Government Thinks Work Provides Food Money - Wrong

WORK STILL MEANS HUNGER

The government maintains that welfare reform is to push people into work and so lift themselves out of poverty.

Yet half of poverty is within the working poor, with a legal minimum wage far below the living wage.

Half the benefits bill is the working poor, hit by the benefits cap and bedroom tax.

With only 3 per cent of the benefits bill on the unemployed.

The other half of the benefits bill are pensioners. and they too go hungry.

Inbetween, these are women reaching 60 since 2013 who lost state pension payout, who could have gained the food money and still remain in work.
Worse is to come from 2016 when many women will never get a state pension:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now

Half of women between 60 to 66 are within the working poor.

The majority reason women between 60 to 66 not in work is due to being disabled / chronic sick and those benefits being lost.

People over 60 are not listed within unemployment statistics.

FOOD BANKS ARE NOT ENOUGH

Families who are sanctioned off benefits cannot get a voucher for a food bank.

You have to be on benefits to get a food bank meal.

There is a rule that a claimant can get only 3 vouchers in a year.

WHY ARE FOOD BANKS NEEDED AT ALL IN 7TH RICHEST NATION ON EARTH?

Waiting for benefits for many weeks or even over a month, then told not getting benefit, is also a reason for hunger.

Why are those not receiving benefit by receipt of letter from DWP, not using this in lieu of vouchers to get food?

Many times, the government has been told that families have only a few pounds a week to feed a whole family of a couple and two or three kids or more, in many documentaries.

Now we have Dispatches tonight at 7.30pm - Dispatches Breadline Kids (repeated Thursday 3.10am) showing a mother with only £1.20 a day per person food money.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od#3712963

However, this documentary finally shows that 2 out of 3 of the kids going hungry are in families with one adult in work on low wages, zero hour working contract or low income self employment.

Doctors sent a letter through the Lancet medical journal of 1 May 2014, to government to inform people in work were going hungry and malnutrition cases had doubled over last 5 years. It has to be recalled that it takes about a month or more to be so malnourished to need medical care to prevent death from starvation.
http://medimoon.com/2014/05/170-public-health-experts-call-on-pm-to-take-action-on-nutrition-and-hunger/

FOOD POVERTY IS FOR ALL AGES TODAY

Some kids are going to free breakfast clubs run by churches, because there is no food in the house at all.

Why are schools not giving free meals to all children of the working poor, to end any chance of Rickets in kids in England?

Oxfam said that a third of those struggling for food money, were because benefits were delayed by not just days but weeks and months.

Children, families, disabled / chronic sick all ages, women not in receipt of state pension at 60 and yet half are within the working poor - all going to food banks, when this is not a daily, 7 day a week free cafe canteen as in Europe and America.

Pre-payment meters electric / gas are the most expensive by £110 more a year than those paying with direct debits. So the poorest pay the most, as usual.

So the poorest get food from food banks that then need electric / gas to be cooked, which costs money that then reduces the money for food.

And we send food to landfill that is still edible - blog how government subsidies throwing food away, rather than subsidising the charity that supplies food banks:
http://theswansnewparty.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/government-uses-taxpayers-money-to-deny.html

My Blogs on how all could be fed every day:
http://theswansnewparty.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-pages-on-hunger-in-uk-index-to-blogs.html

Need Help to Promote State Pension Petition to Change Ed Miliband?

MY PETITION AND OTHERS CRAWL ALONG BECAUSE LACK OF EXPOSURE

Only by posting comments or writing blogs on these kind of communities on Google Plus do I get the few signatures on my petition.
http://theswansnewparty.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/my-story-of-my-38-degrees-petition.html

Unlike Anne Keen, I cannot post as much because I am disabled and chronic sick, in an unheated home.

WHY THE PETITION DOES NOT GET HUGE AMOUNT OF SIGNATURES?

The Pension Bill effected 530,000 til end this year by denying state pension payout, when it can be paid whether retire or stay in your job.

