Universal Credit and the Minimum Income Floor

I am seeing panic across the board with this Minimum Income Floor attached to Universal Credit, to make it clear if there is anyone reading this who does not know about the minimum income floor conditionality attached to Universal Credits for the Self Employed, it is a punishment that if you do not make the Minimum Income Floor each month then you will loose entitlement, even if your earnings are the same as a employee at the end of the tax year:-

For example as provided by the commons select committee (click here):-

In this above example a self employed person vs an employed one will loose £3,567 per year despite earning the same amount of money during the Tax Year.

A newly self employed person is exempt from the Minimum Income Floor for 12 months while they try to establish their business, this leads the way for a very obvious solution.

To fix this very obvious flaw in their great plan all they need to do is continue with the 12 months evaluation as they already do with Working Tax Credits.

Currently they work Working Tax Credits out on the previous years income, so why can they not continue to do that?.. Well it's easy to answer really, because UC is a money saving exercise and the more money they can save by unfairly penalising people then the better!.

On top of that if they conduct an in-depth study on the average earnings of a self employed person across the board they would find a more suitable figure to base the minimum income floor on.

Taking into account the fact that those in employment and the self employed do not work on a level playing field, so how can you evaluate them exactly the same. For example, the lack of holiday pay the self employed get, the employees a self employed person may employ and the tax they may have to pay to employ them, including training costs, in addition they already pay tax on the supplies they have to purchase to run a business, not withstanding the other money a self employed person may put back into the economy before they even get to paying themselves a wage, the amount can be obscene, just look at the expenses an ebay seller or Amazon seller has to pay in ebay,  paypal, Amazon fees and postage.

For a number of years I previously employed a number of employees in my accounting business and those employees after all my expenses were earning more wage than I was coming out with. Does that money that I put back into the economy in petrol, software, office supplies, employee wages, rent etc etc etc all taken before I can pay myself, mean nothing to this Government?, 

They treat the self employed like we are parasites when in fact we are the life blood of this country...

An idiots guide to why Golliwogs are Offensive!.

Despite Golliwogs being an interesting character, Florence Kate Upon created the character around 1894, the climate was not good for blacks at that time, to give you a brief idea of what life was like for Black American's at that time in history, One hundred and thirty-four black Americans are known to have been lynched in the year of 1894 and then Enid Blyton used the character in her books as Kate never patented the character, leaving it open for anyone to use.

Blyton used it to enforce negative stereotypes of blacks as stupid, untrustworthy or rude. Blyton was a woman of her time and a vile obnoxious racist at that, in-keeping with the times. Today that very same racism keeps her popular as you hardly ever hear her works spoken about without the racist question being raised at the same time, just as sex sells so does racism and she knew that all too well.

The Three Golliwogs published in 1944 perfectly illustrates historical context of the Golliwog dolls.

'Once the three bold Golliwogs, Golly, Woggie, and Nigger, decided to go for a walk to Bumble-Bee Common. Golly wasn't quite ready so Woggie and Nigger said they would start off without him, and Golly would catch them up as soon as he could. So off went Woggie and Nigger, arm-in-arm, singing merrily their favourite song - which, as you may guess, was 'Ten Little Nigger Boys.'

'Little Black Sambo books are another example of this period and Ten Little Niggers referred to above is the name of a children's poem which celebrates the murder of ten Black children.

Ten little nigger boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self, and then there were nine.

Nine little nigger boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself, and then there were eight.

Eight little nigger boys traveling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there, and then there were seven.

Seven little nigger boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in half, and then there were six.

Six little nigger boys playing with a hive;
A bumble-bee stung one, and then there were five.

Five little nigger boys going in for law;
One got in chancery, and then there were four.

Four little nigger boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one, and then there were three.

Three little nigger boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one, and then there were two.

Two little nigger boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up, and then there was one.

One little nigger boy living all alone;
He got married, and then there were none.

  

The climate of the time and the attitudes towards blacks was far from all fluffy and cute as some people like to proclaim and there was far more sinister forces at work perpetuating racists attitudes and normalising those abhorrent racist views that sadly still exist today as we can see quite regularly.

Golden Shred saw how popular Golliwogs were in 1910, again a very bad time in history for Blacks. On 19th December 1910, the City Council of Baltimore approved the first city ordinance designating the boundaries of black and white neighbourhoods. This ordinance was followed by similar ones in Dallas, Texas, Greensboro, North Carolina, Louisville, Kentucky, Norfolk, Virginia, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Richmond, Virginia, Roanoke, Virginia, and St. Louis, Missouri. 

