Budget 2015

[cloudsinvenice]

Well, today was the Budget. I've been very lucky today; the changes they're making don't shaft me, though they do a hell of a lot of other people. I've got friends who aren't sure yet how they're going to be affected - we're still trying to clarify, for example, whether contribution-based ESA will behave in the same way as regular ESA under the changes, or whether it'll be eliminated as has previously been discussed. I talked to a lot of friends today and people are variously bemused, scared, despairing - and that's just the disabled people I know.

Maintenance grants for low-income students are being abolished and replaced with loans (because students aren't in enough debt, apparently). And while the Chancellor huffed and puffed a lot about how great the Tories are and how much they value the institutions of the BBC and the NHS, when you read below the lines, they are notably undermining them and still working towards their privatisation. The National Living Wage, meanwhile, is a joke - it'll be lower than the existing minimum wage. Correction: very much to my surprise and pleasure, this is wrong: it will in fact be higher, which just shows the need not to report stuff without checking. Details of this, and further fact-checking of the Budget claims, can be found here: https://fullfact.org/factcheck/economy/budget_summer_2015_osborne_harman-46357

It's not all bad news - Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) mounted a courageous action in which they completely blocked Westminster Bridge and the front of Parliament, ensuring that George Osborne had to be taken to deliver his speech via an underground route. I don't know how well covered this been in the mainstream media, but I urge you to share the YouTube videos wherever you can online - it is so, so psychologically important that people, both disabled and able-bodied, see resistance; that they see ordinary people like them occupying public spaces and communicating our message. Chunkymark, the Artist Taxi Driver, has various bits of footage of DPAC: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGThM-ZZBba1Zl9rU-XeR-A

Something I've been thinking about for the last couple of years is the fact that we're living through history, but history is often recorded in a biased way. We have to make sure that this doesn't happen - yes, we have to fight austerity and prejudice now, but we also need to look to posterity and record our experiences and observations in every way possible. I'm not just talking about the internet - if you've spent long enough online, then you've seen a lot of websites come and go. What I'm saying is, don't leave our cultural repository of these events to any one ephemeral medium or platform. Get the message out every way you can.

Please note that this is a public post. I welcome your comments but wanted to highlight this because I know this affects some of you in very personal ways and I wanted you to be aware in case you are sharing personal details.

Comments

[gairid]

I am pleased to hear you won't be affected by the uts--always want my friends to not have to go without specific needs that you might have because of money, but it's still bad when others are suffering.

These sorts of cutbacks are happening all over the world, some places worse than others, but it all boils down to one thing, and that's somebody (or many of them) somewhere is making money off your 'belt tightening' 'Austerity' or whatever other stupid label the politicos love to toss about as though everyone is going through the same thing. I had no idea that there was talk about privatizing the BBC & the NHS---from the bitter experiences here, regarding the prison systems and privitization, all I can see is that it's just money and nothing else and that makes it a bad idea for the people who are at the bottom of the pile. I'll read your links and watch the vids and pass them along.

What a world.

[cloudsinvenice]

Yeah. :/

They already privatised public transport a long time ago (and well, you'll hear plenty of complaints about how that's turned out), and Royal Mail more recently. The NHS is actually in the process of privatisation; ditto various other services - supporters of Cambridge Library recently won a victory against having its 4th floor privatised. ETA: Pardon me; it was the 3rd floor, and here are some details: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/don-t-privatise-the-third-floor-of-cambridge-central-library

I read a really great article about austerity as a choice (rather than an inevitability), comparing how different countries have handled the same decision, just after the general election: http://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion

(Also, here's a really interesting take on the vintage trend and austerity - it's the first thing I've seen that manages to critique our incongruous nostalgia without throwing the anti-consumerist, green and environmental angles under the bus: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/30/ditch-nostalgia-television-politics-austerity-bake-off )

And yeah, what I've heard about privatisation in the prison system in America is absolutely horrifying.

[ayebydan]

Agree agree agree but there are aspects I agree with in the budget. I have to say I'm big on the 'two kid cut off' thing. Sex education is huge in the UK (tbf...could be suspect in NI?) and all sorts of protection is made available even before the person is an adult by law. It may be a tiny % of the budget but the fact is tax payers are paying for other people's children and I'm not ok with that. I think of it as two kids is basically replacing yourself. Beyond that and you are going beyond that and I don't see why I should support that. If you have more then take responsibility and save and put them in hand me downs and deal. This idea that kids need to be in all new clothes all the time is bullshit. There is a serious issue happening. Yes, accidents happen but education would stop that. Or...you ....deal with it. There has to be some sort of control or where does it end.