Far worse is to come to even more women, with nil pension money altogether from 2016, with the Flat Rate Pension that is less not more pension.

Age UK did their petition, failed and will not help any other.

The Pensioners Convention believe the ring fenced National Insurance Fund has been emptied to pay off the national debt, when this cannot legally be done as the NI Fund is not a tax and so cannot be used for general expenditure.

The National Insurance Fund - the source of the state pension - has been full for decades, not needing a top up from tax.

This despite all the nonsence about an ageing society, when humans have aged for the million years of life.

It was Europe who emptied the pension funds of indebted nations to pay off sovereign debt.

The UK has no debt to Europe.

So we should not be obeying the EU Directive that raised the retirement age in all EU member states, because the state pension payout and law of statutory age of retirement should not together.

The government ignored the Council of Europe recently informing them that the level of benefits and state pension was below the level required by the Social Contract, under international treaty law with Europe.

France brought the state pension back to 60 and Europe said nothing.

WHY DOES NOT A LABOUR MP OR A GROUP OF LABOUR MPs NOT CAMPAIGN TO CHANGE POLICY FOR THE ELECTION MANIFESTO FOR 2015 GENERAL ELECTION?

Look at the banned TUSC video that never got an airing on any TV channel before the May 22 council elections, on my personal website's home page:
www.theswansnewparty.org.uk

A Chairperson of TUSC is an ex-Labour MP.

TUSC has been the only party that said the truth of the state pension, by their slogan:

The state pension is not some generous gift from government to be withdrawn at whim, but deferred wages from our youth.

I voted Labour all my life, as did my ancestors right back to the beginning.

I have no reason to vote Labour ever again at the moment.

You are missing millions of women voters by not putting in your manifesto this:

- Pass law to guarantee pension payout, as Labour did in 1975, revoked by the Tories in 1993 and not brought back by Blair/Brown.

- Pay back state pension payout to women turning 60 from 2013, whether in work or retired, with a tax free lump sum.

- Pay monthly state pension to women at 60, turning 60 in 2015 and all those from 2013 and 2014, onwards into the future.

- This ends the discrimination against women by government, who permitted women MPs, including Labour ones, to keep the pension payout at 60 from 2012, with the words 'protected from reforms'.

- Work towards equalising state pension for men turning 60 from 2015

- Revoke the Welfare Reform Act, Pension Bill and the Flat Rate Pension April 2016

- Fund the state pension to the poor who only realise now that working less than 14 hours a week in any individual job / earning less than £109 per week in each job, has meant they have no NI credits. Whereas those on benefit got their full NI credits paid by government.

- The loss of state pension to people with less than 10 years NI credits, means nil food money in old age. This will most likely hit those suffering benefit sanctions, loss or never gained who are disabled / chronic sick, and the majority reason women over 50-66 not in work is being disabled/chronic sick.

UK PENSIONS NOTHING TO DO WITH AUSTERITY

The state pension never had anything to do with the national debt, which is an entirely different thing to a deficit.

The UK has had deficits for 300 years with no problem at all.

National Debt has been caused more by welfare reform admin, because of the admissions to hospitals of those becoming sicker under the stress of constant re-assessment, suffering heart attacks, becoming more mentally ill, and the rise of cases of malnutrition needing hospital care.

It takes well over a month to begin to starve sufficient to need medical help.

The over 60s are not listed in the unemployment statistics, despite the raised retirement age making them liable for the bedroom tax, Workfare even when disabled / chronic sic and still liable for the massive rise in benefit sanctions.

Food Bank vouchers cannot be accessed by those suffering benefit sanctions or long delays, when after weeks or even a month or more told not getting any money.

As Labour Leader Ed Miliband only reads about England through American websites and American aides, perhaps it is about time he listened to the old, hungry, working poor.

Half of women are within the working poor, especially over 50s.

A goodly amount of them will have voted Labour all their lives. No more.

