Race to the bottom/bedroom tax. (Eh sorry, the 'spare room subsidy'.)

So, Raquel Rolnik then, here she is:

Rachel Rolnik is a Special Rapporteur with the UN sent to the UK to investigate Westminster's bedroom tax.

One thing at a time though, what is the bedroom tax? Well, first of all, we don't want to further offend poor Grant Shapps' delicate sensibilities - Grant by the way, apart from being a bit petulant, is the Conservative Party Chairman - he prefers to call the bedroom tax the 'Spare Room Subsidy'. A lot of people think the bedroom tax is a Tory invention - it isn't. New Labour under Gordon Brown introduced it for private tenants (people in receipt of housing benefit but not living in council or housing association properties) in 2008, the Tories just extended it to all tenants in receipt of housing benefit.

How does it work? If you have one spare room, your housing benefit will be cut by 14%, if you have two or more it'll be cut by 25%. The aim is to encourage people who only require one bedroom but live in a house with more to relocate to smaller digs thus freeing up the bigger homes for families.

The trouble is, all sorts of unintended consequences are occurring; disabled people who require carers to stay over night, or require the space to store equipment (hoist & wheel chairs etc,) grand parents with familial responsibilities or those with spare rooms which are in fact over-sized cupboards but have been classified incorrectly have all been caught out. They have to fund the short fall from their already over-strained finances.

Of course, on the surface of it, it seems like a reasonable idea, I can't afford a two bedroom property and I work full time (no laughing at the back.) Turns out, its not though. Firstly, its only going to save something like £500 million, they say a 'saving' but the costs involved in rehousing, collecting rent arrears and the usual levels of bureaucracy these things attract - it isn't going to be a saving at all. Secondly, there is a serious shortfall in single bedroom properties - no one builds them any more because multi-bed dwellings are more popular and flexible.

Nick & Margaret: We Pay All Your Benefits - from the BBC.
Two exceedingly well off people judging the poor - how terribly Victorian.

People in receipt of benefits are an easy target, especially with a press only too eager to amplify the kind of faux outrage Westminster parties need to press ahead with their ideologically-driven policies. There are so many reasons why its such a shit idea and as usual, its not straight forward, so many people switch off thinking "well, its not happening to me so..." The thing is, it could happen to you, and even if it never does, you'll pay for the aftermath with your cash and your own standard of living

The Bedroom tax is just another facet of Westminster's race to the bottom, its never about improving people's lot, its about pitting one demographic against another and assuring the lowest common denominator becomes the new normal. I mean, of course it makes sense to remove £500 million from the poorest in the UK instead of, say, actually collecting tax due from large multinational corporations selling their crap in the UK.

But I digress.

Raquel was in the UK in her capacity as a UN Investigator looking at the bedroom tax.

"Ms Rolnik told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that she had received "hundreds of testimonies" and said there was a "danger of a retrogression in the right to adequate housing" in the UK.

She cited examples of disabled people, or grandmothers who were carers, and said the measure seemed to have been designed "without the human component in mind".

She said her recommendation was "that it should be suspended" to allow time to better assess the human rights implications, and so it could be redesigned."

Grant Shapps was miffed because Raquel didn't ask him anything, I would say, Grant Shapps probably isn't affected by the bedroom tax - sorry - the spare room subsidy, so why would she? He said:

"It is completely wrong and an abuse of the process for somebody to come over, to fail to meet with government ministers, to fail to meet with the department responsible, to produce a press release two weeks after coming, even though the report is not due out until next spring, and even to fail to refer to the policy properly throughout the report."

Jeezo Grant, get over yourself. The bedroom tax isn't that complicated, Ms Rolnik met with a senior official from the DWP after which there was...

"...a further meeting "at which the findings were presented by the rapporteur". A spokesman said that at the start Communities Secretary Eric Pickles "popped in - it would be pushing it to call it a meeting".

Eric Pickles no less. The idea of him 'popping in', consider my mind boggled.

Eric Pickles: arguing against a spare chin tax. (Tory SoS for Communities and Local Government.)

It goes with out saying, Shapps is pissed off because the bedroom tax is a shit idea and he didn't get the chance to spin it otherwise. Raquel Rolnik got straight to the job of finding out how it affected real people and discovered that it probably did infringe certain human rights.

The human rights issue isn't the most compelling argument against the bedroom tax, as mentioned, it'll save no money and its backward and unfair. Once again political leaders at Westminster are demanding swathes of the population comply with a certain policy, then promptly arranging things so its almost impossible to do so.

If you can't find a job they tell you to move, never for a moment thinking how much it costs to move. Even if you do find work, with so many new jobs being temporary, part time or having zero hour contracts attached; its not worth it. MP's don't understand any of that mundane crap because for them, for each of life's challenges, there is an expense to cover it.

Take Eric Pickles for example. During the expenses scandal his main home was only 29 miles away from Parliament in his Essex constituency - yet - he claimed £250 a month in mortgage interest payments, £750 a year for services charges for a second home in East London, Pickles also billed the public purse £200 for cleaning and £280 for groceries and other household bills every month, (to be fair, that last one could have been much higher...)

