No vote on disability cuts without Wales #NoVoteWithoutWales

Action, Disability Activism, Letters, local groups, News, PIP, Politics, welfare cuts, Write to your MP No Responses »

Jun 032025

The DWP have cancelled the only in-person consultation event on the disability cuts for the whole of Wales, and do not plan to run another.

They did this after announcing an inaccessible venue at the last minute, in what we believe to be a clear example of disability discrimination.

The consultation was always going to be unfair, given half the proposals – the most important half – were off the table for discussion on day one.

We are demanding that there must be no vote in the House of Commons on disability cuts until a full and genuine public consultation has been carried out in Wales.

Please sign our open letter, and ask your MP or Member of the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) to sign too. You can sign, and ask your MP to sign, even if you don’t live in Wales.

Below is a template letter for contacting your MP or MS.

Find your MP or MS using WriteToThem, Find your MP, and/or Find a Member of the Senedd (in Wales)

Template letter

[Please use this template as a starting point and use your own words as much as possible.]

Dear [MP or member of the Senedd]

I am writing as your constituent to ask that you support an open letter demanding that there must be no disability benefit cuts vote in the House of Commons until Wales has had a full and genuine consultation – #NoVoteWithoutWales

The DWP have now cancelled the only in-person consultation event on the disability cuts for the whole of Wales, and have communicated that they do not plan to run another. Instead they are suggesting an online-only event at the end of the month, probably after any vote has already happened. This isn’t good enough.

The DWP cancelled the consultation after announcing an inaccessible venue at the last minute, in what could only be described as a clear example of disability discrimination.

Given the DWP’s failures, any consultation must now be run independently by Welsh disabled people’s organisations.

Please read and sign here:

https://Bit.Ly/No-Vote-Without-Wales

No vote without Wales! #NoVoteWithoutWales

Kind regards,

[Name]

[Postcode]

[Phone number]

The Labour MPs campaigning for disability benefit cuts

Politics, Action, Disability Activism 1 Response »

May 192025

We have seen a letter to Liz Kendall signed by 36 loyalist Labour MPs who have formed a group to support the disability benefit cuts.

While the prospect of a cushy junior ministerial role, or the threat of the whips, might persuade many Labour MPs to vote in favour, this list represents some of the worst MPs, who are actively campaigning for the changes.

They should be lobbied and protested. They should not receive a penny of trade union support. They should be challenged at elections. CLPs must pass no confidence votes and trigger reselection ballots.

The list is:

David Pinto-Duschinsky MP
Luke Akehurst MP
Bayo Alaba MP
Jas Athwal MP
Danny Beales MP
Rachel Blake MP
Nesil Caliskan MP
Luke Charters MP
Shaun Davies MP
Jim Dickson MP
Helena Dollimore MP
Graem Downie MP
Damien Egan MP
Allison Gardner MP
Gurinder Signh Josan MP
Andy MacNae MP
Blair McDougal MP
Frank McNally MP
Samantha Niblett MP
Jon Pearce MP
Gregor Poynton MP
Connor Rand MP
Steve Race MP
Joani Reid MP
Mike Reader MP
Jake Richards MP
Tom Rutland MP
Mark Sewards MP
Sarah Smith MP
Mike Tapp MP
Fred Thomas MP
Dan Tomlinson MP
Jo White MP
Sean Woodcock MP
Steve Yemm MP

Important Consultation on Social Care – please complete and share

Action, All Posts, Independent Living, Politics No Responses »

Aug 092018

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/social-care-funding-uk-government-local-councils-proposals-local-government-association-lga-a8470361.html

https://www.local.gov.uk/about/news/lga-launches-own-green-paper-adult-social-care-reaches-breaking-point

Have your say on the future of adult social care – respond to the Local Government Association’s (LGA’s) survey.

The consultation, which is the largest ever launched by the LGA, will last for eight weeks and will shape the LGA’s demands ahead of the Budget, due in the autumn.

Izzi Seccombe, chair of the LGA’s Community Wellbeing Board, said: “People have a right to live the life they want to lead and high quality adult social care and support plays an essential role in this. It is also vital to society. It strengthens communities, reduces pressures on the NHS, supports around 1.5 million jobs and contributes as much as £46bn to the UK economy.

“But work to find a long-term funding solution for adult social care and support has been kicked into the long grass by successive governments for the past two decades and has brought these services to breaking point.

“It has created a deeply uncertain and worrying future outlook for people who use adult social care services now and the growing number of people who will need them in the future.”

The LGA has produced their own ‘green paper’ and would like your views on it. Things you might want to consider are -:

should care be free at the point of delivery,
should it be funded through taxation,
should it be delivered by local government or should alternatives be considered,
should the postcode lottery be ended and a national system of social care be put in place working in a similar way to which the ILF did.

You may not want to answer all of the questions in this consultation or feel they are all relevant to you but please answer those that you can and ask others to as well. Do also give examples of how the current system is failing to meet your needs either due to charging policies, refusal to provide help with specific tasks or unmet needs you have.

To complete the consultation, please read the LGA’s green paper and then submit your views via the online form, which is available at:

https://futureofadultsocialcare.co.uk/the-green-paper/have-your-say/

for International Woman’s Day -Guardian article March 8th 2018

Action, All Posts, Politics No Responses »

Mar 082018

Decades after Iceland’s ‘day off’, our women’s strike is stronger than ever

The Global Women’s Strike has evolved into a worldwide protest with myriad demands

Selma James

‘As a result of Poland and Argentina coming together, the International Women’s Strike was formed.’ Women march in New York, 8 March 2017. Photograph: E McGregor/Pacific / Barcroft

On the first day of the UN Decade for Women in 1975, the women of Iceland took the day off to demonstrate the importance of all their work, waged and unwaged, in the countryside and the city. Almost all women who were physically able came out of their homes, offices and factories, and even female television presenters were replaced on the screen by men holding children. Some 90% of women took part. They called it a day off but we at the International Wages for Housework Campaign called it a strike, and took as our slogan their placard which said: “When women stop, everything stops.”

Iceland was not international but it was of international significance. What moved them to strike had to be moving in the souls of women everywhere: the question was: when would it manifest itself?

In 1985, at the final conference of the UN decade in Nairobi, we had won the UN decision that unremunerated work at home, on the land and in the community should be measured and valued. We called Time Off for Women for 24 October and a number of countries joined us. But we could not sustain international action.

International Women’s Day: how can you support the global strike?

It was not until 1999 that Margaretta D’Arcy, a writer, anti-war and Irish Republican activist, called for a national strike of women in Ireland to mark the new millennium on 8 March 2000 and asked the Wages for Housework Campaign to support her call. I wrote to the National Women’s Council of Ireland, telling them that if they called the Irish women out on strike, we would make it global. They didn’t, but we did. We launched the Global Women’s Strike with Margaretta and women from a number of other countries at the UN in New York in 1999. In most of the 60 countries where women went on strike it was a celebration, not a mobilisation. But we were making a variety of demands. The first was: “Payment for all caring work – in wages, pensions, land and other resources.” What was more valuable than raising children and caring for others, we asked. “Invest in life and welfare, not military budgets and prisons.”

The more women went out to work, the harder it was to also be a carer, and what was most galling was the lower pay for doing a double day. Caring and pay equity have risen on the political agenda, as well as other injustices that women face, beginning with rape and domestic violence often going unpunished.

Two years ago, two important movements manifested themselves. In Poland women went on strike to stop anti-abortion legislation. They succeeded in getting the government to back down. In Argentina, following police inaction after the rape and murder of a number of women, hundreds of thousands took to the streets with the slogan Ni una menos (not one less). Their call for an end to femicide swept across Latin America and beyond. This spoke to a pervasive injustice – in the UK, for example, two women a week are killed by partners or ex-partners. As a result of Poland and Argentina coming together, the International Women’s Strike was formed last year and co-ordinated by Polish women. It was agreed that each group would determine their own demands. There were regular four-hour Skype calls (with English and Spanish translation) with women from more than 30 countries exchanging information about what they would be doing. In some countries, hundreds of thousands downed tools for some part of the day, had rallies and banged pots; in others, the events were smaller.

Selma James and male journalists at the launch of the Wages for Housework campaign in 1975. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

Today, the idea of women massively withdrawing labour, waged and unwaged, is not a reality yet. The actions now are often overtly anti-racist and anti-every discrimination, anti-poverty, anti-war, anti-deportation and anti-imperialist, including in Trump’s US. They are always anti-violence. In Peru, the strike slogan is: “If our lives have no value, produce and reproduce without us!” Every sector brings its own concerns. Peruvian domestic workers are launching their petition: “A living wage for caring work – in your own home and other people’s.”

