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April 18, 2013 |
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Published by Leeds University Department of Disability Studies

Published by Leeds University Centre for Disability Studies

 

THE HIDDEN AGENDA

By Mo Stewart

The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) is exclusively conducted on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) by the corporate giant Atos Origin IT Ltd Medical Services, better known as Atos Healthcare.

This ‘non-medical assessment’ was introduced in 2008 by the Labour government, and was identified as a ‘medical examination’ to be used to identify genuine claimants for long term sickness and disability benefit. However, what was unknown at the time was the fact that the WCA was a continuation of the planned agenda of the previous Thatcher government, whose ultimate goal was the destruction of the Welfare State.(1)

The WCA was promoted as a ‘fitness for work’ assessment for claimants of what was once known as Incapacity Benefit, now re-named as the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

In reality, in order to reduce the welfare budget, the WCA was designed to resist as many sickness benefit claims as possible regardless of confirmed and identified permanent illness or disability. By 2010 the planned DWP welfare budget reduction was deemed to be too slow. The new Coalition Government enhanced the WCA and, following the previous Labour Government’s lead, it became much more difficult to qualify for the ESA(2) as the WCA totally disregarded diagnosis, prognosis or limited life expectancy.

Aided and abetted by the national press, using insidious press headlines to manipulate public opinion(3)(3b), the Coalition Government successfully introduced tyranny, fear and despair to the nation’s most vulnerable people, using a disability assessment model as designed in consultation with Unum [Provident] Insurance; one of the most discredited corporate insurance giants in the world.(4)(4b) At the same time, reported disability hate crimes in the United Kingdom(UK) were rising to record levels.(5)

Please continue reading the full summary at the University of Leeds Centre for Disability Studies: DOCUMENT

 

 

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38 Responses

  2. Anyone who is Not Despairing is Oblivious Out of Touch Part of the Problem and in
    Cloud Cuckooland

    How the Bloody Hell is Anyone Supposed to Win an Appeal Case with No Legal
    Representation and Suffering Sleep Deprivation ?

    The System/Slavestem/Scumstem is Totally Evil and Anyone who Fails to See
    that is an Accessory to this Evil as Well

