Life on benefits

I've been thinking about writing this post for a while, and I've always put it off because I couldn't be arsed with the hassle and abuse I've feared that I'll get for writing it. But it seems like the right time to do it now. All I'll say is - if you're thinking of slagging me off on Twitter or in the comments section, go fuck yourself.  I'll take your terribly important job for a month and you can be on benefits if it's so damn easy.


I've been unemployed for six months now. In fact, I've been unemployed so long that my contribution-based JSA will run out in a week and I have to switch to income-based JSA. I've taken out what I put in to the system and am now officially A Burden. That's a crappy feeling in and of itself, and it's not helped by the 'scrounging youth' rhetoric so beloved by the Tories. I mean, I worked in a pub to support myself for five years - through college, university and after, while I tried (and failed) to get a proper job. I'd often find myself with only one full day off every three weeks. I'm not a shirker.

So, what are benefits like? Well, each week I get around £62 in Housing Benefits and £53 in JSA. Of my JSA, £13 immediately goes towards topping up my rent (£75p/w) - luckily, my rent includes utility bills and council tax. That leaves me with £40 a week left, or £160 a month (quick note - two thirds of all my benefits go to my landlord).

How do I spend this throbbing great amount? Well, it goes a bit like this:

• I spend about £30 a month to travel to see either my partner or my family (I live around 300 miles away from each). 
• I spend £40 on food. I have the luxury of having the time and ability to cook all my meals from scratch, and being vegan means I can ease by reasonably cheaply.
• £30 goes on tobacco. I'm not going to defend this, it's probably a bad choice. But a saving of £7 a week and nothing to really do with it leaves me with little incentive to quit.
• I also have to pay £10 for my mobile (my only means of communication with most people) and £5 for internet access in my house.
• I pay my bank £10 a month because, being so utterly bloody skint, I'm at the bottom of an overdraft and have to pay interest on it. 

That's £125 gone, like that. Which means that each month, I have the grand sum of £35 to spend on myself. There's always a niggly something, like a birthday or having to replace essentials like toiletries which takes £5 of that, so at the end of the month, I get £30. £7.50 a week to spend on anything else I might want. Which leads me to the isolation.

You can't do anything. You can't make friends, and you lose the ones you had because you can't see them. If I want to go to a gig (£4 entry, 3 pints at £3 each), that's two weeks of disposable income gone. I literally can't do anything else that whole time. I mean, I'm lucky because when I'm with my partner he'll pay for me to go out and do things. But I hate that. I feel like a leech. When I'm away from him, I only leave the house to go to the supermarket and the job centre. This year, my little sister had to give me money so I could go for a few pints with her on her birthday.

Sure, there are things you can do for free, but it's still incredibly isolating. I've stopped getting involved in activist stuff down here because I don't know anyone, and when you're at the meetings you're focussed on the issue at hand. I tried, but if you can't socialise with people outside of meetings, they don't know who you are when you're there. Hard to believe, but I'm just the quiet girl in the corner. When I leave, no one will notice I'm gone, because no one noticed I even arrived. 

So what do you do instead? Well, if you're me you buy a few bottles of the cheapest cider the supermarket sell (£1.50) to entertain you in the evenings, and you don't leave the house, and you let the depression and anxiety kick in. As much as right-wingers would like me to, I don't search for jobs all day, every day. I spend a fair bit of time looking, but the more applications I send to jobs which I could do but I don't have the necessary (unpaid) experience for without hearing anything in return, the harder it gets.  I don't feel like I'm good enough for any job. I'm so used to not leaving the house or speaking to people or having to live up to anyone's standards, the thought of being made to do it five days a week terrifies me to the point of tears. I desperately search for jobs I can do though, fearing that the DWP will arbitrarily decide to stop my JSA or put me on Workfare.

The rest of the time I spend just occupying myself. I educate myself about issues I'm passionate about. I'm planning a conference. I read books, I play games, I watch DVDs. I do anything to keep myself from going into a pit of despair. I count the hours I have to kill until I get to go to my partner's next (133 hours, or 78 if I don't count when I'm asleep). I write, long rambly things like this and usually delete them before anyone else can see.

It always comes back to me though. I'm not good enough. No one wants me. I'll never be a proper person. Scrounger.

Things are changing though. I'm moving in with my partner next month, which means moving cities. That brings new challenges though. When I move in with him, I'll stop being 'a jobseeker'. This is good as it means I don't have to spend half an hour a week convincing some drone at the Jobcentre that I'm not   tabloid-worthy workshy dolescum and instead need the benefits that I'm supposedly 'showered' in. However, it will mean that my partner will receive Working Tax Credits (of around the same amount as JSA) to support me. As in, I will have no independent income, and instead have to ask him for money whenever I need to buy anything. So now on top of everything else (I'm a horrid, pathetic waste of space who hasn't done anything in the two years since I left university and will spend the rest of my life being useless), I now feel like a failure to feminism too! I worry about this. I worry he'll get sick of paying for everything for me. I worry he'll get sick of working to pay the bills while I'm a useless shit. I'm worried about being a burden. 

I also worry about the other people in the same financial situation as me. Comparatively, I'm lucky. I don't have kids to support, or have to worry about a massive unexpected bill coming from somewhere. If I were in the situation where I wanted (or needed) to leave my partner, I have family and friends who would help me do it. How are you supposed to get money to enable you to move away from an unhappy relationship if your partner controls all the money? 

I don't really know what I've been trying to say in this post, but it's basically that being on the dole is shit.    It makes you alone, friendless and feeling like crap. It makes you so wary of your precarious financial situation that even something awesome like moving in with the man you love just makes you worry about how you would cope if that wasn't the case. And then it makes you feel like a total shit for moaning when other people have it even worse. Asylum seekers, for example, get £35 a week, if that.

Actually, I think I can put it even more succinctly than that: Fuck anyone who thinks a person would voluntarily put themselves through this shit and is living the high life. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy*.

UPDATE: Please go read this wonderful and moving post by commenter Evsie on being a single father on JSA. 

(*I would wish it on Tories and other people who think that benefits is easy and everyone's a scrounger, but only for a month to show them how hard it really is.)

A cut-out-and-keep guide to feminism for Louise Mensch

CHRISTMAS HAS COME EARLY AT FORTY SHADES OF GREY TOWERS!!!


