Bob Arctor

16 hours ago, catmiss said:

Try another Citizen Advice and perhaps go with her. They are trained to give accurate impartial advice on benefits. Sadly local government cuts have seen the loss of local advice services Sheffield was once afforded 

This is very true, and CAB themselves have had to make big cuts to wages, pensions and opening hours, as they get a lot of their funding from the Council, so this has made service provision worse at a time that it's needed most.

If she's making a first claim to benefits then unfortunately it will have to be Universal Credit. CAB run a Help to Claim phone service - I don't know if this is what she tried or another bit of CAB. The other organisations mentioned may be able to help, but not Shelter if it's an initial UC claim. 

Before making a UC claim she should think about whether she can maintain an online claim or not. If not she can make a non-digital claim by phone but they don't make it easy.

Edit: if she's been working but recently had to give up work she may be able to claim Employment and Support Allowance for a year based on NI contributions, after which she would have to move on to UC

23 minutes ago, JamesR123 said:

Well you have used the right word, bigotry.  Racism and bigotry are separate things.

 

Most people are bigots.  Hate fascists?  Welcome to the bigot club.  Despise white supremacists?  Hello Mr. Bigot.

 

If you think all bigotry is the same, I guess you think hating racists is the same as hating Muslims?  

I think you have it wrong there. Bigotry is about making negative judgements about a heterogeneous group of people based on a superficial common characteristic. I hate white fascists and Islamonazis, but I don't hate white people or Muslims. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon hates all Muslims, so is a bigot.

I'm sure you know this, but Muslims are such a disparate group of people. I know one Muslim who is fasting through Ramadan and one who isn't. The one who is fasting doesn't wear a head scarf, the one who isn't does. You get homophobic Muslims and Muslims who are gay, lesbian and bi. To try to turn people against Muslims is bigotry.

But you don't get fascists who are not fascists, or hardcore racists who are not racist. There's your difference.

1 minute ago, JamesR123 said:

 

 

Would the staff member be permitted to leave a project meeting to pray?  Or would they be permitted to interrupt a conversation with a client to pray?

 

 

No

11 minutes ago, JamesR123 said:

 

 

Yes, it seemed like an attack on Muslim practices (not Muslims), which probably wasn't necessary in this conversation.

 

However, it is disgusting behaviour to just accuse such people of racism. It removes the power of the accusation and makes the right against racism harder.

 

I don't see why one form of bigotry is more acceptable than another. Branyy is obviously so full of bigotry that they felt the need to enter a thread about a Christian nurse being sacked and essentially say, "ah, but what about those Muslims, eh?" (the vast majority of whom are non-white). I'm sick of it, this constant drip, drip of hatred. Whether someone is a racist bigot or an Islamophobic bigot, or hiding one behind the other, it's all the same.

32 minutes ago, Waldo said:

Post 17 seems to be their first post in this thread, and it's in no way racist, it makes no reference to or hints at any particular race.

 

I agree with the point in fact, people should not be taking time out while on duty to satisfy any religious obligations. If they feel strongly about their religious obligations, that they feel a need to oray or whatever at times when they're on duty, then they should resign; they're then free to indulge their religious fervour to their heart's content on their own time. That applies obviously to all religions.

Totally ridiculous. I have a staff member who takes prayer breaks - about 5 mins per time, a couple of times per day. They fit them in between tasks and it has zero impact on their work. In fact, it's healthy to take a few minutes out at various points during the day. What they don't do is proselytise to the people we work with, unlike the nurse who was rightly sacked.

29 minutes ago, Yeah but said:

Couldn't they have just been told to stop doing it? sacking seems extreme.

She had been warned not to do it again (several patients previously complained). She undertook not to do it again. Then she did it again. I'd have sacked her.

3 outfits per day. Mike Gapes leisure suit in the morning,  South American dictator full army uniform in the afternoon, Nadia Popov / Cinderella combo of an evening. Then bear suit (real bear) in bed. 

