Friday, 30 May 2014

Ed Miliband Sees England Through American Eyes

REAL CLEAR WORLD SITE HAS AMERICAN VIEWPOINT ABOUT THE WELFARE STATE

Labour Leader Ed Miliband's source of political news is through the American news site Real Clear World and not British newspapers or TV news. 


And in one Daily Telegraph article listed on the Real World site relied on for news by Labour Leader Ed Miliband, is the phrase:
..."There is also much fury at abuses of the welfare state" ...

The welfare state is believed by the right wing to include the state pension, when UK's state pension is funded directly by contributions to the full ring fenced National Insurance Fund, that has not needed a top up from tax for decades.

Despite all the hype about people living longer, this has had not one effect on the NI Fund, as the government cannot empty the state pension fund because it is not a tax, which is what is meant by ring fenced.

So there is no reason to raise the state pension payout age (nothing to do with law about mandatory retirement age) in the UK, as it has not saved one penny in tax and so has no place under Austerity.


There are no articles in the American news site Real Clear World, that Mr Miliband relies on for political news, that welfare reform is abolition of the welfare state in England and is causing starvation sufficient to be admitted to hospital or that the vulnerable are committing suicide or dying soon after being deemed fit for work. 

The bougeoisie view that the welfare state was being abused by 100 per cent of able bodied in and out of work and the disabled and chronic sick of whatever age, is throughout the political website that Ed Miliband relies on for news information.


LABOUR LEADER ED MILIBAND SAYS READS BRITISH NEWS ONLY THROUGH AMERICAN SOURCES


Through the original newsfeed of Buzzfeed, we learn that Labour Leader Ed Miliband does not read British newspapers or watch British news on television.

What Labour Leader Ed Miliband learns about England is through what his aides tell him, he informed us.

And Ed Miliband is also currently reading the left wing French economist Thomas Piketty, that is just about how much of a nation's wealth has been held by the rich, and not how many people starved in poverty by what a government policy does.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2642733/I-dont-read-British-news-Miliband-rejects-touch-claims-admits-hes-interested-US-politics-baseball-happening-UK.html

The Daily Mail aimed at Mr Miliband's aides with the article:
Revolt over Ed Miliband’s £20k bill to take an ‘army of aides’ on trip to Middle East

And so did The Sun with their allegation:
Ed aide has no work permit
Labour's US poll guru faces probe call
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/5405904/Miliband-aide-paid-by-Labour-is-working-without-a-permit.html

And again within The Daily Mail article:
Ed is losing England, says top aide

... "Mr Miliband studied politics at Oxford and then became a special adviser. 'It's not about whether you know the price of a pint of milk or whether you can eat a sandwich properly,' ... 'But it is about having some understanding of people's lives.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2639097/Ed-losing-England-says-aide-Labour-leader-make-emotional-case-voters.html

With a final comment to the article that said... "Oh how I wish it were England that is losing Ed. I'm sure his brother can find him a place near him in America." ...

MR MILIBAND'S VIEW OF WORLD HAS VERY LITTLE INFORMATION ABOUT ENGLAND

So a snapshot of the World page on Real World Politics news site, today, shows very few articles on England.

With few about Labour.

NOW WE KNOW WHERE LABOUR LEADER ED MILIBAND'S VIEW COMES FROM THAT COST OF LIVING ONLY EFFECTS THOSE IN WORK


So this is at odds to the rest of the buzzfeed article which informed:
..."Ed Miliband was in Nottingham last Tuesday when a man approached him to say that his part-time job at a petrol station wasn’t paying enough to take care of two children. This is an anecdote of the sort Miliband is always telling in his campaign to lower Britain’s cost of living, but what the man said next was “chilling.”

