The welfare system is changing it’s going to be harder and harder, and in the end we will be in the same position as the USA. New labour loved the way the USA pays out benefits and they basically went towards this system, all of Labours New deal, pathways to work, workfare are all taken from the Good old Americans.

Sadly I know a few people like your self all have had carer allowance stopped, sadly this is becoming the norm these days.

Welcome to the world of New labour old Tories.

My wife has been volunteering one day a week at a Trussell Trust Foodbank for over a year. Too high a percentage of her clients are people having problems with the benefit system. Many more are what could be described as the ‘working poor’ having problems with tax credits. I can’t describe how incandescent I get when I think about people who can’t feed their families.

The problem seems to be that our benefits system is not fit for purpose. It is just too complicated. Our Foodbank has asked for volunteers to help its customers through the maze, but only a retired solicitor and a retired banker (yes!) feel confident enough and they are overwhelmed. How in God’s name are the majority of claimants supposed to navigate the system?

Errmmm…

Having read the full post, it doesn’t appear that they’ve actually cut off her benefit, so a more accurate headline at this stage would be ‘If they cut off our benefits, I won’t be able to feed my children’.

That said, and as several people have pointed out in comments under her OP, it does appear that she may not be receiving all the benefits to which her family is entitled, so one would hope that a local welfare rights advisor will pick this up in due course.

@ Unity

What kind of cold, unfeeling spoilsport are you?

Why on earth should Sunny let the facts get in the way of a good headline?

Just a wider point, what do people think they’ll get if we just stop supporting those in need?

It seems there’s a stack of Daily Mail/Sun readers who think that 99% of claimants are fraudulent, and even having watched this, can think of a job the husband could be doing, instead of ‘leeching off the state’.

I have zero belief that if we eradicated benefit fraud, the regular citizen would see any benefit from it, they’re not going to cut your taxes.

So, how about we show compassion to our fellow man, and demand that a social floor is kept in place which we don’t allow our people to sink beneath, even if it does mean that 0.5% of them are not working when they could.

When nearly $30 TRILLION is hidden away, offshore in tax havens, the few quid a week we give to allow disabled people to have some kind of life is a pittance, yet we forever seem to look down instead of up to find people to blame.

I beginning to think this benefits ‘lifestyle choice’ may not be everything George Osborne cracked it up to be. You don’t suppose he was making that up?

What is the “something or other” that you’re being asked to provide proof of in order to keep your benefits and tax credits? Is it something someone here could help you with? Or is it something impossible?

“that you’re being asked to provide proof of in order to keep your benefits and tax credits?”

Basically ATOS/job centre require her husband to attend an interview to review the situation. Her husband is blind, severely disabled and cognitively impaired. So they have offered to do the interview with him over the phone instead….

The point being he is not capable of answering questions himself, so the system will record this as ‘non -attendance’ and all benefits will stop automatically. Because the system, and the hitlers who work in it, are now incapable of dealing with a situation like this due to changes made by both the main parties.

Furthermore, the situation is made worse because the local MP doesn’t care and do casework (unlike in other parts of the country where ATOS cases are responsible for 90% of the casework undertaken by those MPs/MSPs and AMs who give a shit about their constituents).

Foodbanks didn’t exist a few years ago in the UK. Now they are in all parts of the country dealing with cases like this, or other more simple cases where computer errors and staff errors mean benefits are not paid.

This is what happens when you vote conservative, and it is an utter disgrace that it happens in an advanced industrial economy. And all of you reading are one accident, illness or redundancy away from it happening to you or someone you care about it.

“The problem seems to be that our benefits system is not fit for purpose”.

It would definitely seem that way, and with lashings of clunky admin to boot.

With apologies to the OP, for glossing over her particular case, I would suggest opposition to these cuts lacks coherence (what’s Labour’s position on this btw?). I’m not sure outrage at specific cases really helps, nor do calls for minimum living standards etc (I mean, we have the latter don’t we, at least mostly?)

For example:

1) Are there too many on disability benefit? Actually, yes there are (and saying there isn’t just keeps the Sun/Mail in business). We know this from successive ex-ministers who’ve criticised the shifting of some unemployed onto the register to minimise the unemployment figure. However, these claimants are only accomplices, the government being the instigator. (The government being continuous, changes of party and personnel are irrelevant). The government is absolutely wrong to suddenly change tack when bumping up the figure is no longer politically attractive.

