Starbucks coffee truck hits town

Starbucks coffee truck

Costa and Starbucks blitz a town with their rubbish coffee and factory cakes. Several coffee shops will be opened. Planning permission? Who needs planning permission? Just open up, then intimidate to remain open. Not wanted? Who the heck cares, we will steamroller our way into town. Taxes? Why bother paying taxes.

Tax dodging Starbucks have taken this to whole new level. Turn with a huge truck, park up outside an indie coffee shop, then give out free coffee. When you have put the little guy out of business, then move on and park up outside the next indie coffee shop.

Indie coffee shops can compete with Starbucks and Costa, on a level playing field, serve quality coffee and cakes and undercut them on price.

The Starbucks coffee truck is yet one more reason to boycott Starbucks.

• No to Costa in Southwold

Flashmob oficina paro (Carne Cruda 2.0)

Flashmob en Madrid (España) organizado por el programa de radio Carne Cruda 2.0

Austerity is not working, the euro is not working.

In UK, the ConDem government has used the deficit as an excuse to continue its slash and burn of public services, welfare benefits are to be cut.

An example of the cuts mean-spirited Wandsworth has tried to send in the bulldozers to destroy Battersea Park Adventure Park, but so far stopped by parents and children occupying the site.

Society is judged by how it treats its children.

Serious problems with gang culture, young lives being destroyed, and yet Wandsworh wants to send in the bulldozers to destroy an adventure playground where kids feel safe, that keeps them off the streets.

But across Europe, austerity measures are destroying society.

In Greece, people are eating out of bins, suicide rates are soaring.

In Spain, unemployment is running at 25%, youth unemployment at 50%.

Carne Cruda 2.0, a radio station, decided to run a flashmob in a Job Centre, to Here Comes the Sun.

• Som Sabadell

Battersea Park Adventure Playground facing closure

Battersea Park Playground occupied

Battersea Park Playground no to cuts

Today, just 1 in 5 children regularly play outside in their neighbourhood. The rest are denied the chance to get out of the house and have the everyday adventures that – to people of my generation – are what childhood is all about. — David Cameron

Battersea Park Adventure Playground what a wonderful place for kids to play, a safe place for kids to play, you can see the joy on their faces.

It beggars belief that mean-spirited Wandsworth Council wishes to shut it down. I dare say if there was a playground run for profit by McDonald’s, Wandsworth would support it, the planners would push it through.

We are facing an epidemic of childhood obesity. Anything that encourages children to be active should be welcome. Were these kids not in the adventure playground, they would either be cooped up in high-rise flats or on the street with street gangs, robbing and doing drugs.

They are being fed decent food at the adventure playground. A pleasant change from McDonald’s, where too many parents abuse their kids.

Shame on Wandsworth for trying to shut down Battersea Park Adventure Playground.

Monday of this week Wandsworth were due to send in the bulldozers. The Adventure Playground has now been occupied by local parents and kids to prevent its destruction. Wandsworth Council is threatening the occupiers with legal action for occupying their own park.

It makes a mockery of Localism where local people are supposed to decide what happens in their locality.

Argyll and Bute Council picked a fight with Martha Payne for daring to write a food blog NeverSeconds about their disgusting school dinners, Wandsworh Council picks a fight with local kids by shutting down their adventure playground.

The occupation has the backing of tennis star Greg Rusedski, celebrity chef Levi Roots and Lord Dubs of Battersea, the former Labour MP, comedian Mark Thomas, Bianca Jagger, founder and chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, and presenter Gia Milinovich. London Play has also given their support, as has Play England.

For more information, with further videos about Battersea Adventure Playground, check out Wandsworth Against Cuts.

The occupation has also set up a facebook page.

Wandsworth are cutting basic services, closing libraries, cutting school crossing patrols, refuse to pay their lowest paid workers a living wage, has axed 14 staff posts at three adventure playgrounds, and yet can find £2 million for Boris Bikes (the cost of hiring is due to double this year).

The only response from Wandsworth has been to smear the opponents to destruction, ordinary kids, parents and carers.