“He was really, really desperate because he felt couldn’t properly provide for his family,” Miliband recalls. “He was thinking of ending it all because he just couldn’t make ends meet."
And near the end of the article says:
... "In the course of a 45-minute interview, conducted in a packed standard class carriage, Miliband told BuzzFeed why he’s convinced that the cost of living crisis is still very real despite the economic recovery, why he eschews 24-hour TV news in favour of Thomas Piketty, and how he’s come to understand why decent people would vote UKIP." ...


What on earth do the 13 million in the UK who struggle to make ends meet each day, according to Oxfam, care about the so-called economic recovery.
As Gandhi observed, People's Politics Are Their Daily Bread.
Indeed, the banned TUSC party broadcast for the May 22 council elections would have been a revelation to all but Mr Miliband who does not watch the news here in England.
See the video on my pretend party (made to protect my petition from the coming gagging law) The Swans' home page
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Monday, 26 May 2014

How to Pay National Debt and Feed Everyone At Same Time?

AUSTERITY NEVER HAPPENED


With the constant massive waste of taxpayers' money by the billions on welfare reform aka end of the welfare state, Austerity has never happened.

Welfare reform has cost more by the billions, so there cannot be a national debt or else we would have gone the way of Greece long ago.

People over 60 are not listed in the unemployment statistics, yet are just as liable for the slavery of Workfare and benefit sanctions as all ages, even when equally disabled and/or chronic sick and losing those benefits as well.

Pensioner groups believe that the loss of payout of women's state pension at 60 and men at 65, is because the National Insurance Fund has been emptied to pay the national debt.

The full National Insurance Fund is ring fenced only for state pensions and has not needed a top up from tax for decades.

This despite all the hype of more people living to 100 than ever before. In fact, people living longer has had not one effect on the viability of the state pension at all.

The National Insurance Fund is not a tax, so government cannot empty the Fund, whjich is what is meant by the term 'ring fenced'.

If the Fund was empty, how come women MPs kept pension payout at 60 from 2012, when we, the public, lost the payout for 6 years from 2013.

Worse is to come from 2016, leaving many women, and a lot of men, with nil benefits and no state pension for food and fuel money forever.



NEW SOCIALIST PARTIES OFFER SOMETHING, BUT NEED TO OFFER MORE TO GET ELECTED

SY.RIZ.A won in Greece in the Euro Elections. 

Why the dots? 

Because SY.RIZ.A is a coalition of many socialist little parties into one big party, with an excellent speaker as their leader.

SY.RIZ.A is the official opposition in parliament in Greece.

The new socialist parties now would do better to begin a charm offensive to wean Labour and The Greens councillors to leave those parties and join the new socialist parties, as sitting councillors.

If a sitting Labour or Green MP can be turned to the real socialists even better.

The socialists might better call themselves the Anti Hunger Party and set up shop in empty shops on the high streets, many of which have been empty since the recession hit.

As Gandhi observed, People's Politics Are Their Daily Bread.



If all the new little socialist parties just merged all their manifestos and became just one party that by bulk sourcing fed those on benefit, sanctioned off benefit, poor pensioners and the working poor, then they might just turn current politicians to them?

HOW GET SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR THE POOR AND PAY OFF NATIONAL DEBT?

Might it be asked of the new socialist parties to all agree on offering when come to power in 2015, as a single merged party of you all:

1) Ending current welfare admin by benefits and sanctions. Saves tens of billions of pounds. For working poor, unemployed, pensioners, disabled or chronic sick. 

2) Shutting down that part of Department of Work and Pensions about benefits and shutting down all the Jobcentres. (Don't worry managers will easily find other work, and basic grade staff will be absorbed in other frontline services). 

3) Pay state pension at 60 to men and women, whether they stay in or retire from work. 

4) Back-date pension payout, as a tax free lump sum, to women who began their loss of state pension payout from 2013 (only 530,000 women til end 2014) at the current state pension rate. And to men from 65.

5) Pay the increased state pension back-linked to average wages from 2015 by monthly pension to new and current claimants, whether in work or retired, and whatever level of NI Fund contributions in life. 

