The image posted on Twitter by Oxfam  Photo: @oxfamgb

It would appear that the fascist regime that is our current government is hitting a new low.  Tories are currently blasting the charity Oxfam for their current faux-movie poster highlighting British poverty under the austerity measures.  Have they lied?  No.  Are they simply pointing out facts?  Yes.  If the Government are so confident that what they do is 'right' and acceptable, why are they so slighted when it's questioned?  David Cameron insists that Britain is a Christian Country, yet where are the governments so-called Christian values?  Even as a none Christian I'm aware that Christians believe in  hope and charity yet the government are ruthlessly stripping hope from millions of people whilst plundering them in need of charity as they're incapable of displaying any charitable behaviour, other then to their corporate buddies and selfservative selves.

Ask the old, the sick and the unemployed where the government's unconditional love is and exactly where the Austerity obsessed government are practising renunciation of worldly goods.  Are the government humble? Honest? Generous with time and money? Do they respect all people and are they living a moral life? Are they none hypocritical and none self righteous; practicing what they preach?  Do they exude forgiveness?  Does this sound like the coalition to you?  Are these Christian values compatible with them and their Austerity?

Exactly how do the government represent Christianity?

They're systematically dismantling society and are intent on the destruction of our rights to a family life, insisting on both parents working longer hours and trying to place our children into the system of formal education earlier both increasing the unafforable child care costs and further increasing the unemployment numbers.  Obviously if there's not enough jobs for the unemployed, adding more people such as the sick, the elderly (through ridiculously increasing pension age) and more mothers to the pool is the answer.  Creating a latchkey generation and eradicating the rudimentary need for attachment in a child's early years will obvioulsy fix society. Forcing working people into the benefit trap is evidently a genius idea and isn't at all in any way shape or form adding to mental health problems and the breakdown of families.

Do we have a nation of hope or one of disillusionment, hopelessness, injustice and rising poverty?

Then there's the double standards, the government have stated that they believe charities shouldn't be political, yet they urge them to be political by insisting they participate in the draconian workfare/help to work programme where the unemployed are treated worse than criminals as a punishment for being unemployed.  So they're allowed to be political when it suits the government and serves their agenda.  Okay then.  Because that's not at all hypocritical.  No double standards there.  Right?

There is no freedom of speech, they're blatantly as against that as much as they are against human rights.

The government are supporting zero hours contracts.  Wages and benefits aren't rising with inflation and thus can't sustain soaring housing, utility and basic food costs and high prices.  They have cut benefits and unjustified cruel sanctions are at a ridiculous level.  Despite their attempts to juggle statistics through work programmes to temporarily reflect a misleading decrease in unemployment, unemployment is still high and there simply isn't enough jobs no matter how much they mentally torture the unemployed.  So exactly how the Oxfam poster is 'wrong' is beyond me.

Don't look in mirrors Mr Government if you don't like your reflection.

The Benefit Trap

[Apologies in advance if this particular post appears somewhat disjointed, it's a rant that was desperate to escape my head yet was hastily written whilst refereeing three disgruntled and rather manic children]

There is often so much emphasis on the figures relating to how many people are claiming unemployment benefits with very little attention to the glaringly obvious fact that there is simply not enough jobs to match that figure whilst the government try and exacerbate this issue by attempting to force even more people into the already over saturated job seeking pool such as stay at home parents, the sick and the disabled.  It doesn't take a mathematical genius to realise that if we have x people actively seeking employment with a vast deficit in available jobs, forcing more people to seek employment which doesn't exist will simply equal a rise in those seeking unemployment/job seeking benefits.  Lets not forget the abomination that is Workfare which essentially allows the Government to temporarily alter statistics giving the false picture that unemployment is going down. Ditto with unfair sanctions and those that are appealing work capability assessments all temporarily leave 'gaps' in the unemployment benefit claimants numbers giving the illusion the numbers are reducing.

Yet perhaps the questions that should be asked is not how many people are unemployed and claiming benefits but how many people who are employed yet still in the benefit trap.  For you see, that is exactly what it is, a trap.  Even when employed, many families are still reliant on benefits of the tax credit variety.  Remove these benefits and rent/mortgages won't get paid, homes won't be heated and bellies won't be filled., despite people working hard day in and day out in paid employment. In 2010-2012 alone, 90 percent of new claims for housing benefit were made by people in employment*.  

