Are disability benefits worth fighting for?

At the end of July, when no-one was looking, the UK government launched a consultation on the future of Attendance Allowance (AA). This non means-tested benefit is claimed by people over 65 who need support because of long-term chronic illness or disability. If introduced, the proposals will stop direct disability payments to individuals, and the cash will be handed over to council's social services departments instead. Disabilisty Living Allowance (DLA) a benefit for those under 65 is also under threat.

Benefits and Work have an online petition opposing the plans. They say:
"Under the plan, current claimants would have their disability benefits converted to a personal budget administered by local authorities and used to pay for services, not to spend as they wish. We know that many people will take false comfort from the fact that, unlike AA, DLA is not specifically named as being for the axe. But if the government was planning only to abolish AA it is extremely unlikely that they would refer constantly throughout the green paper to 'disability benefits', a term which includes not just AA but also DLA."

Benefits and Work are looking for 1,000 people currently claiming the benefits to get in touch to help with their campaign. The National Autism Campaign (sic) have similar concerns and are asking people to contact them with their views before they submit their response to the consultation.

You can read the green paper here and have your say here.

The UK Labour government are playing a dangerous game. They are desperate to reduce public expenditure, but instead of getting back the estimated £40 billion in corporate tax evasion, their target is one of society's most vulnerable groups. The Welsh Assembly Government have yet to respond in full, but state that the proposals are unlikely to come into force until April 2014. Which party is most likely to be in control of the UK government in 2014? Are Labour irresponsibly paving the way for the Tories to remove a vital safety net?

A message from Cardiff Stop the War Coalition

The passing of the milestone of the 200th soldier to be killed in Afghanistan is no less tragic for being all too predictable. The Stop the War Coalition has mourned the death of every soldier sent into a war which we - along with the majority of people in Britain - regard as both unjustified and unwinnable. Gordon Brown's insistence that sending British troops to die in Afghanistan is "the only way to make Britain safe" sounds ever more threadbare each time he and his ministers repeat it after the announcement of yet another senseless loss of life.

Following the death of over 200 soldiers in Afghanistan Cardiff Stop the War Coalition & CND Cymru have called two protests to call for the troops to be brought home & an end to the war in Afghanistan.

Tomorrow (Monday 17 August) 5 - 6.30 pm

Saturday 22 August - 12 Noon (Naming of the Dead Ceremony)

Both events will be at the Nye Bevan Statue, Queen Street

PLEASE FORWARD THIS INFO TOO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE - AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! BRING PLACARDS, BANNERS, PEOPLE ETC.

Thousands of Afghans have been killed since the invasion in 2001. Groups of civilians, such as wedding parties, are regularly killed by the occupying forces. 200 British soldiers have now been killed. Millions of Afghans are refugees. Senior diplomats and military officers admit that the occupation forces cannot win. Despite this the USA and Britain are escalating the war, by sending more troops to kill and be killed, and by extending the killing fields into Pakistan. The argument that soldiers are being killed because they don't have enough helicopters is a smokescreen. They are being killed because they are an occupying army in Afghanistan. The US army has plenty of helicopters – they are getting killed as well. It's time to bring the troops home now.

THE TRUE FACE OF NATO DEMOCRACY IN AFGHANISTAN : A law that legistimises rape, lets Afghan husbands starve their wives if they refuse to obey their sexual demands and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work or leave the house, has been made law as part of ex-CIA employee President Karzai's re-election strategy to buy fundamentalist votes in the Afghan election.

Adam Johannes
Secretary
Cardiff Stop the War Coalition
www.stopwar.org.uk
07940108146

And Adam Price has this week laid an EDM calling for a fixed timetable for troop withdrawl.

Save Vestas

The Vestas wind turbine factory in Newport on the Isle of Wight was due to close on 31st July this year. Workers who have occupied the factory have been sacked - they were given their notices with pizzas delivered on behalf of Vestas bosses. Their future is uncertain today after a local county court's view. A group of environmental activists have occupied another site at Cowes, and have vowed to remain there until the sacked workers are reinstated.

If the company have their way, six hundred jobs will be lost immediately, and many more jobs that depend on Vestas will follow. It is the only firm in Britain manufacturing wind turbine blades: making it important, not just important for the workers on the Isle of Wight, but for renewable energy in Wales as well.

The climate crisis tells us that wind energy which has to form a big part of our future. With planned expansion of wind power throughout the UK, it makes sense for that new demand to be met from sources as close as possible to where the turbines are to be situated. Ideally, we want wind turbine manufacturing in Wales. Transporting the turbines from overseas defeats the object.

Wind turbine manufacturing needs expansion, not destruction, especially in the current environmental and economic climate. The UK government bailed out bankers to the tune of £1.3 trillion to prevent the demise of 'major' companies. But when it comes to small and medium-sized firms which could save the planet they refuse to intervene. What happened to that Green New Deal?

The RMT's Bob Crow was at the court hearing today and has made a solidarity visit to the plant. I support his call for management to re-enter negotiations and for government intervention. I have written to support the campaign; you can do the same by sending an email to savevestas@gmail.com.