 of them rely on public transport so are being asked to take serious risks to come in to do all this shit! We are the only team being treated like this: teachers, TA staff office staff are in on a rota basis.
Thursday I was sent home with advice to test: I’m not well, but I tested negative, I guess I have a stomach flu though my daughter says I had symptoms of heart attack (Dr Google, !) She’s right to be indignant though, male and women heart attack victims are treated way differently, bikini medicine kicking in again! Women don’t need aggressive heart treatment, by the way when was your last smear test and mammography test??
One plus working in a school, feeling very unwell I reeled into the rapid test centre, waved my work I’D and lanyard, as a schools worker I jumped the queue! Waved through immediately!
I’ve been follow the should the jab be mandatory with interest! I get a flu vaccine every year but have doubts about this one being rushed through, as I did with the HPV jab, I refused my daughter getting it. I think if one thing is made mandatory, where will it end? While you might be happy about taking a mandatory covid jab, would it end there? How about mandatory STI testing if you’re celibate? Of course women have been forced into cancer screening for years with threats of other medical care being withheld until they submit!
I really hope they keep the 20 uplift and increase legacy benefits! Stay safe all! Oh, we have 2 positive ppl in this HMO, one has symptoms one never had any, and got out of isolating yesterday. Since I never was with them for 20 minutes or longer, they never coughed on me, they never used the bathroom on my floor, I didn’t have to isolate too! But it’s worrying. Stay safe all sorry to ramble
kattyrehman
January 24, 2021 at 9:35 am
Trev reporting on covid math.
Doug
January 24, 2021 at 10:41 am
Save your passive-aggressive pedantry for when you’re in intensive care plugged into a ventilator and maybe in between gasps for breath you can tell the Doctors that they got the percentages wrong.
trev
January 24, 2021 at 12:40 pm
Your the one flying in the face of official data trev because it does not support your narrative.
As for me i will meet it like i do all risk, head on, chin up and with dignity. I grew up in one of the most hostile places in england, Im ex service, work with dangerous material all day not to mention all the way through the covid as im considered key worker. Im around different people all day every day. Im not frightened like you are trev as thats no way to live life.
Covid 19 appears currently to be following the trend of 1968 to the letter.
Doug
January 24, 2021 at 7:13 pm
I’m classed by my local Council as a “critical key worker” myself so I have been informed, and I too have continued to work with other people throughout the pandemic. Unlike you I don’t think that I know better than the experts, the medical advisers, scientists, doctors, statistical analysts, emergency coordinators, etc. During an Emergency situation you must trust in what you are being told, without question, for your own good and for the common good, as in WW2 . If people don’t do that then I think it should be enforced by Martial Law.
trev
January 24, 2021 at 8:33 pm
“During an Emergency situation you must trust in what you are being told, without question, for your own good and for the common good, as in WW2 . If people don’t do that then I think it should be enforced by Martial Law”.
“In my opinion those opposing lockdown restrictions and posting anti-lockdown material online should be jailed to protect the public”.
Dear oh dear. Absolute state of this. You want to put people in prison just for questioning the lockdown? Martial law? I suppose you’d have people shot if they were caught outside without paperwork? In the past I’ve mostly agreed with what you say on here, your support for Corbyn, etc. But this is beyond the pale. You Sir, are a clown. The likes of Pol Pot and Stalin would be proud.
KJ
January 25, 2021 at 3:49 am
@ kj
The authorities need to clamp down on this dangerous anti-lockdown /Covid-denial lunacy that is being spread by Covidiots and incited by the Alt-Right. I’m not saying shoot people! But get them licked up, as fining people £200 is no use.
https://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2021/01/26/riots-in-the-netherlands-after-anti-curfew-protests/
trev
January 26, 2021 at 11:24 am
You’re still doing it! Stop equating being anti-lockdown with being a Covid denier! I am anti-lockdown but I do not deny Covid exists. Lockdown is a disproportionate response that isn’t working for Britain, for whatever reason. What do you want to lock people up for exactly? Do you know how much it costs to keep people in prison? This’ll all be funded by the Tory magic money tree as well will it? Because they won’t be taxing the rich to pay for it, that’s for sure.
KJ
January 28, 2021 at 7:10 am
Trev
Hate to tell you this but government, employers and organizations have used the phrases key workers and critical workers interchangeably. The reason for that is because they are the one in the same workers.
