The English language hides the necessary directness beneath such wording as disingenuous,economical with the truth or actualité. But even the Economist, frequently feriously supportitive of the Tories, has conceded that Iain Duncan Smith is a liar, in a roundabout fashion:
”And this is the only the latest in a series of questionable press releases. Earlier this month, Mr Duncan Smith claimed that the benefits cap had encouraged 8,000 people to get jobs. Yet as Jonathan Portes, the director of the National Institute for Economics and Social Research pointed out, the Department for Work and Pensions has never made an estimate of the behavioural effects of the benefit cap. At best, Mr Duncan Smith’s figures simply showed that 8,000 people who were to be affected had got jobs. Perhaps some did because of the benefits cap—but we have no idea.
Even before that, there was the matter of 878,000 people who apparently dropped their claims for disability benefits when faced with a doctors test over the past four years, as the old Incapacity Benefit system was replaced with the new Employment and Support Allowance. Again, this figure was absurd. It took no account of the churn—the number of people who come off benefits each month anyway. The most glaring error was that the figures completely ignored the fact that a lot of Incapacity Benefit and ESA claims are short-term—and so a lot of claimants simply got better before facing the test.
All of these are technical, even wonkish objections. “Yes, we twisted the statistics a little”, I can hear a hypothetical Conservative MP saying, “but so does Labour, and the fundamental truth is that the benefits system costs too much and is need of reform.”
Well, quite. The welfare system does indeed need reform. But the whole point about government statistics is that they are meant to be at least sort of objective. Ministers can quote the ones which support their case—but they shouldn’t manipulate them and distort them to tell stories that aren’t actually true. There is plenty of evidence to support welfare reform without resorting to such disgraceful abuse of numbers.
But the problem is, they get away with it—they have done for a long time. Even before the election, Chris Grayling, then the shadow home secretary, was alleging that gun crime was soaring, using distorted data to prove his point. In fact, gun crime began its precipitous decline under Labour. Similarly, much of David Cameron’s “Broken Britain” rhetoric ignored—or denied—dramatic and unexpected improvements in social indicators. “[My emphasis.]
The Economist is too polite. I blame lying Tories, myself.
When next you hear a Tory, or one of his University chums at the BBC, explain that the “welfare changes” are really to help the poor and disabled, then do remind them of these relatively unreported examples:
“…[Henry Sherlock] had been “bullied and harassed” by Atos Healthcare, the French firm slammed for carrying out the humiliating eligibility tests for the Department for Work and Pensions.
…
Henry worked for the DWP for 18 years until he was forced to retire on medical grounds eight years ago. He lost his sight after suffering meningitis and also has chronic heart disease, diabetes and depression. He said: “I found it such a shock being on the other side of the fence.
“Being a claimant, you are treated with total disrespect.
“When I worked for the DWP it was the case that the client came first and they were given the best support possible but now all they are interested in is cutting costs. “
MSPs were told how a blind former health worker, Henry Sherlock, was reduced to begging after being interviewed and reassessed by the Department of Work and Pensions and Atos Healthcare, the private firm paid to carry out fit-to-work medical assessments, claiming both of them had “harassed and bullied” him.
He told how he had been threatened with having his benefits stopped after refusing to provide personal information after receiving an unannounced call from Atos one Saturday evening.”
“An amputee who cannot walk, struggles to talk and is brain damaged has been passed “fit for work” and had his benefits cut under government reforms.
Mark Evans, from Daubhill in Bolton, said his incapacity benefits were cut by £440 a month and has been left with just £220 to pay his monthly rent, bills and food.
The 50-year-old had received incapacity benefits, now known as employment and support allowances, since 1993 when he had a brain tumour. He also had his left leg amputated below the knee in 2004 after contracting deep vein thrombosis. “
Anxiety over Atos fit-for-work test brings on father’s heart attack:
“The controversial assessments by the French IT firm are part of a benefits shake-up by the Con-Dem Government, who are looking to cut billions from the welfare bill.
Former welder Jim, who had worked all his adult life until he suffered a heart attack 18 months ago, said: “It was very clear that I wasn’t 100 per cent.
“I was sweating profusely, my breath was very laboured and I had been confused during the interview.
