Sick and Disabled People returning to work face discrimination at every level

The British Government has changed the rules regarding incapacity, sickness and limited ability to work so that an estimated 40% of the 2 million people previously regarded as unfit for work are now to be re-classified as fit for work under the Work Capability Assessment, which is based on the UNUM sponsored bio-psycho-social model of disability. This has already or will leave many thousands of people with chronic illness and disability having to try to meet the conditionality requirements of job seeker's allowance or have no income what so ever.

As I myself am facing this situation I decided to see just exactly what, realistically are my prospects for obtaining paid employment. I approached two employment agencies in the town where I live and asked each the following question; “Realistically speaking , what are my prospects for getting a job?”. Both were told that I have been on Incapacity Benefit for approximately 10 years with a number of conditions that would affect my capacity for work.

The first agency was IRWEB trading as Interaction Recruitment, the agency was entered by a narrow doorway between two shops, and required me to negotiate 3 flights of stairs to reach the office, there was no lift. I walk using a cane, and have COPD. I arrived eventually at the top floor, breathless and in pain. Had I been in a wheelchair it would NOT have been possible for me to reach the office at all. When I was able I explained briefly my situation and asked them the question ‘what realistically are my prospects of getting a job’. This is the reply I got (paraphrased) “We require references that aren’t family or friends for the last five years, you don’t have any so we wouldn’t put you on our books”, I asked if that was a legal requirement and was told “Sorry those are the rules,”  I expressed the opinion that this was discriminatory and was told “it’s like you just came out of prison” . I did not leave my name.

The second agency I approached was ADECCO, which I also approached on the same date, 25th September 2012. Their office was fortunately on the ground floor, with street access. However the reception area was small and filled with a table and 3 chairs, anyone attempting to enter with a wheelchair would have no choice but to block the entrance. I explained my situation to them, that I was on IB and expected to lose my benefit and asked the same question ‘what realistically are my prospects for paid employment’. I was told that they would be happy to look at my CV, when I asked about references they allowed that I could cite my doctor as a referee however they did state that some employers did require recent experience and that they felt that this was not discrimination. I sent my CV by email that evening, this is the response I received:
“Thank you for sending us your Curriculum Vitae.
At present we have no vacancies relevant to your requirements. However, we will keep your details on file and, should any suitable vacancies arise, we will contact you.
We wish you every success in your search for employment and would like to thank you for thinking of Adecco.
Regards,”

Two days later I received the following letter from the Dept. of Work and Pensions ;
“Date 25/09/2012  THE BENEFIT YOU RECEIVE IS CHANGING” ,.. please note the date of this letter as I think it is significant, I am now to be re-assessed.
Subsequently I had a look at Adecco’s website and found three vacancies I was interested in, as I felt I had relevant experience, all be it that this experience was more than 10 years previously. I wrote an email to the local agency person I had spoken to previously expressing an interest in the 3 vacancies and received the following in reply;
“I do not believe you will be suitable for the jobs as they require recent experience but if that is not the case one of my colleagues will contact you should you be suitable for the position.”

In conclusion then it is very clear to me now just what the barriers are to sick and disabled people returning to work, firstly agencies and employers know that being passed ‘Fit for work’ under the WCA does not in any way guarantee that a person is actually capable of working. The practice of requiring recent experience is of itself discriminatory against sick and disabled people returning to work, this practice completely disregards any wealth of past work experience, and of life experience a disabled person may have and any qualifications they may have obtained. Disabled access to many premises is simply non existent and agencies are as guilty as employers of failing to provide such access.  And lastly but perhaps most significantly the prejudices promoted against sick and disabled people by this governments propaganda and ‘scrounger’ rhetoric have condemned us to life on the dole with no prospect of paid employment, or to work unpaid at whatever menial post the DWP and their agents demand of us, otherwise to have no income what so ever. This is unacceptable, and we will fight!

Privatising the NHS will put Britain in debt to private corporations for up to 60 years

 

Much has been made by politicians of the supposed benefits of public-private partnerships, but let me explain how these deals actually work;

Let’s say we want to build a hospital in Corby, because presently any accident or emergency patients, and maternity patients have to travel to Kettering. Let’s say the cost of actually building such a facility is around £6 million using public money. The government says that there simply isn’t the money to do this, but that they will create a public-private partnership called Corby NHS Trust to do this. The private member of the ‘partnership’ puts up the money, and has the hospital built. This means that the cost of building the hospital does not come out of public funding and thus does not appear on the exchequers books. But this money is then a debt owed to the private corporations who provided the finance and must be paid back to them over lets say 30 years, including interest. If the interest rate is only 2%, after 30 years £10.868 million will have to be repaid! Almost doubling the cost of building the hospital. The real figures and interest rates are probably much larger, but you get the idea.

Now if at the same time the services of that hospital are also privatised and therefore NOLONGER free at the point of service, the corporations who provided the finance will be charging those of us who can pay, and NOT serving those of us who can’t. They then stand to make not only the £4.868 million in profit from the government paying them back but also whatever amount of profit THEY decide to take after running costs.

The repayment schedules being talked about are up to 60 years, anyone with a calculator can see that this is a brilliant deal for the private investors, but a really crap deal for the British people, as we will be paying 3 or 4 times what it actually costs to build such hospitals, and be tied into paying for them for up to 60 years. Meanwhile assuming the privatisation of the NHS goes ahead, we will also be paying for the products of those hospitals, in terms of services we receive. It’s a Lose-Lose situation for the British people and a Win-win for the private corporations.