The following demand has been issued from local groups, residents and occupiers involved:

We demand the suspension of the demolition of Battersea Park Adventure Playground, pending the holding of a public meeting with a transparent and accountable dialogue and a full consultation by Wandsworth Borough Council of the whole community about the future provision of free, safe, staffed adventurous and accessible play facilities.

This Saturday a fun day at the adventure playground 1400 to 1600 afternoon Saturday 11 January 2012. Attend and join in the fun. Show your opposition to Wandsworth.

Please sign the petition Hands off our Adventure Playgrounds.

Please spread the word and give your support.

We judge a society by how it treats its children.

• Benefit cuts
• Wandsworth residents fight Battersea Park Adventure Playground changes
• Battersea Park Adventure Playground occupied!
• When Occupy met the mums of a middle-class nappy valley
• Protest over Battersea park refurbishment
• Occupy invades to halt bulldozers at Battersea playground
• Protesters continue Battersea Park occupation for sixth day
• Battersea Park Adventure Playground occupation: almost 9 out of 10 parents and carers said NO to plans in Wandsworth Council’s own survey

Benefit cuts

hands up who benefits from a privatised NHS

welfare myths

Yesterday the ConDem government sank to new depths of depravity, cutting welfare payments to poorest sectors of society. The shameless LibDems showed there to be no decency left in the party, without their support these cuts could not be forced through, but it was more important to keep snouts firmly in the ministerial trough. The LibDdems deserve to be totally annihilated at the next General Election. Not that Labour are any better. Spineless Ed Miliband is incapable of anything beyond meaningless sound bites and childish public schoolboy ya-boo. No guarantee from spineless Miliband the cuts would be reversed.

The morning started with Iain Duncan Smith blatantly lying on BBC Radio 4 Today programme claiming the disabled were not seeing their benefits cut. This is simply not true. Their benefits are cut each and every time Atos declares fit for work and disability benefits are lost.

• ‘This brutal new system’: a GP’s take on Atos and work capability assessments

According to Mencap, disability benefits are being cut. Housing benefits for the disabled are also being cut.

• Government breaks disability benefit “promise”

He mislead Parliament when he said benefits had risen by 20%, much faster than wages. 20% of a small amount, is an even smaller amount. Unemployment pay has halved in real terms compared with wages over the last decade, a link that was maintained with average wages from when the benefit was introduced, even through the dark years of Margaret Thatcher, but halved in relationship to average wages under Labour.

Caroline Lucas MP (one of the few decent politicians in the House of Commons:

The Prime Minister has also used this 20% figure as ammunition for his ongoing attack on the poor. But what does this really mean in cash terms?

I checked with the House of Commons Library – what it means is that, in 2007, Job Seekers Allowance was £59.15 a week. Five years later, by 2012, it had gone up to £71 a week – an increase of exactly 20%.

Conservative party advisers must have been jumping for joy when they made that calculation. But as they well know, 20% of very little indeed is very little indeed.

In actual money terms, it means that in the past five years, weekly JSA has gone up by approximately £2.50 each year – so simply keeping up with inflation and with the lower CPI measure at that, since the Coalition came in.

The Chancellor points to those on average earnings having seen only a 10% increase compared to the ‘20% increase’ for the unemployed.

But he and the Prime Minister deliberately stick to percentages instead of admitting the reality in cash terms. In fact, for people on average earnings, their weekly take home pay has increased in each of the last five years by around £11.

While this is unacceptably low in itself – thanks in part to the reckless public sector pay freeze – since it is still nearly four and a half times more in hard cash than the £2.50 annual increase for those on JSA, it’s outrageous and disingenuous to suggest that jobseekers are getting more than people in work.

Last night on ITV News we had the unedifying spectacle of working poor being pitted against unemployed, being thick they read the Sun and think as they are told to think. Not seeming to comprehend they too will be on the Dole.

In the last few years, those on benefits who could manage (just) are now struggling, the same period Iain Duncan Smith referred to. The reason they are struggling is that a lower rate of inflation has been used, an inflation rate that does not reflect the steep rise in food and energy, on which the poor pay a larger percentage of their income.

