Chapman Plays the Striver/Skivers Game for LOLs

Deputy Leader Graham Chapman has had the opportunity to pop down to that London and tell the Select Committee on Welfare Reform how bad the government's ideas are. Good stuff. Its how he's chosen to publicise it that pisses me off.

You see, like a number of mainstream Labour politicians he seems to have bought into the 'strivers v skivers' divide, the latest revamp of Victorian deserving/undeserving poor attitudes. The Victorian era is where such bigoted claptrap should remain.

You see, it is NOT the only thing wrong with government plans to limit benefit and tax credits increases to 1% per year that it will affect a lot of working people. It is wrong because it will also affect all unemployed people. Even if Chapman is just trying to highlight the Tories clumsy attempt to hide the affects of this real terms cut, he couldn't bring himself to highlight the government lie that disabled people will be exempt; the cap will also be applied to Employment Support Allowance too, many of whom are, in the common sense and/or technical legal term, disabled.

By buying into such divisive language Chapman is fueling the exact same image that the government and its tame poodle media are trying to embed. Labour has form on this of course, playing the exact same tricks like exaggerating benefit fraud and, in fact, the invention of Employment Support Allowance itself. In fact this left many with real terms cuts in benefits too as the amounts paid are often less than the Incapacity Benefit most claimants were previously paid.

Happy New Year by the way!

PS According to a source Chapman later felt bad about the use of language, so the above link will send you somewhere more friendly now.

Just so you know I didn't make it up, here's what it used to look like.

Fair play he felt bad. Maybe an apology Cllr Chapman?

PPS the Tories' 1% cap will probably affect most less than NCC's decision to insist on the poorest paying at least 8.5% of the full Council Tax. He blames central government for this too, with some justification. He will blame all of us when we can't pay it from our real-terms reduced benefits. The only people he won't blame is himself and his councillor colleagues.