But how can you strike if you can’t risk being sacked or endangering those you care for? This has always been the dilemma, especially of the carer on whom vulnerable people depend. In countries such as Spain, where there is general recognition of the strike validity and even union backing, it’s easier for women to walk out for at least part of the day – hundreds of thousands are expected to do just that.

In the UK, where such support is not yet forthcoming, women can still publicise our situation and what we want changed in call-ins and letters to the press, returning from lunch even 10 minutes late, banging pots in the streets or at the window, as women in Spain did against the 2003 Iraq war.

The Global Women’s Strike is putting the family courts on trial for unjustly taking children from their mothers in a speak-out in the shadow of parliament; cleaners are demonstrating for a living wage; there is a sex work strike for decriminalisation in Soho; and a picket of Unilever in support of the Sisters of Rohingya’s call for disinvestment from Myanmar to end the rape and genocide there.

In Germany, another possibility to improve women’s lives has opened up, which we are bringing to the strike. Some 3.4 million members of the IGMetall union are winning the right to a 28- (instead of 35-) hour week for at least two years in order to care for children and elderly parents. This is what we can win when striking and care come together.

• Selma James is founder of the International Wages for Housework Campaign

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/08/iceland-global-womens-strike-protest

Global Women’s Strike

www.facebook.com/GlobalWomensStrike/

@WomenStrike

25 Wolsey Mews, London NW5 2DX

020 7482 2496

protest against IAPT therapies – March 21st 8.15am onwards

Action, All Posts, Disability Rights, Mental Health, MHRN, NHS, Politics 2 Responses »

Feb 252018

The Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy has organised a demo at the New Savoy conference again this year. It’s an early start at South Kensington.

Here’s the programme for the conference – https://www.healthcareconferencesuk.co.uk/conf/uploads/brochures/1210_20180214-104528_Psychological_Therapies_2018_Brochure.pdf

Wednesday 21st March 2018 from 8.15am!

Millennium Conference Centre!

4-18 Harrington Gardens!

South Kensington, London, SW7 4LH

The New Savoy Conference is the annual gathering of professional and

charity bodies providing psychological therapies (IAPT) in NHS primary

care.

IAPT is an assembly-line service providing short-term therapies to over

a million people every year. Despite the commitment of its frontline

therapists and psychologists, IAPT is failing the mental health needs of

communities all over England, while working with government policies

that themselves generate psychological distress and social alienation.

Come and join therapists, mental health activists, psychologists and

welfare campaigners. Meet at the Harrington Gardens entrance of the

Millenium Conference Centre (Gloucester Road tube) from 8.15am to

greet conference goers.

Contact info@allianceforcandp.org for more information.

Some context:

• The hierarchy of IAPT and psychological services in the NHS who gather at these conferences continue to offer liberal mouthings about DWP welfare reform policies, WCA and PIP, sanctions, coercion around Work and Health. But they’ve actually taken no real action to boycott DWP/Health collaboration, despite all the developments re judicial reviews, UN condemnations, the recent Parl Committee report, and the UC debacle.

In his intro to the conference, in the programme link above, Jeremy Clarke (NS chair) says:

“The second issue is the running sore of welfare benefit reform, and its negative impact on mental health, that undermines whatever benefit we make to population wellbeing. Have we reached a consensus now for how we can turn the tide? The BBC’s Mark Easton will find out”

• The overall theme is depression; there are sessions on the crisis in the IAPT workforce, latest staff survey, impact of targets; session on Work and Health Unit; Wessely’s review of human rights and compulsory treatment; session on Employee Assistant Programmes (often run by people like Maximus); familiar faces in the list of speakers

•The scam of IAPT as a service in local communities. It has a massive evidence base, tons of statistics for every CCG in England including “recovery” rates; ethnicity stats; deprivation stats; etc etc No-one really analyses the figures. For IAPT it seems just collecting the stats is their claim to being evidence based and therefore their claim for funding from the Government. In fact, their stats reveal a shockingly failing provision.

For example, ot of 1,350,000 referrals a year 85% either never enter any kind of therapy, or never finish a course of treatment, or don’t “move to recovery” (as IAPT jargon has it). In my CCG (Tower Hamlets) only 6.6% of referrals to IAPT “recovered” and among the Bangladeshi community who make up over 30% on TH population only 3% “recovered”. Farmer’s Taskforce target for % of population who “need IAPT therapy” is 15%, rising to 25% by 2021. In TH about 2% of the pop were referred/referred themselves to IAPT, of whom as I say 6.6% “recovered”.

IAPT will be a major part of the propaganda around the NHS reorganisation now in progress, via the STPs and the ACOs they are developing . STP management have “the mental health crisis” high on their agenda – certainly their PR agenda – and selling more provision for IAPT services will be a major plank of the campaign. See Hunt on this role for IAPT here.

IAPT is rarely taken to task as a service that is massively failing communities all over England. This is true in the Labour Party as much as any where ekse. This has to stop. It is a propaganda service for neoliberal capitalism and its dissemination of psychological scapegoating and coercion across society

#StopFundingtheTories

Action, All Posts, media, Politics No Responses »

Feb 132018

Reblogged from Evolve Poltics

https://evolvepolitics.com/stopfundingthetories-here-are-36-companies-youll-want-to-avoid-if-you-dont-want-to-unwittingly-fund-the-tories/

So, you would never vote Tory in a million years and you hate everything they stand for, but, are you really sure you’re not inadvertently handing over your hard-earned money to major Tory party donors?

#StopFundingTheTories

The Electoral Commission keeps records of major donations to political parties, and we’ve been having a long hard look at them to weed out all the companies that fund the Tories.

In a campaign we are calling #StopFundingTheTories, we want to raise awareness of the companies, products and services that, if you hand over your hard-earned money to, you are unwittingly funding the Conservative Party.

The Tory Party have a despicable track record in government for enacting policies that intentionally benefit the super-rich at the expense of the most vulnerable people in our society. Poverty is soaring, rough sleeping has more than doubled since the Tories came to power in 2010, and, due to the hateful, divisive, divide-and-rule rhetoric spouted by the Conservatives, hate crimes against minorities are now rising year on year. All this whilst the wealth of the very richest people in Britain has more than doubled.

In contrast to Labour, whose membership numbers have soared under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, the Tories could now have as few as 60,000 paid-up members contributing to party coffers. And, due to this plummeting of their membership numbers, the Tories are now heavily reliant on their super-rich backers handing over vast sums of money to keep them afloat.

According the latest accounts, the Tories took in just £1,459,000 from ordinary membership fees, whilst Labour’s members contributed almost ten times as much to their party, at £14,393,000. The Tories, however, beat Labour in terms of donations.

Whilst Labour brought in over £14m, mostly made up of small donations from ordinary people, the Tories raked in more than £18m, almost exclusively from huge one-off donations from their super-rich backers.

In the last quarter [the Tories] received nearly £3million in private donations from less than 100 people. This means an average donation of £30,000 – or, as you or I would call it, a luxury car.

The Tories also received over £700,000 from 61 companies, with an average donation of over £10,000. A figure which goes to show exactly why their interests seem so closely wedded to corporations and the rich.

Donations to the Conservatives make up over 80% of donations by private individuals and corporations, whilst donations to Labour make up just under 0.5% of these figures.

It’s little wonder then that the Tories seem increasingly intent on pleasing their super-rich backers with policies that exclusively benefit them, to the detriment of ordinary people.

Given that there is very little likelihood of the Tories’ membership numbers rising any time soon, their only sustainable funding comes from the huge donations of their super-rich backers – who are, through the products and services they sell, actually bankrolled by you and me – ordinary people. This means that, in essence, for every pound we hand over to one of these companies, a proportion of that money is then handed to the Tories.

So, if you want to avoid unwittingly funding the Tory party in any way, shape or form, here is a comprehensive list of the companies, products, and services you will want to avoid giving your money to at all costs.

Shopping

Westfield – The company that owns Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City has donated almost £500k since 2008.

Selfridges. With shops in London, Birmingham and Manchester, the company has donated over £300k since 2009.

Bicester shopping village. Owned by Value Retail which has donated £9k since 2016.

Next. Director Simon Wolfson has donated over £400k since 2008.

JCB. You’re unlikely to be in the market for a bulldozer, but construction company JCB has licensed hundreds of products, from lightbulbs to boots to brooms to pyjamas. Since 2008, JCB and its subsidiaries have donated over £4.5m to the Tories.

Moonpig. Founder of flower and gift company Moonpig, Nick Jenkins, donated £166k between 2009-15.

