Tax credit ‘rape clause’ becomes law without parliamentary vote

Our thanks to a supporter for this piece in today’s edition of The Guardian. Extracts:

A controversial proposal to ask new mothers who have been raped [Correction: who CLAIM to have been raped] for verification if they wish to claim tax credits for more than two children has become law without any debate or vote in parliament.

The so-called rape clause, which will be applied as part of new restrictions on tax credit entitlement, was added to legislation late on Wednesday as an amendment to an existing act. The plans will come into effect within a month…

The policy coming into force on 6 April restricts tax credit entitlement for new claimants to a maximum of two children, with exceptions for multiple births and for women who could show that their third or subsequent child was conceived as a result of rape.

Those seeking to claim the exemption for rape must be assessed by what the government has described in a consultation as a “professional third party”, which could include health workers, police, social workers or rape charities. [my emphasis]

Cue hordes of mothers lying that their third and subsequent children resulted from rape, despite there being not a shred of evidence to back up their claims, and with the complicity of feminists in ‘professional third parties’, always keen to pass yet more hard-working taxpayers’ money on to women.

If everyone who read this gave us just £1 – or even better, £1 monthly – we could change the world. Click here to make a difference. Thanks.

House of Commons Health Committee report on suicide prevention

[Note: Anyone with suicidal inclinations is strongly advised to seek help, perhaps by calling the Samaritans. Their website is here, phone 08457 909090 (Republic of Ireland – 116 123), email jo@samaritans.org.]

Suicide is the leading cause of death for men under 50. It accounts for 26% of the deaths of men aged 20-34, 13% of the deaths of men 35-49. The male:female suicide rate differential has increased from 1.7:1 to over 3.5:1 over the past 35 years, mainly the consequence of a large decline in female suicides. About 78% of suicide victims today are male, 22% female.

We commented on the government’s inaction on male suicide prevention in our 2015 general election manifesto (pp.46-8).

The House of Commons Health Committee (seven of the ten MPs on the committee are female, including the chairperson) recently held an inquiry into the issue of suicide prevention. Our written submission to the inquiry (September 2016) can be accessed here. I asked to give oral evidence to the committee, but my request was denied. We had pointed in our written submission to the state being the key driver of male suicide, through its actions and inactions in 11 areas.

The embargo on publication of the House of Commons Health Committee’s final report on suicide prevention has just been lifted, and the report is here. As anticipated, it barely recognizes that most (almost four in five) suicide victims in the UK today are men.

Remarkably – but predictably – the report does not provide data to demonstrate the highly gendered nature of suicide, as revealed by official statistics. When male suicide is referred to, an element of victim shaming is usually included.

Section 3 of the report (pp.14-22) is titled, ‘Services to support people vulnerable to suicide’. If the MPs had an ounce of humanity towards men, they’d be one of the categories of vulnerable people, as they constitute 78% of victims. There is no such category – no recognition of men as a group being particularly vulnerable to suicide.

Among the material of interest to followers of this blog will be paragraphs 53-6 (p.16) and paragraphs 80-4 (pp.21,22). From paragraph 53, some victim shaming:

We noted the importance of tackling the stigma that persists in talking about emotional health (particularly for men)…

In plain English, ‘men should be more like women, and talk about their problems’. There is no recognition in the report that men are killing themselves due to reactive depression resulting from overwhelming life events, mainly driven by the state’s actions and inactions, a matter I explored in an article in the International Business Times two years ago to the day.

Paragraphs 80-6 are the contents of a section, ‘Other at risk groups’. In paragraph 80 the committee ‘notes with concern the levels of perinatal suicide and the rising levels of suicides in prisons’. Women constitute 100% of the first cohort, men 95% of those serving custodial sentences, and men account for 90% of suicides in prison. Perinatal suicide is then described as ‘a matter of grave concern’, which the latter clearly isn’t, by default.

The gendered nature of prison suicides is not mentioned once in the four paragraphs, although mention is made of the fact that suicide rates in prison are 8.6 times higher than in the general population.

If everyone who read this gave us just £1 – or even better, £1 monthly – we could change the world. Click here to make a difference. Thanks.

‘I’m not sending a lady to prison for this’: Karolina Szumko, student, 18, spared jail after racist slurs during Notting Hill club rampage.

Our thanks to Ian for this. Excerpts:

A photography student who went on the rampage after being turned away from a Notting Hill club for being too drunk was spared jail after a judge [Adrian Turner] told her: “I’m not sending a lady to prison for something like this”.

Karolina Szumko, 18, had drunk half a bottle of vodka when she attacked staff at the Notting Hill Arts Club, hurling racist slurs at police officers and aiming kicks and punches as she was dragged away in handcuffs.

Even after her arrest, Szumko, who is in her first year of a photography degree at Kingston University, continued to rant at police, calling them “British p*****s” and telling them: “You are going to f***ing die, f***ing racists, pretend to be white but wish Christmas to Muslim people.”…

“I hope you are horrified, it horrifies me”, he [the judge] said. “Racially abusing and attacking police officers and security people, all in a public place, and that’s the result of drinking far more vodka than was good for you. [How much vodka IS good for you? We should be told.]

“I dare say you were not aware of what was going on, and I accept what happened wouldn’t have happened apart from drinking, you are genuinely sorry. [Ms Szumko is clearly not responsible either for drinking the vodka, or what followed.]

“I’m not going to send a lady [my emphasis] to prison for something like this.”

A ‘lady’? Somehow I think that if the drunken 18-year-old student had been a man, he wouldn’t have said this:

“I’m not going to send a gentleman to prison for something like this.”

If everyone who read this gave us just £1 – or even better, £1 monthly – we could change the world. Click here to make a difference. Thanks.

Hogg roasted

Our thanks to Stu for some good news. It’s reported that Charlotte Hogg’s feminist boss, Mark Carney, initially rejected her resignation.

If everyone who read this gave us just £1 – or even better, £1 monthly – we could change the world. Click here to make a difference. Thanks.