Assembly member lives on benefits to experience the effects of ‘welfare reform’

Respect is due to the Assembly Member for actually attempting to live like someone on benefits and genuinely understand how the poor really live. IDS didn’t. I remember that when someone asked him to do so, he shrugged it off, saying he wasn’t going to do any publicity stunts. This, of course, probably meant that he was absolutely terrified of ending up like Geoffrey Dickinson. Dickinson was the right-wing Tory, who was demanding that the conditions should be made even tougher for the unemployed. He was asked to live on benefits for a week. By the end of it he had run out of food, and had his gas, electricity and water cut off. Not that this made much difference – he still carried on loudly proclaiming the same message, as have Major, Osborne and their like ever since. And unfortunately, so too have the Blairite faction in Labour. It’s a pity the Honourable Lady is on Mike’s side of Offa’s Dyke, as we desperately need more like her on this side of the Severn as well.

Mike Sivier's blog

The day job: Rebecca Evans AM in the more familiar environment of the Assembly debating chamber [Image: ITV]. I wanted to share this with you because, as a constituent and a member of the Labour Party, I’m quite proud of Mid and West Wales Labour AM Rebecca Evans, who spent a week living on an amount equivalent to Jobseekers’ Allowance and discussing ‘welfare reform’ with people who deal with its effects on a day-to-day basis, to find out what it is like.

She wrote an article about her experience for Wales Onlinewhich I am taking the liberty of excerpting here. Over to you, Rebecca:

With the average household in Wales expected to lose 4.1 per cent of their income due to policy changes, support is vital for those living on the poverty line.

Although people are understandably cynical when politicians attempt to live life on the breadline, I wanted…

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