Tuesday 18 December 2012

Merry Christmas, Mr Shelbrooke

With the season of good cheer almost upon us, there's a wonderful example of exactly the opposite in a story which has just popped up on the news feeds from the Express.  The MP Alec Shelbrooke (Tory, Elmet and Rothwell) tells us that "Benefits claimants should be banned from spending their state handouts on cigarettes and booze".  Later in the piece he says, "Introducing a welfare cash card on which benefits will be paid, claimants will only be able to make priority payments such as food, clothing, energy, travel and housing. The purchase of luxury goods such as cigarettes, alcohol, Sky television and gambling will be prohibited."

It's not new but it's exceptionally stupid.  And note something else important - the Express's determination to talk about "state handouts" rather than benefits.  It's all part of the ugly propaganda campaign jointly being waged by the far-right media and their MP chums.  All the buzz words are there: "something for nothing culture", "striving low-paid workers", "idleness of the shirkers", "hard-working families".  It's so tedious and so offensive.

If you want to let Mr Shelbrooke know your opinion, he has his own website.

29 comments:

  1. It gets worse. Firstly I'm offended that anyone should say what I can and cannont spend my benefits on, and secondly how would that even work? Bus drivers don't have a chip & pin for travel, and will all shops accept the cards. This raises more questions than answers. Next we'll be told what food we can buy and how much we can spend.

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  2. I looked up Alec Shellbrooke/IPSA Expenses,he claims more for parking £76 than I get in JSA and of course £1300 per month rent even his TV License...Who's a "Scrounger?" On travel the WP Provider for MWA agreed to pay a rate of .20p per mile Max,yet MP's claim 45p per mile,magic Diesel prices for the unemployed?

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  3. To follow on from Janey's comments, this is a most stupid and ill thought out 'idea'.

    1) Just how much will this cost to deliver / administer? Producing the cards is one thing. What about the IT infrastructure behind it? No doubt run by some outsourcing company to cock it all up. At a much bigger cost than any savings it promises to deliver no doubt.

    2) Has this so called public servant seen what has happened in parts of the US where this has been carried out? It has created a black market in such cards where they are sold on to dodgy types offering well below what the cards are worth in £'s.


    3) As Janey rightly suggests, where will these cards be usable? Will ALL major supermarkets be on board? Will the big names be the only ones with the infrastructure to be able to be part of this scheme? Suppose Helen has one of these cards. Her nearest Tesco which accepts these cards is two miles away. However, Helen's local Costcutter is just five minutes away but is not part of this card scheme. This means an expensive bus ride or a long walk to Tesco's and especially back with a couple of heavy bags. I bet buses will not take these cards!

    4) If only big name stores take these cards, then it's likely many local shops will suffer. The local high street is already under a lot of pressure as it is!

    5) What are luxuries? Although not much of a drinker myself and a definite non-smoker, I accept many enjoy a drink and a smoke as pleasures rather than a luxury. Fifteen years ago, an internet connection would have been a luxury. Now, it is a necessity. Not just for job seeking, but for other things such as online banking and researching cheaper energy tariffs. Indeed, several European countries such as France and Finland now see internet access as a human right!

    This MP Alec Shelbrooke is part of the reason many feel disenfranchised by politics. Sometimes one has to ask if he and his ilk are feeding and shaping the very worst of public opinion with such crackpot schemes. Or are they merely happy to be sheep like and lazily go with the flow rather than standing out and being making a real difference for the better!!!


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  4. MPS should have a card so there expenses cannot be spent illegally.

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  5. There's a link here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9779000/9779292.stm
    to Shelbrooke having his say in the House of Commons.
    He doesn't want the unemployed to have Sky TV, but hasn't apparently thought that they wouldn't have TV at all. How would they buy a TV licence?

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    1. I read in the Metro newspaper a couple of weeks ago that Young Conservatives at Oxford University were demanding that the laws designed to protect against racial, religious, and disability discrimination be extended to protect them. They claim that they are being subjected to increasing amounts of verbal abuse.

