Patriotism and disabled people's inclusion

The blog post below was conceived originally as a comment on Craig Murray's blog post The Sad End of British Liberalism.(1) The youtube video was included as part of Craig Murray's blog post. I have edited it slightly.

Thanks for this, especially the Tom Paine-rich video.(1) The references to patriotism on the video remind me of Orwell’s observation that ‘patriotism’ differed from ‘nationalism’, and apparently dictionary founder Johnson described ‘patriotism’ as the last resort of scoundrels.

The Paine observation that patriots have a duty to protect their country from its government emphasises for me the importance of citizens engaging in ‘public consultations’. I was a contributor to the Green Party of England & Wales response to Labour’s 2008 welfare reform green paper. Especially as a veteran of decades of ‘benefit claimant’ status while a disabled jobseeker, I reckoned that my ‘expert witness’ status by default required me to help point out the dangers of misjudging and being nasty to vulnerable people. 

Sadly, UK mass media wanted to pigeon-hole the Green Party as purely about protecting the geographical environment; thus mass media sat on a report that would have given greater enlightenment than was available from Blairites and Thatcherites, etc.(2) ‘Writing off Workfare: for a Green New Deal, not the flexible New Deal’ is still available online however. An outline press statement of that report can also be found at “Workfare is not the answer”. (3)

Sadly these days, many vulnerable citizens fear that they will be victimised if they stand out for their lives and social justice by demonstrating. I have heard that the DWP launched an investigation of ‘benefit fraud’ against someone they predicted would not be disabled enough to qualify for the disability benefits he was claiming; they said his Facebook output was too plentiful for such a disabled person.

What would be necessary to make ANY form of alternative government unelectable in England?

A current public consultation that people need to use to help protect England from its government is that of constituency boundary changes. Parliamentary Boundary Changes could lead to a Permanent Tory Government in the UK.(4)

Meanwhile, some Labour Party grandees such as now Lord Kinnock proclaim Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership a disaster for the Labour Party. BBC website reports: 

Former Labour leader Lord Kinnock tells BBC Panorama he is doubtful there will be another Labour government in his lifetime if Jeremy Corbyn remains at the helm..(5)

Might not such proclamations be described as ‘prediction terrorism’? If such ‘party patriots’ really cared for democracy and their party, should they not devote more energy to getting the public to protect England from the ravages of a dysfunctional ‘boundaries commission’? 

Were Labour to become ‘unelectable’, I believe that such pontificatingly out-of-touch Labour ‘grandees’ are largely responsible for pissing off the economically vulnerable and for pointing scapegoating fingers at Corbyn rather than at the prospect of patriots telling England's boundary commissioners what to do and where to go to make elections truly fair.

And regarding disabled people's inclusion, I believe that when disabled people include themselves/ourselves in democratic processes our power to 'speak out' comes not from fraudulent benefit claiming as the DWP would have it, but from Pete Seeger's interpretation of what anthropologist Robert Ardrey wrote of as the Territorial Imperative. In Seeger's song Uncle Ho citing North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh as an exemplar of Ardrey's 'territorial imperative', Seeger wrote and sang:

He educated all the peopleHe demonstrated to the worldIf a man [sic] will stand for his own landHe's got the strength of ten...(6)

Dude Swheatie of Kwug, writing in an individual capacity

Related link addresses

1. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/09/sad-end-british-liberalism/#tc-comment-title
2. https://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/reports/GPEW_writing_off_workfare_final.doc
3. https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/workfare-is-not-the-answer.html
4. http://londongreenleft.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/parliamentary-boundary-changes-could.html
5. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37401188
6. http://www.songlyrics.com/pete-seeger/uncle-ho-lyrics/

Disability impact assessments and 'think tank' reports by the clueless

This blog post started off as a comment in relation to Kate Belgrave's excellent coverage of jobcentre practices regarding how to treat claimants who have learning difficulties.(1)

When I was into reading and challenging government ‘green papers’ on, say, welfare reform with Green Party comrades around 2008/09, there was a standard heading, ‘disability impact assessment’. (A ‘green paper’ is a government discussion or consultation document toward putting in new legislation.) Perhaps the reason I forgot about the ‘disability impact assessment’ is that it was generally recorded as ‘Not Applicable’!

And now one of those wonderful ‘think tanks’ that work with governments toward privatising government services has a new report out called, The future of public services: digital jobcentres.(2) I find the introductory blurb so unbelievable that maybe that is why I did not even refer to it when I blogged about it last night. The introductory blurb reads:

“Today’s report, The future of public services: digital jobcentres, sets out the opportunity to transform public employment services in the UK. This paper is the fourth in a series, conducted in partnership with Accenture, which looks at the role technology will play in the future delivery of public services.

“Jobcentre Plus – the UK’s public employment service – won plaudits for its performance over the financial crisis….”

Plaudits from whom, I wonder? Then of course the blurb goes on to talking about financial pressures on the UK economy post-Brexit vote and with Universal Credit’s ‘introduction of in-work services [sic]' bringing about a ‘need to do things differently’. (I’ve heard it all before with ‘austerity’, haven’t you?)

But anyway, it struck me that with online tools, I could do a word search in the pdf document of that report The future of public services: digital jobcentres, in search of the term ‘disability impact assessment’.(3)

Lo and behold, as I typed into the ‘Find’ bar within that document window and reached the letter ‘s’ of the word ‘disability’, the background of that ‘Find’ bar turned a pinkish colour indicating that the word ‘disability’ did not occur in that document.

Anyhow, my blog post announcing the existence of that wonderful new think tank report started from the Boycott Workfare Welfare Action Gathering recognition that online signing would lead to greater isolation for benefit claimants and reduced opportunities of solidarity between jobcentre clients and self-help groups such as the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG), Scottish Unemployed Workers Network, etc.

My own initial blog response to the Reform report Digital jobcentres to heighten isolation and reduce solidarity? focuses much more on who are the ‘movers and shakers’ advising government on how to privatise everything?(4)

Yet the matter of ‘disability impact assessments’ or the lack of reminds me of something I said at the KUWG’s first burnout workshop this last Tuesday.(5) I observed that while I do get burnt out occasionally, as an integral member of the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group I am far less burnt out on ESA Support Group status than I ever would be on Jsa conditionality and the like, where those who told me what to do would not have a clue who I was and had been institutionalised into sanctions targeting, not caring. 

When I was a jobseeker on far less money than I receive as an ESA Support Group person, and stressed out wondering how I would get through the week with woefully inadequate income, basically all I had to live on was the hope that all the effort I put in would be rewarded one day with a job that would allow me to at least 'break even'; but then I discovered that everything I volunteered at in teaching other slower learners in learning basic skills was wound down through lack of funding.

Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Link addresses

1. http://www.katebelgrave.com/?s=learning+difficulties&submit=Search
2. http://www.reform.uk/publication/the-future-of-public-services-digital-jobcentres/
3. http://www.reform.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/The-future-of-public-services-digital-jobcentres.pdf
4. http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/digital-jobcentres-to-heighten-isolation-and-reduce-solidarity.html
5. http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/kuwg-burnout-workshops-1-and-2-tues-26-july-and-2-aug-1pm-to-5pm.html