WILL A LABOUR MP TAKE UP THESE PETITIONS TO INFORM WOMEN AND CHANGE LABOUR?

So I am asking Labour direct, please?

Women are a lost voter base for the Tories.
http://theswansnewparty.blogspot.co.uk/p/male-politicians.html

Will you fight to change Labour to bring about the pension justice as in this blog please?

Starvation England By Design

NO-ONE ADMITS THAT WELFARE REFORM IS LEAVING PEOPLE TO STARVE

In Australia today, a nation not in recession and with great wealth, all socialism is being cut altogether, all state pension gone, as the government there does not want to pay for the state altogether, to help anyone.

Social medicine is on the way to being just for the rich again.

The Australian government is copying the Coalition and going much further.

This is the fate of the UK if Scotland does not go Free in September.

And the rest of the nation if we do not manage to split Labour into merging with the new socialist parties to make one viable party, and let the New Labour section like the two Eds to run as Tory candidates in the 2015 general election.

Why?

THE OVER 60s ARE NOT NOT LISTED IN UNEMPLOYMENT STATISTICS BY DWP

The raised retirement age means people aged 60 are liable for the bedroom tax, come under forced labour that is the slavery of Workfare, are losing benefits by never gaining them or sanctioned off food money, and even on Workfare when disabled / chronic sick and those benefits being lost as well.

The loss to The Wife of the state pension payout at 60 from 2013, when benefit sanctions are massively increasing, and half of women are within the working poor, means low income people are losing food and fuel money.

For no reason. Why?

Because the ring fenced National Insurance Fund has been full for decades, not needing a top up from tax, despite all the hype about the supposed demographic timebomb (as if we have not aged for the million years of human life)  which has had not one effect on the viability of the state pension fund.

The NI Fund is not a tax and so cannot be emptied to pay off the national debt nor used by government for general expenditure.

So not one penny in tax has been saved in not paying out the state pension, especially to women who lost more years since its lost payout from 2013, when the pension can be paid whilst you are still in work.

Worse is to come by 2016. See if you lose most or all of your state pension:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now

Women MPs, including Labour, kept pension payout at 60 from 2012 with the words 'protected from reforms'.

This when the half of women who work in the public sector are suffering two thirds of the job losses, with a significant amount being early retired in their 50s on small works pensions and even smaller savings, barely able to survive in the hope of getting state pension at 60. This threatens the over 60s with hunger.

GOVERNMENT DENY THEY ARE STARVING THE PEOPLE IN UK

Those sanctioned off benefits cannot access the mere 3 vouchers in a year to get food from food banks, because you need to be on benefits to get a voucher. Catch 22.

The cheap social supermarkets starting up are only for those on benefit and not those sanctioned off benefits or never gaining the benefit. They ignored me reminding them that those without benefit and no other source of income are even more likely to starve.

So if you are working poor, on zero hour contracts or unemployed at any age, losing benefit means no money to buy food.

WORKFARE'S ABSURDITIES

Because of the raised retirement age, those on benefit as deemed still of working age up to 66 are also within the Workfare system, even if disabled / chronic sick, despite not being listed in unemployment statistics beyond age 60.

Only 3 per cent of the benefits bill is the unemployed, so Workfare also includes the half of the benefits bill that is paid to the working poor. For example, a third of Londoners are within the working poor.

Those on benefit amongst the working poor (including half of women aged 60-66) are even forced onto Workfare, when working on too low an income part-time. 

So on benefit, lost the paying job, and having to fork out what money exactly to work 6 months for a charity? 

And losing disability benefit to stay in work at the same time.

By raised retirement age, a woman cannot get her bus pass to go on this jub without wages for half a year.

The firm cannot even give you a free lunch or a cup of tea as that is payment and therefore the firm must pay tax for your employment.

What is Labour saying to all this. Just that there will be a revised Workfare under Labour, forcing workers onto the minimum wage, so losing living wage jobs in the firm.

A minimum wage is not a living wage by law.

HOW STARVATION IS FORENSICALLY PROVED IN UK?