2) It’s more wrong if employment is low at the time the “contract” is broken. It’s simply impractical.

3) Given the very high number of people on disability benefit, why bother to re-assess the (obviously) seriously disabled (at least at this stage)? This strikes me as a ridiculous waste of time and money.

4) There have been numerous reported cases of really bad decisions made. Leaving emotions / moral outrage aside, if only some of these are true then something is seriously wrong (and again wasteful) with the process.

The government can brush off accusations built on rare cases pretty easily; bound to be the odd glitch, blah, working very closely blah, look at the mess we blah blah, etc, etc). However, a government that runs a shambolic system and does nothing to correct serious flaws looks incompetent, indifferent and heartless. (Very stupid too, in the afterglow of the Paralympics).

@4 pagar

You wrote:
“What kind of cold, unfeeling spoilsport are you”?

Talking about yourself, pagar? Very Freudian.

Planeshift is pretty accurate until this:

This is what happens when you vote conservative, and it is an utter disgrace that it happens in an advanced industrial economy.

Seriously, is it up to me every time to remind people who brought this system into being? The fact that the Coalition is perpetuating New Labour’s abomination in no way lessens its obscenity but lets cut the bullshit that this would only happen under the Tories and that it will disappear when you put it’s original perpetrators back in power.

“1) Are there too many on disability benefit?”

This pre-supposes that there is a correct number of people who should recieve benefits, and that civil servants/politicians have a way of being able to precisely calculate this figure.

There are some general assumptions however that are reasonable.

1. As the population grows, there will be more disabled people purely as a result of chance.

2. Demographic changes (ageing population) mean the rate of disabled people will grow.

3. Improvements in medicine mean that previously fatal conditions are now merely chronic medical conditions that people live with and have to adjust to. Improvements in trauma care means the same for accidents (one reason why death on the roads decreases)

So because of this we can quite reasonably expect that “the correct number of disabled” – whatever that may be – will rise through time.

But unfortuantly we have an immature media and a significant section of the westminster political elite that regards increased claims as proof that fraud exists, and whose main concern is reducing public spending regardless of the consequences. (and I say westminister deliberately – this simply doesn’t happen in Scotland or Wales where the focus of debate is on improving the welfare of the population rather than the welfare of hedge funds. Sunder take note). Hence we end up with ATOS and a contract deliberately designed to fail people rather than introduce a fair assesment, and a political process that – despite recommendations from Harrington and every single charity that knows anything about illness and disability – refuses to even tinker with a broken policy because politicans are still too afraid of taking on the london based tabloids.

You have to wonder what their MP is paid for if not to look into the actions, right or wrong, of a government department.

No wonder the government went back on its promise to allow MPs to be recalled.

Lazy tosser.

Planeshift,
I was merely making the point that previous governments more or less encouraged certain claimants onto disability rather than standard benefits as one of various ways to reduce the headline unemployment figure. (The method was to reduce the eligibiliy criteria).

This had the result of putting some claimants on disability who could actually work.

However, as I said, the government is more guilty than the claimants, so have no right to criticise.

From the OP.

The local MP, John Howell, in Thame was not interested,

Never make the mistake of assuming that the Tories are ‘not interested’ in your plight, because looking at the evidence dispassionately, they are very interested in your plight. To them your downfall is a success story, because it helps undermine the Welfare State. The Tories want you to ‘opt out’ of the welfare State so they can shut the whole thing down. These animals have been dehumanising those who are unlucky enough to find themselves on benefits, you know the ‘shameless generation’, the forty grand a year family etc. These cases are on the fringe of the system, they are newsworthy because they are so rare. Most people find themselves needing temporary help for temporary problems, some to cover long term issues, like your family.

So, people like you are ‘collateral damage’ to serve as a warning to other people. I can imagine one or two of the contributors here suggesting if you had not been forced to pay for the welfare State you would have been in a better shape to afford better insurance. You look like a perfectly sensible, respectable family. I have no idea how you voted at the last election or how you intend to vote at the next, none of my business, but I wonder what your attitude would be towards ‘the dole’ the day before your terrible tragedy.

