Social 'cleansing'? What are the implications?

[Solopower1]

Camden Council wants to move 750 poor families north to places like Bradford and Leicester. They say that because of the new benefit caps (which limit total welfare payments to £500 a week for families, no matter how many children they have or how much they have to pay for rent), some families are not going to be able to afford to live in London. So they're shunting them all up north.

I don't think this is a new idea, btw, but I still find it shocking.

When the govt were discussing these benefit cap plans, they must have worked out the implications for the families that would no longer be able to afford to live in their houses. And they will have realised that this would happen more in the poorer, Labour-run (?) councils. It's inspired, it's so clever. In one fell swoop they free up all the lovely expensive properties being wasted on poor families, and the Labour councils get the blame for it. It's absolute genius, don't you think?

So what sort of place will London be, when the heart is ripped out of it, and all the children go? Perhaps a tad melodramatic, but the Pied Piper springs to mind - not that I am blaming the Mayor and Corporation of Camden, particularly (don't know enough about it, tbh).

money.aol.co.uk/2013/02/14/council-to-export-poor-familes-to-north/

"Cuts in welfare spending fall disproportionately on women's finances. Child benefit is paid almost 100% to women; while 53% of housing benefit claimants are single women. Both benefits have been cut significantly in real terms and eligibility has been tightened." www.wbg.org.uk/AboutUs.htm

niceguy - actually the whole point of the Bank of England is to allow the govt. to borrow. It's been around since 1694. So government borrowing is nothing new.

Got to love the neocons, though, bless them, they tip the world into the worst recession since the 30s and still try to convince everyone it's a. not the fault of their style of economics and b. their style of economics is the answer to their woes. Even though everyone can plainly see it's pants!

The banks played a huge part in the house price 'boom' (disaster). They funded it, they encouraged people to borrow ridiculous amounts, they made billions out of it during the boom. Only they conveniently forgot that capitalism means the gains are supposed to go primarily to shareholders, not into the back pockets of favoured employees.

"Every other country will be watching, he said, to ensure they don't repeat the same mistake as George Osborne's wildly unnecessary, misguided, doctrinaire and potentially dangerous spending cuts. They've let the Chancellor jump off the cliff first.?"
www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2010/10/government-spending-labour

" Indeed, there has been a noticeable change in the rhetoric of the government of Prime Minister David Cameron over the past few weeks ? a shift from hope to fear. In his speech announcing the budget plan, George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, seemed to have given up on the confidence fairy ? that is, on claims that the plan would have positive effects on employment and growth.

Instead, it was all about the apocalypse looming if Britain failed to go down this route. Never mind that British debt as a percentage of national income is actually below its historical average; never mind that British interest rates stayed low even as the nation?s budget deficit soared, reflecting the belief of investors that the country can and will get its finances under control. Britain, declared Mr. Osborne, was on the ?brink of bankruptcy.?

What happens now? Maybe Britain will get lucky, and something will come along to rescue the economy. But the best guess is that Britain in 2011 will look like Britain in 1931, or the United States in 1937, or Japan in 1997. That is, premature fiscal austerity will lead to a renewed economic slump. As always, those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. "

brilliant stuff

stealth tax on women

Edam.

You are totally right, but unfortunately too many people have fallen for government propaganda. They say the poor people on benefit are entitled, but should try looking at themselves. I have heard a right bunch of middle class entitled people on these threads.

Urban myth.

Believe it when I see it

if you look at the data,

Cameron is spinning bullshit.

the war on the poor is unecessary,

the Womens Budget group consists of very eminent educated individuals and they think so

many US and uk economists think so

the institute for fiscal studies think so

Custardo, the war on the poor is not only unnecessary, but weird. How are the least powerful people in society to blame for anything?

If you want to know who is to blame, then just ask yourself who has the power to change things. They are the ones to blame for causing this situation and for not solving it.

And anyone who voted for them must bear some of that responsibility.

Solopower.

I too find it weird, watching the change in society perceptions and values has been unbelievable. It seems so unreal at times, in just a short space of time so many people have become hated by others. Or is this just Mnet

Beggars have less to lose than anyone else, Rhianna. Don't expect them to go quietly. Hope it's not a hot summer in London.

