Oh Come All Ye Faithful, Frothy and Triumphant! Oh Come Lefties, Come Ye to anti ConDem-nay-tion!

[KateMiddlet0n]

Fed up of the ConDems robbing the poorest and most vulnerable blind? Sympathetic to the squeezed middle? Have you eyes that can see the horrors that await the dismantling of our welfare state and all that is great and good in UK?

Then you're a frother. This is our safe-space to rally, vent and get organised. You are also welcome if you want to be better informed and/or do something.

#Frothers don't join - #frothers ARE. Check out the blog for information and actions you can take, like us on www.facebook.com/frothers Facebook for bite-sized chunks of frothiness you can read, like and share, or get ye to Twitter and tweet your frustrations using the #frothers hashtag or follow us @TMC_frothers.

Our blog toomanycuts.blogspot.com

Facebook www.facebook.com/frothers

Twitter Twitter.com/tmc_frothers

This is our 4th thread now!

I'll get to it tomorrow, the thing I know most about is Atos and DLA and ESA claims etc. Will that be ok?

I've dled the pdfs but cannot find the 20hours thing for lone parents mentioned, maybe I need some sleep and look again in the morns.

Night frothy ones :)

Evening all.

Been busy with work and stuff so haven't managed to get my next blog post done yet. I'll crack on when I get a spare few minutes and my brain isn't so frazzled.

Have managed a few tweets. Brain can cope with that. Just about.

I went a bit mad and followed everyone who followed me (I thought that's what you did, t'was only polite)

I didn't want to talk about shoes on twitter

night ava, thanks so much for your contribution

Just watching PM question time...its a bit nuts. Old ham face is very good at not answering stuff. Lots of posturing.

Hey all!

Haven't read thread yet - will go back and catch up.

We've been struggling in the Knot household a bit this week. Lots of poorliness and lots of travelling and no bloody internet access at work and a general feeling of fucking sadness and desperation from me.

I did want to quickly tell you something about the power of the frothers though, I promise I'll go read the thread after this real life tale (and I'm considering putting this up as a blog - let me know)

I went to visit to my family in S Wales last weekend. I come from parents of the S Wales valleys who left their homes when they married in 1970 and moved to London - they both worked in the NHS, my Dad was a radiographer and my mum started as a nurse before she had me and then went back to work as a clerk.

Anyway. The towns where all all of my family live are working class, ex mining towns, decimated by the closure of the pits under Thatcher, and after a brief resurgence of factory positions in the late 90's/early 00's, are now communities on their fucking knees. It never fails to shock me how few jobs there are - how little hope there is in these places and yet I find myself arguing a left wing position everytime I go there.

This confuses me so much. How can it be that my family, this community, can be agreeing with the government?

Well, the truth is that the left wing have lost the media fight. I found myself, once again, arguing against the old chestnut of "benefit scroungers". My family appeared to be amazed when I told them that we are being pitted against one another (a part of my family receive a carers allowance for an elderly member of our family who is disabled - they don't count themselves as takers of benefits) and instead started the old story of the generations of benefit claimants.

I leant on my knowledge gleaned from being a frother. I pointed out the disparity between the amount of fraudulent claims versus the amount that goes unclaimed. I talked about the defferment of private jet taxes. I made the point about those slipping between the ESA and JSA. I shocked them by telling them the amounts of rent that have to be paid in my area (£800 pcm for a two bed flat) and the cap in HB, the cuts/freezes in CTC and how that affects me - the constant grinding down of the working poor, and those who are UNABLE to work through no fault of their own - and the sly media portrayal used to get the poor to report on each other while the big businesses use workfare as a tool for slave labour and avoid taxes.

I'm proud to say I frothed. I frothed big time and I relished the questions "So who pays their wages?" and "Private Jet's?" and I praised the frothers for the info at my fingertips...

and then I had a few days off.

please post that on the blog, shirl < stirs self from torpor >

Post it, my lovely. It's a similar fight to the one I've had this week.

Um, I think I've broken Twitter.

Go Shirl Go!

yeah, twitter is down

I may have contributed to that when I asked @DrChristian if he epilated his scalp

AF, you've made a friend for life then

Post it. I am so sick of the divide and rule tactics being employed by the government and certain sections of the media. Actually, most of the media.