Normally I would roll my eyes at this non-linear procession of time as it would mean I have to put up with more people blathering about fairy lights and bows and other things I generally make it a rule not to give the tiniest atom of a flying fuck about. I mean, I'd welcome the general proliferation of hot booze (an essential part of any balanced diet), but it would also have to be balanced against the chance of snow and ice and hearing a Mariah Carey song and seriously, fuck that shit. Anyway, I digress. There has, to my knowledge, been neither a forwards nor backwards temporal shift. But I have a present! 


Oh... it's the non-festive equivalent of a shit in a box hastily wrapped in the Daily Star - it's Louise Mensch writing about how she totes is a feminist no matter what the mean feminists say.


Now, I generally make it a rule to not posit myself as the Queen Of Feminism and dictate who may, or may not label themselves as what. I mean, there's plenty of feminists I disagree with and who I would quite like to give a quick whisper to in order to steer them in the right path. But in this case I am going to make an exception, channel my inner Inigo Montoya and say:


"Louise - I do not think that word means what you think it means."


I'm going to take out my trusty red pen now and fisk Mensch's article, in order to illustrate why I feel this to be the case.


Until further notice, text in black will be Mensch's piece, text in red mine. All links and wording in Mensch's piece as they appear. Continue at your peril.

Tory women bring feminism out of the ghetto

WOAH HOLD ON. The fucking ghetto?! I'm not sure if Mensch wrote this or if it was one of those pesky subs, but misappropriation of oppression much? This does not bode well.

The latest ICM poll is good news for the blues. David Cameron enjoys a five-point lead over Labour at a time when it should be miles ahead, opposing a coalition government that has to make drastic spending cuts and keep our heads above water as Europe threatens financial implosion. Faced with these conditions, Mr (red rosette) Potato Head ought to manage a substantial lead in mid-term polling. That's... lovely Louise. I'm really glad you got a party brag into this piece (although I suspect maaaany more to come from the woman who hailed the deposition of Colonel Gaddafi as a 'genuine triumph for David Cameron'). There's a part of me concerned about how she refuses to even name the Leader of the (Bloody Joke of an) Opposition - instead dehumanising him and making fun of his appearance. I would think that a self-styled superfeminist such as Mensch would realise that judging people based on their physical appearance is actually a really nasty thing to do and that patriarchal expectations of female beauty are one of the main things used to keep women down - just look at the way the BBC have gotten rid of talented female presenters because they are considered 'too old' and 'not attractive' enough to be taken seriously. NOT COOL MENSCH. WE DO NOT USE SYSTEMS OF OPPRESSION TO SNEER AT OTHERS. IT JUST CONTINUES THEM BEING USED AGAINST US.

Details of the poll will be particularly concerning to the two Eds: Labour is nine points behind in the Midlands (good for me, in Corby). The Tories are also nine points clear with men and have a two-point lead among women. Translation: More women hate Tories than men do but it's not as bad as Labour so yah boo sucks! 

This last number is particularly cheering. For some time now the Labour party, led by Yvette Cooper, has made a sustained pitch to British women that the government is not on their side. They draw out selective research on the cuts and say it will particularly hurt women. They take Cameron's joking remark – "calm down dear", which ripped off a Michael Winner TV ad – and offer it as an example of sexism. They drop gender into every intervention and speech and have tried to claim feminism as their own, a thing of the left. This marks the first point where I lose my shit. Right. First up: the cuts FUCKING DO HURT WOMEN. Cutting corporation tax redistributes money from women to men. Cutting public sector jobs and freezing their pay hurts women. In-work conditionality hurts women. Stopping victims of intimate partner violence being eligible for legal aid hurts women. YOUR GOVERNMENT NOT JUST HURTS, BUT FUCKING KILLS WOMEN. Second up: patronising women and implying that they are too 'hysterical' to do their damn job is sexist. When I see Cameron smirking around men and making the same implications as he does to women, I will believe that he's actually just a giant scumfuck and not a giant misogynist scumfuck. Thirdly up: when you're oppressed in every part of society, you tend to see it in every part of society. Mainly because... well it's there. No, it might not be for Mensch, but it fucking is for the rest of us. If she had any idea what it was like to not be an over-privileged rich person, she might realise this, but no. She's toeing the party line as per usual and sticking her head, ostrich-like, in whatever stuff it is rich people would use instead of sand. Fourthly up: I'm not saying feminism is a thing of the left, solely, but I am saying there is no damn such thing as a feminism where you only help yourself - which is all Tory 'feminism' is.

Tory women aren't having it. A grassroots backbench movement of women MPs (with several sound male feminists who have our backs) determined that we would not give Labour the monopoly on women's issues. We sit behind a frontbench that we know to be relentlessly focused on social justice and women's issues. Who ARE these Tory grassroots backbench women? Who ARE these Tory male feminists? What do they DO? How is your front bench in ANY FUCKING WAY committed to social justice or women's issues? I mean REALLY. FUCK THIS. Look at the damn links above to see how damn committed this bunch are to 'women's issues'. Unless they actually think that what women are concerned about is "Oh, I just DON'T KNOW HOW I WILL GET BEATEN TO DEATH OR STARVE TODAY". I demand to see evidence of this 'movement'.

Tory feminism is holistic, not the ghetto feminism of the impact equalities assessment; it looks at women as a whole. Case in point: 80% of the lowest paid public sector workers exempt from the pay freeze are women. Changes to the state pension that will end penalties for women who take career breaks to care for their families are being put forward. Sustainable funding cycles for rape crisis centres and victim support have been proposed. Theresa May broke ground on flexible parental leave, thus helping to ensure that employers would no longer look askance at women of childbearing age (remember Labour peer Lord Sugar's remarks on pregnant employees?). The list goes on. Fucking 'ghetto feminism'? Does Mensch seriously think that we should be focusing less attention on women who are the most oppressed and more attention on women who are the least? Another thing - pointing out that 80% of the lowest paid public sector workers are women is a) admitting the need for feminism in the first damn place, b) admitting that there's a huge problem with women being underpaid, c) showing us which gender is seen as the more 'disposable' employee. Also, 'sustainable funding...for rape crisis centres'? Damn, if I wasn't so sure Mensch had private healthcare I'd ask for the number of her GP so I could get whatever she has. Because it ain't looking so damn rosy from where I'm sat. Also, when you read the part about women of childbearing age I'd like you to imagine the 'wrong answer' klaxon from Family Fortunes. It sounds like this. Because this became illegal way back in 1975 under the Labour government. Sorry Louise, you won't win the speedboat at this rate. (I will concede that Alan Sugar is a sexist arsehole, but would like to point out that he doesn't represent the whole party and even a clock as stopped as Mensch may be right once in a while. DAMMIT. This makes it sound like I'm defending Labour. Just to make it clear: I would never do that. I just dislike lies.)

