DUPLICITOUS REWRITING OF THE WELFARE RULE BOOK

Yesterday, the Daily Mail insisted that the Welfare State is not being savaged by the Coalition. Fact versus, supposed, fiction spanning a couple of pages. The only waste here being the trees needed to make the paper on which to print this latest Coalition propaganda. The good old tried and tested salesman's trick of listing the good points and the bad points. Only, it isn't you who gets to list the good points.
If you scrutinise the Disability Living Allowance however, a few facts emerge which IDS would prefer to stay hidden.

Every year between now and 2015 the Government spend on Disability Living Allowance will be £13 billion. So say the Coalition, IDS has repeatedly refuted claims that the Government want to slash £2 billion from this budget. Known for his honesty and love of the Welfare State, this follicular challenged stalwart of Tory ideology insists that the old, the infirm and the disabled will be safe under the Tory Welfare Reform umbrella.

Let us look at people with Motability agreements.  As a rule, the DWP do not make payments of DLA care and mobility components should a disabled person be in hospital for 28 days or more, (84 days for children under 16 years of age). The payments resume once the disabled person comes out of hospital. However, in the case of Motability customers this payment was not suspended. That is to say, the Motability component continued to be paid to the Scheme until the end of the Motability agreement.
Iain Duncan Smith has decided that in order to be fair, all hospital in-patients will be treated in the same way, whether they have a Motability vehicle or not. So, if you are disabled and have a Motability agreement and were unfortunate enough to go into hospital after the 8th April 2013, the DWP will stop paying the DLA component to the Motability Scheme if you stay in hospital for more than 28 days.

It's refreshing to know that there is no malice in Smith's scheming and duplicitous rewriting of the DLA rule book, just "fairness".

The Mail states that it is false that the poor will be forced out of the cities because of the cap on the total amount of benefits which people will be allowed to receive. This cap is set at £26000. They argue that only 58000 people will be affected. Another interesting fact is that they (The Mail) use 2010 figures. As of November 2012 there were just over 5 million people claiming Housing Benefit and 5.9 million people claiming Council Tax Benefit. Common sense alone tells you that when spread across the whole of the UK and taking just eighteen of the major cities, not including major towns, the figure of 58000 is ludicrous. We are asked to believe that just 1.16% will have to be rehoused in a cheaper area away from the cities.
Given that The Mail likes statistics, here is another one. The Housing Benefit Budget, which stood at £21 billion in 2010 will only be allowed to rise to £23 billion by 2015. A rise of 8.7% when the rise in rents for Local Authority and Social Housing will have risen by at least 11.75% over the same period. As they would say on Star-Trek, "facts Jim, but not as you know them!"

Benefits are not being cut say the DWP. At an increase of 1% they may as well be!. Last year when the benefit rise was 5.2%, in line with inflation, most Social Housing groups across the country raised rents by at least 5% and they have done the same this year. This, despite the Coalition instructing Local Authorities to cap prices. Then again, it is just another case of the Coalition being seen to be "fair"!

I could go on but, unlike the Daily Mail, I am not in the habit of using a rain forest to make a point. This Government, like Labour before them, love statistics, they are the tool of the professional politician. Chuka Umunna is a classic example, having been soundly thrashed in the Eastleigh by-election he proudly spouted that Labour had increased its share of the vote by a ridiculous 0.2%. Pathetic as that was, politicians will pull more positive facts out of the hat than a magician has rabbits. This is exactly what The Mail has done on this occasion, it has printed the figures which best fit the article.
Talking percentages, The Mail has upped its price by 20% this year, perhaps to discourage Sun and Mirror readers who are obviously on Benefits and shouldn't be able to afford such a prestigious tabloid.

I have previously stated that, in my opinion, The Welfare State in its present form is unsustainable. An opinion which I still stand by. I have no solutions as I am not one of the sideline experts of whom Godfrey Bloom is so wary and, by the way, so too am I. It does need radical change to make it work efficiently but, not the Picasso-like abstract ideas that we have seen of late.
I am sick of hearing how well meaning Osborne, Cameron, Iain Duncan Smith et al are. I don't want well meaning, I want professional! When I ran my business, I didn't employ people because they were well meaning, I employed them because they were proven professionals. If they were found to be other than that, they were asked to leave.
It is time to ask the Coalition and the idiotic Opposition to leave.