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.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    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).

      • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        Lucky Strike - not lucky

        Patriot Act - not patriotic

        FreedomAdvocate - does not advocate for freedom

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        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.

        • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
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          2 days ago

          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.

          • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            you’re saying you want more illegal immigration?

            the only way to stop illegal immigration is to allow more paths to legal immigration.

            After all, immigration is wholly and totally a net benefit, fiscally speaking.

          • WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today
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            2 days ago

            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.

            • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
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              2 days ago

              Ah the imaginary death camps. Been over 100 days and still no death camps. Also none of these death camps popped up in the entire 4 years of the previous trump presidency. Strange that.

              • WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today
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                2 days ago

                You just aren’t first on the list. Don’t worry, it will come.

                Trump is not a Liberterian messiah, he is very much the government.

                • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
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                  1 day ago

                  Who was first on the list? After 4 years of death camps from 2016-2020 and now another 100 days, we’d surely be pretty far down the list right? At least past…1? Or even up to 1 by now?

                  • WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today
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                    14 hours ago

                    Immigrants obviously. Easy to hate. Then people that look like immigrants, then people who support foreign countries that USA does not, so on.

          • BullishUtensil@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            The problem with banning people from identifying nazis is of course that the nazis then have a field day doing nazi things, chanting “you aren’t allowed to call me a nazi …”

            • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
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              23 hours ago

              No one is saying you should be banned from identifying Nazis. What people are saying is that when you call your neighbour a Nazi because they left their bin on the footpath for emptying on the wrong night, people stop caring when you call anyone a Nazi.

              Actual Nazi-like people then just get to carry on being disgusting people because when you go “there’s a Nazi!” no one listens to you or cares because you’ve called them all Nazis at some stage too over trivial things.