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.

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FACEBOOK

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Poor you Hunty - I wondereded where you were.

Hope the rib heals up nicely and your dobber-inner meets karma soon.

Shit, Hunty. Sorry to hear about it all. Hope your rib gets better ... Don't laugh

Sorry!

DONT! Garlic - laughing IS the worst thing ever right now! I think it was my bitch of a next-door neighbour who told the DWP this. Apparently they have been watching me for 4 weeks, and they don't like the fact that my Ex-P comes to my house after he has finished work twice a week. The lady at the DWP office was VERY fucking rude to me - Some of the things she said were beyond the fucking pale IMO, but I am afraid to put in a complaint in case they stop my benefits.

While I was BF'ing my 11mo, she looked at me and asked me why I hadn't got a job, as I have been on IS for 7 months with only a 3-week break where I was employed. My reply to her was "If YOU can find me a job where the employer is willing to hire someone with uncontrolled epilepsy when even the disability advisor and Lone Parent Advisor at the jobcentre can't, then great. And if you could also tell me where I can get childcare for a 13yo with Autism at a rate that is affordable, then brilliant, I'll start tomorrow".

She then turned round to me and said "I assume you had another baby 7 years after your last one so that you could claim IS rather than JSA, didn't you?". My face looked like this >> , and I told her in no uncertain terms that I was living with my Ex-P WHO WAS WORKING when I fell pg with and had DS3, and wouldn't have been claiming IS or JSA had he still been living with me.

She THEN told me that I should stop letting my Ex-P come to my house to see DS2 and DS3 on a Tuesday and Thursday evening, because "It puts your benefits claim on the basis of being a Lone Parent in doubt", and I should make my Ex-P take the DC to the park to see them if his room in a shared house isn't suitable for them to go to. When I pointed out that he comes round AFTER WORK at 5.30pm, and he can't take an 8yo and an 11mo out to the park, in the middle of winter, at that time of night, she just repeated that I shouldn't let him INTO the house AT ALL, because it "Puts your benefits claim on the basis of being a Lone Parent in doubt"

But, you haven't heard the best of it yet... She went loopy with me because I hadn't got any photo ID. I haven't got a passport because I haven't been abroad since I was 13yo (17 years ago!), and I couldn't afford travel insurrance for a DAYTRIP with uncontrolled epilepsy, never mind for a holiday, and I don't have ANY spare cash to pay for a passport that I'll never use. So she insisted I show her my drivers license, or my provisional driving license. It didn't seem to matter HOW many times I told her that I am LEGALLY BARRED from holding both a driving license AND a provisional license - and can even be FINED or IMPRISONED if I even apply for them - she STILL insisted that EVERYONE is entitled to hold a provisional driving license for ID purposes. Even when I testily told her to telephone the DVLA personally and ask them to let me have a provisional license, she STILL repeated that "Everyone is allowed to have a provisional driving license for ID purposes". NO THEY FUCKING AREN'T.

I was alternately pulling faces during my interview. I won't know until Tuesday if they are going to a) Continue to pay me my whole £120 a fortnight IS, and b) Pay me the £120 IS that they owe me for stopping my claim unnecessarily.

He doesn't fucking live with me - he just wants to see his effing children in a suitable environment. He has a room in a shared house, that takes two buses to get from my house to there, and two back. He shares his house with 5 other people. One has schitzophrenia, two have autism, one has the mental age of a 10yo, and another is blind. And they are all supporting each other as there is no carers going in either. He has deemed it an unsuitable environment for an 8yo and a baby. And considering Ex-P has Autism himself - and is the highest-functioning person in the household that's saying something. He comes after he finishes work, two evenings a week, from 5.30pm-ish until DS3 goes to sleep at around 9.30pm. Then he leaves.

Oh - and the DWP admitted that they were ONLY watching the front door. Which, given the layout of my housing estate, is frankly BONKERS, as my house fronts onto a main road, and if Ex-P is biking home, he leaves out of the back door, and if a taxi calls at the house, they pull up in the carpark at the back of the house as they can't stop on the main road. DUH! So they assumed he was staying overnight, because he wasn't leaving by the front door.