Boden. CEO Julian Granville donated £12k between 2009-15.

Richer Sounds. Founder and 100% shareholder Julian Richer donated £150k between 2010-14

Services

Lycamobile. The SIM card company donated over £2m to the Tories between 2011-16.

Tempcover. Car insurance company, donated £400k since 2015.

Scottish Power. Have donated £48k since 2010. They’ve also given considerable amounts to Scottish Labour although the last donation was in 2016.

E.On UK. The gas and electricity supplier donated £8.4k to the Tories in 2016.

Pimlico Plumbers. Large London-based plumbers, have donated £65k since 2015

Microsoft Ltd (British subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation). £137k between 2006-15.

Food and drink

Sainsbury’s. President John Sainsbury has donated over £2m to the Tories since 2008.

Bestway. Cash and carry with huge network of outlets. Have donated over £700k since 2008.

Samworth Brothers. Make Ginsters, Soreen Malt Loaf, Melton Mowbray pies. Director Mark Samworth has donated £585,000 to the Tories since 2010.

Iceland. Director Malcolm Walker has donated £110k since 2012.

Warburtons. The bread company donated £25k in 2010.

Global Brands Ltd. Make various branded drinks including Hooch and VK alcopops. Have donated £21k since 2015.

Radnor Hills Mineral Water Co Ltd. Mineral waters and fruit juices, donated £7k since 2015.

Frederic Robinson Ltd. Owns Robinson Breweries and 280 pubs in the north west. Produce various bottled and cask beers. Have donated £29k since 2012.

Delamere Dairy Ltd. Dairy products, especially goats milk. £7.5k since 2015.

Hotels and entertainment

Flamingo Land. This Yorkshire theme park and zoo has donated £83k since 2014.

The London Cabaret Club. Have donated £95k since 2015.

Imperial London Hotels Ltd. Seven hotels in central London. Have donated £12k since 2015.

Country House Weddings Ltd. Four wedding venues in the south. Have donated £33k since 2009.

Beds and Bars Ltd. Budget tourist accommodation in the UK and Europe. Donated £5k in 2017.

Cameron Mackintosh. The producer of Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, Mary Poppins, Oliver!, Miss Saigon, Cats and Hamilton donated £15k between 2012-17.

Healthcare

Genix Healthcare Ltd. Network of NHS and private dental clinics. Has donated almost £500k since 2008.

New Cross Nursing Group Ltd. Nursing agency with branches across the country. Has donated £42k since 2014.

Travel

Gatwick Airport Ltd. Donated £18k in 2016.

National Express. The bus and coach company has donated £15k since 2011. They’ve also funded Labour in the past, although not since 2013.

Media

Express Newspapers Ltd. Donated £154k between 2008-17.

Northern and Shell. The company which publishes the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star, OK!, New!, and also owns Channel 5 and the Health lottery. Donated £10k in 2017. [A takeover by Trinity Mirror is imminent – Trinity Mirror are not Tory donors, as far as we can tell.]

National Day of Action Against Universal Credit – local actions

Action, All Posts, Benefits, Disability Activism, local groups, Politics, welfare cuts, Welfare reforms 5 Responses »

Feb 132018

If you’re planning a local action around March 1st please let us know.

UC Day of Action local protests

Brighton– March 1st Clock Tower, Brighton, 10.30 am – 1pm information handout.

Facebook Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/327263861014031/

Bristol – March 1st at Broadmead Shopping Centre 12 – 2 pm all meeting up in the middle. Please wear black if possible.

Facebook Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1575085919265099/

Ceredigion – March 3^rd 11am – 1pm Guildhall, Cardigan, SA43 1JL

https://www.facebook.com/events/1725015990888709/

Chester- March 1st 12-2pm Job Centre Plus, City Road, Chester, CH1 3AQ

Facebook event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/177236042877566/

Derbyshire – Online Event: 1-2pm

Facebook Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1570832732972130/

Dundee- March 1st 12-2 pm Job Centre Plus, Wellgate, DD1 2DB

facebook event : https://www.facebook.com/events/275964189602279/

Edinburgh
Thurs 1st March 1pm (till approx 2.30pm)
Leith Jobcentre, 199 Commercial St, Edinburgh EH6 6JF

Edinburgh action called by Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty – grass-roots anti-austerity and disability rights groups invited to participate with their banners and stalls.

https://www.facebook.com/events/437482893334245/

Falmouth – March 1^st 8-11am at Penryn Jobcentre, Penmarin House, Commercial Rd, Penryn TR10 8SB

https://www.facebook.com/events/560750934288894/

Leamington Spa Job Centre 58 Brandon Parade, CV32 meet noon

London (central action) – 11 am until 2pm. House of Parliament, Westminster. Meet for 11 am outside visitor’s entrance to House of Commons

Facebook Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/323792051472634/

London, Kentish Town – 1-2pm outside Kentish Town Job Centre

https://www.facebook.com/events/2060011490902572/

Manchester- March 1st at 13:00–15:00

St Peter’s Square, Manchester,

https://www.facebook.com/events/382322465513090/

Norwich – Norwich City Hall 12.30 – 2pm

Facebook Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/217086858848908/

Sheffield– 12 noon until 1 pm. Sheffield City Hall, Bakers Pool, Sheffield, S1 2JA.

Facebook Event Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1756747394635182/

York – March 1st 10am -12pm Monkgate, York

https://www.facebook.com/events/1609285995821063/

More info
https://dpac.uk.net/2018/01/national-day-of-action-to-stopandscrap-universal-credit-march-1st/
https://dpac.uk.net/2018/01/dpac-position-statement-and-motion-for-union-branches-on-universal-credit/

Vicious DWP Continue to Hound Disabled Bedroom Tax Victims

Action, All Posts, Bedroom tax, Benefits, Politics 5 Responses »

Jan 232018

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/supreme-court-bedroom-tax-winners-taken-back-court-again

Disability Rights Supreme Court bedroom tax winners taken back to court again

WHEN Jayson and Charlotte Carmichael received the unanimous Supreme Court ruling that the bedroom tax, in their case, contravened their human rights, they thought this was an end to their mammoth four-year battle.

It was a fight the Carmichaels felt they had to undertake, as the two bedrooms they have are both in use.

Charlotte’s disability and the equipment she requires for sleeping means it’s impossible for Jayson to share a bedroom with her.

The bedroom tax is a direct charge against her disability. There is no “spare room” but the blunt tool that is the bedroom tax disregards their individual needs and as a result the Supreme Court found it was contravening their human rights.

However, the vindictive Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is now taking a ruling in the Carmichaels’ favour from the First Tier Tribunal in 2014 to the Court of Appeal on February 20 and 21, arguing that the tribunal shouldn’t have used the Human Rights Act in its judgement.

This tribunal in 2014 said: “There was no objective and reasonable justification for such discrimination in dealing with such a seriously disabled person regarding their housing benefit.

“Accordingly the appealed decision is set aside and Section 4 (1) Human Rights Legislation 13 (b) (5) so as to avoid discrimination in the matter of housing benefit to this discrete group of disabled persons.”

The local council obeyed the ruling and the Carmichaels were not charged the bedroom tax.

This is what the DWP argument is about: bizarrely Jayson and Charlotte are being taken to court because the council obeyed the ruling of the First Tier Tribunal, which used the Human Rights Act in its ruling.

It feels like the bloody nose the DWP received as a result of the Supreme Court rulings has meant it is now trawling through the Carmichaels’ case, desperately searching for something it can try to use against them.

Is this really the best use of the court’s time and public money when Jayson and Charlotte’s case is so clear-cut?

It will make it five years that they have been fighting the government, which adds an enormous amount of stress on to a couple who are already dealing with a progressive disability with all the cost and additional pressure this entails.

However, this doesn’t mean the Carmichaels are ready to give up and roll over, as they firmly believe that their fight against this discriminatory tax is not just for them, but for the many others who find themselves in a similar situation.

Jayson says: “We’re stressed by the fact they are still continuing to use the bedroom tax to take us to court, despite the historic win in the Supreme Court when we made legal history.

“We have an excellent legal team, but it still is disappointing that the government and their top lawyers have been able to take us to court on something that no longer has much to do with our personal circumstances.

“It’s as if we are trapped in a legal technicality. The outcome means so much for others, that’s the one thing that keeps us going. The Human Rights Act is there and people should be able to access it whenever it is applicable — something this government is now trying to stop.”

Of course, ideally the bedroom tax would be abolished — something Labour has already pledged to do when elected. This is because the bedroom tax is discriminatory at its core.

What has also become clear from Jayson and Charlotte Carmichael, and that of the Rutherford family as well as other high-profile cases, is that this tax hits those with the most serious disabilities particularly hard, despite what the government might try to claim.