The week before, Iain Duncan Smith claimed £10 billion tax credit fraud. He was vague, he did not say over what period or what the fraud was. If people were paid a living wage, there would be no need for tax credits, which is to subsidise bad employers out of public funds.

The CondDem government delights at deficit. It is their excuse for slash and burn of public services and welfare.

• Mean, miserable legislation from a mean, miserable government

There is no requirement to cut welfare, deal with the tax dodgers.

Nye Bevan’s famed declaration in 1948 that the Tories are “lower than vermin”, we saw this yesterday as the Tories laughed their heads off as they forced the cuts through. If the Tories are lower than vermin, what makes this the LibDems?

• The Welfare Bill: A government of millionaires just made the poor poorer – and laughed as they did it

Save The Children recently revealed a world that most of the commentariat don’t even know – or want to know – exists: of parents choosing between heating their homes and feeding their kids; or skipping their meals to make sure their sons and daughters are nourished.

• UK Child Poverty: In their own words

The independent UK Women’s Budget Group has released analysis showing that the poorest 10% of households will lose 1.9% of their weekly income – and the second poorest will lose 1.6% from the benefits uprating cut. The richest 10% lose nothing.

At the beginning of the week we saw the attack on Child Benefit come into force. As a universal benefit, Child Benefit has been successful – showing how you can give something to everyone to make sure no one is missed out, and then claw back from those who don’t need it via the tax system.

The cuts are not even good economics. Welfare payments pour money into deprived areas, money that gets spent because the recipients are living on the breadline.

The worst has yet to come. The new financial year sees the introduction of Universal Credits. This will be paid monthly, in arrears. For those on benefits (paid fortnightly) living a hand-to-mouth existence, what covers the gap? Currently paid Housing Allowance that covers the rent, often paid direct to the landlord. Universal Credit is meant to cover living and rent. The net result is there will be a shortfall, the choice will now be eat or heat or rent. Homelessness will rocket. Many run out with fortnightly payments, how will they cope when paid monthly? For drug dealers and loan sharks, it will be a bonanza.

It is not only cuts in direct payments, we are seeing cuts to the arts, library closures, community centres closed, grant aid to charities helping the poor and disadvantaged terminated.

• Newcastle council leader: arts cuts are inevitable result of coalition policy

Battersea Park Adventure Playground facing closure is but one example of the destruction of the fabric of society that is taking place.

• Battersea Park Adventure Playground facing closure

ConDem government has one statistic they can be proud of. In the last year, the number of food banks has doubled.

• Merry Christmas from Taste Communications
• 2012 has been the year of the food bank

Before Christmas, food charity FareShare Brighton reported a huge rise in people coming to them for food. They have seen a 23% increase on the food they gave out in 2011 and now deliver to 53 charities, serving almost 4,000 people a week. Across the country, the number of people accessing emergency food aid has exploded. Up to a quarter of a million are now dependent upon food banks.

David Cameron to raise tax dodging at G8

The world’s most powerful leaders must mount a concerted effort to prevent multinational companies such as Starbucks and Amazon legally avoid large corporation tax bills, David Cameron will urge in his role as president of the G8.

The Prime Minister vowed to make “damn sure” that multinational firms paid their fair share of tax on their UK operations.

He is to use Britain’s presidency of the G8 group of the most industrialised nations, which began this week, to discuss ways of stopping global companies moving their money through different jurisdictions to minimise tax payments.

HM Revenue & Customs has been accused of being “too lenient” towards big businesses that indulge in aggressive tax planning. The credibility of HMRC and the tax system rests on it becoming “more aggressive and assertive in confronting corporate tax avoidance”, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Margaret Hodge, said last month.

Mr Cameron says a crackdown can only be effective if countries around the world act collectively to tackle abuses. Britain, along with Germany and France, has asked the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to investigate whether tax loopholes can be closed.

He signalled his determination to confront global corporations during an appearance in Lancashire before business leaders and entrepreneurs. Asked why “Starbucks and Amazon” were allowed to avoid paying large corporation tax bills despite their extensive British presence, he replied: “We have got to crack that, you’re absolutely right.

