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ESA - IDS coming back to finish the job.

W

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
Apparently we haven't suffered enough.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...drive-to-cut-down-welfare-costs-10468503.html

“ESA may have been designed with the right intentions, but at its heart lay a fundamental flaw. It is a system that decides you are either capable of work or you are not. This needs to change – things are rarely that simplistic.

“We need to look at the assessment we use for ESA – and I want to look at changing it so that it is better geared towards helping to get people prepared for and into what work they may be capable of, rather than parking them beyond work.”
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Translation - we want people to never feel safe in the idea that we won't be hassling them. We want more people on WRAG now we don't have to pay them so much. We don't really care very much about their wellbeing.
 
Wildcat

Wildcat

Messages
1,446
Bloodthirsty. The DWP still refuse to release the welfare reform caused death figures. There is an Inquiry planned... Yet Iain Duncan Smith plans to persecute even more British sick and disabled citizens. The man is mad, and it appears that no one in government will stop him.
 
W

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
Au contraire, this is what they want. ESA costs have gone through the roof. I suspect he'll try and put lots of people onto WRAG and try to pick us off like that. Hard to imagine it ending any other way than it did last time.

It's never enough is it? No one ever quite suffers enough for the Tories.
 
mermaid

mermaid

Senior Member
Messages
714
Location
UK
http://www.theguardian.com/society/...-aims-to-force-more-disabled-people-into-jobs

As well as dealing with the above issues re the article in the Independent it states
'Statistics showing how many people die while claiming out-of-work disability benefits will be published on Thursday. The information commissioner overruled attempts to withhold the statistics, originally requested by a campaigner using freedom of information laws. The DWP said it had always intended to publish them.'
 
W

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
As well as the 'no journos' rule, the timing of this and the stats release is worth noting - middle of summer, when all the politics programmes that might analyse this are off and the Labour leadership chaos is obscuring it as well. This is the DWPs dirty secret and they really don't want to talk about it.
A DWP spokesman declined to discuss the figures in Duncan Smith’s speech or release further details. A spokesman said: “This isn’t a policy announcement; it’s the start of a conversation.”
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With themselves.
 
Wildcat

Wildcat

Messages
1,446
Where is IDS giving the speech, and who to? Parliament is in Recess.

This latest IDS generated media blitz is to divert attention from the impending release of the death stats. It's revolting how our media do IDS's dirty work.
 
Wildcat

Wildcat

Messages
1,446
Important, well referenced, hard hitting document by Mo Stewart, sent as letter to the President of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians, 2013.

Mo Stewart, disability researcher, disabled veteran (WRAF), former health professional.

"Journalists have confirmed, in confidence, that there is a press ban on mentioning the links between Unum Insurance and the DWP welfare reforms."

http://uk-condemnation.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/unums-unaccepatable-influence-on-dwp.html

.
 
Wildcat

Wildcat

Messages
1,446
.
The "work is good for your health" ideology was first pioneered in the UK by Professor Mansel Aylward, chief medical officer for the dwp (1995 to 2005), then director of the Unum centre for psychosocial disabilities at Cardiff university, 2005 onwards. The extensive document by Mo Stewart, which I posted in this thread, examines Aylward's excessive influence on UK disability welfare reform.
 
W

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
Wildcat said:
'Thousands with degenerative conditions classified as "fit to work in future", despite no possibility of improvement.'
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I think there's about 5000 isn't there, marooned on WRAG, who they've admitted will never work again.

This all feels very deja vu. I can remember when New Labour started this, saying there'd be a million coming off of incapacity and they wanted to concentrate on what people can do rather than what they can't - this stuff was repeated word for word almost.

The result was the unceremonious upending of the entire benefit and an attempt to throw two thirds of claimants to the wolves. Which collapsed then under the weight of it's own paperwork, but only after lots of people died.

I wonder if IDS has anti-social personality disorder? He's probably hoping that his job will make him better.
 
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