Theresa May’s recent reshuffle has put Esther McVey in charge of the DWP. She was a minister in the DWP with Iain Duncan Smith from 2013 to 2015, implementing some of the cruellest and most draconian “reforms,” including the bedroom tax.

By putting her in charge of the DWP it sends a message that there is more pain ahead for the increasingly large section of the population hit by the changes made to welfare benefits.

It makes it imperative for those wanting a fair society for all to take the lead from campaigners like Jayson and Charlotte, and do all we can to fight against these attacks on disabled people.

Ruth F Hunt is author of The Single Feather (Pilrig Press).

March for the NHS February 3rd

Action, All Posts, NHS, Politics No Responses »

Jan 202018

Accessibility

NHS IN CRISIS – FIX IT NOW

EmergencyNHS Demonstration – Saturday 3 February

The short march will assemble at 1:30pm outside Charing Cross Station.

SHORT MARCH

If disabled people do not wish to go on the full march, but wish to participate in the Short March, The Short March will be meeting at 1.30 pm Outside Charing Cross Station

12-30 the Strand

London WC2N 5LR

Getting there:
If not going on full March, but wish to participate in short March, Bus No 91 goes to Trafalgar Sq, Go to Bus Stop X and alight at Bus Stop K which is Charing Cross/Trafalgar Sq Bus Stop. (People travelling from Kings Cross/Euston).

Meet at Bus Stop H which is the Bus Stop for Charing Cross outside the Main Station.

Buses 6,9,15,23,139 and 176 all stop at Bus stop H.

40 yards down the road is a dropped kerb where disabled people can get into the road safely and lead the march to the Speakers Rally which is opposite Downing Street.

FULL MARCH

If disabled people wish to participate in the full march they welcome to
The full march assembles at 12pm at Gower Street WC1E 8BT which is close by to University College London Hospital
Nearest Accessible Train stations for the full march are Kings Cross St Pancras and Euston
Kings Cross has step free access from Platform to Street Level on underground lines

For those who do not wish to participate in either the full or short March but may wish to see the Rally and hear the speakers:

The Rally will be held at:

Downing Street

Whitehall

London SW1A 2AA

Nearest accessible underground station to Downing Street is Westminster, Jubliee Line is step free from Platform to Street Level. Turn right out of lift and then 100- 200 yards at the end of the road turn right into parliament street/whitehall and opposite Downing Street will be the stage for the rally.

The Rally will be provided with BSL and there will be a safe space at the front of the stage so that BSL users and disabled people using mobility equipment or needing space from large crowds can access. Please get into the space before 2.15 pm.

After the demo is finished:

If returning to Kings Cross/Euston. Bus Stop F (opposite Charing Cross Station) Number 91 Bus stops there.

This has been organised by DPAC, HCT and The People’s Assembly Against Austerity.

If you have any questions please contact mail@dpac.uk.net or office@thepeoplesassembly.org.uk

Advice for Professionals re- exemptions for people facing assessments

All Posts, Benefits, Maximus, Mental Health, Politics 3 Responses »

Dec 112017

This guide has been produced by Winvisible with support from others. If your GP or support worker etc don’t know what to do this information should be passed onto them.

Benefit assessments – exemption to protect ‘vulnerable’ patients
There is a great deal of evidence about the profound distress which face-to-face assessments for disability benefits can cause, especially for women and men with mental health conditions. The prospect of interview can induce overwhelming anxiety, panic and dissociative states, levels of stress and distress that can precipitate serious relapses, leading to psychiatric admissions and even suicides. Consultant psychiatrist Dr Jed Boardman said: “You see people relapsing as a consequence of getting distressed about being assessed.” (Fit-for-work tests linked to relapses in those with mental health problems Guardian 24 November 2015.)
Therefore it is vital that professionals know about the benefit system regulations on exemption from the face-to-face interview and for assessment on paper evidence.
They can quote these to protect vulnerable patients from harmful distress and deterioration, and/or enable them to stay out of hospital. Professionals who can state their opinion include: GP, care co-ordinator, psychologist, psychiatrist, key worker, support worker, therapist, counsellor, Independent Domestic Violence Advocate… Opinions from non-medical staff are relevant to describe people’s problems functioning.
It is important to recommend exemption from the face-to-face interview very clearly. Don’t recommend a home visit: this can be worse than an assessment centre interview, as for women rape survivors or others, their home is their safe space which would be violated by an official visit. You may be rung by the assessor as a follow-up, so make sure you are up-to-date with your patient’s situation.
Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) are different benefits with different reasons for exemption:
 ESA is an out-of-work benefit based on limited capability for work where complete exemption from back-to-work conditions is possible. In places where ESA is replaced by Universal Credit (UC), this exemption is in UC regulations 2013 Schedule 8 and also applies to the compulsory “Health and Work Conversation”. Widespread opposition to the brutal UC regime has delayed national rollout.
 PIP is widely claimed by both unwaged and waged people for daily living/care and mobility needs, and is not part of UC.
Companies hold DWP contracts to open mail, scan and distribute it and to carry out assessments, but confidentiality is used to exclude evidence. If a support letter marked “Confidential” goes to the assessor company, the DWP says under confidentiality, it won’t then be disclosed to a DWP Case Manager (PIP Assessment Guide Part One, 1.4.13). As proper consideration often depends on DWP review, don’t mark your report confidential.
ESA
Under “Exceptional Circumstances”, you can say that there would be substantial risk to the patient’s health if they were put under work conditions for benefit, so they should be exempted from these and the exam. This regulation means the person is already accepted as satisfying the test for ESA (limited capability for work) so doesn’t have to be seen. Substantial risk to health can be mental health, or physical health e.g. risk of heart
attack from stress. Risk to mental health covers not only suicide risk, but also sudden deterioration in mental state: PTSD flashbacks, panic attacks, hearing voices, or similar.
Substantial risk regulations: https://wcainfo.net/issues/substantial-risk-lcw 1. A claimant who does not have limited capability for work as determined in accordance with the limited capability for work assessment is to be treated as having limited capability for work if paragraph (2) applies to the claimant. 2. Subject to paragraph (3) this paragraph applies if … (b) the claimant suffers from some specific disease or bodily or mental disablement and, by reasons of such disease or disablement, there would be a substantial risk to the mental or physical health of any person if the claimant were found not to have limited capability for work. 3. Paragraph (2)(b) does not apply where the risk could be reduced by a significant amount by – (a) reasonable adjustments being made in the claimant’s workplace; or (b) the claimant taking medication to manage the claimant’s condition where such medication has been prescribed for the claimant by a registered medical practitioner treating the claimant.
Regulation 25 (2013) (4)
(4) In this regulation ―medical evidence‖ means—
(a) evidence from a health care professional approved by the Secretary of State; and
(b) evidence (if any) from any health care professional or a hospital or similar institution, or such part of such evidence as constitutes the most reliable evidence available in the circumstances.
PIP DWP guidance states that assessors should determine if they can assess the claim from the paper evidence they already have, or if they should get further evidence from professionals, before proceeding to arrange a face-to-face exam — they call it consultation. (PIP Assessment Guide, Part One – The Assessment Process, 1.2.2/1.3.6, 2 November 2017) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/655611/pip-assessment-guide-part-1-assessment-process.pdf The assessor can make a decision from paper evidence where “there is strong evidence on which to advise on the case and a face-to-face consultation is likely to be stressful for the claimant…” (1.5.4) Assessors “should also consider the needs of vulnerable claimants”, that is “someone who has difficulty dealing with procedural demands” including “a previous suicide attempt, domestic violence, abuse or bereavement.” (1.3.11)
1.5.4 “Cases that should not require a face-to-face consultation” ―Although each case should be determined individually, the following types of case should not normally require a face-to-face consultation: […] • There is strong evidence on which to advise on the case and a face-to-face consultation is likely to be stressful for the claimant (for example, claimants with autism, cognitive impairment or learning disability) • The claimant questionnaire indicates a high level of disability, the information is consistent, medically reasonable and there is nothing to suggest over-reporting – (examples may include claimants with severe neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, severely disabling stroke) • There is sufficient detailed, consistent and medically reasonable information on function.
The medical evidence sent on paper has to be “robust” to enable the test for benefit to be met, and should include comments about how functioning is affected. WinVisible won exemption from the PIP exam for a rape survivor who felt suicidal and was at risk of flashbacks, based on “consultation may be stressful to the claimant”. The assessor rang the woman’s GP for his opinion after his letter was sent in. She was granted full rates for both daily living and mobility.
Where should support letters be directed?
ESA
Assessments are carried out by multinational company Maximus (under the name Health Assessment Advisory Service) on behalf of the DWP.
• If your patient is filling in the ESA50 form, attach your support letter to the form and make sure it is listed on the form.
• If your patient can’t cope with the form, or if an interview date has already been sent out, fax it headed FME (Further Medical Evidence) to HAAS London central fax: 0208 795 8647. This is the procedure recommended by HAAS call centre staff. It should have the claimant’s name and NI No. at the top of each numbered page.
• If your patient has an appointment date and HAAS are refusing to postpone this, or are still requiring her to attend despite your request for exemption, email the same correspondence with a cover note raising your complaint to the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments (Maximus head office). Ask them to put the appointment on hold pending the decision on exemption: email: customer-relations@chdauk.co.uk They usually reply within two days. Always cc the MP and ask them to follow it up on behalf of the claimant.
PIP
Assessments are carried out by Atos (or in some geographical areas by Capita). To send in your medical evidence requesting exemption, you can:
 Email Atos pip-customerservice@atos.net
 Write to the DWP’s Disability and Carers Service, address is on the patient’s PIP letter. And/or email them at blackpoolbc.customercomplaints@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
 If you are not sure where to send it, call the PIP helpline on 03458 503 322.
Getting support from MPs’ caseworkers
Ask if your patient is ready to contact their MP and ask for support for their exemption and paper-based assessment. Google “Find my MP” or search the Parliament website, choosing the constituency contacts. MPs’ caseworkers have direct lines to benefit officials and can often quickly resolve distressing situations. Involving the MP gets your concerns taken more seriously. Assessor companies have staff specifically for MPs’ enquiries. Ms A wrote to us: “I just wanted to let you know, it is with a happy heart I read the opened letter from the DWP this afternoon with my PIP results. I am most grateful for the advice that it is OK to ask my psychiatrist specifically for a paper based assessment. I know not everyone is like this and that particularly with the disabled people’s movement, a lot of work and effort goes into asserting good self-image. In mental health, addictions, abuse/domestic violence situations, I think there is something very unseen and unaddressed going on that makes women like me and others, more likely to be unable to meet the demands of the benefits system. More likely to fall between the cracks.”
Compiled by WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities)
with warm thanks to: Diane Frazer, psychotherapist; Dr Jay Watts, clinical psychologist;
Marcin Brajta, Hackney Community Law Centre
Contact WinVisible:
Crossroads Women’s Centre
25 Wolsey Mews, London NW5 2DX
Email win@winvisible.org
Web www.winvisible.org
Tel: 020 7482 2496