“This is a really important issue. I think we’re offering actually a fair deal to businesses. We’re saying, ‘Look, we’re going to have a really low rate of corporation tax’ but I want to make damn sure that those companies pay it.

“It’s simply not fair and not right what some of them are doing by saying, ‘I’ve got lots of sales here in the UK but I’m going to pay a sort of royalty fee to another company that I own in another country that has some special tax dispensation’.”

Mr Cameron said he wanted to start a debate in the UK about “really aggressive tax avoidance”.

He said: “We do need a debate in this country, not only what is against the law – that’s tax evasion, that is against the law, that’s illegal and if you do that the Inland Revenue will come down on you like a ton of bricks – but what is unacceptable in terms of really aggressive tax avoidance.

Mr Cameron added: “We’ve got a low top rate of income tax now; we’ve got a low rate of corporation tax now; we are a fair tax country. But I think it’s fair then to say to business, you know, we’re playing fair by you; you’ve got to play fair by us.

Mr Cameron said he had put the issue “right at the top of the agenda” for the G8 this year as well as tackling it nationally.

“It’s simply not fair and not right what some of them are doing by saying, I’ve got lots of sales here in the UK but I’m going to pay a sort of royalty fee to another company that I own in another country that has some special tax dispensation.”

The Commons Public Accounts Committee last month condemned the “unconvincing, and, in some cases, evasive” evidence it had received from representatives of Starbucks, Google and Amazon who were called in front of it to defend their tax affairs.

Tax avoidance: What can be done?

* International collaboration, to address changes to global business practices such as e-commerce, where national tax authorities have failed to respond quickly enough.

* Treaties with overseas countries to ensure flow of tax from accounts held by British citizens. Such a treaty with Switzerland will, the Treasury claims, see £5bn enter its coffers over the next six years.

* Better “information sharing” with Britain’s Crown Dependencies to give HMRC more detailed knowledge of accounts in Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

* The Treasury has set up an “affluence unit” to closely investigate the tax affairs of those with property or assets worth over £1m.

* Aggressive pursuit of corporate tax avoiders rather than HMRC striking voluntary “sweetheart deals” .

Original article published in The Independent.

Never let it be said a group of committed individuals never achieve anything. It is the only thing that ever has.

It was not politicians who raised tax dodging, it was UK Uncut.

It was only a couple of years ago a small group of people UK Uncut decided to occupy Vodafone. Since then Top Shop, Boots, Starbucks.

I trust David Cameron will acknowledge it is thanks to UK Uncut that he is raising tax dodging at G8.

The Treasury has to have the resources to pursue tax dodgers. Countries that facilitate tax dodging have to be isolated from international money flows. It has to be a criminal offence for a bank to facilitate tax dodging, for the directors to face long prison sentences, for the bank to lose its banking licence and be put out of business.

David Cameron has to pursue tax dodgers with the same aggression he hounds the vulnerable in society.

‘This brutal new system’: a GP’s take on Atos and work capability assessments

One GP’s perspective on what the ConDem government and Atos are doing to vulnerable people

I had not seen Eileen for some time, until a few months ago when I was asked to phone her. She sounded distressed, confused and frightened and did not understand what was happening to her. She has been a patient of mine for 10 years and over time, I’ve tried to help her cope with her mental illness. A few years ago her mental health had deteriorated so much that she needed to be in hospital.

All her benefits had been stopped, Eileen explained, and she was in arrears with her rent. She was assessed by Atos, a private company employed by the government to carry out what it calls the “work capability assessment” to decide whether people receiving incapacity benefits should be sent back to work. Eileen found the form she was asked to fill extremely long and bewildering. The assessment is a tick-box exercise, with points scored depending on the patient’s replies. The assessors do not ask GPs like me to provide any medical information about patients to help them make their decisions, even though someone may have received incapacity benefits for many years.

Later, Eileen was sent a letter. She was fit for work, she was told, and so she would no longer be receiving benefits. Instead, she would need to go out seeking work. She had no money and soon fell behind with her rent and bills. She told me she didn’t understand why all this was happening to her, but having no money, she decided to leave London to look for work elsewhere. But she had nowhere to stay, and ended up sleeping on the streets. Nor could she find work, despite the government’s mandate that she do so. She eventually returned to London to seek help. She has no insight into her mental illness and doesn’t believe she is unwell.

