WTF are Frothers? Have you seen them around and wondered? Not a quiche, but a protest group. Tory, Labour, Lib Dems - Common Goal - Protest Against the Cuts

[MmeLindor.]

What are the Frothers?

The term "Frothers" came about one dank and dismal November day in 2011. A frustrated user of the parenting forum Mumsnet started a thread about her dismay at the cuts that the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government was inflicting on the British public.

She stated that she was not "quite a frothing berserker but I am getting rather cross with our government messing with the good stuff".

The good stuff - policies, benefits, institutions that had taken years to achieve were being cut for no good reason, often leaving gaping holes in the fabric of British society.

The NHS, with which we Brits have a love-hate relationship, but like a favourite sibling, we wish to protect from harm.

Sure Start, a successful scheme that supported parents who were struggling and offered children from deprived backgrounds a better start in life.

Universal Child Benefit was cut for those families who had one earner bringing in more than £44k a year. If both parents each earn less than £44k, they keep their UCB payments. This obviously hit single parents and families with a single earner hardest.

Disability Living Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance - which enabled those with disabilities to live a decent life, without feeling that they were begging for assistance or were a burden to the taxpayer.

Student Fees, the introduction of which, contrary to Lib Dem pre-election promises, means that a whole generation of young people will have to think carefully before applying to higher education.

These and many other cuts are being made in the name of austerity. We are "all in this together", but some of us are deeper in this than others.

We all understand that there are sacrifices to be made but why should these sacrifices be borne by those who already have so little?

The general public seems oblivious of the dangers being faced, they are unaware of the injustices being wrought on the already disadvantaged.

The government is winning the war of the headlines. They have blasted the recipients of DLA and ESA as scrounger and cheats so often that the general public believe it. They misinterpret data to "prove" their points. Teachers are painted as being irresponsible and greedy, while the bankers rake in the money.

The poster on Mumsnet was not alone for long. Within a few days, a group of over 30 posters had formed. They asked themselves, "What can we do?".

The idea of a blog was born. Three days later the blog had over thirty authors signed up, a Facebook page and a Twitter account.

The Aims:

• to open the general publics' eyes to the injustices being created by the governement

• to inform those who are facing cuts about their rights

• to link with other activists and charities, in order to put pressure on the government

Are you a Frother?

Come and join us.

BLOG

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

Name change for real life overlap (not regular Frother but regular MNer).

I have the joy of being ATOSsed in a week or two. If the Welfare Reform Bill goes through I'll lose all my ESA anyway, so I give even less of a toss than they do.

Any requests? NB I'm pretty unwell at the moment, so anything requiring witty repartee or masterful control of the situation or remaining conscious is unlikely to come off, but I'm certainly up for suggestions.

Will start pulling nhs finance stuff together and see what you think.

I am still in awe of how uptodate with news n politics you all are, so will hide in my comfort zone for a while

Please tell me how to add blogs to the frothers page - I'd like to post about the NHS Bill and children's health and healthcare. Thank you!

Morning all

Bit bogged down with work and snot at the moment. Have managed a bit of tweeting between. Will be back once work is over for the week.

Top frothing, people!

childrensdocmum - thanks for coming over! You can post a blog entry here and someone will put it on the blog if you like?

I really liked what you wrote on your other thread listing the reasons you were worried about the NHS changes and their impact on children with chronic health conditions etc. Worrying steps towards a situation like the US where something like prostate (effecting middle-aged, rich men) is really well funded, whereas things like special care for premature babies are badly funded (what with babies having no vote and no money ).

childrensdocmum
Either email it to me and I will put it on for you, or you can sign up as an author of the blog, if you would like to contribute regularly.

I have hit a problem with the authors - we can only have a certain amount of authors. I tried to add SGM yesterday. We will have to take off those who have not yet posted, or aren't posting regularly. They can always go back on later if they want to post.

I would suggest we have a team of writers who post regularly as "authors" or "admins" and swap those in and out who are posting occasionally.