November 21st, London and nationwide #Sack The Tories Protests

Action, All Posts, Benefits, Disability Rights, Politics No Responses »

Nov 172017

Support the Budget Day Sack the Tories protests arranged by the People’s Assembly. Meet Downing Street, November 21^st from 6pm- 7.30 pm.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1968486683476948/

#SackTheTories – BUDGET DAY PROTEST
Stop the Universal Credit Crisis – Stop Tax Avoidance – Fund Our NHS
Day of action the night before the Budget

November 21st 6pm – 7:30pm, Opposite Downing Street, Whitehall, London

**Universal Credit
The Government’s plans to overhaul the welfare system by forcing people onto Universal Credit have been widely criticised by MPs, charities, and campaigners all warning that this is likely to cause a rise in homelessness, poverty, and unnecessary debt. It will leave thousands without an income for weeks as they wait to be transferred, many will be left thousands of pounds worse off, and there is reduced support for claimants. The Trussell Trust have said that they expect a 30% increase in foodbank use this winter in areas where Universal Credit is rolled out. Child Poverty Action Group have found that Government welfare reform will push 1 million children below the poverty line.

Disabled People face losing £40.10 per week with the scrapping of Disability Premiums from Universal Credit.

Vicious Conditionality which could force people to seek extra work for up to 48 hours per week will affect everyone regardless of whether they are in or out of work, disabled or non-disabled.

The cost of moving to Universal Credit was originally estimated at £2.2bn, however it is now at a staggering £15.8bn and still rising.

**Paradise Papers
Revelations in the Paradise Papers show how companies, politicians and individuals are avoiding paying billions of pounds in tax using offshore tax havens rather than paying their fair share here. Theresa May said she would clamp down on tax avoidance but loopholes are still in operation.

More people than ever are having to rely on foodbanks to feed their families, our NHS is in a funding crisis, public sector workers are still facing a pay cap below inflation, millions can’t access affordable housing while the richest individuals and biggest companies take money that should be spent on dealing with these problems and squirrel it away for themselves. The Government is doing nothing to stop it.

**NHS
Last winter our NHS was driven into the worst crisis in it’s history. We witnessed patients dying in hospital corridors, staff stretched to breaking point and the Red Cross declaring a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in our NHS. This winter looks set to be worse. Head of NHS England Simon Stephens warned the Government last week that unless billions of pounds is found in the budget for the NHS it won’t be able to cope.

#SackTheTories
The People’s Assembly is calling a nationwide day of action the night before the Chancellors Budget is announced. We’re organising ‘Stop the Universal Credit Crisis – Stop Tax Avoidance’ protests in towns and cities across the country. As part of the protests we’re collecting food which will be donated to local foodbanks so their shelves are stocked to deal with the fallout from Universal Credit and the continuation of austerity policies in the budget.

We want to urge the Government to use the Budget to scrap their plans for Universal Credit, to close tax loopholes and force the tax avoiders to pay their fair share, to end the public sector pay cap with an increase above inflation, and to make sure our public services are properly funded.

We will also be using the thousands of pounds that was raised through sales of Captain Ska’s track ‘Liar Liar’ to buy tonnes of food and deliver it to foodbanks across the country. But before it’s delivered, we’ll be displaying all of it right on the doorstep of Downing Street to show Theresa May and Phillip Hammond the effect their damaging policies are having on ordinary people – this will take place as part of the London wide protest on Tuesday 21 November. Join us at Downing Street or at one of the many protests that will be taking place across the country and don’t forget to bring along food for the foodbank collection.

Local Events

JOIN AN EVENT NEAR YOU (more to be confirmed):

London

6:00pm – 7:30pm, Tuesday 21 November, Downing Street, London

https://www.facebook.com/events/1968486683476948/

Manchester

6:30pm, Tuesday 21 November, GMEX Steps, Windmill Street M2 3GX

https://www.facebook.com/events/296804000806920/

Southampton

12pm – 2pm, Tuesday 21 November, ASDA – Southampton Central, Western Esplanade, SO14 7EG

https://www.facebook.com/events/842488905918828/

Hull
4:30 PM – 6 PM, Tuesday 21 November, Outside Hull Paragon Station, Kingston Upon Hull
https://www.facebook.com/events/1352958458166560/

Eastbourne

Public Meeting and Collection:

7pm, Tuesday 21 November,Crown and Anchor, 15-16 Marine Parade, BN21 3DX

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sack-the-tories-why-they-have-to-go-tickets-39911046013

Swindon

4:00pm – 8:00pm, Tuesday 21 November, Wharf Green Swindon Town Centre SN15 3

https://www.facebook.com/events/201493753726609/

Calderdale

6:30pm, Tuesday 21 November, St George’s Square, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8

https://www.facebook.com/events/811335062404833/

Hastings

5:30pm, Tuesday 21 November, Outside Lloyd’s Bank, Wellington Place, Hastings, TN34 1NX

Merseyside

4:00pm, Tuesday 21 November, Queens Square, Liverpool

Milton Keynes

5:00pm, outside Civic offices, Central Milton Keynes

Fenland

6.30p.m, TUESDAY 21 NOVEMBER, THOMAS CLARKSON MEMORIAL, WISBECH

Fenland Peoples Assembly

Nottingham

12:00pm, Saturday 2 December, Old Market Square, Nottingham, MK18 3

https://www.facebook.com/events/1128093670658916/

Derby

Wednesday 22nd November 5.15pm outside… 6pm inside

Demonstration & Lobby re NHS cuts & STP

Derby City Council House, Corporation Street, Derby, DE1 2FS.

saveournhsderby@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/SOSNHSDerbyPage

North East

4:45pm – 5:45pm, Tuesday 21 November, Haymarket Metro Station, Haymarket, NE1 7PF

https://www.facebook.com/events/146554449302317/

Sheffield

5:30pm, Tuesday 21 November, Sheffield Cathedral

https://www.facebook.com/events/405688823181350/

Birmingham

5:00pm, Wednesday 22 November, Waterstones Birmingham

https://www.facebook.com/events/331804610619889/

Bristol

6:00pm, Tuesday 21 November, Water Fountains, Bristol City Centre

https://www.facebook.com/events/179907642561572/

Awaiting repsonse from Christian Horley – the death denying Tory on last week’s Question Time

Action, All Posts, Benefits, Politics 5 Responses »

Nov 142017

one of our members has written to Christian and if anyone else woudl liek to his email address is christian@horleyconservatives.com

Dear Mr. Stevens (Tory Councillor for Horley, West Sussex),

I watched your performance on BBC QT with shock and disgust. Your cognitive dissonance, delivered with such religious fervour, is as repulsive now as it was when the German people pretended the Holocaust wasn’t happening in order to assuage their collective guilt. You metaphorically covered your nose and averted your eyes to the dark, greasy pall of death that hangs over this country, and instead decided that attack was the best form of defense of the indefensible. I make no apologies for comparing the current genocide of the disabled with that of Hitler – he began with a cull of the mentally ill and disabled, after all.

