Saturday 2 February 2013

THERE WAS GOOD NEWS ABOUT APPRENTICESHIPS IN SCOTLAND... BUT NOW THERE IS...


Putting ability first: Isn't that what IDS's scheme is all about...supposedly? So why shut an organisation that does that, and has done it since 1946? You'd only do that if it were about saving money... and it can't be that, because the government says it not.
Bad News: A Remploy worker was found dead on the day his factory closed down.

Phil Brannan a friend and senior shop steward for the GMB/Unite consortium at Remploy, said: “This is an absolute tragedy. It’s too early to say what has happened, but it is too much of a coincidence for him to be found dead on the day his work closed down.


As far as I know, he wasn’t suffering any particular health issues, but he had become extremely upset recently about the work situation.
“He had applied for a job with one of the organisations taking people on from Remploy, but he was unsuccessful and he was bitterly disappointed.”
Mr Brannan said: “George never claimed a day’s benefit in his life and he felt that once he had been made redundant he would be labelled as a scrounger.
“Through no fault of his own, he lost his job today. The government know full well that many of these people now face long-term unemployment. It is a disgrace.” [Scotsman]
As his friend said, it is too early to state the cause for certain, but it is an incredible and horrible coincidence that he died on the day of his factory's closure, given his state of depression.

It seems to me completely counter-intuitive, that a government which says that it is important for sick and disabled people to do what they can work-wise, not because they want to save money from the welfare bill, but because it is good for their health, their self esteem, the economy, the country, in fact everyone, should at the same time, be shutting down the very means by which they can do this.
Remploy was set up by an act in 1944, to employ people disabled in the second world war, and later for others who were for one reason or another in need to employment in a protected environment. But, despite protestations that welfare reform is nothing to do with costs, the government is closing the Remploy factories which do not make a profit! 
So, when they say that it's not about the money, they are lying.

It is notable that Mr Scollan had worked for 40 years, since he was 18, in the factory and had never claimed benefits, but was afraid of being labelled a scrounger. 

So that's what you have done, Mr Duncan Smith, Mr Grayling, Mr Cameron, Ms Davidson and yes, you too, Johann Lamont. You have people who have worked all their days, in this case with the odds stacked against them, terrified of being labelled scroungers...by the biggest scroungers in the country. Oh, the irony.

41 comments:

  1. Tris

    Nothing to really say about this. This government,are the scum supported by Labour and the Liberals. Sadly more proud men will follow and I really fear few will care. I have a disabled older brother, my family already get no help I certainly fear what would happen if we weren't here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Are the snp about to reopen any Remploy factories or are you
    just going to use an innocent mans sad death as a political
    ploy.


    ReplyDelete
  3. What really angers me Bruce is that they say that their welfare cuts are about helping sick and disabled people to get back into the workplace and make a contribution, and feel part of society and be better off... So why are they sacking them,taking away their opportunity to make a contribution, and feel part of society, and making them poorer?

    Even for this lot of wide boys, and thickos, and for a prime minister that doesn't know his deficit from his debt or his arse from his oxter... this is mad.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Niko: No sadly there is not any money to do that. It's the DWP that set it up and own, and apparently subsidise it. And no, absolutly not trying to make a political point. I'm just wondering why the government is working against its own principles here to get people working...

    And clearly I'm very sad that yet another disabled person appears to have fallen victim to what are, after all, budget cuts...

    I've no idea what an independent Scotland would do, under the SNP or Labour, but I'd like to think we wouldn't make out savings by killing off our weakest. If that's making a political point, then I suppose that's what I've done.

    ReplyDelete
  5. tris

    well the snp could say they would do something to reintroduce reemploy
    iffen they wanted to or like universal child benefit they could uncharacteritcally
    say nothing at all.

    ReplyDelete
  6. And on the day this was reported in the papers our fine bullingdon boy had the bare faced audacity to lecture the Agerians on how to eradicate poverty! To an uneducated oik (should that be pleb) like me his philosophy would seem to involve self inflicted ethnic cleansing the hypocritical bastard that he is. One can only hope that his parents are proud of him as me self-respecting out with could possibly be.

    For your information the SNP government are actively introducing measures to alleviate westminsters cuts wherever they can within the financial restraints they must operate under.

