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

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This is our 4th thread now!

Yes - definately a blog post in that. Especially given how many of those affected have a disabled family member. Really shocked at that, perhaps niavely I assumed most 'under-occupied' houses were the kind of situation MrsM mentions, large houses with only a single person or couple as their children have moved out. Thinking about it, a lot of those older people probably bought their CH under right-to-buy decades ago anyway.

Actually the house I'm moving to is supposed to have been designed for two adults and four kids.
There is a small double bedroom and three single bedrooms that will fit a single bed and bedside cabinet, that's it... the pitch of the roof would prohibit bunks, so I'm wondering quite how you're supposed to get the fourth child in.

It's not a mansion but it is necessary, and the extra penalty because we're 'under occupied' is going to bite just as hard as the £200 a month we're losing.

Oh and is there anywhere I can read about the proposals for widows? I'm interested....

There was an article in the telegraph let me find it, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8952062/Lord-Freud-plans-shake-up-of-benefits-for-widows.html

as I understand it what was a weekly benefit from the time of your partners death onwards (for up to 20 yrs and not means tested) will be time-limited for one year.

I'm not sure how I feel about the changes tbh, as 20yrs does seem like a very long time to be recieving that extra support.

Well MrsM, why should people be forced to move just because they have a "spare" room?

Yes AnyFucker, well worth doing a blog post. I would do it but atm I'm trying to explain to dcs about globalisation and trickle down on my own blog. They expect it this afternoon. Sigh...

I despair.
Unemployment is at a 17 year high and the Tories have gone up in the opinion polls and now lead Labour. What is wrong with people?

What do we think of the Labour 5 point plan for jobs and growth (not that it makes much difference to anything)

Ed Miliband keeps tweeting it.

www.labour.org.uk/plan

Is anyone members of other parenting forum who could start flag flying there? netmums, bounty, ivillage to name a few?

I've got an old Netmums id - could log on later on and do some groundwork?

I've tried on one Avadvent but the response was pretty meh but for a few who also frequent mumsnet same as me and who are already #frothers on twitter too.

What's wrong with people is that as they fear for their own security, they welcome cuts falling on anyone outside their own group because it appears to secure their own piece of the cake. Individuals vary, but en masse the price they are willing to exact from others depends directly on the magnitude of their own fear.

Divide and rule.

This is the precise meaning of the Pastor Niemöller saying, "First they came...".

The only way to fight it is to hold together.

Although given your nn, mine may have been an over-literal response to a rhetorical Q, scarletbanner.

Give it a go! The two threads in AIBU about EDCM keeping quite high - so doing okay there I think.

Labour's 5 point plan is quite interesting actually, some I'm not keen on (where's the detail on point one about forced jobs for the young, is it workfare or job creation? because the difference matters) - I'm interested to hear what the Federation of Small Business things about the VAT drop(s) and the NI holiday, because the Ni holiday in particular seems like a wonderful idea to me.

Long term for the economy we really need to encourage small business atm, especially those with the potential to be employers.

Um, just a little heads up. @muppetwatch is trying to discredit us... referring to #frothers as foaming flapping fabricating fibbing frothers re: cuts for disabled children

Joy.

That's fine MrsM: the stumbling block is that many of those people are elderly and assessing their needs to move on would mean placing them in shaltered accom at a greater cost; watching my Grandad go through this I am hugely aware how ahrd the services try to look away for just that reason.

Plus a lack of suitable placements: parents happy to go to a smaller palce if in their own community and accessible to where dad works (still employed at almost 70) as he relies on public transport: neither option is available.

WRt to teh 3 bed / 2 bed thing very unusual unless an emergency palcement: my friend got a 3 bed with her 2 girls becuase her XH was due out of prison and they needed to move her away sharpish to only available house but very rare.

Send them a link to the WRF bill and then leave it. There will always be crazies.

If anyone does a blog on under occupied homes feel free to reference us.

We have 3 bedrooms and 4 children; we assumed they would share then we would move on once I graduated to a 4 bed.

Except I never got to work after uni and we are still here. DS1 HAS to have his own, safe room where he can be isolated: there's an off chance that an accident he caused to ds3 when they were little is part of ds3's SN (head injury) and it's not a risk we can take again. DS3 has to have his own room as he is exceptionally vulnerable- imagine a toddler in an 8 year old's body- and and needs to be close yo us as ds1 is a risk to him. That leaves ds2 and ds4. They will room together eventually but at 3 ds4 will not yet sleep through ( should get ASD dx one day) .

So a 4 bed needed. DS3 sleeps in the dining room.

More pertinently our social worker insists we need 4 which is fine whilst we are here. But should we lose it we would need LA Housing if it is before we are working (I pray not!), this would mean longer in temp accom due to shortage of 4 beds, and probably necessitate placing the SN boys in care as they would not cope with shared toilets / kitchens etc. We also would only qualify at most for rent housing benefit for a 3 bed regartdless of reason for needing teh extra space. This last reason was mentioned in the human rights document that the HOL chose to ignore.

Hey I'm not really here, but I just wanted to say Do NOT engage with Muppet Watch or similar people. They have a minuscule reach and you will give them more attention than they will get on their own. Just ignore them. Completely. Much of their tweeting is so illiterate no one could possibly know what they're on about half the time. They need us. We do not need to help them get attention.

Am not arguing with you MrsMic- I agree with the principle, just not that it woill work as things stand now. Develop more variable communities with different types of housing etc and I will be up thre cheering for it.

And dad doesn't (well he does but) want to be near family: he wants to be able to go to work, he can't drive and he can't walk or cycle either. The country can;t afford for people to give up work and then become reliant on benefits (Dad's pension vanished in a pension scandal a decade ago). Mum needs to be near a bus so she can care for Grandad, something she REALLY doesn;t want to do but as he ahs turned away social services has no choice in. Solve that and you start to get to the complex nub of the issue.

Better public transport would be bloomin' amazing for everyone. But not likely to happen! I get a bit annoyed when people moan about transport in London, okay it might not be as good as some other cities, but it's pure luxury compared to basically anywhere even vaguely rural!