I bet like the vast majority of people who regularly report to pollsters that benefits are ‘too generous’, ‘too readily available’ and a list of clichés as long as your arm, you would have agreed with a parts (if not all) of that sentiment, because like the majority of us you may only come into contact with the benefit system once or twice in your life if you are lucky. I don’t blame you for that, we are all the same. It is so seductive to see those who find themselves in such a predicament as culpable in some way. The cancer suffer as ‘smoked too much’ or the mother of the heroin addict who was a ‘bad parent’ or the unemployed person who is ‘not willing to take a job’. We all want to find an excuse for us to think it doesn’t apply to us. Happens every week here. Someone come here with some complaint or other and the vultures are interested in how much they drink, smoke have sex or whatever. I bet people are ‘curious’ as to the nature of your husbands accident, lest a loophole can be found.

What we need to do is exactly what Planeshift says, we need to remember that we are all a day away from being on the Tory ‘two minute hate list’. Good luck with your fight for justice, the rungs of the system have been removed. Someone above mentioned a welfare rights advisor’ but because of government cuts, there are none left. You needn’t bother the Labour Party either, bigger fish to fry than helping the unfortunate. The disabled, even post the Para-Olympics, are not sexy enough for the like of Milliband. We live in a divided culture where you find yourself at the other side of the line at your peril. A fall at work, or a genetic quirk, a lost job and bang you are on the despised, ‘scrounger’ list.

Office for National Statistics: Average household size in GB decreased from 3.1 persons in 1961 to 2.4 persons in 2011.

You CHOSE to have a family size of 6.

And now you whine it’s too expensive to run that family.

Tell you what, why don’t I go out and by a Porsche. And in a few months’ time when I can’t afford to run that Porsche, how about I come on here and whine. Would you happily pay for my Porsche?

@16

*buy

* buy

@ 16 londonj

“You CHOSE to have a family size of 6.

And now you whine it’s too expensive to run that family.”

Do you think she CHOSE for her husband to suffer crippling brain damage?

Stupid callous prick.

londonj, that’s disgraceful.

Furthermore, it’s utterly illogical as well. What number of children should we have then? 1? 2? 2.5?

Are you aware of the problems caused by an aging population?

Why am I even addressing you?

@20 – Just had an idea for a new franchise of horror films.

A vigillante trawls the internet looking for right wing pricks who mock and demonise the disabled. He then tracks them down and violently inflicts exactly the same disability as that suffered by the person the right winger was mocking.

(and I’m fucked if londonj suffers crippling brain damage tonight and police trawl through his internet history)

Jim,
To summarise then:

1) The Tories are evil, won’t ever change, and regard degrading people as a success.
2) Labour are just as bad.

Therefore just give up.

Well, that’s not very optimistic.

Jack C @ 14

I was merely making the point that previous governments more or less encouraged certain claimants onto disability rather than standard benefits as one of various ways to reduce the headline unemployment figure. (The method was to reduce the eligibiliy criteria).

People seriously wonder why I hate the Tory Party and much of their hard-line supporters. Previous ‘governments’ as in plural? You mean a specific government, which had idealistically reduced employment rights to ‘free’ the market? These people deliberately put millions on the dole to drive down the cost of labour. To the point that even fairly routine jobs have dozens of applicants and people with apparently minor illnesses, had not in hope of finding work? Who would employ a fifty five year old angina sufferer, when there are two-dozen people willing to take the job without any health issues? The Tories did not lower the criteria for a laugh you, know, their hand was forced because post the Nationalised industrial world, employers had the whip hand. The newly attracted electronic industries where not interested in employing people who had long term sickness records, they ONLY wanted the young, the healthy and the bright.

One of my ‘favourite’ stories of this post heavy industrial World was the number of ‘IT training’ companies that bought up cheap IBMs with ms dos and copies of lotus123, wordstar and Dbase3+ and made a small fortune ‘retraining’ sausage fingered ex miners how to type.

Fucking cluesless government and fucking cluesless ministers.

If anything, the employment situation has become worse since the Nineteen Eighties, there are places thousands applying for employers offering a dozen jobs today, not only newly unemployed but literally millions of young, fit healthy Europeans willing to take on that work also. The Lib Dems are proposing to cut ‘red tape’ to allow for an easier process to get rid of ‘unproductive staff’. Tell me, is that likely to increase the number of sick or simply make it easier to throw the sick onto the scrapheap?

Yet, here is the thing. Here is the killer fact that we are all supposed to swallow. The current lot of Tories are coming to this all new. That there is not a single survivor of the last administration who had witnessed the exact same problems as a generation before, and yet can pass on the knowledge?

