Bedroom Tax Blamed For Woman's Suicide

A woman who committed suicide left a note blaming the Government's so-called bedroom tax for her death.

Stephanie Bottrill killed herself earlier this month, and wrote in her final letter: "I don't [blame] anyone for me death expect [sic] the government."

Her son Steven, 27, said she was struggling to cope after being told to pay £20-a-week extra for two under-occupied bedrooms at her home in Solihull.

He told the Sunday People: "I couldn't believe it. She said not to blame ourselves, it was the Government and what they were doing that caused her to do it.

"She was fine before this bedroom tax. It was dreamt up in London, by people living in offices and big houses. They have no idea the effect it has on people like my mum."

Ms Bottrill, 53, died 10 days ago.

In the days running up to her death she told neighbours: "I can't afford to live any more."

Solihull Council Labour group leader David Jamieson, who knows the family well, said: "I'm absolutely appalled this poor lady has taken her own life because she was worried how she would pay the bedroom tax.

"I hope the Government will sit up and take notice and reconsider this policy."

The bedroom tax means people of a working age in social housing who have a spare bedroom will find housing benefit claims reduced by £40 to £80 a month.

Ms Bottrill had lived in her £320-a-month home for 18 years as she raised her son and daughter, but could not cope with the extra £80 she had to find every month.

Mr Bottrill said his mother wanted to work, but there was no way she could.

As a child she was diagnosed with the auto-immune system deficiency, Myasthenia gravis.

The illness made her weak and she had to take constant medication.

Doctors had told her she was too ill to hold down a job, but she had never been registered as disabled, so she lived without disability benefit.

Sky's political correspondent Sophy Ridge said: "Downing Street isn't commenting on what it says is a personal matter but clearly this will lead to calls for the policy to be changed.

"Downing Street knows it is controversial. That's why some amendments have been made to the policy already, saying armed services personnel and foster carers won't be affected.

"Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has argued consistently that he thinks this policy is a fair one, but certainly I think this row is going to keep going.

http://news.sky.com/story/1089813/bedroom-tax-blamed-for-womans-suicide


....Get these Tory bastards out and levy a mansion tax!...FFS they are giving millionaires tax cuts at the expense of the poorest in society!...They know that they will lose the next election but we have another two years of this fcuking shit but people could stand up against these RW cretins before that!

....Can someone assassinate Ian Duncan Smith please

It's disgraceful, so if your a woman living alone you are either forced to move from somewhere you have called home for so long or take in strangers to fill the rooms? This policy is almost almost as bad as the China policy was of one child per family

Perhaps rather than penalize people living in homes they have raised families in which are now too big for them, some incentive could be offered for them to relocate and free up much needed social housing so others can do as they did, raise families in them.

It would be nice if everyone could be issued a house for life or for as long as they want it, but there is a housing shortage. Home owners often downsize and relocate when their families have grown, nostalgia and sentiment cost those who cant bear to leave the memories. Not only occupants of social housing, are faced with difficult choices.

philagain wrote:....Can someone assassinate Ian Duncan Smith please

Fortunately Political Assassination is quite rare in the UK..

NAA wrote:Perhaps rather than penalize people living in homes they have raised families in which are now too big for them, some incentive could be offered for them to relocate and free up much needed social housing so others can do as they did, raise families in them.

It would be nice if everyone could be issued a house for life or for as long as they want it, but there is a housing shortage. Home owners often downsize and relocate when their families have grown, nostalgia and sentiment cost those who cant bear to leave the memories. Not only occupants of social housing, are faced with difficult choices.

I agree but the trouble is they are penalising people who didn't enter into a contract of paying more money for less people and the majority are willing to downsize but the figures say there are sixty thousand places availbe for a quarter of a million people wanting to downsize.
Fine if you offer them somewhere smaller and they refuse ... tax them but if you aint offering them anything and theres nothing avaiilable then your penalising them.

