What Have You Been Smoking, Grant Shapps?

When Walter Mitty wannabee Grant Shapps announced on Twitter that the Tories wanted the public’s views on benefits, two thoughts crossed my mind.

Firstly, “isn’t it a bit late, as they’d made their minds up already to punish the poor, in order to reward their rich friends and themselves?“, and secondly, “would they allow dissenting opinion to be expressed?“

As cynical as I am, even I was unprepared for the sheer dishonesty of the questions asked.

Never mind that being unemployed and having to rely on benefits is not the bed of roses that the Tories like to pretend. They have deliberately ignored the fact that 60% of benefit claimants are IN WORK!

Assuming that this survey isn’t just a sick joke, and it’s supposed to be serious, then it’s obvious why David Cameron came out so strongly against Nick Clegg’s proposal for a Royal Commission to look at how we deal with drug abuse. The must simply want to keep drugs expensive so the keep the really good shit for themselves.

See also:

Will working families lose out under 1% benefit uprating? Of course they will. (lartsocial.org)

A Perverse Joke By The Tories (sampb.co.uk)

Time To Troll the Tories Again (johnnyvoid.wordpress.com)

Poor vs poorer (latentexistence.me.uk)

Strivers vs Shirkers? Ten Things They Don’t Tell You About the Welfare Budget (huffingtonpost.co.uk)

Education for Dummies

Michael Gove with backer Edmund Lazarus

It seems not a day goes by without the government being involved in some sort of sleaze, usually the “news” that they are being funded by vested interests.
So it is today. The Independent today has another example. Michael Gove has strong links with Edmund Lazarus, one of the founding partners of a City private equity company, Bregal Capital, which set up private schools company Cognita (itself currently embroiled in a pension fraud and commercial espionage scandal) in 2004. Several donations were made while Gove was Education Spokesman while the Tories were in opposition.
Gove returned the money Lazarus gave him, and there is no suggestion that either either of them have done anything illegal, but once again the government gives every appearance of acting on behalf of their chums.

Related articles

• Private school chain faces Michael Gove inquiry on whistleblower claims (guardian.co.uk)

Eric Pickles – “Everything Is Everyone Else’s Fault!

There was already a shortage of jobs, yet our myopic government is pushing for more and more people to be put on compulsory (though confusingly termed voluntary) placements for no money bar their meagre welfare benefits, and for more convicted criminals to do underpaid work in prison, undercutting workers on the outside, and putting their jobs at risk.

Yet Eric Pickles thinks troubled families, that is families who meet five of the seven following criteria should be treated harshly, and even stigmatised:

• having a low income
• no one in the family who is working
• poor housing
• parents who have no qualifications
• where the mother has a mental health problem
• one parent has a long-standing illness or disability
• where the family is unable to afford basics, including food and clothes.

I’ve long been of the opinion that the Tory party, with a few honourable exceptions, are a bunch of selfish, vicious bastards, but they seem less and less bothered about covering that up with every day, and more and more contemptuous of anyone who isn’t as well off as them.

And if they don’t like people shifting the blame onto others, why are they so ready to do so themselves?

Related articles

• Eric Pickles: The man who wants to bring back blame (independent.co.uk)
• There may be trouble ahead (poverty.ac.uk)