My question is, what on earth makes you think you know better than a reporter who has actually researched the subject in minute detail and spoken to victims and relatives of those who have been murdered by or are suffering under the government you voted for? Or, indeed, what makes you think you know better than the sick and disabled, themselves?

Disabled people may not be living in fear of the sound of Jackboots on the ground outside their door, but they are living in fear of the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) regime – so much so that there is actually now a medically recognised condition called “Brown Envelope Syndrome” just for the illnesses brought on by state-sponsored oppression and harassment. Did you know that, Mr. Stevens? Or did you miss it because you were you too busy straining to look the other way (as I imagine you do regarding the exponential increase in child poverty, homelessness, and the systematic dismantling of the NHS for privatisation, since 2010)?

The millions of sick and disabled people suffering from government oppression in the UK can disabuse you of your ignorance – if you can face them. They can confirm that the genocide of the most vulnerable is most certainly real and has been going on since 2010. I know this because I am one of the sick people the government has been trying to cull – and almost succeeded on three separate occasions. Where it failed to succeed in killing me off, however, it did succeeded in making my existing health issues far, far worse, and I have actually developed multiple new and very serious conditions related specifically to DWP oppression. It has been so bad, in fact, that I have a case for DWP Maladministration currently with the Ombudsman, a stage reached only after more than three long years at the hands of the DWP’s internal complaints system (any idea why it should take so long Mr. Stevens? Almost like it was designed to put you off, make you give up, or give you the chance to die before it’s heard…).

I also use my experience to help other disabled people being harassed into an early grave by the DWP – hundreds of them. I have talked people down from the edge. Coaxed them away from the painkillers, sleeping pills, and alcohol they were about to use to end it all because they couldn’t take any more DWP oppression, lies, and mindless bureaucracy; they simply had no more fight left in them. I helped save their lives and snatch them from the grip of the vile, murderous hands of the Tory government. So, unlike you, I do not speak purely from my own narrow and convenient perspective; I speak for the experience of many, many others in addition to myself.

If you do not wish to be accused of having the blood of sick and disabled people on your hands, which, as a Tory voter, you most certainly do, then I respectfully request you actually look carefully at what you’re voting for, in future. The information regarding MP’s voting records is in the public domain, for example, as are the DWP death figures, the figures for the number of terminally ill cancer patients refused PIP each year, the UN reports describing the plight of the UK’s disabled under the Tories as a “human catastrophe”, the coroners’ reports regarding the suicides linked to the Work Capability Assessment that were served to the government several years ago and then buried and denied, the huge numbers of cases overturned at tribunals, the reports from disability organisations into the devastating effects of the welfare cuts – cuts aimed overwhelmingly at the sick and disabled – and so on.

And if anyone at BBC QT behaved in a Trumpesque manner, Mr. Stevens, it was you. Your bluff and bluster and use of ‘alternative facts’ to go on the attack without even letting Mr. Chakrabortty finish his sentence or give explanation (facilitated, as ever, by Mr. Dimbleby) is reminiscent of Trump’s late night Twitter rants.

Unfortunately for people like you, it’s getting more and more difficult for this government and the right-wing media to hide the genocide of the sick and disabled in this country – and it will be exposed in the very near future. The cracks have been appearing for some time. For Aditya Chakrabortty to actually get those words out on live TV, before your crass attempts to cut him off, is a first. It’s been seven torturous years too long in coming, but it finally happened. And when the floodgates open and the truth of the sheer scale of this government cull of the nation’s vulnerable is finally revealed in all its vileness, Tory voters will have only two choices: either continue to deny the facts, or wring their hands at the horror of it all and wail about how they wish they’d known the truth.

But you, Mr. Stevens, have but one choice. You have been told. You can no longer claim you didn’t know. So, will you continue to just deny and attack, as you did on BBC QT?

Or, perhaps my character assessment of you is incorrect. Perhaps you have simply been misinformed and misled for the last seven years. Perhaps you’d like to learn the truth for yourself so you can make an informed decision and help effect change? Is that the real you, Mr. Stevens? Are you simply a hapless victim of propaganda and misinformation?

Well, if you’d like a window into the misery and suffering of just a tiny percentage of sick and disabled under the government you voted for, why not go onto the government’s OWN website (not advertised – I found it by accident, and it was only open for comments for a very limited time) and read up on the experiences of real people being oppressed right now by the Tory Boot Boys at the DWP (and do bear in mind that many sick and disabled people don’t have access to the internet or can’t use it, or are simply too sick and beaten down to complain – yet still thousands responded in a very short time):

https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/pip-esa-assessments-forum-17-19/

Obviously, those writing on this forum are still living, so if that isn’t enough for you, then please go to: https://calumslist.org for a list of people killed by this government and find out how they suffered and died.

And if, after all that, you still feel inclined to defend this governmental abuse and genocide, why don’t you try and prove how wrong I am, and how I’ve imagined the pain, misery, and oppression I’ve suffered unnecessarily since 2012 (when they came for me)? I’d like to see you try and wash that blood off your hands, Mr. Stevens, as I have enough evidence to bury you in paperwork for a decade.

And do you know that life for all disabled people (except those cushioned by wealth) is lived under a black cloud of fear? And that the fear is never absent for even one second of any day since this vile regime was instigated? The sick and disabled of this country live the most difficult of lives already – they now have to cope with pain and illness without a moment’s peace. Is it any wonder they are sicker than ever? Please stop for a moment to consider this, Mr. Stevens: this government has repeatedly and deliberately targeted the sick and disabled for harassment and cuts to their income, as they are the demographic least physically able to fight back and have the least resources available to do so. How morally bankrupt does a person have to be to think this is acceptable?

It is so bad, in fact, that in September 2016 I served the DWP with a Death Letter that prevents it covering up the details of my death if it does succeed in killing me, so it can’t hide behind the Data Protection Act (DPA) as it does now in refusing to discuss particular cases. I have a copy on file with my GP and a solicitor, and I give permission for full disclosure of the coroner’s report and all aspects of my appalling treatment at the hands of this government since 2012. I understand many others have started doing this, too.

The sick and the disabled are also tired of government, media, and people like you conflating the two labels to justify government abuse. You can have a perfectly health disabled person that, with a few adjustments made available by an employer, is willing and able to work, and sick people who are just ill for a while and intend to go back to work… and then there are the seriously ill and severely disabled who will never be able to work no matter what the disgraced assessors at disability denial companies like Atos, Capita, and Maximus tell you. The former examples are used to justify the treatment of the latter, and allow the type of cognitive dissonance you displayed on BBC QT to flourish among the close-minded. It allows people like you to focus on a relatively able subgroup of disabled, like Paralympians, for example, to make erroneous assumptions that the others, the very vulnerable, can’t really be all that disabled, after all – meaning they certainly can’t be having rather a bad time of things and being killed off by the Tories. Newsflash! Very sick people are disabled by the limitations of their conditions (like being in a coma), BUT disabled people are not necessarily sick (like most Paralympians).

And if you’re trying to tell yourself all this simply can’t be true in the UK in 2017, or that surely the courts would be full of cases against the government for actual bodily harm and unlawful killing, as well as institutionalised and systematic abuse of sick and disabled peoples’ Human Rights… you’re in good company – we’re all wondering why it hasn’t happened, too.

I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on the issues I raised, Mr. Stevens – although I’d prefer you use facts, this time, rather than rely on a tirade of abuse and indignation, as you did on BBC QT.