I am horrified. She was miles out of order. I understand why you're scared to complain, but that almost makes it worse. I think you should complain - formally, in writing and as high up the food chain as you can trace. Would you say she was discriminatory regarding your disability? And possibly even gender? Hope so!

When the (very reasonable) woman came to investigate me - in the flat I was about to be evicted from, thanks to some erroneous busybody - she asked me if there was a man living with me. I took a slow look around the jumbled, dusty Chaos Of Depression and said "Do you think any decent bloke would want to move into this?" She did that cross between a and a and shook her head ... Shame you didn't get one like that!

It's a bigger shame such obnoxious people can even get that job

I am honestly too scared to complain. I have had to take out a loan with massive interest from provident (44% interest anyone?!) just to pay my Gas bill, which I would have normally paid out of the Income Support payment that never turned up a week and a half ago. But it is below zero here, and I HAVE to have gas on the key meter to heat the house. I couldn't apply for a Crisis loan because I have to be in receipt of IS to get it, and as my IS claim had been suspended, I couldn't claim. So Provvy it had to be. I have refused to use them for 7 years because of the excessive interest, but it's January and I literally had £200 CTC to buy my week's food for 5 people, nappies for DS3, bus fares to get DS1 and DS2 to school (£52 a week now as they went up two weeks ago, an extra £4 a week now), £25 electric for the week and Gas. Funnily enough, £200 doesn't stretch far enough to cover all that. If I don't get IS on Tuesday, I'll be screwed for the first repayment. I'm going to be paying this back for bloody months now, too.

If they stopped my IS again, because I complain, I will LITERALLY be facing a heat or eat situation, and I will be facing the possibility of getting fined or imprisoned for being unable to get my DC to school - the bus fares rising is totally screwing me. I CAN get a free bus pass for my epilepsy. But I can't use it before 9.30am. Because my DS's school will be perfectly happy for them to turn up at 10am every day, won't they? .

Sorry. Very ranty right now. Am going to bed soon, and will be frothing at full strength in the morning.

And anyway - we were in a room on our own, so it would be my word against hers. Who are they going to believe - the 'benefits scrounger' or the DWP employee? What's the point in complaining? If I did, then I run the very real risk of having my claim suspended while it is investigated, which is what these DWP employees that are gits rely on, they know you can't rock the boat because you can't AFFORD to have your claim suspended if you want to eat and pay the bills. So they can treat you like shit and get away with it, because the people IN that situation don't have any other funds to fall back on, so they can't get their claim suspended and wait for any backpay owed to them, because they will be buggered long before that happens.

Just another shite day in the life of a 'benefits scrounger'...

FIFTY TWO QUID BUS FARES???!!! Fuck.

Yeah, I got a Vanquis Credit Card For People Who Are Too Poor To Get Credit last year, when my ESA was put back down to assessment rates pending appeal. I got the back benefit, but by then had accrued six months' of credit on the card and it's still sitting at maximum. They manage to add at least £20 a month in inexplicable charges, which I'm sure are explained in some tiny clause somewhere - plus, as you say, approx 40% interest.

Thinking about it, I've been advised to request reclassification (to support group) of my ESA, but am scared to do it. If/when I'm refused, I'll have to go back down to £65 a week and won't be able to get any more credit.

It is like being treated as subhuman, isn't it? :( [sigh]

Fucking hell Hunty that is shit! How about editing your posts this evening into a blog post to show the bastardry of the DWP? That way you're not putting in a complaint, rather putting your experience out there anonymously.

Might do, Hedley, might do. Will remove the sweariness though. . The £52 bus fares are because my DC were placed at a school that is not my closest school - it is my fourth closest school as the crow flies. But it is JUST under (literally - I live 1.9999miles away from it) what they will pay the transport for. DS2, my 8yo, has brittle asthma, hypermobility syndrome, EDS type II, hypotonia and just CANNOT physically walk that distance. But we get no DLA because he CAN walk IYSWIM.

I can't use my bus pass because I have to catch the 8.15am bus to get them to school on time (they start at 8.45am). In my town, a child fare ISN'T 'half-fare', it is 2/3rds of an adult fare. But before 9am - it is the same as the full adult fare. I also can't walk 8 miles a day as it puts too much strain on me (also have EDS type II but milder, and it makes my seizures worse). And I no longer get DLA for myself either. So I am paying 3 adult fares to get my dc to school every day. It's SHIT.

