Friday 29 April 2011

*That* Wedding

We're constantly being told that us benefit scroungers are a waste of money. Iain Duncan Smith, the minister responsible for these things, said:

“In prosperous times, this dependency culture would be unsustainable. Today it is a national crisis.”

From The Telegraph


I am forced to live off the state due to illness. My weekly income is £67 a week short of the amount recommended by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for a minimum standard of living. I am apparently "unsustainable" at best, responsible for a national crisis at worst. (Love how it's not the bankers that crashed the global economy, oh no. It's me and my sickly ilk.)

By "reforming" (read: demolishing) the welfare state the government aim to save £18bn over four years. I know they're staggering the cuts so the fourth year will be more austere than the first, but for the sake of making the maths easier (because I'm a mathematical dunce) lets say they're planning to save £4.5bn a year.

The Windsor family don't live on next to nothing, they have millions of taxpayers money. The same taxpayers that begrudge me having the little bit of money that's not enough for a minimum quality of life. The Windsor family live in palaces, I live in a council flat that's not accessible enough to really meet my needs but if I move my tenancy will be insecure. There's no such insecurity around the Windsor family's multiple residences. The Windsors have staff waiting on them to meet their every whim while disabled people who aren't incontinent are being told to use incontinence pads because they're not allowed the care hours to safely use a commode.

The Windsors and I both depend on the state for our income. Why is there such a discrepancy in the amounts and qualities of life? Yesterday Morrissey quite appropriately pointed out that the royals are basically benefit scroungers too.

Which brings me to today. The Prime Minister declared today a bank holiday to commemorate two people tying the knot. The cost of that holiday to the economy? An estimated £2.9bn. Policing the event cost an estimated £20m (partly because the police were on double time due to the bank holiday).

So in one day the government has blown at least £2.92bn on 2 people getting married. That's well over half of what they want to save in a year by slashing benefits. In fact, when you bear in mind that the first year of benefits cuts is the least brutal of the lot, that £2.92bn is probably around the mark of what they're hoping to save this year.

And Iain Duncan Smith says we're in a "national crisis"...

Edited to add David's comment in response to this post because he put it so much better than me:

It isn't about whether we're Royalists or Republicans, it isn't about whether it should or should not have been a Bank Holiday, it's about the government saying that we have a critical need to make savings in every area possible (except where it might inconvenience their friends' profit margins), a need that is so critical it justifies their assault on disability benefits, yet simultaneously having the fiscal fluidity to throw away the taxes on £2.9Bn. It's about whether we have a debt crisis, or whether the Tories say we have a debt crisis, which are not at all the same thing.

15 comments:

  1. lisa- you are so right and none of this nonsense makes sense- go and find work but hey theres no bloody jobs out there anyway- urban rioting anyone - things are through the looking glass and its very very bad- respect to you sister and see you on the barricades - harrie

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  2. Royal Wedding £3bn http://ow.ly/4K1DI
    'Time limited ESA', so I can't get married or live with a partner £1.2bn http://ow.ly/4K1Ab
    Doesn't seem fair somehow.

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  3. What did you expect the second in line to the throne to do for his wedding day? Nip down to Westminster Register Office with a handful of Royals to tie the knot with his future bride! Sod the security and everything else that was needed and risk someone mindless idiot letting off a bomb or taking a pot shot at him! It’s a Royal Wedding, they are expensive, they do not happen every year, yes there is a national crisis with money but if ‘our country’ stopped throwing it at other countries perhaps we could solve our other ‘issues’ like problems in the NHS, benefits reforms and every other little thing that people go on about...

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  4. @Ms Leftie:

    Apparently you didn't read my post. Of the £2.92bn I mention, £2.91bn could've been saved by Cameron not declaring the day a bank holiday...

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  5. Hang on, this 2.91bn you keep talking about, its not as if that is money given away or even real money (not real *usable*) money at least......its an estimated loss to the economy, spread across millons of businesses.

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  6. Right... Cos it's not like the economy has anything to do with the nation's cashflow...

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  7. @ Lisa

    No I did read it. It of course has to be Cameron’s fault... can you imagine if today had not been declared a bank holiday, even all those up in arms about the ‘Royal Wedding’ against it, sick of hearing about, would have moaned about having to work and how it should have been declared a bank holiday! You can almost guarantee there would have been comments thrown in about the millions of benefit claimants who could attend the wedding because they do not work!

    Looking around today and watching the TV I have witnessed a sea of people who have gathered together from all parts of the world for this occasion. I am not Royalist, but I have enjoyed the run up to today and watching it, who cares how much has been spent on the cost and if it has dominated the British news today. Who cares if other things for once have been overlooked? I have sat back today and bit my tongue in anger at some things / comments I have witnessed today from the so called British public, some actually teachers who teach children in our schools – god I wouldn’t allow them to teach a dog let alone teenagers!

    However I always agree and respect everyone is allowed ‘there own opinion’ so I say nothing... and therefore I hope you are not offended by my comment on here!

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  8. It isn't about whether we're Royalists or Republicans, it isn't about whether it should or should not have been a Bank Holiday, it's about the government saying that we have a critical need to make savings in every area possible (except where it might inconvenience their friends' profit margins), a need that is so critical it justifies their assault on disability benefits, yet simultaneously having the fiscal fluidity to throw away the taxes on £2.9Bn. It's about whether we have a debt crisis, or whether the Tories say we have a debt crisis, which are not at all the same thing.

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  9. Great article I totally agree, the whole wedding made me feel sick.

    A Royal wedding to make the British sheep feel patriotic and nationalistic so they accept their austerity like good little children, and pay back off the bankers debts without complaining.

    Nice of the Prince to time his wedding to take of the heat of his relative David Cameron’s anti-social misson. They really are all in it together.

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  10. They constantly attack us as "scroungers" what about all these MP's and Royal scroungers.
    They can soon find the money for anything that suits their own agenda. Disgusting!!!!

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  11. They are killers

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  12. @Ms Leftie
    "What did you expect the second in line to the throne to do for his wedding day? Nip down to Westminster Register Office with a handful of Royals to tie the knot with his future bride!"
    Why not? That's what the first in line to the thrown did when he got married five years ago. Estimated cost: £million

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  13. For a lot of people it wasn't a public/bank holiday at all. They still had to work. Where I live everything was just going on as normal... the local council put up large screen tvs and chairs to watch it, but most people must have been at work because nobody was bothering. So what was the point of it?

    And all that gushing in the media.... eeeuuuwww!

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  14. Pass me a sick bag!!!

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  15. > My weekly income is £67 a week short of the amount recommended by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for a minimum standard of living

    Mine is £177 a week short. £5200 a year in IB, which they still want to take away.

    I'm despondent.

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