  4. Came across this on another blog….

    “(M.E. & THE NAZI LEGACY)
    It is my considered opinion that at this moment in time we are on the verge of succumbing to elements of the same self-serving propaganda that “legitimised” the mass persecutions of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and early 40s.
    It is my belief that the current – almost frenzied – campaign to psychologise M.E. and similar conditions is part of this propaganda and represents a dress rehearsal for the wider application of the psychosocial classification of a new “underclass” of “the undeserving ill”, stripped of some of the very rights the Second World War was supposedly fought for by the Allies.
    Being born of a British (soldier) father and German mother (who narrowly escaped the clutches of the Gestapo and SS during the war years), it has long been a personal quest of mine to understand how the crimes of the Nazis could be perpetrated among civilised nations only two generations ago.
    For no one can simply build slave labour and extermination camps overnight and expect the general public to accept them unquestioningly. It isn’t necessary here to describe in detail how Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union introduced institutionalised mass murder to their respective populations. This has been comprehensively achieved elsewhere. I present here only a summary of the initial processes as they unfolded.
    Before you can enlist the cooperation needed to carry out mass persecution (let alone mass murder), you have to create a climate wherein this seems both acceptable and justifiable.
    In Hitler’s Germany an entire generation was educated from childhood in the concept of “racial hygiene”, with identified undesirable elements including not only Jews and Gypsies, but also homosexuals, alcoholics, the physically and mentally handicapped, and the mentally ill.
    The concept of “lebensunwertes Leben” – life unworthy of living – was introduced. This provided for the justification of firstly sterilisation of those considered to be unworthy of living or procreating and consequently euthanasia, which was only one small step away from mass extermination – the machinery already being in place, if not with the public’s blessing as such, at least without its active condemnation.
    This was more easily achieved because of the added distraction of economic crisis and war. The present government in the UK, seeking to juggle the economic books and embroiled in war overseas, has just announced its five-year plan to remove 1 million claimants from receipt of Incapacity Benefit (indeed, to overhaul welfare benefits to the sick and disabled entirely).
    In Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union scapegoats were needed to justify the regimes’ plans for the seizure and redistribution of property and wealth: in the former, the prime targets were the Jews and in the latter, the Kulaks and “bourgeoisie”.
    In today’s climate, and precisely because of recent history, there would be no chance of racially- or class-based discrimination becoming legitimised in the UK. Instead, an alternative group needs to be identified as being an unnecessary drain on the state’s resources. I would suggest that this group has already been identified – and is now being presented to society at large as “the undeserving ill”.
    I do not propose, of course, that there are plans for the building of new gas chambers, but it is my contention that right here and now in the UK the drive to convince the general public that there exists a sub-class of undeserving “state scroungers” who are not actually physically ill, but victims of their own “aberrant belief systems”, is a calculated attempt to justify the barbaric neglect and abuse that sufferers of M.E., Fibromyalgia, Gulf War Syndrome and other similar conditions are currently being subjected to, as well as to provide an escape route for those who administer health insurance, pensions, compensation and state benefits to deny payment to claimants.
    I also contend that if this campaign is successful, its scope will inevitably be widened to encompass anyone the state considers to be fair game for classification as a drain on national funds and resources.
    And for those dismissive of the suggestion that there could exist such a move to portray health issues in terms of, not caring and welfare, but economic considerations, I draw attention to the words of Col. J. R. Rees MD, in the summary of an address he gave to the Annual Meeting of the National Council for Mental Hygiene on June 18th. 1940, embodying concepts being echoed today in the words of the psychologisers:
    “Many people don’t like to be ‘saved’, ‘changed’ or made healthy. I have a feeling, however, that ‘efficiency and economy’ would make rather a good appeal because there are very few people who would not welcome these two suggestions. It has even crossed my mind whether we ought not to have a subsidiary company called the Social Efficiency Board…It seems to me that in approaching national matters, local government and social affairs we should be on much stronger ground if we were constantly stressing our interest in efficiency and economy, and certainly we can ‘sell’ mental health under these headings as well as under any other.” (1)
    Col. Rees also set out his suggestions for the propaganda campaign itself:
    “In this field, as in every other, we ought to be thinking ahead and foreseeing events so far as that is possible. We have often been too spasmodic in our work and I feel we need a long-term plan of propaganda…I doubt the wisdom of a direct attack upon the existing state of affairs…that would still raise opposition, whereas the more insidious approach of suggesting that something better is needed – ‘Why shouldn’t we try so and so?’ – is more likely to succeed. The evolutionary process is essentially British, and I think that we should make it a fundamental in our propaganda plan.”