6) Start as new claimants paying state pension to men at 60, from April 2015, whether retire or remain in work.

7) End all benefits sanctions regime, assessments, fit for work etc ad nauseum that cause starvation in adults and children. 

8) Pay a universal citizen wage to all adults from 18, in or out of work, not means tested so minimal admin, til 60.

9) End all green taxes on energy bills, so halving the bill and so ending fuel poverty.

10) End all subsidy on the private profit making nuclear power and all other forms of power generation. 

11) Nationalise all utilities and profit will then be called self-funding. 

12) Use off the peg technologies to make all big buildings, towns and even the roads self-generating in electricity, so massively cutting the cost of energy to people and business. 

13) Sewerage and water can also generate electricity. 

14) Nationalised landfill can generate electricity and make methane gas so no need for fracking. 

15) Energy from waste provides jobs and electricity to towns. 

16) Bring law on minimum wage to a living wage, requiring firms to cut management costs to make viable.

17) Make non-citizen migrant and citizen equal in living wage in law. 

18) End House of Lords, soon to grow to 2000 Peers on expenses, and sell the building for luxury serviced apartments (only if rented out, not left empty to fall derelict).

19) Bring all empty homes back into use with micro finance. Cap rents. Luxury homes bought and left to fall derelict in London, seized by the state for social housing. 

20) Rise 5 per cent the threshold before higher Income Tax rate to the squeezed middle.

21) Rise 5 per cent the Income Tax for those on highest Income Tax rate.

22) No zero corporation tax. 

23) No old peoples' homes charging as much as a 5 star hotel. The elderly looked after at home with rise in purple jobs - carers. 

24) End Council Tax and just share out tax to councils all become unitary councils, without all the multiple layers of councils. Cut councillor numbers to one per ward. 

Socialist parties with a lot of candidates in last council election 2014 were:

Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (only exists during elections)
http://www.tusc.org.uk/
TUSC gained 50,000 votes this council elections. Candidates and TUSC members, included union members: PCS (civil servants unions), RMT (railway union), National Union of Teachers, Fire Brigade union, Prison Officers union, UNITE and UNISON.

Left Unity Party
http://www.mancunianmatters.co.uk/content/230569098-ken-loach-supported-left-unity-poll-better-tories-wigan-council-ward-just-six

Mebyon Kernow of Cornwall

Book: Mebyon Kernow and Cornish Nationalism: A Concise History








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Friday, 23 May 2014

Banned Video of Real Socialists - Might have brought real hope to millions


NO BENEFITS, NO STATE PENSION

Yet to get any interest at all from any party, in payout of state pension at 60 for women lost since 2013, and kept by women MPs (including Labour and The Greens who both express total lack of interest in the topic) since 2012.

See if you lose most or all of your state pension from any current political party and law bills passed or due in 2016:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now

To clarify, there is no point in me belonging to any political party as I am too brassic, old, disabled, too ill now (more like rip van winkle syndrome in tiredness from illness) and no party offers me and 530,000 women like me since 2013, our women's state pension at 60.

More council election results about socialist parties on me personal website THE SWANS on May 22 and the truths said by TUSC, including being the only party who have ever said:
State pension is not a generous gift from government 
to be withdrawn at whim,
but deferred wages from our youth.
From a ring fenced National Insurance Fund full for decades, not needing a top up from tax, after people paid 12 per cent of their wage all their working lives in NI contributions, along with their boss paying their share.
www.theswansnewparty.org.uk

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Sunday, 4 May 2014

Who Are The Swans?

THE SWANS NEW PARTY - THE PARTY THAT NEVER WAS

During last and this year, the gagging law that ends petitions and charitable campaigns 12 months before an election (there is always some local or national election going on) was a piece of legislation coming into force at an unknown date.

It is believed now the gagging law will come into force in September 2014 (oddly just in time for the Scotland Independence Referendum on 18 September 2014).

