As expressed by two classic Dead Kennedys songs. Support the lesser evil:
Or risk getting a bigger problem:
Meanwhile let intelligent contrarian Daniel “let me explain why Budweiser is a good beer” Davies explain why leftists are still not obliged to vote Democrat even if the alternative is a horrible Republican nitwit.
How the cap in housing benefits will work out, courtesy of Comment is Free commenter Texaspete82 (original here:
There are four parts to the HB reforms which will all be implemented by October 2011. The key reform – which affects 750,000 people and raises half a billion pounds per year – is the first of these.
1. Local Housing Allowance capped at the 30th percentile rent in every local housing market area (i.e. the level which allows – in theory – 30% of houses in the area to be afforded)…
2. …except in London, where the cap has been set significantly below this level (£250/week for 1 beds, £400/week for 4 beds)
3. A further 10% cut will be applied to those who have been unemployed for 1 year or more, to punish them for the crime of living during a recession
4. Housing Benefit capped at the 4-bed house rate to punish large families
To look at the full impact of this, you need to consult the VOA – the Government Agency responsible for setting Local Housing Allowance rates.
They’ve helpfully provided a table looking at the median rental rates (the current caps) and the 30 percentile rental rates (the future caps) in each local housing market area http://www.voa.gov.uk/lhadirect/Documents/LHA_percentile_rates_Oct_2010.html
Do have a look.
In Central London, the 30th percentile rent for a 4-bed is £850/week. There is no chance of anyone being able to afford to live in central London on housing benefit – the cap is set at less than half of the 30th percentile level. You could consider the poor to be “cleansed” from the area perhaps.
After moving out, they will not be eligible for the £400/week payment – this is only valid in central London remember. Elsewhere the 30th percentile cap applies. Let’s say they move to Outer South London, where their rent would be capped at £299/week. This is not an outragous rent for a 4-bed house – I challenge you to find a 4-bed house at this rate in this area. I live in this area, and I pay £210/week for a very small 2-bed flat in a down-at-heel area (and even then because I got a great deal from moving in when building work was still going on around me, and the landlord had to abandon plans to sell during the recession). Even my flat is £26/week beyond the 2-bed allowance for the area – and I don’t understand where all the 2-bed flats for £800/month are around me. I’m lucky – I have a decently-paid job (for now at least) and don’t claim HB, but it must be a worrying time for families who work in minimum wage jobs and rely on Housing Benefit to make ends meet.
If they lose their job, they have the further challenge of finding a 4-bed property for £270/week (or a 2-bed for £730/month). Not a chance.
And many, many people lose out beyond London too. Let’s imagine a family live in a 5-bed house in Tyneside and both parents lost their jobs in the recession in 2008. They are currently able to claim £207/week housing allowance. After the cap is applied, they are now only able to claim £140/week (£155 minus the £15 penalty for being unemployed). The Government will take £67/week from them. £3,500 taken from the poorest in society, in addition to spending cuts and VAT rises etc etc. This is not sharing the pain fairly is it?
Can you see what the fuss is about now?
The Tories have done a great PR job on getting the focus on the £400/week cap (despite the fact next to no-one will claim this, as it only applies in central London and there are no 4-beds to rent at half the 30th percentile rent) . Maybe a journalist may like to, say, scrutinise the plans and challenge the lies.
As Pete shows that much reported maximum of 400 pounds per week people can recieve in housing benefits is a red herring. There were rents are high enough that you might get it, they’re too high to be of much use, while elsewhere you would recieve a much lower rate still not enough to cover your rent.
So it turned out that Denis MacShane was already under investigation over alleged misuse of parliamentary expense claims before his relection in May this year, yet the Parliamentary Standards Office did not see fit to release this information before the general election. Richard Wilson is right to be annoyed by this:
The Parliamentary Standards Office made a deliberate decision to withhold crucial information from UK voters ahead of the 2010 General Election. The voters of Rotherham – and for all we know many other constituencies around the country – were thus prevented from making an informed choice about the candidates seeking their votes. It’s only now, five months after the election has taken place, that the full picture is beginning to emerge. It may be another four years before Rotherham voters can express their judgement on this at the ballot box.
Knowing that your local MP is a crook –allegedly– seems to me to be pretty basic in deciding whether or not you’d re-elect them. Keeping that information from the public is not helpful.
Yesterday, David Willis, creator of webcomic Shortpacked decided to help out a few pals by promoting their book. He wasn’t the only one, this was all a part of a campaign to for one day make Machine of Death the number one book sold on Amazon.com.
They actually succeeded, in the process bumping Glenn Beck’s latest fart collection of that spot and Beck responded in his usual adult manner, mentioning it in his tv show as an example of “the culture of death”.
The country that is, not my coblogger. Palau has turned the entire ocean within its boundaries into a 600,000 square kilometre “sanctuary for whales, dolphins, dugongs, sharks and other species“:
There will be no hunting or harassment of marine mammals and other species in our waters,” said the Honourable Harry Fritz, minister of the environment, natural resources and tourism of the Republic of Palau.
“We urge other nations to join our efforts to protect whales, dolphins and other marine animals,” Fritz said at a press conference during Oceans Day at the meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan.
[…]
A year ago at the United Nations General Assembly, Palau’s President Johnson Toribiong announced that the waters in its economic zone, about the size of France, would be a shark sanctuary. Scientists have said about half of the world’s oceanic sharks are at risk of extinction, mainly due to the practice of catching them for their fins.
Palau is also home to at least 11 whale species, including a breeding population of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) that can dive more than three kms deep in search of prey. As many as 30 other whale and dolphin species may also use the rich waters around Palau, Fritz said.
“This sanctuary will promote sustainable whale-watching tourism, already a growing multi-million-dollar global industry, as an economic opportunity for the people of Palau,” he said.