David Cameron & Nick Clegg stand firm on welfare reform (incapacity benefits), & caps on housing benefits -currently costing U.K. £20bn a year

"Do you really think it's wrong for people who can't afford to live privately in those areas that the state should subsidise people to the tune of more than £21,000? I don't think so."

-Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in the Commons on Thursday

But first... let's go back a few days in time to see how we got to this point.


David Cameron is challenged by Labour leader Ed Miliband in the Commons over the government's plans to limit housing benefit

The Guardian
David Cameron refuses to back down over housing benefit cap
Prime minister tells Commons he is sticking by controversial policy as Labour steps up campaign against cuts and lobbies Lib Dems for support
Hélène Mulholland, political reporter
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 October 2010 17.00 BST

David Cameron today dismissed speculation that the government would climb down over its cap on housing benefit, despite claims that the policy could drive 200,000 poorer people out of major cities.

The prime minister made clear his determination to stand firm on the controversial proposals at prime minister's questions.

His comments came as Labour stepped up its campaign against the decision to cut housing benefit for people who have been out of work for 12 months and lobbied Liberal Democrat MPs concerned by the plans.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/27/government-committed-to-housing-benefit-cap

Video is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/video/2010/oct/27/pmqs-david-cameron-ed-miliband-video
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The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/oct/28/corrections-clarifications
Corrections and clarifications column editor
The Guardian, Thursday 28 October 2010

In a story yesterday headed Three-quarters of incapacity benefit claimants are fit to work, says DWP, the headline and opening paragraph over-compressed findings issued by the Department for Work and Pensions. And while a departmental statement made some mention of incapacity benefit, the figures at issue concerned the successor scheme – employment and support allowance (ESA), which has been in force for new claimants since October 2008. To clarify the figures: the 75% of ESA claimants characterised as fit to work actually included, as the second paragraph of our story said, people who closed their claim before medical assessments were complete. The full breakdown of how new claims were assessed between October 2008 and February 2010 was: claimants fit for work, 39%; claims closed before assessment complete, 36%; claimants unable to work now but with help could work in the foreseeable future, 15%; those unable to work now and needing long-term unconditional support, 6%; cases still being assessed, 3%. Parenthetically, a further outcome appears elsewhere in the official report from which the figures came, Employment and Support Allowance: Work Capability Assessment, October 2010. Its section on appeals notes that of people found fit for work after making a claim for ESA between October 2008 and August 2009, 33% have had an appeal heard to date; of these, the original fit-to-work decision was "confirmed for 60%"; by implication 40% of fitness rulings were not upheld (27 October, page 12).
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The above was a corrective to this otherwise excellent article which demonstrates that the Conservative and LibDem Coalition of David Cameron and Nick Clegg are not going to give-up on what they said they would do to put Great Britain on a sounder, fairer footing for the future, namely, increased public accountability, and for the Conservatives in particular, to fundamentally restructure the economy.

One of those goals was an end to the subsidization of certain social living arrangements in the country, wherein some people in London have gained at the expen$e of other Britons, leading to London mayor Boris Johnson's ridiculous remarks comparing this policy to the ethnic cleansing that took place in Kosovo, which he is now claiming was taken out of context.
To be exact, Johnson said "Kosovo-style social cleansing of London."

Oh, like a comparison of Serbia's policy of ethnic killing/rapes to anything in Britain is ever appropriate in some context?

See: http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/display/playlistref/281010/clipid/281010_HOUSING_28 and http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/28/boris-johnson-kosovo-style-cleansing-housing-benefit

British taxpayers pay around £20bn a year for housing benefits, which is why many of my British friends who live outside the metropolitan areas, are forever going-on about Local Housing Allowances and how many of their former Labour-turned-Conservative friends finally saw the light for forthright reform, regardless of the agitprop from the predictable quarters, once they had a family of their own.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/housing-benefit



Video of Housing Minister Grant Shapps on housing benefit row
http://www.channel4.com/news/boris-johnson-under-fire-for-housing-benefit-comments


The Guardian
Three-quarters of incapacity benefit claimants are fit to work, says DWP
Government seeks to demonstrate momentum as Clegg rejects accusation of social 'cleansing'
Allegra Stratton, political correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 October 2010 21.22 BST

Three-quarters of the incapacity benefit claimants reassessed recently are able to work, the government claimed today as it sought to demonstrate momentum in the drive to reform the welfare system.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures showed that 78% of the 842,100 people reassessed were either fit for work or had closed their claim before medical assessments were complete.