What the gagging law means, is that petitions are deemed to be political, even if not done by a political party and just by people.

So I wrote up, as a piece of creative writing, a whole new political party and called it The Swans new party, as a protective 'shell' for my petition: http://theswansnewparty.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/my-story-of-my-38-degrees-petition.html

The Swans new party has no formal sign up with the Electoral Commission and no costs, as you do not need it if you are not going to field candidates for an election.

But The Swans new party also made it possible for me to have a Google Blog as well.


WHY A DIFFERENT PETITION TO PENSION BILL PETITIONS?

The website 38 Degrees (itself threatened by the gagging law from September) is a petition website, with 2.5 million members.

From blogs / forums came across and signed Anne Keen's petition to revoke the Pension Bill and give women their state pension at 60 and men at 65 now.

As the rise in retirement age effects me, taking my house bills money that now is being paid by fast disappearing little bit of savings, then reading up about pensions was of very great interest me.

I fast realised that revoking the Pension Bill was not enough, although it would have helped the 530,000 women who have lost payout of state pension at 60 from 2013 and to end 2014, like me.

Worse is to come to those women who are not 60 til after April 2016,

As well as women like me those not being paid their state pension from 2013 by the raised retirement age (and men not gaining their state pension at 65 now).

The Flat Rate Pension 2016 and other pension changes, directly effects men and women, meaning many will be left with no money in old age at all.

The Flat Rate Pension is not more pension, but less, even to the only 30 per cent who will get the flat rate of all retiring after April 2016.

The rise in retirement age means those who had been coming up to retirement were pushed past 2016 for state pension payout.

The Flat Rate Pension ends Pension Credit, SERPs and State Second Pension. This is a substantial cut, not a rise in state pension.

You can get your state pension payout without having to retire from work.

The retirement age rise put extra burden on your wages (12 per cent per year National Insurance as well as your 20 per cent tax band) as well as struggling firms in a recession, whilst losing women around £40,000 of state pension payout for 6 years, forever. So paying more, for less.

The raised retirement age saves no money to government at all, because it does not come from general taxation, but from the ring fenced National Insurance Fund that has been well funded for decades.

For many women and a lot of men, the Flat Rate Pension ends the state pension altogether.


WHAT ELSE IS IN MY PETITION TO SAVE PEOPLE FROM NO MONEY IN OLD AGE FOREVER?


Within my petition are many other things other than the Pension Bill and the Flat Rate Pension, important those bills are to ending state pension provision for many.

It includes the loss of women's state pension as housewives, widows or divorcees altogether meaning nil money, as also those with 10 years or less National Insurance credit history will get no state pension at all.

This means also means no Pension Credit or Winter Fuel Allowance either. Nor Cold Weather Payments as these women may not get benefit either.

Artist Beany Mac asked that this poster be shared as much as possible

AUSTERITY IS DONE BY LABOUR AND THE GREENS


This is what Austerity means.

England has 80 per cent of Austerity Cuts yet to come.

Even from Labour, as proved by Ed Balls, Shadow Chancellor, saying again and again that Labour will just continue Tory spending plans and be even harder on welfare reform than even the Tories, as all mainstream parties have lumped the state pension in with welfare.

Labour sacks Labour councillors if they vote against cuts budgets in a council.

The Greens did Austerity in the one council they rule, Brighton, a town with poor students, working poor and poor pensioners in its centre and in its suburbs.

The Greens are the green taxes that are half your energy bills and 60 per cent of your petrol bill.

As neither Labour and The Greens offer the old anything other than continuing hunger and freezing in our own homes, then looked about me to see other parties that could help all ages.

Because it is the over 60s who shop in town centres, and so the payout of state pension would have contributed to keeping young peoples' jobs in the high street, now more and more just ghost towns.

