It was three weeks after Christmas when the bombshell letter arrived. Guy Shahar and his wife, Oksana, looked at each other in stunned disbelief.
They had followed the Guardian’s investigation into the carer’s allowance scandal that has left thousands of families with crippling debts and criminal records. Not once did they think they would join them.
“Important,” it read in big bold type. “You have been paid more carer’s allowance than you are entitled to. You now need to pay this money back”.
In some weeks, she was paid just 38p more than the threshold – but for that tiny infraction she is being forced to repay £64.60 each time, the rate of carer’s allowance at the time.
I lived in the UK for over a decade until Brexit, and frankly I think that by the time I left they were one of the most far-right countries in Europe, just in this English-upper-class style of posh words and the oppression done “elegantly” via extreme “rules” rather than the direct violence of the (not posh) populist far-right, - people are still made to hurt for the crime of being poor, and the system is designed to hurt anybody who would defy the local elites (just notice the conviction to years in jail of of Environmentalist demonstrators for blocking a road) but all the Ts are traced and Is are dotted, all prim and propper - so people from the outside don’t really notice how so very close to Fascist Britain already is.
(“It’s the Law”, say the far-right muppets over there, same as Nazi enablers would say in Nazi Germany.)
Rules on social security explicitly designed to make it likely that people make mistakes (this allowance apparently changes depending on a person’s weekly income, which floats if you’re in insecure employment, which is exactly the problem of the working poor, and it’s down to the recipient to figure it out precisely, down to the pence, with no help) and then punishing them disproportionatelly hard for the error is exactly the style of “by the rules” hurting of people for being poor (and human, hence making mistakes) beloved by the Posh Fascists and their followers (of which there are many, as proven by Brexit which was the product of a campaign of Racism and Nationalistic Exceptionalism).
The cruelty is the point. I fucking hate this country.
“Post a single comment on Lemmy without calling someone a nazi” challenge: Failed
Are you Dora The Explorer on an acid trip? I ask because you’re licking Boots awfully hard.
lmao Somebody get that monkey some therapy
Lucky Strike - not lucky
Patriot Act - not patriotic
FreedomAdvocate - does not advocate for freedom
“Basic reading comprehension: failed.”
Not surprising from a Nazi.
Right wing people really don’t like being called Nazis, do they?
Right wing people don’t care anymore, neither do centrists or left wingers either because the word has lost all meaning now due to the far left calling everyone a Nazi for anything. Didn’t return your trolley at the shops? Nazi. Returned your book to the library 20 minutes late? Nazi. Want to stop illegal immigration? Nazi.
No one cares about being called a nazi anymore, when it used to be the worst thing someone could be accused of.
You can argue about the exact definition, as they haul you off to their camps. Then you can argue whether they are Socialists, Fascist, or something else.
Actually it that was meant as point about “it’s the Law” being a traditional excuse of Fascists.
Guess it felt too close to home for you.