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

The PDF report is here but will c&p the relevant parts if you are unable to open PDFs

Exactly what we've been talking about Peachy. Poor bloke, that DWP line is ridiculous - he can appeal, of course, but how does he eat in the meantime?!

Appeals procedure is really backlogged ATM as well- taking months and months. Sure his landlord will wait! Oliver Letwin really is a bastard for not getting in contact with him. Taht is low- if you cannot haul arse for a disabled constituent then you should not be in that job, whatever political flavour you have!

He is on Twitter, but doesn't use it at all. Hasn't tweeted-

twitter.com/#!/oliverletwinmp

Would anyone care to join me here??
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1372504-Tweet-Froth-anybody

niceguy2. Glad you liked the piece. Talking about Trillions of pounds doesn't mean anything to most, it's just a very big number, so I am glad if the post succeeds in making the UKs position more understandable.

You have hit the nail on the head in that saying what is a 'fair' cut is the hard thing. Particularly as many of these areas are so complex. For example, the NHS has seen a real terms increase in funding this year, which sounds like it's doing really well. But in actual fact, due to increased mortality, developments in technology and new drugs, the costs of the NHS are going up at a fantastic rate each year, a rate which the real terms rise won't come near to covering, meaning the NHS is having to save a lot of money and suffering from being a victim of it's own success (keeping people alive longer and therefore having more and more complex cases to deal with) before it then has to save to meet costs happening as part of the current economic environment, like rising fuel costs for example. So something that didn't initially sound fair, a rise in funding, turns out to be horrendous news, because the funding falls so short of what the NHS needs.

If the UK was a household it would also be thinking about how to increase it's income as well as cutting back on spend. But tax rises do this, which impacts on all sorts of people potentially unfairly?

The biggest forms of income are income tax and national insurance and to increase these we need to get more people back into work, not lay them all off! Chicken and egg!??

Has anyone done a piece on the frothers blog comparing what jobs are available to who are unemployed? I wonder where the skill gaps are?

Ah, was looking at that this morning, Yummy, then remembered my Less Frothing pledge to self. You can get the data from the ONS at www.nomisweb.co.uk. You have to register but it's free.

Have fun [chortles wickedly]

garlic I have a feeling that'll put me in a bad mood so will save for later! In the meantime I managed to post a comment having missed a few pages of this thread so have been catching up.

I am not at all surprised by the article that peachy posted. Many years ago I worked for Adult Residential Services help desk and was forever having to ring the DSS (as was ) to tell them they'd calculated yet another 80 year olds entitlements incorrectly, to ensure that those people going into care received the Income Support they were entitled to and which we took into account when working out how much they had to contribute to their residential care.

Of course it's all different benefits now, but if the people who are supposed to be experts at it get it wrong, what chance does the average punter?

The fact that I worked for a help desk says it all. If they were getting it right, and it was understandable, the help desk wouldn't have been needed!

Poor bloke. Hope he gets support.

Just chatting with a guy on Twitter about fuel poverty. He said that the Hills report was much discussed amongst those who work in the field.

Also advised on reading this which I will have to save for next week.

Writing important blog post for personal blog now. Have been putting htis off.

toomanycuts.blogspot.com/2011/12/on-sixth-day-of-xmas-my-true-love-gave.html

Quick post of the blog. Back later.

Have you seen this? www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/8985698/Jeremy-Hunt-London-2012-Olympics-will-not-be-austerity-Olympics.html

Difficult not to use rhyming slang

Have started a twitter hashtag with #austerityolympics and need you all to get on to twitter and start tweeting about it. Use #frothers too if you can.

What we should be spending money on, rather than throwing a big snazzy party.

Nothing against a big snazzy party, but not when thousands are being made homeless next year. Feckers.

Maybe we could all use "I'd rather have ... " #austerityolympics #frothers

Oh, just use rhyming slang Mme!!

Morning
I shall read that article, then I shall move onto Twitter

Have changed the title, to slightly more snappy one.

And have updated the Olympics post.

Sent a few Mme.

Seen this? here. Ds1, then aged 10, was treated for eating disorders and whilst the Psych was a sweetie, I ended up at her request teaching her about ASD as she knew nothing and frankly made no difference at all. terrible to see what options there are being lost!

It's another attack on early intervention and combine funding cuts to charities like this with the funding cuts to CAMHS and it will be a devastating combination for many. My daughter's friend's anorexia started in Year 5, early intervention is so bloody important.

I was coming on actually about another early intervention programme - Reading Recovery/Every Child a Reader. I was wondering if anyone has had experience with their own children? Tis for my blog for 12 Drummers (cuts to Sure Start + other early intervention areas) Stephen Twigg on twitter is lauding the people who have received New Year Honours for Every Child a Reader, whereas in reality the funding has changed and cuts are huge. I thought I might add it in.

That is atrocious.

But as long as we have a spectacular party, never mind.

Yes, add that in. I have tweeted Stephen Twigg, see if he replies.

Mental health has been the soft target for cuts for years. It's so stigmatised, trivialised and misunderstood that it's just not a vote winner.

It can't be cut back any more. It just can't.

I've been looking at teenage & young people's mental health.

Some interesting stats:

*Half of those with mental health problems experience the first symptoms by age 14

• Mental illness costs the economy in England £105 billion a year. (And judging by the lastest headlines, the number of people with mental health issues is on the rise, so will cost even more)

In that light it seems particularly stupid to cut intervention.

Trouble is, although the Gov have made a big fuss about giving councils money for these interventions, they have chosen NOT to ringfence it so it could be used elsewhere...and probably will be.

Knotty
Exactly. The can say, "oh, we have not cut these services" but they cut others and removed the ring fencing.

They want to be the good guys and pass the buck to the councils.

I replied to Twigg's tweet about the award - did add #frothers tag, so it should be somewhere there and then linked him to a Guardian article from back in September. Let's see then Mme if we get anything. It seems mad to be celebrating those establishing ECAR when in fact it is being cut left, right and centre. It seemed an opportunity missed by Twigg.

I have also briefly mentioned cuts to CAMHS in my blog, but only in reference to primary age downwards. I think that Knotty is going to be writing a separate blog piece about CAMHS, mental health etc.I think she is anyway And OM, everything you say is true

Rather
Yes, I linked that article too.