You can trace a direct link from this to two things:

* The National Minimum Wage

* 0 Hour Contracts

Simply put, the minimum wage alone, isn't sufficient to support an adequate basic standard of living.  So, why don't the government raise the national minimum wage or indeed introduce a much needed 'living wage'?  Good question. The getting down to basics answer is control or more aptly the loss of it.  The most effective way to control someone is financially.  People need money to survive.  Control their finances and you have control which you can assert over them in order to gain obedience.  The government want people to be dependent on them, they're banking on it.  Literally.  So long as we're dependent on working tax credits and child tax credits they can dictate to us.  They can tell us when to work, how much we must work, who should work etc.  They eliminate the fundamental right of choice.  You can't choose to be a stay at home parent and live on one wage at a basic 'bread line' standard of living because that wage isn't enough.  The choice here is to be unable to survive or to bow down, accept government financial dependency and then be granted enough money to survive whilst being controlled and dictated to.  You need tax credits.  Yet to become eligible for tax credits, after a certain point, both parents must work x hours and earn y amount.  If you fail to do this Big Brother can step in and insist you work more or even push you to seek alternative or in some cases additional employment, just to be eligible for the tax credits that you need to live.  They will control you. 

Employment should bring freedom, especially financial freedom yet for the millions of working class people in unskilled or low skilled employment all it achieves is another struggle, another layer of misery as it becomes painfully obvious that they're not enough. 

What exactly is wrong with these jobs?  Could society function or even exist without them?  Not everyone aspires to a career. Some people just want a job.  They want to go to work, do their jobs to earn their money and go home and enjoy the life they have.  They don't want prospects, competitiveness, stress, responsibility and authority that come with many well paid middle class careers.  They may see their job as a means to an end and quite frankly, why bloody not? Why shouldn't they?  Why can't they clock on at 9, off at five and not have work infiltrate their life until the next morning in exchange for a living wage? Yet why should they be punished for this through an inadequate minimum wage? Why should they be subject to the merry dance they have to participate in to be eligible for enough government benefits to live on?  Surely working full time should be enough to sustain a decent basic standard of life?

Being a house wife or a stay at home parent used to be a choice.  You willingly sacrificed a better lifestyle (financially) to be one.  It may have meant missing out on luxuries, tightening the belt and a bit of financial juggling but it was do-able.  It was a choice you could make and was neither frowned upon nor seen as a privilege.  It was respected and accepted equally as the choice many make to work. These days a housewife isn't a woman who chooses to run the household and family full time, working bloody hard to do so, it's now a privilege, a label....a choice only worthy of those who can afford it.  Often so called housewives are from affluent families many of which do very little housework nor hands on parenting instead utilising nannies and cleaners.  Yet the real housewives, the real stay at home parents who tirelessly work full time in the family home are now considered scroungers, lazy, unwilling to work and unnecessary.  Perhaps this could be adding to the dissolution of family life and maybe even a result of a hungry disposable society (where nappies are thrown away, clothes are replaced not mended and ready meals make up the so-called healthy diet) Where is the time to live? To enjoy the so-called fruits of your labour? Depression and stress related illness' are on the rise, family time is being eaten away, latch-key generations are being born.  The governments answer?  Rather then make it easier for families to choose whether both parents work or how much they should work ( I have full respect for families who's parents both choose to work in order to gain a better standard or living or even to save sanity but the pivotal point here is choice.  They however should not both have to work, just to sustain a basic standard of living, unless they're willingly living beyond their means) the government work harder at removing the choice, do we really believe introducing free child care from age two to low income families is to help the child or parent?  Or is it merely the first step to push mums into work earlier?  Do we really believe their preposterous and potentially harmful suggestions of longer school days is to help children and families or yet another step to increase mandatory conditionality for the much needed tax credits thus once again forcing both parents into longer working days too and denying the basic human right to a family life.  Whatever next?  Mandatory full time boarding nursery from six weeks of age for all children who are a product of families earning under 22k a year?  

Working should be for financial freedom, a necessity to sustain or elevate your quality of life.  It should not be to conform to eligibility requirements and conditionality so that you still require financial assistance from the government just to be able to financially survive and be under their control.  

They want you to need them.  They are depending on you falling into their benefit trap.  They want to control you and your family.

The real issue isn't unemployment benefits at all.  It's the ridiculous necessity of benefits for those already working.

* http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancies/majority-of-new-housing-benefit-claimants-in-work/6521183.article