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

Must go and check the blog now!!

DH never did the DLA / ESA thing: when he got ill we just sold the house to cover all bills and he changed jobs.

suicide rates are already at record highs.

can you imagine what they'll be in the tax year 2012/2013?

this is going to literally kill some people.

i can't fathom how many people just don't care. it's hard to believe they don't and then you read posts on mn (and even one on this thread) and there it is! blatant couldn't give a shit about people less fortunate than me-ism.

wish i believed in bible as i could comfort myself with the knowledge these are the end times and they'll all burn in hell not much sign of inheriting the earth any time soon though sadly.

gosh and i bet a lot of them ARE christians!!!

shutting up now.

*SantaIsAnAnagramOfSatan Mon 12-Dec-11 12:37:26
yes - that was pre MW. a 12 shift now would cost over £72 and realistically you'd have to include an unsociable hours element to it. i think you'd be looking at minimum £90 pay plus employer contributions on top. not very viable for average night shift worker is it?

do think!!!*

The current going rate for a sleeping night shift as paid by agencies is around 30 pounds (pound key broken) per night.
A sleeping nightshift does not constitute a nannying position.

Yes, admittedly in the 80s the whole thing was more casual. I paid students 20 pounds a night to sleep in my house. They were grateful for the chance to earn a few quid - I always left them a meal and allowed them use of the shower and general facilities in the house. It worked very well for years.
I realise that rules and regulations are much tighter these days, but where there's a will there's a way. Trouble is, many people these days aren't willing to make the effort.
There may be a legal way round doing it, possibly involving extra insurance to cover the event of unforeseen problems. I admit to not being up to speed with childminding issues. How does a sleeping nightshift differ from a paid babysitter, other than the longer time period involved?

Another option, which worked for me when I was married, was for one parent to work nights and the other to work days, thus requiring a babysitter for a couple of hours only if/when neither parent was at home.

The argument that a family may fall into a situation where they previously could afford children and have fallen on hard times is a non-starter. Surely part of the plan should be to take these eventualities into account by way of insurance and back up plans before having more children?

Tax year 2013 - 2014 will see the big loss of life I think

Thanks Hunty. Its all aimed at penalising the poorest and most vunerable. Why dont they think someone can be disabled, a carer and a lone parent? I also see Carers of elderly and sick relatives saying 'fuck this for a game of soldiers' and putting said relatives into residential care at a cost to the Govt/tax payer of anything from £600 to £3000 A WEEK. Because caring 24/7 while trying to hold down a job is often physicaly impossible.
I know so many couples where one, often the wife, carers for elderly parents while her dh earns under 17K. No way could they also work 20 hours for their 'conditionality' and if the dh could find a better paying job he bloody would have.

don't forget they're meant to be busy running 'big society' for free too!!

The current going rate for a sleeping night shift as paid by agencies is around 30 pounds (pound key broken) per night.
A sleeping nightshift does not constitute a nannying position.'

Night shift for a SN child is actually about £200 per night.

Yes, wrt to mental health I find this line in a recent BBC story quietly chilling: "A survey suggested 77% of GPs had signed people off sick for reasons other than their physical health".

Odd.

Do they mean, 77% of GPs have patients with mental health issues requiring a short term sick note? Why would this be newsworthy? Why describe it as "other than physical health"?

The quote from Freud, and the fact that this is yet another piece of propaganda pushing the untrue line that GPs can sign people off for long term sickness benefits, suggest the story emanated from a govt or related press office. Which adds weight to the fear that there's an attempt to separate mental illness from "physical" illness, and to create a category that is "other" (where you can happily dump mentally ill with fraudsters, say).

Boffyflow - And of course all these insurance companies pay up without a complaint??

I was the higher earner in my couple. We had 3 dc, good income, both working FT blah blah blah. I had insurance etc.

In the space of 6 weeks, just after dc3 was born, I was diagnosed with epilepsy, which BARRED ME BY LAW from my prevous profession, My 5yo DD was diagnosed with Autism, and my partner was made redundant. AND my newborn baby started exhibiting symptoms of a disability.

I tried to claim on my insurance - but the insurance company deemed that my prior diagnosis of depression had actually been symptoms of the epilepsy. They DIDN'T PAY. And I no longer had the money to fight them legally.

I did not have the money for the training course I needed to do to transfer my skills to an area I could work in. My partner at the time was a low earner, no skills to get a higher income etc.Plus my own disability, AND two of my dc having disabilities. In the end, my partner and I separated under the strain of it all.

Insurance? HA!

Boffy, since you've used the details of life as an example already, would you mind me asking what your plans are if, by this time tomorrow, you are seriously disabled?

EXACTLY, Tianc. I didn't expect to be diagnosed with epilepsy, whilst on Mat Leave, with a 5yo DD that had just been diagnosed with Autism, a 19mo toddler, and a 2 week old baby that was ALSO diagnosed with a disability. And I didn't expect my partner to be made redundant at the exact same time...There's only so far £20K of savings can go...I'm EIGHT YEARS down the line now...

