{"id":4303,"date":"2015-05-28T15:34:32","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T14:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=4303"},"modified":"2015-05-28T15:34:32","modified_gmt":"2015-05-28T14:34:32","slug":"the-seven-deadly-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=4303","title":{"rendered":"The seven deadly bills"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Tories may have run a vague and convoluted election campaign, but now that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in with a wafer-thin majority, prime minister David Cameron laid out his policy plans yesterday (May 28) , as the Queen read out in a sombre monotone the dark direction the government will now take in the next five years.<\/p>\n

 
\nHere\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s UNITElive\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rundown of the seven most chilling policies the new Tory government is set to pursue.<\/p>\n

 
\n1. Cutting the benefits cap<\/strong><\/em>
\nThe benefits cap now stands at \u00c2\u014126,000 but will be slashed to \u00c2\u014123,000 for an entire household under Tory proposals. The new cap is far below the average earnings of a single person, meaning the people who would suffer most from the cap are families \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and children.<\/p>\n

 
\nAn executive of the charity The Children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Society condemned the move, saying it would only lead to greater child poverty in the next five years.<\/p>\n

 
\n2. Extending Right to Buy<\/strong><\/em>
\nExtending the Right to Buy scheme to housing association tenants is a top Tory priority, but as UNITElive pointed out earlier this week<\/a>, the scheme will decimate the already sparse affordable housing stock left. The Tories say that for every house sold under the scheme, a new one will be built, but their record on right to buy house replacements is abysmal \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in Manchester, of the 863 social homes sold since 2012, only 2 have been built to replace them.<\/p>\n

 
\n3. Scrapping housing benefit for young people<\/strong><\/em>
\nAlthough the Tories have pledged a preposterous \u00c2\u014112bn in welfare cuts, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve still not revealed exactly where these cuts will come from. One of the few policies they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve announced on this front is a blanket removal of housing benefit for all 18 to 21-year-olds.<\/p>\n

 
\nAccording to the charity Centrepoint<\/a>, scrapping housing benefit for young people will have a massive impact on youth homelessness. Any savings the Tories expect to make from this benefit cut, the charity argues, will be completely wiped out by the dramatic rise in young people sleeping rough.<\/p>\n

 
\n4. State censorship in the name of combatting extremism<\/strong><\/em>
\nAs part of home secretary Theresa May\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strategy to combat terrorism, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proposed giving Ofcom the power to vet TV programmes before broadcast. Even the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 own Sajid Javid criticised the move in his previous role as culture secretary, saying it could risk turning the regulator into a state censor, and so silence opinions the government doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t approve of.<\/p>\n

 
\n5. Increased pressure on the NHS<\/strong><\/em>
\nThe Queen said that the government would pledge to have an NHS that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bworks on a seven-day basis\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, with \u00e2\u20ac\u015bimproved access to GPs\u00e2\u20ac\u0165. Sounds great in theory, but GPs themselves have said the plans are unworkable<\/a> and would only further add to workplace and funding pressures the NHS already faces.<\/p>\n

 
\n6. Scrapping Human Rights Act<\/strong><\/em>
\nCameron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plan to scrap the Human Rights Act did not get an explicit mention in the Queen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s speech \u00e2\u20ac\u201c probably because of how controversial it is, even within Tory ranks. But a nod to a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bBritish Bill of Rights\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 in the speech, however, is a direct reference to the planned attack on internationally accepted standards for basic human rights. Read more about what scrapping the HRA would mean here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 
\n7. Repressing workers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 rights<\/strong><\/em>
\nA key aim laid out in the Queen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Speech was to restrict the internationally sanctioned human right to strike. Under the Tory\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sinister strike laws<\/a>, withdrawing labour in an industrial dispute would become nearly impossible. Permitting agency workers to break strikes will further swing the balance of power, leaving workers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who already have faced Victorian-era wage stagnation over the last five years — at the complete mercy of employers and businesses.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn response to the Queen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s speech, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey condemned the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s future policy priorities.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe urge this government to think again,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bPeople will not be fooled by claims to be the party of working people if freedoms and democracy are swept away in a tide of repressive laws and showy PR.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe first duty of a prime minster must surely be do not impoverish the people, but undermining basic freedoms, bringing further ruin to our broken housing market and paving the way for further attacks on the poor will see him embarrassed by his `One Nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 claims.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nRead a further in-depth analysis of the Queen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Speech here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tories may have run a vague and convoluted election campaign, but now that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in with a wafer-thin majority, prime minister David Cameron laid out his policy plans yesterday (May 28) , as the Queen read out in a sombre monotone the dark direction the government will now take in the next five years. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":912,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[76,307,44],"wps_subtitle":"Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 chilling laws revealed in Queen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Speech","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4304,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4303\/revisions\/4304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}