    ReplyDelete
  7. That last para was for your benefit niko

    ReplyDelete
  8. Tris

    Before the tame Labour supporter keeps mouthing off, lets not forget that Labour closed 28 Remploy factories when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister.

    We now have the situation in Fife where Gordon Brown and the other Fife Labour MPs are campaigning to keep the Fife Remploy factories open.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Tris

    Its like ATOS Labour employed them, the torys keep them doing what Labour initially employed them to do, now Labour are screaming.

    Hypocrites does not cover it. They are the lowest of the low.

    ReplyDelete
  10. yeah well

    WHAT ARE THE SNP DOING TO RE INTRODUCE REEMPLOY FACTORYS

    which you hypocrites keep mithering about they can find millions
    to give to the rich and wealthy in council tax freezes.
    why not use that cash on keeping reemploy factory's running.


    ReplyDelete
  11. Not possible Niko. The Scottish government cannot deal with social security. The only reason it can do what it is doing with housing benefits is that the British government has told councils it can do what they want, but they are getting 20% less money. The Scottish government has made up that money, which it can do as it has a remit to find councils, but it has ring-fenced the money for housing benefits.

    I'm not sure whether it could have bought the Remploy factories, or given money to companies in order to help them buy the factories.

    That might be worth looking into.

    Has Labour said anything about reinstating them if it wins in Westminster, or indeed has Scottish Labour said anything about doing it in Scotland, if it were to win the next election?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Yeah well

    Is that it, so your happy that Labour closed 28 Remploy factories! So you happy that ATOS are hounding the sick and disabled, well I am not and thats why I will keep pointing out Labours hypocrisy.

    Thats total crap about the council tax freeze. That helps a lot of people who Labour used to try and help BB thats before Blair.

    Labour doubled the starting rate of tax from 10p to 20p which only effects the low paid. Why did they not double the top rate of tax? Well that would hurt their millionaire friends so thats a none starter for the other millionaires party.

    Now we get Lamont calling Scotland "a something for nothing country" so she wants to target pensioners the sick and the disabled, thats really Nu Labour. John Smith must be turning in his grave at what trys to pass for Labour today.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Mr Cameron has a couple of great ways of eradicating poverty.

    Firstly he refuses to see it, so it doesn't exist.

    And if that fails he lets companies like ATOS get rid of them for him.

    I dare say there are poor in Algeria. I wonder if they know how many people does in this country from cold and malnutrition or other poverty related illnesses.

    Patronising b*****d

    ReplyDelete
  14. Tris

    I believe that the Scottish government saved an Aberdeen factory that made mattresses that Labour were going to close.

    Some deal with a supplier to the oil industry if my memory is correct.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Well done Dubs...

    Like the Tory MPs campaigning to keep their own constituency's hospitals while every one else's are closed.

    I wonder why no one has thought to ask Labour MPs why they are campaigning to keep these factories open, when they closed them. Mind I imagine that when Labour were closing them the Tories would have campaigning to keep them open, and talking tearfully of the hard working disabled families up and down the country... yada yada yada...

    ReplyDelete
  16. Niko. Council tax freezes are far more important to the lower paid, as you well know.

    It saves them maybe a £5 a month... over all the time they have been frozen maybe £25 a month. That makes a hell of a difference to a poor household.

    It maybe saves a rich household £40 a monthy, which is nothing to them. They wouldn't notice it.

    And if you put up the council tax tomorrow, the rich would probably grumble a bit, about subsidising the poor's libraries and schools and play parks and gyms and swimming baths and then forget it.

    The poor would have to cut some meals, or get rid of the car, or not have new shoes.

    Think on Niko.

    ReplyDelete
  17. He's doing it to be awkward Juteman. He's far too bright not to see that.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Oh right Dubs.

    It's a matter of finding a buyer then, I guess.

    I see that Dundee City Council is in talks with the government to see what can be done.

    From the Courier:

    A delegation from Dundee City Council hope a meeting with Scottish Enterprise Minister Fergus Ewing today can help save the city’s Remploy factory.

    Lord Provost Bob Duncan, administration leader Ken Guild and director of corporate services Marjory Stewart are travelling to Edinburgh to find out what support might be available from the Scottish Government.

    The conference at Holyrood, involving local authorities and the Scottish Government, was described by Fife’s three Labour MPs as a step forward in helping the two plants in their region.

