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UK Petition to publish death stats after benefits stopped

Countrygirl

Senior Member
Messages
5,429
Location
UK
Now this might not be altogether relevant to this thread....................but I will re-post it anyway to honour both those who are suffering so severely on account of ME and this government's shameful negligence (and, of course, ALL governments' negligence) of the disease and the brave DWP worker who phoned me to say that she is verbally instructed by her DWP boss to especially target those with a diagnosis of ME to remove their benefits. She was mortified to be instructed to compromise her conscience by removing benefit from those she said she knew were very ill, yet she was given no choice if she wanted to keep her job.

Just for the record.....................................
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
Now this might not be altogether relevant to this thread....................but I will re-post it anyway to honour both those who are suffering so severely on account of ME and this government's shameful negligence (and, of course, ALL governments' negligence) of the disease and the brave DWP worker who phoned me to say that she is verbally instructed by her DWP boss to especially target those with a diagnosis of ME to remove their benefits. She was mortified to be instructed to compromise her conscience by removing benefit from those she said she knew were very ill, yet she was given no choice if she wanted to keep her job.

Just for the record.....................................

For which Ian Duncan Smith and others should be arrested and jailed for life.
While today, the Queen visited the Belsen site and memorial..."lest we forget"....

Anyone involved in such evils ever again, anywhere, should be bitterly rue the day they chose to deny their compassion and responsibility to others.

Anyone who thinks that's extreme is either clueless, gutless, or maybe hasn't heard the recent revelations on MORE horrendous evils that occurred inside Parliament itself
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33243782

far as I'm concerned, that Establishment is one of the degenerate slimepits the Human Race has ever plumbed to the depths of the most depraved people and excesses.
 
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MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
For which Ian Duncan Smith and others should be arrested and jailed for life, or executed.
While today, the Queen visited the Belsen site and memorial..."lest we forget"....

Does Belsen have the same slogan as Auschwitz - Arbeit macht frei...?

Many people have indeed been 'macht'd frei' of their mortal coils by Duncan Smith's attempt to force them to 'arbeit'.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
Ian Duncan Smith claimed he had a revelation, a "Damascus Road" moment on seeing how bad things were in Easterthouse in Glasgow
so he came up with this attitude of forcing folk off benefits, slashing benefits to "incentivize" them
Did he bother to ASK the people there? no he saw them as animals in a zoo, he knows NOTHING.
*I* know, I LIVE here in the former industrial heartland of Scotland, WTF does that inbred incompetent got know? Read up about him and how his ilk live, jeesh!

1) Jobs are going, SHUT UP about "employment" it's impossible to have full employment any more due to technology advancing, absolute fact
But the ideology of the rats in power won't hear that, nore that the days of unskilled/semiskilled labour are coming to a close to a fair extent (robotics etc has been slowly eliminating such jobs, 3D printing and advanced computing will wipe them out within 30 years)

Instead we need to by law, make folk work LESS and share jobs, 3 day working week or the like
then pay folk a HELL of a lot better than we do now and CAP maximum income, sod the rich to hell and back they are always the damn thing that kills nations eventually as they are now, by accumulating power (inherited wealth) then warping the law to evade paying tax (I can show you that throughout history, and nations/empires implode as their tax base dries up and armies, roads etc all crumble as a result)
Ian Duncan Smith is one of those "privileged arsehole" class, it's what the Tories have bee doing, they have massively cut tax for the top, and DOUBLED national debt in only 5 years!

2) Wages and benefits need upped. Long time ago when I was in Australia on visit (thanks to my aunt's generosity), their benefits were double what ours were, I remember saving every damn penny back then, £41 a week to live on, FFS! and that was AFTER it raised a fair bit, iirc it started at £35 or so)

Capitalism requires people to be as well paid as employers can, so they spend money to keep it ALl going...but what has happened in USA and UK and some others? yeah, rule by the CEOs...massive bonuses for them and sod the workers
Germans were smart, they let unions/workers intot he company, so in their benefit to work together and improve, that was smart, rather than the "We're the bosses, sod you!" mentality usually we have here.

it causes social anger, that one day sooner or later means revolution, no matter how you clamp down sooner or later the folk get so pissed off they rebel and attack the scum at the top.
Should read up on this

 

out2lunch

Senior Member
Messages
204
As an American watching on the sidelines, this is what automatically springs to my mind when someone mentions, "Tory":

. :rofl:

I'm glad this issue regarding deaths after loss of benefits is being addressed; I wish something like that we're going on in our country so SSA personnel would be forced to acknowledge the risks when considering terminating someone's SSDI payments and Medicare during disability review.

