[UK] Autistic son to go into care because of bedroom tax

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Lolwut? I'm fairly certain I could find negative effects of policies from every single government we've had, but that wouldn't prove that they're somehow evil and deliberately making them for the negative effects.

Whenever you change something there's going to be some negative to it - such as when they trialled getting rid of daylight savings time, and more people got killed on the darker roads in the morning, which led to it being scrapped because of a hysterical media. That more lives would have been saved on the lighter roads in the evening, and that peoples emotional reactions resulted in more people dying, doesn't seem to have registered in most peoples minds...

Now, I'm not saying that in this particular instance they should have their housing benefit cut. What I'm saying is, there ought to be leeway for social services to judge that they need it and stop it being cut. But that doesn't mean that the benefit cut shouldn't happen.

As for worries about a housing shortage, fortunately the governments liberalising the rules so that communities can allow planning permission, so that more houses can be built. Laissez Faire!

The whole policy is ill conceived at a time when there is a drastic shortage of housing in the UK and rent is ridiculously high. This government, like the last one, want to keep the house prices high because this generates more money for the banks and allows the rich to make big returns on property investments.

If they really wanted to bring down the benefits bill then they would build more social housing. This would get more people off the unemployment list and into work, it will create more affordable housing so rents would come down, which would bring down the housing benefit bill. Housing benefit is the major problem when it comes to welfare costs for the taxpayer, not the fact that people have an extra bedroom.

Any idiot could foresee the problems the article talks about, so I don't accept that those in government are ignorant of these issues.

If "any idiot" could foresee those problems, then I'm rather surprised that I never saw them raised before the act passed.

House prices are high because demand outstrips supply. I don't think anyone disputes that. Part of this is down to population increasing faster than the housing stock, but a lot is because of increased demand from divorcees, foreign buyers (though rich foreigners tend to buy in the wealthier areas, so I don't think this will affect the lower end much), and speculation.

Whatever the increase, though, the fact is that we need more housing. The government *is* working to fix that, by relaxing planning laws and letting communities decide their own planning needs. Building more social housing is not the answer, because that damages the private sector. If the government gets out of the way, the invisible hand will fix it, and nothing is stopping private collectives from building their own houses. Removing the blocks stopping housebuilding will do a lot more good than embarking on some harebrained social housing scheme, which leaves us with overpriced houses subsidised by the private sector through taxation.

Cameron and is crew are evil, yes. They are setting out deliberately to expand food bank use and homelessness. Cameron himself has praised the proliferation of food banks as being an example of his Big Society, as how this is how he thinks a large number of the population should be fed in his personal utopia. Also, a radical anti-squatting law was set up to make sure the newly homeless could not stay in abandoned buildings. One froze to death outside such a building not long after having been subject to criminal penalties for daring to enter such a place. Cameron has ordered quotas for people to be dropped from benefit rolls, and he clearly wants many of them to die off. He has cut off legal aid to those challenging those who are dropped. The hits come from all directions. He is lowering taxes on the rich and openly considered lowering the minimum wage. His policies in fact are designed to reduce the standard of living of most people and reduce wages. His people speak openly of the need that most people accept the standard of living of the Indian poor, in the name of competition, and Michael Heseltine said people must be made much more poor and miserable in order to create the discipline required to win the global competition! If this is not black-hearted evil, I don't know what is. In a time of massive automation, what is really a post-scarcity society, returning to the social policies of early Victorian times is truly wicked.

If you are a politician you are either

1. evil
or
2. a huge suck up
or both.

Hallelujah about bloody time you lot talk about the bedroom tax around here! Am a delegate of the Merseyside Anti Bedroom Tax campaign and a member of a Liverpool ABT group

thomas81 there's big issues in the current exemptions about how they are defined. I know as at the moment my solicitor's can't take my case to the High Court for a judicial review. I might have to wait for the outcomes of the five judicial reviews that are planned to be hear, before going down that road.

Also there a mass appeal challenge of Housing Benefit decisions going on. The crux of the challenge is based on this:

Think about it, it is a reduction of Housing Benefit. Assume someone got 100% HB before April.
Now after April if there are & its claimed there are under occupying a home they would get 86% of there rent in HB (1 extra "bedroom") or 75% for 2+.

Out of other sources of incomes the missing 25% or 14% would be "taxed". I know HB is means tested as both other benefit claimants and the working poor can claim Housing Benefit.

We don't know the full story about that plus The Mirror mean well in there support in the campaign tho they do put a spin on it. I know as a friend of mine was interviewed at a BT demo. They claimed that my friend and her family are affected by the bedroom tax in there write up, what a load of bollocks as that's not the case! She's a disabled woman and, her and her family not under occupying there home.

Also I bet you didn't know this about the Janet Bell story in The Mirror after she got her HB in payed full her council then billed her for non-payment of Poll Tax, as she was a part of the Anti-Poll Tax campaign on Merseyside.