    Gordon Brown, Lindsay Roy and Thomas Docherty have vowed to save the Cowdenbeath and Leven factories, which are staffed by disabled people.

    They said a tripartite deal bringing together Fife Council and the Scottish and UK Governments should form the basis of a rescue package.

    Mr Duncan hopes a way forward can be found for the Remploy in Dunsinane Industrial Estate, Dundee, where 43 people are employed. The delegation will also be meeting Minister for Disabled People Esther McVey in Dundee next week.

    “We hope to get details from her on how the Remploy factory in Dundee has been doing,” he said. “We are told the Remploy group has made a loss but we don’t know how the details of the losses.

    “Is Dundee affected in a similar way to the rest of them or has Dundee done better than some of them? If the Dundee Remploy factory has fared better than some of the factories, can it be run as a going concern and can this avenue be explored?

    “We really need detailed figures about how the Remploy factory in Dundee and I hope this information can be provided when we meet Ms McVey next week.”

    Scottish Enterprise Minister Fergus Ewing said he hoped to meet Work and Pensions Minister Iain Duncan Smith to discuss the Remploy Marine sites next month. He said officials will consider how the development of business plans for the factories can be given assistance.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I see Niko taking hypocrisy to levels outside this universe what a complete waster to humanity.

    I have just watched the youtube version of 'Cruel Britain' and this mirrors what we do behind closed doors by torture in the fight against terrorism and is utterly despicable in front of our own eyes.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I guess I should go look at that CH. I'm not sure I have the stomach for it, but I guess I should.

    At least it seems that the SG is doing its best to help the people at Remploy.

    It is heartening to see at least one Labour man fighting to get something done; railing against the SG, urging them to action.

    Fortunately, if Labour feels like this, they will overturn the cruelty of freeze on benefits and the throwing off incapacity benefits of the sick (even if it was their idea).

    We can look forward to that in 2015, can we Niko?

    ReplyDelete
  21. well reading all the self serving assertions distortion
    and downright lies from you lot
    .............................I WIN AGAIN.


    ReplyDelete
  22. BBC radio 4 news this AM full of possible leadership challenge to cameron. The reason....... gay marriage!

    In Leeds some 5,000 people will be affected by bedroom tax with only some 75 suitable properties available to rent.

    Food banks in virtually every town in the land.

    Welfare limited to 1% rise for 3 years.

    Yet all these people can complain about is gay marriage.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Boorach

    Cameron and Osbornes time is coming to an end the tide has
    irrevocably turned event the Torys admit this.
    soon they will be gone.

    ReplyDelete
  24. No Niko. You last again. I'm waiting to hear what Labour will promise to reverse of the wicked Tory onslaught on the poor... and so far you have said nothing. So I'll assume that that means .... nothing!

    Because in some ways, Niko, (as you very well know) Labour are more Tory than the Tories are. And they despise the poor for holding them back from being the natural party of power in England.

    ReplyDelete
  25. This is utterly amazing Boorach. People are starving, freezing, being thrown out of their homes, and that doesn't bother Tory MPs.

    But suggest that they might legalise marriage between two people who love each other, but are of the same sex, and they get themselves into such a lather that you'd think the world was going to end.

    I read in the Telegraph (I think) that there are Cabinet Ministers who will vote against this measure. So we can expect their resignations, I assume.

    And for what? Labour will vote in favour as will the Liberals. Presumably the religion based parties from the North of Ireland will vote against, and if course as it doesn't affect Scotland the SNP will abstain. But the law will go ahead anyway.

    I suppose they are worried their rent boys will demand that they marry them...

    The sad thing is that these people don't give a toss about the poor starving, or the chronically sick being made to go and look for jobs that don't exist, but they are bent out of shape about marriage...

    Jeez. Are they human?

    ReplyDelete
  26. tris

    now just explain why given all your diatribes over Labour
    do the Scottish people ignore the snp in the Westminster
    (where the real powers reside ) elections.

    Now the snp done ok in a one off election
    to the Scottish Toon council but since then
    big fat zero.

    So far behind you cant see them in there own
    invented separation campaign.....even in the bent
    polls done by Nationalists.

    This constant repetitive refrain

    vote Labour get tory(English) rule works
    wonder at the local hall meeting
    of extremist Nationalists.

    But for normal well adjusted Scottish
    people is well just BORING.
    and uninformative.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Niko. Osborne looks to be there for as long as Cameron is. I don't know why. He must know something, maybe from Bullingdon days.