Even if someone who's been on disability for years has a miraculous recovery and becomes capable of handling full employment, that does not automatically mean they'll be able to find it, even with advanced degrees and decades of experience.

Employers are incredibly loathe to hire individuals who've been out of the workplace for even just a few years, no matter the reason. And they're even more reluctant to hire if that reason involved any chronic health issue, fearing that the health issue has not completely resolved and will return in the foreseeable future, forcing the newly hired worker to quit.

Conservatives of every stripe around the globe, both in the UK and in the "colonies," conveniently forget the lack of control we disabled workers have over returning to the workplace. We simply cannot show up and just get busy. We have to be invited to participate by the employer. And from what I've read and heard from others, most employers in this day and age of exploited cheap slave labor, want absolutely nothing to do with anyone who MIGHT have the slightest whiff of a health complication that would keep them from being on call 24/7 and working 60 hours a week.

Of course, conservatives are fully well aware of this fact. But they're heartless scum of the earth who only care about lining the pockets of the rich at the expense of everyone else, and choose to foist the issue onto the disabled instead of taking responsibility for it themselves.

"It's not our problem if nobody wants to hire you now. You should have thought about that before applying for assistance."

:bang-head::mad::bang-head::mad::bang-head:
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
Another update
The amazing sequence of events of the last 10days!

maggie Zolobajluk
Kingston upon Thames, United Kingdom

5 Jul 2015 — Thank you – all 235,000 of you! – who have signed my petition calling for the Government to publish statistics showing how many people have died after their benefits were stopped.

I now need you to write to your MP: https://www.writetothem.com/

The past 10 days have been a whirlwind.

First Iain Duncan Smith said they could not publish these figures and accused us of scaremongering. Then David Cameron said that they would be published. But this was swiftly followed by the Government saying that they were appealing against the Information Commissioner’s ruling that they should be publish, saying that publishing this data would lead to “probable misinterpretations” and “was too emotive...and wasn’t in the public interest”.

All of this came to light in a debate secured by Debbie Abrahams MP which you can read here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2015-06-30a.439.0&s=death while fit for work#g442.5

So the Government is still trying to avoid publishing this data. We must keep campaigning!

Please take a moment to email your MP and ask them if they will support 235,000 people who have signed this petition calling for the Government to publish statistics showing how many people have died after their benefits were stopped.

You can write to your MP at https://www.writetothem.com/

When you receive a response from your MP – please forward it to maggiezed@hotmail.com

It is so important we keep going with this campaign.

Write to your MP today: https://www.writetothem.com/

Thank you

Maggie

I will be emailing my MP direct, as when campaign sites are used he does not provide individual replies as my previous MP did - he just commits to publishing generic statements on his website.

You can find your MP's contact details here.
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
Thanks, @MeSci - done. :thumbsup:

I have sent my MP a message detailing my personal experience of becoming disabled and struggling to survive on benefits, and relating this to the impossibility of surviving without them. Although he is a Conservative/Tory, he is not rich or from a privileged background, so hopefully he can relate to it.
 

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
I have sent my MP a message detailing my personal experience of becoming disabled and struggling to survive on benefits, and relating this to the impossibility of surviving without them. Although he is a Conservative/Tory, he is not rich or from a privileged background, so hopefully he can relate to it.

I added some personal stuff too, about what a struggle it had always been to get benefits even though I was severely disabled and clearly entitled - and what a hostile, demeaning process it is.
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
I added some personal stuff too, about what a struggle it had always been to get benefits even though I was severely disabled and clearly entitled - and what a hostile, demeaning process it is.

Yes - I forgot to include reference to the annual ordeal of struggling to fill in the forms, and the fear of an honest mistake leading to being hauled up for fraud, and the stomach-churning fear while waiting to see if the benefits would be renewed. :(

I hope that every MP gets at least one contact from a benefits claimant giving personal experience.
 

John Mac

Senior Member
Messages
321
Location
Liverpool UK
MPs in renewed call to release the death figures

http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2015-16/285

STATISTICS ON DEATHS OF INCAPACITY BENEFIT AND EMPLOYMENT AND SUPPORT ALLOWANCE CLAIMANTS
That this House notes that on 30 April 2015 the Information Commission took a decision that the Government must disclose the number of incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance claimants who have died since November 2011 until May 2014 within 35 calendar days; acknowledges the petition signed by over 230,000 members of the public calling for this data to be released; further notes that even though the 35 day deadline has passed this data has not been released; has concerns that the data released may be a standardised figure rather than a full picture; and therefore calls on the Government to ensure the release of this data in full and without further delay.