Too Many Cuts...come join the #Frothers and have your say

[AnyFuckerForAMincePie]

This is the 3rd thread in a series.

It is for people who are horrified, frustrated and downright sad at the erosion of human rights with respect to how this country is being run, just now and in the recent past

it is apolitical in nature, but of course due to many recent initiatives by the recent govt, there will be rants against our current "leaders"

please join in

I shall post the link to the old threads, our "Too Many Cuts #Frothers" blog that is attracting a lot of widespread attention and a little bit of what we are about in a moment

Ahahaaaa thank you niceguy. I shall use that to explain it to my DD as well

Hands off our bananas.

Oh wait - that was never true.

Evening, frothers! Brilliant news about Zoe Williams. I love her. I look forward to seeing what she has written tomorrow.

Sorry I haven't been frothing today - have been a bit caught up with dealing with DS1. Picked him up from university today and have spent the afternoon doing his washing! I probably should have made him do it, but it is so lovely to have him home, I came over all maternal. (Don't worry - I'll be yelling at him to tidy his room within about 48 hours).

I'm also a bit about Next - I wasn't watching last night. And I'm because DS2 has just applied for a part time job there. Literally - we were filling in the application form yesterday.

Trouble is, for a 16 year old, there are very few job opportunities, and especially not when it's for a Saturday job.

Oh, and thanks, AF, that was very sweet.

The trouble is I read details, think about them, work out what I think big picture, and then forget all the details immediately. Otherwise I get too clogged up with it all.

I have a dear friend just the same which is very fortunate because our conversations go:

"I fucking hate X he is a right cunt."

"Why?"

"Oh you know, that school/Yerp thing."

"Oh yeah. Total cunt."

And we nod, drink wine and feel terribly au fait.

I think big, strategic, macro frothing is probably the way to go, Hully!

evening all,

just signing in for a friday night froth while the old boy pops out to get a takeaway...

will read back through the thread to see what I've missed

you're all doing so well - nothing stronger than people power....

xx

But biwi, there's all those long lovely ones full of stats, don't you think it would look weird if suddenly:

I FUCKING HATE THOSE OVERPRIVILEGED SILVERSPOON SUCKING TORY CUNTS WHO ARE DESTROYING OUR WELFARE STATE AND FUCKING OUR LIVES

appeared?

Like someone had let Screaming Lord Sutch in the building.

Just type it in lower case and it will be fine.

hmmm.

Interesting article from Left Foot Forward regarding the new treaty. If he had signed up to it we would've had no say wrt our budget, would not be allowed to artificially stimulate the economy, and would be forced to adopt austerity measures more or less permanently, or until the budget balances, which given we have no money left thanks to ShineyDaves banker mates equates to the same thing. So unwittingly The Walking Forehead has done the right thing. Yes, I know he was thinking of the thieving cunts that are the bankers, but he's done us frothers a favour, albeit at the cost of leaving the UK outside the decision making process. We need less austerity to grow. This new treaty advocates more. I don't want my shrinking income to shrink even more because of either the Tories or Europe. I'm sure you don't either.

Sorry to jump in shouting but I just felt I wanted to say congratulations to everyone contributing. Bloody good work. The magic porridge pot of shit that is currently overflowing from the cabinet is being focused and magnified at the same time - there is stuff coming out that would have gone under the radar for me personally which is probably what they were bargaining on.
I am liking the nexus and desperately want to post on the blog and am going to think on. You are doing a marvelous job.

oooh, fab analogy, NiceGuy. Would you mind if I put that on my blog. Would credit you, of course.

Hully
DO IT NOW. I like a good frothy rant. And although the stats and figures are interesting, it is good to have a "this is what is annoying me and this is how it will affect me personally" post.

I do think that we should try and alternate between researched posts and personal posts, it is what makes Frothers different to many other blogs.

I have so much froth to catch up on! Did someone say IN THE NEWSPAPER????????