    “Why shouldn’t we try so and so?” Today, Col. Rees might be asking, “Why shouldn’t we try Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Graded Exercise Therapy?” Perhaps he had the Nazi doctors in mind when he declared, “We need vision and courage. We mustn’t merely plan and be theorists, but we must also experiment…”
    Just as the Nazis had, in the form of camp inmates, readily available subjects for their medical experiments, so too the psychiatric lobby today has, in the form of M.E. sufferers, guinea pigs of their own, who are being handed to them on a plate through a system which, under threat of benefits being cut or withdrawn, patients are coerced into participating in “trials” involving psychotherapy and physical exercise regimes. Those still in Local Government employment but too ill to continue working and therefore compelled to seek medical retirement find that they must be subjected to “all reasonable treatment options” before qualifying for their pensions. The unspecified “treatment options” referred to in the Local Government Superannuation Scheme (below) are, of course, merely experimental and the advice currently emanating from the Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, London is that “Medical retirement should be postponed until a trial of such treatment [ie. ‘cognitive behavioural and graded exercise therapies’] has been given.” (2)
    Just as the Nazis brainwashed and conditioned the general population into perceiving the concentration camp inmates as “unworthy of living” and thus beyond the protection of all civilised consideration, so too the psychologising lobby today seeks to portray M.E. sufferers as feeble, self-piteous, “eggshell-personality” neurotics or malingerers who are not worthy of the same rights as “normal, hard-working” citizens – citizens who are not going to take much notice of those being summoned to “medical” examinations by the Department of Work and Pensions, or behaviour-challenging psychiatric treatments at “M.E. centres”.
    There are those who believe that the AIDS crisis is not only man-made but was also specifically designed to target “social undesirables” such as prostitutes, drug users and homosexuals. Indeed, mass sympathy for AIDS victims was not really mobilised until the problem seeped into the “normal”, law-abiding, heterosexual community.
    A similar pattern can be seen with regards to M.E., whereby the perjorative “yuppie flu” label of the 80s only really began to lose credibility when the general public slowly but surely woke up to the fact that among sufferers were children, adolescents, the elderly and those who were clearly not high-flying financial wheeler-dealers from the City of London.
    In “Hitler’s Scientists” (Penguin Books 2004), John Cornwell writes (p.73):
    “Friedrich Wilhelm Schallmayer…who was a psychiatrist…called for mental health assessment panels, composed of doctors who, as officials of the state, would sit in judgment on the status of patients and deviants of various kinds.”
    This mechanism is already in place in the UK, in the form of the DWP decision makers’ and appeal tribunals’ inclusion of psychiatric reports and judgments on claimants to ill-health and disability benefits.
    “Erwin Liek, a medical doctor of Danzig…believed that illness was due to a lack of moral fibre, a conviction that in time would add impetus to the influences within professional medicine that justified the elimination of the sick.” (Cornwell, p.81)
    The tactic of blaming illness on “lack of moral fibre” in patients has long been evident with regard to M.E. – take, for example, the argument that sufferers can “recover” by following a course of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, on the alleged grounds that their ill-health is merely being perpetuated by their own false perceptions about their condition:
    “Less fatigue severity at baseline, a sense of control over symptoms and not attributing illness to a physical cause were all associated with a good outcome. Return to work at follow-up ranged from 8 to 30% in the three studies that considered this outcome. Conclusions: Full recovery from untreated CFS is rare. The prognosis for an improvement in symptoms is less gloomy…there is increasing evidence for the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural and graded exercise therapies. Medical retirement should be postponed until a trial of such treatment has been given.” (2)
    “Why shouldn’t we try so and so?…We mustn’t merely plan and be theorists, but we must also experiment…” (Col. Rees)
    That this culture is already embedded in the system can be seen in the guidelines for the UK’s Local Government Superannuation Scheme:
    “A cognitive-behavioural approach to management of [CFS] is recommended…Psychiatric referral should be considered for those who fail to respond to rehabilitation…The possibility of co-existing mental ill health should be approached in a non confrontational manner as some patients with this illness will be resistant to psychiatric referral…The criteria for Ill Health Retirement Benefits are unlikely to be fulfilled unless all reasonable treatment options have been tried by which time many employers may have terminated employment.”