“I wasn’t able to concentrate on a lot of what they were saying.
“They gave me a glass of water but that was it.
“They were more concerned with asking me questions such as, ‘Can you walk 200m and can you raise your arm up in the air?’”
Jim, of Cambuslang, near Glasgow, added: “I was telling them I was stressed and that I was anxious, and that I didn’t feel like I could go out and work at that moment.”
The very next day, he had a heart attack as he was walking down a street in Glasgow’s west end. “
“Ms Burns, a mother of two boys, was diagnosed in 2011. After surgery, she underwent months of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and was on the drug Herceptin until her death.
In March 2012, her employment support allowance was reduced by £30 and she was told she was fit to work, even though she was still undergoing treatment. “
We tend to think of anti-Jewish sentiment as coming from the Far Right, yet nowadays it is fairly common to find examples of it on liberal or left wing web sites. It is not overt or blunt as found amongst the extreme racists, but there are tell-tale signs: conspiracy theories and strange terminology.
I am not surprised that racists mount their pathetic hobbyhorses, rather that the non-racists who read that material at Liberal Conspiracy can’t see a problem or are willing to let it go unchallenged. If I were charitable I might conclude that most at Liberal Conspiracy don’t understand racism, and in particular anti-Jewish racism.
Shorter version: maligning Israelis and Jews gives the game away. Particularly if there is a pejorative reference to the “Chosen”, or consciously linking to Rense, a site which proffers conspiracy theories, anti-Jewish racism and approvingly advertises David Duke.
Years back, as older readers will testify, one of the major criticisms of the Soviet Union was its arbitrary use of the gulag.
Most of us have thought they were a relic of the past where Kings and despotic rulers locked up dissidents and their opponents, but they are very much alive in the 21st century, as the BBC reports:
“The Zhuzhou Baimalong Labour Camp is an imposing sight, built like a prison.
At the front there’s a giant, curved facade, lined with classical columns, where the main gate stands. Behind it is a sprawling collection of white buildings, some six or seven storeys high, with workshops, vegetable gardens and a parade ground, all surrounded by a high wall and watchtowers.
The camp is just one component in China’s sprawling gulag system, known as “laojiao”. These camps are a throwback to the years just after China’s Communist revolution, and many outside China don’t even know they still exist.
There’s a constant flow of police vehicles and buses in and out of the camp. It’s big enough to hold hundreds of inmates, all sent here to undergo “re-education through labour”. You see them every now and again, in lines, walking from one building to another, performing exercises.
Drifting on the wind you can hear the chants of inmates, undergoing their forced re-education. Just an order from a policeman is enough to have you locked up here for as long as four years.
Tang Hui, a former inmate, guides us closer to the huge camp gate. Her incarceration here last year caused outrage in China.
“It was living nightmare. A real nightmare would have been better. I could have woken up from that,” she says, dissolving into tears.”
The Tories were caught breaking the law, by those dastardly radical High Court judges, but with boundless gall they are now changing that law, to prove they are innocent:
“The Department for Work and Pensions has introduced emergency legislation to reverse the outcome of a court of appeal decision and “protect the national economy” from a £130m payout to jobseekers deemed to have been unlawfully punished.
The retroactive legislation, published on Thursday evening and expected to be rushed through parliament on Tuesday, will effectively strike down a decision by three senior judges and deny benefit claimants an average payout of between £530 and £570 each.
Last month the court of appeal ruled that science graduate Cait Reilly and fellow complainant and unemployed lorry driver Jamieson Wilson had been unlawfully made to work unpaid for organisations including Poundland because the DWP had not given jobseekers enough legal information about what they were being made to do.
The ruling meant that hundreds of thousands of jobseekers who had been financially penalised for falling foul of half a dozen employment schemes, including the government’s flagship Work Programme, would have been entitled to a full rebate if a final government appeal was rejected by the supreme court.”
Golden Dawn’s growth has galvanised its supporters as Giorgos Katidis showed, openly giving a Nazi salute. I can’t help feeling that the lessons on the grotesque and propulsive nature of fascism never really sunk in, and that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to its resurgence.