Golden Shred took up the character on their Jam, giving away badges if you collected a certain amount of tokens, again just as Blyton knew, racism sells and this could be nothing but a win win for Golden Shred that proved to be correct.

In the 1960s the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, one of the most noted regiments in the British Army, wore a Robertson's golly brooch for each Arab they had killed. After the war, wog became a more general slur against brown-skinned people. There can be no doubt that these dolls represent racism at its worse the forced indoctrination of young children into racist stereotyping

These Golliwogs became unacceptable to many and Golden Shred were forced in 2001 or 2008 (not sure on the date) to stop producing the golly due to its history and changing social climates.

Most whites are ignorant to its history and the history of the oppression that blacks faced and will vehemently claim the Golliwog is not racist and just an innocent cute character, history tells a different story but none the less they are highly collectible mostly by whites in defiance of the racist claims, but for people like me interested in history, the Golliwog does have a historical value as a good  example of the oppression blacks faced and the mechanisms on how racism works.

The Golden Shred company dissolved in 2013 so are even more collectible now, being a 150 year old company makes it desirable for a serious collector of Golden Shred Memorabilia. However, Facebook Posts of cartoon gollies with hundreds of racists comments below it are not worth very much on the collectors market and only serve to perpetuate the racist attitudes that was commonly found at the beginning of the century, subjecting me and people like me to brainless racists attitudes that are quite frankly outdated. 

A Golliwog is a disgusting White stereotype of an enslaved African that seeks to negate the greatest crime in human history and transform the misery of enslaved Africans into a cartoon figure of fun.

So if you post a Golly that I have to face on my time line then expect to be deleted.

I wrote a previous post entitled :-'Why I will never discuss race and racism with white people again!'. at the end of that post there is a video by Akala and I will again leave it here below.

 

Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Remembrance Day

We are currently learning about diaries and how to write a journal so I purchased the book The Diary of a Wimpy Kid recently and luckily for us it has coincided with the Into Film Festival, were a load of school kids get to go to the pictures and watch a few films for free, including home educated children.

We have booked onto a number of films over the coming weeks but this week we got to watch The Diary Of a Wimpy Kid - The Long Haul. What a funny film, the kids loved it and of course another hit as Oliver picked up the book as soon as we got home and we have some resources to work through next week to compliment the film.

Before we went home we decided to pop in to the Imperial War Museum to pay our respects as it is Remembrance Day Tomorrow 11th November and they also have the Wyndham Lewis: Life, Art, War display at the moment which I thought would be good to go and see and I certainly was not wrong.

His last major painting 'A Canadian War Factory' which was unfinished is my favourite painting, there is something about this painting that I love.

It comes across as a sad painting by one that has seen his best days gone by, it epitomises Lewis's demise for me, the unfinished nature invokes an emotion in me based in pity. Lewis was not without controversy in his life which Richard Slocombe, Art Curator, IWM (Imperial War Museums) writes about here

We ended the day with a trip to one of my clients to pick up paperwork and another client to pick up some items to sell on their behalf and then a quick dash to get ready for Badgers, which should be fun tonight as they are starting on their Xmas sculpture.

Suicide Prevention, if only I could!..

One of the worst things to happen to me in my life is loosing someone close to suicide.

It is the one thing in my life that I cannot come to terms with, the pain never gets any easier and the guilt always overshadows me in the background of my life.

That feeling of  'if only I could have done something differently, said something differently or even said something I didn't say that I should have said..

I knew the person in question was struggling to a degree, I just did not know the deep depth of that despair.

In my heart I feel like I abandoned him in his hour of need, this person brought light into my life and I should have brought light into his.

He made my life worth living at times when I felt there was nothing to live for, he was the kind of person who was there for everyone when they needed him, he was the life and soul of any party.

I knew he had financial problems, he spoke to me about them briefly, he had been made redundant from his job that he loved but it didn't take long for him to find another job, he was a talented Gas Engineer, he loved his work and took great pride in what he did.

My heart to this day breaks and I cannot seem to put the pieces back together again, I miss him every day and despite a decade passing by I still feel like I lost him yesterday.