    The PACE trials are only in their infancy, with no recommendations having yet been formulated (or so we are led to believe), so one has to wonder why the policy-makers of the Local Government Superannuation Scheme appear to take it as a foregone conclusion that CBT and “rehabilitation” are valid treatments for “CFS”. Have they already been “got at”? And if so, how? Col. Rees perhaps provides a clue:
    “If we are to infiltrate the professional and social activities of other people I think we must imitate the Totalitarian and organise some kind of fifth column activity! If better ideas on mental health are to progress and spread we, as the salesmen, must lose our identity. By that I mean that we cannot help so effectively if speaking for a National Council or any other body as we can when we make a more subtle approach adapted to the particular circumstances of the moment. It really wouldn’t matter if no one ever heard of this Council again provided that the work was done. Let us all, therefore, very secretly be ‘fifth columnists’…Even if our letters are not published, they still produce their effect upon the editorial mind, and some of them certainly will be published and in this way will make people think. Here again we had probably better be secretive and not mention this Council or any other body, but simply write or speak as individuals. Don’t let us mention Mental Hygiene (with capital letters), though we can safely write in terms of mental health and common-sense.”
    Parallels with the attitude that M.E. sufferers can, with impunity, be subjected to physical exertion beyond their capabilities (e.g. through Graded Exercise Therapy and the Pathways to Work scheme), regardless of what further detrimental effect this might have on their condition, can be seen in Cornwell’s comments (p.374) on I. G. Farben, the owners of Degesch, the manufacturers of Zyklon B, the pesticide used in the killing chambers of Auschwitz:
    “Farben, in complete defiance of all decency and human consideration, abused its slave workers by subjecting them, among other things, to excessively long, arduous, and exhausting work, utterly disregarding their health or physical condition.”
    Those deemed fit for work in the camps, while escaping immediate liquidation on arrival, were subsequently, however, worked to death. Those who glibly declare, “Hard work never killed anyone!” should seek the views of the survivors of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Belsen, Treblinka, Dachau…
    When applied to sufferers of M.E. and other disabling conditions, the DWP’s new Pathways to Work scheme brings to mind the slogan which bestrode the gates of Auschwitz: ARBEIT MACHT FREI (Work Sets You Free).
    The racial purity and hygiene laws of the Nazis were born of eugenics, the science of race improvement (an area of study which did not originate in, nor was exclusive to, Germany). One of the principle architects of the purification laws was Ernst Rüdin, of whom Cornwell writes (p.90):
    “As Hitler’s party made its bids for power, Rüdin became an enthusiastic exponent of eugenic and racial hygiene policies. His high reputation lent respectability to the Nazi policies of enforced eugenic sterilisation. Under his aegis schizophrenia and manic depression were judged categories suitable for sterilisation…The ‘medical’ and ‘scientific’ basis for the notion of eliminating the mentally ill was thus laid in the years following World War 1, preparing Germany for the propaganda that would lament the cost of maintaining the ‘ballast’ of the mentally ill and those with congenital diseases.”
    Numbered among the students of Ernst Rüdin were Josef Mengele, who conducted the medical experiments at Auschwitz, and – trained by Rüdin in Munich – one Eliot Slater.
    Eliot Slater (d. 1983), erstwhile editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry, was also Director of the MRC Psychiatric Genetic Research Unit, Maudsley Hospital from 1959-1965, and a Vice President or Council member of the Eugenic Society intermittently from 1944-1978. (3)
    We should note with some interest, therefore, that in 1994 Prof. Simon Wessley delivered the 9th Eliot Slater Lecture – under the title “Microbes, Mental Illness, the Media and M.E: The Construction of Disease” – which included the comment, “I will argue that M.E. is simply a belief, the belief that one has an illness called M.E.”, stating in his opening remarks:
    “I am proud and honoured to be asked and give the 9th Eliot Slater Lecture, and I think my choice of subject is one that Eliot Slater himself might have approved of – he was, of course, no stranger to controversy…” (4)
    Since Prof. Wessely and various members of the so-called “Wessely school” of psychiatry are called upon so readily and so often (sometimes in the most unexpected of contexts) for their psychiatric input, and thus afforded the opportunity to influence military, medical, social and political policies in this country, it is essential that this be recognised, and the reasons for it rigorously and publicly challenged.
    If not, if the continuing campaign to demean and denigrate conditions like M.E. is left unchecked, we may very soon find ourselves faced with the legitimisation of the concept of “the undeserving ill” and what that implies for the future – although it is already too late for those who, through neglect, abuse and inappropriate treatment, have been hastened to an early death or driven to suicide.
    But if and when that day comes, those who collaborate with this campaign, especially among politicians, health and social workers, pensions agencies, insurance companies, the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Health, Local Government and the Department of Work and Pensions, will all be judged – and held accountable – for their complicity in this persecution of the sick and disabled.

