The Welfare Cuts Tsunami Arrives

To the accompaniment of criticism from the churches, disability groups, charities, voluntary organisations, political parties outside the coalition and decent fair minded folk everywhere, the Government's welfare cuts regime is upon us - arriving at the same time as the implementation of the "NHS dismemberment legislation" and attacks on legal aid.

The welfare cuts include the hated bedroom tax which will face many low income families with the choice of going without or moving (perhaps away from friends, family, jobs, schools etc) into more expensive private sector accommodation (that will also raise rather than decrease the government's required expenditure - so will not succeed even on those terms, though perhaps one government aim is to further enrich their friends in the Rachmanite community).  There simply is not enough smaller property available in the Social Housing Sector to accommodate all those affected that are being expected to move. This will cause widespread hardship and anguish.

At the same time there is a 1% cap being put on increases in benefits which will reduce the income of poorer people in real terms.

This is not to be confused with the cap in overall benefits which is encountering problems in roll out through pilot areas but the government is still determined to bring in.

There is also the farming out of Council Tax Benefit payments to Councils with a cut in their funding which will lead to people who have never had to pay Council Tax before having to fork out large sums from limited and fixed or decreasing (see above!) incomes.

There is also the moving of many disabled people from DLA into the new PIP regime, again likely to cause disruption and potential hardship. (Not to mention the ongoing war on the disabled being conducted by ATOS and their ilk.)

Taken as a whole this is a wide ranging and multi-faceted, disgusting attack on the most vulnerable in our society and should be opposed - it is all the more sickening when coming from a government of Millionaires, most of whom have never had to suffer any kind of deprivation.

Councils must be encouraged to follow the lead of those Green, SNP and (few) Labour councils that have said that they will not evict tenants who fall into arrears as a result of the Bedroom Tax.  Local campaigns must be built to resist bailiffs and fight people's corners.  The hypocrisy of the well heeled,  expenses- claiming, generously pensioned, extravagantly paid and often multiple job holding political classes must be exposed.

The People's Assembly Against Austerity gives an opportunity for uniting much of the rising tide of opposition to the Coalition's policies and both the local and National events should be supported and built.

The local elections in May will give an early opportunity to show the Coalition parties the contempt that millions of ordinary people now hold them in.

Housing benefit cuts will increase homelessness

Housing benefit cuts will increase homelessness, Green Party leader warns

“Conservative-Lib Dem cuts will hit the poorer people in society”, says Lucas

Caroline Lucas, the leader of the Green Party and MP for Brighton Pavilion, has warned that the coalition government's cuts to housing benefit could result in increasing social problems with serious debt and homelessness.

The Green Party leader was commenting on a recent report published by homelessness charity Crisis. The report highlights the social risks of housing benefit cuts, which will affect 936,960 households across the UK who are currently claiming local housing allowance (LHA). On average, these households will lose over £600 a year.

The report also warns that cuts to housing benefit could have hidden costs in the future, in order to deal with the social problems of homelessness, including health problems and providing accommodation.

Housing benefit cut is equivalent to big increase in income tax for poorer people

Caroline Lucas MP said:

“Consider someone earning £16,000 (after tax-free allowance) and receiving housing benefit. If they lose £728 that would be the equivalent of paying an income tax rise of over 4.5 per cent.

“These particular Tory-Lib Dem cuts will leave more people struggling to pay the rent, more people falling into serious debt and ultimately more people becoming homeless.

“This is very unfair, coming at a time when many of these people are facing economic uncertainty or even redundancy.

“Once again we see the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition’s cuts hitting the poorer people in society. The government could avoid these cuts by properly tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion perpetrated by some of the wealthiest, which could raise billions of pounds a year.”

War On Want Christmas Appeal

War On Want have launched a Christmas Appeal For Palestine.

This is a message from John Hilary:

We need your help today to support people in Palestine in their fight for a better life. I visited Palestine this summer, my first visit in many years. I was truly shocked to see how much everyday life for Palestinians has deteriorated. Olive farmers in the West Bank told us how they can no longer get enough water for their trees as water supply has been diverted to illegal Israeli settlements built on their land. In Bethlehem, we met refugee children who are now forced to live under the shadow of Israel's illegal Separation Wall. The people of Bethlehem are threatened on a daily basis by the violence of the Occupation.