      I agree. It really is time that legislation be introduced to make incitement to class hatred a criminal offence. That way people who make statements which are designed to cause hatred, with the ultimate effect of reducing fellow citizens to destitution can be imprisoned for lengthy periods of time.

      I never thought the day would come when I would agree with the Young Conservatives.

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  6. Just how much does he think us scroungers have left for so called luxuries after we have paid our bills and fed ourselves ?? A smoke and an odd drink is not a luxury it is something that helps you get through the everyday drudge of life when you cannot work through long term illness.My priority with the pittance i receive is to make sure my bills are paid and have food in my cupboard and the very little i have left is for whatever i choose to spend it on.How much in tax alone will the government lose if this ridiculous idea was brought into force ??Maybe alcohol prices in pubs should be on a par with the prices in the house of commons bar then we would all manage very nicely thank you.

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  7. Those people who condemn the unemployed, seem to forget that most will have paid NI contributions and are therefore FULLY ENTITLED to JSA. It is not a handout, it is a payout from an insurance scheme.

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  8. Most people angry at people on benefits are those already employed & paying taxes. Do they not realise they could so easily be unemployed, no job is secure. How thankful would they then be for the benefits.

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  9. Off the subject,but The Connors have just been jailed for "Conspiracy to require a person to perform forced or compulsory labour" sounds a lot like the Mandatory Work Activity part of the WP,the Judge also stated that it disturbed him that the Connors lived a life of luxury while those forced to do this work had barely enough to survive...sounds very "Emma" like to me.The Connors said they were being "Samaritans" the should of actually stated that they were doing it for a"Social Purpose" Will the Public Interest Lawyers take up the case again now?

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    1. I really don't agree with your analogy between the Connors and MWA. I know it's attractive, but if you think about it there's no real comparison.

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    2. I only compared the basic ruling "Require a person to perform forced or compulsory labour" an unemployed person can refuse and be sanctioned and this does not compare to what those men went through,but In my opinion this falls into the slippery slope of only being "a little bit pregnant" the Gov't has prosecuted these people and rightly so,but under the guise of respectability commit acts that mirror these offences,how many more reforms will be adopted? until they just start making it up as they go and erode the rights of the unemployed.

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    3. I have to agree with Historian here. Going by the story linked below, the people were homeless and physically abused by the Connor's family. At least on MWA you get to live in your own home and get your benefits as normal.

      http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Jail-terms-handed-forced-labour-Connors-family/story-17628434-detail/story.html?sp=normal&1355924124415

      I'm glad justice was served on this day. Some of these types of crimes against basic human rights go unpunished for years, so I'm glad this one was uncovered.

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    4. The good thing about this Blog is the fact that all views are allowed(even mine)unlike a lot of the WP Blogs....And I am actually Homeless,sofa surfing....

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    5. Not all - you should see what I don't publish!

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  10. If it's any consolation bills introduced under the ten minute rule rarely, if ever, become statute. This is clearly a bit of kite flying by the Tory right wing with the MP concerned trying to get some brownie points from the Tory grandees. It is part of the ongoing propaganda war being waged against the unemployed - despicable as that is.
    The clearly biased questions on the website are designed to produce only one answer - an enormous majority against the "scroungers" and in favour of benefit cuts. No doubt at some point soon the results of this ridiculous poll will be trumpted from the Daily Excees and Daily snail as irrefutable proof that "hard working families" want to see benefits cut back.
    Pass the sick bag.

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  11. Whilst not wishing to make reader blood boil, they are discussing the misguided Shelbrooke on BBC R5L right now....

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    1. Let us know the conclusions.

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    2. Well, it was not much, esp considering that it was in the last 15 mins of the program. However, it simply had this joker Shelbrooke spouting on about how workers in his constituency cannot affod 'luxuries' such as achohol and cigarettes... yadda, yadda, yadda!

      He also said that being on benefits should not be a stigma. When it was put to him by one of the co-presenters that his scheme would create just that, he naturally disagreed.

      Not surprisingly he did not tell us all how much this would cost or would save the taxpayer!

