Humiliating Tory Defeat in Parliament Over the Reviled and Unjust Bedroom Tax

On Friday, there was some rare good news regarding the British government’s assault on the unemployed, as a Private Member’s Bill aimed at mitigating the worst effects of the hated “bedroom tax” passed a crucial vote in the House of Commons.

Ever since the wretched Tory-led coalition government seized power in May 2010, the very foundations of the modern British state have been under attack. The brain-dead grandchildren of Margaret Thatcher, the modern-day Tories — and their Lib Dem facilitators — have launched a comprehensive assault on the welfare state, under the guise of an artificial “age of austerity,” lying and playing on people’s least savoury instincts to paint the unemployed as shirkers and scroungers, despite the fact that there is only one job available for every five unemployed people, and also to portray the disabled as being fit for work, when that is not the case, as well as imposing caps on and cuts to benefits, driving people out of their homes.

For my articles covering these policies, see here, here and here.

This shameful sleight of hand, which has failed to deliver any savings, also ignores how much of the benefits bill goes not to the unemployed but to the working poor, and, most disgracefully, how by far the biggest part of the welfare bill is for pensions — an area that governments, and particularly Tories, don’t want to touch, as old people vote, in significant numbers, and everyone in politics seems happy that the general movement of money is from the young to the old. Read the rest of this entry »

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Andy Worthington

Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker. Also, photo-journalist (The State of London), and singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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