This frothing is a full time business, family has go in the way this last few days and now I have lots to catch up on. I really want to write a post for the blog, but I haven't a clue what. I'm pretty good at bitching about Gove, but that has already been done. If I waited a while do you think we could go another education post?

Off to check the stats.

Did anyone remove the Statcounter from the blog? It says we had one visit...I don't think thats true! Let me know if its not wanted or if i should put it back on.

Oh yes! It's great seeing how many visits we have had.

There is the page view on the blog page still, but the stat counter gives a breakdown of unique visitors and where the traffic comes from etc. Can give the password to anyone who wants access.

MmeLindor - that's a great idea. You could have a section on the blog titled Real Frother's Stories/Experiences or How the Cuts are directly hitting the Frothers and then another one more generic How the Cuts are destroying the country and put all the stats there.

Some people understandably may not want to use their real names or give too much information about where they live or their personal circumstances so if it was encouraged that names would be changed to protect individuals that may make them feel more comfortable about sharing stories and experiences.

Re: earlier post on Universal Credit. This is the link for the new conditionality threshold www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/ucpbn-11-conditionality-threshold.pdf

The jist of it as far as I understand it is that people who are already desperately working hard and doing their bit for society have been told that simply isn?t enough. If your job doesn?t pay you enough (even if you do work full time) you?ll just have to get another one to top up your wages to meet the threshold.

Brilliant -let?s look forward to a new generation of latchkey children then and have the Tories also not considered it may just not be possible for people to earn a higher wage than they already do?

Am (sadly) frothing out now - have to go to bed, festive exhaustion hitting already.....

The jist of it as far as I understand it is that people who are already desperately working hard and doing their bit for society have been told that simply isn?t enough. If your job doesn?t pay you enough (even if you do work full time) you?ll just have to get another one to top up your wages to meet the threshold.

i really do hope you are joking, but your not are you

Ooooh! I will have to avtually leave the house tomorrow and by the Guardian! I'm not going to be doing too much frothing tonight - I REALLY need an early night, to recoup maximum froth levels...

Buy.

Being lazy, can't be arsed to search, could someone link the blog please?

Basically, yes, blackout. I have been frothing about this for a while - mostly because, while they have an exception for 'claimants with work-limiting health conditions' who 'may also only be expected to work part-time' - The word MAY is important, because it doesn't mean that they DEFINATELY won't be expected to seek full time work or face conditionality.

It ALSO means that the people who they deem to be 'claimants with work-limiting health conditions' will be those who passed an ATOS work-related activity test but have been changed from the WRAG of ESA to JSA because they had been in the WRAG for over a year.

So anyone like me, who doesn't PASS the work-related activity test, despite having a life-long, chronic health condition that DOES limit the work they can do, and or the hours - will still be subject to conditionality. Which means that if you don't earn over £212 a week - you will have your UC stopped. This will happen after 1 year on UC, apparently.

THIS is why groups that support people with disabilities are campaigning so hard against time-limiting ESA, and conditionality.

I like the way data-packed overviews on a particular issue are interspersed with personal views. It makes it more 'real' imo. If you split them up, it looks as if we separate facts from life as it is lived ... and isn't that what #frothers are all about, emphasising that we and our children are not just figures on a spreadsheet?

Have done new tab backgrounds to match Kate's black&white splash :) If anybody changes it (unless back to the blue one - already done those), I may have to kill them!

I'm so tired i hallucinated a ginger cat on my sofa. Think I need an early night

Just one thing before I go - Yes, the 'earn more' threshold thing with Universal Credit is true - that's partly what I was on about while in an ALMIGHTY froth yesterday. I was worried I'd already be working more hours (50 to 60 as opposed to 40) per week only to have my dd's maintenance taken off me. I'm self employed so some weeks I work all day every day for bugger all, sometimes it's far more plentiful. But under the new threshold rules I'm going to have to give up weekends and work saturdays as well or be penalised. I already do sometimes, so it could mean basically never having a day off. Great.