If you ever needed a visual definition of 'irony'...

[perseus]

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/town-on-the-breadline-1-4893328

The irony being that on the issue of the 'breadline', the two in the photo are clearly eating well.

[The Great Dictator]

They don't eat bread, they eat kebabs or pizza and smoke and drink like fuc*.

[Stig of the Seaton Dump]

We could always cut services to make up for the loss of funds.

[testing times]

Maybe Wilcox could sell her 50" 3D TV and donate the proceeds to the general good?

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

£3.48 a week...well said Perseus for putting it into context. I don't wish to sound like a Daily Mail reader, but isn't that roughly the cost of 10 cigarettes? In my opinion the article was vulgarly emotive, in particular the comments suggesting that there would be an increased risk of children being put into care. Sadly, we are living in straitened times, and economy is the Zeitgeist.

HBC needs to learn to trim it's sails and operate like so many households who are making their own economies in order to keep their heads above the water; this is unfortunately a concept which I fear may run against any corporate 'high tax/high spend' habits which might prevail.  Hmmm...£25 k a year for two years to administer a duplicate 'service'...could be a good place to start the economics lessons... 

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

Sadly, I fear that the truly vulnerable are often missed out of the loop, as they may not fit into bureaucratic 'categories', and thus being 'invisible' lack the voice or confidence to speak up ... 

[fred c]

Not like the mail to front page such an emotive subject, i wonder if Ms James, Ms Wilcox, SAB, CAB, Jed Hall & the rest of the labour politburo will be as keen on a photo opportunity when they accept the inevitable councillors allowance increase.

The simple fact is..... we are all struggling, the difference is, most of us try to live within our means, if we want something & we can`t afford to pay for it..... We do without it, the policy of the ruling group within HBC is to do everything possible to allow people to continue on their present standard of living, no matter how they are spending the monies they recieve.

I have some sympathy with people who are genuinely struggling, but there are an awful lot of people who recieve benefits who, still smoke like beagles, drink like fish, gamble like Lucan & watch Sky TV till the cows come home

The hypocritical antics of some councillors is vomit inducing, they really should be looking at how much they & their friends & relatives are taking out of the public purse.

As for the mayor.... i wonder if he would care to explain in his mail column just how his living standards have been affected ? i wont be holding my breath on it though

[mk1]

Interesting bit on Newsnight tonight on 'food banks'.
It seems (in the example from Coventry) that 40% of people using the service are there because of the recent huge rise in the number of people being 'sanctioned' and denied any benefits. Given that the local offices have been given targets of a fixed number of people to 'sanction' every month then the problem will get worse.
Once you are 'sanctioned' your money is stopped for a fixed period(up to 6 weeks) and you are denied any other help.

To head off the  'free food for life' moaners you can only use the service for 2-3 weeks before they pass you on to other agencies. Sorry if I shot your rabbit.

By the way can anyone explain to me how you can drink, smoke, gamble. buy luxury items and live the life of Riley on a single person's 70 quid a week?


It does no good for the 'haves' to start blaming the 'have-nots' for the problems caused by the insane desire to own your own home. This  obsession directly caused the crisis and I suggest we look inside before casting the first stone.

I suspect some here would not be above contacting the Benefit Cheats Hotline to report all those so called 'disabled' people who are running, jumping and swimming  on the telly................

[Stig of the Seaton Dump]

As somebody supposedly fortunate enough to be in work and not receiving benefits but on the other hand totally squeezed and finding it a massive challenge to cope with the high inflation without any significant pay rise for 5 years I feel I am caught between a rock and a hard place.

I don't wan't the needy to suffer but I also don't wan't to pay another penny more for anything else.

If that means taking every other street light bulb out, emptying the garden waste bin once a month (terraced street so could be once a year), not opening the libraries until lunch time, doing without Christmas lights etc. then so be it.

A line has to be drawn so there is money left for the true essentials. All those taking money from HBC to HMRC need to wake up to this.

