POOR BRITAIN

“Fuel prices rose by an inflation-busting seven per cent in 2013, pushing more people into fuel poverty. The fact that this is happening in an energy-rich country is scandalous." - Housing Minister Margaret Burgess.

In fairness I very much doubt that by any measure the UK is the
6th largest economy in the world,
but by anyone's standards we are relatively rich as a country.
Why, then, do people have the indignity of begging for food thrust upon them?

This is because he is a Tory. The Conservatives in Scotland
who accept that they have no chance of forming a government
want to see Gentleman Jim as the leader.

I suppose there are always food banks ma'am. Although it is rather infra dig, and
there are a lot of MPs who would think that you were faking it.

Ah, yes, the horrendous cost of keeping this OAP home for toffs open could have been reduced just a little, had they agreed to share catering with the Commoners along the corridor. However, this was rejected by their Erminenesses on the basis that the vintage of the subsidised champagne would not have been of sufficient quality for the taste buds of aristocrats, and well, one couldn't have that, could one?

Ewwwww. UGLYYYYYY Bastards

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, largely responsible for the misery of hunger
gets a photo opportunity at a food bank, and shows just how detached from reality he is.

I suppose there must be trickle down in some way. After all the hyper rich have to eat, have their cars driven and
their houses cleaned, but they are so incredibly mean that they pay for it all at the bottom possible rate, leaving the
recipients unable to let the money trickle any farther.

In one of the top 20 countries in the world...
Makes you so proud to be British.

Who can argue that?
Not seen many poor councillors though...

Well, we couldnt have a Westminster government frightening
away their friends who will give them directorships when they retire to the Lords

Socialism... what's that then?

Well, otherwise he wouldn't get home in time to see his little prince get off to bed
like hundreds of thousands of other fathers all over the country.
Maybe the DWP could provide helicopters for all of them on the social security?
No?

SCOTLAND'S CLIMATE IN THE UK

Yes, you heard that right. 47% of children in Glasgow live in poverty, only 25 miles from £100,000,000,000 worth of nuclear weapons whose only purpose appears to be to maintain the likes of Cameron on the permanent membership of the UN Security Council, no matter how inappropriate that membership is.

While children head off to school with empty bellies from cold homes  William Hague appears on television looking desperately serious and what he thinks looks "statesman like"  to tell Vladimir Putin a thing or two. How they must laugh in the Kremlin.

But seriously, what kind of people are we that allow this obscene level of poverty and suffering all the time pretending an importance the last vestage of which disappeared forever 70 years ago?

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".

And bless them, the kind and warm hearted people at the coalition have done just that. There’s no messing about, either, when it comes to GeorgeOsborne and Danny Alexander. 

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!

FUR COATS...

...and no knickers

It doesn't have to be like this. It really doesn't. 

But does anyone think that people in London give a damn if Scots live in these multiply deprived areas, as long as people like Cameron can brag that Britain has the forth largest military spend in the world and is, therefore, a force to be reckoned with?

I know that instead of fighting pointless and sometimes illegal wars against countries in the Middle East, I'd rather we spend our vast income on giving Scots somewhere decent to live.

After the referendum and a positive outcome, there will be a period when the Scottish government negotiates with the UK government who gets what; who pays for what.

Then, five years after the last Scottish general election in 2011, there will be a Scottish general election. 

By 2016 the Scottish branch of London Labour will have had time to break free of the policies that are designed to impress the Ukip trending, Tory voting, southern part of England.

It's unlikely that a successful party like the SNP will disappear completely, although some may rejoin the parties from whence they came. But it seems likely that we'll have at least two parties whose policies are broadly progressive. 

With the Tories similarly detached from the greedy big business London City politics that they have followed since Mrs Thatcher's day we might even have a half decent right of centre party, possibly led by someone like Murdo, who was only stopped in his tracks last time round by Cameron's (strictly against the rules) interventions on behalf of his little helper, Ruth, only a few weeks into her political career.