The government is pushing ahead with the programme of reassessing those on the old-style incapacity benefit. It plans to cut back the wider benefit bill by £18bn.

The issue of caps to housing benefit, meanwhile, flared up in the Commons today.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/26/incapacity-benefit-claimants-work-dwp
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27 October 2010 Last updated at 10:54 ET
Housing benefit cuts: Who loses out?
By Ross Hawkins Political correspondent
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11637928

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A different but well-argued point of view on the incapacity benefit was offered up by Guardian reader Melissa Viney back in July:

Draconian incapacity benefit tests are failing the sick
Inaccurate medical assessment and an inflexible benefit system are putting the most vulnerable at greatest risk
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 July 2010 13.30 BST

A disturbing sleight of hand within the revised benefits system has been performed on the electorate and particularly on the sick and disabled. It goes like this: Labour replaced the previous incapacity benefit (IB) with the new employment support allowance (ESA) in 2008 and introduced a fiendishly hard new medical test, followed by members of the government applauding their success in identifying record numbers of incapacity benefits claimants who are fit for work.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/29/incapacity-benefit-failing

The reader comments are spot-on, too, so be sure to read them. Here's a small taste, from the Viney essay: That's fine and well, but one of a number of reasons the benefit regulations are getting toughened is due to the culture of certain doctors simply signing off irritating benefit claimants. I've spoken to more than a few people who despite suffering from depression were perfectly happy to bite my head off and chat with me for a while and spend a great deal of their weekend enjoying their social lives. It was only when work was inevitably mentioned that their depression seemed to emerge.

Or as some of my friends would say, "Stop milking the bloody system!"

Or as one reader wrote, in part, at The Telegraph in response to story number one:
I welcome the housing benefits reform. Why should those of us livng and paying tax throughout the rest of the country be forced to pay for benefits scroungers and/or immigrants to live in Central London?

A similar comment by another reader was equally to the point:
If you want a house in a nice area then I’m afraid you’re going to have to work for it. And, I hate to break it to you, even then you might not be able to. Most people (myself included) working 40 hours per week can’t afford to live in a posh area so why should non-workers get to do it at taxpayers expense?

The Viney essay above is an example of exactly the sort of thing the Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel should've instituted years ago in order to remain relevant to public discourse in South Florida, where they are now afterthoughts -offering articulate readers the space to sound off on matters they know about, rather than the Usual Suspects.

Instead, despite new and original voices percolating out there and technology making it easier than ever to find them, the Herald and Sun-Sentinel have among the worst Op-Ed pages in the nation.
They're dreadful and often even painful!

The Herald consistently wastes space running dreadfully dull and predictable Mary Sanchez pieces from the K.C. Star, so often which are either myopic pro-amnesty or "victim" pieces.
If I see her name, I turn the page, since I've read it before -many times.
From her!


See also:

Guardian Politics Weekly podcast: Housing benefit and the 'Highland clearance' of London
Will the coalition adhere to its plans to cut housing benefit - potentially displacing hundreds of thousands of poorer people?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/audio/2010/oct/28/housing-benefit-nickclegg?intcmp=239

http://www.channel4.com/news
http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/

BBC's U.K. Politics homepage http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/

David is STILL a great name for a British Prime Minister. Make it a reality today.

Forty-six million eligible to vote today from 7 a.m. -10 p.m. with first results expected around Midnight.
Until the polls close, British radio is only allowed to speak about the election in terms of turnout and what the weather is like in any particular constituency.
No silly media voter polls outside the real polls, perhaps the single worst predictor of anything, as John Kerry supporters foolishly assumed they'd won in 2004 because they led in those polls.

Surprise, George W. Bush voters had no compelling interest in talking to pollsters on their way out of the building so those results were skewed while the real ones were not.

As I write this, I'm listening to BBC Radio 1's The Chris Moyles Show and they're talking about what they're allowed to say and do on-air today and what they'll do after they leave the studio, with one of the crew saying that he's going to go home, wake up at 11 p.m., turn on the TV and eat a pizza that he ordered yesterday.

They seem genuinely surprised that you can pre-order a pizza and a fabulous reference was made to that great scene in Back to the Future where Marty McFly gets a FedEx delivery out in the middle of nowhere sent by Doc Brown years before.

