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.