I have watched with mounting horror as my patient, an extremely vulnerable woman, has been put at risk of homelessness and deteriorating illness as a result of government policy. I am very aware of the importance of work, and as a GP will always encourage people to look for a suitable job if I think they can. But I also know my patients, and I am outraged that some are being put through the punishing stress this assessment causes. Many of my patients have gone through the Atos assessment to be told that they are fit for work with all their benefits stopped without notice. The financial impact is extreme. Several of my patients have shown worsening symptoms of depression, and some have become suicidal. Because we were so concerned about a patient’s mental health – which worsened as a result of the stress caused by these assessments – we have had to involve a psychiatric crisis team.

The government will say that there is an appeal process built into the system for those who have been passed capable of work and disagree with the outcome. True, but it is very expensive. In my experience, patients whom I consider unable to work or even look for work usually win their appeal. In a recent appeal hearing, the tribunal judge read my medical report and concluded on the back of it that, contrary to the Atos assessment, my patient was indeed incapable of working.

I have witnessed a woman in her 20s who has a condition that means she is slowly dementing, and will eventually die at a young age. She is unable to walk, and now even unable to talk. She is looked after round the clock by her family. Her family has been forced to endure great stress from the work capability assessment. I believe that this could have been avoided had I been asked to provide a medical report explaining her disability, prior to the assessment process.

In another case, a man in his 40s had been homeless for many years. He has learning difficulties, alcohol problems and also has insulin-dependent diabetes. He is unable to read and write. A charity worked closely with him and managed to find accommodation and medical care for him, and they encouraged him to engage with the local drug services. In our GP clinic, we were working closely with him to help him to manage his diabetes better, in the hope of avoiding acute emergency admissions had his diabetes remained uncontrolled. Despite all this intensive help, Atos bulldozed their way in and found him capable of work. All his benefits were stopped immediately, and he is now in arrears. He has appealed and is waiting a tribunal hearing – a process that can take up to six months. Meanwhile, all that precious rehabilitation work we were offering him has also stopped as he has become so stressed, depressed and at times suicidal.

I am fearful that more of my patients will be put at risk of homelessness and suicide by this brutal new system. From my perspective, the most disadvantaged in our society are being punished. Work is good for all of us, if we are lucky enough to be in employment. But not all of us have the skills to work and some of us are so unwell or damaged by past experiences that they cannot do a job. We should accept that some people, for many different reasons, need supporting.

Instead of forcing vulnerable people onto the streets, why not concentrate on helping young people find worthwhile, fulfilling jobs? Leave patients like Eileen alone. She does not deserve the punishment that is currently being wrought upon her. For her safety and well-being, and for the sake of a humane society, I hope she wins her appeal.

• The name of the patient, and details of her case, have been changed to ensure confidentiality

Originally published in The Guardian.

A man awaiting a heart transplant was found fit to work.

• Former RAF dog handler has benefits reinstated

This brutal treatment of the sick and disabled is what David Cameron means when he talks about helping people back into work.

Tuesday of next week, Parliament are to vote on reducing benefits to the poorest in society. They are the ones being forced to pay for tax cuts for the rich, for the failure to deal with tax dodgers.

If the LibDems had any integrity left, they would vote no, but they have no integrity left, they will say the benefits cuts are to benefit the poor.

ConDem government has said there is £10 billion tax fraud on tax credits. If true, then deal with the fraud. If workers were paid a living wage, there would be no need for their wages to be subsidised by the tax payer. The amount claimed (and it is probably a figure plucked out of the air) is dwarfed by the massive tax dodging by Starbucks, Google, Amazon et al.

ConDem government is now wishing to target the elderly, cut free bus passes, cut winter fuel allowance.

Labour are no better. The latest garbage from Ed Balls is to suggest unemployed are forced to work on minimum pay for six months, refuse and you lose your benefits.

FBI target Occupy Wall Street

FBI has been monitoring the activities of Occupy Wall Street.

