Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Yeah, so I'll start it off. Lots of cuts. Lots of scary cuts. Lots of George Osbourne being incompetent. Oh anger.

The CBI this morning are predicting a double dip recession because of the slow down in the economy caused by the speed and depth of the cuts. Just what everyone told Cameron and Osbourne would happen.

Mervyn King warning of a 1930's style depression if countries don't help each other out and relieve the pressure on currency exchange rates.

And Nick Clegg's admission on Desert Island Discs that agreeing to the cuts was morally difficult and caused him lots of soul searching. The stupid git has condemned the LibDems to the political wilderness for ever after the next election (or when the coalition dissolves, which it will). I'll never vote for them again if they're prepared to form a pact with the devil to get power!

What a mess.

If I hear one more millionaire politician saying "we're all in this together" I will punch them.

This exactly. Nick Clegg sold out his voter base to get his hands on the tiniest bit of power. Game over!

The cuts make me sad. I'm surprised there hasn't been a protest organised. And +1 to the never voting Lib Dem again, I don't know how Clegg can sleep at night.

I am forking beyond outraged at Gideon and his shiitake. The Lib Dem thing did not surprise me- the exact same thing happened when they got into bed with Labour in the first Scottish Parliament. The fact that pretty much no one in Scotland votes Tory is just making the case for Salmond to push for independence. It's the 80s all over again, but without the same degree of outrage. For now...

I am so forking over all of these capitalist scumbags, seriously.

I'm really upset over what has happened and i feel lucky to not be there anymore.

I'm about to watch question time from the other night and probably get REALLY angry.

and this again. blue + yellow = green as far as I am concerned.

We have escaped the worst in education this time around, but there is worse to come and I am sure we will get hit sooner or later. This round of cuts was just the start!

Yeah the fact that he let them off their tax bill whilst penalising people on benefits makes me think "See, they hadn't changed, same old Tories" and then want to punch Gideon in the junk.

Mat.

Oh yes, just wait, there isn't a Tory out there who doesn't want to bash us liberal pinko teachers.
And one thing you can guarantee, there will be no new money, so anything we are given will mean something cut from sonewhere else.

(edited for spelling - and me an English teacher!)

(and then for grammar - maybe I should look for a new job)

It's so shiitake, they're pushing genuinely ill people off sickness benefits and into imaginary forking jobs. They're ignoring gp's medical reports and the new system is even less suitable for assessing chronic illness than the last one. The stress is just making people sicker, it's not about catching benefit cheats, it's just a way of reducing people's benefits.

Benefit cheats know how to fill in the forms and work the system and evade detection. They will continue. Genuine claimants are confused and embarrassed and have no clue what they need to do and will be further frightened off applying in case they get labelled as a benefit cheat. Kind of ironic really.

And if the Government don't realise this dichotomy they're more stupid than we thought. Or they do realise it but are just using it suppress the welfare bill. You decide.

Both, surely? I mean, they seem not to care about any real long term effects but are also right wing and obviously happy about it...

They realise it. They just don't care.

All the cuts are ideological rather than based on all the "we all have to chip in" bullshiitake they've been spouting. Otherwise they could have easily tightened up on corporation taxes and the like (history of being based offshore to avoid them).

As for Vodafone, isn't it interesting that Osbourne went, on tax payers money, to India last month to lobby against Vodafone's tax bill there/in their support. Just days after reaching an agreement with Vodafone in the UK. The India trip couldn't have been organised within a couple of days, which makes the whole decision look politically motivated. I know I sound like a conspiring liberal with that...

They're going to fine people £50 if they make a mistake on benefit forms, what about people who cheat on their expenses or give parliament wrong info about school building programmes?

And they want to deduct benefit from unsuccessful job seekers after a year. So, now it isn't enough to seek work, claimants have to manipulate the market to create more jobs. For themselves, for those shoved off incapacity benefit and for the prisoners who are also supposed to have jobs.

Given that so many prisoners appear to have literacy problems, it does seem that it would be more sensible to concentrate on their education instead. The ones who have good literacy skills could maybe help out.

Do you have links about the fine? I haven't heard about that.

It's disgusting, they'll put sick people on job seekers, people who realistically haven't a hope in hell in getting employed, then they'll kick them off job seekers after a year. Are we heading for a country of (more) sick and disabled people dying on the streets because of government cutbacks?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/a ... 099775.stm

Scroll down far enough and you will find where George Osborne says:
"There is £5 billion a year going in fraud and error in our benefit system and we have a very, very tough set of proposals that will be set out tomorrow to impose new sanctions, including everything from a £50 fine if you make an error on your form that you could reasonably have avoided because obviously we get a lot of people claiming, oh well you know … "

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ ... benefit.do

The article says that for LibDem MP Simon Hughes: " One worry is the plan to cut a person's housing benefit by 10 per cent after a year if they do not get a job, even for those who want to work."

That's horrific. Government forms can be really complicated, especially for someone who has a low level of reading comprehension. So they already need help to make ends meet, and you're gonna punish them for making a mistake? What the hell? Who are they to say when someone could've "reasonably avoided" making a mistake? The only reasonably avoided mistake would be if someone gets their own name wrong.

The public sector pay freezes peas me off (maybe because Mike works for HMRC). Unless they manage to freeze inflation as well (which is really bloody unlikely), that's basically a yearly pay cut until it's unfrozen. How is that supposed to help the economy?

We now have a government that can perform vast amounts of regressive social engineering using right wing ideology that even Thatcher wouldn't have contemplated, mostly thanks to the power hungry so-called Liberal front bench and the public's preference for voting in Big Brother and X-Factor rather than at general elections.
We get the government we deserve.

Urgh, they're such forking hypocrites, with their fiddled expenses and second homes! It doesn't make sense, if someone makes a mistake on their form it's a mistake, what good would fining them £50 do? If someone deliberately fills the form in wrong it's fraud and the fear of a £50 fine isn't going to make a difference. I wonder will they start paying people compensation for all the fork ups their offices make when dealing with benefits?

You just gave me my first sig, thank you!!!

Oh! I feel like I am finally a proper PPKer!! Ha!

A great quote from the latest Lucy Mangan column on the guardian website by her dad's friend explaining the flat rate tax system of the 80s and all its inequities.

"Imagine a rich man has bags and bags of gold all around him. And a poor man has two gold coins that he has managed to save over the years. Now imagine an evil hag, dripping blood from a blue suit lined with kitten skins knocks at their doors and demands a gold coin from each. Is that fair? No, and that's why if you ever vote Tory, I'll be back to cut your balloting hand off".