Now you see why millions of pounds are pouring into the Tory party coffers from private corporations, and how the millionaires who have usurped our government are laughing all the way to the bank!

How the British Government Scuppered Permitted Work

The Department for Work and Pensions regulations allow that a person who is claiming Incapacity benefit or Employment Support Allowance may do ‘Permitted Work’ while claiming. This regulation allows that a person claiming IB or ESA can earn up to £97.50 per week from working less than 16 hours per week without their benefit being affected. This amount is also passed on to Housing benefit and Council Tax Benefit as a disregard which is applicable under certain circumstances only. Permitted work is also an option available under the Provider led Pathways to work guidance, where a provider can obtain a ‘Job Outcome payment’ under specific circumstances.
On the face of it ‘Permitted Work’ seems like an ideal opportunity for claimants of IB and ESA who have been on benefit for a long time to see if they can actually do some work, and to be guaranteed to be better off whilst doing so. However in practice it seems that very few people are actually taking up this facility, exact figures do not seem to be available. A freedom of Information Request is still outstanding on this matter.
What then might the barriers be to claimants taking up permitted work? The first fear that comes to mind is that if you show any interest in doing permitted work, that you will trigger a re-assessment of your fitness for work. The DWP guidance states that anyone doing permitted work will still be subject to assessment of their fitness for work;
“If a medical assessment is due as part of your ongoing benefits-related review, it will go ahead as planned.”
Previous guidance to Incapacity Benefit claimants suggested that taking up permitted work may indeed trigger a re-assessment of their capacity to work. 
Another concern is that doing permitted work may affect your Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. It seems to depend mainly on if the Decision maker at DWP decides your work is ‘permitted’ and what disregard you are allowed, if you get the £20 disregard then anything you earn over this amount will affect IB,ESA and HB and CTB, similarly if your work is judged to be permitted and you earn in excess of the £97.50 disregard this too will affect your benefits including HB and CTB. Additionally if, in any one week, you work for 16 hours or more then your entitlement to Incapacity Benefit or Employment Support Allowance STOPS!
The main problem however is that if your work is determined by the DWP decision maker NOT to be allowed as permitted work your benefits are immediately affected by the full amount of your income from any paid employment. This is compounded by the fact that the claimant is NOT TOLD prior to starting any work if the work they are proposing to do is ‘permitted’, claimants must start the work, send in the PW1 declaring that they wish to work under the ‘permitted work rules’ and wait to see if the work they are doing is permitted, they are then completely in the hands of the DWP decision maker as to whether the work they want to do will benefit them financially in any way or if it will result in their benefits being cut by the amount they receive, the fact that they are then doing some work would doubtless be taken into account during their WCA assessment regarding their fitness for work.
A further concern is that it appears that on disclosing that you are doing work which you wish to be considered as permitted work under the permitted work rules, your claim for benefit is immediately suspended, pending the DWP Decision on whether such work is ‘permitted’.
It is this writers view that the regulations regarding ‘permitted work’ are a minefield for the claimant and for welfare rights advisers alike, with amendments to regulations, changes in types of benefits and a total lack of clarity as to what work is permitted. It occurs to this writer that this government has No Interest in encouraging the uptake of permitted work as provided for by the regulation because, if permitted, it does not reduce the benefits bill in the short term, no matter how much it may benefit the claimant. Further the regulations and subsequent amendments seem to have been so crafted that any claimant wishing to take up permitted work does so at the immediate risk of their entitlement to benefits.
In conclusion what could have been a significant aide to the long term sick and disabled in trying some limited work and being rewarded for doing so has been successfully scuppered by opaque regulation and lack of information. Whether permitted work, had it been implemented in a transparent and fair manner, could lead to claimants no longer needing  the support of these benefits in the long term is unknown, if the Freedom of Information request  is answered perhaps the answers to these questions will finally come to light. Instead claimants of ESA are now facing Mandated Work were the sick and disabled will be expected to work for their benefits for as much as 30 hours per week and for as long as 6 months at a time on pain of being sanctioned in exactly the same way as claimants of Job Seeker Allowance, among whom will be those of their fellows found ‘fit for work’ under the discredited WCA.

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Update And response to kelly Peters:

"Claimants on ESA can never be asked to do any activity (i.e. training) that is over 16 hours per week. Mandatory Work Activity is only for JSA claimants. Under DWP guidance ESA Claimants can not (and will not) be forced to work or to apply for a job. There are various other false and/or misleading statements within this article. Given the high levels of anxiety felt by many claimants of incapacity benefits - please check your facts before posting articles on such an emotive subject."

For some reason Blogger is not letting me reply to comments so ;

Kelly,  I agree that IB is currently an emotive subject, as I too am on IB waiting for Graylings' axe to fall, and from what I see in the press and media, I have little hope of getting a fair assessment under the WCA. We have seen no matter what DWP guidance is given that ATOS have been working to targets, as shown by C4: Dispatches. (When is a target not a target? when its a statistical norm, a target by any other name) . From what I hear and read the rules regarding ESA appeals will change as of April 2013 (Welfare reform bill, clause 99, source social welfare union), such that anyone appealing a decision on their entitlement to ESA will automatically be put on JSA, and thus one would expect to be subject to JSA jobseeker regulations, sanctions and mandated activity. Grayling has said elsewhere in the press that it is his intention to 're-design' the system so that those persons coming off IB/ESA whom jobcentreplus feels are too sick to take work placements will be forced to do so.