Last week, Ed Balls capitulated and accepted the need for Tory cuts. The Conservatives' growing lead on economic credibility resonates with women, too. As mortgage holders – 70% of all women work outside the home – they benefit from George Osborne's low interest rates. They relate to restraint on council tax, a regressive tax that hits pensioners and those on fixed incomes hardest. Well hot-damn, this is an interesting use of statistics. Now, I do not work outside 'the home'. This is mainly because I don't have a 'home', per se. Or a 'job', per se. I am one of those poor unfortunate ONE MILLION young people who are on the dole. Anyway, I used to work outside 'the home'. However, I did not have a mortgage. My sister works outside 'the home'. She does not have a mortgage. In fact, of all my friends who have jobs, I can count a teeny-tiny number (one, off the top of my head) who have mortgages. So that's not 70% of women benefitting. That's 70% of women have jobs and if they happen to have been in a fortunate position and single quite a few years ago now they might have a mortgage. Also, since when did only women benefit from cheap interest rates caused by the fact that everyone is fucking skint instituted by our beloved Gideon? And, if I must say this again I will damn well scream it from the rooftops: WOMEN SUFFER MORE WHEN SERVICES ARE CUT WHICH IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU REDUCE THINGS LIKE COUNCIL TAX AND ONE WAY TO STOP THIS WOULD ACTUALLY BE TO TAX RICH PEOPLE MORE NOT FUCK POOR PEOPLE OVER. 

When speaking of the deficit, in magazines or on the airwaves, Tory feminists use the language of other women – the debt we pass on to our children, and our duty to lift that burden off their backs. The more we shift away from the bad old days of economic dependence on a wage-earning man, the more women notice the tax-and-spend policies that affect all wage earners. Well, not my language. I don't have children. In fact, around 20% of women choose to remain child-free - which is around 5.8 million women the Tories aren't speaking for. And, forgive my mistake, but surely having children isn't just something women spontaneously do? MEN ARE PARENTS TOO. See, this shit is Feminism 101 - PARENTHOOD IS NOT JUST FOR THE BEARER OF THE UTERUS. Also, I'm sure children would prefer to have an alive mother and more 'deficit' when they grow up rather than a mother who got beaten to death in front of them because she couldn't get a restraining order because she couldn't get legal aid. Just saying, like.

Most Conservatives would define feminism as supporting equal rights and opportunities for women. In that sense it is a movement of women, not of right or left. But I like to think that, somewhere at the margins of all this, the noisy reclamation of the feminist label from the left is having an impact. The problem is though, as I am nearly bashing my head against the keyboard while I am saying this a-fucking-gain - Tories do NOT support equal rights and opportunities for women. What they support is 'well us women are fine, I really don't know what the rest of you are fussing about!'. LOOK AT THE GODDAMN LINKS ABOVE. So, by her own definition, Mensch IS NOT a feminist.

Conservative women are having a moment: Gaby Hinsliff's wonderful Observer cover story was the culmination of months of Tory feminists advancing our case whenever a media opportunity arose. Last December, Jane Ellison launched an all-party parliamentary group on female genital mutilation. Claire Perry works on opt-in options for internet porn. Amber Rudd MP, who is pro-choice, looks at alternate ways to combat teenage pregnancy. I stood up on anonymity for rape suspects and wound up debating with a feminist hero of mine, Naomi Wolf, on Newsnight. I also debated Tory feminism with Labour's Stella Creasy MP on Radio 4's Woman's Hour – a chance to explode the myth that "Tory" and "feminist" are oxymoronic to millions of women. And I just chopped my own damn arm off, but it's totally cool because I have this sticking plaster I had to make myself out of reused gaffer tape and an old tissue BECAUSE OF TORY CUTS AFFECTING WOMEN SO BADLY.

As a Tory feminist, you want to play in front of Labour's goal, advancing the case for social justice, welfare reform and Iain Duncan Smith's universal credit (which should lift a million people and 350,000 children out of poverty). Yes, we anticipate the colourful comments under our articles, but that doesn't matter. Tory feminists are looking for your support, looking to convert you. I am an MP today only because in his very first speech as leader, David Cameron – the most feminist leader the Conservative party has ever had – made it his business to challenge dinosaur attitudes that led us to a 91% white male parliamentary party. His work in opposition continues in government. I'm actually bored of dissecting this horseshit now, so, here we go. 1. Party pointscoring. 2. Child poverty is predicted to increase under the universal credit scheme. 3. David Cameron is also the most 'likely to have grown up in the 70's' leader the Tories ever had. That does not make him John Travolta. 4. I couldn't give two glittery unicorn shits if the Tory party was 100% female, because it would mean 306 Louise Mensches and my poor laptop could not cope with the stress of debunking this tripe that many times.

While we all expect that this poll lead won't last, the fact that we have recovered our ground with women is immensely comforting this far out from a general election. After all, the Tories have never won without women – and never will. 

Fucking feminism, how does it work?

Back to me in black text now.

OH MY HOLY MOTHER OF AVIMIMUS, WHY DID I DO THAT TO MYSELF? 

I shouldn't be surprised, ever. I've spoken to Louise Mensch once or twice on Twitter, and every damn time she's insisted she absolutely is a feminist, but when challenged on what she actually does to stop women being oppressed, or told how her party is oppressing women, she clams up. Funny that. So now, for her benefit - as I'm sure she actually would like to be a feminist, she's just not sure of the first things about it, I am going to put my Queen Feminist crown on (it's red leopard-print and decorated with the bollocks of men I have emasculated) and write up a quick cut-out-and-keep one do and five don'ts of being a feminist.

DO

1. Commit to fostering equality for all women

   

DON'T

1. Insist that because you're not oppressed, no woman ever is
2. Think that all women are (or are even capable of being) mothers, and this is all they want/are good for
3. Shut down services essential to women's livelihood, safety, economic power or wellbeing
4. Insist that other women are too stupid to know what to do with their own bodies
5. Write facile articles that purport to be about feminism that are actually just party-political broadcasts, cheap jibes about the opposition and actually fuck-all to do with any feminism ever

I hope this helps.

