Post by nickd on Jan 1, 2012 23:04:03 GMT 1
Now Ed Miliband gets tough with onslaught against 'evil' of benefits scroungers.
The Labour leader wants to shrug off his party's 'soft on spongers' image with a major U-turn on his stance on the benefits system
Here's why I think we should be immensely worried by Ed Miliband's new stance....
It's been well reported that Ed Miliband's leadership of the Labour party has taken a bit of a battering of late. On the whole, I think a lot of his policy has been very good; - but his greatest problem is winning over the public.
I was disappointed to read an article printed in the Daily Mail which highlighted Miliband's new 'get tough' on benefit scroungers, up to now this has very much been the domain of other parties. In the same paper there are several references to Miliband as 'Ed' ; - a term of endearment which should start alarm bells ringing for all of us. On Mylegal we constantly flag up how the right wing media peddle totally inaccurate stories over how benefit claimants are all too often labelled 'scroungers', 'spongers', 'fakers' and 'fraudsters'.
Whilst we're not a political site on Mylegal, we have to accept that our greatest allies in the fight against social injustice are indeed the Labour party. It's Labour who have fought tooth and nail in parliament and listened to a great deal of what we have had to say when we, amongst similarly minded folk, point out where we think the coalition's proposed social welfare legislation is deeply flawed. The Liberals have made some fairly vague indications that they will stand against certain parts of both the welfare reform and the legal aid, sentencing & punishment bill but when push comes to shove, they seem to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Conservatives whenever the time comes to voting stages of these bills through parliament. It happened in the House of Commons and now we all hope it's not repeated in the Lords.
Likewise, there are Conservatives who have expressed great empathy for our views, they can see that social injustice will be promoted in their constituencies by passing the parts of the bills we oppose, but time and time again they get whipped into voting for all that they know to be wrong and end up showing that their dominant allegiance is with the front benches in following national policy; - they consistently adopt the 'party line'.
On our part we battle day in and day out to get our clients a slice of justice, many of them are disabled and in receipt of state benefits; -we move heaven and earth to fight their corner in Tribunals and Courts in order to ensure their disability status is upheld and protected; - and time and time again we are successful with the exceptionally good results which we achieve. We stand up for the disabled, the vast majority are entirely genuine, the majority of fakers and scroungers probably don't need to come anywhere near us; - they can generally look after themselves when taking the state to task.
The disabled and state benefit recipients are rapidly becoming scapegoats for all that is said to be wrong with our ailing economy. Yet true statistics published back in, I think, 2010 show that actual benefit fraud accounts for just 0.85% of 1% of the entire spend on state benefits. At a figure of around £1.3 billion it's obviously too high, but it pales in to near insignificance when compared with the billions lost through lost taxes covered up by the big earners who employ smart accountants to avoid paying their dues. On a purely economic argument it costs a great deal to track down errant benefit claims and all too often the problem turns out to be a misunderstanding of complicated rules or official error in the way payments are made.
I noted how at all three of the party leader's conferences in September, not one of them stood up squarely against social injustice. It's a false economy to disregard it in any plan for economic revival; - the cost of ignoring it far outweighs the cost of implementing it into every facet of this society of ours. Any government ignores it at their peril. poor justice and welfare reform will cost us dearly in the long run, we will see an increased NHS bill, people will transpire to be too unfit in the workplace to hold down a productive job placement, welfare to work will take many years to work as effectively as government hopes, a lack of growth is failing to stimulate what is really needed; - real jobs. We will continue to see the numbers of appeals against social injustices rise; - at present government is throwing money away on increasing the capacity for appeals; - what it should be doing is looking more analytically at those wrongly targeted as fit for work.
Ed Miliband is in grave danger of alienating his party from the disabled and vulnerable individuals who probably see the Labour party as the only glimmer of hope on the horizon when it comes to their very own protection; - many of them put all their faith in the Labour party, if that is taken away from them, what on earth are they left with?
