KIERAN McARDLE says his dad died the day after his disability benefits were stopped.
THE Tory minister in charge of controversial welfare reforms is to write to the Lanarkshire teenager who blames Atos’s fit-for-work tests for his father’s death.
Heartbroken 13-year-old Kieran McArdle’s letter telling how his sick dad Brian died the day after his disability benefits stopped was hand-delivered by the Record to the Whitehall office of Iain Duncan Smith.
A Department for Work and Pensions official said: “The Secretary of State will be writing to Kieran McArdle.”
Atos benefits bullies killed my sick dad, says devastated Kieran, 13
Under-fire Atos were yesterday accused of falsely claiming the support of a Scots charity as they bid for the £400million contract to carry out the assessments.
The Scottish Association for Mental Health said they had no contact with the French firm before being named as possible partners.
The charity’s Charlie McMillan said: “We are disappointed and surprised this has happened.”
Stirling Labour MP Anne McGuire called for an immediate investigation and said: “The integrity of the process is in serious doubt.”
Atos denied that the organisations named had been presented as partners.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said there was no need for a probe as the issue was not central to the award of the contract.
18 Responses
how many more deaths?
Iain Duncan Smith signs empty unapologetic letter written by a policy wonk, would be a more accurate description.
This government of callous psychopaths have got to be stopped, they are dragging us back to the nineteenth century, how long before they start building those workcamps for the young unemployed that Herr Grayling was mooting in 2005?
maybe Duncan Shit’ s reply could be publicised for us all to see …..
Great Idea Jed….But there’s more chance of a snowball surviving the fires of Hell. As the Government try to squirm from responsibility for this travesty of a system, the aim will now be to get all those on disability onto JSA and/or the Work Programme ASAP. Funny Really, As i appear to be one o’ those on their radar – only 12 months ago i was deemed “Unfit for work” by their office – I must have experienced a miraculous event – My Brain Injury has disappeared – The Cerebral Palsy Evaporated into thin air – Arthritis Burned Out = They want me back on the register. Only one of those statements is TRUE. I want a Lib dem or Tory to Face me and explain themselves – as all they appear want is me off the sickness register….As for ATOS – they must be Psychic / Superhuman as they’ve conducted a test without me even being present!
I Really am Disgusted and Outraged with the Tories they make a Miserable Mess
of Running the UK We Need Better
No to Slave Labour and Yes to Human Rights
That poor man and his poor son – I’m going through the misery of an Atos assessment myself, appareently, uncontrollable seizures isn’t enough to stop me working even though the senior neurologist has advised that my condition would be a constant danger to myself and those around me and that I need to live in a warden-supported bungalow. They really just could not give a shit about the disabled and sick.
Atos lying in a bid should be enough for them to lose the contract – if we lie on our CVs, we get fired as it’s duplicitous and untrustworthy, why are the same standards not fit for them?
Also, be very wary of the figures Atos put out for deaths after assessments resulting in benefits being withdrawn – they claim it’s been no more than around 120 but a recent figures check showed that the number was actually over 10,600 between January 2001 and November 2011.
Sorry, January 2001 to November 2011.
Very little happening on the disability front then.
Nothing happening as a result of the grand ‘Day of Action’ on 20th October
But wait, what do I see …. a yes, the Telegraph announces a clampdown on benefits (withut comment facility)
find it here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9657216/Clampdown-on-benefits-for-addicts.html
What is nausiating is this little paragraph:
“Trials across the country, costing £25 million, will be announced by Mark Hoban, the work and pensions minister, before Christmas.
“It’s right that we provide support for people in need, but we should also expect something back in return,” a government source said last night. “We are already helping people back into work through unemployment benefit conditionality. Now we are looking at transferring that principle to sickness benefits, so that for those people who are sick but able to take practical steps to improve their health, the benefits system encourages them to get better.”
The changes will apply to the employment support allowance, which is worth £105 a week. Figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions in July showed that nearly 22,000 people with drug or alcohol problems were claiming the allowance, which pays out £7 billion a year.
Officials stressed that once the principle was introduced into the benefits system it could be expanded to other ailments, which would increase numbers caught by the changes. This means people who are claiming the payments because of bad backs, depression or obesity could see their support slashed.
The pilots are based on a “three strikes and you’re out” model, which has seen welfare payments taken away from unemployed people considered not to be doing enough to find another job. ”
Mark Hoban is towing the usual party line – nothing new here then – they’re not listening …. only civil war will change things in this increasingly obviously bankrupt and corrupt nation. The disabled people are firmly on death row.
So here we have yet more of their moralising crap foisted upon people. So now you can be mandated to attend alcoholics anonymous which is a christian cult with a massive failure rate. What happens if you’re an atheist that is against the human rights act freedom of conscience. We also see you have to attend appointments with a health professional for depression say. but wait that wouldn’t be ATOS would it yet more money for privateer spiv friends of the politicians. You are allowed to refuse medical treatment in this country the only exception being sectioned under the mental health act. What if you don’t want to take antidepressants which don’t work, are addictive and cause toxic side effects are they going to hold you down and force them down your throat although anything these bastards do doesn’t surprise me. We have got to get these bastards out now.