My local MP (Lib Dem, been the same one for years ) tried repeatedly for the first 5 years I lived here to get the LEA to cover my transport, and couldn't. He gave up two years ago. I just have to be VERY creative with my food budget, as the bus fares come directly from that since they stopped MY DLA 18 months ago. It's got so tight that it is really hitting me hard that I am losing half my milk/fruit/veg vouchers from the 24th because DS3 will turn 1yo - so it drops from £6.20 a week vouchers to £3.10. I will have no choice but to buy less fruit and veg because there just isn't any more give in my budget. We are having to eat junk food twice a week now instead of once, and I'm sure it will slowly crep up and up. Right now, meat is quite a luxury. I made a chicken pie tonight because it is the only way I can spread one chicken breast between 5 people and still make a decent meal. When paired with mash, and packed out with leeks in the pie and sweet potato mashed, it is a fairly OK meal!

I literally have to budget down to the last penny with my food. This week, my packet of rice went up by 22p - so I couldn't do that dinner, and had to think again.

I think you should do posts. The way you write makes it easy to visualise you as a real person, doing real things. I've got mental pictures of you, your home, the DC, everything. Sure they're not accurate, but the point is you've a knack for writing personally & vividly.

Actually ... just to bump you up a bit more, Hunty, the only other 'disability' blogger who's done that for me is the girl with Tourette's who works as a superhero Tourette's advocate? Can't remember her url now. She's well-known, though.

Don't want to get into Poor People's Recipe sharing, but your chicken pie reminded me of my diet for this week - anything made with bacon bits! I need to eat meat for the CFS, and they had a kilo of offcuts for £1.99. I've had bacon pies, bacon pate, bacon chilli and am doing - er, roast bacon tomorrow. Come to think of it, maybe we should start a recipe book! All those squeezed middles will be grateful in a few years, when the economy's completely shut down ...

Bacon bits - spaghetti carbonara, quiche lorraine, baked potato with sour cream and bacon bits.

You can froth all you like
Will make sod all difference.
Find irony of lindor as expat leading this rather funny

Hi everyone. I'm still struggling to post and load the thread - takes an age on phone.

Fregley, I have three things to say to you:

1. The Lords defeat of parts of the Welfare Refork Bill
2. Revision of planned unfair changes to child benefit

...3. Get back to the important stuff like looking for lipstick instead of pissing on our thread. Unless of course you can learn some manners in which case you'll be made very welcome here.

Oh, FFS, Hunty.

Jesus, I am in tears reading your posts. What the fuck is our government doing? That is absolutely ridiculous.

Please edit your posts and put them on the blog. The whole situation is ridiculous.

OK, am really busy today and tomorrwo but should calm down a bit later in the week. I would like to write about mobility scheme so if anyone has links or info on that, could ypu PM me.

And reading your post, I think I might write about loans. My brother talked about getting a loan last year to buy a car (his old one failed MOT) but we managed to talk him out of it and loaned him the money ourselves. He was not keen, but saw that the high rates of interest would mean he would be paying for the car for years. He needs a car to get to work, and was able to pick up a reasonably priced one.

I looked at the interest rates of these companies and almost fell off my chair. They prey on the most vulnerable, these bastards. They know that people are desperate and will sign up and never be out of debt again.

Fregley
I am not "leading" this, whatever gave you that idea?

Why should I not be interested in what is going on in my home country, one that I fully intend to return to.

And just because you are too selfish to worry about other people, does not mean that everyone else is.

Just hope that you are never in the situation that you need government assistance, because due to people like you being disinterested and apathetic, there will be none available.

As someone who HAS a job AND pays tax I have as much right as anyone to opine.

The right of opinion is not based on employment or tax. Of course you have the right to state your opinion.

Just as I have the right to object to what I see as a worsening of living conditions in UK, even if this does not affect me personally.

Hello Fregley. I too have a job. I also have a social conscience. Do you know why you're wrong Fregley? I'll tell you. Even the Daily Heil thinks these cuts are inhumane. As does Boris. When your own propoganda machine turns on you...