On The Pub Industry

I grew up in a small village in Bradford. It's a great place, with a wonderful sense of community where everyone looks out for one another and you know all your neighbours. When I was growing up, as well as his regular office job, my dad always worked in one of the three local pubs for a few hours a week in order to have a bit of extra money coming in to the house. Consequently, I spent a fair bit of time in them myself as a child. Five years ago, the project my dad worked for was winding up. At the same time, the landlord of the pub he worked in was looking to sell the place. The stars aligned and at the end of October 2006, we took it on.

My dad took to it like a duck to water. We all did. As well as my dad and his wife, my cousin and I lived there too, all pitching in and trying our damndest to make a real success of it. It's bloody hard work, running a pub - you get up at 9.30 in the morning and don't get to bed until about 3 the next morning, and there's always stuff to be done. I've done it on my own for up to a week at a time and felt like a zombie for the whole week afterwards. I don't know how my dad's done it, but he always has.

At first, we made a great go of it. Profits tripled thanks to us working our arses off, putting on events, getting real ales into the pub and always wanting to do more.

At this point in the story I'll break off and explain how most pubs work. A PubCo (in our case, Enterprise Inns) own the building and lease it to the landlord. As a condition of the lease, the landlord has to buy certain products from the PubCo or its affiliates. This is called a 'tie'. We were reasonably lucky in that our tie was only for lagers, bitters, ciders and one real ale (out of 3 real ale pumps) - basically anything that comes out of a tap. The wine, spirits and bottles we could source ourselves. Now,  the reason for the tie is that anything you buy from the PubCo will be around 50-100% more expensive than getting it from, say, the cash and carry. It's essentially a racket - and some pubs have to get everything from the PubCo, which is something the Competition Commission have been interested in for some time, but multi-billion pound corporations have a surprising way of making these things be ignored.

Anyway, after about three years of us being in the pub, everything was still looking rosy. My cousin and I had moved out. I continued working there, and my dad loved it and poured his heart and soul into the place. Trade had slowed a bit due to the recession, but we were still in the 'safe zone'. Then it came time for the Rent Review - every long-term lease has a clause that allows the rent to be changed after a certain period of time. We got a letter from Enterprise saying that because we'd been doing so well, they wanted to double our rent and give us a full tie. Considering that we were already paying £26,000 per year in rent alone to them, we thought this was a tad unfair. Eventually I read through the lease (all 400 pages) and found out that doubling the rent was not allowed under it. We threatened them with going through arbitration at the local courts. They kept piling on the pressure and making veiled threats about the 'massive legal bills' we'd face if we lost. Considering we had a pretty airtight case, we held firm and eventually, the day before we went to court, we received a letter saying "Actually, keep the tie as it is, we just want a 20% rent increase". I can't help but think that was their plan all along - say something so ridiculous that anything sounds reasonable afterwards.

So we started paying over £32,000 in rent to Enterprise per year. As this happened, the Tories came to power and people started losing their jobs left, right and centre. Everyone was skinter. People who'd come to the pub twice a week started only coming in once. Some people had to stop coming all together. Still we were being cock-hammered by Enterprise because of the halcyon days. Now my dad can't afford it any more. He's told me he's been hemorrhaging money, but will never tell me how much debt this has left him in. He's leaving on the 30th October, exactly five years after starting his dream job.

Enterprise Inns (and all other PubCos) are robbing vulturecunts. Enterprise barely put a penny into the pub. When the smoking ban came in, they refused to even consider putting any money towards a smoking shelter - we paid for it. They are thieving property-developers who know nothing about the pub industry but just skim any profit a landlord might hope to make away. Pubs are closing at a rate of knots due to these bastards. And they don't give a shit. Here's the thing - when the good landlords leave, they install shitty temporary landlords at a fraction of the rent, and if they fuck up, it doesn't matter, because they can just sell the pub. Most pubs were bought at the beginning of the 90s and are now worth many times more than what was paid for them. Oh, and when they sell them, they insert a clause in the contract saying that the building can't be used as a pub for 25 years, to protect their other investments.

It's one of the ugliest faces of capitalism (not that it has a good side). This industry and countless landlords and their families are being throttled by a handful of companies, squeezed for every possible penny they could provide. And there's nothing you can do. Pubs that aren't owned by PubCos are as rare as rocking horse shit, and the people that have them won't give them up quickly.

PubCos don't give a fuck about anything other than the constant drive to make more and more money. They don't care about pubs being the hub of the local community. They don't care about all the good they do. It's just PROFIT PROFIT PROFIT. And the landlords can't take it any more.

I am going to miss that pub so much. When I go home for a few days tomorrow, I know that will be the last time I ever go there. By fuck we had some good times. But I will never pay a penny of my money over that bar to the management company that will be taking it from my dad.

And if I ever see Ted Tuppen, CEO of Enterprise and all round nasty shitehawking bastard, I'm going to set the utter shitprick on fire.

Why Tories Want To Scrap The Human Rights Act

Last night, a friend asked me why the Tories are so keen to get rid of the Human Rights Act, and what effect replacing it with a Bill Of Rights would have. I thought it might be useful to people if I re-posted the email I sent him here:

(N.B. This was done off the top of my head in quite a short time, and I don't have access to my beloved legal textbooks at the moment, so it doesn't go in to great detail, but I will update this post when I have got them back to provide more references and detail and generally clear it up a bit.)

Right, I don't know how much you know about the Human Rights Act, so I'll start from the beginning:

The main task of the HRA is to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. This is a condition of accession to the EU - all new member states must sign up for it. The HRA can be used against any public body, and section 3 provides that all legislation of the UK must be drafted and interpreted with the HRA in mind to make sure it complies - the UK can face sanctions from the ECtHR if it fails to re-do legislation that it has been advised does not comply - see prisoner voting.

Even if we didn't have the HRA, we would still be a signatory to the ECHR, and it's very difficult to see how they would get around this, but one effect of scrapping the HRA would be that the only way HR breaches could be remedied would be by the European Court of Human Rights - and this is a remedy that is very time and labour consuming - not to mention way too intimidating for most pro-bono/legal aid lawyers, who usually take breaches to the UK courts (with the ECtHR being at the top of the appeals process).

The Tories talk a lot about replacing it with a 'Bill of Rights'. This is a smokescreen - the ECHR is universal and applies to all public bodies. A BOR could exclude situations (i.e. 'this right does not apply if the person concerned is suspected of breaking a law'), people (i.e. 'this right applies only to full citizens of the UK') or public bodies (i.e. 'the police force of the UK are not bound to uphold these rules'). This is my main concern. 

There's a bit more to it than that, but that's the basic overview.

Hope this is helpful to anyone who was a bit confused. Like I say, will post properly on the matter in a couple of weeks, but after Theresa May's horrific speech yesterday, I thought the basics could do with being stated now.

