Voluntary Slavery?

I really thought that the Salvation Army in the UK did a lot of good, on balance, despite my antipathy to religion and religious organisations. Their involvement with workfare has finished off any residual respect I had for them.
The government doesn’t like the word “workfare”, and neither does the Sally Ann, They always talk about the people who are forced onto these schemes, with a withdrawal of benefits as punishment for not complying, as volunteers, which is adding insult to injury when the only alternative is “volunteering” to starve, or freeze, or go homeless. Or all three.
All this is bad enough for people who have just left school, many of whom may have families to support them, but it’s often older people, who have worked for decades and don’t need “work experience”, who are placed on these schemes, and the government have extended the scope of workfare to include disabled people, with the added sting that their placement can be indefinite. If the “volunteer” doesn’t turn up for any reason, such as a vital hospital appointment, they can lose all their benefits.
Even workfare for younger, fitter people is detrimental to society though, as it depresses wages. Why would an employer pay decent wages, when they can use free labour? In fact, why pay wages at all?
An organisation that claims to work for the greater good should not have any involvement with workfare, and quibbling about the name won’t persuade your opponents.

Related articles

• Workfare Picket Report – End Unpaid Labour At Poundland (gogwit.wordpress.com)
• Salvation Army denies existence of Workfare scheme it participates in (no – not satire) (tompride.wordpress.com)
• Is workfare close to godliness? Some Christian charities seem to believe so | Sarah Ditum (guardian.co.uk)

The Thin Skin of the Coalition Government

I mentioned the other day that Mark Hoban had refused to meet a delegation from the Spartacus group, a loose affiliation of disabled people and supporters, and even refused to talk to Michael Meacher MP about it when he asked why there was a delay in responding.

Today, Meacher succeeded in getting an adjournment debate, to discuss this unprecedented and ill-mannered refusal. Hoban wasn’t there.

He had an excuse. He was in Scotland, according to Esther McVey who stood in for him, and the plane he was supposed to have travelled back on had mechanical problems.

This may even be true, but it does smack of a schoolboy excuse.

Anyway, McVey proceeded to talk about anything other than the subject at hand for as long as she could (to stifle debate, I suspect) until, at last, she gave a reason for Hoban’s ignorant behaviour, albeit a paltry one.

She read out a single line from the foreword of the Spartacus Report ( which you can download as a pdf file by clicking here ).

 ”The process is reminiscent of the medical tribunals that returned shell shocked and badly wounded soldiers to duty in the first world war or the ‘KV-machine’,  the medical commission the Nazis used in the second world war to play down wounds so that soldiers could be reclassified ‘fit for the Eastern front’.”

That’s from the foreword, remember, and it’s a tiny part of the foreword at that.

Look at that paragraph closely. It says that the process (the Work Capability Assessment) is “reminiscent” of, not just the Nazis on whom McVey focussed, but also of British first world war medical tribunals. And not “exactly the same”, but “reminiscent”. McVey claimed that that line precluded any possibility of “constructive dialogue”, despite the fact that such dialogue had already occurred several times previously, and involving the very same people.

It seems that, to this government, “constructive dialogue” has to be complete capitulation to them. They don’t want to hear anything other than surrender.

If Hoban, McVey and the rest of David “blood on his hands” Cameron’s cronies are such delicate little flowers, then perhaps politics was an unwise career move.

Related articles

• Why won’t DWP REALLY meet Spartacus? (diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk)
• Is It Coz We Is Disabled? (wheresthebenefit.blogspot.co.uk)

The Name May Change, But Disdain for the Poor Remains the Same

Liam Duncan Smith….or is it Iain Byrne?

On Wednesday, Iain Duncan Smith brought in a bill designed to deny illegally sanctioned jobseekers redress, by retrospectively changing the law. Picking on people who are barely able to afford to eat is bad enough, but legislating to declare your illegal actions legal after all sets a dangerous precedent.

The Labour Party should have opposed the bill on both counts but instead, at the behest of Liam Byrne, all but around 40 Labour MPs abstained.