Ed Miliband should not succumb to mass media appeal, he would get far more credibility by vigorously challenging the practicality and logistics of government's welfare reforms; particularly the Work programme. Far too little is being said of how much private contractors stand to make out of finding the disabled a 'placement' in 'work'; - work which frankly doesn't exist when we look at the vast numbers of people chasing job vacancies around the country.
The Work programme seeks to reward contractors with payments of up to £14,000 per person if they can find claimants a placement, we've seen what a farcical system this was in the past and there is very little evidence that the 'Work' programme is any better now than anything tried in the past; - all these schemes just end up being a reworked example of something that's been tried and failed before.
Government justify the Work programme because it will mean government money is only paid on a results basis. Lets not kid ourselves these buy now pay later schemes costs us all at some stage in the future. We should be deeply concerned over how much cash is being tied up in these extremely expensive schemes, not to mention asking many questions over how contractors are being 'bankrolled' until the cash comes in. Miliband should be tearing into government over how the results will be measured and how as more and more disabled individuals become labelled unemployed, jobs will be found for them all.
Personally, I think Ed Miliband is once again being too apologetic by taking this line, he could instead make much more of the many good inititiatives introduced by Labour when it came to welfare. He should look at the true figures, be objective about the evidence (some of which I covered on Mylegal on the welfare reform car crash post). Let's not forget how an increase in 'in work benefits', a higher mortality rate and increased child related claims have all pushed up the benefit claimant count, it's simply not correct to put it all down to a nation of scroungers.
What concerns me is how Ed Miliband's new stance could affect us as the groups who help the genuinely disabled. If Miliband wants to curry favour with your average Daily Mail reader then he'll probably do well to stick to his chosen course of dialogue. However, by a natural association we are the people who help the disabled . If Miliband labels those we help as scroungers them it has to be said we could be seen by your average Daily Mail reader as their accomplices. If you tar one group with a brush; - you end up tarring a wider group.
Miliband should be saying far more of the role we play in promoting the injustice suffered by the genuinely disabled, we look at the merits of the cases we represent and as a result so often end up taking the right cases to Tribunals; - take us away and what happens to the rights of the genuinely disabled?
The Labour leader needs to do far more on using the media to educate the public about the real extent of benefit fraud and he needs to challenge government far more on the effectiveness of the steps they are taking to remedy it. He has a clear duty to protect the genuinely disabled and recognise that some of them simply won't be able to work, others will need support to help them transition from welfare; - this was the objective behind Labour's Employment & Support Allowance. The currently flawed work capability assessment is being misinterpreted by all party leaders because they simply don't want to be seen as understanding what it's really about; - it's easier to go with media perception, in my view Miliband should resist this temptation at all cost.
Well that's what I reckon, here's what the Labour leaders new line is...
"Beleaguered Ed Miliband is to make a bold bid to boost his flagging ratings by condemning the ‘evil’ of scroungers who refuse to work."
The Labour leader wants to shrug off his party’s ‘soft on spongers’ image with a major U-turn on his stance on the benefits system.
He will admit Labour blundered by not doing enough to combat the work-shy. And he will say that people should get state handouts only if they have paid their taxes first.
The move, certain to be denounced by Left-wingers, follows growing alarm in Labour’s high command at Mr Miliband’s poor performance.
Mr Miliband’s somersault on benefits will be signalled in a speech later this month by Labour welfare spokesman Liam Byrne to mark the 70th anniversary of the Beveridge Report. The report was used by post-war Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee to lay the foundations of the modern welfare state – and helped earn him a hallowed place in Labour history.
But Mr Byrne thinks Beveridge would ‘turn in his grave’ if he knew how billions of pounds of benefits fall into the hands of lifelong spongers.
