Image by Suzanne Beishon

Image by Suzanne Beishon   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Benefit sanctions…

Unemployed? Claiming jobseekers’ allowance? Desperate to land an interview to prove you’re looking for work so you aren’t made destitute by benefit sanctions?

Whatever you do, don’t attend the interview instead of your job centre appointment. That will get you sanctioned anyway.

This is one of a list of totally senseless benefit sanctions republished by the Independent on 28 October. One claimant lost benefits for missing her signing-on session – because of a job interview.

Another was sanctioned for not completing a work capability assessment. This was because he had a heart attack – in the middle of the assessment.

A successful jobseeker was sanctioned for not looking for work between getting hired and starting the job two weeks later. And many claimants have been punished because they can’t afford the fare to job centres or interviews.

…corporate welfare

But if you’re a top capitalist, it seems that fouling things up actually wins you more welfare.

Britain’s super-rich bosses crashed the economy, slash jobs and pay – and are presiding over an extremely weak ‘recovery’. To thank them, the Tories hand out £93 billion a year in so-called corporate welfare.

Direct subsidies and grants alone amount to £14.5 billion. This is more than enough to reverse Tory chancellor Osborne’s latest £12 billion welfare cuts for workers.

The £93 billion total amounts to over £3,500 per household every year. That could have paid for Osborne’s tax credit cuts – temporarily forestalled by the Lords – several times over.

Britain’s 20% corporation tax rate is below than the global, EU and OECD averages. And it’s half the rate in the United States.