Secondly you talk of WW2. Did you know war footage and war radio broadcasts were routinely always edited to ensure it did not affect the effort to conscript.
Governments, their departments and organizations even outside of war to this very day routinely mislead the public and are the foremost cause of the rise of conspiracies in the first place that has moved largely from UFOs, sea monsters and the likes to the overwhelming subject matter as current affairs.
The invention of the internet and the ability to freeze and immortalize everything has been their nail in the coffin.
The reason this very website exists is based on the pretext of government misinformation.
As for i think i know better, hold the phone trev as im not debating whether the virus exists, im not questioning the vaccine or even the exterior measures taken todate. Ive simply taken the total UK population who tested positive and the total deaths of the virus since testing positive and divided by the population overall size.
Are you suggesting the figure used for the size of population or the tested positive/deaths is falsified, that the percentages are way higher than what i reported ?
You demonstrate irrefutably over a third of the entire uk population has or will die in the next five years and im all ears.
Doug
January 30, 2021 at 7:13 pm
superted
January 30, 2021 at 7:42 pm
More info regarding Health passports.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/health-passports-could-allow-vaccinated-23374739
xclausx
January 24, 2021 at 11:11 am
Lift the lockdown now – no to the police state.
http://tapnewswire.com/2021/01/lift-the-lockdown-now/
Cloverleaf
January 24, 2021 at 1:49 pm
I agree, like most people.
xclausx
January 24, 2021 at 1:53 pm
Despite xclausx claiming that he/she speaks for “most people” everyone I know are in favour of lockdown measures and see the sense and necessity of it. In my opinion those opposing lockdown restrictions and posting anti-lockdown material online should be jailed to protect the public.
trev
January 24, 2021 at 8:26 pm
Some people believe doctors don’t lie!! they are too far gone!.
xclausx
January 24, 2021 at 1:58 pm
The Covid pandemic is not a hoax or a joke, the entire future of the human race is under threat.
trev
January 24, 2021 at 8:36 pm
pmsl if you really think that you need to go in to a loony bin. the sun is going to explode one day so everyone must stay inside for the next 30 million years just incase 😉
superted
January 24, 2021 at 8:44 pm
Doctors and scientists told the Sunday People the UK is effectively running its own clinical trial with its jabs policy
dozens of care home residents have died with Covid after the jab, the Sunday People has discovered.
xclausx
January 24, 2021 at 2:13 pm
1 cup, your lungs and respiratory tract will love you.
Cloverleaf
January 24, 2021 at 2:30 pm
So why aren’t Quacks telling their patients about these natural remedies, think we know the answer to that!
Tigerlily
January 24, 2021 at 2:45 pm
DWP Universal Credit claimants could receive £1,000 bonus payment
https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/universal-credit-bonus-payment-coronavirus-19689820
superted
January 24, 2021 at 4:35 pm
COULD!!
xclausx
January 24, 2021 at 4:38 pm
im getting 5p woooo
superted
January 24, 2021 at 4:40 pm
That wouldn’t get you an xbox!!
xclausx
January 24, 2021 at 4:41 pm
not played games for years but if i was id want a 3090 but then even if i had the money cant buy one anyway lol.
superted
January 24, 2021 at 4:49 pm
What’s the point in doing that when it’s the same thing as £20.00 a week, for one year, only in one go. No savings doing that for the government which is why they want to stop the £20.00 uplift in UC in April.
Tim
January 25, 2021 at 7:04 am
Well for one, most people on benefits will spend that grand without thinking so it’ll boost the economy. Teo, the government will get to crow about how generous they are and how people in debt isn’t their fault now cos they were sooo generous. Three, UC payments go back down, they just advanced the year extra so no need to put them back up and come a year later, people won’t be clamouring for the increase to stay cos it’ll have been long gone and us claimants had a grand already so we’re set up to get slandered and slated for being greedy poor scroungers.
ATP
January 25, 2021 at 8:56 am
That doesn’t make sense with so many businesses having furloughed staff and many more just ticking over. Much better to spend the money later when struggling businesses start up and get going again or incrementally over a twelve month period when the money will be distributed to many traders rather than on making a small number of bigger one off purchases. And, as pointed out before, either way it’s going to cost the government £6 billion a year.
Tim
January 25, 2021 at 9:24 am
A decision on whether to cut millions of families’ Universal Credit by £20 a week could be announced “shortly”, the head of the DWP declared today.
