This Leaves Me F*&$@!g Fuming

All weekend it has been plastered over the mainstream news that in the UK, for the first time, there are more working people living in poverty than there are benefit recipients living in poverty.

This comes as no surprise if I am honest, it’s something workers here have known for a long time.

I was fuming this morning when I read, on the BBC, that a social supermarket has opened giving discounts of up to 70% to those on benefits.

From BBC online news:

Although there are many charitable and co-operative food projects in the UK, the scale, range and involvement of retailers makes it a first, says Sarah Dunwell, director of social affairs at Company Shop, the organisation that is running the supermarket.

“All the products are wholesome or fit-for-purpose, but for some reason were not going to make it onto the shelves of a supermarket.

The Company Shop is the UK’s largest commercial re-distributor of surplus food and products.

Profits from sales at the Community Shop will be re-invested in the supermarket itself, and in “support services” on the premises. These include advice on writing job applications, cookery classes, and debt advisory services.

There are ambitions to create 20 supermarket branches, but it was decided to open the first at Goldthorpe as it is one of the most deprived areas of the UK.

On the same website we have this offering:

More working households were living in poverty in the UK last year than non-working ones – for the first time, a charity has reported.

Just over half of the 13 million people in poverty – surviving on less than 60% of the national median (middle) income – were from working families, it said.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said low pay and part-time work had prompted an unprecedented fall in living standards.

Finally, look at this, again from the BBC.

Growth in job vacancies hits ’15-year high’

It’s not rocket science to suggest that some of the professionally unemployed should not be allowed cheap goodies, they should be forced to apply for some of these new positions that are appearing.

The UK government has had its head up its own arse for so long it is capable of talking nothing but shit.

I’ll give you an example. Those people who are genuinely unable to work in a mainstream job, like those who have lost legs in Afghanistan or those struggling with chemotherapy, or even more mundane stuff like diagnosed and proven chronic arthritis, have to go for a medical exam every year. Before you go you fill in some paperwork. Three pages in the booklet deal with physical disability and more than a dozen deal with mental issues.

If you can walk more than 30 ft…however long it takes, (and including on artificial limbs) and can raise one of your arms above you head…regardless of the pain it causes, you are unlikely to be considered too disabled to work.

If you are suffering from depression you get the benefit, as do you if you are an alcoholic or drug abuser, kleptomania, bipolar, anything at all affecting your mind is covered and paid for.

You are given a key worker to help you through the bad times. You are given free classes at college to give you a more positive outlook on life, your one to one worker takes you out and about to show you what a wonderful place the world can be.

Good eh?

I am thinking of becoming an alcoholic kleptomaniac who gets the odd fit of depression. Anyone who wants to support my claim, I’ll split the cash with you.