Timetable for the next month of government induced horrors

[estellyn]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/mar/31/liberal-conservative-coalition-conservatives

[abc123def]

Very apt it happening on All fools day

[citizenB]

 

Thousands lose access to legal aid

 

Branded by Labour a "day of shame" for the legal aid system, the cut off to

claim legal aid will be a household income of £32,000, and those earning between £14,000 and £32,000 will have to take a means test. Family law cases including divorce, child custody, immigration and employment cases will be badly affected.

 

During Labour's government, they permitted the following abuses of the Legal aid System.

 

 

Labour MP Valerie Vaz said while legal aid for others was being cut, a large sum had been given to a single person.

 

As of December 2012, Abu Qatada legal aid bill at £500,000

The legal aid bill for radical cleric Abu Qatada - whose

deportation to Jordan was blocked last month - stands at £515,778 and is rising.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20747647

 

It costs the taxpayer nearly £5million a year to monitor him.

He will be allowed out between 8am and 4pm and be monitored by the police and MI5 at a cost of £100,000 a week.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2231736/Abu-Qatada-Al-Qaeda-hate-preacher-WONT-deported-face-trial.html

He has never contributed to the UK economy, never paid a penny of tax; and yet he has cost at least £500,000 in benefits and other payments, and the bill is set to soar.

Boris Johnson speaking to the telegraph today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/9078351/On-top-of-everything-else-Abu-Qatada-costs-us-a-small-fortune.html

 

Edited April 1, 2013 by citizenB

[abc123def]

Will the changes to the legal aid eligibility end his eligibility for legal aid then?

[citizenB]

Another one

 

 

Abu Hamza was extradited October 2012 after eight-year-long legal battle

The hate preacher cost taxpayers nearly £680,000 in legal aid

Home Office spent almost £250,000 on lawyers in its efforts to get him out

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2229000/Abu-Hamzas-failed-bids-stay-UK-cost-1m.html

 

HOUSE AND BENEFITS

Recently renovated: Hamza's £600,000 five-bedroom council house in

Shepherd's Bush, West London

 

The radical preacher’s family has enjoyed huge benefit payments worth

£650-a-week over the past decade, including a £600,000 five-bedroom council

house in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, for his wife and their seven children.

 

The property, in the same street as one once owned by ex-Cabinet

minister John Hutton, was given a £25,000 makeover by the council, including an

£8,500 bathroom, a £13,500 kitchen, a new heating system and a complete

redecoration. A plumber working on the house was told not to look at Hamza’s

wife after she complained that he had seen her without her

burka.

 

The family were allowed to keep the State hand-outs after Hamza was

convicted in 2006 because all of the children were born in

Britain.

 

The Taxpayers’Alliance estimates Hamza has cost Britain at least

£2.75 million in welfare payments, council housing and legal costs.

Unknown to the authorities, Hamza bought a house for £220,000 cash in

Greenford, West London, while in prison as a buy-to-let investment. It was later

seized and sold for £280,000 to help fund part of his mammoth legal aid

bill.

 

THE HEALTH SERVICE

 

The cleric has cost the taxpayer tens of thousands of poundsin healthcare since returning from Afghanistan in the mid-1990s

missing two arms and one eye.

 

He claims he suffered the injuries while working on aproject to clear land mines.

 

Shortly after his conviction in 2006, he required a £10,000operation on the NHS on his arm stumps. Doctors told prison staff that

he was in constant pain and should be treated as quickly as possible.

 

He also used his alleged ill-health to delay the legal proceedings against him.

 

A hearing at the Old Bailey was cancelled after Hamzaclaimed putting on shoes would hurt his feet.

He insisted his toenails had grown too long for conventional shoes, forcing the hearing to be rescheduled at a cost of £10,000.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208644/Abu-Hamza-The-cost-allowing-hate-preacher-treat-Britain-contempt-long.html

[citizenB]

Will the changes to the legal aid eligibility end his eligibility for legal aid then?

 

Hmm, now wouldnt that be interesting !

[sadone]

I'd treat the above examples with suspicion as imo this government are just using such unique cases to deny people access to justice.

 

Remmeber folks this government relys on spin doctoring to push through these 'reforms'. To help drive a wedge between various sections of the poulation.

 

Always try and look beyond the headlines and think to yourself how is this regime really benefiting by doing this?

 

'Conquer by division' and all that.

Edited April 1, 2013 by sadone

[joeski]

EPIC FAIL!!!