LABOUR AND THE GREENS JUST OFFER MORE HUNGER AND PEOPLE FREEZING FROM UNAFFORDABLE HEATING BILLS FOR HOMES


Labour and The Greens will just continue the meteoric rise in use of UK food banks, themselves a cruel irony of just 3 vouchers in a year, because elsewhere in the world local councils / charities canteens together offer 7 days a week a free cooked meal and hot drink to mostly the working poor and poor pensioners, as well as the far fewer minority of unemployed / homeless of all ages.

And the people going to food banks are not just the mere 3 per cent of the benefits bill that is the unemployed, sanctioned off food money altogether.

The majority of people going to food banks are those in work and poor pensioners, who themselves are within the working poor.

Half women aged 60-66 are within the working poor, losing benefits to top up flat-lined wages back down to levels of 2002 as to cost of living.

The majority of women aged 60-66 who are not in work is due to being disabled / chronic sick and those benefits being lost, just as the state pension was also removed. So what happens to you if accident or illness takes you out of even minimum wage work? 



SO WHAT IS MY SWANS NEW PARTY WEBSITE USED FOR NOW?

My website seeks socialism to win in 2015 general election, so that hunger ends in England.

And my website promotes a Yes Campaign for a Free Scotland, to also save the Scots, but especially the disabled, chronic sick and the elderly from austerity obsessed London.

Many things we take for granted today and being lost more and more each day now, are down entirely to socialism alone.

As today is May Day in England, here is a reminder on the gratitude we owe socialism and the different real socialist parties available to vote for on May 22, in my blog on what is socialism:


Not least, only socialism gave women the right to be human to the state, instead of having no rights other by permission of men and being sub-human in law.

We can see this prejudice of women still, in a male dominated government, by all the losses in tax and benefit changes that have hit women the most.

See my blog about How Women are Taxed More and Get Less:



Sorry UKIP is on my website but that again is strategic voting, as UKIP is taking Labour voters, which shows how lacking in socialism the Labour party is now. As no real socialist would vote UKIP instead. 

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Wednesday, 30 April 2014

How Your Trade Union Could Save Lives Now from May 22 and from 2015?

TORIES AND UKIP HAVE MORE CAMPAIGNING FUNDS


The Tories are on course to become debt free as a party for the first time in the party's history.

The Electoral Commission might be able to declare the Tory party debt-free by August.

In 2010, the Tories spent around £17 million on campaigning for the general election.

UKIP has some of the richest people in England as donors.


LABOUR DEEP IN DEBT

Gordon Brown's New Labour suffered defeat because Labour voters just folded up their arms and did not vote for any party in 2010.

In 2010, New Labour had spent £8 million on general election campaigning.

Now Labour has debts of around £12 million, according to the Electoral Commission, by end 2013.

Labour is in the process of losing the automatic signing-up of millions of union members to the Labour party.

UNITE union (biggest contributor to Labour) will cut its donation to Labour to around £1.5 million by affiliating just 500,000 members of its 1 million members, and review the number annually.

Why does not UNITE take all of its members' affiliations now from Labour?

The GMB union has already cut funding by £1 million to Labour.

Why does GMB not take all affiliations now?

Labour's massive debts makes them dependent on union cash.


HOW TRADE UNIONS COULD SAVE LIVES FROM MAY 22, AS WELL AS FROM 2015?


Labour's ageing voters are conservative on welfare and immigration, and more likely to be within the squeezed middle, so that is why Labour is the party losing votes to UKIP, not the Tories.

Labour does not represent the working class today at all, who actually are made up of:




This working class is at least 13 million who struggle to make ends meet each day.

Why are trade unions not putting forward a billboard poster campaign to give brand awareness to a party with trade union in the party name and union members within it?

Trade Unionist and Socialist Against Cuts
(links on my personal website's home page: www.theswansnewparty.org.uk


And other parties with a socialist agenda for the working class, that offer such things as rising wages of council frontline staff by cutting management pay:


For 2015 general election there is also the Left Unity Party, who had their first national conference end March 2014. 

