New Labourites, in their endless quest to teach the proles about freemarkets, decided that if you could find a property cheaper than the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rate then you could pocket up to £15 of the difference. Then they decided that you wouldn’t be able to any more. It was estimated at the time that around 300,000 people were set to lose out.

So, after a bit of an outcry and with an election on the cards they decided that you still could. Then they lost the election.

So what happens now?

Well with LHA rates now being slashed to the 30th percentile (2) it seems very likely that anyone who isn’t renting out a skip to live in will lose the cash. Whether the skip-dwellers get to hang onto any remaining payments is anyone’s guess. Osborne didn’t mention it and nowhere is it mentioned in the budget document. We assume that’s because the ignorant tory fuckwit doesn’t know about it. Gideon hasn’t done his homework. Again.

So it seems likely that up to 300,000 people on the lowest incomes could lose up to £15 a week. For those on Job Seekers allowance that is a cut of almost 20% in the cash they have to spend each week. The other groups that will be affected by this are pensioners, single parents and the disabled, which all sounds very familiar.

Whilst not as devastating as the other Housing Benefit cuts it’s worthy of mention particularly because all the fancy graphs being trailed in the press showing how much we’ll all be worse off have, like Osborne, almost certainly neglected to take this cut into account.

The only plus side to this whole shambles is that it is a shambles. Osborne and his chinless chums may have been wanking off over destroying the Welfare State since prep school, but this shower of shits ain’t no Thatcher and Tebbitt*. If Thatcher was the iron lady then Osborne is a soggy biscuit.

First one to make Cameron cry like a baby gets a free molotov.

We won’t pay for their crisis, but we will make them pay for ours.

* Disclaimer: Thatcher is a whithered old hag whose death cannot come soon enough and will be greeted by much rejoicing across the land. As for Tebbit, well he’s just a surplus cunt whose far from tragic demise will barely be noticed even amongst his own family.

(1)  http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2009/07/18/poorest-to-get-less-whilst-landlords-get-cash-bonus/
(2)  http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/those-housing-benefit-reforms-%E2%80%93-it%E2%80%99s-not-just-about-unemployed-londoners/