Sometimes I will just sit and cry for hours with the sadness of the life that he never had, the grandson that he never got to play with. He would be so proud of his daughter, she is a beautiful strong young woman and a fabulous mother to her son, he would have loved life, if only he could have seen beyond the dark days that obviously haunted him behind that smile and those witty comments that he gave everyone.

I miss his tacky huge chain he used to wear and the way he used to douse himself in aftershave which made you choke with the fumes because he put that much on, I miss his wit and crudeness, I miss his clumsy but caring warm nature, he made me laugh with his jokey ways and silly antics, he was a special person and no one has come close to filling that gaping gap that he has left me with.

He has left me with a wound that will never heal and I wish every day that I could have done something differently so that he would still be here today to give me one of those amazing warm hugs of his, I have never met anyone that can hug like he could, he made me feel so warm and safe in those bug clumsy arms of his.

My heart is broken and I will never put those pieces back together again, I miss him so badly, life has never been the same since he went away.

The Celts

Today we got into a conversation about the Celts.

We talked about the Scottish and Irish Celts Language and took a look at a Youtube videos and attempted to learn a few phrases and understand what the language is about.

We then started to look more into who teh Celts where and how they came to be in Britain.

We watched a great youtube video that comes in multiple episodes created by the BBC

We will dip in and out of this series to learn more about the Celts over the coming months.

We talked about DNA again which we have done a number of times over the past few months and discussed the Irish Symbols, we also talked about the Irish Celtic language and how it has a distinct religious feel so we discussed the importance that religion played on everyday life and how it influenced things like language, this is an interesting point toward our infrastructure project.

Oliver talked about his desire to go to an archaeology site and get his hands dirty in an archaeology dig, we have been to Archaeology sites before at Roman Lakes in Marple and we even camped on one but he doesn't remember and was quite upset that he stayed camping on a burial mound and did not remember so I think it is something we will revisit next year when the weather improves.

We looked at the map and talked a bit about Europe and the West Coastal Areas of Britain and will do some more work on that when we look more at the Celt Videos.

We all really enjoyed today covering old and new ground throwing in some Greeks and Romans and familiar things like Stone Henge, DNA and Archeology.

Fiddlers Ferry Power Station

What a fabulous place Fiddlers Ferry is. We really enjoyed this trip, it was fascinating finding out how the coal powered plant runs, we had a tour round the place and visited some control rooms that looked like something out of a Star Trek movie.

Gemma the tour guide and tutor for the day was fabulous, she had a great rapport with both the kids and the parents.

It will be great to visit with some other power plants such as the nuclear power plant and Hydro power plant so that we can compare them.

It was fabulous to visit Fiddlers Ferry as it wont be there for much longer and will be closing in the next few years, approximate date of closure is 2025 but it may close sooner so it was a bit of a treat to be able to go here and experience a coal powered power plant.

The kids learnt how the plant works and how electricity is produced by the coal powered plant, they learnt how coal was produced and the different qualities of coal, how people lived before electricity and how they live now and what has changed, the magnets and inventors and significant scientists and discoveries of electricity.

The packed so much in it is hard to remember everything.

Here are the twins pictures they drew of their day at Fiddlers Ferry:-

Halloween howlers!

We went along to Muncaster Castle for Halloween as we did last year. We ended up setting off later than we intended because I had to work in the morning as the end of the month is the only time I can get my buying in for the month, I had to rush round so that we could get away to Muncaster so I did not do half as much as what I normally do on my buying trips, we ended up setting off on time but it was a bit nerve wrecking going over to the Lake District in the car as it isn't too clever at the moment, it's making all sorts of unusual sounds and is screaming out for a service.

We had an amazing time as we usually do there and it is always nice catching up with friends.

There are fire eaters, juggling clowns, stories in the graveyard, ghostly apparitions in the gardens, creepy mazes, potion workshops, Owl displays, great food and more.

I would definitely recommend anyone to go to Muncaster Castle at Halloween, it is an experience the kids will never forget.

And we did not break down which was a bonus!..

A few days later we had Oldham Bonfire show with fireworks, the kids had fun on the rides and ate cheeseburgers and surprisingly it wasn't that cold, thank goodness as both Oliver and I are suffering a bit with being a bit chesty and feeling urgh, the winter lurgy has struck...

For the rest of the week we will be completing our evolution display books, working on some maths and english on IXL maths and then to end the week with Storyfest and acclaimed storyteller Richard O'Neill at the local library.