A good mixture of links this week in this, my 100th blog post. We start with the floods, and a reminder from George Monbiot that ‘cutting red tape’ can have unintended consequences:
How we ended up paying farmers to flood our homes
The Scottish Independence Referendum has been in the news this week and the debate is hotting up. Alex Salmond wants to keep the pound, but the three main UK parties have all (rightly) said no. Salmond has accused them of trying to scare people into voting no, but here’s why, for an independent Scotland, keeping the pound would be a very bad idea:
Scotland under Sterling is not truly independent
News now of the conviction of 4 A4e staff who claimed money fraudulently on one of A4e’s welfare to work contracts. This is what happens when ‘performance by results’ comes up against the reality of not enough jobs – cheating:
Guilty: The four A4e staff who fiddled the books helping lone parents get back to work
Another story on the bedroom tax now, and news that landlords are beginning to actually help tenants to appeal:
Bedroom tax is appealing: cc all social landlords
This is a nice post looking at what it’s actually like to be out of work and being required to sign on at the job centre. Not nice:
More #JSA stories from jobcentres: “It’s impossible. You’re trapped.”
Related to this, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Jobcentre Plus is no longer concerned with finding people jobs, focusing much of it’s attention instead on simply finding grounds to kick people off JSA. There are stories of staff there being disciplined for not sanctioning enough claimants, and over 800,000 people were sanctioned last year. The number of appeals is high though and over half of these are successful. Now it looks like DWP want to address this not by making better decisions, but by limiting the ability of people to appeal. Are they losing their grip?:
People stripped of benefits could be charged for challenging decision
Bankster news now and another reminder that the increasing power of the banks is incompatible with either democracy or the public good:
Predator Banks Enter Brave New World of Epic Scams and Public Hasn’t Got a Clue
Finally, we end with more ‘disappointing Labour news’, as it’s revealed their flagship policy to help the long term unemployed will only be funded for one year. I have a number of issues with this policy idea, but at least it would put back on the map the idea that governments can (and should) get involved in job creation. It seems though this is another big policy that’s in the end just more PR:
alittleecon 
Reblogged this on HUMAN RIGHTS & THE SIEGE OF BRITAIN POLITICAL JOURNAL.