Jack wrote:

NAA wrote:Perhaps rather than penalize people living in homes they have raised families in which are now too big for them, some incentive could be offered for them to relocate and free up much needed social housing so others can do as they did, raise families in them.

It would be nice if everyone could be issued a house for life or for as long as they want it, but there is a housing shortage. Home owners often downsize and relocate when their families have grown, nostalgia and sentiment cost those who cant bear to leave the memories. Not only occupants of social housing, are faced with difficult choices.

I agree but the trouble is they are penalising people who didn't enter into a contract of paying more money for less people and the majority are willing to downsize but the figures say there are sixty thousand places availbe for a quarter of a million people wanting to downsize.
Fine if you offer them somewhere smaller and they refuse ... tax them but if you aint offering them anything and theres nothing avaiilable then your penalising them.

Yes, which is why I said they should be given incentives rather than being penalized..

I doubt even this incompetent bunch of nincompoops actively want 200,000 extra homeless people littering the streets of Britain. Given their mentality the problem solving probably involved a few small empty boxes on a restaurant table somewhere, and some torn up pieces of bread to represent people.. an empty bottle of rather expensive wine representing the govt.. It probably seemed brilliant at the time, but they didn't hoover up the surplus bread bun from under the table the next day...

We have to accept, there are clueless out of touch with reality people running most nations, Democracy has created this result.

The big question is, what can we do about it?

If everyone fights for this lady's right to stay in her council house, who will fight for the family currently living in B & B?? SO we solve the housing crisis and unemployment by building new social housing.. where?? Green belts?
Too many people?? Stop immigration, who will pay enough tax to support a huge aging population??

Bit of a mess isn't it?

We could easily build a whole new town or three in this country without making any real impact on the amount of land in this country left for grazing and growing crops.

Vast swathes of the countryside in the UK aren't touched for year after year after year. They don't even get used for hay anymore.

I'm not necessarily suggesting we do that but there certainly is room to build new social housing developments. They seem to be able to find enough land to build huge private developments quickly enough.

Ali wrote:We could easily build a whole new town or three in this country without making any real impact on the amount of land in this country left for grazing and growing crops.

Vast swathes of the countryside in the UK aren't touched for year after year after year. They don't even get used for hay anymore.

I'm not necessarily suggesting we do that but there certainly is room to build new social housing developments. They seem to be able to find enough land to build huge private developments quickly enough.

Chances are those vast swathes of country side belong to the Estate of some member of the Royal Family... or member of the Great British Aristocracy.

England is now a consumer society of course they wont be used to grow hay, ship it in from a few thousand miles away... It now even seems logical and normal to me that I ship in Hay from Croatia and Woodshavings from Germany...... Wood for the fire from Bulgaria..

I just discovered most of the *Greek herbs* used to manufacture the famous Korres brand of natural cosmetics are actually grown in Switzerland. Then shipped to Greece. The trucks driving past mile after mile of wild chamomile, thyme.... lavender, mint...

I'm sure there were really persuasive arguments for a lot of the completely STUPID illogical shit we now accept as perfectly normal... everyone expects to speak to an Indian in Mumbai when calling a help desk....

NAA wrote:

Ali wrote:We could easily build a whole new town or three in this country without making any real impact on the amount of land in this country left for grazing and growing crops.

Vast swathes of the countryside in the UK aren't touched for year after year after year. They don't even get used for hay anymore.

I'm not necessarily suggesting we do that but there certainly is room to build new social housing developments. They seem to be able to find enough land to build huge private developments quickly enough.

Chances are those vast swathes of country side belong to the Estate of some member of the Royal Family... or member of the Great British Aristocracy.

England is now a consumer society of course they wont be used to grow hay, ship it in from a few thousand miles away... It now even seems logical and normal to me that I ship in Hay from Croatia and Woodshavings from Germany...... Wood for the fire from Bulgaria..

I just discovered most of the *Greek herbs* used to manufacture the famous Korres brand of natural cosmetics are actually grown in Switzerland. Then shipped to Greece. The trucks driving past mile after mile of wild chamomile, thyme.... lavender, mint...

