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Edited on Sun Nov-07-10 04:40 AM by Prophet 451
I'm afraid that, seeing this in isolation, you aren't getting the full picture. What's going on here in the UK is the Coalition of Tories and used-to-be-Liberals (who, it has become clear, have no voice whatsoever in the coalition), taking an axe to the welfare state. To start with, after being unemployed for a year, your Housing Benefit now drops by 10%, forcing many to make the choice between having somewhere to live and eating. Those on ESA (sickness benefit) are assessed into three categories (fit for work, partially fit and unfit) by a notoriously corrupt company who think the "unfit" category doesn't exist. Well, now the "partially fit" category will have a one year time limit. If you're still sick after a year but not able to get classed as "unfit" (by the already legendarily corrupt and unfair tests), tough shit, you're now considered fit for work regardless. The "mandatory work activity" mentioned here will, according to the BBC, be manual labour (regardless of your skills or fitness). In other words, the workhouse.
Additionally, the coalition are planning on replacing all the existing welfare benefits with a "universal credit". I will bet you my life (LITERALLY) that the universal credit will be significantly less than the benefits it replaces. The child tax credit removed in such a way as to benefit the rich. Retirement age removed entirely. Oh, and in the middle of cutting welfare to shreds, they're going to fire half-a-million civil servants.
The UK didn't need austerity. We didn't actually have a debt problem, we just had a lot of scaremongering about one. But the Coalition are using the scare to do what they were hellbent on doing anyway: Destroying the social safety net. Austerity is going to cut us into a double-dip recession but this isn't about austerity. This is social cleansing. Remember Alan Grayson's riff about the Republican's healthcare plan? Same thing. The Tory plan for the economy is work until you drop, find another job instantly if you lose that one and if you can't, die quickly. Understand, there's no real percentage of people choosing to claim benefits because they don't want to work. Even by the Coalition's own figures, those voluntarily choosing to live off teh state are a tiny, tiny number. But those few make really useful tools for demonising the poor, unemployed and sick.
This particular measure might look reasonable (if you get a kick out of the idea of people being forced to do full-time manual labour for fifty quid a week) but when the full picture becomes clear, it's obvious that this is a full-blown attempt to gradually roll Britain back to the days of Dickens where you starved in the street if you couldn't find a job. It's an outright attack on the poor, the unemployed and the sick, class warfare on behalf of the rich (raising taxes wasn't even mentioned as a solution, it's been all but declared blasphemy), social cleansing.
I have serious mental problems. I can't work. I'm considered a danger to myself and everyone around me if I try. Without the disability benefits I receive, I will die, it's that simple. Cameron is proving to be even worse than Thatcher for the traditional "kill the poor" Tory attitude but they don't have the guts to outright euthanise us (although a fair number of the populace would applaud that and most days, I'd welcome it). Instead, they're gradually making teh safety net smaller and smaller, ensuring that fewer and fewer people meet more and more restrictive requirements. All part of the plan. Remove the safety net by degrees, create a populace so desperate and hopeless that they'll work themselves to death for pennies an hour on behalf of their "betters". Social cleansing.
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