No you wouldn't, because no-one has told her she can't be a Christian. They've just told her it's not ok to go on and on and on about your religion at work to people who are there to be cared for, not preached to, and that it's not ok to spend more time talking about religion than actually doing your job.

Just imagine how bad the privatised probation service must be if the Tories are going to nationalise it. It must be absolutely terrible. Remember these are the people who also considered privatising child protection services in local authorities. Look out for that idea coming back around if Johnson becomes leader.

5 hours ago, Cyclone said:

I spend a lot of time heavily criticising the UK government... Am I prejudiced against everyone in the UK, or is it only the government of Israel that deserves a special, criticism free, position of power?

I mean, one of the problems of the British left is that they are obsessed with Israel/Palestine, sometimes it seems to the exclusion of all else, and some of them go way too easy on Hamas, etc., but to accuse everyone on the left of being antisemitic because they support Palestinian rights, when we need as many people as possible to unite against a resurgent far-right, is really unhelpful.

On 12/05/2019 at 09:54, Tony said:

This week another(!) jewish friend of mine told me how he was liquidating his assets in case he needed to move the family out of the UK. There are few things that make me want to weep, but the rise of anti-semitism in the UK is one of them. Where it is done in support of the terrorist Hamas regime in Palestine it is even more woeful and misguided. It doesn't matter if you are kicking down or up, you're still kicking. Stop it.  

 

I try to steer clear of this topic as is brings out the political fanatics who don't even understand that they are antisemites. Most of us have learned the lessons of the past, but please, if you have people around you who haven't learned, take them under your wing and help them. This never ends well for anyone.

 

https://antisemitism.uk/crowds-at-corbyn-supported-anti-israel-march-attended-by-national-front-leader-cheer-as-speaker-says-jewish-organisations-are-in-the-gutter-and-part-of-the-problem/

 

Thanks.

I've got a lifetime of anti-racist, anti-fascist campaigning behind me, have campaigned with all sorts of anti-fascists including Searchlight, Anti Nazi League, UAF, TUC, etc.

I've got to say, the article you linked to is highly problematic. There is an awful lot of "reportedly" and so forth in there - presumably the observers had cameras which they could have used to back up all the claims. Lots of partial quotes without context. And clearly Corbyn wouldn't share a platform with the NF - the article tries to conflate Corbyn sending a message of support with the apparent presence of someone from the NF, as if these are somehow linked. Also, one person was wearing an antisemitic pin badge. So yes, they are a Jew hater. But how one person's discrete show of hatred is meant to reflect on everyone else there I don't know.

Throughout my years of campaigning it's always been important to correctly identify fascists and Nazis so as to be able to separate them from others and isolate them. Pretending that some people are fascists and Nazis when they are not confuses the issue and makes it harder to identify the genuine article and is therefore dangerous.

IAPT works for some people, but not everyone. However, an IAPT assessment also acts as a triage assessment and it can happen that someone who is not suitable for IAPT gets offered something else having had their IAPT assessment, so it's worth going for that. NICE guidelines are that GPs should try talking therapy before medication, but this doesn't prevent GPs prescribing anti-depressants at the same time as referring to IAPT, but some GPs are overly rigid in their application of NICE guidance. Again, standard anti-depressants (SSRIs) aren't particularly effective for everyone but work for some and it is worth considering them. A recent study of SSRIs found them to be more effective than previously thought. Also, there are many people with depression who know what they should be doing in their life to improve their mood, but can't summon the motivation to do these things because of the depression, so starting on medication can give people that initial lift which means they can then follow through on the non-medical things that help to improve and maintain mood.

I resisted trying anti-depressants for a long time, but then it started to get too much and I figured that if I never tried them then I'd never know if they would work for me, so I gave them a go. And they have worked really well for me. I got lucky first time, some people have to try a succession of different SSRIs before they find one that works, some never find one that really works, but I would say it's worth a try. Side effects can be difficult for the first 2 - 3 weeks, and most people won't start to feel much benefit until 4 - 6 weeks in, so that initial period is difficult and it's good to have support from others and an understanding employer at that point.