This is nothing new for the FBI. They have previously targeted Civil Rights and Ant-War movements.

In the UK, Occupy London Stock Exchange were linked with terrorists.

When people campaign for democracy, a fairer society, they are treated as terrorists.

FBI should target real terrorists, the financial terrorists, the banks, the eco-terrorists, the coal and oil industry, the gun-totting killers, the psychos in the NRA.

• The FBI vs. Occupy: Secret Docs Reveal “Counterterrorism” Monitoring of OWS from Its Earliest Days

You are not a scrounger: A letter to a disabled reader

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? — George Orwell

bleak outlook

Dear M-,

A few days ago you wrote to me and told me you were planning to take your own life. You told me that your reasons for this are: because you are frightened about what will happen to you when you lose the disability living allowance you rely on to live independently, and because you want to take a stand against the government’s assault on welfare.

Since receiving your letter I’ve agonised over what sort of reply to send to you. I hope you found the strength to call one of the helplines I forwarded – Samaritans in particular are a life-saving service – but I felt that something longer was needed, is still needed. I’m writing to you now not as a journalist, but as a human being, a former carer and a person who has experienced depression to say: please, please don’t do this.

I’m writing like this, in public, in part because you spoke about taking your own life as a political statement. You asked if I, as a journalist you respected, would report on your suicide after the fact. I’ve been told by fellow campaigners in the disability rights movement that you’re not alone in thinking that harming yourself in that awful, final way is the only way you have left to make a difference. But that’s not the case. Not yet, not ever.

I don’t know what it’s like to have a physical disability. Having dear friends with physical disabilities only makes me more aware of how many parts of that experience I can’t fully understand. I don’t know what it’s like to be mobility impaired, or to have a body that seizes up with pain on a regular basis. Nor do I know what it’s like to wake up one morning and be told that, because you can’t hold down a regular 9-5 office job no matter how hard you try, because you can’t do that you are just a burden on the state.

To my mind, the most venal, wicked thing this Coalition government has done has been to rewrite the social script of this country so that some people feel that life isn’t worth living any more. They speak in their poisonous way about giving the unemployed and disabled people back a sense of dignity – but telling people that they’re worthless unless they hold down a job, telling people that they have no right to a decent standard of living unless they can find and keep work that lines the pockets of the super-rich, work that isn’t there anyway at the moment – that’s the opposite of arguing for dignity. That’s shame as a social manifesto.

If you hurt yourself now, if you give up right now, I’m sorry to say that it won’t change the minds of those who are currently making decisions about whether sick and mentally people ill live or die in this country. These people don’t give a damn – or at very least, they do a good job of acting like they don’t give a damn. If any person’s unnecessary death were enough to sway this government’s mind, it would have been swayed before now.

Even one death is too many. There are other, better ways to make a difference.

This is the point at which I’m supposed to give you the routine about how It Gets Better. But you and I both know that that would be a lie. We both know that right now, for anyone who is disabled, or mentally ill, or unemployed, or a single parent, or a young person, or a student, or simply poor and struggling, a lot of things are getting actively worse. So no – sometimes it doesn’t get better. What happens instead, as a friend of mine told me recently, is that you get stronger.

Choosing to live doesn’t have to mean choosing to accept the ugly reality that those in power are creating for us. By coming together and working to create change, by building each other up and getting smarter and more adept, you get stronger, we get stronger, people who care enough to resist and fight back and create a different reality get stronger together. You don’t need to be well to be involved in the fightback. The internet has enabled people with all kinds of different experiences of physical and mental health to make their voices heard and join in the struggle against shame and despair as public policy.

I know that right now you probably aren’t feeling very strong and powerful. That’s understandable. But please believe me: you are powerful, and important, and special, and stronger than you know. We’ve never shared a cup of tea together, or laughed together, or hugged each other. I don’t even know what you look like. But I feel like I know you, because I know you feel the same way I feel about what’s going on in this country right now. What I want you to try to understand, if you can just hold on to one thing, is this: you are not a burden.

No human being is “just a burden”. You are not a burden on the state, and you are not a burden on your family, who, much as you might find this hard to believe, would be devastated to lose you. Your presence makes this country and your family a better place.

