Manchester Lockdown Farce!

Well, as many Mancunians know, if one has passed a pub over the past few days there has been NO social-distancing, NO masks being worn whatsoever in many venues (excepting staff), and I very much suspect zero hand-washing (excepting staff).

As I understand the governmental guidelines the responsibility falls upon the proprietor to ensure the health measures are adhered to. But as we know, that is contrary to their pecuniary self-interest (for which some blame falls on the UK Government for insufficient financial support to many businesses).

Furthermore, if the Authorities, in this instance the Greater Manchester Police and the Greater Manchester Local Authorities fail to oversee pubs and eateries, then inebriated folk are going to skip safety-measures. Public alcohol-consumption during a pandemic is risky at best and downright negligent at worst. 

[Image description: person drinking a very generous G&T.]

If the Authorities are unable or incapable of adequately and appropriately supervising establishments where alcohol is being served, then all licences should be temporarily suspended during lock-down periods.

My experience on Saturday evening (1st August) was the vast majority of drinkers were at the younger end of the age spectrum, i.e. under forty. However, one person’s observations cannot be generalised. Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see whether there is a rise in infections amongst younger folk.

I sincerely hope that the Mayor of Manchester is able to get a firm grip on the situation; but currently I somehow doubt very much he will do so.

This article was written in response to the following article (q.v.) from the Independent:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-manchester-major-incident-lockdown-a9650661.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=INDNEWS%2303082020&utm_term=IND_Headlines_Masterlist_CDP

No Food, no Meds, no Care in Trafford

[Image description: assortment of medications in their packaging]

Some of you may have read my blog-post "Disability Discrimination in Trafford" from just over a fortnight ago.

Last week, in a surge of anger I went on to twitter and vented my spleen at anyone I thought might listen at how dilatory Trafford Council have been. Then I slept through the following two days totally exhausted from a combination of the DWP's PIP claim-process and expressing my frustration. I have been physically and emotionally drained ever since, until I woke up this morning with a supply of energy.

Today, I have written to my social worker who had decided to go with two thirty minute slots, one at lunch-time and one at tea-time, but missing out bed-time. [A breakfast call is not suitable for me and is thus not included.] I responded:

Dear [name of social worker],

Thanks for the update.

However, you are wasting your time. Please refer back to the correspondence with yourself, with [name of social care assessor], and my suggested care plan. Your suggestion will mean some 20 mins wasted of a morning session and no assistance for bed-time, with the result I would continue to miss my night-time meds.

The lack of meds over the past few months has meant some of my symptoms have deteriorated sharply.

The fact that neither you, Re-ablement nor the social care assessment team have ensured that you have put in place carers even for the previously assessed needs (Sept 2016), mean Trafford Council has seriously let me down over the past four months. I continue to miss two out of three sets of meds most days and some days all meds. I continue to miss one of the two meals a day I need each and every working day and any day that [name], my housemate, is away at the weekend. During most weeks I am lucky to get one shower/bath now. The situation is outrageous.

Please immediately devise a plan to ensure I am supported appropriately to my needs.

Please immediately sort out some care.

Please immediately forward details of the complaints procedure - although the situation is so egregious, I am considering whether I ought to pursue legal action.

Yours,

Colin

I sent some fifty tweets to media outlets, politicos, disability organisations, etc. I received back just two responses: one from the council asking me to ring them - which I cannot as I do not use telephones due to disability - and the other a link from the CAB abut moving into a new area - yes!?!

So here I am still not being fed (except by housemate of an evening), still missing out on most of my medications and still not receiving the personal care the local authority has already stated and assessed - per their own document - that I need.

Throwing my hands up in the air in total exasperation! Any suggestions?

I am not supposed to get myself stressed: but my heart is pounding, my blood-pressure is up, my temples are throbbing and I think I may need to have a nap.

 

Billions removed from local economies - due to Government folly

The UK ConDem coalition government in its economic stupidity and arrogance is part-way through slashing social security payments to those in need - the vast majority of the British population benefits from such payments, now euphemistically termed 'welfare' by the spinning propagandists amongst the neo-liberal élite.

For those unfamiliar with UK taxation: inter alia, all employees, self-employed and carers pay (or have paid on their behalf in the case of the latter) national insurance contributions. These monies are supposed to be used to fund social security payments: for those who find themselves in straitened circumstances (the unemployed, the underemployed & the working-poor); for those with disabilities (to help towards the extra costs they face residing in a disablist society); for those with illnesses which mean they cannot work; for the terminally ill; for parents to help raise children. It is a type of insurance scheme. As such, not everyone will need to claim; but most do at some point in their lives, even if for example only child benefit.