Why I Am So Angry

Yesterday someone linked me to this, a poster that they thought I'd like. I do like it.  (Click to make BIG - also, as I understand, it's free to print and reproduce it, and you are encouraged to do so)

 But I'd like to add a few things to that, because it doesn't cover nearly half the things I feel angry about on a daily basis. So, here goes:

"Fuck patriarchy. Fuck rape culture. Fuck victim blaming, fuck slut shaming, fuck any bastard that would choose a clump of fucking cells over the life of the woman that hosts it. Fuck body fascism. Fuck lads mags. Fuck womens mags. Fuck objectification. Fuck saying a woman is empowered because you give her money to conform to your misogynistic ideals. Fuck binary gender norms. Fuck not citing your sources and churnalising some bullshit pseudoscience that landed on your desk. Fuck all pseudoscience. Fuck homeopathy, fuck acupuncture, acupressure, acu-whatthefuckingever. Fuck anything not proven by re-testable science. That includes God, you small-minded fucks. Fuck anyone who would use an imaginary sky pixie to push their bigoted, money-grasping agenda. Fuck economic libertarians, the selfish cuntpricks. Fuck EU sceptics, fuck climate change sceptics. Fuck James fucking Delingpole and every lie he's ever published. Fuck Littlejohn, the fat prick, railing against how bad it is in the UK from his mansion in fucking Florida. Fuck Melanie Philips, the delusional bitch. Fuck Philip Davies, the rent-a-gobshite. And fuck Nadine fucking Dorries, the evidence-denying, lying fucking shitwhore. And Frank Fields. Who thinks women are too stupid to choose but bright enough to raise kids. Fuck Eric Pickles. Fuck Theresa May. Fuck the police, fuck the riot squad, fuck the TSG, the violent twathounds. Fuck the CPS. Fuck the courts. Fuck the prison system. You think it works? Meet evidence. Fuck ATOS. Fuck anyone who would punish the worthy sick for the greedy well. Fuck racists, the fucking chodes. Fuck war for oil. Fuck the war on terror, fuck the war on drugs. Fuck The Big Questions. Fuck Question Time. Fuck Prime Ministers cocking Questions. Fuck giving my time to right-wing reactionary fucknuts. Fuck Moral Maze. There ain't nothing moral. Either you're a weeping dickshit or you're not. Fuck those who piss about the 'nanny state' because they're too fucking thick to have grasped metric in over 40 fucking years. Fuck those who think the ECHR is part of the EU. Fuck those who think that having your bins collected once a week is more important than foreign aid. Fuck people who want to take away minimum wage. Fuck the bastards exploiting the situation the banks gave us and calling the unemployed lazy when there's five unemployed to every job vacancy. Fuck unpaid internships. Fuck gap years. Fuck mummy and daddy paying for you to climb the corporate ladder. Fuck you bastarding fuckers who make my head want to explode every time I remember every shitty thing you've ever done."

Stay angry people xx

OH HOLY SHIT, DAVID ICKE WAS RIGHT!

The Mail have come out with what may politely be termed an 'interesting' article today. Entitled "Labour's lizard king: Ed Miliband likened to reptile by body language experts for bizarre way he licks his lips", the article reveals the mythological origins of Labour's leader in a volcano under the North Pole, hatched from the egg of a phoenix that the leaders of the political parties use different body language when speaking.

Oh. That's... not quite as interesting as I'd have hoped.

They say:

Ed Miliband has been likened to a lizard by experts because of the bizarre way he repeatedly licks his lips to stay calm when giving a speech.

They say the Labour leader's 'lizard tongue' helps him focus on his words and appear self-assured and methodical at the despatch box.

Body language experts studied the actions of all three political leaders and found Mr Miliband to be the most pensive, Nick Clegg the most passionate, while David Cameron came out on top for being charismatic and engaging.

Alex Grinder, a physical communications expert at body language firm Ascot Barclay Group, said: 'Watching the videos of Miliband, we notice he moistens his lips with his tongue - we call this the "lizard tongue".

'Research on this gesture suggests that when someone does this, it is a way of pacifying or giving oneself strokes.

'He is extremely cognitive, in other words he speaks very much from his head and thoughts.'

Mr Grinder said that, despite being new to the job, Mr Miliband exuded a high level of confidence.

'Ed stands with his weight on both feet and this helps to create a level of credibility, he is balanced and grounded,'' he said.

'We see the hands coming together in prayer a lot and this gesture allows him to reconnect with his thoughts.

'When he does so his feet are centred, this balanced posture together with his light touch of the lectern suggests that he is confident.'

However, analysis of Mr Miliband's first speech to the Labour Party Conference last year revealed subtle differences in his body language when referring to certain MPs which could be evidence of future problems for his leadership, Mr Grinder added.

'There is a definite difference in what he does with his eyes, his hand and the length of the arm in the gesture to Harriet Harman versus everyone else, he said.

'He takes away credit from her through his non verbals. So we are curious as to what is going on there and the relationship dynamics between them.'

The Prime Minister's repeated pumping of his fist, with his palms facing downwards, when giving a speech makes him appear 'ready for action' and in control, whereas Mr Miliband often has his hands facing inward which is less authoritative, the experts added.

Mr Grinder said Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg also cleverly adjusted the volume of his voice when speaking to draw people in.

'Clegg has a great voice pattern as he delivers his speech - it crescendos up and then drops down to the start again, this keeps the audience intrigued and we pay closer attention,' Mr Grinder said.

'He would be very effective at giving moving speeches and will come across as though he is speaking from the heart, which is in direct contrast to Miliband whose approach is more "head" orientated.'*

There were two very interesting comments on this article from the company that supposedly provided the 'research' they refer to. The first of these read:

This is an interesting debate and unfortunately one which does not accurately reflect our research. Non-verbal intelligence (NVI) provides much deeper insight into human behavior patterns than simply reading body language. In actual fact comparing NVI to Body Language is like comparing neuro science with astrology one is based on science fact the other isn't. The political rhetoric somewhat amusing and perhaps the real reaction the journalist responsible for this article set out to achieve.

The second:

I should also point out we don't actually have any one called 'Alex Grinder' at Ascot Barclay but why let a few 'minor' factual errors get in the way of a good political debate :-)

OK, it's a lot, lot less interesting than the headline suggests (surprisingly), and based on a pack of lies (even less surprisingly) but there's something else I'd like to look at.

