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welfare

  • 5 Dec 2012
    Government set to cash in on anti-welfare propaganda

    Further slashing of welfare is on the cards for Chancellor George Osborne's Autumn statement on the economy today. What is being portrayed as growing public hostility towards benefit claimants is being used as the justification for further measures that will hit the poorest and most vulnerable in society.

  • 3 Dec 2012
    The politics behind the welfare myths

    Radio 4’s extended programme on Welfare failed to challenge some of the myths surrounding the subject, but paradoxically, later that same day, BBC4 television screened a brilliant documentary which laid bare the politics behind these myths, and the reason they have been so heavily promoted.

  • 27 Nov 2012
    BBC's State of Welfare fails to challenge myths

    Radio Four’s three hour special ‘The State of Welfare’ was very disappointing. I hoped that the BBC would redeem its journalistic reputation by basing the programme on solid research, rigorous interviewing techniques, and a range of voices and experience. It would have been the ideal opportunity to establish a factual basis for debate.

  • 22 Nov 2012
    Westminster cuts will devastate Scottish communities, say charities

    New research by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations shows growing concern about increasing demand for services as UK welfare cuts kick in.

  • 31 Oct 2012
    Last chance to sign e-petition to stop and review welfare changes

    Supporters have until 10am tomorrow (1 November 2012) to sign an important petition on the 'government direct' website to stop and review the cuts to benefits and services which are falling disproportionately on disabled people, their carers and families.

  • 26 Oct 2012
    Housing benefit cuts and ‘troubled families'

    The son-in-law of Baron Cottesloe plans to punish those who do not limit their families to two children and at some time require welfare benefits. UK Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith controversially proposes in future to limit housing benefit and other state assistance to the first two children only.

  • 25 Oct 2012
    Make pensioners keep working, peer urges

    People over retirement age should be required to do community work or lose some of their pension, urged former Benefits Agency head Lord Bichard.

  • 9 Oct 2012
    Welfare minister told government is 'bullying' disabled people

    While Conservatives trumpet a further £10.5 billion welfare cuts, a leading disability campaigner has told a minister to "stop bullying us".

  • 9 Oct 2012
    Playing party politics with welfare

    With 'the big three' parties all singing from the same austerity hymn sheet and promising cuts in social security that differ mainly in degree, says Simon Barrow, it is surely the most vulnerable in society who are set to be the biggest losers from the conference season political jamborees.

  • 5 Sep 2012
    Work-or-starve plans for seriously ill welfare claimants might backfire

    The UK government’s ‘work capability assessment’ for sick and disabled people has been revealed to be blatantly unfair, and decisions are frequently overturned on appeal.