Stop headline-chasing on benefit fraud – and concentrate on fixing the system
Friday, August 13th, 2010 by Moussa Haddad Posted in Livelihoods, UK poverty, Welfare reform | 1 Comment »This week, David Cameron returned to one of the favoured themes of politicians looking for easy headlines – benefit fraud. With the welfare bill under pressure like no other area of public spending and with benefits already at historically low ...
Short selling on the optimism of our young people
Friday, August 13th, 2010 by Katherine Trebeck Posted in Attitudes, Livelihoods, UK poverty, Welfare reform | 1 Comment »David Cameron has said that in its spending cuts the ‘first thing’ the government should do is cut fraud and waste in the benefit system. The first thing? Really? Of course fraud anywhere should be stamped out – there is no ...
A big Swahili welcome for the Big Society
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 by Lisa Glass Posted in Asylum-seekers, Gender, Refugees, Voluntary work | 1 Comment »[caption id="attachment_1061" align="alignright" width="184" caption="Therese at an international GenderWorks conference with Oxfam in Brussels earlier this year"][/caption] As David Cameron’s idea for the Big Society meets more discussion we look to see the public sector gaps already filled by community groups. ...
Let’s crack down on the real welfare cheats: wealthy tax evaders
Monday, August 9th, 2010 by Katherine Trebeck Posted in Attitudes, Welfare reform | 6 Comments »Benefit cheats are held up as scroungers – with BBC even running a story about a man in a jive-dancing competition who was claiming disability benefits for an arthritic hip. But for each of these very public cases of benefit fraud ...
Violence against women is still on the rise
Friday, August 6th, 2010 by Elisabeth Fischer Posted in Crime, Equality, Gender, Violence against Women | 5 Comments »When the Home Office published its latest British Crime Survey in July this year, everyone was dazzled by the surprisingly good-looking figures. Crime went down by 43% since 1997, and fell by 9% last year to its lowest level since ...
Let’s watch our language when it comes to welfare
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 by Katherine Trebeck Posted in Attitudes, Welfare reform | 3 Comments »Iain Duncan Smith has claimed there is a ‘culture of worklessness’ that prevents people getting jobs. But what he describes is not a “culture”- it’s a set of facts that mean that, even where people desperately want to work, doing ...
