the brilliantly leaping gazelle

I’ve got a lot to distract me as well, to be honest. So if this post isn’t as polished as it might be, well I hope you get the gist.

On ‘The World this Weekend’ earlier was the news that around 32,000 former civil servants had had their pensions overpaid, but that they wouldn’t have to pay this money back. Which is nice.

This generosity isn’t usually extended to people in receipt of benefits, which is, after all what a pension is.

An example being,

Thousands of Universal Credit claimants are having 40% of their benefit deducted to pay back outstanding debts.

Labour MP Ruth George said the high level of deductions from payments “will see more people with no option but to go into debt”.

But figures obtained by Ms George show just how many Universal Credit claimants are having major chunks of their benefit deducted every month.

In January, 6% of all Universal Credit full service claims had 40% deducted from their standard allowance, according to figures released in response to a written parliamentary question.

DWP also says a small percentage of less than 0.5% of claims had total deductions of more than 40%.

One of worst things about Brexit is that it has dominated pretty much the entire domestic political agenda for the last two years and the recent shenanigans in parliament have proved conclusive proof that yes indeed, we do have the mutha of all parliaments.