In the headline, and the first line of the article, they claim that Miliband licking his lips when he speaks is "bizarre". By way of experiment, I tried to read the article out loud without my tongue touching my lips. It's harder than you think**. Also, the Mail (and possibly the researchers) haven't considered that maybe Ed's just in dire need of a Chapstick***. Really, it just looks to me like they're trying to smear Miliband on flimsy pretexts (shocking as that may be).

I also love the fact that when they talk about "certain MPs" being a threat to Miliband, they then go on to only namecheck their sworn nemesis, that awful feminazi Harriet Harman. Hey, at least they managed to stop themselves referring to her as 'Harriet Harperson' for once.

 Anyway, I think we can safely file this under "another day, another piece of sensationalist bullshit at the Mail".

As you were.





*I would have posted the pictures the Mail did to accompany this article, but I was unsure about copyright. I tried to find my own, but there are only so many fruitless searches you can do to find a picture of Ed Miliband with his tongue out before you start to get paranoid that Google think you're a pervert.

**I'll admit this is a very unscientific experiment, but I am writing this post at 06.30 so, y'know, empiricism when mocking the Mail is not at the top of my prorities. However, to rectify this, I would ask anyone who questions the validity of my experiment to do the same and report your findings to me, and we'll test my hypothesis.

***I might send him one and see how he does at PMQs next week. Suggestions for flavours? I think he's a Cherry man, myself.

From Bar to Bar

The following is the story of my experience of college, university, trying to break into the legal field and life as a graduate in 2010/11. I have tried to stick to the facts proper and not become too 'woe is me'. I'm aware that a lot of people are worse off than I am, but this post is something that has been preying on my mind for a while, and I'd like to share it. If you'd like to share your story too, either post it in the comments, or get in touch with me on Facebook or Twitter.



Around the age of 14, I decided that I wanted to be a criminal barrister. I don't know what inspired me originally, although if you ask anyone who knows me, they will probably say that the idea of being paid to argue was what appealed to me. I think it was partly to do with that, but also the desire to right injustice and the chance to make a difference (I may have been an overly-idealistic 14 year old).

Anyway, at the age of 16, I went to sixth-form college, still with the singular ambition to be a criminal barrister planted firmly in my mind. During my time there, I was constantly told by my teachers how difficult it would be for me to achieve my aims, but I was undeterred, and certain that if I worked hard enough, it would pay off. In time, I applied to study Law at the University of Leeds, and was offered a place with the condition that I achieved A grades in my three subjects. I knuckled down and left college in 2007 with A grades in Law, Politics and Psychology.

I began my degree at the University of Leeds at the end of 2007, continuing, as I had done with college, to commute from my home and balancing my education with working approximately 25 hours a week at my local pub.

As in college, in my first year at university I was repeatedly warned about how difficult it would be to become a criminal barrister. As in college, I naively assumed that as long as I worked hard enough, I could achieve anything I wanted.

It struck me in my first year that as a law undergraduate with a job, I was in an extreme minority. I thought nothing of it at the time, and merely envied those who were being supported by their parents because of their free time. That's not to say I didn't have any, but there would be many a time to come in the next three years where I would be desperately trying to juggle revising for an exam or writing an essay at the end of the bar in between pulling pints.

Before I discuss my experience any further, it would be useful at this time to talk about how one goes about becoming a barrister. After taking a Qualifying Law Degree (which basically means a law degree, but with seven essential modules covered - I'd say 99% of people do them), you take the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) and register with one of the four Inns of Court. During your time, you must also attend at least 12 Qualifying Sessions at your Inn. These take the form of education days, dinners and other events. After this, you apply for a pupillage, which lasts two years. Once you have completed this, you are called to the bar and may begin practicing.

In my second year, shit started to get real. We were advised that our chances to be accepted to study for the BPTC and to gain a pupillage would only be maximised by having completed around three mini-pupillages by the time we graduated.

Mini-pupillages are essentially glorified work experience in a barristers chambers, usually lasting 2-4 weeks. However, they're seen as vital to gaining experience and knowledge of how life in a chambers works. There were a few interconnected problems with this for me. Firstly, there were very, very few criminal chambers in Leeds that would take on students for mini-pupillages. Secondly, having a job meant that I couldn't just take two weeks off to work 9-5 for free, nor could I afford to even contemplate travelling further afield in order to do one.  Finally, due to commuting to Leeds and having a job, I found it very difficult to attend any of the networking events organised by the university - in fact, I didn't manage to attend a single one. Because of this, I was at another disadvantage - if there's only one mini-pupillage place going, who are you going to give it to, the person you've met, or the person you haven't? There were also many, many instances of people who were given mini-pupillages either by their parents, or friends of their parents.

I did one mini-pupillage, at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in Leeds, towards the end of my second year. It was judged entirely on merit, not who you knew, and I was the only one of a hundred applicants to get it. Unfortunately, they were only able to offer me a place for a week.

I entered my third year somewhat disillusioned with the notion of ever managing to become a barrister. The facts that the fees for the BPTC were around £12,200, the Inns of Court all located in London, that I would have to work extra jobs throughout my time, and there would only be roughly a 20% chance of me managing to get a pupillage to finish my training* all conspired to put me off it. I knew that I would be forever trailing in the dust of those with parents who were more well off than mine.

I was still absolutley dedicated to and passionate about going into criminal law though, so I decided that my best course of action would be to join the CPS in any position I could get, either to save the money to complete my barrister training, or in the hope that they would put me through the Associate Prosecutor training.

(*this statistic is somewhat flawed in my case, given that a) there are a lot less pupillage vacancies for prospective criminal barristers, b) I had far less work experience and connections than others and c) I wasn't willing to move to London for a pupillage)

My third year went by, and I found myself about to graduate with a QLD, specialising in criminal law. In my time at university, I had studied Constitutional Law, Land Law, Equity and Trusts, Criminology, Victimology, Criminal Law, Tort Law, Contract Law, Legal Research Skills, Advanced Legal Review and Law Reform, Jurisprudence, Judicial Review, the Jurisprudence of Judicial Review and Democracy, Feminist Theories of Jurisprudence, Evidence Law, Forensic Evidence Law, the Modern English Legal System, Policing, EU Law and written a 12,000 word dissertation on the merits of the introduction of a hypothetical criminal offence.