The people of Palestine urgently need your support today. Please help us by donating to our Christmas appeal.

http://www.waronwant.org/palestine-appeal

Palestinians are facing economic meltdown as a result of Israel's illegal Occupation of their land. The system of checkpoints and closures in the West Bank has brought the local economy to its knees and communities are harassed on a daily basis. The situation in Gaza is even more urgent. The Israeli blockade has entered its third year, and 80% of people are dependent on food aid.

To meet this new level of threat to the livelihoods of people in Palestine we need your help. Your support will enable us to work with local communities and women's groups in the West Bank and Gaza, giving them the tools and skills to create a better future.

Please donate today.

http://www.waronwant.org/palestine-appeal

Thank you for your support,

With best wishes
John Hilary

Avaaz Petition On World Hunger Crisis

Below is the latest mailing from the international web-based campaign group Avaaz:

With the recent financial crisis, poverty is skyrocketing in poorer countries, with 1 in 6 people on the planet now facing life-threatening hunger.

Next week, leaders will meet at the World Food Summit in Rome to address this growing crisis. The best solution is funding to boost sustainable agriculture in poorer countries, but the UK and other countries are backing out on a $20 billion promise made earlier this year.

Millions of lives are on the line. Sign the petition below for rich countries to keep their promises, and it will be delivered directly to world leaders through a spectacular stunt at the Roman Colosseum on the eve of the Summit:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_hunger_pledges

The world produces enough food to feed everyone. Yet the number of people suffering from chronic hunger across the planet has reached the record-high figure of 1 billion this year.

Hundreds of billions are spent by wealthy governments to bail out banks and financial institutions, but the G8 countries are trying to cut a promised $20 billion commitment to agricultural investment to only $3 billion in new money. With literally millions of lives on the line, this is a scandal.

The Rome summit is also our best opportunity to push governments to promote small holder agricultural production -- growing evidence shows that intensive farming models are not effectively countering hunger and have a highly damaging impact on our environment.

We are teaming up with anti-poverty organisation ActionAid and global farmers networks to show our governments that we refuse to accept a world where people die every minute from hunger. Sign the petition to the Rome Summit -- every signature will be represented at a stunning delivery event at Rome's Colloseum:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_hunger_pledges

With hope,

Luis, Alice, Benjamin, Graziela, Ricken, Pascal, Iain, Paula, Paul, Veronique and the entire Avaaz Team

Food First

I have recently completed reading Food First, the influential book by Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins of the Institute for Food and Development Policy that was first published in the 1970s. The book has lost little of its's power and if anything, the tragedy of the wasted opportunities of the last 30 years make it even more relevant.

The central message, that poverty and hunger are not chiefly about "over-population" or "primitiveness" or "resistance to change", still less about lack of "free trade" or access for Western multinationals. We still read these excuses wheeled out in the daily mass media. The chief causes behind poverty and hunger are the political and economic systems of both the developed and developing worlds that chain the vast majority to the route most favouring the ruling oligarchy. Corrupt local elites and global capitalism work in concert. The continued existence of this state of affairs rests to a large extent on the continued acceptance of a cynical and fatalistic attitude to human nature which is peddled by the mouthpieces of the ruling elites. But Moore Lappe's and Collins' book was a positive intervention by people who believed that ordinary people could, and should, make a difference.

In their postcript they wrote:

We want you to join us, not simply because of the urgent struggle to construct a just and life-giving society, but because through our own experience we have become certain that none of us can live fully today as long as we are overwhelmed by a false view of the world and a false view of human nature to buttress it. Learning how a system can cause hunger then becomes , not a lesson in misery and deprivation, but a vehicle for a great awakening in our lives.

I recommend the book and further reading from the works of the authors and the IFDP.

Upcoming Anti-Poverty Events

KEEP THE PROMISE RALLY
Saturday 4 October
Trafalgar Square
London
End Child Poverty Coalition

End Child Poverty, a coalition including Save the Children, Oxfam, UNICEF and major trade unions will stage the UK’s biggest-ever event to end child poverty, calling on the government to keep its promise to half child poverty in the UK by 2010.
The march starts at Millbank at 11.30 and will end in Trafalgar Square.
Sign up to say you'll be there at www.savethechildren.org.uk/endchildpoverty


