Bedroom Tax Balls Up

Can this Government actually think it's way through anything thing or is it totally incompetent?

The Freedom of Information Bill has proven it's worth and has revealed that the Bedroom Tax (a tax that the Government is trying to say is not a tax) is merely another way that the Government is trying to sink us up to our necks in debt.

Thirty eight (38) Councils responded fully to the request for information, revealing that in total (for their areas) 99,079 families are being affected by the Bedroom Tax but there are only 3,803 one and two bedroom available for them to downsize into.  In Birmingham alone 13,557 households are affected by the Tax but there are only 368 one and two bedroom houses currently unoccupied.  I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure that makes a deficit of one and two bedroom houses of 13,199 (you can check my calculation).

Now you cold say that 'we'll just build more one and two bedroom houses'.  That is all very well but to do that you will gobble up another huge stripe of our rapidly shrinking Green Belt and once you have finished and all those families have moved into them, who is going to live in the three and four bedroomed properties?  What is more, by the time you have finished building them most of the families who need them are going to be sunk up to their neck in rent arrears and Councils won't let you move if you are in arrears.

What is more it is illegal to sub-let a Council Property so it is not like the affected families could even fill up their spare bedrooms that way.  Although if you didn't take any money from them, I suppose that wouldn't count as sub-letting so you could fill up the room that way but then you have the problem of making sure that they are a hygienic person who isn't going to rape your daughter when your back is turned.

In defence of this cruel tax a spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions has said (and I quote the Independence on this):

"This ignores the fact that people may move to housing in the private sector and not all tenants will have to downsize because they could make up any shortfall through getting a job or increasing their working hours."

One, housing in the private sector is more expensive than housing in the public sector.  The cheapest one bedroomed flat in a ten mile radius of Norwich is £350 a month.  How is an already struggling family supposed to find that.

Two, a private landlord is even less likely to take you on as a tenant if you have arrears than a Council.

Three, what jobs are we meant to get?  There seems to be a lot out there for Bank Managers and computer technicians but not that many for those of us who are just starting their careers and aren't that skilled yet.

Four, most businesses are now limiting the time you can work by signing people on with set hours schemes, which means that over time is no longer paid.  We can't increase the hours we work because there is no point, we won't be paid for them.

At this rate nobody is going to have any money to bur anything, not even their food and the economy is really going to collapse.  Wall Street Crash anybody?