Read rest of article (not using direct link to Daily Mail).... www.dailyveil.co.uk/news/article-2080776/Now-Ed-Miliband-gets-tough-onslaught-evil-benefits-scroungers.html
The Labour leader wants to shrug off his party's 'soft on spongers' image with a major U-turn on his stance on the benefits system
Here's why I think we should be immensely worried by Ed Miliband's new stance....
It's been well reported that Ed Miliband's leadership of the Labour party has taken a bit of a battering of late. On the whole, I think a lot of his policy has been very good; - but his greatest problem is winning over the public.
I was disappointed to read an article printed in the Daily Mail which highlighted Miliband's new 'get tough' on benefit scroungers, up to now this has very much been the domain of other parties. In the same paper there are several references to Miliband as 'Ed' ; - a term of endearment which should start alarm bells ringing for all of us. On Mylegal we constantly flag up how the right wing media peddle totally inaccurate stories over how benefit claimants are all too often labelled 'scroungers', 'spongers', 'fakers' and 'fraudsters'.
Whilst we're not a political site on Mylegal, we have to accept that our greatest allies in the fight against social injustice are indeed the Labour party. It's Labour who have fought tooth and nail in parliament and listened to a great deal of what we have had to say when we, amongst similarly minded folk, point out where we think the coalition's proposed social welfare legislation is deeply flawed. The Liberals have made some fairly vague indications that they will stand against certain parts of both the welfare reform and the legal aid, sentencing & punishment bill but when push comes to shove, they seem to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Conservatives whenever the time comes to voting stages of these bills through parliament. It happened in the House of Commons and now we all hope it's not repeated in the Lords.
Likewise, there are Conservatives who have expressed great empathy for our views, they can see that social injustice will be promoted in their constituencies by passing the parts of the bills we oppose, but time and time again they get whipped into voting for all that they know to be wrong and end up showing that their dominant allegiance is with the front benches in following national policy; - they consistently adopt the 'party line'.
On our part we battle day in and day out to get our clients a slice of justice, many of them are disabled and in receipt of state benefits; -we move heaven and earth to fight their corner in Tribunals and Courts in order to ensure their disability status is upheld and protected; - and time and time again we are successful with the exceptionally good results which we achieve. We stand up for the disabled, the vast majority are entirely genuine, the majority of fakers and scroungers probably don't need to come anywhere near us; - they can generally look after themselves when taking the state to task.
The disabled and state benefit recipients are rapidly becoming scapegoats for all that is said to be wrong with our ailing economy. Yet true statistics published back in, I think, 2010 show that actual benefit fraud accounts for just 0.85% of 1% of the entire spend on state benefits. At a figure of around £1.3 billion it's obviously too high, but it pales in to near insignificance when compared with the billions lost through lost taxes covered up by the big earners who employ smart accountants to avoid paying their dues. On a purely economic argument it costs a great deal to track down errant benefit claims and all too often the problem turns out to be a misunderstanding of complicated rules or official error in the way payments are made.
I noted how at all three of the party leader's conferences in September, not one of them stood up squarely against social injustice. It's a false economy to disregard it in any plan for economic revival; - the cost of ignoring it far outweighs the cost of implementing it into every facet of this society of ours. Any government ignores it at their peril. poor justice and welfare reform will cost us dearly in the long run, we will see an increased NHS bill, people will transpire to be too unfit in the workplace to hold down a productive job placement, welfare to work will take many years to work as effectively as government hopes, a lack of growth is failing to stimulate what is really needed; - real jobs. We will continue to see the numbers of appeals against social injustices rise; - at present government is throwing money away on increasing the capacity for appeals; - what it should be doing is looking more analytically at those wrongly targeted as fit for work.
Ed Miliband is in grave danger of alienating his party from the disabled and vulnerable individuals who probably see the Labour party as the only glimmer of hope on the horizon when it comes to their very own protection; - many of them put all their faith in the Labour party, if that is taken away from them, what on earth are they left with?