C-SPAN's election "coverage will include a simulcast of the BBC Election Results starting at 4:55pm ET on C‑SPAN3, comprehensive analysis of the returns from key constituencies, and interviews with leading politicians."
See more at: http://www.c-span.org/Series/Prime-Minister-Questions.aspx

Earlier, you at 7 p.m. you can watch the one-hour BBC World News America newscast on BBC America.
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A country is at its best when the bonds between people are strong and when the sense of national purpose is clear. Today the challenges facing Britain are immense. Our economy is overwhelmed by debt, our social fabric is frayed and our political system has betrayed the people. But these problems can be overcome if we pull together and work together.

If we remember that we are all in this together. Some politicians say: ‘give us your vote and we will sort out all your problems’. We say: real change comes not from government alone. Real change comes when the people are inspired and mobilised, when millions of us are fired up to play a part in the nation’s future.

Yes this is ambitious. Yes it is optimistic. But in the end all the Acts of Parliament, all the new measures, all the new policy initiatives, are just politicians’ words without you and your involvement.

How will we deal with the debt crisis unless we understand that we are all in this together? How will we raise responsible children unless every adult plays their part? How will we revitalise communities unless people stop asking ‘who will fix this?’ and start asking ‘what can I do?’ Britain will change for the better when we all elect to take part, to take responsibility – if we all come together. Collective strength will overpower our problems.

Only together can we can get rid of this government and, eventually, its debt. Only together can we get the economy moving. Only together can we protect the NHS. Improve our schools. Mend our broken society. Together we can even make politics and politicians work better. And if we can do that, we can do anything.

Yes, together we can do anything. So my invitation today is this: join us, to form a new kind of government for Britain.

David Cameron: The Big Society

Community Relations

Getting Britain working; strengthening families; reforming schools; controlling immigration; tackling racism and challenging extremism all will play a part in uniting our divided society.

A Conservative Government will end the politics of us and them and put integration at the heart of our policies.

Sayeeda Warsi, Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action

http://blog.conservatives.com/index.php/2010/05/05/one-day-to-change-our-country/

http://www.conservatives.com/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4rS26Bbz2o


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwywQTJZDZk

The Conservative Manifesto 2010:
http://media.conservatives.s3.amazonaws.com/manifesto/cpmanifesto2010_lowres.pdf

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Times of London

May 1, 2010

Vote of Confidence

The Conservatives offer an optimistic vision for the renewal of Britain. The electorate has made a call for change and they deserve the chance to answer it

The Times has not endorsed the Conservative Party at a general election for 18 years. For far too much of that time, the Conservative Party turned inward and vacated the ground on which British electoral victory is won — a commitment to the prosperity and liberty fostered in a free-market economy and a sense of justice in an open and tolerant society. Tony Blair’s Labour Party took up the promise of modernity, through its commitment to enterprise and the courage to stand tall in the world. Sadly, over the past 13 years that promise has faded. We all know that Britain can do better: it is surely time to regain our optimism.

This election offers a fundamental choice about the future of this country. It offers a moment to put old-fashioned tribal loyalties, class prejudices and social habits aside. We must choose. Either we are to be a country that has lost confidence in the ingenuity and potential of its people, and concludes that the State must continue to grow to protect us from ourselves. Or we can be a country that cares for the needy but reins in the ever-growing appetite of government and frees up people to grow their businesses, nurture their families and pursue their own hopes and happiness.

At an acutely difficult moment in our history, The Times puts its faith in the people rather than the government. It chooses a strong society, more enterprise and a smaller State. It chooses real, radical change. It chooses renewal.

Perhaps the best advertisement of the Labour years can be glimpsed in a scene outside Belfast City Hall on a clear day in December 2005. There, to the backdrop of cheers and pleasure rather than the sound of guns, in a city whose industrial decline had been replaced by the prosperity that has come with modern technology, the first civil partnership was signed. Not everything that was promised and hoped in the roseate glow of 1997 came to pass but one would have to be hard of heart to say that Belfast — like Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds — is not a better place today than it was 13 years ago. Under Tony Blair, Britain also had a formidable presence on the world stage under a Prime Minister who backed the EU’s embrace of countries from the former Soviet bloc while also recognising the importance of the transatlantic alliance. In Kosovo, in Sierra Leone and in Afghanistan, Britain’s military capacity was mobilised in defence of a noble principle. The same applies to the Government’s decision to go to war in Iraq in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. And the Government also merits praise for its handling of the banking crisis, which, for an alarming moment in 2007, looked like it might threaten capitalism itself. Those who supported Labour — including this newspaper — can look back with some satisfaction.