Yours sincerely,

XXXXX

PS. Since you’re crowing about your disgusting performance on BBC QT on social media, I have copied this letter to various news outlets and other interested parties to also be made public in the interests of fairness and truth.

protesting again outside DWP HQ Caxton House, Tothill Street, London, Monday 20th November 3-4pm

Action, All Posts, Benefits, Job Centres, News, Politics No Responses »

Nov 112017

protesting again outside DWP HQ Caxton House, Tothill Street, London, Monday 20th November 3-4pm

KUWG will hold another protest outside DWP HQ at above date adn time against proposed Jobcentre Closures.

All are invited to join them for this.

UNITE community members

Action, All Posts, Politics 2 Responses »

Nov 092017

anyone who is both a DPAC supporter and member of UNITE community can apply to UNITE to attend this meeting. We need a united front to make it clear to everyone that #pauseandfix is not an option with Universal Credit. It must be#StopandScrap. If you are able to register to go to this please let us know ny emailing us at mail@dpac.uk.net

To book a place email

Tony.Winchester@unitetheunion.org requesting a place at the mini-conference on the 20th December include your unite membership number and branch number in your email.

MUTUAL BENEFITS

DWP CLAIMANTS AND STAFF WORKING TOGETHER

CONFERENCE for UNITE COMMUNITY, PCS and LUS MEMBERS

Wednesday 20^th December 10.00 a.m. – 4.00 p.m. at PCS HQ, 160 Falcon Rd, London SW11 2LN

Nearest Overground Station: Clapham Junction

AGENDA

9.30 – 10.00 a.m.: – Registration

00 – 10.40: Introduction and speakers:

John McDonnell (invited) Labour Party
Liane Groves National Coordinator, Unite Community
John McInally PCS Vice-President

10.40 – 11:00:

The Welfare Charter – Nick Phillips, London Unemployed Strategies
Stand Up For Your Rights groups – Waltham Forest and Southwark SUFYR

11.00 – 11.30 a.m. Questions and contributions

11.30 – 11.45: Break

11.45 – 12.30 p.m.: Workshops

The Welfare Charter: Labour Party and TUC – how to progress from policy to action to legislation
Stand Up For Your Rights Groups: how to set up a group in your area; strengths and weaknesses

12.30 – 1.00: Feedback from workshops and discussion

1.00 – 1.45: – Lunchbreak

1.45 – 2.00: Joint campaigns between Unite Community, PCS and LUS

Introductions from:

Tony Reay – PCS
Liane Groves – Unite Community
Nick Phillips – LUS

2.00 – 3.00:– Workshops x 4 (North, South, East and West regions)

To discuss local and national campaign priorities including:

Universal Credit rollout
Jobcentre closures
Digitisation and the threat of mass redundancies;
Rights to representation for claimants

3.00 – 3.45: Feedback from workshops and discussion

3.45 – 4.00: Conclusions and what happens next

4.00 ff.: Campaign/demo picture followed by refreshments and party

Frank Field says Disabled People are Worth Less

Action, All Posts, Disability Activism, Disability Rights, Politics No Responses »

Sep 252017

Disabled People Against Cuts and Black Triangle Campaign are horrified to find that so-called Labour MP and Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee Frank Field has put forward the suggestion that disabled people do not deserve to earn the living wage and argues that they are less productive than non-disabled people. These comments have been published in a set of essays in Learning and Work.

https://www.learningandwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/LW-Opp-for-All-FINAL.pdf

“One idea that has been mooted is to grant a specific

exemption to the National Living Wage to those whose

disabilities are deemed so severe that they will never

be capable of enough output to warrant payment of

the minimum wage, but who might nevertheless enjoy

significant wellbeing gains from involvement in an

appropriate workplace environment.”

Mr Field goes on to say that some disabled people might benefit from this as it would make them more attractive to employers in spite of the obvious potential for exploitation this would entail. We have news for Frank we do not wish to be paid less than non-disabled people for the same work and we are not happy to be exploited by anyone.

Both disability groups are calling for Frank Field to resign or be sacked from his role as Chair and have approached Jeremy Corbyn to insist that Field immediately withdraws this highly offensive comment. To date we’ve had no reply but will be following this up again after the Labour Party Conference has ended.

If this is allowed to pass unchecked by the Labour leadership people will then be entitled to ask whether the party really has fundamentally moved on since it introduced the catastrophic Work Capability Assessment regime under the last New Labour Government.

A DPAC spokesperson said “ This is more or less exactly what Lord Freud suggested about 3 years ago but to find the same offensive idea being pedalled by a Labour MP supposedly opposed to the abuse of disabled people’s human rights is somehow even more offensive. Frank Field’s comments are nothing short of disgraceful.”

How can Labour hope to be trusted as true champions of disability rights when they are represented on a key committee by someone with such retrogressive, Victorian views?

John McArdle from Black Triangle said “Field must now be publicly censured by the Labour Party. The suggestion that disabled people’s labour is worth less than that of other people and the Tory-set minimum – let alone a ‘living wage’ – is an affront not only to the human dignity of every disabled person in the U.K. and is a stark betrayal of the values of fairness and equality upon which the party was founded. “

Labour still has a mountain to climb before it can convince the majority of disabled people and their friends, families and colleagues that they have truly changed. If they wish to convince us that they are now firmly set upon reversing all these barbaric, deadly cuts to our support and intend to fully comply with the spirit and the letter of the UNCRPD then they must act now to impose party discipline on Field in keeping with their stated intention. As stated elsewhere, we require Labour to now wage war with the Tory Party in defence of our human rights in order to win the next general election by the landslide it deserves. Tolerating the views of frontline Labour politicians whose views are more in accord with Tory politicians than ordinary Labour members and supporters is no longer acceptable and that uncompromising message needs to go out, loud and clear.

You can read Frank’s even more offensive response here https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/labour-mp-told-to-quit-influential-post-after-offensive-minimum-wage-call/

And many thanks to John Pring from Disability News Service for alerting us to this.

Please let Frank Field know what you think about this idea

You can email using this contact form https://www.frankfield.co.uk/contact/contact-information.aspx

or tweet to him

@frankfieldteam

Join the Chronic Illness Inclusion Project

Disability Activism, Action, Disability Rights, Inclusive Education, Politics, Resources, Welfare reforms No Responses »

Aug 012017

The Chronic Illness Inclusion Project is a new research project aiming to capture the views, needs and aspirations of people with chronic illness. Sign up to get involved. In the longer term our ambition is to grow into a user-led organisation.

A new project aims to give a voice to people with chronic illnesses that get overlooked and misunderstood by the systems that should be supporting us.

The Chronic Illness Inclusion Project is a research project aiming to capture the views, needs and aspirations of people with chronic illness. It is part of the DRILL programme of user-led research and is supported by the Centre for Welfare Reform. You can sign up to find out more and get involved here

“As a sufferer of chronic ill health, I fully support the Chronic Illness Inclusion Project. People with chronic ill health are forgotten by governments when designing policies and never mentioned. We are often hidden by the umbrella term of ‘disabled’. The impacts of chronic ill health are wide ranging, from severe fatigue and cognitive problems, to days spent in lots of pain. The effects have a huge impact on the day to day functioning of a person. Many spend long hours unable to sleep or sleeping for long hours out of sheer exhaustion. You really cannot grasp those impacts unless you are affected by chronic illness. It’s not just the physical issues, you have to store that energy up to even have a shower or even go out for the day and plan well in advance, only to spend the next few days paying the price for small bit of enjoyment. It is time our voices were heard too, instead of our voices being alone in the wilderness. It can be very isolating. I urge people to join and support this campaign.”

– Gail Ward, Disability Campaigner DPAC NE/Black Triangle Campaign

We are inviting people to sign up to our mailing list where we can keep you up to date with activities and opportunities to get involved. Currently we’re planning an online discussion forum for people who are interested in having in-depth discussions about the social and political aspects of living with chronic illness. But in the longer term our ambition is to grow into a user-led organisation. How this happens could be up to you!

It will take time because we are two people with chronic illness working very part time hours. But this is a lottery-funded project where numbers count so by joining us you can help to show what a large and overlooked group we are.

Find out more by signing up to the mailing list

Thanks,

Catherine Hale and Jenny Lyus.

More information:
https://inclusionproject.org.uk/

Pick Yourselves Up, Dust Yourselves Down and Start All Over Again. Week of Action provisional dates between July 14th-23rd.

News, Action, All Posts, Disability Activism, Disability Rights, Politics 2 Responses »

Jun 092017

In spite of all the efforts we’ve made over the past few weeks sadly we haven’t all woken up to a Tory-free Britain but the Tories have sustained considerable damage and if May had any morals she would be resigning.

Of course we all know Tories don’t have any morals so she’s not.

The only way that the Tories can form a government however is to resort in pure desperation to forming an alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) the Northern Ireland equivalent of the nasty party.

