Liz Truss and Benefits

I’m sure she would give lip service and forced empathy to people with disabilities but platitudes don’t pay the bills. As far as benefit security is concerned at this time they’ve released rumours of cutting the benefits possibly in order to test public opinion. If that happens it will result in them losing the next election so I’m not sure they’d want to risk that. However there seems to be a new government living in fantasy land at the moment, a fools paradise and a definite lack of nous at the top so anything is possible. 

Im hoping that Truss will be swayed by a majority of conservatives during this conference who do have the sense to know that her approach is foolhardy. We shall soon see in the coming few days. 

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Tory chairman suggests people 'can either cut their consumption or they can get a higher salary' when bills arrive

In my opinion she just wants to make a name for herself be it good or bad 

She certainly has everyone talking about her and will go down in history which is what she wants 

She is part of the far right of the Tory party. She must be mystified that cuts in taxes have been so badly received, after all Boris was criticised for them being so high. 

Personally I have always found that the right love to play with the politics of division. Demonising some sectors of society while holding others up on pedestals. The concept is easy enough to understand, the poor are to blame because they are lazy, and the state has made it easy for them to find it comfortable to live at this level, whilst the rich are hard working, create wealth etc. So the solution is simple, cut benefits and services to the poor and reward the rich by taxing them less.

One reason that the above works so well is it also feeds into peoples personal prejudices. Individuals would rarely identify themselves in a demonised group, or construct an argument as to why the story line does not apply to them. It also feeds into the prejudices for other groups. For example, you can demonise migrants and asylum seekers, this will then feed into racial prejudices, and crimes against this group rise. However this rarely happens in isolation, so crimes against other groups, disabled, LGBT etc. also increases.

Why it didn't work this time is down to a number of issues. The conservatives breached the so called red wall, and with the return to right wing politics a lot of MPs are justifiably concerned. For me though one of the more interesting reasons for the change was an unexpected side affects of the pandemic.

As a community we have a lot of vulnerable residents, so over the years a lot of work was done by the board and staff to have contingency plans in place to support residents if they needed it. Much of this was based around extreme weather, though plans were designed to be flexible. As we provided housing services and rent collection we already knew who were vulnerable and who might struggle. So when the first lock down came we were prepared to offer what help we could.

What had never been factored in was that there would be a time when there would be a huge shift in the ways we work. So suddenly we had some very successful young people with time on their hands who wanted to help. This lead to some very interesting conversations as they began to realise how close to the edge some of their neighbours were and questions about what we had been doing to support them. The point is that a lot of people who may not be rich, but were certainly comfortable began interacting with their neighbours and finding the truth for themselves. Since the not so mini budget I have also received comments as to why they are getting help with things like electricity when they don't need it.

So when Suella Braverman tried to revive the 'benefit street culture' argument there were a lot more people who recognised it as propaganda.

Personally I believe that while she may not be the PM by the time of the next election a part of me would like to see her hang on as long as possible so we finally get rid of this nasty party. Boris Johnson managed to lose most of the goodwill of back benchers and this latest farce has done nothing to restore it. I am hoping that they will not just tow the party line, but actively hold this government to account and if necessary vote against the government when they need to.