If the Tory strategy of CUT, CUT, CUT is likely to work, why the fuck didn’t work in 1982? Why did the Tories spend billions on inward investment programmes to attract Japan and Americans et al to these shores if simply cutting the welfare State would have encouraged the same thing? Because Thatcher was too soft, yeah fucking right.

The current crop of Tories know exactly why they threw millions of people onto the dole a generation ago and they know why they want and more importantly, are able to destroy that system now.

They are attempting to drive millions of people into the abject poverty we see around us.

Jim,
No, I really did mean “governments” plural. It’s been going on for many years, under more than one party.

And I covered the bit about the lack of jobs in my earlier post.

Jack @ 24

No, I really did mean “governments” plural. It’s been going on for many years, under more than one party.

It has ben going on since about the early 1980′s

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmpubacc/404/40401.gif

The huge rise in invalidity claiments occured during the Thatcher Governmnt years.

@20 Jack C

The ONS data shows that the average household chose to have one child or less in 2011. Overall household size was 2.4. If you require any adult educational support on how averages work let me know and I’ll find a website for you, or a group that can help you with maths literacy in your area.

@19 @20 @21

Manic Mum and her partner demonstrated their financial recklessness well before her husband’s brain injury. While the rest of the country cautiously produced an average family size of 2.4, Manic Mum just carried on and knocked-out 4 kids.

If you want to get into bell-curve analysis to demonstrate just how reckless Manic Mum’s baby-making is then we can do that.

@ 26 londonj

Easy to call it reckless with hindsight bias. It’s not like crippling brain damage – or something equally bad – is that predictable an outcome.

I am quite happy to pay my small share towards making life tolerable for people who have been unfortunate like the OP. And regardless of whether the parents are at fault, I’m always happy to pay to ensure kids get what they need.

Now, you don’t want to pay. I can understand that, and might even sympathise had you not already demonstrated your complete callousness towards the suffering of others. As it is, I’m playing the world’s smallest violin, just for you…

londonj,
Thanks for the offer, but I’m okay with the numbers.

I’ll ask the question again more clearly:

How many children can you produce before you become reckless?

Further, what has household size got to do with it? Taking the 5 families closest to me (babies in last year / total children / household size):

A: 0 / 5 / 3
B: 0 / 2 / 2
C: 0 / 1 / 2
D: 0 / 1 / 3
E: 1 / 1 / 3

Which, if any are reckless?

Jim, I know … I think that’s what I was saying?

Unity: Having read the full post, it doesn’t appear that they’ve actually cut off her benefit, so a more accurate headline at this stage would be ‘If they cut off our benefits, I won’t be able to feed my children’.

She’s definitely had some support cut, or she wouldn’t be writing such a desperate plea. See the news report. But you’re right in saying that its unclear exactly what was cut etc.

She is also having trouble feeding her children now.

[16] let’s suppose you did in fact have a porsche but crashed it by driving recklessly – and let’s suppose further that the accident inflicted a serious head injury.

Now having already spent most of your dosh on a fancy car it might be possible to assume there wouldn’t much left over to pay for years of expensive health, and personal care – so who gets to pick up the tab?

In other words where do you draw the line once a link is demonstrated between behaviour and a financial consequence.
For example, should smokers be denied treatment for lung cancer?

Put simply, are your thoughts guided by an important principle or are they just driven petty spite (aka daily mail syndrome)

[31] indeed, the problem here is hungry children – we can either blame the parents or feed the children.

The correct answer seems pretty simple to me – why bother wasting time on semantics.

londonj

Manic mums four children will most likely end up working to pay for your state pension, and benefits should you be unfortunate enough to have an accident that could leave you disabled. Or if you become chronically sick.

@28 – I think Londonj is trying to develop a new euphemism.

“I was financially reckless with my wife last night”…

For those of you still misunderstanding londonj, he’s offered to find “a group that can help you with maths literacy in your area”.

If anyone can find him some support with “maths numeracy”, he may be able to understand everyone else.

londonj

Cannot tell the difference between a porsche and a living breathing human child.

How can anyone can take Robert’s comment seriously? Laughable beyond words. We are well into a Con-Lib govt and trolls STILL saying ‘itsalllaboursfault’?
I suppose Hillsborough was the stadium architect’s fault for building the place to begin with?

i so feel for u and wish u well for the future my dear… the morons who speak to i like u dont matter are less than human.

