Monday 2 December 2013

THE SHEER GENIUS OF DANNY AND GIDEON

The public has been asking for a long time now, that something be done to reduce the scandalous number of people living in fuel poverty, which is defined as "the need to spend more that 10% of household income to maintain 21°C for the main living area and 18°C for other rooms".


No sir. 

The new situation will remove 800,000 families from fuel poverty overnight.

AND Gideon the Red Faced Chancellor and Danny the Red Haired Chief Secretary are giving this generous Yuletide gift from the generosity of their little hearts, it will be in place BEFORE Christmas, and it won't cost any of us a brass bean!

YES, you hear me aright. Praise be. The spirit of Christmastide is upon even the stony hearts of the Condemns!

What, I hear you ask, are our beneficent benefactorial betters planning to do to make the lives of the pauper class a little less intolerable?

Are you sitting comfortably? Well then, I'll tell you.

They are going to REDEFINE fuel poverty.

Genius or what?

Yes, from sometime in December, fuel poverty will be redefined to where households’ “required fuel costs are above average, and where, were they to spend that amount they would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line”.

Bless them.

According to MPs the new definition will move more 800,000 households out of fuel poverty in England (no one bothered to count Scotland as no one really cares that much, I suspect. Maybe it’s harder to vote YES, if you have frostbite?).

The logic of this is that many poor households being far smaller than average, cost less than average to heat. This means that even if heating costs a significant part of their income, a household still won't technically be “fuel poor” (and entitled to the attendant benefits) because the amount it needs to spend to keep warm is still below average.

They’ll just starve to death instead.


A slight flaw in selling this as an improvement in conditions for the criminally poor is that freezing to death is relatively painless after the first few hours. Hypothermia is, in fact, one of the nicer ways to die.

Starvation, on the other hand, is deeply unpleasant.


Still, given that the Condemns are at the heart of this, you'd expect a flaw here or there, and if you're poor you can’t have everything!

28 comments:

  1. We really need to put MPs on at most median wage, and cut the expenses claims.

    Never going to happen at westminster though, so I know what I'm doing next year.

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    1. I've always thought that it was impossible for people to make laws and consider the financial aspects of people's lives when they lived in a strange world, so utterly remote from the lives of those for whom they would legislate.

      Working in a royal palace, where the laws of the land do not apply; starting wages for a job with no qualifications whatsoever at £66,000 and rising; expenses system that defies anything that anyone else would have, and reflects the fact that parliament does not follow the same strictures of audit as any other organisation in the country all militate against creating a group of people who have any idea how we live.

      So I agree with you ,Illy, a average working wage should be applied and suitable housing provided by the state for the members who live more than say 50 miles from parliament. Audited expenses with receipts for everything.

      And yes. I know what I'm doing next year too. :)

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  2. Two-faced sneering BASTARDS!

    Eck

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's really wickedness, isn't it?

      Evil.

      I wonder what the opposition is saying...

      Delete
    2. Ah yes... I meant the Opposition that opposes...

      Oh, yeah, there actually isn't one to speak of, is there?

      Delete
  3. Didn’t we hear the other day that our oh so generous Better Together government are giving poor people up to £1000 help to insulate their homes? How generous of them, but of course we should have all realised there would be a proviso or two to sour the cream. Good news one day but as always no jam. Assuming that, that help will go to those most in fuel poverty that means that the Condems have saved potentially 800,000x£1000; kerrching!! Who cares if a few people freeze to death. What the Tories giveth the Tories taketh away amen!

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    1. I hadn't thought of that Munguin.

      If you're not poor you don't get help.

      Money saved all round.

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    2. Off - topic, but Derek Bateman's Blog pages seem to have disappeared - Anyone got any idea what's happened?

      Eck

      Delete
    3. Possibly the Beeb's friendly lawyers have paid him a visit as they don't like democracy.

      Delete
    4. I noticed that. Bad things happening.

      Things are beginning to change. You can't expect the BBC to take that sitting down. Dirty work at the crossroads methinks.

      Delete
    5. Both back now it appears he was swapping a whole post and its comments from one site to tuther.

