Universal Credit debit

I have received my PIP decision which is to pay me £214.65 every four weeks, that’s a loss of £95.95 from DLA which was £310.60. All else being equal, and it isn’t, I can take the hit, it’s manageable. My first payment is due on 6 February which means neither DLA nor PIP this month, […]

Urban trauma, homelessness and economic warfare

We have a problem and it’s one we need to fix urgently. Housing… to briefly put aside all the other myriad disastrous problems which lie securely at the door of the Tories and the neoliberal consensus. I’ll begin with a proposition – no one should be evicted from their home for financial reasons, as a […]

It takes courage to ask for help

The Independent reports that five families are being made homeless every hour in the UK. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation reports that ‘almost 13 million people are living in poverty in the UK’, with over half of those in families with at least one adult working. And the BBC, amongst others, reports that, ‘More than 16 […]

So long tax payers and thanks for all your cash

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,502 Monday 25 July 2016. Dear Mrs May, The privatisation of, er, well, everything, reminds me of Douglas Adams’ title of the fourth book in his ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ trilogy, ‘So long and thanks for all the fish’… So long tax payers and thanks for […]

Huge corporate welfare and starving public services to death

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,444 Wednesday 25 May 2016. Dear Mr Cameron, Our NHS is a not for profit organisation, although it does increasingly generate income from private health care, however, any funding crisis in our NHS is not because of failure in its diligence (ask any of the private patients […]

Jeremy Hunt’s ‘footprints’ scam, putting the boot in to our NHS

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,441 Sunday 22 May 2016. Dear Mr Cameron, The latest NHS scam dreamt up by Jeremy Hunt and NHS boss, Simon Stevens, ex 10 year employee of global health firm UnitedHealth, is called ‘footprints’. This scam has all the hallmarks of out and out piracy rather than […]

Sacrificing the poor to protect and reward the rich

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,403 Friday 15 April 2016. Dear Mr Cameron, Following the handing over of the HSBC files to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the subsequent investigation, just one prosecution was made although HMRC did manage to offer an amnesty to 3,600 UK customers identified as potentially hiding […]

When the going gets tough, the government runs away

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,396 Friday 08 April 2016. Dear Mr Cameron, I notice that you were touting yourself as a champion of tax transparency (again) at a student EU rally in Exeter yesterday. Listening to you, you sounded like the messianic chief of the global war on tax evasion, although […]

The UK government has weaponised money for profit

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,395 Thursday 07 April 2016. Dear Mr Cameron, Tax evaders have an implicit arrogant expectation that everyone else will pay for the social infrastructure that supports their criminal lifestyles. Tax avoidance, whilst technically legal, is the equally morally bankrupt equivalent of tax evasion. Those who exploit such […]

Nothing to see here, It’s only a war on the poor

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,364 Monday 07 March 2016. Dear Mr Cameron, How is it, I wonder, that all the wealth of the nation, the media and government and business and financial markets, extremes of wealth, can just roll on as usual but we cannot reduce poverty and help the poor […]