Yvette Cooper and the Fawcett society takes the cuts to court

[EricNorthmansMistress]

fascinating, and fucking brilliant

they can try, but I'm not sure on what grounds exactly.

there's a seriously impressive set of women on the case then!

Why that woman never stood as leader of the party I will never know.

Demonstrates amply the breathtaking arrogance of the new regime, though, doesn't it.

So rather than making it "the people" vs. "the Government" they're going to split the fight and make it "about 50% of the people" vs. "the Government"

And if women make up more than 50% of the public sector employees then they're going to make up more than 50% of the redundancies. Unless they stop the Government from being able to every sack anyone.

Not sure what they're hoping to achieve.

And Yvette Cooper lost the democratic argument over how to steer the economy. So isn't it now just a touch disturbing that she's running off to the courts to get her way?

That's easy Getorf, her dh wouldn't have liked it....

Picking that example of the public sector what exactly could they do? Not sack people?

It just seems to me that the argument has already been lost if the opponents of the cuts are running to the courts to override an elected Government.

It could also damage equality legislation as I don't believe that it was meant to be used to prevent an employer that employees mostly people of one sex from being able to sack people.

The Government could quite easily paint this as a misuse of legislation by people who lost the election and yet were still trying to run the country through legal processes. And that could lead to the legislation being taken away.

I suppose most of the lower paid, single parent households are women rather than men, and if there are more women in public sector jobs then it will affect more women. CB is still going to be paid to the main carer but taken off as tax from the higher earner so that would mostly mean men.

I don't see what they can argue with tbh.

This is ridiculous, the cuts are going to hit everyone and although I believe more women then men will be affected by them, I think Cooper et al would be better off looking at why so many women are dependent on the state

Inspired me to donate to the Fawcett Society today.

Picking that example of the public sector what exactly could they do? Not sack people?

Yes.

Uyter - Yvette Cooper's analysis (which must ne checked, of course) indicates that women will bear 72% of the cuts.

Women HRPs will lose CB if they are single parents, where couples will not, on higher incomes.

Working families will lose 30% of the childcare element of WTC. This will mean, in practice, that working will become unaffordable for many women as women tend to be the part time/lower earners in families.

Families will be withdrawing children from childcare after the cuts make it unaffordable, leading to redundancies in the childcare professions, which are mainly staffed by women.

Cuts to disability benefits will also lead women as the main carers to lose out financially and in work opportunities.

The list goes on and on and on.

uyter - because it's fairly obvious what the reasons are and they're things we can't do anything about, like the fact that women live longer than men, or things that will need long-term societal shifts to change even if that's desirable.
The day when men start to be the ones that give up their jobs to care for children in large numbers, and when as many women as men walk out and leave their families, when as many middle-aged men as women take on the role of carer to elderly parents, we will see more equal numbers of men and women depending on the state.

thanks for posting the link - very interesting

I'd love to see the figures properly. I agree that she absolutely should have stood for leader.

Really hope they can pull something off - even if it is just to highlight the injustice that would still be a coup.

How are you going to reduce the level of Government spending if you do not reduce waste so jobs have to go, I agree that its sad for those involved but we cannot allow the systematic waste in the public sector to continue.

Again the welfare bill is far too large and must be reduced as it is totally unaffordable hence why we have the largest deficit as a % of GDP in the G20. These are not attacks against women this is necessary action in order to restore the public finances back into a reasonable and sustainable state.

It's not going to restore the economy though is it - it's going to land us in a huge depression.

I agree I would like to have seen universal benefits for the over 65s being cut as well as the other welfare reductions and if they were to cut the state pension then the fawcett society would be out again complaining that this was anti-woman as more women are dependent on the state pension.

The removal of the deficit will restore the economy as they will stop the financial markets forcing up the interest rates on our bonds and will prevent a run on the pound as investors would lose confidence in our ability to pay our debts.

Thanks for the link, Eric [hsmile]

But those are fringe benfits that cost very little compared to the bill of just paying the state pension.

They have affected pensions, they have raised the state pension age by a year, effectively taking away £5,200 from every adult in todays terms.