I'm sure there were really persuasive arguments for a lot of the completely STUPID illogical shit we now accept as perfectly normal... everyone expects to speak to an Indian in Mumbai when calling a help desk....

Most of it belongs to farmers who are just leaving it sitting idle if they aren't selling it off to private developers for a huge pay day bonus.

One of the arguments I've heard is that if we build more housing developments we will run out of land to use to grow crops and graze animals to feed the people in this country, well that's bollox for a start when much of our foodstuff is imported.

Ali wrote:

NAA wrote:

Ali wrote:We could easily build a whole new town or three in this country without making any real impact on the amount of land in this country left for grazing and growing crops.

Vast swathes of the countryside in the UK aren't touched for year after year after year. They don't even get used for hay anymore.

I'm not necessarily suggesting we do that but there certainly is room to build new social housing developments. They seem to be able to find enough land to build huge private developments quickly enough.

Chances are those vast swathes of country side belong to the Estate of some member of the Royal Family... or member of the Great British Aristocracy.

England is now a consumer society of course they wont be used to grow hay, ship it in from a few thousand miles away... It now even seems logical and normal to me that I ship in Hay from Croatia and Woodshavings from Germany...... Wood for the fire from Bulgaria..

I just discovered most of the *Greek herbs* used to manufacture the famous Korres brand of natural cosmetics are actually grown in Switzerland. Then shipped to Greece. The trucks driving past mile after mile of wild chamomile, thyme.... lavender, mint...

I'm sure there were really persuasive arguments for a lot of the completely STUPID illogical shit we now accept as perfectly normal... everyone expects to speak to an Indian in Mumbai when calling a help desk....

Most of it belongs to farmers who are just leaving it sitting idle if they aren't selling it off to private developers for a huge pay day bonus.

One of the arguments I've heard is that if we build more housing developments we will run out of land to use to grow crops and graze animals to feed the people in this country, well that's bollox for a start when much of our foodstuff is imported.

You cant just take a farmer's land from him though if he owns it, paid for it and pays tax on it. Land is a resource, you may not plant on it this decade, century even, but it can be utilized to supply food at any time, build on it, and its gone.

BTW another one of those fascinating decisions politicians made that eventually became normal, pay farmers to leave their fields empty, buy crops from thousands of miles away..

If a guy in a suit knocked on your door tomorrow and said. listen, would you mind awfully not going to work? you will be paid, but really, we would prefer you didn't go. So you say, well no, Ive always worked, I like it, I want to work. my parents worked there too and their parents and theirs, no fcuk you Im going to work..

So you are told, OK but you will be fined a very large sum of money for every day you work....

NAA wrote:

Ali wrote:

NAA wrote:

Ali wrote:We could easily build a whole new town or three in this country without making any real impact on the amount of land in this country left for grazing and growing crops.

Vast swathes of the countryside in the UK aren't touched for year after year after year. They don't even get used for hay anymore.

I'm not necessarily suggesting we do that but there certainly is room to build new social housing developments. They seem to be able to find enough land to build huge private developments quickly enough.

Chances are those vast swathes of country side belong to the Estate of some member of the Royal Family... or member of the Great British Aristocracy.

England is now a consumer society of course they wont be used to grow hay, ship it in from a few thousand miles away... It now even seems logical and normal to me that I ship in Hay from Croatia and Woodshavings from Germany...... Wood for the fire from Bulgaria..

I just discovered most of the *Greek herbs* used to manufacture the famous Korres brand of natural cosmetics are actually grown in Switzerland. Then shipped to Greece. The trucks driving past mile after mile of wild chamomile, thyme.... lavender, mint...

I'm sure there were really persuasive arguments for a lot of the completely STUPID illogical shit we now accept as perfectly normal... everyone expects to speak to an Indian in Mumbai when calling a help desk....

Most of it belongs to farmers who are just leaving it sitting idle if they aren't selling it off to private developers for a huge pay day bonus.