This is my blog, I will do , Kelly such fact checking as I am able and will post whatever I like in my blog. I therefore invite you to challenge any and all statements of mine which you feel are wrong or misleading, and please be sure to include your sources, or I will not allow your comment.

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Investigation into the source of claims made by SWU above: Original SWU post :

http://www.facebook.com/SocialWelfareUnion/posts/378098418924587 

source of the above post

http://www.youreable.com/forums/showthread.php/2086-Clause-99-of-the-Welfare-Reform-Bill-which-comes-into-effect-in-April-2013

source of that post :

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1633472

and the origination of the Chinese whisper :

http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/latest-news/1530-no-esa-for-claimants-who-want-to-appeal

In the above post benefits and work say that

“Given that reconsiderations could take many months, many claimants will be obliged to make a claim for JSA, even though they may consider themselves wholly unfit for any kind of work.  Alternatively, they will have to manage without either ESA or JSA, at least until their appeal is lodged.”

I accept that the word ‘automatically’ as used by myself above was incorrect but assert that my statements above regarding ESA claimants having to face the same requirements as JSA claimants, given the above statements from Benefits from work, were in fact substantially true, However is appears that currently available guidance from the DWP states that a claimant may continue to receive ESA at the  assessment phase rate.

The fact remains that persons having an illness and or disability which would give them rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of People with disabilities, will still face being forced to work for their benefits should they find themselves on JSA, in contravention of article 27 of the convention. Article 27 also implies that if it is a contravention of the convention that a disabled person is forced to work, it is also a contravention of the convention should any other person be forced to work. A converse (perverse?) interpretation could also be made , that if a non disabled person can be forced to work, then so can a disabled person, but I think that such and interpretation would be seen to be against the spirit of the convention.

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Update 15/08/2012

The following article and documents from the DWP have recently been pointed out to me, this was originally reported on The Guardian website in an article entitled “Disabled people face unlimited unpaid work or cuts in benefits” published in February of this year. The title statement is supported by two DWP documents; The first is “Work Experience and work placements for ESA Work-related activity Group” and is a presentation from the DWP policy and strategy forum, December 2011. In this document the DWP shows its intention to introduce work experience and work placements for sick and disabled persons in the WRAG. In the second document which is a redacted copy of the minutes of the DWP policy and strategy forum meeting of 1st December 2011. In this document the intention to mandate this activity is made clear;

“Ministers strongly feel there is a link-up to support those who are moving close to the labour market and the individual’s responsibility to engage with the support. Ministers feel sanctions are an incentive for people to comply with their responsibility.”

The Guardian article includes information received from the DWP saying explicitly that some would be mandated to this activity and some would not. I am at pains to point out to any sick or disabled person facing such activity in the WRAG on ESA, or any person who is disabled under the terms of the UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and has been declared fit for work, and to the DWP and any disabled groups reading this article that under article 27 of the convention disabled persons “..are protected, on an equal basis with others, from forced or compulsory labour.”

An open letter to Nick Clegg MP

Dear Nick,

I have been a Liberal, and then a Liberal Democrat supporter for many years, in fact since Sir David Steel was leader of the Liberal Party. As a teenager I campaigned in elections, delivering leaflets for my local candidate as a member of the Liberal Radical Youth, and as an adult I have voted Liberal or Liberal Democrat in every election, bye-election, or local government election that there has been to date where I have been living in the UK.

I now withdraw my support for this Liberal Democrat/conservative coalition government, and my support for the LibDems while they are led by you. This is because of your complete and utter failure to protect the rights of sick and disabled people in this country, because you have allowed sick and disabled people in this country to be portrayed as lazy scroungers, without once to my knowledge showing support for us or objecting publicly to those government policies and attitudes which demean us, policies which seek to deny us the right to live dignified and independent lives, because you have allowed this government to arbitrarily withdraw benefits from sick and disabled people based on a work capability assessment which has been thoroughly discredited by the British Medical Association, and because of your continued failure to support EDM 295 ATOS, which would at least allow these matters to be debated in the house.

Furthermore I commend your decision to continue to fight the next election as leader of the Liberal democrats, this shows me that you will continue to bury your head in the sand while innocent people suffer. My vote is one that you will not have, and nor I hope will you have the votes of those sick and disabled people that find themselves in my position.

The British Government attempt at Redefining Disability

The United Kingdom has signed AND ratified The UN Convention on the Rights of people with disabilities which states that;

“Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.”

The Equality and Human Rights Commission Guidance states that the convention is based on the Social Model of disability. The social model of disability sees the issue of "disability" as a socially created problem and a matter of the full integration of individuals into society, as opposed to the Medical Model which sees disability as  a problem of the person, directly caused by disease, trauma, or other health condition which therefore requires sustained medical care provided in the form of individual treatment by professionals.

However the governing Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition seems intent on denying that either of the above models apply. Perhaps as a reaction to the current economic situation, or as a matter of Tory Party ideology, they are applying what amounts to a purely Economic Model of disability;

“The economic model defines disability by a person’s inability to participate in work. It also assesses the degree to which impairment affects an individual’s productivity and the economic consequences for the individual, employer and the state. Such consequences include loss of earnings for and payment for assistance by the individual; lower profit margins for the employer; and state welfare payments. This model is directly related to the charity/tragedy model.”  - Source Wikipoedia.

The Coalition government has, in order to reduce the welfare benefits bill, introduced a new method of assessment and a new benefit to replace Incapacity Benefit and Disability Living allowance. The new benefits are at a lower rate than the above benefits and are assessed using a ‘Work Capability Assessment’. This method of assessment has been discredited by The British Medical Association, who have called for it to be scrapped and replaced with something more fit for the purpose.