    John Sayer

    (Feb. 2005)”

  7. Superb work by Mo Stewart I will be printing out copies for the judge and lawyer when my tribunal hearing is heard (7 months and still waiting) with the comments “Whatever you decide. Please read this when you have some spare time.”

  8. A fantastic piece of work from Mo Stewart. In her article she clearly states the facts and highlights the WCA as a “non medical assessment”, which is of course exactly what it is. The WCA has nothing in common with proper medical assessments and medical knowledge and is based purely on a system designed to make sure most claimants of ESA fail the test.

    I am also grateful to Mo for pointing out that it was LABOUR that brought in this disgraceful “assessment” of the sick and disabled.
    Yes, the same bunch that some people who post on here think will save them from the nasty Tories.
    The reality is that Labour are every bit as nasty. Take it on board please.

    • Labour bought in the ESA but the tories bought in UNUM & ATOS a company that is banned in some states of the USA and some country’s while the other company should be banned.

      Keep up the good work Mo, cannot wait for your expose on Aylward

  9. Thanks for these comments and I’m so pleased my work is welcomed on BT. My
    thanks as always to JJ for posting my reports.

    Of course, people like IDS and Freud tend to forget that this country floats on an army of volunteers and some of us are capable of exposing the disturbing truth.

    I very much doubt if any Editor would dare to expose the realities behind the ‘reforms’ as the UK moves ever closer to the US style of welfare, but I am grateful that someone has at least attempted to wake them up.

  11. I have just had another ESA50 after complaining about errors on my last assessment they placed me in WRAG for another 12 months but sent the ESA113 to the wrong GP’s surgery, only could have done this if they had access to previous DWP files or kept a copy of my previous ESA50. Ther surgery sent them the uncompleted ESA113 with a note telling them I hadn’t been registered there for nearly 2 years. So this ESA50 was sent back blank with a copy of an ESA72 stating I would be contacted again on or after a date with a letter in this letter there was mention of the aggression that the meds cause with little or no provocation. Waiting to see what they think of that, but an extended version is going off to the DWP

  12. Such a great work by Mo Stewart.
    We are both disabled and had been given DLA as a lifetime award. My husband had a letter to say that the Incapacity and other benefits is changing and it’s time for his to do so. We are worried sick as we don’t really know anything about ESA – it also says that a form will be sent and once that is returned he may have to go for a medical.
    It threatens us with loss of benefits if we don’t comply. We don’t know what to do – does anyone know if we are going to lose everything?
    Sorry for asking the questions, we are just so very frightened.

    • Don’t be frightened Jay, be prepared.
      The DWP want you to be frightened, so play them at their own game and get all the info you can. If you don’t have a clue get an appointment with your local CAB office, who will advise and there’s lots of info online.
      You are not alone and there are many thousands of us willing you on and hoping for a +ve result for you both. Make sure you have the support of your GP and Consultants.
      Thinking of you.
      Mo

  13. I have also been put into wrag part of esa after medical I have a prosthetic knee which is still painful at times and need the other knee replacing but surgeon waiting for me to say when I want it doing due to the fact of the pain of the operation I also have arthritis in my hands and shoulders and my legs knees most joints also have been diagnosed as clinical depressed what I want to know is this wrag benefit lasts for 12 months I know I will not be fit then as I am 61 now is it worth appealing against this I have trouble walking I am in pain just to start walking but atos know all this as they have examined me and seen my letter from surgeon saying he will operate when I am up to it

  14. Does anybody know what is happening to ,1. Industrial Injury Benefit and 2. Carers Allowance ??? are these benefits also being taken away , brushed under the carpet or just forgotten about ??. My wife was injured at work and was assessed by some Nazi group as having so many % injuries which equalled an allowance for life. She is also my main and only carer and qualifies for the allowance but receives nothing for it . This was because she receives incapacity benefit for damage to her back which was down to injury at work, she is now being bullied by DWP that her benefit will stop. We have been on Atos roundabout and an appeal now we await to hear from tribunal. At 62 it is all too much for her , she retires in 2015 and is totally unable to return to work. Time to move to Switzerland and be put down with some dignity.

    • I have already put in several freedom of information requests on this issue, her is one of them.

