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Showing posts with label penal reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label penal reform. Show all posts

Tuesday, 23 June 2015

Which? — Consumers Association — and punitive welfare reform

An open letter by Dude Swheatie of Kwug to Which? — Consumers Association

I post the below here because I believe the Terms & Conditions of use for the email contact form on your website rules out any content critical of yourselves.(1) (2)


As a Glasgow law professor has stated, benefit sanctions constitute Britain's secret penal system.(3)

Benefit sanctions are more widespread than fines from the cout system and applied without means-testing or even a fair trial or the cognisance of the person sanctioned, as that article reveals. Yet it seems to me that Which? website shares the Conservative Government's values rather than a Human Rights Act approach when it comes to the state benefits entitlements of poorer people. (4)

And I suggest that you also consider how Which?'s apparent disregard for the interests of poor people is perverting the course of British justice. Regarding the privatisation of British justice, I direct you to Ecologist article A 'poll tax' for English justice - subjecting the poor to 'trial by ordeal'.

Is the Consumers Association so geared to the privatisation of services that it does not care for those who are vulnerable enough economically to be desperate for information, advice and guidance that would help them assert their rights as citizens?

Notes

(1) http://www.which.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/user-generated-content/

(2) http://www.which.co.uk/about-which/contact-us/email/

(3) http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/benefit-sanctions-britains-secret-penal-system

(4) http://search.which.co.uk/search?w=%22welfare+reform%22&asug=&mainresult=mainresult%3Ayes&intcmp=GNH-Search

(5) http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2919243/a_poll_tax_for_english_justice_subjecting_the_poor_to_trial_by_ordeal.html

Saturday, 19 October 2013

Check these out in Red Pepper magazine!

  • Privatisation/dismantling of our NHS, railways and schools and the half-truths told to con the public into accepting privatisation as the way to go
  • Detroit: the city they couldn't destroy
  • Prison reform
  • Student activism

And comment on them in the comments space below!



Mythbuster: Health warning

By repackaging privatisation as ‘reform’, the government has tried to sell voters the idea of dismantling the health service. Jacky Davis exposes the main marketing myths behind the NHS giveaway

A world without prisons

Inmates in California began a hunger strike in July, sparking renewed debate about the use of solitary confinement in US prisons. Nicole Vosper offers a personal response and a vision for a world beyond bars

Detroit: the city they can't destroy

Detroit’s bankruptcy made global headlines last summer. Tawana Petty considers the state’s undemocratic takeover – and the people’s work to rejuvenate their city from the ground up

Campus campaigning: student activism goes local

The flames of the 2010/11 student movement haven’t been entirely extinguished. Hattie Craig and Roz Burgin examine the new look of campus-based resistance

Getting back on track: an alternative to private railways

There is a growing consensus that rail privatisation has failed, but an alternative doesn’t have to mean a new centralised bureaucracy, writes Paul Salveson

Red Pepper Mythbusters
includes: references to dismantling of social security system; and what's really behind Con-Dem schools policies