I graduated in July 2010 with a 2.1. The plan was to take a couple of months off for the summer, and begin applying for anything I could get my hands on in the three West Yorkshire offices of the CPS in September. However, thanks to budget cuts and the reduction of the public sector, this is all I've seen since about April last year:




So, since then I've been reconsidering what I want to do with my life, now that I can't do what I've spent five years working for. I've hit a bit of a brick wall. Not only do I not know what I want to do, without experience in internships or the voluntary sector (not that this will be around for much longer), I can't get a job that would use my degree effectively. I can't afford to do these though, because I have these horribly inconvenient things called 'bills' and 'rent' to pay. So instead, I'm just pootling along in my bar job, trying to avoid having to take a 9-5 job that I will hate, just for the sake of having a 'real job'. Whether I will end up in law eventually, I don't know. I'd like to, of course I would, but I have to be realistic. I've also toyed with the idea of doing a masters, or a second undergraduate degree, but there's no way on earth I could ever afford to. I could write for ages about how unfair it all is, the fact that as a member of the working class, it's almost impossible to go into the field of law and all the other horrible things that I had to go through during my time at university, but I would hope that the facts as they are speak for themselves. Really, I'm lucky to have a job at all.




This is the experience of a History Graduate I spoke to:

I graduated from Durham with a BA in History in 2007, moving to London soon after.

An MA was never on the cards because, despite loving the subject and wanting to carry on, there was no way I could afford to pay for it.

I started to look for work in the public and third sectors - just basic administrative roles really - to get my foot in the door. I was told I had no experience, despite having just graduated. I didn't have three years of being a student journalist or anything like that to fall back on, when I worked at uni it was in a little shop.

So, I did some unpaid work to bump up my CV. I did a couple of months editing things online (which was good because I could do it from home whenever, but didn't get me any office hours) and then three months working in the HR department of a homelessness charity where they paid for travel and lunch. The work was basic admin: editing, photocopying, responding to enquiries etc. I found it through a friend who was already working there.

A couple of months after I finished the semi-internship, one of the recruitment agencies I had reluctantly signed up to finally found me a few jobs for which i got interviews. I had resorted to agencies after a stream of time-consuming applications for well-suited jobs I found in places like the Guardian (graduate, third/public sector, officework) went off with some small measure of expectation on my part, only to receive no replies. I got the second or third job (public sector office admin - has developed slightly into some work with databases and editing) that the agency turned me on to.

Two things I would most recommend to new graduates whose degrees don't lead straight into a specific job are a) getting experience as a volunteer or a intern as early as you can, because even having spent three/four years as a full time student you're expected to have some experience and b) sign up to recruitment agencies - most of them are shit but you should at least get some temp work, even if it's just data-entry, which means you don't starve/get evicted.

Nadine Dorries, hypocrisy and EMA

Nadine Dorries, MP is a busy woman. Alongside being an MP, she also spends a lot of time fucking up and refusing to apologise for it. Such fuck-ups have included:

• Using her blog to out her boyfriend's estranged wife as an alcoholic
• Using misleading photographs with faked stories to further "pro-life" campaigns and propaganda (My views on "pro-life" here)
• Lying on her blog '70%' of the time
• Falsely claiming that she had had critics investigated by the police for stalking/harrassment
• Being investigated by police over her parliamentary expenses
• Showing woeful lack of knowledge or compassion for disabled people

(n.b. This is not an exhaustive list of her fuck-ups, but what I could remember off the top of my head in five minutes.)

Today, she struck another victory for self-awareness, sending out a tweet at approximately 4 p.m. that read "Teacher just emailed me to say that on EMA day, the kids go clothes shopping at lunch time and come back late and disrupt lessons".

Oh. Right. Stop the marches! Halt the protests! Some completely random person may or may not have emailed a self-confessed internet bullshitter saying something that accords with her view! Well, it must be true!

Sarcasm aside, how can anyone see this as anything other than a nasty, vindictive smear against children who claim EMA?

To hammer her anti-EMA point home, a short while later, she posted a second tweet, which said "We also have stdnts who are just at schl to be able to claim ema. They do not want to learn, talk though lessons, use their mobile phones".

This, on the day Parliament are to vote on whether to scrap the allowance or not.



Anthony Painter wrote at Left Foot Forward today about how scrapping the allowance will prove to be a very stupid cut to make. He makes some fantastic and fresh points, and this is a very informative article to read.

In another sparkling example of how much the Tories are in touch with reality, losing EMA means that many teenagers who receive it will have to get jobs to make up the shortfall in their income. This on the day it was also announced that the youth unemployment rate is 20.3%.

Saving EMA would cost about £500 million. This sounds expensive, but let's compare it to the £550 million proposed to be given in tax breaks to couples just for being married (my views on this here). What's more important - promoting education among disadvantaged youth, or giving middle-class people money they don't need, just for the monumental achievement of being married?

The reason I brought Nadine Dorries up wasn't just for her complete lack of tact, compassion or logic when sending those tweets earlier, I'd also like to point out that when she sent these tweets, she was supposed to be in the House of Commons debating the proposal to scrap EMA. People who receive EMA only get it if they have 100% attendance in the week. Dorries' estimated attendance at Parliament voting is around 85%, and she claimed £158,530 in expenses in 2008/09, on top of her basic MP's salary of £65,738.

At about 8 p.m., Dorries sent another tweet. This one read "To everyone.. my tweets re ema were not my words, they were the words of two heads of sixth form colleges". Yes Nadine, which you put on Twitter in order to portray EMA recipients as scroungers.

Personally, I'd like to see these emails, just to make sure they're not something she's made up to "illustrate her point".

I saw two tweets today that affected me as much as Dorries'. The first was from Seema Malhotra, saying "EMA =better grades for pupils in deprived areas = better degrees and jobs = better life chances = social mobility = better Britain". The second, I couldn't find the source for, but read "Why do I get EMA? Because there isn't enough money in my house. Why isn't there? 'cos my parents couldn't afford to go to college".

I couldn't agree more.

Binge Britain

Today the government announced plans to prohibit shops from selling alcoholic drinks at below the cost of duty and VAT, effectively ushering in a minimum price on alcohol.

Now, there are many arguments in favour of discouraging binge drinking. It fuels violence, means our police and NHS are dealing with drunken trouble-causers every weekend and is incredibly unhealthy. However, I remain convinced that setting a minimum price for alcohol is not the way to go about this. Not only am I not convinced at its claims of efficacy, I am actively opposed to it.

