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!

500,000 top rate tax payers take the Winter Fuel Payment.

#froth

opt out yes that could work surely??

Next debate in House of Lords for the Welfare Reform Bill will be on Jan 11th 2012

services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/welfarereform.html

If they know how many high rate taxpayers get it then there must be a way of not paying it to them, even if all the other over 60s get it.

There is already a scheme for donating unneeded WFP to charity: it's called the Surviving Winter Appeal. I'm not entirely sure about this sort of thing though. Partly for the reasons Mme gave, and partly because I think that having some universal benefits is a good thing.

Easy way to give it back - raise top rate by 1%. Means test what we pay in, not what we take out.

Did everyone see UK Uncut are going for judicial review of tax avoiders? Name and shame

Posted too soon. I've just been listening to the radio and heard Francis Maude claiming that all the important unions have accepted the public sector pensions changes, and that the N30 strike made no difference. Apart from that obviously not being true (or else why make more concessions?), the unions haven't accepted the changes, they've just agreed to further negotiations. And many unions haven't even done that.

I don't know what makes me froth the most, but I think it's the fact that people like him respect us so little, or think we're so stupid, that they think we won't even notice when they say things which are so obviously untrue. Grrrr, Maude is odious!!

Well it was jsut on the news not ten minutes ago about the negotiations still ongoing with the unions so... !!

Quick thank you to "cherryaa"

Have managed to link by stealth to tmc although it IS relelvant and in context, poor poster on mse is petrified so I linked her to Glitta's article and her reply on the blog.

Name and shame Julia?

Boots
Vodafone
Goldman Sachs
Topshop group
Fortnum & Mason
Tesco

to name a few

I can categorically say that mu Union has not accepted anything

they have agreed to consider the latest proposals

more false propaganda by the govt !!!!!!

Hecate has written a blog post for tomorrow.

Shirley and Hully
are you posting Friday/Sat?

So we just need something for Thursday, and our 12 Days of Xmas.

Or Hunty how are you doing? Would you be ready with your blog post either tomorrow or Thurs?

Shall we do a nice nativity scene or something, and schedule to post on Xmas Day?

Crack down on tax dodgingSend your letter of complaint to HMRC now: it takes a couple of minutes to personalise the letter. Worth doing.

I've just heard that @brokensinglemum will be moving into her new mould free! place in January :) am almost moved to tears by the genorosity of folk on Twitter - true Christmas miracle

I'm trying to pull something together to be ready for Friday or Saturday - whether it'll be any good is another matter.

but yes, I'm working on an xmas post.

xmassy = not xmas FFS

Great, Shirley.

Have posted the Vince Cable Round Up

Are we allowed to repost stuff from our own blogs? I have a couple that might be useful if so.

SEO
Do you have anything that we could use for the 12 days of Xmas, in case we are short of a couple of posts?

yes, SOE, please do

Well I am all frothed out, have tweeted and Rted all day pretty much and in need of a rest now so I will bid you all good night :)

Nearing the end of this thread so wanted to ask - and feel free to tell me to frog off! - can we have a less lefty title next one to help make this more apolitical, use the words Coallition Government instead of Con-Dem - figure it could be alienating some people who would otherwise be equally frothy with us, make sure everyone knows that everyone of any policital persuasion is welcome to froth?

Yep, there are two that spring to mind.

This one has loads of numbers in - could be used for 8 (80,000 more unemployed) or 7 (7.9 percent unemployed) or maybe 2 (2.51 million unemployed) maybe?

This one could be maybe used for 4 (one in four people have a mental illness at some point) or maybe 7 (7% of esa applicants placed in support group)

I need to write another properly researched one soon, so if there is something that needs covering, I would love the challenge - I am gearing up to restart my social policy degree in Feb, and hoping to get more involved in the fabians over the year, with an eye to some kind of regional youth role, plus I like writing, so the more practice I can get, the better.

Agree with Ava that we need to be apolitical.

I'm still trying to do my nativity story. Demn dc etc being very on holiday and demanding.

I can knock up something tomorrow on the tax avoidance vs benefit cuts story (Vodafone/Goldmans etc) if that would be helpful? I think my single mother story is a bit individualistic. It's very much in the news and I can probably work in something Christmassy related into it (actually my knowledge of Christianity is hazy at best so if anyone can suggest something that may work on that score, it would be very useful )

Christine
Sounds good.

Xmas single mum angle (almost wrote angel)

"Thank God for Joseph"

If Mary Had Been a Single Mum.

Like the Xmas name change Mme :)

I meant I was going to ditch the single mum thing (which is what I was originally going to write about) because I can't think of a way of doing it which isn't going to make people think 'so what'.

I wanted some kind of Xmas analogy around the giving money to the rich (tax breaks) while taking from the poor (benefit cuts) but can't think of anything. I will knock something up tomorrow and send it to you and you can tell me if it's utter crap or not

What about the three kings and the shepherds?

Bearing gifts from afar.. Shepherds watched their flocks by night..

Actually, perhaps that would work for child benefit/maintenance.

Will have a tinker with that tomorrow.