The ConDems have cut billions of pounds from benefits whilst they have in practice turned a blind-eye to tax avoidance & evasion by international conglomerates and wealthy individuals. In April they gave millionaires a whopping tax-break whilst at the same time cutting benefits to tens of thousands causing misery through penury, hunger (hence the concomitant rise in the use of food-banks) and increased homelessness. The ConDems in their rhetoric call this "fairness" to taxpayers. However, every adult is a taxpayer, paying a least one of the innumerable taxes in the UK: from income tax, duties, television licence fees to VAT and car tax.

[Image description: Cameron transmogrified into a Ferengi]

A week ago I reported that the BBC chose to ignore the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion's (CESI) report commissioned by the Local Government Association (LGA), which represents all English and Welsh local authorities whatever their respective political colours.

I have taken details from pages twenty and twenty-one of the report and list below the effects in roughly ten percent of these local authorities. The reader will note that local economies are losing millions of pounds. The knock-on effect is that local businesses have less custom and end up closing. This results in even more money lost to local authorities, not taken into account in the figures listed, due to loss of business rates and so forth. Furthermore, the Exchequer loses out on corporation taxes from once profitable companies. And so on. This is economic madness all done in the name of austerity, a policy adopted in the early part of the twentieth century and which led to the length of the Great Depression.

Everybody, including the middle classes, is losing out. Only the ultra-rich continue to prosper. And this is "fairness"…

The Stats

Woking Local Authority’s economy loses c. £14,400,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,735.30 to 8,287 claimant households.

Burnley Local Authority’s economy loses c. £29,300,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,736.49 to 16,874 claimant households.

Waltham Forest Local Authority’s economy loses c. £70,400,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,739.64 to 40,487 claimant households.

West Somerset Local Authority’s economy loses c. £8,000,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,757.22 to 4,526 claimant households.

Hounslow Local Authority’s economy loses c. £57,300,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,758.32 to 32,597 claimant households.

Islington Local Authority’s economy loses c. £55,900,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,761.23 to 31,735 claimant households.

Tower Hamlets Local Authority’s economy loses c. £71,600,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,761.64 to 40,621 claimant households.

Luton Local Authority’s economy loses c. £55,700,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,770.39 to 31,448 claimant households.

Rossendale Local Authority’s economy loses c. £19,300,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,771.81 to 10,892 claimant households.

Blackpool Local Authority’s economy loses c. £57,600,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,778.63 to 32,365 claimant households.

Oldham Local Authority’s economy loses c. £72,700,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,788.95 to 40,652 claimant households.

Croydon Local Authority’s economy loses c. £91,700,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,792.01 to 51,171 claimant households.

Hyndburn Local Authority’s economy loses c. £27,700,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,819.52 to 15,222 claimant households.

Blackburn with Darwen Local Authority’s economy loses c. £53,500,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,826.31 to 29,276 claimant households.

Brighton & Hove Local Authority’s economy loses c. £67,000,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,830.55 to 36,591 claimant households.

Hammersmith & Fulham Local Authority’s economy loses c. £38,800,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,832.17 to 21,204 claimant households.

Pendle Local Authority’s economy loses c. £28,300,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,835.59 to 15,406 claimant households.

Lewisham Local Authority’s economy loses c. £81,700,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,835.65 to 44,511 claimant households.

Newham Local Authority’s economy loses c. £98,500,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,869.03 to 52,682 claimant households.

Slough Unitary Authority’s economy loses c. £37,300,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,873.91 to 19,925 claimant households.

Kingston-upon-Thames Local Authority’s economy loses c. £25,100,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,874.66 to 13,400 claimant households.

Redbridge Local Authority’s economy loses c. £65,300,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £1,881.08 to 34,695 claimant households.

Haringey Local Authority’s economy loses c. £81,700,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £2,019.10 to 40,487 claimant households.

Enfield Local Authority’s economy loses c. £97,600,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £2,019.26 to 48,315 claimant households.

Harrow Local Authority’s economy loses c. £51,800,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £2,046.22 to 25,320 claimant households.

Ealing Local Authority’s economy loses c. £91,700,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £2,076.59 to 44,181 claimant households.

Barnet Local Authority’s economy loses c. £81,400,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £2,105.62 to 38,664 claimant households.

Hackney Local Authority’s economy loses c. £89,300,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £2,132.97 to 41,863 claimant households.

Camden Local Authority’s economy loses c. £58,600,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £2,194.93 to 26,677 claimant households.

Wandsworth Local Authority’s economy loses c. £66,200,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of 2,242.61 to 29,257 claimant households.

Brent Local Authority’s economy loses c. £124,000,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £2,774.80 to 44,688 claimant households.

Kensington & Chelsea Local Authority’s economy loses c. £57,000,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £4,068.80 to 14,048 claimant households.

Westminster Local Authority’s economy loses c. £129,200,000.00 due to an average loss from social security cuts of £5,161.14 to 25,038 claimant households.


WoWpetition

If the reader is a UK resident or a UK passport-holder resident outside the UK, you may wish to support the campaign against the War on Welfare, known as WOW. The link to the official petition and more information can be found at wowpetition.com .