Firstly, this is a measure clearly aimed at the poor. Let's get that out there right now. It's about people who have to make hard choices about how to spend what little disposable income they have, not about people who won't notice that something is a bit more expensive. This makes this proposal extremely patronising, as it assumes that those who will actually be affected by a minumum price on alcohol are incapable of making their own decisions about how much to drink. This is, essentially, the government saying "sorry, but if you're poor, you can't be trusted not to spend all your money on too much alcohol and get all violent and unhealthy, so we're going to make sure you can't". This proposal also heaps judgement on the poor - apparently everything's fine and dandy when the middle class drink to excess, but not those oiks on minimum wage!

Secondly, this is an overly-simplistic and facile argument to make. As if by raising the price of alcohol, suddenly, and magically, everyone will want to stop binge drinking! Well, newsflash: if people want something that's bad for them, the price of it is unlikely to matter. Heroin and cocaine are expensive, that doesn't stop people who want to take them taking them.

Finally, does anybody actually believe that people are that stupid? That someone would wander into a supermarket wanting to buy two cans of lager to drink that day, but see a special offer and buy 24 instead, and then proceed to drink them all in a day? Have they never thought that people could leave alcohol undrunk in their house for another day?

So, what other solutions to the binge-drinking problem can we come to? Some argue in favour of repealing 24 hour licencing laws. I also think that this would be a pointless endeavour, again going back to my point that if someone wants something that's bad for them, they will have it anyway. All that reducing licencing hours would achieve would be to punish small shopkeepers and pub landlords, who can ill-afford it. I believe that all we can really do is to continue to promote education about the negative effects of alcohol abuse. However, as with smoking, we must accept that some people will insist on choosing to do things that aren't good for them, and no amount of puniative taxation or minimum pricing will stop that.

As it happens, todays proposals happen to install minimum prices that are so low as to be completely ineffective anyway - at 38p can of lager, for example. So why are they being brought in at all? Is this just an attempt by the government to look caring? Or in order to pave the way for larger minimum prices in future? That by setting out the framework for the legislation with no real fuss from anyone now, they may amend it later? Is it a cynical attempt to deflect attention from their actions elsewhere?

While I cannot answer these questions, what I can do is state that the introduction of a minimum price on alcohol is yet another example of measures announced by this government which will hit the poorest hardest.

EDIT: In the interests of fairness, I'd like to leave a link to something Sally Bercow wrote at Labour Uncut, since disagreeing her tweets made me write this post. I'd also like to direct you to the comments, a lot of people are also making very good points there.

One Month Before Heartbreak

One Month Before Heartbreak is a three-day mass-blogging event created by @BrokenOfBritain, @Funkyfairy22 and @BendyGirl* , in addition to many others who have helped out. It is designed to increase awareness of the current consultations about reform to Disability Living Allowance, which end on February 14. DLA is further explained here.

(*Links go to blogs and not Twitter pages, but I thought it would be useful to put them here in case you wanted to follow them)

One Month Before Heartbreak will feature blogs, pictures, poems and music about living with disabilities, and what the proposed cuts could mean.

Speaking as a person who is fortunate enough to not have to rely on DLA, or other benefits, due to a random act of nature, I find the proposed cuts repulsive. So for my contribution to One Month Before Heartbreak, I'm going to post some pictures of the current Cabinet, looking like the odious, smirking, hypocritical bastards that they truly are. After I've angried up your blood, I'll post some links to other One Month Before Heartbreak posts that are written by the people who will be affected, and I urge you ALL to go read them, RT them, Share them on Facebook, link them in your own blogs and do whatever you can to spread the word. You might even want to create your own piece. If you do, stick a link in my comments section. I'll be updating the links as often as I can throughout the event, so be sure to check back.

Now, here are 'your' government, in all its rich, smug, glory:

 David Cameron

 Eric Pickles

 Caroline Spelman

 David Willetts

 Kenneth Clarke

 Iain Duncan Smith

 Liam Fox

 Cheryl Gillan

 Michael Gove

 William Hague

 Philip Hammond

 Jeremy Hunt

 Andrew Lansley

 Theresa May

 Andrew Mitchell

 Gideon Osborne

Owen Paterson

Is it just me thinking that the quote of the cuts should actually be "You're all in this together"? Anyway, these are the smirking gits who are making the decisions to screw over disadvantaged members of society in order to satisfy their rich, tax-dodging, greedy mates. Now that you've had chance to reflect on what reprehensible scumbags they are, it's time for you to read the stories of those who will be affected.

 LINKS

• www.onemonthbeforeheartbreak.blogspot.com - the hub of all the action  UPDATED EVERY 30 MINUTES
• http://thebrokenofbritain.blogspot.com/ 
• http://benefitscroungingscum.blogspot.com/ 
• http://writerinawheelchair.blogspot.com/ 
• http://aviewtomyworld.blogspot.com/ 
• http://samedifference1.com/ 
• http://solsticedreamer.blogspot.com/ 
• http://jimboeth.com/ 
• http://www.latentexistence.me.uk/ 
• http://workingatperfect.blogspot.com/ 
• http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/community-care-editorial-comment/2011/01/why-community-care-is-supporting-disability-cuts-campaign.html 
• http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/01/14/why-the-sick-and-disabled-will-feel-the-full-force-of-the-cuts-in-a-months-time/ 
• http://www.scope.org.uk/news/blogs/scope-media-team/chair-scope-why-dla-important-me 
• http://mymarilyn.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-government-is-doing-to-sick-and.html?spref=tw 
• BBC radio show 'You and Yours' discuss removal of Mobility Allowance 
• http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2011/01/14/vituperatio-when-workfare-fails/ 
• http://mediocredave.tumblr.com/post/2748237456/someone-elses-problem 
• http://blog.markinsutton.com/2011/01/16/last-post-for-ombh.aspx?ref=rss 
• http://southamptoncil.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/triple-threat-to-disabled-peoples-independence/ 
• http://gwenhwyfaer.posterous.com/one-month-before-heartbreak 
• http://www.latentexistence.me.uk/my-dad-working-through-the-pain/ 
• http://dannilion.com/2011/01/on-disability-and-dla-one-month-before-heartbreak/ 

.

You may wonder why I only posted pictures of Conservative MPs above. Well, it's because the Lib Dems can actually look sorry for being such epic gits:

 Danny Alexander

 Vince Cable

 Chris Huhne

Michael Moore

However, when it comes to pictures of Lib Dems looking sick at the vile cuts they've unleashed on the vulnerable and undeserving of this country, Nick Clegg takes the prize:

Right, so have a great time reading all the posts from the One Month Before Heartbreak guys, remember to check back for more links - and PLEASE, let's do something about these awful, awful cuts before it's too late.