Finally, it might sound cruel but I feel more politicians should spend time in prison, to better understand the realities of life and meet some of their future constituents. No doubt it would be hard on them, but they would probably write a book and make a small fortune from their, temporary, incarceration.
The French President has stated what might be obvious to many people, but seems to go unsaid in Britain, that the victims in Toulouse last year were killed because they were Jews.
“Naturally, Dawkins, his supporters, and the broader movement of self-identified ‘liberal, nice, decent people’ may yet defend themselves as critics of Islam who do not adopt the violent extremist attitudes of EDL members. Many of them may well be decent people though it is important that they realise that their actions may feed into the rhetoric of hate organisations like the EDL.
Sometimes, the language and comments used may well be perceived by Muslims as being identical to groups like the EDL and whilst they are coming from different places, the impact and perceptions on Muslim individuals may be the same – whether from the liberal or political left or whether from the Far Right.
Any form of speech that lumps groups of individuals together and abuses them collectively is unacceptable in a tolerant, diverse, and equal society.
Furthermore, these ‘decent, nice and liberal people’ need to understand that some in society attack Islam to undermine and dehumanise Muslims. Some genuinely believe that by attacking Islam, they are having no impact on the perception of Muslims by others.
It is therefore not a simple issue and saying that hating and attacking Islam does not impact or affect Muslims in our communities is naive.”[My emphasis.]
Spot on.
Having scanned Richard Dawkins’ timeline on Twitter I can see the issues.
It is peppered with questionable argumentation, fields of straw men and a depressingly simplistic approach to the issue of racism. It would take a whole blog post to pick them apart, but his failure to understand that religious identities can be used as a way to attack ethnic minorities is surprising.
Even President Hollande got that point fairly quickly and he is not a professional academic.
“A Thalidomide victim with a brain tumour who is blind in one eye and has trouble walking is battling against a decision by Atos that she is capable of “work related activity”.
Martine White, 50, is due to appear at a tribunal in which she will appeal against the decision which she fears could force her to take employment or face losing up to half of her benefits.
The mother of four from Burnley, Lancashire, is one of a number of victims of the morning sickness drug which left more than 500 people in Britain with severe birth defects who claim they are being unfairly treated by the Government’s controversial back-to-work assessors.
Mrs White, who has deformed arms and is facing spinal surgery which she fears could put her permanently in a wheelchair, was assessed by Atos and moved from incapacity benefit to the new employment and support allowance last year.
She was placed in the category which deemed she was capable of “work-related activity” which can require attending a “work-related interview” once a month and putting together a CV in order to continue receiving her benefits of £212.70 a fortnight.
Mrs White, whose late husband Michael was also affected by Thalidomide, has twice appealed against her assessment but has now been told to argue her case in front of a judge. “
Like many, I have read most of Orwell’s work, discussed and debated what he was trying to get at and even questioned some of his later decisions. Not unsurprisingly there is a lot to get to grips with. He was a multifaceted character living in turbulent times and profoundly affected by it.
David Aaronovitch does an excellent job in presenting the views of various scholars, friends and associates of Orwell. Nicely balanced. Over at the BBC Iplayer, The Road to Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Readers will remember how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) outsourced to Atos, eligibility assessments of the disabled. Atos, in return, have been roundly criticised for declaring people to be “fit for work” only to have them die a few weeks later. Charities and other organisations connected with disabilities have pointed out the flaws in Atos’s methodology.
In other news, a UN official wonders about food banks in Britain. I am just waiting for some idiot Tory to trumpet them, saying “…at least we are world leaders in food banks!”
Ed Balls is not an impressive politician, not by virtue of his shrewdness, delivering or occasional principles. Still, you might hope of paid politician, someone who does it for a living, would eventually get the hang of it.
“There’s some nice triangulation there. Balls is trying to play both sides of the street on welfare and benefits, and manages to get in a bit of One Nation rhetoric as well. But the point is that his underlying assumptions are both wrong and, in my view, counter-productive.