I can’t promise you that after you make the choice to carry on living, life will get easier right away, this week, or this month. But I can promise you that one day you will feel stronger, and better able to navigate with the darker, more painful rapids of life. I believe that one day life in this country will be better than it is now, for every person who is disabled and unwell. And one thing I can tell you for sure is that the most important political statement you can make right now is to believe – even if it’s hard to hold on to – that you are not a burden, that you are a precious, unique human person who is valuable in and of himself.

When society tells you that you are worth less because you are unwell, that’s society’s fault, not yours. They may be pursuing a doctrine of shame, but that doesn’t mean you have to feel ashamed. You have no reason whatsoever to feel ashamed. You are not a burden, and you are not a scrounger – you are just unwell.

As an unwell person, you have every right to support, from your family and from society. Please try to hold on to that belief, because right now that belief is the best weapon we have against the austerity consensus. You are not a burden. You are not a scrounger. You are valuable and important because you are human and alive. Believe it. Believe it because that belief is a torch in the darkness of an austerity winter. With love,

Your friend,

Laurie

Editor’s note: You can contact the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 or through their website at www.samaritans.org. We consulted the Samaritans in the editing of this piece.

Laurie Penny writes for the New Statesman where this piece was originally published.

A measure of society is how we treat those worse off than ourselves.

What sort of society do we live in where disabled people are driven to commit suicide?

What sort of society do we live in where a company like Atos find people fit for work, no matter how sick they are?

• Legal challenge launched against ‘unfair’ government disability test

When we hear the ConDem government speak of helping disabled into work, it is newspeak of which George Orwell would be proud. Translated it means bastardising the disabled, cutting their benefits, removing their free travel passes, driving them to suicide. If one disabled person commits suicide, that is one less person on state benefits.

Call those worse off than ourselves scroungers, then we need not feel guilty when we put them in the poor house.

The real scroungers, the real parasites are companies like Atos, that contribute nothing to society, to the economy.

The real scroungers, the real parasites are the companies who are running welfare to work programmes.

The real scroungers, the real parasites are companies like Argos, Shoe Zone, Primark, who are employing welfare to work unpaid slaves, rather than pay a living wage to real employees.

• Could Mandatory Work Activity be on the Brink of Collapse?

It is not though only companies who have been employing slave labour. Many charities have been jumping on the bandwagon. One of the worst is what used to be British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BCTV) now rebranded as The Conservation Volunteers (TCV), a misnamed charity who have been quietly building an army of unpaid workers.

• The Conservation ‘Volunteers’ Who Are Forced To Work Unpaid

The real scroungers, the real parasites are companies like Vodafone, Amazon, Google, Starbucks, who dodge billions in tax.

• Google: We are proud to be tax dodgers
• Starbucks occupied

Cutting benefits is not just unfair, it makes no economic sense. Money to the poorest gets spent in deprived areas.

• Labour’s line in the sand on benefits
• Tax the Rich: An animated fairy tale
• Idealogical driven slash and burn of public services and the welfare state

The latest abuse is to kick people out of their council houses or force a hike in rent if they have a spare room.

• Storm over council house rent hike for spare rooms

Google: We are proud to be tax dodgers

Google proud to be tax dodgers

I am very proud of the [tax dodging] structure that we set up. We did it based on the incentives that the governments offered us to operate. — Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman

For Eric Schmidt to say that he is ‘proud’ of his company’s approach to paying tax is arrogant, out of touch and an insult to his customers here in the UK. — Margaret Hodge, chairman House of Commons Public Accounts Committee

In an interview in New York Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman, bragged that Google had no intention of paying more to the UK exchequer. Documents filed last month show that Google generated around £2.5 billion in UK sales last year but paid just £6 million in corporation tax.

The Californian based search giant has also been revealed to have sheltered nearly $10 billion of its revenues in Bermuda allowing it to avoid some $2 billion worldwide taxes in 2011.