No doubt there is money to be saved in the UK, but taking it off people who are already struggling is wrong and inhumane, that the UK needs the fragrant Raquel Rolnik of the UN to come and tell the incumbent government does not bode well for any of us.

Meanwhile, as part of Team GB, we're racing to the bottom. The Civil service's working conditions are better than the private sector's - what to do? How about, instead of pulling the private sector up to the level of the civil service, why not drag the civil service down to private sector conditions. 

Or - there are some in our society who need a wee bit extra help, do we give them that and attempt to raise them up out of the vicious cycle of poverty they find themselves in? No, lets make their situation worse by lowering the pitiful amount of money they're given and further lowering standards for everyone.

Meanwhile, Labour - who brought the bedroom tax in originally - now say they wouldn't have adopted the policy and crucially, won't say they'll scrap it if returned to government in 2015.

In Scotland?

Well, 41 Scottish MP's voted against, whilst 4 MP's voted for.

MP's vote all the time on all sorts of things at Westminster, while the bedroom tax may not affect you directly; there will be policies that do and others that already have.

The people at Better Together love to tell us how uncertain the world is, but uncertainty & risk is inevitable, there's nothing new about that. What we should have but don't - as evidenced by the bedroom tax vote among others - is choice. Scotland has no choice in the United Kingdom, our choices are made for us by others to their own advantage, if that needlessly impoverishes Scotland then so be it.

Turns out, we do have one very special, far-reaching choice to make, one that if taken correctly will empower every other choice we make there-after. The question is, do we have the collective guts to take it?

I hope I'm not alone in saying; I really hope so.

Well, they would say that wouldn't they...

Can you spot the give-away word in this headline?

Scottish referendum: CBI boss Sir Mike Rake raises independence doubts

Let me give you a wee clue: The Most Noble Order of the Garter (KG or LG,) The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle (KT or LT,) The Most Honourable Order of the Bath (GCB, KCB/GCB or CB,) The Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG, KCMG/DCMG or CMG,) The Distinguished Service Order (DSO,) The Royal Victorian Order (GCVO, KCVO/DCVO and CVO, LVO or MVO,) The Order of Merit (OM,) The Imperial Service Order (ISO,) The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (GBE or KBE/DBE, CBE [Commander] OBE, [Officer] or MBE [Member]) and The Order of the Companions of Honour (CH.)

So one tiny word ('sir' if you haven't guessed yet) completely undermines the entire headline and the article it describes. I dare say Mike Rake is a blast at dinner parties, but in his role as President of the CBI - he's a tiresome old parrot. If you see a headline, report or comment relating to the Scottish Independence referendum and the author's name is preceded by any of the acronyms listed above - you can pretty much ignore it because its going to be partisan. I don't know (meaning I don't really care) what flavour of knighthood Mike Rake has but its safe to say, anyone who's been so awarded by the British establishment will be a pretty firm supporter of it. Another example of the British Establishment ridiculously asking for its own opinion in favour of itself can be found here.

Sir Mike Rake KPMG*

An old parrot.

The Scottish CBI also has form, its about as fair and non-partisan as its current Director is, which is to say, not very. Here he is - Iain McMillan...

Even more tiresome than Mike

... has been caught out more than once misrepresenting both the CBI's scope in Scotland and the views of its members. This from the beginning of last year is just one example of the type of porkies Iain likes to spout:

Iain McMillan, the director of CBI Scotland, last week said that a meeting of 16 of its members was ''at one'' with support for an early ballot after meeting Scottish Secretary Michael Moore in Edinburgh.

Eh no Iain:

However, four of the firms present have since told the Sunday Herald that was not their view. One businessman said it was "absolutely not the case" that all the firms wanted an early vote, and that there had been a broad range of opinions. 

And previously:

McMillan was also criticised for exaggerating opposition in the business community during the 1997 referendum on devolution. He claimed all 54 CBI council members had agreed a new Scottish Parliament with tax-raising powers would "damage business north of the border" despite only 24 attending the relevant meeting.

The CBI (Confederation of British Industry - another clue right there) in Scotland claims to have a mandate to represent Scottish business, but does it? I'm no flinty-eyed conspiracy theorist but for an organisation to make such a claim to not then give some details of that mandate - to me - seems suspicious. There are no details of membership on their website and while there was a business directory up a couple years ago, it has since disappeared, possibly because of this. The information there is old (more than two years) but since CBI Scotland still won't say what their membership is, its all we've got to go on.

Scotland has something in the region of 300,000 business enterprises (as of 2011,) according to CBI's business directory at the time - interrogated at length by Calum Cashley - only around 90 had Scottish addresses. Drilling further down into the numbers, taking into consideration only Scottish owned & headquartered, medium to large business - at that time out of 2,695 the CBI had as members only 62 of them - equating to 2.3%, a thumping mandate according to Mssr's McMillan and Rake. (Hat tip to Calum Cashley for these figures)

I'll insert the caveat (if I can put it like that) here, those figures are from the beginning of 2011 but even so, CBI Scotland would've required an astounding increase in membership to possess what it could call 'a mandate to represent Scottish business'.