That the Coalition government is using the economic model of disability is evident in the criteria used in the WCA, where claimants are found ‘fit for work’ and in the public  statements of its officials. Claimants have been portrayed in the media as ‘Lazy Scroungers’ and The Chief Operating Officer of the Department of Work and Pensions (Terry Morgan) made  the following statement to a public meeting of his civil service colleagues ;

“One of the things that distresses me greatly is when I see these headlines in newspapers when people have pretended to be disabled in order to get money out of the system.

“If I had my way I would put their photograph on every lamp-post in the street where they live because it is a very distressing thing for genuinely disabled people to see the reputation of disabled people damaged in the way that is by those people. We have got to do something about it constructively.”

The above statements make it distressingly clear that the DWP define a person who is ‘fit for work’ as not disabled, and a person who has been awarded benefit under the WCA as disabled, thus implementing the economic model.

Even more distressing to persons who have rights under the UN Convention is that this official advocates actions toward persons with disabilities that contravene article 15 and 16 of the UN Convention;

“Article 15 Freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

'No one must be tortured or subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.Degrading treatment means treatment that is grossly humiliating and undignified.'

Article 16 Freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse

'Governments must do everything they can to: protect disabled people from all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse at home and in the community'”

As of the date of writing the WCA is being considered for judicial review by a judge of the High Court, on the grounds that it discriminates against people with mental health problems. The official figures for fraudulent claiming of these benefit has been put at  0.5% . The number of disabled people previously classed as unfit for work, who are being re-classified as ‘fit for work’ and denied ‘Employment Support Allowance’ continues to rise, as does the number of successful appeals, and sadly also the number of people who have died where removal of these benefits is seen as a contributing cause.

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Update : Since this article was written a more detailed examination of the issues involved, the models used and their origins has been produced by Debbie jolly : A Tale of Two Models on DPAC’s website

Arbeit macht frei – Social cleansing in the UK

 

Driven from their homes, shipped in cattle trucks from the ghettos the first words they saw upon entering the concentration camps were ‘ Arbeit macht frei’ wrought in iron ,..

These were Jews persecuted for their race and religion, but let us not forget that amongst them were the mentally ill, the disabled, the sick and the ‘special people’. In fact if I remember my history correctly the ‘special people’ , the sick and disabled and the mentally ill were the first groups that were chosen for ‘Euthanasia’.

Present circumstances have led me to deplore the behaviour of the current British Government in no uncertain terms.

In May of 2010 I wrote the following blog ‘get your rotten eggs ready for Ian,..’ as you can see I was keeping an open mind, giving Ian Duncan Smith the benefit of the doubt. But now I feel the verdict is in, and IDS is among the culpable.

Arbeit macht frei !

The words mean ‘work will set you free’, how ironic then that these words appeared over the gates to Auschwitz and other camps, where victims of the Nazis were worked to death. David Cameron and IDS have shown how the land lies, the road ahead for the unemployed and for sick and disabled people is not real Jobs with a guaranteed minimum wage but instead leads to ‘Workfare’ where ‘Benefit Slaves’ are forced to work in gangs, on pain of loosing their pittance, sleeping under bridges, with no sanitation or food.

Arbeit macht Frei !!

The characterisation of Sick and Disabled people as ‘scroungers’ began with the outgoing Labour government, let’s not forget that, but IDS and Cameron jumped on the band-wagon wholeheartedly. The sick and disabled are viewed as easy targets, in the media the portrayal of the sick and disabled in this way has led to abuse and to their being scapegoated, much in the same way as the Jews were (the sick and disabled, and the mentally ill were quietly herded into air tight vans and simply gassed to death).

Arbeit macht Frei !!!

One of the first things they did was to force Jewish people into ghettos, evicting them from their homes and concentrating them in into restricted areas, families into single rooms, several families to a house. Notice what is going on with Local Housing Allowance, not only is this benefit cut to the 30th percentile but the rules are changing so that younger people especially are forced into shared accommodation.

Arbeit Macht Frei !!!!

Let these words be a rallying cry, and not an epitaph for those who in desperation have taken their own lives.

Let these words be a warning from history,. throw them in the faces of The British Government and remind them in no uncertain terms that if we discard our social conscience, where the slippery slope will lead us.

The Great Holland and Barrett Rip-Off!

Like many people in the UK I have Irritable Bowel syndrome and was looking for a dietary method of treating this, hopefully to achieve prevention rather than just treating the symptoms with medication. I figured if I could make some adjustments to my diet ,.  well if you look online on this subject you find allsorts of things you should try excluding from your diet such as lactose and gluten etc but this presumes that your IBS is due to an intolerance for these things, and if this is the case well it isn’t IBS. I have IBS-A and am not lactose or gluten intolerant.

So having done some research on the matter I found that I can use liquorice root as an anti-spasmodic, flax seed, okra and fenugreek for their mucilage (Instead of Ispaghula husk). So looking on line I found a health food shop apparently located within 400m of my house so I put my hat and coat on and went to find it, guess what ? It went out of business and is now a pet-store. never mind I thought, there will be a Holland and Barrett in the shopping centre, and sure enough there is. I know from my research that ‘fenugreek’  is both a herb and a spice and commonly called ‘methi’ in India, a common ingredient in curry, the leaves are used as a herb and the seeds as a spice. That’s fine I like my curry as well as the next Englishman,.