Links on my website on my Pension Swans page: www.theswansnewparty.org.uk

ASK YOUR TRADE UNION TODAY TO TAKE AWAY AFFILIATION FROM LABOUR


So why are you, as a union member, not asking your trade union to disaffiliate your membership from Labour?

Ask your trade union why they they are not paying for more billboard posters and newspaper advertising for such socialist parties as the above?

Below are some of the reasons why Labour is bad for you.

LABOUR IS NOT THE PARTY OF THE WORKING CLASS


Labour began welfare reform, brought in Atos that pays no corporation tax, invented the Bedroom Tax, will continue Tory spending plans and be even harder on welfare reform than the Tories in 2015, and will continue Workfare.

Labour agreed with the welfare cap, driving people out of homes in London and so losing best opportunity for work.

New Labour brought in the sanctions regime and replaced unemployment benefits with the Jobseekers Allowance, where the Jobcentres refer sanctioned claimants now to food banks.

Labour has never once said about leaving people with no money for food by sanctioned benefits to young families / old / disabled/sick / young homeless.

In a nation where food banks only feed you 3 times in a year.

Whilst everywhere else in the developed world, the poor are fed every day in local government / charity canteens giving a free cooked meal and hot drink.

The economic recovery is mostly just happening down in London.

UK is a leader in low pay, with a legal minimum wage nowhere near a living wage and way down the league of the developed world as a percentage of the average UK wage of £31,000 per year.

Low pay has flat-lined down to the levels of 2002 and before.

The economic recovery is being driven by insecure money from low income self-employment, zero hour contracts, part time casual of the working class today (people below half of average wage around £31,000 per year) and so hitting hardest:

  • less-qualified, 
  • young people, 
  • women and 
  • ethnic minorities.


Half of people in poverty are those in work.

Labour has again and again sacked Labour party members, who as councillors have voted against council funding cuts to frontline services.

HOW LABOUR MPs COULD BECOME SOCIALIST TODAY?


If Labour MPs actually cared about the working class, then sitting Labour MPs would convert immediately to the socialist parties offering the wellbeing of millions of people today and running on those party tickets for 2015 general election.

And Labour MPs would support the socialist candidates running for councillor posts in May 22 elections of such as TUSC.

Will they?




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Sunday, 27 April 2014

Why Labour, Lib Dems and Greens Just Carbon Copy Tories?

CURRENT PARTIES ARE THE SAME PARTY TODAY

Tories, Labour, Lib Dem and Greens parties agree with the rise in the retirement age in a recession.

This does not help the nation's economy but puts financial burden on struggling firms in paying National Insurance and into works pensions for years longer, whilst the payout to staff is reduced by many years.

You do not need to retire to gain payout of state pension.

Worse is to come with the Flat Rate Pension, that is not more pension, but less, and for many, especially women, no money in old age altogether. 

This Bill also ends the housewife's pension, Pension Credit, SERPs, State Second Pension, and a small pension at 80 and nothing for widows.


WHY ALL CURRENT PARTIES AGREE AS IF ONE PARTY?


We forget that back in the 1980s, senior members of the Labour Party split from Labour and joined the Liberals, to form the Lib Dems that replaced the Liberal party.

So inside the Coalition government today with the Tories, is a part of the Labour party within the Lib Dems.

Just learned that Lib Dems not worth putting a cross on your ballot paper, as just lost a local election again, with only getting 67 crosses. So please do not waste your cross, make it count.

The Tories and Liberals a 100 years ago, agreed together to begin the Workhouse and bring in the New Poor Law that killed 5 million working people in the 19th century, being as the inmates were treated as harshly they were in prison, including walking the dreaded treadmill that if you stopped, broke your foot, without mercy for great age past 70.

In 1930s Labour had forced worker camps, only closing them and destroying the paperwork about them when Hitler opened them in Germany for ethnic German forced labour.