So Mike Rake will have his tea this weekend at the Glasgow Hilton (City Centre.) He'll give a speech about how crap gaining independence would be for Scotland - but really mean how crap it'll be for the CBI and it's Scottish subsidiary. And as if to underline just how irrelevant the CBI is north of Berwick-upon-Tweed, Nick Clegg will also be there to say something deeply meaningful about how splendid Scotland is as part of the UK - but really meaning how splendid it is for the UK treasury.

The BBC love this sort of thing, they get to stick another article on their website putting the boot into the Yes Scotland campaign. But, all it ends up being is the jabberings of yet another London-fed establishment personality on a topic he knows fuck all about - and that's just Nick Clegg.

The only other thing worthy of mention about Sir Mike Rake is, that he's also Chairman of BT Group, although not the fear-mongering bunch of scaredy-cats who work from 5 Blythswood Square in Glasgow. See when your internet goes down and the Broadband provider tells you its not them but BT's line? Well, Mike Rake is responsible for the hours you will spend speaking to faultlessly polite but ultimately useless Indians on the other side of the planet.

* KPMG is not a British honour, its a company that Mike Rake used to work for, in fact, he may still do. The truth is - I care as much about that as I do about the BBC article containing his entirely predictable opinions on Scottish independence.

Next please.

Saturday 21st of September, Calton Hill.

I attended the last independence rally in the Meadows and Princes Street Gardens, it was nice to be around so many like minded folk. It goes with out saying, I'm looking forward to this month's rally on Calton Hill.

I think some people are worried there won't be enough space, I've been to the Beltane Festival on Calton Hill - a moderately surreal experience if I'm being honest - where something in the region of 12,000 regularly attend with space to spare.

Obviously there are differences between the two; the Beltane Festival is a night time event and involves a fair bit of nudity, (note to self - don't Google images for Beltane at work again.) Whilst one hopes at the Independence rally all attendees remain fully clad - swapping kilts for the grass skirts favoured by Beltane-goers though - seems a fair exchange.

Red arrow shows last year's venue, the blue arrow shows Calton Hill - its a good bit bigger.
(I know, my skill with MS Paint knows no beginnings.)

On the one hand, I hope the hill does overflow on to Waterloo place, it would send a strong message to the Scottish Media who are so keen to treat support for independence as nothing more than an itch it can't quite scratch. I mean, I already believe there are swathes of people who, very quietly but no less implacably, are going to vote Yes. But it'll do no harm to put on a bit of a show - let people know the independence movement isn't the also-ran the execrable Scottish press would have them believe.

Meanwhile, we can expect the usual doom and derision from the 'Better Not' crowd, Ruth Davidson seems to be projecting Tory shortcomings at the moment so will no doubt say the rally 'lacked vision and aspiration', Willie will be terribly polite but no less derisive (and no bugger will bother what he says anyway.) Johann will gurn and spit out a stream of consonants with no separating vowels, no one except Margaret Curran will understand because she is the only other speaker of that particular dialect.

Over all, the BT mob - privately mind - will seethe because they can't produce anything like the level of enthusiasm for their cause as we can for ours. That won't last though, they'll remember their campaign ethos; 'hold on to the no votes we have and keep everyone else petrified.'

More than anything, what this rally will do is further normalise the idea of self determination. People will see a parade of folk just like them heading for Calton Hill, hopefully some of the optimism and positivity will rub off and they will begin to doubt the litany of fear coming from unionist politicians and the no campaign.

Ask any one who knows me and they will agree - I am a miserable bastard. But I'll tell you, its hard work maintaining the facade. I am optimistic for Scotland, I really am. While we all have personal challenges that occupy and sometimes drag us down - you're a lucky rarity if you don't - it doesn't have to be that way for the country.

Not wishing to bang on, we have a unique opportunity approaching next year, the chance to make a life-affecting change. I have zero tolerance for the 'it'll-make-no-difference' brigade because it absolutely will, how could it not? There is a tangible difference between the politics of Westminster and the politics of Holyrood. Westminster is complacent & imperious with age - it thinks it can do anything it likes, and frequently does. Holyrood is a young representative parliament which hasn't had the time to get jaded.

Is it perfect? No of course not, But to paraphrase Mrs Howden - if you don't like something, it's right fucking there on your doorstep, unlike Westminster which does its best not to be.

I'm looking forward to the march, I think I may also attend the party the night before,  although I wouldn't be singing right enough*, that would be cruel. I'm also looking forward to being around like-minded people again, its refreshing and encouraging at the same time. Hopefully the folk over at Wings Over Scotland will get organised with a venue to meet beforehand, I don't comment often - there are enough to be getting on with - but it would be nice to put names to faces. 

Other than that, I look forward to the token unionist unfurling a Union Flag and the hoots of good-natured derision he/she or they will attract.

* Unless enough wine is taken in which case I could be persuaded into a plaintiff rendition of Eric Carmen's seminal hit - 'All by myself'. (Dedicated to David Mundell and by extension, after Sept 2014, Westminster in general.)