And I don't have 20p savings anymore, much less the £20K I had eight years ago...

'The argument that a family may fall into a situation where they previously could afford children and have fallen on hard times is a non-starter. Surely part of the plan should be to take these eventualities into account by way of insurance and back up plans before having more children?

We had all those.

Dh was in a good job, I was a year away from qualifying as a teacher. The boys were diagnosed with ASD so I did not manage to get to do my PGCE (did well in my degree) and then DH was made redundant.
Insurances did pay out but they are very time linked and Dh can't return to old field for medical reasons (required night work, takes meds that are incompatible. Means I can't work nights either as ds1 needs two hourly checks at night and DH simply can't wake. Note he did nights for five eyars so hardly a new idea!). Lease prevents me working from home which was next plan (DH registered at a technology centre), also bans 'staff' such as a Nanny and significantly Social Services say that if I leave ASD ds1 with chidlcare and he hurts them or another child (inevitable, well would be if I could find anyone who would have him) that I would be liable as I know the risks.

You simply have no idea; I pray that it stays that way. I would not wish this on anybody.

i couldn't even get mortgage insurance because i had a history of depression in the past which meant i'd need to sign a disclaimer that i couldn't claim for anything that could be connected with this existing condition - which would basically cover virtually everything like hunty discovered when it got them out of paying out for epilepsy.

Worst six weeks of MY life, that was! Could I have foreseen all those things happening in such a short space of time? How many years do you think £20K of savings last when you have to live off it before you qualify for income-related benefits? When you have to pay EVERYTHING out of it - housing in the SE included?

My life today is TOTALLY different from the life I had eight years ago, and very different from the life that I SHOULD have had if all these things hadn't affected my family then. I would be paying 50% tax on a huge chunk of my earnings by now had I not been barred from my previous profession due to my disability. Instead, I am a disabled lone parent, living off benefits, caring for my dc, and two of them are disabled.

Next time, I'll put an order in for a crystal ball, shall I?

We've pretty much lived off savings for the past three years. Refused to claim some benefits we were entitled to.

Wish we had not bothered, might have some left now!

Plan is I will find work and Dh will work for himself. hardly lack of a back up plan: poor Dh worked FT and part time then studied FT and worked PT for years (inclusing being very ahnds on with the boys as well) for years to get just this far.

If jobs were easy to come by we'd be fairly OK (I like to think I would still care about others) but where we live is notorious anyway for unemployment. 20% at last count, because everything is closing. No train station, and my eyesight is always teetering at lose-licence level.

mind you in boffy's scheme of things i shouldn't have bought somewhere knowing i had a history of depression let alone have dared to have had a child!!! never mind that i was a home owning professional with good savings etc and half way through qualifying for a second profession. i should have put my magic hat on looked into the future and decided to join a convent or maybe just kill myself on the spot so as to avoid ever costing the tax payer anything.

maybe we should genetically screen ourselves at 18 and if we find any conditions or predispositions we should be sterilised forthwith?

Santa - It wasn't the fact that I WAS depressed that voided my insurance - it was the fact that the post-ictal period after my seizures had been MIS-DIAGNOSED as depression for years - meaning that I had had epilepsy symptoms BEFORE I took out the policy, and even thoughI wasn't diagnosed until two years AFTER I took out the policy - it was voided as a 'pre-existing condition'. That I didn't know I had.

I don't know if anyone else agrees, but I think Boffy is making a very useful contribution to this thread She rightly points out possibilities, which presumably UC is supposed to make people consider. And enables us all to work out how the WRB does or doesn't succeed in this aim.

i get it hunty. it's just that anything i developed was likely to be related to the depression - it was the only health problems i'd ever had - things to do with the brain, immune system and energy stuff so anything i did develop would have been written off as pre-existing in the same way yours has. i looked into it all and it was utterly pointless me getting it. the health conditions i have now would all be deemed to have depression as a symptom so would all be deemed as pre-existing.

did that make any sense at all ?

i also want to add for boffy how tied people's hands are nowadays in terms of trying to come up with creative solutions. do you remember the case of the two policewomen who were splitting their shifts and child care so that both could work full time and support each other? they were told they were breaking the law or some such.

anyone remember the case and how to find it?

here boffy

imagine what would happen to you if you were caught paying a student to sleep overnight in your house with your child nowadays?

Sort of - but ten years ago when I DID get insurance - my depression diagnosis wasn't that much of an issue. Epilepsy, however, IS, now. No travel insurance, no life insurance - the premiums are MORE than I get on IS - Literally £295 pcm when I get £67.50 a week. Well, technically I get less than that, as I had to get a Social Fund Loan when my cooker broke down, and I am paying it back at £10 a week.

When they get rid of the Social Fund (that's coming too, as part of the cuts...) if ANY of my household equipmant breaks - there's NO WAY I CAN REPLACE IT. Even if it is my washing machine, fridge-freezer or cooker.