Whenever Liberal Democrat MPs allow Tories to win votes in the House of Commons by abstaining, Labour MPs are quick to point out that they are, effectively, voting with their coalition partners.

I agree, but the same applies when the boot is on the other foot.

The Labour MP who purports to represent me wasn’t one of those who voted against IDS’s bill, so I will now have a difficult decision at the next General Election, unless the Labour Party return to their roots, and start to actually defend the poorest and most vulnerable people in society.

The longer that Liam Byrne stays on the front bench, the more difficult it will be to persuade voters that they are any different from the Tories.

Related articles

• Liam Byrne is going too far by endorsing Iain Duncan Smith’s failed programme (liberalconspiracy.org)
• On Workfare & Labour (anoccasionalmissive.wordpress.com)
• Liam Byrne cannot escape culpability for today’s Workfare vote (liberalconspiracy.org)
• Labour’s Workfare Shame – A New Low For the Party That Pretends to Care About the Poor (johnnyvoid.wordpress.com)

 

#IDS – “Respect My Authoritah!”

Not content with labelling appeal judges that disagree with him as “foolish“, Iain Duncan Smith has decided that he will undermine the courts by introducing new law that nullifies any judgement he doesn’t like.

The regulations about what is commonly known as “workfare” were deemed illegal last month, so he hurriedly introduced new ones. People who were, therefore, wrongly sanctioned by the DWP for not complying with the illegal regulations should have expected to get the money that was wrongly stopped, but IDS has other ideas. He’s planning a new law to make his bad regulations good in retrospect, so his illegal decisions in the past weren’t illegal after all.

Meanwhile, his lackey at the DWP, Mark Hoban, is doing a bit of undermining of his own, this time of the democratic process. It is normal for interested parties to be allowed to meet ministers when there are controversial changes to law and, to this end, Michael Meacher MP arranged for the Spartacus group to send a delegation to meet Hoban. Hoban has, however, declined to meet them, and even refused to speak to Meacher.

Another DWP lackey, Esther McVey, refuses to apologise for misleading the House of Commons over supposed exemptions to the notorious “bedroom tax”.

Related articles

• Fuck the Courts, Fuck the Law, We’re Stealing Your Money Say DWP (johnnyvoid.wordpress.com)
• DWP seeks law change to avoid benefit repayments after Poundland ruling (guardian.co.uk)
• DWP Ministers run frit of seeing delegation on Atos Healthcare (michaelmeacher.info)

#ESAendgame (Spartacus 2)

Reblogged from “Diary of a Benefit Scrounger“:

ESA SOS – The Starting Gun

“In a few weeks, I’m going to arrange for some very significant stories to break in the very mainstream press about ESA. I’ve been collecting them for about 6 months and if there’s any justice left at all, they will kill ESA once and for all.
They will totally change your perception of ESA and WCAs

We need a Spartacus 2 and as you all know, I’ve been sick as a dog.

Today is stage one. If you’re in, please leave your Name and user name on twitter or Facebook (Feel free to only provide the latter if you like to keep your anonymity a little) and Constituency

There will be a task most days, so please keep watching my blog.” 

To read more, click here and, if you haven’t already signed, please visit the Wow Petition and add your name.

Related articles

• ESA SOS- The Starting Gun #esaendgame (maddsuspicions.wordpress.com)
• #esaSOS: YOUR HELP NEEDED URGENTLY! (pattidudek.typepad.com)
• How much more surreal can this government become? #esaSOS (think-left.org)
• We need your help to stop these awful changes to disability assessments #esaSOS (liberalconspiracy.org)

 

Why the #Wowpetition Matters So Much

The original of the picture above showed Colin Brewer, an independent member of Cornwall Council, holding a pamphlet titled “The Code of Conduct”. He should have read it before making the comment, at a Disability Cornwall stall at County Hall in Truro in 2011, “disabled children cost the council too much money and should be put down”. He has apologised.

So remorseful was he that it took until very recently to apologise.