Doctors in England and Wales are telling government again and again that admissions to hospital for malnutrition are on the rise.

It takes at least a month to begin to starve to death, by lack of food. Dying of thirst takes much less time.

Relying on family members for food, even in work, means there is the scenario of the poor trying to feed the poor, with both liable to lose benefits that is food money, because of the high cost of living to those not even a quarter of the average wage down to nil.

As benefit can take not days but weeks to process, only to be told not eligible for benefits, after a lot of form filling, and with Jobcentres themselves referring claimants to food banks, then it is obvious that there is no food money for sanctioned claimants, of all ages.

This also means their children, who are more and more getting the hunger symptom of Rickets, whether parents out of work (only 3 per cent of benefits bill) or in work (half of benefits bill, with pensioners the other half, when those know they could have gained benefits, as not told what eligible for).

See my blogs on how UK could feed all every day, 7 days a week, with a free cooked meal and hot drink from council staffed canteens, leaving none to starve at all.

http://theswansnewparty.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-pages-on-hunger-in-uk-index-to-blogs.html

Government Uses Taxpayers Money To Deny Food to Starving

SO WHAT IS GOING ON?

The Coalition uses taxpayers' money to destroy 98 per cent of edible surplus food, with only 2 per cent of up to 400,000 tonnes of surplus food annually generated by the food industry, going to food banks.

This is a further waste of the green taxes that are half the energy bill we cannot afford and drive people down into fuel poverty, when there are so many other more affordable and self-funding means of self-generation of electricity and gas. 

http://theswansnewparty.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/how-nationalised-utilities-could-save.html

So this effects, amongst many of all ages, women denied state pension payout at 60 from 2013, when half of women are within the working poor and the majority reason women over 50 not in work is due to being disabled / chronic sick and those benefits being lost or never gained, as well as benefit sanctions regime in Jobcentres.

Even worse is to come from 2016, when many women, and a lot of men, lose food money forever in old age.

See if you lose most or all of your state pension

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now

Again today I met a lady born in 1963, who did not know that women's state pension had risen from 60 for over half a decade or more of life.

GOVERNMENT COULD NOT CARE LESS ABOUT FEEDING THE STARVING

Why is surplus edible food even within the green biogas electric generation power station system, called anaerobic digestor power generators?

Not one mention is made by the industry about feeding the hungry:

http://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Supply-Chain/Banning-food-waste-to-landfill-a-political-no-brainer

A nationalised energy from waste, would not even think of denying food to the starving.

Some nations in Europe have banned food waste from landfill altogether. 

Labour have said they would ban food waste from landfill, but makes no mention of saving the starving today from all the food not going to food banks. 

The hungry cannot wait til 2015. 

The government gives the current biogas 82 plants £29 million a year in subsidy (2013 figure), that consume 1.6million tonnes of food waste a year.

Another 213 plants have planning permission and are expected to consume around 3.3 million tonnes of food (Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association).

WHY ARE FOOD BANKS ONLY GETTING A TINY AMOUNT OF FOOD DONATIONS FOR THE STARVING?

The charity that supplies surplus food to food banks, Fareshare, informs us that government is spending millions of pounds subsidising the construction and operation of anaerobic digestion plants that convert up to 100,000 tonnes of edlible food a year into biogas, to generate electricity.

Fareshare supplies up to 1,300 charities and community projects, but gets only 5,000 tonnes of surplus food a year.

The government pays a subsidy to biogas industry worth up to £70 for each tonne of food received. 

Fareshare gets no government subsidy and so has to charge companies up to £80 for each tonne of food they donate to charities, so that the charity has the funding to store and distribute the food. 

Also the donor companies have to fork out up to £60 a tonne to deliver the food to Fareshare's depots.

THERE ARE MORE HUNGRY THAN JUST THOSE GOING TO FOOD BANKS

Actually the numbers are swelled by those on the borderlines of hunger, if the millions within the working poor, poor pensioners, and women denied state pension at 60 when so many were made early retired from half of women who work in public sector yet two thirds of jobs lost are to women, and those in work on zero hour contracts. 

