Suella is right: too many people rely on benefits
put up and shut up and go stack shelves for £3 an hour
Suella Braverman, as part of a not-at-all shallow attempt at creating some distinction in this leadership race, says that "too many people rely on benefits".
I mean she has a point. We all know Gideon (George) Osborne* was forced by the Labour Party, more specifically Gordon Brown – with his endless spending, be it schools, or hospitals or sure start – to get the welfare bill down.
Osborne put up quite a fight in advance of the drafting of the 2010 Tory manifesto. I’m told he had to be dragged to CCHQ by suited and booted low tax, low spend Tory funders, I’m sure you know the type; they have a wallet print of Mrs T.
They held a gun to Gideon’s head and said “cut the welfare bill or you can kiss the election goodbye you cretin”. I was told this by a lobby journalist so who knows if this is true, but I believe it is.
So, against his will, and really only due to Gordon’s overspending (the Tories in opposition, opposed every Labour spending bill in the house from 1997-2010 FYI), Gideon grudgingly cut the welfare bill. There enters the second Tory in this play, Iain Duncan Smith.
I mean when the supposed architect of welfare cuts, resigns over those cuts, it might be time to change course. Not gorgeous George though. On he went, and despite covid showing among many things, that austerity is essentially, pointless – he had the cheek to go on the airwaves and call for post-covid austerity.**
Anyway. I doubt Ms Braverman has ever been on welfare benefits*** but I am happy to be corrected if wrong. If she has, she would know that it is her party in government (via DWP) who implemented a system that means that in fact it does not pay to work.
There’s lots to be said about the welfare system so please allow me to just mention one. If you are on universal credit (UC) and you gain employment, your UC is reduced. As others have written about, this is a laughable strategy for reducing poverty. But it means something else too. This is the DWP, so they like a bit of spin, taken direct from their website;
Your Universal Credit payments will adjust automatically if your earnings change. It doesn’t matter how many hours you work, it’s the actual earnings you receive that count.
If your circumstances mean that you don’t have a Work Allowance, your Universal Credit payment will be reduced by 55p for every £1 you earn.
In other words, you will receive an additional 45p for every £1 you earn (up to a limit that depends on your circumstances), and your total income from earnings and Universal Credit will be more than you would have received from Universal Credit alone.
I told you they like spin. So you’ll be 45p an hour better off, than before you took the job. But what they don’t mention here (I mean why would they), is that these jobs tend to be poorly paid and part-time. Even if you were lucky, and found a job with say a set twenty hours a week, what would this mean? You’ll be about £9 better off than if you just decided to stay at home.
It basically means people are working for below minimum wage, compared to if they remained on the maximum universal credit.
This is how Osborne’s glorious welfare restructuring works in practice. It does not pay to work, (particularly when you factor in the other benefits that come, when people have some choice in their lives to pursue the vocations they wish for, rather than what DWP, Mr Osborne, and Ms Braverman dictates they should do).
But as Braverman rightly says, this is not the fault of a laughable benefits system and welfare state, wholly unfit for purpose. This is, as ever, the fault of you, the individual. Those who simply refuse to work. You’re lazy. Get out of the bloody house and go stack shelves for £3.00 an hour. Braverman and Osborne would certainly do the same. But unlike you, they want to work.
*forgive the frankly, classist jibe, but I can’t help it.
** I mean I don’t use this term lightly but he is a cunt isn’t he.
***Landlords get “nonreturnable deposits” (paid for, from my taxes) as part of a process whereby local authorities attempt to bribe them to take on tenants with “complex needs” (I mean I have complex needs, who doesn’t?) Landlords also house “non-priority” homeless people in privately run hostels, exempt accommodation. You can read more about that special kind of pure liquid evil here.