So contrite was he that he didn’t apologise until the Standards Committee demanded that he should.

So penitent is he that he has refused to resign, in spite of the widespread demand, even claiming that there haven’t been any calls for him to do so. He has even said ”I have no intention of resigning. I don’t think I have done anything wrong. I have apologised.” If he thinks he hasn’t done anything wrong, then the apology is insincere and worthless.

The WOW Petition calls, very precisely, for “a Cumulative Impact Assessment of Welfare Reform, and a New Deal for sick & disabled people based on their needs, abilities and ambitions”, but it is more than that.

Making people aware of the problems faced by sick and disabled people is just as important, and bigots like Councillor Brewer are a huge part of that problem, especially when they are in positions of responsibility.

The Standards Committee haven’t the power to sack or suspend Brewer, as many people have asked for. That decision will be in the hands of the voters of Wadebridge East, who he purports to represent.

 

UPDATE: After some pressure from many people on-line, Brewer has resigned, and he has even admitted that he was in the wrong. What a pity he took so long to realise that.

Related articles

• Councillor who said disabled children ‘should be put down’ refuses to resign (telegraph.co.uk)
• ‘Kill disabled children to save money’ councillor facing calls to resign (metro.co.uk)
• #WowPetition – Please Keep It Going! (neitshade.wordpress.com)
• Councillor: disabled children should be ‘put down’ (itv.com)
• Some Petitions – Please Sign (neitshade.wordpress.com)
• Councillor sparks outrage after saying ‘disabled children should be PUT DOWN’ (swns.com)
• Councillor apologises for saying disabled children should be put down (guardian.co.uk)
• One for the voters of Wadebridge (blogs.independent.co.uk)
• ‘Put disabled down’ councillor sorry (bbc.co.uk)
• I’m not resigning – Councillor who said disabled children should be put down (yorkshirepost.co.uk)

How To make Yourself Look Guilty (Even When You’re Not)

I’d pretty much forgotten all about Lord McAlpine, and the accusations of child sex abuse made about him, first on the BBC and ITV  (who later apologised and coughed up a hefty sum of money in damages, even though they hadn’t named him), then on Twitter, where several people named him (though, in many cases, didn’t repeat the accusation).
I doubt if there are many people, on hearing the name “McAlpine”, associate it with the accusations that were made but, instead, remember that the BBC had to pay him a pile of dosh.
McAlpine, today, announced that he “would like to now draw this unfortunate episode, forced into my life, to a close” by dropping legal actions against any Twitter users with fewer than 500 followers who had named him, or had re-tweeted those who had, in return for a £25 donation to Children in Need.
Instead, he’s going to concentrate on suing Sally Bercow, wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons. She tweeted “Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *innocent face*“, and later, after McAlpine threatened to sue, “I guess I’d better get some legal advice then. Still maintain was not a libellous tweet — just foolish.“
If he really wanted to draw a line under the matter, he’d quietly drop all the cases, regardless of how many Twitter followers they had, not carry on with the one person who is guaranteed to keep the story in the news.
Keeping it in the news could be a bigger problem for McAlpine than the original story. Many people are aware of high profile public figures taking, or threatening, legal action in order to silence their critics. Robert Maxwell was a prolific litigant, as any fule who reads Private Eye should know. More recently, it has emerged that Jimmy Savile threatened to sue anyone who considered complaining about his criminal activities.
I don’t mean, of course, that threatening libel action makes McAlpine guilty after all, but more headlines will follow, so more people will notice the story, and more people will add 2 and 2 and get 5. After all, there are precedents of wrongdoers protesting too much, and McAlpine risks being lumped in with them.

Related articles

• Lord McAlpine drops some Twitter defamation cases (guardian.co.uk)
• More: Lord McAlpine says he has instructed lawyers to focus on claim against Sally Bercow, wife of top UK MP – @itvnews (itv.com)
• Why Is Toady Trending? *snarlyface* (BBC Question Time “Down-The-Pub”)