Dear Government, Selfservatives, Wilshaw et al,

Recently the media has seen an influx or reports saying that parents are failing, nurseries are failing and child minders are failing our children.

You're telling us that our children aren't prepared for school by age 5.

Your solution to this?  Start them earlier so that they'll be better prepared. This is against over 200 experts in early years telling you this will have catastrophic and detrimental effects on our childrens long term development.  Your 'solution' also directly goes against recent reports suggesting that 4 in 10 under threes are missing out on bonding with their parents.

Is it any wonder?

With so many parents worrying about how to heat their house, put food in bellies and keep their homes as they face increasing conditionality and harsh sanctions in their money.  Families are dissolving under the stress of ridiculous and draconion welfare reforms and the vast pool of unemployment that you're only increasing through forcing more people into it including the sick.  The lucky ones who manage to find a job discover that despite working full time they still can't support their families financially and are still under the ruthless and barmy conditionality to have access to the much needed inwork benefits because despite rising living costs you still refuse to introduce a living wage to allow people to live independently of you.  Can't have that can we?  You'd lose some of this iron tight control you've got over us.  You want us dependent on you.  You're literally banking on us all being in your in-work benefit trap.

You're closing surestart centres.

You've taken the bookstart scheme away.

For families that want/need health visitors, there simply aren't enough of them to adequately support families.

You're constantly undermining parents and destroying families.  You ruthlessly dismantle our basic human rights to family life.  You completely dismiss the important roll of parents and the positive impact a sahp can have, if the parent chooses to be one.

You introduce earlier free childcare to the exact places you're stating are 'failing' our children, encouraging them to be apart from parents, the exact people they're supposed to be bonding with and then in the next breath announce that lone parents are going to face increased conditionality and forced into work related activity as their youngest child reaches three whilst they utilise the (apparently 'optional') free 15 hours early years preschool placements.

Not once have you addressed the glaringly obvious, that maybe so many children aren't ready at 5 because 5 is too early to start formal education.  Let our children be children.  They have a fundamental human right to childhood.  Plenty of countries such as Sweden and Finland start formal education far later then we do yet equally and indeed outperform our children throughout their school life excelling in education and life in general.

We are nurturing humans not building robots.  We're teaching them all that you lack, compassion, tolerance acceptance.  These are people.  They're precious.  These are the poor little sods that will one day have the immense and epic job of trying to piece back together the country you're destroying.  To undo the hatred and prejudice you're inciting.  These aren't your weapons nor your little employable soldiers, these are the only chance of a saviour you have.

What are you teaching them?

You're teaching them to be classist as you make ill informed sweeping judgments damning lower and working class parents as failing and make patronising statements declaring they need checklists.

Guess what?  Bad parenting knows no class.

Generally speaking, if a child isn't toilet trained or speaking in sentences by age five it is not from lack of parenting yet more often then not developmental.  It is condescending, insulting and down right moronic to cast assertions that it's down to bad financially disadvantaged parenting.  Maybe if referrals were easier to come by and waiting lists shorter these children could get assistance sooner.

Support don't hate.

Have you left your child in a pub lately?

I'm one of those parents.  You know the ones you're damning and judging.  We're financially disadvantaged. We're poor.  We're lower class.  Oh no, naughty, scummy, bad bad us.

We're so bad at parenting because we're not middle class that we have three articulate, creative, intelligent and happy children two of which are incredibly academically advanced.  Oh no.  Slap our wrists.  We're not fitting into your crass paradigms. Quick! Sanction us!

You're teaching them to vilify those who's only crime is being poor and trapped within the failing economy that you created, when the real villains are in your own quarters, yes people like Maria Miller.

You've broken our economy, our sick, our poor, our NHS and now you're trying to break our children.

You want my child in your clutches earlier?  Come and get them.  I double-fucking-dare you. You'll meet an army of me.  You will not get your grubby destructive paws on my children.  That I promise you.

It's not the parents that are failing our children, it's you.

Leave our kids alone.

Sincerely,

Mama Undone.

Welfare Reforms: We're in this together

Having previously written at length about workshy scroungers and the truth about the unemployed it was with despair and much frustration that I viewed the recent vindication plans by the government.  If they spent even half the amount of money they have thrown at this disastrous and Victorian style welfare reform on tax evasion and creating new jobs, the economy wouldn't be in such a pickle.

One of their overused phrases that brings the taste of vomit to the mouth is 'we're in this together'  Really?  How exactly does that work? what exactly have the mp's lost? What are they going without?  where is their hardship?  How many mp's are facing the eat or heat decision this winter?  The phrase suggests unity yet they're intent on a barbaric divide and conquer of society through their actions.

The so-called work programmes are an utter corporate sham designed to temporarily alter the unemployment statistics to give the illusion that it's decreasing.  Long term unemployed are outsourced to companies where they're often patronised, condescended and bullied.  Underhand tactics are employed such as imaginary appointments being set up without informing the claimant with the purpose of sanctioning them for not attending etc.  They cast the illusion that they're there to help you.  If you are literate and can use a computer, there is nothing offered that you can't do without them whatsoever.  It is tying up both funds and resources that could be put to better use to do something more proactive to help the unemployed rather than used to beat them with.  Once upon a time it was the job centres job to help you find employment, so why pay private firms to do the work that should be done at the jobcentre?  Spending yet more of the money the government supposedly don't have. Don't forget whilst attending the work programme you still have to attend the job centre fortnightly to sign on too.

