I’ve spoken to many people and helped hundreds of people over the years since Universal Credit was first implemented in my local town, which incidentally was one of the three ‘trial’ areas for Universal Credit introducing it to an unbeknown community.
Out of all the people that I’ve spoken to throughout the years, not one of them has told me that their payments provided them with a large enough income for them to survive, indeed the opposite applies.
Everyone that I’ve helped or spoken to were and still are living in poverty, unable to provide the very basics for themselves and their families.
Then the pandemic hit us, killing thousands and resulting in survivors battling with Long Covid. The government decided that they’d throw a lifeline to Universal Credit claimants which was an extra £20 a week uplift to help them through the pandemic.
The uplift was and is providing Universal Credit claimants the means to actually survive, to buy some food or to pay a bill that they were an unable to do before.
Whilst £20 isn’t a lot to some people, indeed it isn’t a lot of money at all, it has enabled people to survive.
This lifeline will be taken away in October if the government don’t respond to calls from campaigners, politicians, and even some Tory party politicians.
Universal Credit was created under the guise of making claiming a benefit easier, to help more financially and to make it easier to find work whilst claiming Universal Credit.
It wasn’t long before myself and others saw the reality of claiming Universal Credit, the poverty that it forces upon people and the punishing regime that they are forced to comply to.
The truth is the system was designed to be unfair and designed to be cruel. I have no doubt that it was introduced to force people to comply otherwise loose everything. I’ve been documenting this for years, I’ve seen the terror in a persons eyes when they’ve just been told that they’ve been sanctioned and didn’t know why.
With Universal Credit came cruelty like I’ve never seen before. Claimants being gaslighted by so called work coaches, being spoken to as if they’re the worst thing in the world and that nothing that they do is ever good enough.
I’ve seen people loose their homes and families because they can no longer afford the rent or provide for their children. I’ve helped hundreds of people throughout the years dependant upon food parcels to survive, all of which is documented in this blog.
I cannot see any justification in removing the £20 uplift, we are still living during a pandemic, still becoming ill with Covid 19 and people are still dying from it. The £20 uplift is literally the choice between living or dying. Only a sadistic government would do so.
To put it bluntly Universal Credit doesn’t provide enough to live on, it’s highly prejudiced against claimants and it certainly doesn’t help anyone to find employment. What is needed is a system that actually helps people instead of making them much worse off.
We can only pray for the government to give in to demands to cancel the cut and to continue giving the uplift or making it permanent.
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The poor side of life 
They like to get people working for nowt:
No wage paid work experience placements
DWP Response
I can confirm the Department holds the information you have requested.
Since April 2020, Jobcentres in the North West District (Cheshire, Greater Manchester
and Merseyside) have partnered with the fol owing organisations, charities and
employers to offer Work Experience Placements:
British Heart Foundation
B&M
IDR Steel
In addition, the following list is of organisations and employers that delivered SWAPs
(Sector-based Work Academy Programmes) with elements of work experience, since
April 2020:
Pearl Windows Bolton – Training provider is Daruma Group
HTL – Training provider is Genesis
NHS Merseycare – Training provider is The Growth Co
Hartleys – Training provider is Crosby Training
Genesis Adapt – Training provider is Genesis
Huyton Travel Limited – Training provider is Genesis
JMD Haulage – Training provider is Genesis
Redstone Rail – Training provider is EYC Global
1
LIVV Housing – Training provider is KCC
Redlight Networks – Training provider is Monks
Amberon-Traffic Management – Training provider is Greenskills
Adapt UK – Training provider is Genesis
Redstone Rail – Training provider is EYC Global
DT Construction – Training provider is CE Careers
Monks Training – Training provider is Monks Telecoms
Monks Telecoms – Training provider is Liverpool Col ege
Streatham House Nursery – Training provider is Eleve/Redlight
Sterling Plastering – Training provider is Genesis
Search Construction – Training provider is Genesis
Barreast – Training provider is Genesis
DT Hughes – Training provider is CE Careers
Alpha Taxis – Training provider is CE3 Enterprises
In the interest of being helpful, and provided outside of the Freedom of Information Act,
Contractors operating within the North West Group would determine if they wil offer
Work Experience Placements as part of their programme, but al are able to offer it
should they chose to. During the Coronavirus Pandemic, many organisations, charities,
employers and providers were unable to offer work experience placements due to the
advice provided by Public Health Authorities. Since April 2020, the Department has
continued to work with organisations, charities and employers to provide customers with
alternative opportunities and initiatives, which included virtual SWAPs, sessions and
open days.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/no_wage_paid_work_experience_pla#incoming-1848843
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Oh yes thanks Trev, I wrote about this yonks ago and we had several demos about it.
You might be able to find them if you scroll down alot lol 🤣🤣.
Thanks Trev and I hope that you’re ok
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Reblogged this on Tory Britain! .
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Please extend it to those of us on legacy benefits, as well!
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I’ll second that! £74 per week JSA is peanuts, how do they expect anyone to live on that? They froze JSA for four bloody years already! Tories believe in the Victorian notion of the deserving and undeserving poor, then Boris has the nerve to talk about “levelling up”! HYPOCRISY
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Exactly! While the cost of living becomes higher and higher payments either become lower or they stay the same. It’s not possible to have a decent life at all.
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Reblogged this on hilary77blog and commented:
The £20 uplift to Universal Credit must be continued for people to survive. The Tory government are hell bent on murdering people by stealth, it’s never their fault but it bloody well is and I lay the blame
for 130,000+ deaths at the Conservatives feet. May they all rot in hell for what they have and still are doing to our Country.
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Universal Credit was designed to help the gig economy, forcing people into accepting 2 or 3 part-time or zero hours jobs to make ends meet, in the absence of ever-dwindling meaningful full time good quality jobs. Jobs are continually lost to technology, much manufacturing went overseas, at the same time the population continues to grow. Advances in technology were supposed to lead to increased leisure time and shorter working hours but instead it is increasing productivity and profits whilst we’re all expected to work longer! I can’t get my State Pension ’til I’m 67, that’s two years longer than my father and his father. Meanwhile there are more Millionaires and Billionaires than ever. It’s time we all told the Tories to get stuffed! Let’s have a National General Strike!!!
They could reduce Pension age to 60 for both men and women. Scrap Universal Credit, shutdown all the Jobcentres and pay Unconditional Basic Income automatically.
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Agreed!!! Wouldn’t that be wonderful
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