Ed Miliband should not succumb to mass media appeal, he would get far more credibility by vigorously challenging the practicality and logistics of government's welfare reforms; particularly the Work programme. Far too little is being said of how much private contractors stand to make out of finding the disabled a 'placement' in 'work'; - work which frankly doesn't exist when we look at the vast numbers of people chasing job vacancies around the country.
The Work programme seeks to reward contractors with payments of up to £14,000 per person if they can find claimants a placement, we've seen what a farcical system this was in the past and there is very little evidence that the 'Work' programme is any better now than anything tried in the past; - all these schemes just end up being a reworked example of something that's been tried and failed before.
Government justify the Work programme because it will mean government money is only paid on a results basis. Lets not kid ourselves these buy now pay later schemes costs us all at some stage in the future. We should be deeply concerned over how much cash is being tied up in these extremely expensive schemes, not to mention asking many questions over how contractors are being 'bankrolled' until the cash comes in. Miliband should be tearing into government over how the results will be measured and how as more and more disabled individuals become labelled unemployed, jobs will be found for them all.
Personally, I think Ed Miliband is once again being too apologetic by taking this line, he could instead make much more of the many good inititiatives introduced by Labour when it came to welfare. He should look at the true figures, be objective about the evidence (some of which I covered on Mylegal on the welfare reform car crash post). Let's not forget how an increase in 'in work benefits', a higher mortality rate and increased child related claims have all pushed up the benefit claimant count, it's simply not correct to put it all down to a nation of scroungers.
What concerns me is how Ed Miliband's new stance could affect us as the groups who help the genuinely disabled. If Miliband wants to curry favour with your average Daily Mail reader then he'll probably do well to stick to his chosen course of dialogue. However, by a natural association we are the people who help the disabled . If Miliband labels those we help as scroungers them it has to be said we could be seen by your average Daily Mail reader as their accomplices. If you tar one group with a brush; - you end up tarring a wider group.
Miliband should be saying far more of the role we play in promoting the injustice suffered by the genuinely disabled, we look at the merits of the cases we represent and as a result so often end up taking the right cases to Tribunals; - take us away and what happens to the rights of the genuinely disabled?
The Labour leader needs to do far more on using the media to educate the public about the real extent of benefit fraud and he needs to challenge government far more on the effectiveness of the steps they are taking to remedy it. He has a clear duty to protect the genuinely disabled and recognise that some of them simply won't be able to work, others will need support to help them transition from welfare; - this was the objective behind Labour's Employment & Support Allowance. The currently flawed work capability assessment is being misinterpreted by all party leaders because they simply don't want to be seen as understanding what it's really about; - it's easier to go with media perception, in my view Miliband should resist this temptation at all cost.
Well that's what I reckon, here's what the Labour leaders new line is...
"Beleaguered Ed Miliband is to make a bold bid to boost his flagging ratings by condemning the ‘evil’ of scroungers who refuse to work."
The Labour leader wants to shrug off his party’s ‘soft on spongers’ image with a major U-turn on his stance on the benefits system.
He will admit Labour blundered by not doing enough to combat the work-shy. And he will say that people should get state handouts only if they have paid their taxes first.
The move, certain to be denounced by Left-wingers, follows growing alarm in Labour’s high command at Mr Miliband’s poor performance.
Mr Miliband’s somersault on benefits will be signalled in a speech later this month by Labour welfare spokesman Liam Byrne to mark the 70th anniversary of the Beveridge Report. The report was used by post-war Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee to lay the foundations of the modern welfare state – and helped earn him a hallowed place in Labour history.
But Mr Byrne thinks Beveridge would ‘turn in his grave’ if he knew how billions of pounds of benefits fall into the hands of lifelong spongers.
Read rest of article (not using direct link to Daily Mail).... www.dailyveil.co.uk/news/article-2080776/Now-Ed-Miliband-gets-tough-onslaught-evil-benefits-scroungers.html