      From: GEOFFREY REYNOLDS

      24 April 2013

      Dear Department for Work and Pensions,
      Many claimants have been deemed fit for work by ATOS HCPs after
      attending ESA examinations.
      Many had lifetime awards that were awarded at tribunal level where
      real doctors or specialists were utilised to formulate the
      decisions.
      Is it now the dwps intention to re-examine the claimants using
      ATOS HCPs with a view to stealing their IIB benefit?

      Yours faithfully,

      GEOFFREY REYNOLDS

      Link to thishttps://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/stealing_industrial_injuries_ben#incoming-383189

  15. Birth defects, accidents or disease take away the body functions to render you disabled, then along come the DWP who steal your mobility and want to take away your voice………………….

  17. This teacher’s letter should be read out in Parliament and every MP made to attend. It should then be followed up by reading the experiences of those people who commented on it. Absolutely heart rending.

    The follow up question would be why are the members of this house intent on wrecking the lives of the citizens of this country?

  18. Theft of benefits (PIP)

    GEOFFREY REYNOLDS made this Freedom of Information request to Department for Work and Pensions

    Currently waiting for a response from Department for Work and Pensions, they must respond promptly and normally no later than 3 June 2013 (details).
    From: GEOFFREY REYNOLDS

    2 May 2013

    Dear Department for Work and Pensions,
    Recently you gave the following text as a FOI response;

    Questions 3 and 4 – All existing claimants aged 16-64 will be
    invited to claim PIP and will be
    assessed for the new benefit if they choose to claim it. We began
    replacing DLA for people
    aged 16-64 with Personal Independence Payment on 8 April 2013. We
    are taking more time to
    get this right by extending the reassessment timetable. We will
    learn from the initial stages of
    PIP delivery and make sure the assessment is working correctly.
    We have started by taking new claims for PIP from areas including
    Merseyside, North West
    England, Cumbria, Cheshire and North-East England. New claims for
    the rest of Great Britain
    will start in June 2013. From October 2013, some existing DLA
    recipients will be invited to
    claim PIP. PIP will be subject to an independent review in 2014 and
    we will use this review to
    understand how the assessment is working in practice. The vast
    majority of reassessments will
    not start until October 2015 – this means that those with
    indefinite awards will not be affected
    until at least October 2015 (unless they report a change in their
    condition which would affect
    their rate of payment, their fixed-term DLA award expires or they
    reach the age of 16)
    DLA recipients can use the “PIP checker” to find out when their DLA
    may be affected. The PIP
    checker can be found at https://www.gov.uk/pip-checker

    If you have any queries about this letter please contact me quoting
    the reference number
    above.
    Yours sincerely,

    DWP Central FoI Team

    Could you please clarify the following,

    1/ Why would you say “invited” to claim when it is just theft on a
    grand scale?

    2/ Why use the term “assessed” when the outcome is biased, unfair
    and totally premeditated?

    3/ Why would you state, “if they choose to claim it”.
    This is perceived as a threat to dissuade a claimant?

    4/ Why would you learn from the ” initial stages of PIP delivery?
    You certainly have’nt learned anything from the last fiasco, ESA.

    5/ Why would you want to “get it right”? You never managed this in
    the past judging by the embarrassing backlog of appeals and
    tribunals, furthermore, it’s only going to get a whole lot worse
    with bedroom tax and benefit cuts kicking in.

    6/ When would you deem it to be working correctly, would it be the
    spiralling death rate, destitution or misery that would oblige you?

    7/ Are the “indefinite awards and lifetime awards” the people who
    you stole from after you decided to change their status?

    8/ Will the organisations that represent the disabled community be
    invited to give opinion at an “independent review” or will it be a
    handpicked elite who share your ideals, as is done at the moment?

    9/ Will the PIP CHECKER hold information as to how many deaths have
    occurred since the introduction of the Welfare Reform Act, or will
    your staff turn a blind eye to their heinous crimes and pretend
    nothing is happening?