The problem with Ed Balls really lies in that second quote, where he continues to use the rhetoric of austerity. Austerity is failing, and there is an increasing body of evidence to show why that is the case – I’ve referred to the IMF’s evidence about the multiplier before. The evidence is increasingly showing that we need precisely the opposite of spending cuts, and that any tax increases should fall overwhelmingly on the wealthier, for reasons of both equity and to ensure that they do not damage demand (Balls’ argument that his scheme should be paid for by reducing the pension tax advantages of those on the highest incomes is very welcome, but misses the point – more spending and an end to austerity would increase tax revenues across the economy as a whole). “
“When PIP starts to replace Disability Living Allowance next year anyone who can walk just twenty metres will not qualify for help with mobility. Twenty metres is less than the distance most of the disabled parking bays at my local Tesco are from the door. It’s really not much. Hundreds of thousands of people will no longer get a mobility allowance and as a result will no longer be eligible to lease a Motability car. One day it might be you that needs this.
The government has also left out the phrase “safely, reliably, repeatedly and in a timely manner” from the PIP regulations. This means that if a person can do something just once, or can push through pain to do it, they might not get help and can’t even challenge it at tribunal. “
The Labour Party has a problem challenging the Tories on this issue, they essentially agree with the Tories’ underlying assumptions as Liam Byrne’s thinking has shown.
“Half a million soldiers, nurses and teachers will have their income slashed under the coalition’s benefits crackdown, according to a new report. The chancellor’s sub-inflation rise in benefits and tax credits over the next three years will hit a whole range of the country’s most trusted professionals.
Up to 40,000 soldiers, 300,000 nurses and 150,000 primary and nursery school teachers will lose cash, in some cases many hundreds of pounds, according to the Children’s Society. The revelation appears to contradict the government’s stated intention to target shirkers and scroungers, and will raise the temperature of the Commons debate and vote on the plan on Tuesday. “
A reminder, for timid Labour, of what Tory attacks really mean:
“On Friday night Christina Martin posted a link which caught my eye. It was a few lines from a local paper which said that a blind, deaf, tube-fed, non verbal, disabled man from Scotland had been deemed fit for work by the DWP. As a result of not completing the form correctly his benefits will be stopped on 7th June and he will have to access the appeal process to have this decision over turned.
This man has to have 24 hour care and the person who had completed his form for him as his disability prevents him had not included something in the 30 page form which meant that due to that error his money will stop. “
“(JTA) — The number of anti-Semitic incidents documented in 2012 by Austria’s Jewish community has doubled from the previous year, the leader of Vienna’s Jewish community said.
Oskar Deutsch told the Kurier newspaper that the Jewish community registered 135 such incidents last year, compared to 71 in 2011.”
In October 2009, Greenpeace identified five industrial facilities in southern China’s Pearl River delta that were dumping poisonous metals and chemicals—such as beryllium, manganese, nonylphenol and tetrabromobisphenol— into water used by local residents for drinking.
In Shenzhen, southern China, nearly one third (28pc) of food made with rice flour were found to have levels of aluminium above national standards.
An undercover investigation in March 2010 estimated that one in 10 of all meals in China were cooked using recycled oil, scavenged from the sewerage drains beneath restaurants.
Research showed that 10 per cent of rice sold in China was contaminated with heavy metals, including cadmium, some contained up to five times the legal limit.
“A HEART patient last night claimed he was told he was fit for work by a healthcare firm working on behalf of the Government – just a day after he endured a double heart bypass operation and was recovering in intensive care.
Former welder Danny Shurmer, 60, of Gaerwen on Anglesey, who had been in Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital in May last year, said: “I was in intensive care when my daughter came in with the letter. I was shocked. Even the consultant could not believe it.”
He spoke as it was revealed more than 2,000 people on sickness and disability benefits in North Wales have been ordered back to work after their cases were re-assessed under controversial Government fitness-to-work tests.
Mr Shurmer’s employment and support allowance (ESA) – a benefit which has replaced incapacity benefit – was later stopped. It was only restarted after he went to a tribunal.
He was given the “fit for work” bombshell weeks after a medical examination by a doctors from healthcare firm Atos.
Mr Shurmer, who didn’t win his tribunal until nine months after the withdrawal of benefit, had three more bypasses in July this year at the same hospital.
But there is still hope for him because last week he had another examination by an Atos doctor and is awaiting their decision.
