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

Looks like they are lying being a little misleading again. All in my own personal humble opinion of course.

I think Sue has done an amazing job and am amazed how it all took off and disabled people got some voice. But I am still sceptical as to whether any minds will be changed on the PiP - there are concessions, sure, but only to the implementation, not to the actual content, I believe.

I am worried about this one about those able to walk up to 50 metres but not using a wheelchair losing the HR on PiP - this could have a huge knock on effect on people's work and actually on the entire motability scheme - thousands will lose their cars and blue badges etc - this seems to be a small print thing I have seen in a couple of places - does anyone know any more about this? Because this could mean destitution for many, surely?

Hunty's housing issue also has the potential to go viral like #spartacus report.

Hunty
What is the court order about? Why are you not allowed to move area, or to a different school?

One thing that has happened is that Housing Associations are being made to put up their rents to 'affordable' levels - a friend of mine's rent is going up by £250 a month next month and the new house we're moving to is £181 a week whereas under previous social rates it would have been closer to £120 a week max.

The government has done this apparently to create enough profit within housing associations to build more properties to cater to greater social housing needs.

In reality this will cause the housing benefit bill to rise as more working families have to start claiming when they didn't before and existing tenants on HB will have to claim more.

I can kind of see the principle but it's going to mean the end of true social housing, although they will still be cheaper than private rentals.

That is weird though, Glitter.

House prices need to get lower, not higher.

All that is doing is artificially raising house prices further.

And I will believe the new builds when I see them.

Let's face it - a rise of £250 for a family means £3k a year. A new build will cost at LEAST £100k, so you would need roughly 30 such families to fund such a build. For one house.

The only people I can see benefiting from this is the landlords and the housebuilders.

One of the things for PIP about being able to walk 50ms but not using a wheelchair...

don't loads of people with mobility issues save up their DLA specifically in order to buy a wheelchair (because the NHS don't give them to you, sadly) in which case some seriously immobile people will never be able to afford wheelchairs... I am

again, not going to help anyone get a job.

that's interesting glitter about SH rents going up - it kind of makes sense in that at least if they are roughly on par the 30% isn't too ridiculous. but it leaves us with no cheap housing for people who aren't eligible for HB... [again]

For eg, when I first graduated DH worked full time and I worked part time, both on not much more than NMW so we were only making 17k between us and weren't entitled to any benefits, if we hadn't been able to find a cheapish place to live we would have been stuffed (as it was things were very tight).

TeWi, got it in one: I used DLA to buy a wheelchair.

Mobility configurations available to me are:

1. Cheap manual wheelchair that can be lifted over steps/kerbs

Taxis
+
Friend or paid carer to push me round town or any other any distance that isn't 50m on smooth flat floors OR hire powerchair from charity at their premises in town (limited available hours).

2. Expensive powerchair that can't do steps/kerbs

recharging and maintenance
+
alterations to house
+
public transport with 100% wheelchair access to town with 100% wheelchair access yeah right, in fairyland.

In fact (2) is impractical for me because after 30 mins sitting upright I can be too tired to drive a powerchair safely.

But both options cost money.

I haven't read the detailed PIP wheelchair thing because the red mist descends every time I try.

finally. I keep hearing about these "frothers" but hadn't found you.

space now well and truly marked now.

The system seems to be changing in a way that will have a negative impact on many in need. whilst at the same time i am aware of people with dubious claims to benefits that they get because they work the system. its so difficult to get the balance right so that the system is strict enough to deter the fraud but doesnt leave honest folk in trouble. the benefits annual cost is apparently nearly twice the nhs cost. so i can see why its being targetted to save money. and ours is better than many neighbouring countries. but there must be a sensible fair approach to the system of claiming. can the coalition achieve that? Not so sure....

Welcome, VM! A valuable addition to the Froth if ever there was one :)

I have never really understood the whole "blog" scene so you will have to break me in gently (technomoron) Just happy to have found a place with people equally ranty about what is happening.

i see so much apathy in RL that it drives me crazy

VM
have seen you on the same threads as me in the past few days. Glad to have you with us.

I am wary of doing too much Frothers promotion on MN but maybe we should do more.

The blog just kind of ties all the ranting together.

It's pretty simple in terms of adding new posts if you want to do some writing, it's a group effort so we've had lots of different writers, some post their material themselves and some email it to one of the more technical volunteers who put it up for them (Garlic or MmeL usually, though I do some techy bits if required). We try and cover as much stuff that is going on as we can, but at the same time concentrate on the cuts that will be most damaging. We try and assume that for each topic the reader knows nothing and start from the basics, on the same side we might stick in the odd bit of stuff that isn't about a specific cut but is about the wider economic/social picture.

We reckon that most people wouldn't agree with a lot of the cuts if they understood how they worked - so to take an eg that sounds reasonable at first: the (now amended, thankfully) proposal to crack down on under-crowded housing association houses - except that their definition meant that many houses were classed as under used when the 'spare' bedroom WAS actually being used, the majority of those houses turned out to have a disabled resident for eg, so much more likely to need the extra space for a specific reason. In others the spare room was used as the foster child's bedroom - foster children weren't counted in the stats... once you've heard all that it seems a lot less reasonable to back it totally.

So one of the main things is spreading the word and hoping we can make more people understand. Telling people in RL when scrounger convos come up, tweeting and fbing posts you agree with off the blog...

It was a brilliant sermon, Te! We have a Frothing Policy all of a sudden

fab sermon indeed

I have been a one woman crusade this last few weeks. I think my friends are board of hearing me yell about it.
So i am very glad of some like minded company.
I'm not sure my rantings are worthy of publishing on a blog but more than happy to read and nod.

Mmel - I was worried i would be shouted at for posting the link so often but tbh the only thread that made it to double figures was the one with the misleading headline.

Now that is deeply depressing to me. Either the world really doesn't care or i am doing it all wrong

good blog OM - On Twitter @THemingford is very busy tweeting info and articles about housing worries and homelessness, I do recommend him if you're not already following him. Hunty - that is so bloody appalling, SGM has good ideas for you there, but bloody hell

Thanks, have added @themingford to my following list.

hunty saw this on another thread - another thing to try: "
I would like to draw attention to a further benefit called Discretionary Housing Payments. This can only be paid if you are already in receipt of HB or CTB, and you have to write to your local council for it. It is an additional payment which can be used if you have exceptional circumstances, and your HB is less than your rent."

I was going to recommend that you post on Frothers VM. I lurk and agree but I am very inarticulate

VM's chat thread Very apposite

great minds

It would seem that twitter is where all the action is.
Sadly I cannot fathom it. i joined once but couldn't work out what on earth you are meant to do! so gave up.

Re-join. Look at the tweet feed on our blog, and click 'retweet' to anything you feel should be said again.

To do your own tweets, click the little blue box on your Twitter page, then write something. If it's a Frother thing, add "#frothers" as this makes it show up on the blog :)

Twitter recognises links automatically and will say "Link will be shortened" if you've pasted it correctly. Most things you want to link are published with a "Tweet This" button, so they do it for you :)

Don't log out of Twitter, then your device will remember so you don't have to keep signing in.

I confess to HATING Twitter, but it's utterly essential for campaigning. So I put up with it!

thank you Garlic.

But i don't get how you get "friends"?
So who would see what I am 'tweeting'?