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Archive for October, 2009

A class battle brewing? Conservative conference and the welfare debate

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

October has been an interesting month. It started with a trip up to Manchester for the Conservative party conference; with a strategically chosen location. Manchester has always had a working class history; in 1903 a group of women met there and founded the Women’s Social and Political Union, which became the suffragette movement, with the [...]

International day for the eradication of poverty at ATD Fourth World

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

The 17th October was the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, and anti-poverty charity ATD 4th World marked it with a series of events in London and Surry. Community Links have worked with ATD in the past, most recently on our ‘working alongside’ report into people’s experiences of the benefits system.
Brendan Coyne, a full-time [...]

Thoughts on Getting Britain Working from inside the Conservative conference

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

I’ve spent a fascinating couple of days discussing welfare reform at Conservative conference, meeting some of the people leading Conservative welfare policy and talking to them about the experiences of people trying to get off benefits and into work in Newham. A few thoughts so far…
Publicly, Conservatives are talking about their new Work Programme - [...]

How to really Get Britain Working

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

The Conservatives are talking about their plans to Get Britain Working at conference this week, and they’re focusing on welfare reform. I’m glad they’re concentrating on the issue, but they’ve failed to look at the real reasons why people struggle to get off benefits into work. If only they’d listened to the experts, people trying [...]