(It’s not satire – unfortunately)
Sometimes I despair.
According to the DWP, foster parents who have a ‘spare’ bedroom they use for foster children will be hit by the government’s bedroom tax – but not parents of pupils at Eton.
The bedroom tax, which is being introduced in April 2013 as part of the government’s ‘reforms’ of housing benefits, will mean that a household that has an extra room for a current or potential foster child will be treated as ‘under-occupying’ (see here on page 8).
However, a household with children at a boarding school – such as Eton for example – will not have to pay any bedroom tax at all.
Why is seemingly nobody up in arms about this?
I always thought British people, regardless of our political differences, prided ourselves on our keen sense of fairness. Obviously I was wrong.
Just when exactly did we as a nation stop being outraged by such clear and open inequality and injustice?
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Here’s a petition against the bedroom tax:
Stop the Housing Benefit attack (commonly known as the ‘Bedroom Tax’)
And for more general information about the bedroom tax, see here:
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Related articles by Tom Pride:
Cameron is the first PM to pocket private rent while living at number 10
David Cameron is Jesus. Probably.
Is Cameron a Secret Stalinist? Or just a Toffee-Nosed Pillock?
Cameron tells unemployed – “Stop whinging and get daddy to find you a job!”
Who would you prefer as PM? Wallace or Flashman?
David Cameron’s Advanced Driving Tips
Confirmation – Cameron to play Buzz Lightyear in Tory Story 4
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Pride's Purge 
Reblogged this on Socially Housed and commented:
I am at a crossroads between anger & sadness at what is happening in the UK today – Please please sign this petition – please please stand up & say NO to the denigration of our society.. I despair at how this forced subjugation of the working classes is happening & most people seem to be looking the other way…. Including the people its happening too… PLEASE talk to your children – Get them to understand whats going on – ITS THEM THAT ARE GOING TO SUFFER MOST….http://s0ciallyh0used.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/136/.
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i suspect that people with children at Eton or Harrow would not be claiming housing benefit….unless they are an MP
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I agree that parents who can afford Eton fees will not be claiming benefits – but I think the fact there is an exemption for parents of boarding school pupils and not for foster parents is a good illustration of the perverse way of thinking of this government.
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I’d say they haven’t thought it through, but they have, haven’t they. And they still don’t care
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Surely Eton do scholarships. Or don’t they want to risk mixing with the hoi polloi…. not even the clever ones?
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It’s actually a really good question. I can no longer work out if what the government is doing is down to deliberate policy, plain incompetence or both.
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They are wedded to a “blind ideology”AND rather ignorant; they make a policy without due course and attention and then make adjustments due to the consequences later-on the hoof ill-thought out choose your own description.It also leads to pure stupidity,I am probably repeating myself but it is so obvious in the fact of timelimitting Support for mortgage interest to pensioners,the severely sick and disabled and their carers with no (obviously) conditionality attached as per “work ” with the justification of” making work pay”-beyond parody.The mantra applied even though it does not make sense
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As this tax will only apply to people living in council or housing association homes, it will never affect those who own or privately rent. Another fine example of Tory poor bashing.
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