Tory Therese Coffey said she is in “active discussion” with the Treasury about whether to go ahead with the cut on April 12.
And the Work and Pensions Secretary said she “hopes” Boris Johnson will announce the final decision “soon”.
Speaking to the Mirror, a Treasury source downplayed any suggestion the £1,000 idea will happen.
But the influential Centre for Policy Studies, a think tank with close links to the Tories, has backed calls for a one-off payment, though it has said UC should be cut only by around £900 rather than £1,000.
The think tank suggested a 2.5% increase to the benefit overall.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-universal-credit-cut-decision-23378691
xclausx
January 25, 2021 at 9:28 am
superted
January 24, 2021 at 7:46 pm
Does anybody really care what Knobber Brand thinks about anything these days? Or ever for that matter?
Tim
January 25, 2021 at 7:01 am
Klaus Schwab founder of the World Economic Forum published a book last year called Covid 19 and The Great Reset, it is a fact not conspiracy.
Cloverleaf
January 24, 2021 at 9:13 pm
So what? A leading economist and one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs publishes his thoughts on economic recovery, big deal.
trev
January 24, 2021 at 11:51 pm
Cloverleaf – …and does anything written in the book back up any of the bullshit claims vomited out by conspiracy wingnuts? Come on, let’s have some really juicy quotes that expose the machinations of the evil Klaus Schwab and the WEF. Don’t tell me you haven’t read it.
bob
January 25, 2021 at 7:08 am
A friend of mine has read it bob, he said it was boring as hell so I won’t be bothering.
Cloverleaf
January 25, 2021 at 8:32 am
Cloverleaf – So that’s a no. LOL. The orchestrator of what can only be described as the most insidious plot against the world in recent memory releases a book and you can’t even be bothered to read it to confirm whether or not it’s true. Your “friend” read it and said it was “boring”. Not “frightening” or “disgustuing” or “evil” or “confirms our suspicions”. “Boring”. Just about says it all.
bob
January 25, 2021 at 5:45 pm
Credit.
Barclaycard customers face higher minimum payments
The new requirements are tailored to each customer, although some may see a significant rise in demands.
But the changes will also see charges for exceeding a credit limit scrapped.
A Barclaycard spokesman said: “We are increasing minimum payments for some customers to help them pay off debt quicker and reduce the overall interest they pay.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55765864
xclausx
January 25, 2021 at 7:03 am
@bob, I don’t really fancy reading the lies of some billionaire oligarch, who more than likely doesn’t give a toss about humanity,I’d rather do jobsearch and that is boring enough.
Cloverleaf
January 25, 2021 at 5:53 pm
As far as vaccination is concerned you can take it or leave it. So why don’t the Covid deniers just leave it, take their chances, and get on with their lives? Why are the conspiracy theorists so passionate about trying to get others to accept their viewpoint? People’s views are probably pretty much fixed and so regurgitating hearsay doing the rounds about coronavirus and vaccines isn’t going to convert sane and reasonable men and women to accept such stuff and nonsense. Why indulge in such pointless games of Chinese whispers then like misguided zealots or missionaries trying to get people to believe in an oddball religion which makes no sense at all? Kind of sad really.
Tim
January 25, 2021 at 7:13 am
Can my employer force me to get vaccinated?
“I suspect if it’s not written in your contact, employers can’t force you to have the vaccine, but that may change in the future,” says Dr Tildesley.
“I heard recently about the owner of a care home in which half his staff had refused the vaccine. He said he couldn’t force current employees to have it, but he said he would insist on all future employees being vaccinated as a condition of their employment.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/covid-vaccine-questions-answered-you-23377221
xclausx
January 25, 2021 at 8:12 am
Depends what the legal situation is in regards to employment law. For example employers can discriminate in the case of epileptics, refusing to employ them if the job needs someone to climb a ladder etc. Beside the government with such a big majority, could easily pass emergency legislation to allow employers to refuse employment to unvaccinated people if it wanted. Unless there are genuine reasons to refuse the jab why would anybody not want to have it anyway? I can’t wait even though it looks as if I won’t be getting it done until June or July later this year.
Tim
January 25, 2021 at 9:29 am
What’s goimg on regarding UC increase
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/everything-you-need-know-rishi-23379265
xclausx
January 25, 2021 at 10:47 am