Well, I'd fight to save my home. Wouldn't you?

Nah, only joking. I'm sure they'll meekly wander off into the sunset, no trouble at all. And then we won't have to think about them any more. Except that they'll arrive somewhere else.

Maybe we could create a new state for them.

I could have been the woman with 4 dc in the article and missed being (thankfully) by a whisker.

Five ish years ago my dh became very ill whilst I was pg with dc4. He was a higher rate taxpayer and I was a SAHM. It took nearly 2 years for him to recover, he nearly died many times. We survived financially because we were fortunate enough to have some savings, pil helped us and we claimed benefits. If dh HAD died I would be that woman.

It is scary to see that so many would be happy for me and my dc to be put miles and miles away from friends and family at such a time because I (shock horror) relied on state help for a while.

no no no a house price crash would be a good thing see my earlier post

why oh why do people think it is a good idea for the most expensive thing they will (prob) ever buy to go UP in value?

Msing - do you not have life insurance? As a higher rate tax payer surely that;s an essential , especially with only one of you working and lots of children?

Do people in work not have this ? I thought most people did so that, yunno, you can be self reliant and provide for your family yourself.

nice bit of sympathy there auntmaud no life insurance here - can't afford it, too busy !"yunno" providing for our family and just scraping by. I am sure there are many families just the same.

We could never afford life insurance neither.
From what I can remember to get the type that really covered you, not disclaimed in small print, would have cost a small fortune.
The same with private pension companies too. Although several we could have gone with years ago went bust.

we don't have life insurance either. only on our mortgage policy.

alemci.

Don't mean to sound condescending here, but unless you are paying a whacking amount on top of your mortgage it might not be worth the paper its written on. This was clearly the case for us, of course I am going back many years. However, that was the general idea. I knew some companies were in trouble for miss selling, a bit like the ppi lot are now.

A proper full on house price crash would be a disaster initially for anyone with a mortgage without really significant equity (like 80% but more like 90% in reality I suspect) So, most homeowners under 50 with a mortgage really. Along with all the buy to letters. So you end up with huge swathes of the population with a massive debt to the bank and no way of discharging it, and debts are bigger than they have been at previous housing crashes, as house prices are so much higher now.

So, people start defaulting and declaring bankruptcy all over the place. This is likely to have the same effect as the sub prime crisis - banks cannot handle that level of default, and, as house prices have crashed, they're left with a bunch of devalued assets. This is the point when this starts to affect the non home owners, as the economy goes through the floor (or since our economy is already pretty bad, through the basement might be more accurate). All your first time buyers still can't buy, as the banks will not be offering any mortgages at all to anyone while they recalibrate/collapse/get bailed out. So all the cheap property gets snapped up by the really rich who have the cash readies to buy outright. The rental market goes through the roof as no one can actually buy, the market is flooded by bankrupts who now want to rent. War famine pestilence, four horsemen of the apocalypse etc etc.

A house price gentle slide - great. A house price stagnation while inflation slowly pushes wages up and banks offer lower multiples of salary at the same time...fine. A big massive crash bring properties down to 70s values? Careful what you wish for. I've outlined the doomsday scenario above, but it's not as fantastical as it might sound.

no you are not potato:) If one of us dies our mortgage is paid off. I'm not too worried as the policy matures in 3 years'. sorry you had problems with yours.

what I meant was, we had never taken out life insurance for loss of earnings etc

We have and had life insurance but dhs condition wasn't covered and as we didn't have a firm diagnosis until about 3 weeks before the surgery that saved his life, they wouldn't pay out.

Made us feel really pleased that we'd shelled out £££ a month for protection that didn't actually exist

alemci.

Ah I see now. Yes I think there were a lot more problems with the small print on the loss of earnings, illness, etc.
We were told we had to have cover with our mortgage and got a payment of over 2k back, but we didn't have that mortgage for long. It could have been many more thousands if it had been our first mortgage.

Really sorry for you MsIngsFewmarbles, I can't imagine what you and your family have been through. I hope things are better or improving for you all now.