I found ‘Fenugreek’ in Holland and Barrett in capsules packaged as a medicine (100 capsules 610mg for £4.12 , previous price £8.25) . I found other items similarly packaged, such as ‘linseed oil’ (£13.35  for 120 capsules), along with various other herbal ‘remedies’. I stormed out of the shop literally swearing under my breath, they are literally repackaging common herbs and spices , oils and so on as ‘medicines’ and charging a fortune for them!

When I got home I did some more research and found that I can buy 250g of fenugreek seed for £1.35, 500g of brown Linseed(flax) £2.42, and to complete my order 250g of liquorice root for £4.68. Where from ? Amazon.co.uk : ‘Buy whole foods online storefront’. Okra is a vegetable and I figure if anyone has any fresh Okra it will be Tesco.

My point here is simple, lets stop paying people like Holland and Barrett to grind stuff up and put it in capsules and learn what herbs, spices and vegetables can help with our health problems, most of them have been around for centuries for good reason.

QuickTime UpDater runs adware process ‘Moozy’ ( DeleteMe1.exe )

Today I allowed the apple auto-updater to install what I thought was an updated version of QuickTime,  the apple updater ran and detected an update to QuickTime was required, on attempting to install this the installer appeared to hang, and was manually terminated. Subsequently SpyBot resident protection detected the process ‘moozy’ an adware plugin running from Quicktime plugins directory as ‘deleteMe1.exe’.

The following is the Spybot Search and destroy Resident protection log entries ;-

22/05/2012 18:41:44 Allowed (based on user decision) value "QuickTime Task" (new data: ""C:\Program Files\QuickTime\QTTask.exe" -atboottime") added in System Startup global entry!
22/05/2012 18:42:29 Allowed (based on user decision) value "QuickTime Plugin Install" (new data: "C:\Program Files\QuickTime\Plugins\DeleteMe1.exe") added in System Startup global entry!
22/05/2012 18:42:29 Encountered and terminated Moozy in C:\Program Files\QuickTime\Plugins\DeleteMe1.exe!
22/05/2012 18:46:45 Allowed (based on user decision) value "QuickTime Plugin Install" (new data: "") deleted in System Startup global entry!

As you can see from the above it appears that Resident caught them red handed !

Google complicit in UK premium rate phone number scams?

So you need a phone number fast right, and you know that if you call directory enquiries from your mobile or land line you are going to get charged for the call, so you Google the service you need,..

As an example let’s use the UK National Health Service direct health advice line, NHS Direct. This line is an 0845 number that’s free to call from a land line. You Google it and the first result is this site :

http://www.medhelpline.co.uk/nhsdirect.html

which offers to connect you to NHS Direct through an 0906 number which is actually PREMIUM RATED! (Only the words ‘premium rated’ do not appear anywhere near the number itself, Well you’d think that most people would not fall for this scam, but at 4am in the morning, perhaps your having palpitations? taken too much of your medication? or are having other symptoms that have you in a panic?)

Looking closer at the Google search we can see that the legitimate website entry NHS Direct, has been pre-empted by a paid avert which is barely distinguishable from the genuine search results. The scammers have used Google Adwords advertising to gazump the real service, and the spoof website even uses the same style as the legitimate one. This is just one example among many.

Now the question is , is Google aware that its adsense program is being exploited in this way or are they quite happy to continue making revenues from such scam advertising? The advertising that appears in your search results is clearly being deliberately disguised as a legitimate search result, google itself exploiting the tendency for users to take the first result in the list. And the next question to ask google is , what if any checking are they doing on sites advertised in this way?

If you have been scammed into calling a premium rate number you can report the scam to Actionfraud.org.uk

General Increase in benefits : UK Government Claw backs

From 12th April 2012 there is scheduled to be an increase in the General Level of Benefits, this will mean that for example the basic rate of Incapacity benefit, long term will become £99.15 per week. The incapacity age addition will be £5.90 making to total weekly benefit for a single sick and disabled claimant over the age of 45 to be £105.05 per week, from a previous figure of £99.85

However those who are also in receipt of housing benefit, possibly the majority of such claimants face a considerable government claw back which will come into effect on 13th August 2012 when protection ends against the governments reduction in LHA to £80.77 This will be the second such reduction in LHA which will impact the sick and disabled during this government. Housing benefit is an essential form of income for benefit claimants and is being systematically targeted by this government for cuts. Housing benefit is calculated using a figure determined by government of how much the law says a sick and disabled person needs to live on, this figure is £67.50 plus £28.85 for sickness or disability. £96.35 in all.  If this figure is not increased on 12th April, or by 13th August sick and disabled people face a considerable reduction in the total amount of benefit awarded.

Housing benefit awarded prior to 12 April :         £84.02

Housing benefit projected after 12 April if the amount the law says a sick and disabled person need to live on remains the same :  £80.64

Housing benefit projected after 13th August :      £75.11

The net effect of all this is that the general increase in benefits for all those on incapacity benefit of £5.20 per week stands to be offset by a reduction of housing benefit of £8.91 per week, leaving them on average £3.71 per week worse off DESPITE the general increase in benefit. And that sick and disabled people will now have to pay on average £12 per week towards their rent to make up the housing benefits shortfall. Where prior to the incumbency of this UK government LHA in most cases covered all of their rent at its previous level.

This is simply the final straw in this governments’ scapegoating of the sick and disabled, the amounts seem tiny until you look at them as a percentage of weekly income, in this case a reduction of 11% during the course of this government.