I'm guessing he didn't much appeal to the "enemy combatants" "raping their way through Britain", as one of UKIP's advisers described all Muslims.

I see Jeffrey Shaw only managed to get 126 votes. Not even three times the number the National Front got!

8 hours ago, alchresearch said:

A good day for the Lib Dems. Time to stop punishing them for the coalition.

Why? They were supine and awful. They allowed the marketising of the NHS which has been a failure, allowed themselves to be used to deflect blame from the Tories, and most importantly ensured that the poorest are still paying for the mistakes of the rich and powerful in order to placate Tory focus groups. 

8 minutes ago, Magneteer said:

Not in certain areas of Sheffield they don't / daren't  !!

It does seem that way. I don't think it's a question of resources, a parking attendant must more than pay for themselves in a day.

9 hours ago, St Petre said:

What am I to deduce from this, is it that the worst drivers in Sheffield parade their mad driving antics up and down Spital Hill all day while the rest of the city is spared from these motorised maniacs ?

Lol. It's generally too slow-moving on Spital Hill to be much of a hazard. The parking is a problem though, including all over the double yellows on what is an ambulance route. And do SCC enforce the double yellows? No they don't!

Apparently no-one was seriously injured, which is both great and very surprising. 

9 minutes ago, Halibut said:

Yeah, I've seen it - you don't get much of a look, but I think it's fairly clear that that car was at excessive speed. 

I saw all the cars being loaded on to trucks later on. The silver car that ploughed into the others at speed was an Uber. Really nasty accident, appalling driving. I hope no-one is seriously hurt but I suspect that is wishful thinking.

Britain has a pro-business government that fails to ensure the workforce and future workforce is adequately educated and trained, can't keep the workforce healthy and is taking woefully little action on climate change and technological innovation. They are so incompetent from a capitalist perspective that some in business would now prefer the "dangerous Marxist". I can't remember anything like this.

Just now, L00b said:

How's that been working for business, lately? Say, over the last 3 years? 

Not very well, mainly because Britain hasn't had a functioning government in the last 3 years!

46 minutes ago, Car Boot said:

I never stated that those issues were caused by the EU. 

 

But they are certainly made worse by the bosses free movement of labour, which has a negative impact upon low-skilled British workers and especially non-EU British immigrant communities.

Non unionised low skilled EU immigration can depress wages, place pressure on services and infrastructure and create community tension.

 

It is very lazy and simply wrong to pretend otherwise. 

 

If big business didn't benefit from immigration, there would be no immigration. But this benefit is at the expense of the working class and the exploited immigrants themselves.

While I agree with quite a bit of this, and note that you don't blame the migrants themselves for this exploitation like some do, I think it's naïve to think leaving the EU will change anything. If the market wage for the least skilled jobs tops £10 an hour due to labour shortages then just about any government, especially a Tory one, will allow enough migration to bring wages down, because all governments just do the bidding of business, including Labour ones.

22 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

So hes holding it up then

Given that the Tories have had almost three years to sort this out and failed, it's a bit much to claim that Corbyn, who was asked to help out about three days ago, is "holding it up"

40 minutes ago, Top Cats Hat said:

Krishnan Guru-Murthy terminated an interview with John Redwood on Channel Four News tonight for using this same poll to repeatedly claim that the majority of the population now support leaving the EU without a deal. Guru-Murthy kept telling him that this was simply not true and kept asking Redwood what poll he was referring to. Redwood refused to say and kept repeating his claim. In the end Guru-Murthy simply ended the interview mid stream.

 

 It is about time that more journalists drew a line in the sand when being lied to by politicians.

And he must have known he was lying while he was doing it. People like him really are swine.