What Eric Schmidt has failed to grasp is that the public is thoroughly sick of companies like Google, Starbucks, Amazon thinking their sheer financial size and monopoly or near monopoly position means they can do as they please as paying taxes is only for the little people and those companies that cannot afford the accountants and lawyers to get way with not paying taxes.

Contrast what the arrogant Shit, oops sorry, Schmidt, has to say on the matter

There are lots of benefits to [being in Britain]. It’s very good for us, but to go back to shareholders and say, ‘We looked at 200 countries but felt sorry for those British people so we want to [pay them more]‘, there is probably some law against doing that.

with what Margaret Hodge had to say

Ordinary people who pay their taxes unquestioningly are sick and tired of seeing hugely profitable global companies like Google use every trick in the book to get out of contributing their fair share.

Google should recognise its obligations to countries like the UK from which it derives such huge benefits, and pay proper corporation tax on the profits it makes from economic activity here. It should be ashamed, not proud, to do anything less.

What Schmidt seems to have failed to notice, is that Starbucks is now a toxic brand that drinking shit coffee in Starbucks is now akin to associating with known criminals, that a boycott of Amazon is growing, that we do not have to use Google Chrome as our web browser, we can use Firefox (downloading as I write), that if we do use Google to search or youtube to watch videos (there is vimeo) we do not have to click on any of the annoying adverts.

Please sign the Google tax avoidance petition and pass to all your friends.

• Google boss: I’m very proud of our tax avoidance scheme
• Google Chairman Eric Schmidt Defends Tax Dodge: ‘It’s Called Capitalism’
• Petition launched as anger mounts over Google tax avoidance in the UK
• Starbucks occupied
• Occupy Starbucks and smell the hypocrisy
• Amazon makes UK publishers pay 20% VAT on e-book sales
• Tax the Rich: An animated fairy tale

Tax the Rich: An animated fairy tale

This brilliant animation by California Federation of Teachers could not explain better the situation we are in. Where the rich buy up politicians and they bark on their behalf. Or at local level, developers buy up planning officials who push through their unwanted developments against strong public opposition.

Last week, British Chancellor of the Exchequer made his Autumn Statement, a mini-budget in all but name. He launched an unprecedented attack on the poor and disadvantaged. The poorest 20% are to bear the brunt of cuts, meanwhile corporation tax drops again that is for those who pay it, but many like Starbucks simply do not pay, and yet no measures to deal with tax dodgers, that is left to UK Uncut, who last Saturday occupied Starbucks across the country.

• Idealogical driven slash and burn of public services and the welfare state
• Put my child in temp foster care due to benefits sanction?!?
• Starbucks occupied

Austerity is being used as an excuse to lay waste to public services, to cut benefits to the poor and disadvantaged.

In the US Big Money is used to buy votes. Big Money waged a massive campaign against Proposition 30 in California, the ballot measure to raise taxes to protect public schools and social services. They failed. These measures could not get through the State Legislature because the politicians are bought and paid for by Big Money. Big Money tried and failed to buy the Presidential elections. It was a landslide for Obama when the electorate saw the real Mitt Romney.

• Wield the power of the supermajority
• Election 2012: Students, families, CFT members work hard, win big
• CFT president Pechthalt on Prop 30 victory, Prop 32 defeat

tax the rich not the poor

During his Autumn Statement pompous ass George Osborne let the mask slip, he spoke of the unemployed being too lazy to get out of bed in the morning. We had divide and rule, the deserving poor and the undeserving poor being pitted against each other, but both lost out in benefits cuts.

Why are we subsidising those in work? If they were paid higher wages they would not need a subsidy. What in reality we are subsidising is not the working poor, but Big Business that employs the working poor and refuses to pay a fair wage.

The subsidy goes even further when unemployed are forced to work for companies like Shoe Zone, Argus and Primark, for nothing. Or charities like British Heart Foundation.

Decline the opportunity to work for nothing and benefits are stopped.

The rich have the politicians in their pockets

The rich have the politicians in their pockets. If they do not do their bidding, no more bags of gold.

disabled bastardised by ATOS

When the disabled are bastardised by ATOS, found fit for work by someone unqualified to pronounce on the subject, they do not only lose their disability benefits, they lose their free bus pass too.