The Great Mobile Broadband Rip-off

Are you a mobile broadband user? If you are a heavy user of mobile broadband and this is your only form of connection you are doubtless quite happy paying £10-£15 per month for your 3-5 GB data allowance, after all wherever you are the connection is perfect and and the data allowance you get for the money is more than enough, isn’t it? No? Surely you jest, surely mobile broadband is just as good as fibre optic in terms of connectivity and price and even better because you can use it at any time and place? No? so are you trying to say that Mobile Broadband suppliers have been Bullshitting us and ripping us off? Well who would believe it!

Of course if you are a light or occasional user of Mobile Broadband you well know that you are being ripped off. If Mobile Broadband is something that you only really need when you are not at home or in the office, something that you would only need to use two or 3 times a year because you have wireless broadband at home or in the office then you like me have experienced having to top up every time you want to connect using your dongle, usually £10 at a time for a data allowance that will expire in 30 days. But to be fair most carriers are now offering a pay-per-day option, usually £2 for 250MB that expires in 24 hrs. That sounds fair doesn’t it? after all that’s £60 per month for daily use and a data allowance of 7GB. Humm well maybe not so fair when you put it like that! When you put it like that it sounds like blatant usury.

Here’s an example of what recently happened to me : My Cable connection went out at peak time on Saturday afternoon, so I phoned them and they said it was an area fault and it should be fixed within 24 hours. Ok so that’s 24 with no TV and no broadband ,. so I got my mobile broadband dongle out (3 mobile) and of course  I had no data allowance left cause it had expired, it being some months since I had needed to use it. So what are my options? well I can pay £10 for a month of pay as you go, or £3 for one days allowance of 500MB. Fine they said my broadband will be back in 24 hrs so I paid my £3 and got connected. THEN my TV came back online, THEN my cable broadband came back online,..

IN 24 hours my data allowance will have EXPIRED and I wont have actually used more than a few bytes ,. To say I am unhappy with 3 Mobile Broadband is the understatement of the century!

Mobile Broadband data allowance expiry is the biggest rip off thought up by the mobile communications industry, these people need to be sent to jail for fraud and usury. And what is OFCOM doing about it ? well looking on their website there is NOT EVEN AN OPTION to complain about this. Thanks bunches OFCOM, you were no help at all.

Windows live writer – test post

This is a test post , the idea is to verify that I have configured Windows Live Writer correctly to access and post to my blog.

You too can do this if you have Windows Live installed on your PC, I have been using it for some time however when my old laptop blew up , died a death and became defunct I  lost this functionality until now that is. Unfortunately all my drafts etc are now on the old laptop,..  anyone know how to get the hard drive out of a busted lappie and recover the data ? LOL

Some advice for amateur website developers

I recently heard about another website that has been stolen from under the noses of its developers, which happens more often than you might think these days. Good ideas are at a premium and if your idea takes off online you are at considerable risk from unscrupulous internet 'persons'.

When a 'lay' person gets an idea for a website they usually go to a 'friend' who knows about these things to get it going, often that 'friend' is not a real life friend at all but rather an 'online' acquaintance with expertise and possibly contacts that the lay person lacks. This is a really good way to get ripped off!

The first thing to remember when developing a website is that without control of the Domain Name you have or own nothing! Register the domain name you intend to use with an independent registrar, DO NOT register your domain name with the hosting company or 'person' as this will leave them in control of it. The second most important thing you need to do is to keep an up to date copy of all code and data that the site consists of. You must have FTP access to the hosting server and update your backup every time a major change is made to the site, any reputable host will have staff that can help you with this. You should also choose a hosting company that is In Your Country of Residence because as a last resort you may need to go to court to establish your ownership of the site.

Be careful who you grant access to! how well do you know the person or persons who are working on your website? If you meet them socially in real life you retain the option to smack them on the nose but if you grant access to an online acquaintance you have no real proof as to who or where they are, and hence NO recourse if they screw you over. The sort of things that they can do to you are possibly; insertion of 'phishing' holes in your site and other unauthorised code. Theft of your data including credit card info, email addresses and IP addresses of your members and visitors. Note that any website is valued depending on the number of members it has and the number of page hits it gets, if your website takes off you could be sitting on a membership/email list some company's will pay a fortune for! And ultimately they could steal the entire site and deny you any further access to it. You are particularly at risk from this type of theft if your host is an online 'friend' and they control the host server, which is why it is always best to go with reputable hosting company in your own country even if this means that you have to comply with restrictive laws and legislation.

Finally: A 'Gentleman's Agreement' is worth only the paper its printed on, i.e. nothing at all. Get written contracts for expensive development work, transfers of ownership of sites and or domain names and know that the most important page on your website is the 'Terms of service' page, get this wrong and you could loose your shirt.

Get your rotten eggs ready for Ian,..

Ian Duncan Smith (Tory) has been put in charge of sorting out the benefits fiasco which affects an estimated 5.9 Million people in the UK including me, I suggest we all get our rotten eggs ready in case Mr Smith gets it wrong!

The important thing to realise here is that people on benefits are living on a knife edge, one miscalculation can ruin the family budget and leave you eating mush and smoking ‘dimps’ for a couple of weeks, or worse in hoc to a loan shark. Most people on benefits would like to work if it were financially practical to do so, unfortunately in most cases it’s simply NOT practical and taking what work is available would leave them even worse off. For example a person on Job seeker's allowance cannot take part time work for the simple reason that they are only allowed to keep £5 per week of earned income while claiming, this in most cases will not even pay their bus fares to their job. So its full time permanent employment for them or nothing.