One of the arguments I've heard is that if we build more housing developments we will run out of land to use to grow crops and graze animals to feed the people in this country, well that's bollox for a start when much of our foodstuff is imported.

You cant just take a farmer's land from him though if he owns it, paid for it and pays tax on it. Land is a resource, you may not plant on it this decade, century even, but it can be utilized to supply food at any time, build on it, and its gone.

No, I'm not suggesting we do, but if he's selling some of it and many have, why not build some social housing estates to ease the crisis as well as private developments.

In fact, there are some 700,000 properties sitting empty in this country just going to rack and ruin, redevelop them first and rent them out before building whole new estates.

NAA wrote:BTW another one of those fascinating decisions politicians made that eventually became normal, pay farmers to leave their fields empty, buy crops from thousands of miles away..

If a guy in a suit knocked on your door tomorrow and said. listen, would you mind awfully not going to work? you will be paid, but really, we would prefer you didn't go. So you say, well no, Ive always worked, I like it, I want to work. my parents worked there too and their parents and theirs, no fcuk you Im going to work..

So you are told, OK but you will be fined a very large sum of money for every day you work....

Well there you go NAA, it just goes to show how pathetic it all is.

Most farmers have already 'sold' buildable land to builders... The builder them holds the 'right to build' there, he may not choose to do so for 50 years but they have the rights to it. The farmer got a lovely lump sum for the land.

philagain wrote:

A woman who committed suicide left a note blaming the Government's so-called bedroom tax for her death.

Stephanie Bottrill killed herself earlier this month, and wrote in her final letter: "I don't [blame] anyone for me death expect [sic] the government."

Her son Steven, 27, said she was struggling to cope after being told to pay £20-a-week extra for two under-occupied bedrooms at her home in Solihull.

He told the Sunday People: "I couldn't believe it. She said not to blame ourselves, it was the Government and what they were doing that caused her to do it.

"She was fine before this bedroom tax. It was dreamt up in London, by people living in offices and big houses. They have no idea the effect it has on people like my mum."

Ms Bottrill, 53, died 10 days ago.

In the days running up to her death she told neighbours: "I can't afford to live any more."

Solihull Council Labour group leader David Jamieson, who knows the family well, said: "I'm absolutely appalled this poor lady has taken her own life because she was worried how she would pay the bedroom tax.

"I hope the Government will sit up and take notice and reconsider this policy."

The bedroom tax means people of a working age in social housing who have a spare bedroom will find housing benefit claims reduced by £40 to £80 a month.

Ms Bottrill had lived in her £320-a-month home for 18 years as she raised her son and daughter, but could not cope with the extra £80 she had to find every month.

Mr Bottrill said his mother wanted to work, but there was no way she could.

As a child she was diagnosed with the auto-immune system deficiency, Myasthenia gravis.

The illness made her weak and she had to take constant medication.

Doctors had told her she was too ill to hold down a job, but she had never been registered as disabled, so she lived without disability benefit.

Sky's political correspondent Sophy Ridge said: "Downing Street isn't commenting on what it says is a personal matter but clearly this will lead to calls for the policy to be changed.

"Downing Street knows it is controversial. That's why some amendments have been made to the policy already, saying armed services personnel and foster carers won't be affected.

"Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has argued consistently that he thinks this policy is a fair one, but certainly I think this row is going to keep going.

http://news.sky.com/story/1089813/bedroom-tax-blamed-for-womans-suicide


....Get these Tory bastards out and levy a mansion tax!...FFS they are giving millionaires tax cuts at the expense of the poorest in society!...They know that they will lose the next election but we have another two years of this fcuking shit but people could stand up against these RW cretins before that!

A very sad story

It is all very well offering people smaller accommodation (if they have been that is) but there is so much more to it than just leaving a home you love.

There is not only the expense of a move, but also having to scale down and find a way of getting rid of things that there will be no room for at a smaller place.