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  12. According to IDS, his new Universal Credit scheme will only pay each Benefit claimant once every calendar month. IDS claims that this is because Benefits claimants must not be treated like children and that we must be got ready for the Utopia that IDS imagines most Tory-voters call Work.

    Alec Shelbrooke has cut the ground from under IDS’ feet. Shelbrooke reckons that Benefits claimants must be treated like children and restricted about what we can buy with our pocket money.

    There seems to be no party discipline amongst Tory MPs nowadays.

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  13. There is I am afraid a very large technical problem with Alec Shelbrooke's utterly unworkable bill. I think he should be even personally pay for ALL paperwork and time wasted on this bill.

    When the shop or supermarket rings up your total cost of your shopping and you ask to pay for it by card. What happens is that only the total cost gets transferred to the debit/credit card terminal. At this point you enter your pin number. The shop's Bank does not care what evil stuff you have bought. They are ONLY a payment gateway.

    To implement what Mr Dimwit wants shops to do means a radical change to filter what items you are buying. This would cost the industry and the taxpayers hundreds of billions.

    Can you imagine standing in the queue behind someone using one of Mr Shelbrooke's cards when the person is only buying some cooking wine to help improve the taste of ASDA's cheap basic mince with all sorts of alarms going off.

    This man is an idiot and should be sacked and sent away without a pension or a pay off or bonus.

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  14. I wonder exactly what are Shelbrooke's ideas to create jobs and directly tackle long-term unemployment. Or does he just want to punish the jobless?

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  15. with jsa being 71 quid a week after spening rougly half on food and beverages (smart price squash and coffee, not booze :P) and another 20 to 30 quid on transport, interview costs, mobile phone and other costs associated with job hunting, a 25 gram pouch of the cheapest tobbaco a week is the only luxury that I can afford.
    should probably quit but anyone that has been unemployed will know its a soul destroying and very stressfull enviroment and any stress relife is welcome. my personal opinion aside a mp can spend more on a business lunch than a jobseeker gets to last a week on. the idea for the cards is ill concived as a lot of the current governemts ideas are , the only things that will happen if the come in are (A) a american style black market where the credit is exchanged for cash on a ruthless exchange rate and (B) theft of the "luxury" items by those that have no choice (not saying anything specific, but desperate people do desperate things). already we live in a culture that demonises the sick and unemployed to the point where those unfortunate individuals are looked down on as less than human. things ae already at a state where basic food and baby milk are the most shoplifted items because poeple are desperate. what these polititions need is a month of living on 71 pound a week to see how hard it actually is before judging anyone (thats with out mentioning the additional problems many disabled face).
    sorry for being a bit waffley and convoluted

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  16. Here's the Express's report of it:
    http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/366187/-Revolutionary-job-system-launched/
    Note the massively positive spin, the passing reference to "compulsory" and the blatant untruth in the final sentence.

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  17. Re Anonymous 16.37 19/12/12

    Correct - it'll put Shop Staff under pressure ...as soon as they say you can't have this with the #scroungercard ....there is a danger of things kicking off ...which means Private Security Agency Retail Guards will have to stand near the tills ...then there's the problem of short handed Plod being called more often too ?

    It didn't work with Asylum Seekers under New Labour ...it's caused no end of problems in Australia and the States in particular .

    Then there's the issue of Gidiot not getting his duty money and the links to the drinks industry that the Tories have - Cameron was going on about Broken Britain whilst he was a director of a binge drinking bar chain .

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  18. why not go the whole hog and send the panel round like in the 30's ....get rid of that big telly now even if you only £30 at Cash Converters for it ...yes that's really going to deal with poverty

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  19. HOW dare he dictate what can and cant be spent, He who gets a lot more in perks, and he can claim far far more than most unemployed get in a year. This is another form of social control.

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  20. Sky dish outside? knock on the door.... can you prove your in employment sir/madam?

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  21. Regarding universal jobmatch. i take it the DWP will put tracking cookies on this site, will those tracking cookies allow the DWP to see other internet sites not associated with the job match web site?

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