    Yours faithfully,
    GEOFFREY REYNOLDS

    Link to this

  19. PETITION STARTS TODAY – NICHOLSON THE MAN THAT REFUSES TO GO
    The man in charge of our National Health Service has been found totally lacking in his ability to manage it with any semblance of credibility .Over a THOUSAND DEATHS caused by his lack of COMPASSION & PATIENT COMMITTMNENT in One Hospital – Stafford .Thatcher brought him in to close all the mental hospitals and implement Ken Clarkes ‘Care in the Community’ in 1990 which caused suicides galore and since then he has run the NHS on Profitability Grounds rather than any Patient Care and Respect .We the British Public owe it to the Victims of all Patients that have suffered under his Callous Regime .Ask yourself before you sign the Petition “Why hasn’t he been sacked” because he knows too much and he would take too many others with him .Please Make A Stand Against Our Ever Eroding Rights As Members of the British Public http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/49715

  21. From the link provided by Annos I quote

    “Part of the ongoing attack on social programs by both big business political parties who are in essential agreement that the main task facing their constituency is the foisting of costs suffered in the 2008 financial collapse onto the backs of the working class.”

    You would think that comment was about this country. Reminds me of this song from the 1980’s

    “This is the land where nothing changes
    The land of red buses
    And blue blooded babies
    This is the place where pensioners are raped
    And the hearts are being cut from the welfare state
    Let the poor drink the milk
    While the rich eat the honey
    Let the bums count their blessings
    While they count the money”

    “Well it ain’t written in the papers
    But its written on the walls
    The way this country’s divided to fall”

    “This is the 51st state of the USA”

    lyric from ‘Heartland’ by The The © 1986

    A mass programme of building new homes throughout the country would stimulate the economy by providing jobs and alleviate the lack of housing caused by the sale of council homes. It would ultimately slash the costs of housing benefit by reducing the need for private lets and excessive profiteering by landlords. Of course this would not suit the Tory creed of private sector is best.

  24. “BEDROOM TAX SUICIDE”

    Ten days ago Stephanie Bottrill sat in the redbrick terrace house which had been home for 18 years to write notes to her loved ones, the Sunday People reports .

    She ripped the pages from a spiral-bound notebook and placed them neatly in little brown envelopes.

    There was one for her son. Another for her daughter. Her mother. Friends. And a very special one for the year-old grandson she doted on.

    Then in the early hours of last Saturday Stephanie, 53, left her home for the last time, leaving her cat Joey behind as the front-door clicked shut.

    She crossed her road in Meriden Drive, Solihull, to drop one of her letters and her house keys through a neighbour’s letterbox. Then she walked 15 minutes through the sleeping estate to Junction 4 of the M6.

    And at 6.15am she walked straight into the path of a northbound lorry and was killed instantly. Stephanie Bottrill had become the first known suicide victim of the hated Bedroom Tax.

    In the letter to her son, Steven, 27, she had written: “Don’t blame yourself for me ending my life. The only people to blame are the Government.”

    Stephanie was tormented over having to find £20 a week to pay for the two under-occupied bedrooms she had been assessed for.

    Days before 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 take notice and reconsider this policy.”

  26. While we may not be able to scrap the “non-medical examinations” until something else is ready to put in place it surely makes sense to campaign rigorously and publicly between now and 2015 for Atos NOT to be awarded yet another extension. The biggest problem/barrier is the media. Perhaps the solution is what Black Triangle and We Are Spartacus are doing- pulling apart the doctrines held high by the state, so that they are shown for what they are- deeply flawed on every level- and just bombard the media until they do take notice. I do not support the view (as touted by Aylward et al) that work is good for you: it is too close to work sets you free. Not in my name.

  27. I suggest that the biggest problem is not the media Karen. The biggest problem is the government enforced national press blackout and refusal to expose the links between the WCA, Atos and UNUM Insurance.
    SOME of the media are investigating: watch out for future Dispatches programmes later in the year.

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e-petition - Stop Unfair Re-assessments For Disabled People

Responsible department: Department for Work and Pensions

Stop the unfair and cruel re-assessments via ATOS for disabled people currently on Incapacity Benefit. ESA is a flawed benefit, and puts terrible pressure and stress on vulnerable people, putting people who cannot work on lesser benefits and applying sanctions. Let disabled people decide for themselves if they can work, they and their carers know best.

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