Changes to Housing Benefit kick in on Monday, April 1st. Far from being an April Fool's lark the changes will have a devastating impact on families who simply cannot afford to shoulder the cut in income.
The reduction is 14% for the first “extra” room and 25% for the second.
Astonishingly last week the government’s so called ‘poverty tsar’, MP Frank Field, egged on social housing landlords to take direct action. Bricking up doors and knocking down walls would reduce the number of bedrooms and protect tenants from cuts to their Housing Benefit.
In one amazing week I have met extraordinary women with the courage to fight back. What singles them out is that their fight is to protect and improve publicly funded services for children and young people.
In Brighton I joined Unite CPHVA celebrating 150 years of women organising in the first health union to affiliate to the TUC. Their colours are green, white and violet symbolising the union’s involvement with women’s suffrage.
I am in awe at the courage of girls and young women who speak out against the ideology that seeks to oppress all who are born female.
Malala Yousufzai is just 15, her home is Pakistan. Together with two friends Malala was shot while travelling on a school bus. Her ‘crime’ was to speak out for the right of girls and women to education. The attack against her was claimed and celebrated by the Taliban within Pakistan.
In a cowardly move last week Maria Miller, Minister for Disabled People issued a written statement on the future of Remploy factories. The Minister was later forced to account in person for this decision as shock waves reverberated across the Remploy workforce.
The coalition is proposing the closure of 36 of Remploy’s 54 factories resulting in 1,752 redundancies, among them 1,518 disabled workers.
This blog reflects my personal views and comments about a range of political, social and economic issues. Please feel free to use this opportunity to share your thoughts both about the blogs that I post, as well as other topics that are important to you.
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Although I welcome all kinds of thoughts - supportive, dissenting, critical or otherwise, I will moderate them before publishing. I will therefore delete comments if the content is abusive; off-topic; promotes hate of any kind; uses excessively foul language; is blatantly spam. I hope to do this within 24 to 48 hours of a comment being posted, so please don't be surprised if you find that your comment doesn't show up immediately, However, please contact me to follow up on the status of your comment if it hasn’t shown up after 48 hours and I will do my best to sort it out.
Comments Policy
Although I welcome all kinds of thoughts - supportive, dissenting, critical or otherwise, I will moderate them before publishing. I will therefore delete comments if the content is abusive; off-topic; promotes hate of any kind; uses excessively foul language; is blatantly spam. I hope to do this within 24 to 48 hours of a comment being posted, so please don't be surprised if you find that your comment doesn't show up immediately, However, please contact me to follow up on the status of your comment if it hasn’t shown up after 48 hours and I will do my best to sort it out.