But the costs have been too high. A Chancellor who had proclaimed an end to boom and bust embarked on a spending spree of remarkable improvidence. Public sector staff now earn £2,000 a year more on average than their private sector counterparts. Spending rose, over the Labour years, by an extraordinary 54 per cent. Productivity lagged behind. Gordon Brown savaged the private pensions industry and sold off the bulk of Britain’s gold reserves much too cheaply. In short, Labour squandered the boom. Even excluding the cost of the bank bailout, which was necessitated by the global credit crunch, Britain is now borrowing £163 billion a year. Mr Brown’s pitch at this election is that voters should not risk the recovery by backing the Conservatives. He does not seem to realise that the greatest threat is more of the same. Yes, the economy is in peril. Mr Brown is the danger.

Britain has also paid a high price in terms of trust in politics. What began as a professional spin operation in Downing Street became a machinery of deceit. Anonymous briefings by figures such as Damian McBride and Tom Watson, part of the cabal around Gordon Brown, dripped poison about opponents both inside the Labour Party and outside. The public stopped believing in official statistics as the Budget became plagued with double-counting, and the real cost of new schools and hospitals was kept off balance sheet. The 10p starting rate of tax was abolished purely to score a political point. The nadir of this style of politics was Mr Brown’s refusal to fund the mission in Afghanistan properly and his repeated denials that he had done so, culminating in a false claim before the Chilcot inquiry that defence spending had risen every year. After ten years in which he was found wanting in the top job, for the past three he has just been found wanting.

This campaign has been electrified by the rise of Nick Clegg. He seized the first television debate and became the overnight sensation of British politics. It was always likely that the electorate’s anger over greedy MPs and their sense of expenses entitlement would affect this election. But what a gloriously British revolution it turned out to be. Anger and dismay go on the march, and the Liberal Democrats do a bit better.

But the Liberal Democrat prospectus for power still reads like that of a party that has no expectation of victory. There is still something soft-headed about its pitch. Mr Clegg’s approach to the euro has in the past been misguided, but these days it is just muddled: he was for entering; now he is against entry; and he wants to leave open the possibility of entry in the future. He is prone to bouts of rank anti-business populism. Was it really necessary to weigh into the Kraft-Cadbury bid — to play the Whole Nut card — in the TV debate on the economy? Surely he cannot think all bankers are greedy? Worse, Mr Clegg’s approach to the biggest economic problem of the day, the deficit, is to duck it: he wants to hold a meeting. Abandoning the Trident nuclear missile system would be a mistake, parading fanciful figures for the cost savings is an error. Breaking up the banks would be counter-productive: the investment banks would become far more dangerous. If Mr Clegg understands this he is not admitting it. Mr Clegg has built a platform that might allow him to go back to his constituency and prepare to be the Opposition. He has yet, however, to build a serious platform to prepare for government.

That is something that David Cameron has been able to do. Today’s Conservative Party is a very different party to that which went to the country in 2005. Mr Cameron has led that change. It is now clear that the modern Conservative Party believes in the importance of reducing the burden on enterprise and entrepreneurship. Its priorities on education, social policy and the environment are those of a modern, innovative force in politics. Its young leadership has the energy, intelligence and integrity to govern.

More modernisation still would be welcome. The party’s desire to maintain the aid budget is a victory for political branding over good sense. Its policies on the National Health Service put a tactical desire to neutralise Labour attacks before the need for radical reform. The Conservatives also retain a worrying streak of pessimism about foreign policy. Mr Cameron’s decision to remove Conservative MEPs from an alliance with mainstream centre-right parties in the EU may have seemed principled to him, but it was also short-sighted. Britain must not shelter behind foreign policy realism to retreat to a Little Englander role in the world.

In 2005 the Conservatives put an illiberal approach to immigration at the centre of their campaign. In 2010 the voters have demanded that immigration be central and the Conservative response has been measured and intelligent. Mr Cameron has made his party think again about the condition of the nation. His bold vision of a “Big Society” — that there is such a thing as society, but it is not necessarily the State — is powerful. The idea that competition will raise standards in public services, using the State as a catalyst, is the right idea for the 21st century. It is the point where new Labour left off. Mr Cameron’s social liberalism has brought a more diverse set of candidates into his party. He has acted ruthlessly against racism and against MPs who abused their expenses.

None of this has been easy. It has been bought at the cost of some unpopularity with his backbenchers. All the more reason that Mr Cameron, and his chief lieutenants George Osborne, William Hague and Michael Gove, should be commended for their decisiveness and determination. These are qualities that this country now needs.