Oxfam gave the figure of 13 million who struggle to make ends meet each day.

This is proved by more and more kids getting Rickets, that is a symptom of insufficient food. 

And I followed an elderly pensioner out of my local supermarket, who had but four of the cheapest basics food range that barely covered a couple of hand spans in the trolley. 

I am beginning to think of abandoning supermarkets and eating out in cheap cafes as a cheaper option - cooked food and no electric / gas heated water / washing up liquid used at home. 

WHY IS GOVERNMENT NOT PRIORITISING FEEDING THE STARVING POOR OF ALL AGES?

Source of this information is the newspaper you would least expect to care - The Times -whose readership are the richest in the land. 

And The Times Editorial is headed - 'Unsold Food Should Fuel People, Not Power Stations'. 

But the richest people remember human history. When the poor starve, it is never a good ending for the rich. Something politicians are immune from learning about. 

Roman Emperors gave free bread to all each morning, as he knew a hungry population is a dangerous one. 

In the Editorial, we are informed that in America, government gives tax breaks to supermarkets for giving food to charity. 

http://www.foodtodonate.com/Fdcmain/TaxBenefits.aspx

Fareshare had asked for government subsidy to them, to make a level playing field, but the government replied that 'it's not seen as a priority' and further said did not know how much of the food going to landfill could have been still edible and did 'not have any plans' to investigate the scale of the problem.

This, when up to seven million people are in food poverty. 

Europe, that creates so much starvation, actually feeds people every day, 7 days a week, with food banks that are actually kitchen canteens

http://www.eurofoodbank.eu/portail/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=27&Itemid=46&lang=en

WHERE ELSE COULD THE BIOGAS SOURCE FOOD WASTE TO ENERGY FUEL?

At the moment, rubbish collection is with private companies, if they were merged into all nationalised utilities, then the food waste from homes could be separately binned and collected directly by the digestor power stations. 

It is viable, as at the moment home food waste is about seven million tonnes a year. 

The digestors cannot do that now, because councils do not pick up organic household waste separately from other recycling, so now making waste collected unusable by the digestors industry when mixed all up with everything else. 

Examples in America (rubbish is called trash in USA) and Europe of compositing home food waste:

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/recyclings_final_frontier_the_composting_of_food_waste/2678/

WHY ARE SUPERMARKETS PAYING THE SUBSIDISED PRICE AT ALL OF SENDING WASTE TO BIOGAS PLANTS?

Supermarkets were in a race with each other to send zero waste to landfill.

No-one - neither supermarkets nor government - gave any thought of surplus food going to the people, made hungry by government policies more and more each year. 

With all charitable food banks declaring about 2 million requests to food banks between 2013 and this year so far. 

Would fuel poverty even exist for any, if all this food was cooked each day, 7 days a week, as they are in council canteens, who provide the meals free not only to the homeless and unemployed, but also to the working poor and poor pensioners?

MORE INFORMATION

See my blogs on how to feed all every day:

http://theswansnewparty.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-pages-on-hunger-in-uk-index-to-blogs.html

See my blog on how nationalised utilities would give joined up thinking and leave none to starve at all:

http://theswansnewparty.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/how-nationalised-utilities-could-save.html

Parties that offer nationalised utilities for joined up thinking are on my personal website homepage and other pages:

www.theswansnewparty.org.uk

Government and People Owned Nationalised Power and All Utilities

TODAY WE PAY CRIPPLING ENERGY BILLS MADE UP OF 50 PER CENT GREEN TAXES AND OVER-CHARGED BY EXCESS PROFIT 

We cannot afford the electric and gas bill.

Many people never turn on the central heating now, however cold the winter's day.

People become seriously ill or even die in frozen homes.