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    6. http://derekbateman1.wordpress.com/

      He apparently only moved.

      Delete
    7. Panic over :-)

      Eck

      Delete
  4. tris

    to be honest 16% wont even notice being morons
    and the Tory supporting 2% dont need it.

    its just how they changed the unemployment statistics a zillion times
    and always they came down.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, when they need to make it look like they are doing something, and there is nothing to do, they have to invent an improvement.

      As Boris said 16% won't know whether they are cold or hot adn the rest don't matter anyway.

      I wonder when they will reclassify unemployment so that there are only 25 people considered unemployed.

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  5. Nobody needs to worry as the Tory's and their ermine chasing party colleagues have spoken.

    Autumn Statement 2013: Britain can no longer afford welfare state, warns Osborne

    When's the referendum as this Thursday is not soon enough.

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    Replies
    1. Well, there you go. Scotland can (unless you're Ms Lamont and her something for nothing speech which lost her a lot of people to Labour for Indy).

      Choice is there folk. If you want the pensions you've paid into, best not stay with a state that can't afford to pay them.

      Delete
    2. Good answer taken from site:

      So the Welfare State is costing the Government £120 Billion.
      And Mr Osborne claims that "we can no longer afford it".
      Maybe this is why he failed maths at school:

      Coalition Government Wastage per year at least £135.5 Billion

      Coalition Government Wastage per year: £109 Billion
      Estimated Cost of Tax Avoidance: £70 - £100 Billion.
      Cost of the Millionaires' Tax Break: £3 Billion
      Cost of non-introduction of Mansion Tax: £2 Billion
      Replacing NHS Workers with Agency Workers per year: £12 Million
      Workfare: £3.7 Billion
      and miscellaneous.

      One-OFF Wastages of the Coalition since 2010: £79.4 Billion (Avg per yr: £26.5 Billion)
      Cost of recent system failure of Universal Credit: £0.5 Billion
      Cost of failed Work Programme: £1.1 Billion
      Welfare Reform: £1.4 Billion
      Royal Mail Sale undervalued by: £6 Billion
      Re-organising NHS: £3.5 Billion
      High speed rail to speed up business men's journeys: £33 Billion
      Record no-value PFI Contracts: £33 Billion
      Bonfire of Quangos: £0.9 Billion

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  6. well Cameron and scum have told us and the peoples will have to choose which is fair to me.You cant even say they wish to have an English state only,as they hate the northern English almost as much as they loath the Scots and the welsh.

    the Tory scum/filth are only concerned with the south east of England and even that can be shrunk down to London and some small areas within the south east.

    But its up to the peoples to put a stop to it my preference is Torys up against a wall, firing squad Blam ! blam ! blam ! job done ....old labour style.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fetch a doctor, someone...Niko has said something I agree with.....Now I'm worried....

      Eck

      Delete
    2. You see Eck. If you wait long enough Niko says something sensible.

      Sometimes he's like the buses and two sensible things come along at once.

      Now we need to know what Ed Balls has to say... and more importantly how he intends to act, if he gets the chance.

      No more WMDs?
      Come off the PMUNSC?
      Stop having the 4th largest military spend in the world
      Stop fighting wars wherever?
      Start actually taxing the rich, no I mean really actually insisting that they pay it?
      Or what?

      Delete
    3. niko the real and not TazDecember 02, 2013 6:33 pm

      tris

      It was Taz faking me just to comment as he is barred...

      Delete
    4. Don't be silly Niko. It's you that's barred, not Taz...

      Delete
  7. Can't see the Red Tory plans differing too much from those of their Blue Tory brethren....they' ll just be less honest about justifying it.

    Eck

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  8. http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/poll/02-12-2013/should-scotland-be-an-independant-country need your help!
    get voting

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From the site:

      Note: We have detected unusual voting patterns on the 'I live in Scotland' vote – inc a disproportionate number of Scottish voters (even taking into account the topic). Its likely there’ve been email/social media campaigns to drum up voters. So the result may be far from representative.

      But people don't vote for something they don't believe in. So, if it was advertised on social media, people could always go and vote against?

      No?

      Yeah, I did vote :)

      Delete