And I am all for the 20k benefit cut off. Because ffs that is more than most people earn working full time. Benefits should never outstrip wages in my opinion when it comes to that sort of number.

[cloudsinvenice]

This is a multifaceted issue, so my apologies if I'm a little all over the place - my mental image of my argument looks like a spidergram and I'm doing my best to render it in a more linear fashion!

I think that ultimately, the 'paying for other people's children' argument rests on an atomised vision of society (with each household a unit competing with every other) that I don't share, but which it would suit the Conservatives for us all to adopt, as it plays into their strategy of pitting various "us" and "them" groups against one another: old vs. young, sick vs. well, families (defined traditionally) against adults without children, British-born vs. people of foreign birth or descent, etc. etc.

I'm happy that my taxes go towards other people's children. I'm highly conscious that one day, those children will be my doctors, staff my nursing home, maintain my internet, make my art and sweep my streets. They'll also vote on policy that affects me and everyone else, and I fervently hope that they build a political system that treats us all with more humanity and understanding than this budget will treat them.

I'm not sure how not wanting to pay for anyone else's kids is that different from not wanting to pay for anyone else's other life circumstances like illness and disability (and there are plenty of people who will happily argue that many illnesses are the result of a 'bad lifestyle' or 'bad choices'). I'm also not sure, whether or not we regard having children as a simple yes/no choice unaffected by the multiplying factors of poverty, isolation, abuse, cultural stigma and violence, how it's acceptable to enact policy that will punish those children for the fact that their parents had them in the first place.

I would not want to be a family with three or more children who fell on hard times, as many have, and now find themselves penalised for circumstances that did not pertain when they had the children and which they could not necessarily have predicted. And do you honestly think that most people don't already "put them in hand me downs and deal"?

As to the idea that we should have children at a 1:1 radio to replace us - how does that actually work? Can my son be said to have replaced me if he kills himself at 17? If my daughter (like many people the length and breadth of the island of Ireland) emigrates to Australia or wherever (and would she then be regarded as replacing one of their population or ours) because she can't find work here? Aren't the four kids another couple have just balancing it out if my partner and I don't have kids? (And childlessness is on the rise, to the extent that there is actually concern about it with regard to our ageing population, the idea being that there won't be enough working-age people to support us when we're elderly.) In a wider sense, what does it mean to replace ourselves? Viewed in the context of society, people are more than just biological machines. (On a worldwide scale, if anything, the issue is overpopulation, but as with the budget, people generally want to see the poorest people have fewer children, not the richest - despite the fact that the richest consume the most resources. But that's a whole other argument.)

Sex education in Northern Ireland is... lacking... and there is a frequently (remind me to tell you my experiences some time) a high level of cultural stigma surrounding it and contraception: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/better-sex-education-in-northern-ireland-is-vital-says-health-charity-30586883.html Basically, you have to think of it as the little corner of the UK where the 1950s have persisted, complete with attitudes to sex, gender, orientation, race and religion.

And it's almost impossible to access abortion here, including in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality (a change in the law re: the latter only has been recommended, but we are not there yet. Nor are we allowed to have abortions on the NHS if we travel to other parts of the UK. So if contraception fails (and boy, can it fail), we have to pay for a private abortion, plus travel and accommodation. The law does not treat us as human beings; it treats us as incubators: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/06/how-long-can-northern-ireland-s-draconian-abortion-laws-survive

And of course, when you have that third child you couldn't afford in the first place, and desperately wanted to abort, you'd better hope your benefits (and remember, tax credits are included in the term "benefits"; that's a huge part of all this) don't get cut.

As for the idea that benefits shouldn't outstrip wages, I'm curious as to why the answer to that is that benefits should be lower rather than "wages should be higher". After all, the difficulty of holding things together while being covered for emergencies (like unemployment or illness) is very much about the difficulty of making enough money, getting enough hours, getting another job if you lose the one you've got, etc. etc.

The Tories, of course, would much prefer to address these issues at the 'ordinary person' level than the 'corporate behemoth' level: hence the benefits cap.

[mrbumblepants]

Regarding posterity - it's so important! people are probably always gonna have to fight for their rights, and they need models to look at for inspiration.

[cloudsinvenice]

I've actually found Milk very inspiring as to how powerful a grassroots movement can become, and I've been asking around to find out what films I can watch re: the history of the disability rights struggle, but no luck yet!