Even the thought of it all for some people would be stessful, let along having to actually go through it.

A lot of the land you see as you drive by is unsuitable for crops.
It's grazing land. Land has to rest and recover as do the different types of grass.
Sheep struggle with grass thats six inches long but cattle are fine.
When the cattle have had their turn the sheep are oput on to it.
Theres a limit to how many animals a farmer can work because of the price of water.
A cow being wintered indoors drinks twenty five gallons day ... a thousand head of cattle will put some big numbers on that meter.
Theres also a limit to how much you can work.
Most farmers round here do an average of sixty five hours a week.
Theres a limit to how much you can produce and sell.
Farmers despite some daft rules and regulations are not getting wealthy sitting on their arses watching the grass grow.
Dairy farmers are working their nuts off for an ever diminishing price for their product because me and you want cheap milk and cheaper again.
If you want to eat meat you'll have to see shit loads of green fields that appear to do nothing a lot of the time.
If we all become vegetarian then there will be a shortage of farm land suitable and able to grow what you want.
People also want to be able to eat salad in the middle of winter instead of enjoying the delights of the seasons like we did when I was a kid.
Imports of food will stop if the pound becomes worthless overseas and then more and more people will understand the use of land.
The mad weather around the world the last few years has guaranteed massive shortages and massive price rises starting ... about now.

Peas, I've noticed how the price of those has soared

Ali wrote:Peas, I've noticed how the price of those has soared

I bought a bag of Brussels sprouts this week which are normally about £1 and they were £1.75!!

I'm not worried about those, hate them, but peas are almost the only vegetable I eat and they have to be petit pois at that

Another problem is capitalism/consumerism.
For capitalism to thrive and survive it has to have perpetual growth.
Perpetual ... forever.
It's been known for a long long time that it isn't possible.
Capitalism has to take the dust of the earth as cheaply as possible from the ground ... dig ever deeper and deeper to get the right dust but ... the right stuff becomes scarcer and scarcer and more and more expensive to obtain.
The foundation of capitalism/consumerism is the dump.
When we stop throwing what we have extracted from the earth into a hole as waste ... it's all over.
We now recycle a lot of it because ... there's no tin left and no copper left here. Not much of anything left. Even China clay from Cornwall that makes your magazines glossy is all but running out.
Plus there's a shortage of suitable places to carry on digging giant holes in the ground to fill with what we extracted from the earth in the first place to make hi fi's tv's etc.
Then there's the environmental problems all this desire for comfort convenience and shiny things causes.
The few things that have been signed up to are already creating problems for capitalism.
For most countries to meet their carbon commitments it means now leaving in the ground the oil and gas and coal that's there ... can you see them all keeping to such commitments?
No we are not going to burn that oil.
Yes we are but we'll fcuk the environment over and slowly starve ... is the option we will chose ... or have already.
Capitalism and consumerism have to be the deadliest road we could have gone down. The suicide road. The road where people put their faith in a God called science.
The God called science and it's partner called technology are what we look to for solutions to ever mounting problems caused by those very same Gods. But many peoples faith is blind and untouchable.
Greed is the result of capitalist thinking and greed is our downfall.
The greediest are those who do the least and extract the most ... making money from money.
Like investing Britains oil wealth over the last thirty years in China and India and Viet nam etc etc.
The money goes where thers the right dust still in the ground and the cheapest slaves.
And the fat fcuks get ever wealthier and the problems they leave behind get ever bigger.

NAA wrote:

philagain wrote:....Can someone assassinate Ian Duncan Smith please

Fortunately Political Assassination is quite rare in the UK..

I saw your flounce from dogs on the Andrea Borman thread!

I'm a bit pissed/

Jack wrote:I'm a bit pissed/

...I think you should invite Andrea here Jack!

philagain wrote:

Jack wrote:I'm a bit pissed/

...I think you should invite Andrea here Jack!

Andrea can go fcuk herself.
Go blow herself up along with that ignorant fuckwit Stoopid.