Ask well-informed questions of candidates while government bodies still gather the statistics!

Richard Osley of Camden New Journal and Islington Tribune writes in the Islington Tribune:

No mistakes: Justice Secretary Liz Truss can’t think of a single error made by Tory government (1)

JUSTICE Secretary Liz Truss was stumped today when the New Journal asked her if the Conservatives had made any mistakes at all in government since the last general election.

With cabinet members arriving in the target constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn at a rate of one every four days since Theresa May called a snap election, Ms Truss was in West Hampstead this afternoon (Thursday) to help with the local Conservative campaign aiming to unseat Labour’s Tulip Siddiq.

After rolling off a list of achievements and insisting that, despite her role in the Remain campaign, that her party had been right to call a national referendum on EU membership, the New Journal asked the simple question as to whether she could think of any mistake the government had made over the last two years.

She paused, looked surprised by the question, and then replied: “Well, I think given where we were as a country, given what we inherited in 2010, which was a country with serious financial problems, I think we’ve done a very good job in getting us back into a better position. We have record levels of employment, we’ve got more children in good and outstanding schools, we are putting more money into the NHS and that’s what people want to see....”

Perhaps that phrase ".... and that's what people want to see...." is the most telling piece of her speel, given the new policy of the Department for Work & Pensions closing jobcentres without a consultation of service users, and saying that closing jobcentres will 'improve the service'?(2) Her Party does not want the people who are not in regular 'nine-to-five' employment to be seen to expose the lies and statistical manipulations involved in her 'record levels of employment' vision that masks the misery of zero hours contracts and sanctions.

As William Davies writes of Tory leader yet to be mandated as Prime Minister, Theresa May: Theresa May's Vapid Vision for a One-Party State: (3)

.... The prime minister’s rhetoric since calling the general election has implied that the best outcome for “the national interest” would be to eradicate opposition altogether, whether that be in the news media, Parliament or the judiciary....

Elsewhere, the non-party-political Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty writes:

Question Candidate MPs! More deaths More in hospital with malnutrition It will get worse What will you do about it? (4)

Questions for all Parliamentary Candidates;
Each question should be prefaced with

IS IT FAIR…

The NHS has reported that over 7300 people were admitted to hospital with malnutrition in 2014/15. Up 50% in the four years since 2010? http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/food-bank-britain-amid

That the Office for National Statistics has revealed an unprecedented increase in deaths in 2015 after decades of improvement? http://www.theactuary.com/news/2017/03/an-unprecedented-rise-in-uk-deaths-will-see-life-expectancy-fall/

That the regressive impact of the market and austerity has damaged the health and wellbeing of millions of citizens since 1979 and in particular since 2010?http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/tap-health-equality-campaign-of-9-blogs-against-a-national-disgrace-we-publ

That because rents are rising faster than incomes The Resolution Foundation has forecast ​ever ​lower incomes after housing costs reducing by 16% for the poorest citizens over the next four years while the highest incomes rise 4%? http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2017/01/Audit-2017.pdf

That Income Support, Employment Support Allowance and Jobseekers Allowance all at £73.10pw and Universal Credit of £317pm are too low live on AND have to pay rent due to the bedroom tax and council tax http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/the-great-injustice-in-cutting-esa-by-30-a-wee

That given what we know about the physical and emotional costs of moving house, the vulnerability of children’s education to frequent moves and the disruption to schooling and social networks, that councils are demolishing council estates rather than maintaining them?  http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/25331/412554-Housing-as-a-Platform-for-Improving-Education-Outcomes-among-Low-Income-Children.PDF

​To allow the UK to sleepwalk into a proliferation of insecure work which is short sighted, damages health and costs the taxpayers? http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/allowing-uk-to-sleepwalk

In 2010 it was estimated that inequalities in health accounted for productivity losses of £31-£33 billion per year, and £20-£32 billion a year in lost taxes and higher welfare payments.  Additional NHS healthcare costs associated with inequality were estimated to be in excess of £5.5 billion a year?  http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/health-inequalities-004
Rev Paul Nicolson

Those questions are based on official statistics that no doubt Justice Secretary Theresa May, Prime Minister Theresa May etc would rather have the public not see. So I would say, grab every opportunity you can! Ask those questions of candidates and highlight those statistical realities.

Otherwise, those who have landed Britain in such a mess in the name of 'austerity' and the reality of making economically vulnerable people subject to the bankers' debt, will abolish the requirement and budgeting for official bodies to gather the relevant statistics.

Similarly, you may wish to ask candidates questions around how Conservative Government has sought to so 'transform justice' that injustices are made invisible by removing people's right to challenge, say, dodgy benefits assessment challenges, etc.(5) 

Successful legal challenges embarrass the abusers of vulnerable people in a very unequal and divided Britain, and so do the statistics resulting from a legal system designed and equipped to challenge injustice rather than perpetuate injustice.