I notice Pagar and Unity apparently couldn’t do anything besides unsubstantiated sniping at the factual accuracy of the article followed by silence (filled by this londonj character, who I assume is some kind of joke). The BBC segment above is actually pretty damn convincing, but apparently they don’t want to watch it.

That’s the important bit, though. They want to pay less tax, they want to smash “benefit dependency”, but they don’t want to watch what happens as a result.

That’s why these emotive examples are important. Keith is right that emotive examples may not be the soundest basis for policy, but they work. If it weren’t for carefully deployed emotive examples, the idea that the country was being destroyed by Labour politicians mollycoddling (mostly Somalian Muslim) benefit cheats to buy their votes would be laughed out of town. In reality, it’s an idea which probably played a major part in bringing the government down.

It’s past time we turned the tables on the right with those emotive examples.

@35 Jack C

Erm, gee, this is embarrassing. Please search for ‘maths literacy’.

Maths “numeracy”?

Intellectual pygmy.

LondonJ: If you crashed you Porsche, I’d happily piss in your mouth while you took your last breath. Not the same as paying for it but the best I can manage.

Oh,dear. “Numeracy” is about numbers, “Literacy” is about words. My cat knows that, and I don’t even have one.

Meanwhile, the accounting term for the amount we each have to pay to support families overtaken by a terrible event is “a statistical irrelevance”.

I don’t know, but I imagine the amount the authorities have wasted on mucking these people about is of more interest. Somewhere between “f-in’ how much?”, and “my old ma would be bleedin’ spinnin’” on the cabbie scale.

@ jungle

That’s why these emotive examples are important. Keith is right that emotive examples may not be the soundest basis for policy, but they work.

Brilliant stuff!!!

It does not matter that the example used is factually accurate.Indeed, it makes no difference whether or not it’s remotely true if it has emotive content capable of moving the argument in the direction I want, it is justified.

A starving child, an attractive woman in a wheelchair, a cute kitten with a bandage round its paw.

“It doesn’t matter whether this woman has had her benefits cut or not. They’re CAPABLE of being cut, aren’t they?

She’s too stressed to fill forms in properly which is the cause of her problems but let’s ignore that. We’ll jump on the anguish of her personal tragedy and make some political capital out of it.

Because we’re all agreed the Tories are bastards.”

That about it?

“She’s too stressed to fill forms in properly which is the cause of her problems ”

Lies.

The problem is that her husband is too incapacitated to attend a DWP interview or have the interview occur over the phone, thus will automatically have benefits stopped. Not that she can’t be bothered to fill in a form.

Prentending this is the victims fault for failing to do something as simple as filling in form is dishonest, but unfortuantly very typical of the approach you constantly take on many issues. It’s always the victims fault with you, isn’t it?

Lets hope it doesn’t take you 23 years to recognise that there is a problem here, and it isn’t with the victims.

@ Planeshift

From the OP

I am (as the child tax credits have been put on hold till I provide a particular piece of evidence) a mother of four under eights with no access to funds to feed my children…

Please understand I have every sympathy for this woman and the situation she finds herself in and she should be supported in fighting the benefit system bureaucracy to get what she needs for herself and her family.

My problem is with people using her as ammo.

@ 45 pagar

She’s chosen to use herself as ammo. Case studies are important, especially in a field where so many like to write off every victim as being lazy and greedy.

Now, if you disagreed with some policy suggestion made in this thread, and someone replied “Go say that to Manic Mum’s face!”, then I’d agree with you. That would be unreasonable.

From the OP:

“receiving a letter telling Alex he has a job interview on the 28th September which if he doesn’t attend could effect his benefit (Employment Support Allowance) is just more than ridiculous.

They tell me when I ring the job centre they’ll do it over the phone instead…??? Do they not get it? He is utterly and completely incapable of this”

Its clear there is fault with DWP here.

“as the child tax credits have been put on hold till I provide a particular piece of evidence”

Which isn’t the same as failing to fill out a form. I’m going to assume you haven’t dealt with the tax credits system before, but by evidence they could specifically refer to things as detailed as a bus reciept from 8 months ago (evidence of costs incurred travelling to work). If the person claiming has changed jobs/childcare providers then this is particularly bad, as they will want evidence of both before and after scenarios.