The government are stamping down on the so called entitlement state, yet despite popular belief foisted upon you by the media, many of the unemployed have worked and thus paid into the pot that thus pays out to them now, so in a sense, they are bloody entitled to welfare.  I find the hypocrisy of the ending  of the 'something for nothing mentality' quite frankly absurd, especially coming from those who receive an incredible amount of something for nothing, living a privileged lifestyle at the vast expense of the people they are intent on taking from.  They take with one hand only to take with the other too.  Lets not forget the lovely payrise they gave themselves too, but of course, we're all in this together.  Honest.

So should you complete the work programme without committing suicide or finding a job, which by the way there simply aren't enough of, you then may be mandated to attend the job centre daily, 9-5 for up to six months.  Yes, really.  Have they for one moment truly thought out the logistics of this farce?  The majority of job centres have no public toilets.  To keep people there full time they'd need to give them access to both toilets and kitchen facilities.  Where exactly are these about to spring up from?  at what cost?  Then there's the space, where on earth are these people supposed to stay all day?  Surely there is an immense security risk should they be integrated with the civil servants workers who already populate the buildings?  Then there's the general lack of access for the disabled.  How exactly are these people supposed to afford to get there five days a week?

Not to worry though, they can go on training! Or not.  What about the long term unemployed man who for years has been begging to get help to re-train yet was basically told that yes, you can go to college and study a new trade, however, should a job (because he would still be expected to look for full time employment)... any job in the meantime turn up you would be expected to accept it and jack in your course.  Well isn't that terribly inspiring and motivating.

So the long term unemployed man, asked for help with short courses that would make him more employable.  Yes, they said.  They like to say yes, sometimes.  A bit like banks.  Of course you can go on these short courses, you utter pleb.  Yet the courses never occur.

So he's still one of millions of fish in the vast sea of unemployment, who's applying for jobs after jobs after jobs with not so much of a sniff of interest, not even a 'sorry but no' letter from the minimum wage job that involves 180minutes of travel to get to and from, just like the other 200+ applicants for the same position.  Whilst feeling the drowning pull of the recession, he pro-actively tries to keep afloat by increasing his employability only to be told no.  So no, there aren't any jobs.  No, we aren't going to actually do anything constructive that will get you a job. We will however, treat you like a second class citizen and make you feel like utter shit, for not having a job.  Then, because we can, we'll punish, exploit and vindicate you for not having a job.

Don't worry, you can do mandatory community work in the meantime to earn your benefits.  Is that not community service, something until now reserved for criminals?  Community 'work' suggests a job, which would necessitate a minimum wage, yet no.  You'll do it for your benefits at around £2 an hour.  Great, so now we're are villainising the unemployed!  Banishing them to the gutters with those on criminal community service instilling the message that they are worthless and will be treated as such.

He probably still won't have a job because, there aren't enough jobs.  At least this way however, there is a higher chance the unemployed will top themselves thus eradicating the need for plan C.... which would probably be the bringing back of The Workhouses.

But don't worry, we're all in this together, the Tory MP's (on a basic annual 66k wage rising to 74k in 2015 plus expenses) tell us, from their second homes.

Living wage

The papers are rife with Welfare Reform, with The Government bleating and waxing lyrical about how it pays to work and they want to encourage more people into living without benefits.  However, we need to ask ourselves, do they really?  I think not.  They want it so we're working yet still to some extent dependent on welfare for the easiest route to controlling people is financially, making them financially dependent on you gives you ultimate control over them.

To have financial independence from them would deplete their control over us so they're being tactical, having us believe they're offering us freedom yet what it really is is just conditional independence riddled with threats and implications.

If they truly wanted people to have financial independence and be able to sustain a quality of life through work alone there are two main things they could implement:

1. Introduce a living wage.  The minimum wage in the current economic climate with the ever increasing rise in cost of basic living simply fails to sustain a person or family.  However it does qualify them to claim working tax credits to top up a wage to enable a person/family to be able to sustain a quality of life.  Through ensuring the minimum wage alone isn't enough, they're taxing you for working on one hand yet giving you money with another to keep you dependent on them and under their control and subject to their ever increasing rigid conditionalities.  Sneaky bastards.

2. Scrap the abhorrent slight to Human Rights that is WorkFare.  If there is a job available, employ somebody to do it and give them the appropriate wage which they can then be taxed on and spent thus helping to renew the economy and move off of benefits.  Yet the government would rather give companies cash incentives to take on workfare staff to do a job for free thus exploiting the unemployed whilst offering them no real benefit let alone an actual job at the end of it. If you're going to mandate people into temporary work, temporarily pay them the actual wage!

Obviously there are many more things that could be added to his list, perhaps I'll bore you with them some other time.  I try and keep clear of politics on here but sometimes....things just need to be said.