The Answer is Get the Tories and their Liberal Democrat Collaborators Out of
Office they Should NEVER of got to Office in May 2010 People were Thick and
Thoughtless to Vote them in through I had the Intelligence Not to
Indeed Labour was Far from Perfect but Not as Rubbish as the Con Dems who since
they came to Office through the Shameless Power ” Sharing ” Agreement they have
Wrecked Education Maintainance Allowance made Squatting an Offence whilst
Politicians claim Expenses to Avoid Paying Stamp Duty and the Real Offence is the
Social In Justice in Dictatorship of the Millionaires Britain and been Messing with
Welfare it is Diabolical and Orwellian to take Lessons in Austerity from a Shower
Cabinet Crew of Millionaires
One Wonders if MPS who are Alcoholics will have their Salaries and Expenses Cut.
I am Glad that I have Not Voted Tory but Disgusted with the Mess that the UK is
Under the Con Dems
Quite frankly if i was that boy i would tell IDS where he can stick his government headed paper full of pointless words. What could he possibly say to that boy?.. nothing because IDS is one of the most idiotic clownlike people to ever be given life on this planet, he is a failure from beginning to end… a no mark taking some sick personal satisfaction from what he does, because it is all he can do. Failure in every aspect of his life that might feature the words “Good”, “Kind”, “Understanding”, he will never be remembered for a thing except failure and wrong doings… as with the rest of this tory hotch potch of the rich and wicked. They offend me as a party, they offend me with their policies, they offend me with their presence and they odffend me each time they open their gobs.. one feels a deep desire to fetch the funnel and force feed them all Beluga Caviar and Cristal Brut until they choke. Let it be know i do not have some obsessional hatred towards rich people, i do have a hatred towards anyone in positions of power who abuse their positions and other people in the process and gain a pleasure in doing so.
I agree with much of what you say there, but remember Cameron is there by default and the Lib-dems by virtue of selling out their voters and dumping most of their policies when leap-frogging Labour in order to taste power in the only way they ever would.. in a coalition. I never voted the tories in and in many respects he was not democratically voted in because he never won a majority. I think once this coalition falls it will be far harder for the Lib-Dems to retain any level of integrity as a party, the Tories will survive simply on their arrogance, they don’t live in the same world as us, they live in their ivory towers they crawl back to after turning the screw that little bit more at the end of each day and getting paid far too much for slowly dismanting any good that remained of this country, the yuppie MK-II is already being created, these drones or children of Cameron will be his idea of the master race.
Get the Tories Out of Office Put a New Government into Office Reverse and Scrap
their Rubbish Policies
People in the UK Overwhelmingly Go Along like Sheep with Everything do Nothing
about Anything
No Matter what a Mess Things Are they Carry On in Cloud Cuckoo Land
Shame upon this Country’s General Public for being so Servile and Letting Politicians
Wreck Everything
Indeed the Arrogant Tories have Not an Electoral Majority by Themselves
At Least Labour in 1997 had a Landslide
Indeed under the Nasty Conservatives there was Not Even a National Minimum Wage
Point is under the ConDemNazis The Poor and the Vulnerable are Suffering their
Human Dignity is Being Violated their Standard of Living Wrecked and their Benefits
Stolen whilst Those Millionaire Politicians of the Con Dem Cabinet have their Monstrously
Huge Salaries How much Longer will this Shower of Ignoramuses be in Office ?
November 11th 2012 Mark’s the 2 and a Half Years Anniversary of that Day of Tragedy
and Infamy May 11th 2010 when the Tories came to Power with the Shameless
Collaboration of the Liberal Democrats
I Hate to Think that this Shower will still be in Office in November 2013 let Alone
April 2015 after All they have their Un Deserved Wealth to go Back to
1st April 2013 seems like a Bad April Fools Day Joke unless Tory Policies are
Reversed and Stopped
The UK is like a Nation of Political Sleepwalkers
What you have not caught on to is that the disabled will never get their money back, DLA is gone forever no future Government of any colour will bring it back.
The Welfare reform bill will not be repealed.
Disabled people are well and truly FU*KED…
Oh what the hell, if you can’t beat em join em. life of crime here i come. at least in prison i’ll have a warm place to sleep and clothes on my back and three meals a day.?? I NEVER asked to have a genetic disease, i worked for 20 years, the last year of it i was in compleat agony and my employers had to let me go. i’ll have NO CHANCE of ever keeping a job even for a week. So IDS can go and stick his head in the gas oven and i’ll give him a light so he can see where the leak is!! OOOOPS, “BIG BANG” IDS is now seriously disabled and and hidiously disfigered, He can get a “JOB IN THE CIRCUS AS A FREAK”. see how he likes the piss taken out of him………..