We will have a lot of UK debt to pay off, but we will have vast resources: resources that  will make us one of the top ten rich countries of the world. 

We could rid ourselves of the fur coats, and buy up half of Marks & Spencer's  knicker department in the first year.

This article is worth a read.

LIAR: THIS PLUMBS NEW DEPTHS FOR THE TORIES

It was a “watch my lips” moment when the prime minister was asked about winter fuel payments for the elderly.

In the run up to last year’s election he was asked about the benefits given to pensioners; bus passes, winter fuel allowance, free tv licence.

Labour had been putting out leaflets suggesting that these benefits would be cut and David Cameron, saying that he felt very strongly about this said that these Labour leaflets were COMPLETE AND UTTER LIES.

He added that if the (then) prime minister had amoral compass then he should “dig it out”... The Tories would keep the benefits in the way in which he inherited them and it was wrong for Labout to be scaremongering.

He said that he didn’t use the word “lie” very often, but he would on this occasion. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been quite so vociferous, because yesterday pensioners were told that their winter fuel allowance of £400 for over 80s, and £250 for over 65s, would be reduced to £300 and £200 respectively. This despite double inflation rate rises in gas and electricity and who knows how much more before the winter. After all the government seems disinclined to take the steps that the French government took over their power suppliers and insist on inflation only rises.

So now, I don’t use the word liar very often either, but I’m afraid I’m going to use it about Mr Cameron. In the clip linked here, he repeats this over and over again in a way that makes one think that it REALLY matters to him. That was electioneering of the worst sort, because it doesn't.

So he’s a liar and he has no moral compass to dig out at all. His mother won’t be cold this winter though, so that’s alright. The rest of you can freeze.

Iain Duncan Smith has given notice that he will be looking at other benefit like free bus passes and tv licences in an effort to save money. Just when you thought they couldn’t get any lower, along comes Iain Duncan Smith

I know we’re in a mess, but we have enough money to go to war in Libya, so why don’t we have enough money for at least our poorer pensioners.

This is an inexcusable and despicable attack on some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the country. It would have been a low thing to do in any case, but after that denial, which I have would say was repeated over and over again in interviews... it’s plumbed new depths.

Pics:(1) Fortunately not every pensioner is cold and uncomfortable all winter. (2) This man is visiting an old lady who most certainly won’t be cold. (3) Clearly this lady is not so fortunate; and will be even less fortunate this winter. Sickeningly over 20,000 old people die from cold related illness every winter.

CRUMB OF COMFORT FOR PENSIONERS

Good news for pensioners is that the pension will rise to over £100 a week in April next year.

Given that inflation is well above the target rate set by the government, it is reckoned that the pension will rise by £4.49 per week to £102.14, still the lowest in the EU by percentage of the average salary at around 30%.

This will be a crumb of comfort to pensioners faced with some of the most miserable weather in the EU, with the numbers in fuel poverty doubling in the last 5 years. Add to that that energy prices are not restrained in any way, and that it is rumoured that emergency cold weather payments are set to be cut from £25 to £8.50, and we are looking at misery for old folk who have little more than their pension to live on in a winter that is predicted to be very severe.

Of course those who were prudent and saved something for their old age are being rewarded with almost zero return on their money, with interest rates at record low, and inflation far above anything that any savings account pays.

Let’s home that if Mr Osborne is going to reduce the amount paid as a winter fuel bonus to pensioners, that he does it only for the very richest pensioners for whom the extra £250 is of negligible interest.

According to the Telegraph, this will be the last time state pension payments will be based on RPI. The government, they say, is to switch to Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation starting next year. This may mean lower increases in payments from April 2012 onwards. For instance, last month while RPI was 4.6%, CPI was 3.1%.

I’m confused. I thought that that was only for other benefits. I thought too that the retirement pension was to be linked (as it always should have been) to wage increases. Of course at the moment that would probably mean what Mr Brown would call an increase of -4%.

Perhaps someone can enlighten me...?