Link References

1. http://islingtontribune.com/article/no-mistakes-justice-secretary-liz-truss-cant-think-of-a-single-error-made-by-tory-government
2. http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/terra-firma-benefits-services-closures-leave-the-economically-vulnerable-in-the-lurch.html 
3. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/opinion/theresa-mays-vapid-vision-for-a-one-party-state.html
4. http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/question-candidate-mps-more-deaths
5. http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Ministry+of+Justice

Dying for DWP recognition as 'genuine' claimants?

By Argotina Schmirgle of Kwug

Originally published on 13 June on Benefit Tales blog as

Many people whose benefits have been stopped have serious health conditions, so of course more are dying, admits DWP

Yet again Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has blocked the publication of statistics showing how many people have died within six weeks of having their benefits stopped.

These figures were routinely published until 2012, when this government’s Welfare Reform Act  started to bite. Since then the DWP has steadfastly refused to publish new statistics, saying:

1. They were too expensive to gather and: 
2. That so many people requested the figures that the requests themselves were ‘vexatious’ and could therefore be ignored. 

Direct requests to the DWP from several MPs have had no more luck.

Now the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), an independent authority set up to uphold public information rights, has agreed that there is no reason not to publish the figures. And yet again the DWP is trying to wriggle out.

What struck me most in this article from the Huffington Post was this warning from the DWP:
“The DWP  warned it was irresponsible to suggest a causal link between the death of an individual and their benefit claim, and that mortality rates among people with serious health conditions are likely to be higher than those among the general population.”(1)

Well, The system of disability assessments was supposed to sort out who needs disability benefits. The DWP’s warning demonstrates that they don’t see people with serious health conditions who are more likely to die as being in need of benefits. And if they are being kicked off their benefits and then dying, that’s just fine as long as the Tories can dodge publishing the figures..

The DWP takes its orders from the Conservative Government. And David Cameron and his ministers appear to be completely at ease with the idea of stripping seriously ill people of their benefits and them subsequently dying. If those people die, well, they were more likely to die anyway.

I read over and over again in comments here and elsewhere on the net of people who have been thrown off disability benefits as ‘fit to work’, but cannot then get unemployment benefits because the Job Centre deems them ‘Unfit to work’. I’m personally trying to help 2 people in this exact situation right now. As a result of losing their sickness benefits and having no income, both have been hit by a spiral of depression which made it impossible to appeal against the decision in the one month time slot allowed by the DWP.

More than 18,000 people have signed a Change.org petition in under a week after the DWP appealed a decision to release the sensitive figures

I can’t leave this topic without mentioning the tireless campaigning to get these figures published.over several years by John Pring of the Disability News Service.(3) If the government is pushed into a corner it can’t wriggle out of and forced to release these figures, it will largely be thanks to John.

Notes

(1) Huffington Post: DWP Block Release of Figures on Number of People Dying After Benefits Stopped. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/06/11/statistics-refused-benefits-death_n_7561918.html
 (2) Change.org petition: Publish the statistics showing how many people have died after their benefits were stopped. https://www.change.org/p/hm-courts-and-tribunal-service-publish-stats-showing-how-many-people-have-died-after-their-benefits-stopped
(3) Disability News Service: http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/

Statistics, elections and smear stories

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

The matter of lack of witnesses is implicit in today's reporting on the Jimmy Saville abuses at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in the 1970's. In the 1970's there was a huge PR machine behind Jimmy Saville amounting to a manufactory of consent for whatever he planned. Now in the 21st Century there is a manufactory of consent via The Sun, The Mail, and whatever, for the smear stories soliciting General Election voters to make life ever harder for the economically not so advantaged.

With a General Election coming on Thursday 7 May 2015, we should be extremely cautious about statistics that are given out by government ministers and errors that are by accident or design. With the smear stories concerning obese people as benefit claimants, we should learn from Health Minister Lord Warner's 'administrative error' regarding obesity. Community Care magazine reported in February 2004:

The government has apologised after massively overstating the number of obese people claiming benefits.

Earlier this month, health minister Lord Warner said that 900,000 claimants of incapacity benefits were obese, prompting headlines in the national media.

The Department of Health now says that the actual figure is 900 and that this only relates to people who receive incapacity benefit as a result of obesity. It blamed an “administrative error” for the blunder.

It added that the total amount paid to this group a week is £70,965 rather than the £70.9m figure initially used.

— February 25, 20004: Minister cuts the fat from figures

Full Factcheck, anyone? Fact-checking is another vital form of witnessing.