A similar situation exists for those of us on Incapacity Benefit, we are allowed to keep £12 per week of what we can earn part time. However for the vast majority of Incapacity Benefit claimants full time permanent employment is physically impossible.

Clearly New Labours approach, i.e. bullying claimants into taking whatever work is offered even if it makes their situation worse rather than better is not acceptable, but considering the huge deficit which is New Labours legacy to the UK what can Mr Smith do that will not hurt claimants, the sick, disabled and impoverished?

UK Election : No Overall Control WINS !!!

So we have a hung parliament here in the UK as a result of Thursdays general election. Its now been 5 days and negotiations between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are still underway however talks between Labour and the Liberals have clearly failed.

Personally I have been waiting for this particular circumstance to come about for over 20 years, in fact ever since I became old enough to vote. As a life long Liberal I have always know that this is THE chance for liberals to make a lasting impact in British politics. I am keeping my fingers crossed right now in the sincere hope that this chance is NOT wasted. It has to be the case that Proportional Representation has to be the price for Liberal cooperation in any coalition government, anything less would be a betrayal of the 23% of our population who voted Liberal.

Gordon Brown must go! Mr Brown was not elected to be the British PM, he got in by default when Tony Blair left, and in this General Election the British people have decidedly NOT voted for Gordon Brown to continue running this country. In my view there is no circumstance where Gordon Brown remaining PM could be acceptable to the British People. Even if talk between the conservative and liberal parties should fail Gordon Brown personally has lost the mandate to govern, in fact he never had any such mandate from the people of this country.

So we are living in interesting times, the Conservatives look set to lead the next government, whether in a full coalition with the Liberal Democrats  or as a minority government remains to be seen. At present there is still much horse trading being done behind closed doors and hopefully the long term result will not only be electoral reform but also long term stable consensus government of this country.

DONT BUY ‘SAN MARCO’ PIZZA

Just sent the following email, and copy here for your information :

To whom it may concern;

I have just had one of your 'san Marco deep pan pepperoni' pizzas
ref : APR 2010 A 9107 10:11

To say that the thing was vile is the understatement of the century, your 'cheese analogue' is positively disgusting, it made me want to vomit. How on earth you manage to earn a living producing such garbage is beyond understanding. I will NEVER AGAIN purchase ANY san marco product no matter how attractively packaged.

You don't even care enough about your product to put real cheese and tomato on it, I simply can't be bothered packaging the remains and sending it to you for a refund, instead I SHOULD be sending it to environmental health to have it checked for contaminants and to see if it actually contains anything of real food value.

I had to eat 2 oz   of REAL cheese just to get the vile taste of your foul product out of my mouth.

Yours disgustedly
a very unhappy customer

A big THUMBS DOWN for ZoneAlarm

I recently installed the current free version of ZoneAlarm, which is for those of you who don’t know a personal firewall application. I had used older versions some time ago and though it could help me resolve current problems,..

The problem I was having was that FireFox was hanging while I was playing Zynga poker, causing me to loose a shit load of play money. Now I was planning to try real money online poker so you can see that I was majorly concerned. Loosing $5000 play money is nothing but when your playing for real money you do not want this to happen.

So I figured that one possibility was that I was being pinged to death, ( Ping flooding in order to deny me the service, see DOS attacks) and decided to use ZoneAlarm to detect and block this.

Sure enough I was getting unsolicited pings etc but no more than the usual background noise one expects these days, however that was just the start of my problems. ZoneAlarm itself became a problem! First of all there’s the usual malarkey in-re configuring the damn thing, then it starts messing with Global hosts, preventing SpybotSD from doing a full immunisation,1078 global hosts could not be immunised until after ZA was removed. Then it hogs my CPU resources using on average 25% of available threads, which led me on to the REAL problem: Spybot’s TeaTimer (resident protection from malware and spyware) was working overtime and chewing vast amounts of memory, why? Because I had too many damn applications running; Messenger, Iplayer, Skype  etc. With ZoneAlarm running as well 100% of my available resources were being used!

So I fixed that, but then Windows Live Messenger would NOT connect. I ran a diagnostic, no connection problems. I ran the trouble shooter and it detected a problem with the hosts file but would NOT complete, it hung at ‘key ports’ preventing the fix, more ZoneAlarm interference I expect because again after removing ZoneAlarm the problem magically resolved itself. BUT That not the end of it,..

As a parting present from ZA a windows application window opens on my desktop on reboot after removal, ‘cpes_clean_launcher.exe’ scaring the shit out of me. I googled it and found a guy who couldn’t get rid of it, others who feared it was a trojan dropper but no definitive article. Not even on ZoneAlarm’s own website! Anyways my system scanned clean and ‘cpes_clean_launcher.exe’ did not reappear on reboot so all is well. But its a big thumbs down for ZoneAlarm from me, more trouble than its worth!

Big Brother is watching !

I’ve just watched two police officers clamp a strange object to the lamp post at the bottom of my street, which is a busy ‘T’ junction in a medium size town. This object then proceeded to climb the pole under their direction, then after it had reached a point not far from the top it turned its eye up our street and then down the cross street while the two officers observed from their riot protected van. Clearly it is a surveillance camera, but what the HELL is it doing on our street?

I’m not a criminal, my neighbours are not criminals, not so far as I know anyway, though that bloke at number 159 looks a bit shifty to me. Yet this THING will see me every time I leave my house, and observe everyone who comes to my house. I ask you is this really necessary? Who authorised this invasion of my privacy? And why were we, the residents of this area not informed or consulted?

