Spot on.

When will people realise that the Conservative agenda is not economics-driven but is ideology-driven?

They are trying to do what even the evil witch Maggie wouldn't have dared to do, which is to eradicate the last vestiges of the welfare state, state ownership and state responsibilities.

Give them enough time and it won't just be the NHS that gets privatised but ieverything... all emergency services, schools, roads, national security, you name it... everything.

They will deny it but they will be lying in the same way that Cameron lied about the NHS.



They are, of course, helped by decades of Thatcher, Major and Blair all trying to under-tax each other so that tax is now a dirty word.

Tax is part of our contribution towards a better country for all ... and that "[ifor all[/i" bit is the part that the mean and selfish bstrds in the Conservative Party hate most of all.

The reality of the shirkers and skivers and the bedroom tax.

My mate, unemployed presently.

Renting a modestly small two-bedroom cottage. (I know for a fact there are no one bedroom properties available in the town).

His rent is £85 a week. (lets say £340 a month for convenience).

He recieves a housing benefit of £276 every four weeks.

A deficit of £64 which he now has no alternative but to pay out of his Job-Seekers allowance.

He receives £71 a week JSA so lets say £284 a month.

£284 a month minus £64 a month he has to put too for rent.

Doing the math that leaves him with £224 a month.

That'll be £56 a week to feed, clothe and pay his water rates, electricity and gas bills.



But hey up, wait on a minute.

He has an extra small box bedroom in the property and has now been told the newly vaunted bedroom tax will involve a £13 weekly reduction in his housing benefit.

That'll now leave him £43 a week to feed, clothe and pay his water rates, electricity and gas bills.



But hey up, wait on a minute.

He's now been informed by his local council that he will have to pay 25% of his council tax. Something that used to be paid for him when unemployed.

I think it works out at roughly £20 a month he will now have to contribute, so roughly another £5 a week he never previously had to pay.



£38 a week to feed, clothe pay his water rates, gas and electricity bill.



But he doesn't want a job, honest.

He's living a life of Riley.



No wonder he keeps his bedroom curtains fooking shut!

Have a read of that link I gave to the Daily Mirror, there might be a glimmer of hope if its true about the definition of a habitable room vs a "box room", if that wins an appeal then a good percentage of the victims of this persecution may have a get out clause.



Of course it means that their local council may also have been overcharging them for years for something they called a bedroom that was actually just a cupboard - an 8 foot square 3rd bedroom would not qualify as a bedroom.

Just read it.

Apparently only applies to council and housing association tenants?

Didn't realise that.



He'll be happy but disgusting Tory scumbags all the same.

Like Saddened, I don't know the precise ins and outs of the policy.



What I will say, though, is that it is unfair that I cannot afford a spare room but have to subsidise other peoples' spare rooms.



This sounds like the kind of policy which will throw up the odd harsh or exceptional case, however I actually think the government are right to address this issue.

And not the hundreds of thousands of our poorest citizens that JC's link refers too?

[i"But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth."[/i

Figures can be distorted to say almost anything.



One such 'poorest citizen' is begging for sympathy in my local rag this week. He has children from a previous (unmarried) relationship,who stay with him and his new (unmarried) partner for only 3 nights a week. Therefore, the bedroom he needs for his first lot of children is to be 'taxed' because, officially, they are not counted when calculating his housing benefit.



Behind nearly every story is a social failure. Sometimes it's the State's fault; more often than not it's the claimant's. The one thing which is certain is that 100% of the welfare bill is picked up by the taxpayer, who may have their own problems to deal with.

I see what you did there, with your 'odd exception' from your previous post.

Good work.



Incidentally, is it all them bastads running about being the real issue that's playing with your head?

But you aren't - and that is the whole point.



Its coincidental if someone takes council or HA property that under the NEW rules falls into the category of having an "extra" bedroom, the plain and simple fact is there are insufficient numbers of "correctly" roomed dwellings to satisfy the NEW rules.



Let me give you an example - you are a two parent, two child family, you have a boy aged 9 and a girl aged 8 years, you apply for LA or HA accomodation and you are in receipt of housing benefit, they offer you a three bedroomed house which being of a typical british standard is two double bedrooms and what we normally call "a box room", you accept it because it means that your children can have their own bedrooms.



From April 1st your housing benefit will be reduced by 14% because, according to the NEW rules your two children should be sharing one bedroom, despite the fact the the LA or HA never offered you a two bed unit and cannot offer you one still.



Just to rubber stamp the arbitory and punative nature of the NEW rules, if your two children were two boys and aged 14 and 15 then your housing benefit would still be reduced because some fekkwit decreed that they too should be sharing one bedroom.



This new housing benefit rule should have been laughed out at the first cabinet meeting, should have been rejected at the second meeting with a whisper in Camerons ear "Margaret wants to ask if you remember the poll tax", but we've reached a point where there are no new ideas in Plan A, no more screws to tighten, the presumed slack in public services that the whole shaky policy was based on has been proved to be somewhat smaller than envisaged then when it was all the rage at Oxford during those PPE debates, its time to step up the divide and conquer tactics - I dread to think what rhetoric is to follow in the next few weeks to try and justify their plan, or u-turn as the case may be.

Well they've got you hooked, good and proper.



If you lived in Poland in 1939 you'd be pointing out your local Jews to the police as "social failures".

Probably gone to ask the almighty why he allowed them 6 million defenceless men women and children turn into smoke?



Either that or he's gone to feed his rabbits.