Which reminds me, I set up a Guest Frothers gmail account for one-off postings, will email the details to the other admins so that you can use it.

Childrensdocmum
Have PMed you.

check this out Did you know that there are several pubs in the HoP building, subsidised by the tax payer, natch.

this is very interesting

and a Tory MP who lives in a £450 HA flat who told a single mum to "live in the real world" when she asked his advice on rent increase from £950 to £1100

Really. Where do these dinosaurs live?

Feel free to take me off if you like, I am way too busy now to do anything more than post the odd interesting article here.

Anyone got a blog post for today? Can we shoehorn the Grab-A-Cab Tory into the Pipers Piping

11 Pipers whistling for a cab - bit of a stretch

Very good, SGM.

I really need to start on cleaning out the office. Been putting it off.

Well my earlier post was clear as mud, wasn't it?

What I mean is, if anyone can think of a way I can use the ATOS "medical" to do something useful for the Frothers or just make ATOS's life harder I'm up for it.

I have zip to lose.

BurnBabyBurn
How about doing a diary of the Atos assessment - the run up to it, the actual assessment, how you felt, the questions asked etc.

You could just write down some notes, and hand them over to us and one of us will write a bit about them.

Or if you would prefer, I will phone you and we can do a kind of interview?

Has anyone been reduced to an apoplexy about this TV programme yet?? I was just alerted to it by another thread, and thought I had stumbled into a parallell universe where it was somehow appropriate to label benefit claimants as "scroungers" or "saints" and broadcast it on the BBC . . .

Mm, that's an idea. I'm not terribly coherent at the mo, and would struggle to speak on the phone (tho thank you for suggesting).

But I can try to take written notes in the lead up, and I'll probably record the whole thing for my own use (which ATOS don't like, but although covert recording is legally dubious, I haven't noticed Hugh Grant being prosecuted for recording Paul MacMullan). The chances of me remembering accurately without recording is nil.

There are also various possibilities for hijacking or subverting the session, but those would more come under PITA-for-ATOS than useful-to-Frothers.

Alternatively, I believe a Frother may be local to me, and I'm entitled to take someone along. Might that be useful if she's available?

For many a long year, bramshott.

Remember, demonise first, then you'll have no problem picking off your target. There's a reason disabled people have reclaimed the Black Triangle - as assigned by the Nazis - as their symbol of resistance. We recognise the process.

Oh that's incredibly generous of you, SGM. But I think you're the other end of the country.

Actually, this being a namechange, I realise I can cast aside my usual caution and say I'm in Kent. Anything narrower will have to be on PM, in case there's blowback from ATOS. (Unlikely to happen, but baaaaad if it did.)

But there are also downsides to taking someone.

The personal humiliation of having yet another person seeing you disintegrated and snivelling, and having to deal with their reaction.

And the tendency of staff to talk to your "keeper" if you're disabled. In any context (eg M&S) soon as things get tricky, they start looking for a keeper to come and wheel you away, or speak for you. Even over the phone: "Maybe I can speak to you husband?" "I'm not married and I live alone. If you don't like dealing with distressed fucking disabled people, stop fucking ringing them up and jerking them around - especially when they've scrawled all over every communication you've ever had with them DO NOT PHONE ME."

And breathe.

So it's only worth anyone's time if they can get some #frothing out of it. But an outsider may write a better piece, because being ill is so normalised for me I can't tell how other people see it.

I'm here, but I'm ashamed of my worthless and non-existent contribution so I'm hiding.

Hullllly!

I would squeeeeeeeee and hug Hully, but this is MN so I won't.

We need someone to chat to Hully, even if you are not actively frothing.

Who else can we bully persuade to come back?

Has anyone heard from Hunty and Swallowed? They have both been very quiet of late. Hope they are ok and just busy.

Oh good, I'll just be all supportive and chatty then, I can do that.

Right now I am talking about plastic doll women elsewhere. They ar so fab.

Plastic doll women? Is that the women that carry the dolls around?

I am being called fat and lazy today. What fun the internet is.