It is a system particularly bad at understanding the idea that people change jobs, or even worse – lose one job and do a couple of agency assignments between taking up a new longer term job – something not uncommon. Each time a change occurs, the person will have to declare it, and this could effect not just tax credits but housing benefit, council tax benefit and a whole host of other benefits. If there is a query, clerical error, or just somebody having a bad day at the office, then all payments could be suspended whilst the person has to provide evidence – which as noted could be as small as a bus ticket from 9 months ago. Saying you haven’t got it will automatically pass your file onto the fraud investigation team as well.

When you add other agencies like ATOS and factor in several agencies that are incompetant and deliberately set up to fail people, then you get situations of destitution.

Of course, you’ll get your payments backdated when you eventually win the appeal. But by then you will be in debt, probably several months in arreas with rent if you are lucky – evicted if you are not, and will have had your physical and mental health damaged to such an extent you probably would pass an atos test.

The tabloids have spent decades creating such insanity over benefits that most people don’t quite believe this is what happens. Thats why, despite report after report, and charity after charity warning about what happens, it still continues. Its why we need people prepared to tell their stories – which in a hostile climate many vulnerable people are still too afraid to do so – understandable given responses such as yours. And the best you can do is accuse people of using these stories as Ammo? As if that is the big problem here?! Get Real – people who speak out should be paised for doing so.

Stop defending the system and blaming the victim.

@ Planeshift

And the best you can do is accuse people of using these stories as Ammo?

This woman writes a blog post that clearly indicates the benefits system is fatally flawed in terms of delivering what it is supposed to.

Great.

Sunny sticks up excerpts from her post under a headline that completely misrepresents her position.

Unity points this out.

Jungle writes a post attacking those who tried to correct the headline and saying that the facts don’t matter, it was a good emotive story.

That’s got we got here.

Stop defending the system and blaming the victim.

I am honestly doing neither. I completely agree with you about the appalling DWP and their procedures and the victim’s case for help is unquestionable. The current system is not fit for purpose.

But I do object to the cynical manipulation of such stories by those trying to make party political capital from them. If Labour had not signed the Atos contract and had not left office without leaving adequate money for the welfare state to be sustained, I might feel differently.

@ 48 pagar

“Sunny sticks up excerpts from her post under a headline that completely misrepresents her position.”

You’re right that the headline is crap. But what Planeshift is criticising you for is the claim: “She’s too stressed to fill forms in properly which is the cause of her problems”. Whereas the story makes clear that this isn’t the case: instead, her husband is being required to do something he physically cannot do.

So what’s your basis for the claim?

@ Chaise

So what’s your basis for the claim?

“I am (as the child tax credits have been put on hold till I provide a particular piece of evidence) a mother of four under eights with no access to funds to feed my children…”

That’s what she said. She also complains about the bureaucratic nature of trying to get ESA, of course.

I think perhaps my “she’s too stressed to fill forms in properly” comment is being misunderstood here as some kind of criticism of the victim. That was not what I meant at all.

Of course she is overstressed- who wouldn’t be in her position. The failure is in the inflexibility of the benefits system to take account of it.

@ 50 pagar

““I am (as the child tax credits have been put on hold till I provide a particular piece of evidence) a mother of four under eights with no access to funds to feed my children…”

That’s what she said. She also complains about the bureaucratic nature of trying to get ESA, of course.”

Fair – I’d unwittingly conflated the two. But your “she’s too stressed to do it” interpretation, regardless of whether it’s intended to be judgemental, does seem to be conjecture.

@ Chaise

your “she’s too stressed to do it” interpretation, regardless of whether it’s intended to be judgemental, does seem to be conjecture.

From the OP

“my life, now nearly a year on becomes not easier, but ever more fearful and stressful…..my head spinning with where to go next…..I have to be everywhere, and have to be everything for everyone….amongst a myriad other chores…..all the grief that leaves me to deal with”

You can argue she is not stressed but I think there are some clues that she is. I agree it is conjecture that the stress may prevent her interacting competently with the DWP.

Pagar

Agreed – I’m not saying she isn’t stressed, I’m saying we don’t know that’s why her child benefits haven’t been sorted out.

I think londonj is another reason to move out of Londumb

It’s the Texas/other ass-backward American state of the UK.

”The local MP, John Howell, in Thame was not interested”

he is isn’t doing his job then is he