 

give it a few months before it all falls apart also i think MP's expenses should be axed instead of all these cuts and pathetic predictable tory 'bedroom tax'.

[osdset]

Hamza is one of a handful of bizarre cases where clever but misguided lawyers have manipulated various loopholes, personally I would advocate the use of what our American cousins amusingly call the 50 cent option.

 

Lets not be blinded (sorry bad pun) about what the radical reform of legal aid means to the rest of us, as Sadone has rightfully illustrated above, it's denial of justice.

[postggj]

it is a constitutional right to have access to justice

 

this policy on legal aid is denying people access to justice and will be prejudicial in either a criminal or civil court.

 

LIP will be going up against qualified advocates, how can that be fair.

 

i can see judges using judicial interpretation and allow lack of knowledge, but judges cannot be seen to take sides

[ashmk]

Bedroom tax is a good idea along with the 50p tax rate being scrapped.

[osdset]

Scrapping the 50p rate is only a good idea if it's replaced with a 99p one, tax the rich into poverty, and if they don't like it they can feck off abroad.

[Nystagmite]

Why is bedroom tax a good idea? it's not peoples faults that there's nothing smaller / they need an adapted house.

[postggj]

The question that needs to be asked is why their is no alternative to the bedroom tax

 

why are their no smaller properties to down size to before implementation of this obscenity.

 

people are not being given a choice

[sadone]

Benefit cuts: how the language of welfare poisoned our social security:

 

Successive governments prepared the ground for these savage cuts by importing the terminology of dependency from the US

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/01/language-welfare-social-security?CMP=twt_gu

[osdset]

The question that needs to be asked is why their is no alternative to the bedroom tax

 

why are their no smaller properties to down size to before implementation of this obscenity.

 

people are not being given a choice

 

Because the Tories under Thatcher sold them all off.

[postggj]

but how can a statutory requirement be implemented with no alternative given

[Nystagmite]

I think the bedroom tax should only apply to those who are offered somewhere smaller and refuse it without good reason.

[osdset]

None of this will go any way toward moving people away from benefit dependency and into work, it's 1st class Bullsh1t. If anything these cuts will increase dependency.

 

Not content with inflicting the likes of Freud, IDS, Shapps, and Osborne on the hapless public we now have the new disability Czar Esther McVey, whose previous occupation as a GMTV presenter eminently qualifies her to advise the government on disabled issues. Honestly you could not make it up.

[Lilly_Monroe]

None of this will go any way toward moving people away from benefit dependency and into work, it's 1st class Bullsh1t. If anything these cuts will increase dependency.

 

Not content with inflicting the likes of Freud, IDS, Shapps, and Osborne on the hapless public we now have the new disability Czar Esther McVey, whose previous occupation as a GMTV presenter eminently qualifies her to advise the government on disabled issues. Honestly you could not make it up.

 

It cannot move them into jobs that are not there.

It is all a waste of time, and money at the moment - what jobs are all these people meant to take up (even if they could)!

 

All this rubbish about being in the WRAG group and doing on line courses, getting back into the way of work - what work?

People with degrees cannot find a job never mind silly online study courses.

The whole thing is like a Monty Python sketch - only not funny.

[ashmk]

Why is bedroom tax a good idea? it's not peoples faults that there's nothing smaller / they need an adapted house.

 

But there will be smaller places once the people that need bigger move out.

[ashmk]

Scrapping the 50p rate is only a good idea if it's replaced with a 99p one, tax the rich into poverty, and if they don't like it they can feck off abroad.

 

 

Well that just goes to show how little you actually know about this subject.

[postggj]

i came across this o the radio i believe

 

this bedroom tax will effect 5000 people in Newcastle

 

the current one bedroom properties available to rent, 50

 

freedom of information requests on councils state that for every 20 people forced to move because of this bedroom tax, one 1 bedroom property will be available to down size

[ashmk]

Out of the 5000 I'm sure there are some that could get a mortgage and buy their own place, another lot could move out of Newcastle, some more could private rent and a huge chunk of them will just pay the £14 a week and be done with it. Can't afford the £14 a week? Well some will cut down on things like Sky TV, drinking, smoking that costs a fortune, buying the cheaper brand of food the list is almost endless on how to get over this.

 

People can and will adapt. This time next year nobody will care. It will all be forgotten and there will be something new to moan about.

[sadone]

Yeah, I sure they will. *rolls eyes*