Posted: December 23, 2013 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Bedroom tax, Housing benefit, Legal, Local government, Social housing, Welfare reform, Welfare state | Tags: Grant Shapps |
The first of a two-part look back about the issues and people that I’ve been blogging about this year.
1) The year of the bedroom tax
Thinking back to the beginning of January it was obvious that the under-occupation penalty would be a huge issue for housing in 2013. What soon became clear was that it would go mainstream in the national media and parliament too. The closer we got to implementation in April, the more scrutiny it received, and the more that happened the clearer the unfairness and the contradictions at the heart of the policy came into focus. All the attention seemed at first to take the government by surprise too. It wasn’t until February that Grant Shapps came up with the government’s preferred term: the spare room subsidy. That prompted me to blog about the battle of language on the issue and in the wider debate about welfare/social security.
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Posted: August 23, 2013 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Culture, History, Homelessness, Social housing, Welfare state |
You know the formula by now: take a provocative premise, add three claimants selected to provoke different reactions, stir in the reaction on twitter, then stand back and watch the viewing figures mount up.
As with How to Get a Council House, Benefits Britain 1949 suffers from all the faults that are seemingly hard-wired into Channel 4 reality shows. The opening episodes showed them both at their worst (see me on HTGACH and Frances Ryan on BB49) but with time they evolved into something that went beyond the format and the premise.
I’ve just caught up with the second episode of Benefits Britain 1949 and if you haven’t seen it I recommend a viewing in conjunction with the third and final episode of How to Get a Council House because they neatly bookend the whole debate about social housing and its place in the welfare state.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Posted: June 29, 2013 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Health, History, Welfare state |
This Friday marks the 65th anniversary of one of the greatest moments in British history. With some justification, it has been called ‘our second Finest Hour’.
But as the welfare state and the National Health Service reach retirement age are both of them being pensioned off by a government intent on austerity and endless rounds of welfare and public sector ‘reform’?
Monday, July 5, 1948 was known as The Appointed Day. It marked not just the start of the NHS but also full implementation of the Beveridge plan for social security. A comprehensive system of national insurance now complemented earlier measures including family allowances and industrial injuries compensation.
The NHS launch leaflet, July 1948
Personal testimonies of the time range from the touching to the gruesome and the comical to the romantic. One young GP remembered going to see a family where he’d left medicine for a sick child. As he was leaving he heard coughing and asked the mother if she wanted him to go up. ‘I’m sorry, doctor, we can’t afford it,’ she said, explaining that it was another child who was ill. ‘Today, July 5th, it’ll cost you nothing, I was able to tell her,’ he said. ‘And I’ve never forgotten it.’
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Jules Birch 