This is the history of the present Workfare, forcing any age, and including the disabled and chronic sick, to work for profit making companies for no wages, and with taxpayers paying profit making firms to take on this unpaid labour.

The Greens, like all other parties, agree with Austerity, and enacted it in the one council, The Greens rule, Brighton, within its town boundaries mostly students, working poor and low income pensioners. The Greens are part of the cause of fuel poverty as half the energy bill is energy tax. Around 30,000 elderly die in unaffordable unheated homes each winter.


WHO IS OUT THERE FOR MAY 22 ELECTIONS - COUNCIL AND EUROPEAN ELECTIONS?


There are other parties to choose on your ballot paper on May 22 for some local council and all UK for European Elections.

Check you are eligible to elect someone by checking up to deadline of May 6. Link on my home page as below link at foot of this section.

These alternative parties are the ones who really care about the working poor and low income pensioner that are 97 per cent of the benefits bill, yet go hungry with less than £20 a week left after bills for food, so causing kids suffering Rickets from lack of sufficient food.

The rise in employment mostly being in London, still people getting below a living wage because:


  • part time / casual, suffering cut housing benefit by welfare cap or because cannot increase hours from part time to full time,

  • zero hour contracts, something like 1 million workers, and

  • low income self employed.


The 3 per cent unemployed, including disabled / chronic sick losing disability / sick benefit:

  • with disabled / chronic sick forced onto dole money for just 6 to 12 months then nothing, 
  • where the chronic sick and disabled will stay, now that companies since April 6th 2014, no longer get reimbursed for long term sickness absence (more than 4 weeks).



Resources:

Austerity: History of a Dangerous Idea - Best priced book

 Click to get this great little book on what is really happening today to disabled / chronic sick, kids, adults, elderly:
Strong Word and Hard Times

 Make your own VOODOO DOLL - DESIGN YOUR OWN
Slip picture of politician on face and destress with 10 pins where you choose.

 Cheap app  - pretend this is a politician although about bully bosses:
Beat the Boss 3


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National Insurance Means State Pension is Funded

NO NATIONAL INSURANCE CREDITS - NO MONEY IN OLD AGE


You pay National Insurance when you are in work. 

Your NI contributions are paid by your boss and by you. 

It costs (2013-14) £700 a year to buy back NI credits, but does not give you a right to benefit if you fall out of work, as only class 3 stamp so only towards your state pension (rising from current 30 to 35 years NI contribution for those retiring after 2016). 

If you do not claim benefit or contribute through your job into NI credits, for two tax years, you cannot claim contribution based benefit again in your lifetime.

Each job is kept separate for NI credit history, unlike your tax affairs. 

Add on the reality of rules now meaning less than 10 years NI credits, no state pension, and there is the perfect storm for older workers now over 45, with no money in old age at all.

Those on benefit - unemployed or disabled related - get NI credits free (actually they are paying all the stealth taxes at a 90 per cent taxation rate, but that is rarely mentioned by those with anti-welfare rhetoric).

TORIES PLAN EARNINGS TAX 

If the Tory change happens of an 'Earnings Tax', then the unemployed and disabled will get no NI credits and, just like the Flat Rate Pension from 2016, will mean the final death knell of the welfare state. Leaving people, as before 1945, with no money at all.

Even the Roman Emperors knew well enough to feed people every day, with free bread each morning. Peasants have throughout history been the engines of change. 

Many people have only now woken up to the fact that jobs of less than 14 hours per week / earning less than £109 per week (2013-14) have not been paying NI from their employer and from themselves. So no rights to benefit if fall out of work and no state pension. 

As the rise in employment is insecure low income self employment, part-time casual work, zero hour contracts and a legal minimum wage below a living wage, and that mainly in London, when the government is cutting housing benefit to workers unable to move from part-time to full-time jobs, then the loss of state pension to the wife at 60 is not helpful at all. 


