Today I’m not here!
I’ve over at Britmums talking about Welfare cuts (if you haven’t read the story of Tamsyn Woods story of her fight for her husband, please do click over there) and how whilst we need to deal with this recession, we seem to be picking on the vulnerable and weak who can’t speak out at the moment.
Come and join in and if you are around on twitter tonight (fri 12th 8.30pm) join us with the hashtag #Shouting4Tamsyn.
It must be possible to have cuts with:
Common sense
Fairness
The right priorities
In the meantime I have some ideas for where they can get extra money from – just took me 5 minutes off the top of my head. Have you got any? (Yes, yes I know there are the bankers and the rich, but whilst we are being fair, lets look at the middle and bottom of the range too!).
Builders: (not all of course, my Dad was a roofer) the ‘pay in cash’ system is HUGE.
Peterborough: when I lived ‘up north’ (I know it’s not really up north, but it felt like it!), everything was done on the black market or in cash, I bet that is true of many places.
Benefits fiddlers: near me now (Hertfordshire) I reckon you could get back £1million easily from the people who are openly playing the system.
Councils: stop letting ridiculous people make ridiculous decisions like spending money on fiddling with the road near me that didn’t need doing.
EU: Oh don’t get me started on the EU. Other countries don’t do what they say and they totally get away with it, why are you letting them play us for fools? For instance, if you have a banding system for council houses, shouldn’t people born in England (from any colour/creed/background) get priority? Shouldn’t people not born in the England pay for their NHS treatment?
Foreign Aid: of course we have a responsibility to help other countries too, but there are some seriously ridiculous spending going on and you know it.
Need help Mr Osborne? Let me at your budget; I can give you a sense of perspective and reorder your spending in a month and I’ll do it for free; think of that, you can have common sense, intelligence, and the ability to add up all yours for a month for free!
In the meantime, stop picking on Mums. Mums are where everything starts, we are important. I know you may not be in power when our kids grow up, but the ramifications of your decisions will have a dramatic effect on our society. So support the strong Mums, struggling to provide for their families or overcome illness/disability.
And seriously Mr Osborne, we shouldn’t have to keep kicking off about ridiculous decisions with no common sense!
So come on, stop picking on the weak ones, and go for the ones that are meant to be paying, or make cuts that show us that you have your priorities in the right place.
Want to help speak up about this?
Read my Britmums post #Shouting4Tamsyn
Join us on twitter tonight if you can.
Sign the petition for Tamsyn’s campaign being organised by Babyhuddle for her.
Sign the general petition for disability cuts.
If you would like to know more, there is an interesting article in the guardian with lots of stats.
Lisa, I hear what you are saying and I recognize that many of the cuts seem cruel, but I have counseled many young clients who are disabled by the very system that is meant to be helping them – It becomes a sticky web rather than a safety net, and they feel powerless to escape it. Regarding revenue, of course there are many “loop holes” that ought to be closed (I agree about the “for cash” builders – they beat income tax and VAT) but that’s what happens when a country is over taxed…people look for ways to cut corners. The benefits system has undermined and disempowered generations of people with its good intentions. I wonder what Dr Demartini would have to say about all of this? The phrase, “It’s not helpful to be helpful” comes to mind.
Oh yes I agree @tricia that benefits can be very disempowering.
But when it comes to a mum with young children, they are at the moment stuck between a rock and a hard place – they can’t work because childcare often costs more than their income, or it’s difficult to fit around holidays and school runs. Add to that a disabled husband and it’s even trickier.
Yes, from a Demartini perspective I see the silver linings, but maybe part of that is to fight back and stand up and be counted – so I’m always happy to ‘support’ someone standing up like that. If you check out Tamsyn’s video, she is very strong and not a victim at all.
I assume you have reported these alleged benefit cheats Mummy Whisperer, if you have enough evidence to make such serious allegations in writing? I would hate to think this could simply be a case of middle class snobbery at work.
Hi ‘a social worker from Herts’ – yes I talked for a long time to the person who had the proof and persuaded her to report them. She was absolutely gutted as nothing happened :o( The others I know of, but I’m not the person who has talked directly to them – i.e. I’m one away in the line, and people don’t ‘snitch’ around here.
I hope that you would think better of me than that it is ‘middle class snobbery’ – I don’t make assumptions about the people I meet, so it I hope people wont make assumptions about me either :o(
In my town, we’ve had a massive traffic restructuring in one busy area that seems to have made things wholly worse, as well as our High Street being completely resurfaced for no apparent reason not once, but TWICE in the last half a dozen years. I can’t remember who I was speaking to, but someone told me that the only reason that the Council did these things was to spend the excess money that was left over in their budget, otherwise the Council wouldn’t be allocated as much money the next year. I don’t know how true that is, but it sounds wholly feasible and if our Council is doing it, then I guarantee others are doing it too, which must equate to MILLIONS being wasted every year.
How about looking a little harder into that, Mr. Osbourne?
Arrggh ridiculous spends on roadworks are one of my big bugbears – so with you on that one @Jayne!
The government is very short-sighted when it comes to spending money on appropriate schemes and cutting back in the right areas I agree. There are so many under funded schemes which if funded properly and expanded would actually save so much more in the long term and it’s sad that many are being scrapped.
I reckon they need more Mums on their budget decision boards, don’t you @Lifeloveandlivingwithboys!