Some years ago a young black poet asked us ‘Is Britain becoming a Fascist state,..’ and at the time I laughed. Then came Margaret Thatcher and the police beat the living shit out of the miners at her direction, and I wondered. Some time later we got Tony Blair and no one really hated him because he never really did much, then Tony Blair handed the country over to Gordon Brown the penny pincher without a fight. All the time the numbers of cameras on our roads have continued to grow, the numbers of police helicopters in our skies have continued to grow and Gordon Browns management of our economy has led to a worse recession and more unemployment than Margaret Thatcher was ever responsible for. What will it be next, remote operated camera drones peaking in our windows? Gestapo at the bus and rail stations checking our ID passes? Already there are moves to require that we all carry biometric ID cards.

And Gordon Brown sits there unopposed, as everyone knows the Tory wimp  doesn’t stand a chance and after Thatcher we don’t want him anyway. Nobody believes the Third Party has a chance either but Liberal Democracy may be our only way out of this mess if only we could see it. But no, our government swings from left to right to left and so called ‘New Labour’ has turned out to be more conservative than even Thatcher. All the time the numbers of surveillance cameras grow and no one , NO ONE complains!

Caveat Emptor – Let the buyer Beware!

So it’s nearly Christmas right? And money, as usual is tight. So tight that you are looking at any and all ‘special offers’ in order to get the best value for money you can find. Well watch out because many of these ‘Special Offers’ have a sting in the tail!

I was playing this game on Facebook called Mafia Wars, a cool game but it uses a system of ‘reward points’ which make the game easier if you buy stuff they advertise or sign up for ‘special offers’. So inevitably I find myself needing some reward points, well one of the ‘free’ offers was for ‘The Complete Road Dahl children’s Collection’ £4.95 and was worth 100 reward points. I have a niece and this I thought would be an ideal gift. So I clicked.

I was taken to a webpage and I duly entered my details, there was a terms and conditions PDF which I downloaded and a text box with a shipload of text crammed into it which I couldn’t be bothered reading. Gave ‘em my Card details and in short order I had my 100 reward points. A few days later the books arrived and they were as advertised, so I figured I had got a damn good deal,..

Then I started getting emails from ‘Books for Children’ saying I had agreed to take another 4 books and that their ‘editors choice’ would be sent automatically if I didn’t order anything else and on further investigation I discovered that in order to cancel I would have to pay £10 for each book I did not take. The ‘editors choice’ arrived a few weeks later and it was a piece of crap with an invoice for £16.95. I think you can now see where this is going, I phoned them to cancel and had to pay £46.95 in order to do so. To sum up those 100 reward points have cost me ( inc postage and packing ) approximately £60!

I’ve complained to Zynga the makers of Mafia Wars about this so called ‘free’ offer and the advert is no longer there, but when I complained to Trading Standards there was bugger all they could do. Why? Because I hadn’t read the terms and conditions, hadn’t read the crap in their little text box and the webpage I’d signed up on was no longer there! I’d been clobbered by your classic BookClub scam.

They hook you in with an offer that is too good to be true, and in the fine print claw back the real cost of the initial offer by forcing you to take over priced crap you don’t want, and there is bugger all Trading Standards can do about it because ‘The information needed to make an informed decision was all there’.

Well in my book this amounts to ‘Theft by Deception’ but I seriously doubt that a court would agree with me, so next time you are thinking about clicking on a ‘special offer’ remember this : CAVEAT EMPTOR , which is Latin for ‘Let the buyer beware’.

It’s Fucking Obscene !

Have you seen the images that now disgrace all cigarette packaging here in the UK ?

Under a British Government sponsored initiative the manufacturers of cigarettes and tobacco supplying the UK market are obliged to place some of the most horrendous images I have ever seen on all packaging. The images used include babies in incubators but mainly feature the most ghastly and grotesquely untreated tumours they could apparently find. No British doctor would ever permit such tumours to go untreated to this extent and therefore one must assume that these images where collected from abroad.

It’s Fucking Obscene ! If a private individual published such images in anything other than a medical text book they would be prosecuted and jailed, the offending material being immediately removed from sale and display. Yet the British Government believes that offending the sensibilities of every British and visiting smoker to the UK is justified because of the statistical correlation between smoking and such diseases. Now I am NOT about to argue the case here as to whether or not smoking causes cancer, anyone who smokes is well enough aware that what they are doing is bad for them.  What has pissed me off is that the British Government is gratuitously subjecting a very large segment of its population to these obscene images when there is no proof that causing serious offense to smokers will have ANY affect on their consumption of tobacco. The stuff is after all Addictive.

Considering that cigarettes and tobacco are in fact addictive, if the British Government did actually have the courage of its convictions surly the thing to do is to make them illegal? Rather than subject us to disgustingly obscene images every time we reach for one. It occurs to me that the true fact is most likely that, since the British Government is heavily dependant upon the insanely huge tax revenue from tobacco and prohibition would pump these billions of pounds into the hands of organised crime, these horrendous images they have caused to be placed on tobacco packaging are a sop to the anti smoking lobby in the hope that they will shut the fuck up, if only for a while. Meanwhile organised crime is already taking advantage of the huge taxation imposed on tobacco products and looks set to reap even greater profits in the future.

The British Governments’ hypocrisy not withstanding does any government have the right to legislate that obscene material must be published where it can be viewed by minors? Finally it is my considered opinion that causing and giving offense is no way to resolve the problem of smoking.