    Cameron is more popular in England than the Tories are. Matthew D'ancona is pointing out (Telegraph) that they would be mad to get rid of him. A bit like the Scottish ones were with Annabel.

    They'll only get someone even less popular, just like teh Scottish ones did!

    ReplyDelete
  28. Well, the polls (which, I admit don't mean much) have the SNP in front of Labour in Westminster voting intentions.

    People believe Labour which says, Vote SNP get a Tory Government... In fairness it has some truth to it. If people voted in say 40 SNP MPs, and the English did their usual of voting Tory, then we'd have a Tory government. There's not going to be an SNP government in the UK.

    Then there is the imbalance of the system of voting:

    Labour: 1,035,528 votes, 42% of votes cast= 41 seats.

    SNP: 491,386 votes, 20% of votes cast = 6 seats

    If seats were based on votes, the SNP would have had just under half the number of Labour's seats.

    But that's the system that the British people wanted, when Mr Cameron was kind enough to give them the opportunity to vote on two possible systems.

    Of course if Nick Clegg weren't so spineless we'd probably have another system by now, which would more reflect public's wishes.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Actually, the public elected 41 Labour MPs in Scotland and still got the Tories.

    ReplyDelete
  30. tris


    the plot thickens


    Work advisers 'pushing jobless into self-employment



    Some people on the government's welfare-to-work scheme are being inappropriately pushed towards self-employment, the BBC has learned.

    It found they were being encouraged off unemployment benefit, so they can claim more money from working tax credits.

    The work programme pays companies for helping people into sustained employment - including self-employment.


    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21260331

    ReplyDelete
  31. Niko

    I think you will find that welfare to work was started by the last Labour Government.

    http://www.ijull.co.uk/vol7/2/mccullock.pdf

    The link is to a policy document from 2006, one of the aims was to set a target of having 70% of lone parents in work by 2010.

    Yet another Nu Labour/Old Tory policy started by Labour and continued with relish by Labours new friends the Torys. Better together yes they are they deserve each other.

    Tris

    Funny how the Courier article just like my local paper forgot to mention the 28 Remploy factories that Labour closed when Brown was PM.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Tris

    I know you avoid The Scotsman like the plague, but there is a good article today by Jim McColl.

    http://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-independence-jim-mccoll-makes-his-case-1-2773439

    Do not read the comments though. The Scotland haters are out in force today. I think they are getting desperate.

    ReplyDelete
  33. I've seen that Niko.

    There are no jobs (well, yes there are, but we're talking part time and McDonald's who only take on kids) but the targets for getting people into work have stayed the same.

    So they will try anything to get people off their books. They send them on courses they don't want to go on, and which won't help them (because the popular courses at college, like hairdressing are full). So they put them on the courses no one else wants to go on.

    They push them into starting their own businesses when the chances of success are minimal. But it doesn't matter. They get their target and the Jobcentre gets its target.

    They are also sanctioning people for turning up late or having failed to apply for a job that they were told to...



    ReplyDelete
  34. Yes, that is strange Dubs... more so given that the Courier is a staunch Tory supporting paper.

    ReplyDelete
  35. I'm off to read that, thanks Dubs... I won't read the comments. :)

    ReplyDelete
  36. Dubs

    Thanks for that I'm off to read the comments

    ReplyDelete
  37. Niko

    I thought that you were all the comments on the Scotsman under your many names.

    What about Welfare to Work Niko, dont you just love Nu Labour and how it hounded the sick the disabled the poor and the unemployed.

    Brown bust the economy and people lost their jobs because of him, then he started schemes to hound the unemployed that he created.

    Nu Labour, you could not make them up!!!

    ReplyDelete
  38. Dubs

    Your a Tory in snp clothing your not fooling anybody
    well apart from yerself

    I refer you to this from the snp org
    please read and inwardly digest

    this is to make you feel better


    https://www.youtube.com/user/MrSPECTRUM7?feature=mhee

    ReplyDelete
  39. Dubs


    "Someone who does not agree with us should be treated with respect. Politics is all about different viewpoints. Never make personal attacks on any individual or engage in general abuse of opponents. The key to victory is positive persuasion. Our case is a strong one and there is no need to become involved in personal attacks."

    ReplyDelete