WORLD DAY FOR DECENT WORK
Tuesday 7 October
London
TUC

To mark World Day for Decent Work in the UK, and in support of the Decent Work, Decent Life Campaign, the TUC is organising a day of activities at Congress House, focusing on rights at work and ending inequality in the workplace.
Over the course of the day there will be over 50 workshops, films, exhibitions and stalls from UK development charities, trade unions, organisations concerned with fair and ethical trade, and academic institutions focusing on the development and gender dimensions of livelihood and income generation issues.
For more information, please email Gary Willis on gwillis@tuc.org.uk or visit
http://www.tuc.org.uk/wddw


END POVERTY NOW CAMPAIGNERS FORUM
Saturday 11 October
BOND, Global Call to Action Against Poverty, Jubilee Debt Campaign, Stamp Out Poverty, Stop Aids Campaign, Stop Climate Chaos, Trade Justice Movement and UK Aid Network.
Central London

Does the credit crunch mean we can't make poverty history? Is the food crisis undermining the benefits of debt cancellation? The End Poverty Now forum will bring together global poverty campaigners to hear the latest on economic justice campaigning, debate how current events have changed the context for our campaigning, and discuss the future of activism in the UK.
For more information please email events@jubileedebtcampaign.org or visit http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/forum


BLOGGERS AGAINST POVERTY
Wednesday 15 October

Thousands of bloggers across the world will blog about poverty on this day. Find out more and register your blog at http://blogactionday.org .
Confirmed UK bloggers include Nick Dearden (Jubilee Debt campaign) and Brendan Barber (TUC).

STAND UP AND TAKE ACTION AGAINST POVERTY AND INEQUALITY
17 October – 19 October

'Stand Up and Take Action' is a mass action in which millions worldwide take a stand against poverty. Last year, 43.7 million people in 127 countries took a stand. This year, don't just stand, take action as well. Make sure politicians and decision makers hear our call that they act on our demands.
Local events are planned in most UK cities. Many faith-based gatherings will have sermon themes of world poverty. Many NGOs will organise public meetings or panel discussions.

On 17 October, the UK premiere of the brand new film 'The End of Poverty' will take place at the Human Rights Action Centre in Shoreditch at 6:30pm. This will be followed by a party organised by pants to poverty.
Stand Up and Take Action Against Poverty and Inequality will take place over 3 days, Friday October 17 to Sunday October 19. The “counting” period will be at any time over those 3 days. Register your event and upload numbers directly to the Stand Up and Take Action website at http://www.standagainstpoverty.org .
To find an event close to you or to organise one yourself, please visit http://www.standagainstpoverty.org

Pensioners Step Up Campaign In Centenary Year

2008 is the Centenary of the state pension in Britain, introduced after a successful campaign by unions, social reformers and elderly people in 1908. I attended a rally in Nottingham at the weekend to celebrate this milestone social advance and gather support for the campaign for a decent state pension. The renewed campaign by pensioners is very timely given the rocketing prices of essentials and the economic crash and its likely effect on those on fixed incomes and those who make good use of public services. I have to say I am always impressed by senior citizens campaigners - younger activists and trades unionists have a lot to learn from the persistence, good organisation, radical motivation, mobilising strength and energy of the older generation. The good point was made that we must all be united in the struggle for social justice and this means solidarity with those fighting both pensioner poverty and child poverty.

A lobby of Parliament is planned for Wednesday 22nd October with a rally at Westminster Central Hall at 12 noon. It is good that many national unions are backing this day of action, let us hope they can deliver supporters on the day.
Support for the 4th October Keep The Promise event on Child Poverty was also raised at the Nottingham meeting.

I am adding the National Pensioners Convention to my campaigning organisation links list.

National Pensioners Convention Declaration
DECLARATION
This Convention declares that every pensioner has the right to choice, dignity, independence and security as an integral and valued member of society. These rights require an adequate state pension linked to average earnings, comprehensive free health care and concessionary travel on public transport

There is also a Pensioners' Charter-

PENSIONERS' CHARTER

Every man and woman on reaching state pensionable age will have the right to:

*a basic state pension set above the official poverty level and linked to average male earnings.
*a warm and comfortable home.
*free health care treatment based on clinical need and an annual comprehensive health check.
*free community care and services to assist living at home.
*free long-term care.
*free nationwide travel on all public and local transport.
*free education, access to and participation in leisure and cultural activities.
*goods, services and benefits without age discrimination.
*active engagement and consultation on national and local issues affecting older citizens.
*advocacy, dignity, respect and fair treatment in all aspects of their lives.

As a first step towards establishing these rights we call on the government to implement the Pensioners’ Manifesto.