NATIONAL INSURANCE FUNDS STATE PENSIONS

A lot of right wing newspapers (especially articles published in the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail), and even chartered accountants, have a belief that benefit and state pensions come from current Income Tax payers in work.

Bearing in mind only 26p in the pound comes from Income Tax to government.

And 75 per cent of personal taxation is gained by government, from all the stealth taxes that people all pay, in or out of work and however long we live. 

Examples:
  • Insurance premium tax, 
  • alcohol and cigarettes, 
  • VAT even on food in supermarkets or from vending machines - 
  • examples: your meal on aircraft, ship, train 
  • and such as yoghurt, desserts, crisps, savoury snacks, 
  • hot food take-aways, ice cream, soft drinks, 
  • confectionary, soft drinks and mineral water.
  • VAT standard rated for meals for hospital staff and visitors, but not the patients. 
  • Noticed Kindle books charge VAT whereas print books do not. 
  • 20 per cent VAT on getting a builder for housing renovation and repair work. 


NATIONAL INSURANCE IS NOT A TAX

National Insurance is not a tax, but a contribution at 12 per cent of your wage within your 20 per cent Income tax band.

By not being a tax, the NI contributions are not available for general expenditure by the government. 

If government borrow from the NI fund's surplus, the loan is limited in its use and charged an interest fee. 

NATIONAL INSURANCE AND PUBLIC SECTOR WORKS PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS ARE RING FENCED


The NI fund (according to Steve Webb MP, Minister for Pensions) is ring fenced.

The confusion may arise from state pensions and public sector works pensions being thought of together.

But even with public sector works pensions, they are a contribution based works pension and not all paid from general taxation to council or national government pensioners. 

Many council pensions are well funded, so less liability to the taxpayer.

Despite what media tell you, the average male council pension is £4000 a year and for women £2,800, as bulk of employees are low waged frontline staff. 

Only politicians' works pensions has one of the biggest burdens on current taxpayers, in contributions and payout.

The NI Fund is kept in surplus and there has been no requirement to top up from general taxation for decades.

The NI Fund is kept at surplus to have at least 'cash in hand' equivalent of eight weeks expenditure.

AS NATIONAL INSURANCE FUNDS STATE PENSION NO EFFECT BY SCOTLAND'S INDEPENDENCE ON ENGLAND OR SCOTLAND PENSIONERS


This is shown by the Department of Works and Pensions recently confirming that if Scotland becomes independent after 18 September Referendum in Scotland, this has no effect on future and current state pension payout.

Whether a Free Scotland will payout state pensions at 60 to women and men remains to be seen?

UK STATE PENSION AMONGST LOWEST IN DEVELOPED WORLD


The UK state pension is one of the lowest in the developed world, on a par at fourth to the bottom, alongside Mexico, out of 42 countries, when looked at as a percentage of average wages (in UK around £26,000-£31,000).

The UK is in breach of international treaty law under the Social Charter, informs the Council of Europe and the state pension should be £138 per week, and this sum is under review as investigation does not factor in welfare reform and the bedroom tax. The Coalition government has ignored this and kept the state pension at its low rate, and from 2016 many new claimants will get loss not more. 

In Scotland, the Free Scotland Yes Campaign say they will invest oil revenue as they do in Norway in a sovereign oil wealth fund, from which protected annual income from the investments Norway funds its state pension. The UK never invested their oil revenue, but just spent it.

So Scotland will have its own share of the ring fenced NI fund. 

Source: 
Scotland's Yes Campaign and subsequent comments by other finance boffins, in reply to Gordon Brown's speech at Glasgow University trying to scare Scottish voters into thinking they will lose their state pension if vote Yes on 18 September for a Free Scotland.

The same Gordon Brown as prime minister who ruined the works final salary pension for by taxing the pension providers. 

Today, the Coalition want to tax private pension providers, taking around £35 billion from the investments. 



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