The shambolic remodelling of Seaton front to the tune of £70K shows those spending have no idea how much hard work is required for the paying.
(Budgets and spending pots hold no sway when it all comes out of the same pocket initially.)

[for fawkes sake]

I think everyone has to be a little careful here because, as the financial tightening begins to grip, there is a danger of us, the great unwashed, turning on each other rather than remembering where the responsibility for all of this mess actually lies.

I would also point out that there is no '10%' cut as The Mail and the likes of Cllr James have tried to suggest. Like most crude Government measures of this type, calculations have been been made according to laid down formulae which have worked out what the level council tax in a post-industrial town of 89,000 in the North East of England should be. In our case, with the council tax figure in Hartlepool being so high, it so happens that the calculated figure doesn't quite match what HBC charges.

As we have found out, Labour have never been too bothered about the high level of council tax largely because a great proportion of their own supporters haven't needed to pay it.  With the changes, those same people will find themselves now having to pay something to help fill the gap.

If the level of council tax in Hartlepool was more reasonable and more in-line with what it should be for a town of our size, then those receiving council tax benefit would probably still not have to pay anything extra. It's a case of Labour's traditional approach as a high sending, high taxing authority coming back to bite them in the bum.    

[testing times]

Interesting post FFS - made me think - as did this.
Last week, The Mail ran a story telling us that 1 in 4 kids in the town were clinically obese; this week the paper is telling us that we'll soon have food banks on our street corners.
Some come on, Joy Yates. Which is it?

[steveL]

I saw the Newsnight report and very interesting it was to but I would be wary of the likes of Mad Dog wadxing off about food banks. The organisation featured on Newsnight seemed to have a very realistic and professional approach but I suspect any talk from Cllr James would veer down the lines of something far more local, probably run by one of her pet community groups and probably involving yet another grant from HBC to pay for yet more 'in the loop' administrators.

If you have the time, I would recommend watching the Newsnight report and subsequent discussion. Very illuminating and it's interesting that it lays the blame for the need for foodbanks pretty much squarely on the administrative c**k-ups and sanctions imposed by the DWP and local authorities.

The report starts at around 26 minutes 20 seconds.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mmwkj/Newsnight_04_09_2012/

[steveL]

For Info:

Trussell Trust[/b]
http://www.trusselltrust.org/

Durham foodbank
0191 303 7559
Durham Christian Partnership
42 Salisbury Road
Durham
DH1 5QT

Sunderland foodbank0191 5671367
http://sunderland.foodbank.org.uk/
Elim Church
Durham Road
Sunderland
SR2 7PD

Gateshead foodbank
Under development
Tel no. 0191 487 0898
info@gateshead.foodbank.org.uk

Newcastle East foodbank
0191 224 2422
Elim Pentecostal Church
Heaton Road (Corner of Tynemouth Road)
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE6 1SD

Billingham foodbank
01642 361714
07879 466062
kevtherev@uwclub.net
www.billingham.foodbank.org.uk
New Life Church
Low Grange Avenue
BILLINGHAM
Cleveland
TS23 3DP

Middlesbrough foodbank
Middlesbrough Community Church
St Aiden's Centre
Clifton Street
Middlesbrough
TS1 4NA

The Trust is in the process of setting up foodbanks in Redcar and Hartlepool although there are no details as yet

[mk1]

The Trust is in the process of setting up foodbanks in Redcar and Hartlepool although there are no details as yet

Oh dear, a  juicy well paid job for a relative snatched from Angie's fingers..............

[christine blakey]

What a very ingenious press release!

Send it to every media contact, though you better remove the word Councillor before Perseus and Lucy as they will do you for fraud.

Seriously, I do think that the increases elsewhere such as in wages or allowances are totally gross when we have such a dire situation as this recession in general.  It is like a cancer eating away at our resources, so why are some people swallowing money when they already have full-time jobs and special payments?

Have increases been granted?

At least it is now in perseus-pective!!