Asked whether he is optimistic or not, he replied: “God knows.”
The Government ordered fresh assessments on thousands of people claiming incapacity benefits back in 2010. Since then nearly 6,000 people have been reassessed in North Wales by healthcare firm Atos to determine whether claimants are “fit to work”. “
“That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin. They condemned millions of first-class people to semi-starvation. Now the Tories are pouring out money in propaganda of all sorts and are hoping by this organised sustained mass suggestion to eradicate from our minds all memory of what we went through. But, I warn you young men and women, do not listen to what they are saying now. “
Update 1:Huff Post contrasts Gordon Brown’s reception with that of Osborne’s.
“A housebound disabled woman has scored a victory over welfare assessor Atos – using the power of the internet to force it to change its practices.
Anyone wanting to claim Employment Support Allowance (ESA) must have a disability assessment carried out by Atos, a private firm, on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions.
Jayne Linney, 50, wanted her assessments with the firm to be recorded after what she called “basic errors” were made by Atos staff in previous meetings, which could have affected her entitlement to benefits. Other disability claimants have also complained their payments were cut after Atos assessors misreported their answers to show they were capable of work.
After repeatedly being told all Atos’ tape recorders were broken, Miss Linney, from Leicester, set up a petition on campaign website Change.org. The former community development worker also wrote a blog documenting her “saga” with Atos, and used Facebook and Twitter to gather support.
After she amassed 1,000 signatures on her petition, Atos finally backed down and agreed to record her assessment. Ms Linney, who suffers from fibromyalgia and Sjögren’s syndrome, began to claim ESA after she was forced to leave her job in January 2010.
“I’m amazed at the response,” she said. “It’s the comments [on the blog] that keep you going. To know that people agree with me, it’s amazing. Because I’m housebound an online campaign was the only option for me. ”
Atos has apologised on its website for not providing the equipment to record the meetings quickly enough. “
I hadn’t wanted to post for a few days, but some news items struck me as deserving of a wider audience, lest I forget.
Surprisingly for the Torygraph, the story of double amputee asked by the DWP to prove that he’s unfit for work:
“A disabled man has been asked to prove he is unable to work by the Department of Work and Pensions despite having both legs amputated due to diabetes.
Chris Cann, 57, was left wheelchair bound after losing both legs and four fingers to diabetes.
Despite being housebound, the widower has been ordered to attend an assessment centre to prove he is too disabled to work or his £600-a-month benefits will be stopped.
Chris, who developed diabetes six years ago, started claiming disability allowance in 2008 – before he had his legs amputated.
Two years ago he had his right leg amputated below the knee and in January this year Chris had surgery again to have his left leg removed as well as four fingers on his right hand.
This week Chris received a letter from the Department of Work and Pensions ordering him to undergo medical tests to prove he should receive the new Employment and Support Allowance. “
As Oscar Wilde said “Work is the curse of the drinking classes” and the Economist tries to prove it, unsuccessfully in the Middle East:
“NOBODY knows exactly when Islamic scholars decided that booze was sinful. In the 1970s political Islam led some countries such as Iran and Pakistan to ban alcohol, although many do not and exceptions are made for non-Muslims. In some countries the punishment for Muslims caught quaffing are severe: 80 lashes in the case of Iran. Things may get more arid yet as Islamist parties from Indonesia to Tunisia moot restrictions on alcohol. The number of drinkers varies by country, but some put the total at 5% of those identifying themselves as Muslim. Drinking may even be on the rise. Between 2001 and 2011 sales of alcohol in the Middle East, where Muslims dominate, grew by 72%, against a global average of 30%. “
“Their three-state road trip, during which they are accused of killing a middle-aged black man and a 19-year-old stranger singled out because they thought he was Jewish, ended with Grigsby allegedly telling police she and Pedersen were on their way to “kill more Jews” in Sacramento, California. “
Never sure what to make of Glenn Greenwald, but one thing those at FP don’t like him.
I have previously blogged concerning the appalling treatment of unpaid stewards during the British Queen’s Jubilee celebrations, but other blogs and media have covered it with greater finesse. I might have missed some worthy contributions, please let me know in the comments box.
Soupy One 