A cap, the results and an uncaring government

11 April

I had this morning's blog all planned out ready to be typed up, then I sat and watched that Panorama Special on the benefit cap. The way those people were being treated by Brent Council was horrendous! They may be able to claim that the law says A, B, C, but surely there has to be some way of helping the claimants. Shipping them out to Birmingham isn't the answer is it? Brum has enough of a housing crisis as it is without having people dumped on them from London.

How can it be right that a man now has to drive his kids to school 30 miles away from where he now lives? He and his family were struggling as it was; now they have the added costs of the daily commute. Could he find schools closer to home? I don't know and that wasn't mentioned but a lot of schools are just full up and can't take any more kids. Even if they could, would his kids have been able to deal with the changes in their education? Again, that is something that wasn't taken into consideration in the rush for headline grabbing benefit change rules. The same with the man's job; there aren't all that many jobs out there these days and I can understand why the man would want to hold on to job he already has.

But more disturbing I find is that in a number of cases where claimants were forced to move out were later moved back simply because their case hadn't been investigated properly or the council had made a mistake. Yet we didn't hear any apologies, there was no indication of error. And hang on a minute ... who paid for the families to be moved? Was it the family concerned or did the council pay? For those who were moved back, who paid for that as well? It seems that a money saving cap is costing a lot more than is being saved.        

Those of us who remember Mad Maggie will remember that we saw all, or similar uncaring casualness in the way people are treated before in the 1980s. We remember the poster of 1979 when she and her gang claimed, 'Labour isn't working' and showing a long line of people just standing there in a curved line. But then the reality struck home when the unemployed figures began to increase to what was at one seen to be 3,000,000. But that figure was doubted and the true figure was claimed to be nearer 5,000,000. We remember Norman Tebbit (I think), telling the jobless to get on their bike and go look for work.

So now we have Daft Dave instead of Mad Maggie and nothing has really changed, and it never will. Until the British electorate wake up and vote the Tories out of existence we will always have the same old polices; they are just dressed up to look and sound different.

And so to a photo ... 

Millennium Bridge and Tate Modern.

And today's funny ...

 Pregnant Prostitute
Doctor asks pregnant prostitute, "do you know who the father is?"
"For f.... sakes, if you ate a tin of beans would you know which one made you fart?"