The central question of this general election is the economic future of the nation. The Conservative Party has shown the most consistent willingness to deal with the atrocious State of the public finances that this Government will bequeath. Under fire from Mr Brown, they have held to this unpopular line. Amid the sound and fury, a fundamental philosophical difference has emerged: the Conservatives want to reduce excessive public expenditure, the Labour Party wants to keep on ratcheting up benefits, tax credits and other forms of state spending. One party recognises the benefits of individual independence. The other keeps fostering a state of benefit dependency. In the race for growth with India, China and other rising countries, the Conservatives know that Britain’s entrepreneurial spirit needs to be unleashed.

The economy is broken and so is politics. It is time for a change, in both the philosophy and the style of government. It is time for us to believe in the power of the individual, the strength of society and the unique promise of this country. Labour is tired, defensive and ruinously reliant on higher government spending. David Cameron has shown the fortitude, judgment and character to lead this country back to a healthier, stronger future. It is time, once again, to vote Conservative.

Times 2010 election homepage: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/

Also, see this great story on CitizensUK:

The Citizens and the Candidates http://sites.google.com/site/mkdeanery/area-dean-2/area-dean-1/thecitizensandthecandidates

David is a great name for a British Prime Minister!; Repeat of U.K. debate on C-SPAN at 9 p.m. Sunday

David is a great name for a British Prime Minister!
“We can’t go on like this.”

Above, David Cameron's Year for Change campaign poster,
January 2010.
See the May 2009 video about his series of in-person town hall
meetings -called Cameron Direct- which he held over the
past year at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/?bcpid=4464161001&bctid=22302847001
See also: http://www.conservatives.com/

David Cameron: The Big Society

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2uVYgAuO_c

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I watched the 90-minute British election debates in Bristol
on Sky News via Fox News Channel at 3 a.m. Friday
morning and due to lack of sleep,felt like I have a bad case
of jet-lag all day.

The debate will be repeated Sunday night on C-SPAN at
9 p.m. and I strongly urge you to watch it as it was everything
a genuine debate ought to be, which is to say, that some real
insight on public policy ended up being expressed, often in
very articulate ways, despite their campaign's best efforts
to have them talk in a fashion that we might better describe
as, well, American sound-bites-PLUS.

More than what we get here, but less-than-scholarly
banter.

I like David Cameron quite a bit as you probably know by

now from my blog and any conversations with me, and
generally thought he got the better of it by tweaking both
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg, the latter
of whom often sounded in the debate more like a popular
university prof trying to ingratiate himself to liberal activist
grad students to persuade them to help elect him to the city
council, than a person who wants to be the head of the British
government.

I actually think Clegg's somewhat breezy/extreme comments
actually made Cameron sound even better in the comparison,
and Brown's frequent spot-on put-downs of Clegg seemed
especially effective when he talked about the LibDem and
Clegg's longstanding streak of anti-Americanism.

To me, based on what's previously been said in the campaign,
that served to remind many British voters that however
imperfect Brown or Cameron may be, Clegg is still someone
who simply can't be trusted with power.

Many of the initial post-debate polls aired on the Sky News
post-debate program I watched have said as much.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7105405.ece

The best part to me was when all three discussed the issue
of immigration in a serious and thoughtful way that I believe
a majority of Americans would very much like to hear more
of by elected officials in Washington.

Sadly, debate that national Democrats, unions and special
interest groups -and locally, the Miami Herald- are at
great pains to keep sotto voce: the current system isn't
working for the country as a whole and only seems
to encourage illegal entry, corruption and crime.
And the country does NOT favor AMNESTY for illegal
aliens.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7105727.ece

As it happens, this question was asked by a woman who
appeared to be of Caribbean descent and who said that
she'd lived in England for about 13 years.

The audience questions from a group of self-selected people
from the Bristol area -SW England- were all of a much
higher caliber than you'd generally find over here.

See http://news.sky.com/skynews/ and watch the entire debate
here: http://video.news.sky.com/skynews/video?videoSourceID=2261437&flashURL=feeds/skynews/latest/flash/ACT-BB-TH-DEBATE-FULL-220410.flv

Latest polling information is here: Poll of polls: Tories edge ahead http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/vote_2010/poll+of+polls+tories+edge+ahead/3624387

Channel 4's Saturday night newscast, April 24, 2010:
A hung Parliament in store for Britain?
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid62744310001?bclid=79125446001&bctid=79965653001


http://www.channel4.com/news/


C-SPAN
Jon-Christopher Bua and Adam Boulton on
the second debate for Prime Minister candidates, 40 minutes.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/293157-6