The fuel poverty suffered by so many as well as by half of women who are within the working poor in the UK, would be a thing of the past, bearing in mind these women include those turning 60 since 2013 who have lost food and fuel money with loss of state pension in the UK. And worse to come from 2016.

See if you lose most or all of your state pension:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now

Privatised power electric and gas companies, according to the regulator Ofgem, are making 10 per cent profit, which means profits have doubled in the past year.

Ofgem informs that energy companies' profits are rising because the price of wholesale gas has fallen 35 per cent and are at their lowest since 2010.

The wholesale gas price makes up half of an energy bill.

The increase in profit margins was a serious concern of the Chairman of the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group to government.

Some power companies never passed on the savings, when the government slashed the cost of green tax levies in December 2013.

HOW NATIONALISED UTILITIES COULD HAVE MADE FUEL POVERTY HISTORY?

Local councils in England are beginning to see the light in generating power for their buildings and nearby residents' homes.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/04/councils-generate-own-power-big-six-energy-fuel-poverty

In that article was this:

..."it is worth remembering that in the early-to mid-20th century the profit motive related to energy was anathema. 

Almost 370 municipal electricity schemes supplied relatively cheap power to the urban population, using surpluses for investment rather than dividends to shareholders." ...

And later the words:

..."But if you plan this properly you can create local jobs, ...and reduce the energy bills – so everybody wins."...

And in the penultimate paragraph... "she used to pay the equivalent of £500 annually for oil for central heating. Now she pays half that amount. " ...

Landfill can be used to collect methane gas for a power station on site, to provide electricity to local homes.

http://www.greenenergyfutures.ca/episode/33-landfill-gas-how-old-garbage-can-generate-electricity

There is already such a power station in England that produces enough electricity for 36,000 local homes.

http://www.sita.co.uk/news-and-views/press-releases/sita-uk2019s-lancashire-landfill-gas-producing

HERE IS THE MOST RECENT OFF THE PEG TECHNOLOGY IDEA IN SELF-SUFFICIENT POWER GENERATION

This video shows USA inventors claiming to be able to make all roads and pavements (sidewalks in American) a means to generate more than enough electricity from solar than the USA needs.

Further ideas to harness the sun's power on roadways to power the street lights, is being researched in American universities.
http://www.clickgreen.org.uk/research/trends/121623-pavements-to-start-powering-streetlights-with-stored-solar-energy.html

There are lots of off the peg technologies that could make roads, homes, schools, hospitals, commercial and government buildings and towns self-sufficient in electricity generation.

HOW BUILDINGS CAN BECOME SELF-GENERATING IN ELECTRICITY?

The building sector is said to need about 40 per cent of world's energy.

Refitting current buildings, not just new buildings, could make buildings generate more power than they use.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/12/us-buildings-idUSBRE91B0VC20130212

The sewerage that comes from buildings can be used to generate electricity to make sewerage treatment works not only self-sufficient in power, but also generate power onto the National Grid.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/sewage-plant-will-supply-electricity-1550410.html

An American university is researching using a natural bug to not only process sewerage but to bring back polluted rivers and lakes from farm pollution into life. And to generate electricity to power the treatment works and power the National Grid.
http://engineering.stanford.edu/news/stanford-scientists-use-wired-microbes-generate-electricity-sewage

INSTEAD OF APD TAX - TAX BREAKS TO MAKE PLANES GREENER

Another use for nationalised landfill up in Scotland. Why not in England?

BRITISH AIRWAYS

"investing in the world's first facility to convert landfill waste into jet fuel

The innovative GreenSky London fuel facility will lay the foundations for us to reduce our carbon emissions significantly. The sustainable jet fuel produced each year will be enough to power our flights from London City Airport twice over"

NEW SOCIALIST PARTIES THAT OFFER NATIONALISED UTILITIES IN ENGLAND

Parties that offer nationalised water, electric, gas, landfill, energy from waste, sewerage, so that we can get non-profit making but self-funding and self powered, affordable power for all are on my personal website:

www.theswansnewparty.org.uk