Shit stained wank.

Thanks for that custardo, it's my new favourite expression.

perhaps not, knotty

twitter is cured

Ah, I'll work it up a bit then and post it.

It was an eye opening trip this time TBH. Eye Opening and Eye Closing.

BREAKING NEWS. Poundworld are in my local paper this week. They conducted unpaid work trials with ten individuals to fill Christmas vacancies at the local store.
It is alleged that our local branch of Poundworld asked 16 candidates to work a day unpaid.
The guardian of one of the young people was completely shocked by this and is quoted as saying its disgraceful.
This is the work trials which are up to 15 days.
Ha. this parent and the others have obviously never heard of workfare which is even worse.
Maybe this article will open the floodgates though and someone will give our local paper their workfare story.
Poundworld insists that eight of the ten individuals went on to be employed with one now a full time member of staff.
But at the top of the article it says they trialled 16. Either its a typo or poundworld cant get their story straight.

my son is working a week. for free. for free. gratis free. then they will no doubt tell him on mondya that he hasn't got the job

and im paying the £7 per day transport/lunch costs.

It's utter bullshit.

When I mentioned Workfare and then explained what I meant my aunt (who used to work for ASDA) said that she had seen these kids start a job and the expectation was that they would get a role at the end of it - the permanent staff knew that it wasn't going to happen. My uncle suddenly blurted "Who pays their wages then?" and I as I told him that the "tax payer" did (a la Jeremy Kyle) he visibly blanched.

Ch to the U to the AH

I am so impressed with all the work the Frothers are doing.

Shirleyknot well done, I know people who think exactly that way about so called benefit scroungers - I just always feel like I am not well enough armed to enlighten them, I always try. I agree we shouldn't be fighting amongst ourselves, and I think it is great you got a chance to make those points.

I really don't feel I am articulate enough to blog, but I am willing to do my bit. I share links on fb, sign petitions and write to my MP(most recently about the Robin Hood tax, I even got a reply!).

I am on twitter but I just feel awkward on there.

I'm a little busy tonight, trying to do a personal calculation for someone, but I'm getting defeated by Self employment...As far as I can make out from the policy briefing notes, someone who is SE will be assumed to be making the equivalent of 35hr/wk @NMW. Even if they aren't MAKING that much. In fact, even if they are showing a LOSS.

How the fucking fuck does THAT work?

Oh - and can someone link me somewhere that will tell me the rates for the severe disability element of UC, seeing as that is what they are cutting roughly in half.

On CTC, do you get BOTH disability elements? In other words, if you get the severe disability element, do you ALSO get the disability element? Or do you only get one? I can't work that bit out.

Fuck that, Custy. I am worrying about this with DD already. She is in Y9 now, only another 2 1/2 yrs to go and this could be her. If she can't tie her own tie, and sometimes tries to leave for school without her SHOES on, how the hell will she manage to do 35 hrs a week workfare?!

I think there was a link a few days ago, to 2012 benefit levels, I don't remember seeing all levels for UC, thought not read all of thread.

Do you mean, Care/Mobility Hunty, when asking about CTC?

I also noted that many times, it is only DLA, HRC not HRM that gets consideration as being disabled for UC, is there a reason fro that?

And parents who are on low incomes will be expected to pay their childrens lunch/travel expenses like Custardo is now. Fucking disgusting.

I've just qualified as an HR professional (previously had hr responsibilities on top of management role) and everything I hear and read about workfare makes me angry as a professional.

My job is to ensure employment law is followed and the strategic objectives of the organisation can be delivered by our people. At no point does slavery enter the equation. Never. And yet this is what workfare is. It's the selling of people's labour where they have no choice, no employment rights and do not get paid a proper wage.

What I think will appeal to the "I'm alright jack" contingent is the idea that by participating in the scheme ordinary, hardworking people will unable to get jobs. This will include students looking for Christmas and summer jobs and SAHPs looking to return to work.

I have the levels for UC - but as this thing went through the HoL about cuttng it in half, I wanted to know exact figures. Where's Peachy when you need her? .

I don't mean Care/Mobility - that's DLA. I mean the disabled child element of CTC, and the severely disabled child element of CTC. Do you get both DCE and SDE if you get the severely disabled child element, or just the SDE?