The DUP sound delightful and they are ant-abortion and women’s rights, anti-LBGT rights and like Trump are climate change deniers. Just what any Tory would want as allies.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/who-are-the-dup-10589910

They also seem to have laundered dirty money for the Saudis and been involved in covering up the Kincora child abuse scandal. Mind as they’re all Christians so I’m sure things will be fine.

Key Tory ministers are also going, going, gone and in at least 2 of those instances DPAC supporters have been very active and vocal in campaigning to get rid of them. Ben Gummer, Jen Ellison, Simon Kirby and Gavin Barwell have packed their bags and won’t be returning to parliament any time soon. Amber Rudd’s majority has been slashed to a mere 346. Even better news is that in Pembrokeshire Crabb’s majority fell to a mere 314 votes. In Canterbury too a Tory stronghold for over 90 years the Tories were booted out. Their wobbly attempt to seek a larger majority to reinforce their strong and stable governance lies in tatters and there is no doubt at all that they are the laughing stock of Europe.

With your help we targeted 50 of the most marginal seats using facebook adverts which we’ll be analysing the use of more fully when time permits. However a quick glance this morning shows that Labour won in Brighton Kemptown, (our Miriam is also chair of the Labour Party there) Croydon Central, Warwick and Leamington, Ipswich, Keighley, Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, Cardiff North, Wrexham and the Fib Dems in Eastbourne. Just a few of the seats we have targeted with our adverts.

We are organising a week of action between July 14^th– 23^rd with final dates to be confirmed. If anyone wants to help with this or has any ideas they’d like to put forward about what we should do please email us as always at mail@dpac.uk.net

The Tory-free Britain we all dreamed of may not have happened just yet but we hope that the mass movement for change is something that will keep on growing and nor fizzle out. DPAC will certainly be hoping to help keep this amazing movement growing and hope locally you can all get involved and help to support that.

Solidarity everyone and the fight goes on #WeFightOn

ROFA Comparison of Party Disability Manifestos, with added comments on Green Party’s Social Care Policies

News, Action, All Posts, Politics 2 Responses »

Jun 032017

UK Disabled People’s Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance

As DPAC has concerns about the Green Party manifesto pledge on social care we have not included an analysis of that at the moment. The reply we had with regard to our query relating to this seems incomprehensible to us at the moment.

https://dpac.uk.net/2017/06/dpac-concerns-social-care-proposals-green-party-manifesto/

reply “I understand that someone has been in touch but just to reiterate that we are in no way suggesting voluntary involvement replacing publicly funded services.

We are totally committed to improving opportunities and support for disabled people, and the community led support service in the disability manifesto is a way to try and put communities and disabled people at the centre of support services so their voices are heard, including providing additional investment, training and support where it is required.
The proposal means that care should be more responsive to the needs of the community and gives the community, and disabled people, a greater voice, being led by them, and being a person-centred approach.”

Manifesto Comparisons: what the parties are saying about Deaf and disability issues

Political party election manifestos differ in size, in format and in the issues they focus on depending on how a party wants to promote itself and to fit with its election campaign.

To make it easier to directly compare the GE2017 manifestos and what they have to say on Deaf and disability specific issues, we have pulled out relevant pledges and collated them under a number of themes below.

At the end of this document you will also find links to the main party political manifestos and to the accessible formats that different parties have made available.

We urge all London Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations to encourage your members to engage in the 2017 General Election and make sure they have or know how to get information to help them decide how to use their vote.

Accessible places and transport

Conservative party

“we will review disabled people’s access and amend regulations if necessary to improve disabled access to licensed premises, parking and housing. We will work with providers of everyday essential services, like energy and telecoms, to reduce the extra costs that disability can incur.”

Green party

“All public transport should be fully accessible and step-free with a phase-in of free local public transport for young people, students, people with disabilities, and older people.”

Labour party

“To make sure that autistic people are able to access the whole of their community and to put an end to social isolation, Labour will set the ambition to make our country autism-friendly.”

“On our railways…In public ownership, we will deliver real improvements for passengers… introducing legal duties to improve accessibility for people with disabilities.”

“We will reform the legislation governing taxi and private hire services, introducing national standards to guarantee safety and accessibility.”

“Sporting events must be open and accessible to all. We will push sports authorities to make rapid improvements on access provision for fans with disabilities.”

Liberal Democrat party

“Increase accessibility to public places and transport by making more stations wheelchair accessible, improving the legislative framework governing Blue Badges, setting up a benchmarking standard for accessible cities, and bringing into effect the provisions of the 2010 Equality Act on discrimination by private hire vehicles and taxis.”

British Sign Language

Green party

“The Green Party is committed to supporting the BSL (England & Wales) Act to make BSL an officially recognised language.”

Labour party

“Labour will give British Sign Language full recognition as a recognised language.”

Disability benefits/social security

Green party

“Redress benefits injustice with a social security system that gives everyone confidence they will get support when they need it, including disabled people.”

Labour party

“Scrap the punitive sanctions regime.”

“The Tories have completely failed on their promise of making work pay and on tackling the barriers to work faced by people with disabilities.”

“Labour will repeal the following cuts in social security support to people with disabilities through a new Social Security Bill published in our first year in office.

We will:

increase Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) by £30 per week for those in the work-related activity group, and repeal cuts in the UC limited capacity for work element;
increase Carer’s Allowance by £11 to the level of Jobseekers’ Allowance;
implement the court decision on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) so that there is real parity of esteem between those with physical and mental-health conditions;
scrap the Work Capability and Personal Independence Payment assessments and replace them with a personalised, holistic assessment process that provides each individual with a tailored plan, building on their strengths and addressing barriers.
Labour will end the privatisation of assessments;
end the pointless stress of reassessments for people with severe long-term conditions.”

“We will change the culture of the social security system, from one that demonises people not in work to one that is supportive and enabling. As well as scrapping the Conservatives’ punitive sanctions regime, we will change how Jobcentre Plus staff are performance-managed.”

Employment

Conservative party

“We will get 1 million more people with disabilities into employment over the next ten years. We will harness the opportunities of flexible working and the digital economy to generate jobs for those whose disabilities make traditional work difficult.”

“We will transform how mental health is regarded in the workplace. We will amend health and safety regulations so that employers provide appropriate first aid training and needs assessment for mental health, as they currently do for risks to physical health, and extend Equalities Act protections against discrimination to mental health conditions that are episodic and fluctuating. We will consider the findings of the Stevenson-Farmer Review into workplace mental health support, working with employers to encourage new products and incentives to improve the mental health and wellbeing support available to their employees. And, as we did with Dementia Friends, we will train one million members of the public in basic mental health awareness and first aid to break the stigma of mental illness.”

Labour party

“Commission a report into expanding the Access to Work programme.” “Autism covers a wide range of conditions that reflect neurological differences among people. We will work with employers, trade unions and public services to improve awareness of neurodiversity in the workplace and in society.”

“We will change the culture of the social security system, from one that demonises people not in work to one that is supportive and enabling.”

Housing

Conservative party:

“We will fix the dysfunctional housing market so that housing is more affordable and people have the security they need to plan for the future. The key to this is to build enough homes to meet demand. That will slow the rise in housing costs so more ordinary, working families can afford to buy a home and bring the cost of renting down… We will meet our 2015 commitment to deliver a million homes by the end of 2020 and we will deliver half a million more by the end of 2022… We will enter into new Council Housing Deals with ambitious, pro-development, local authorities to help them build more social housing.”

Green party:

“Abolish the cruel and unfair bedroom tax.” “Significantly improve housing choice for D/deaf, disabled and older people by requiring all councils to appropriately plan for their housing needs and significantly increase the numbers of homes built to lifetime home and mobility standards over the next 5 years.”

Labour party:

“We will remove government restrictions that stop councils building homes and begin the biggest council building programme for at least 30 years. We will ditch the Conservatives’ ban on long-term council tenancies to give council tenants security in their homes. We want more people to have a secure tenancy in a home built to high standards. Labour will scrap the punitive bedroom tax, which has caused many people to be evicted from their home and their community.”

Liberal Democrat party

“Reach a housebuilding target of 300,000 homes a year by 2022, including direct building by government.”

Mental Health

Conservative party

“It was Conservatives in government that gave parity of esteem to the treatment of mental health in the National Health Service. We have backed this with a significant increase in funding: since 2010 we have increased spending on mental health each year to a record £11.4 billion in 2016/17, with a further investment of £1 billion by 20/21, so that we can deliver the mental health services people deserve. We will now build on this commitment. First, we will address the need for better treatments across the whole spectrum of mental health conditions. We will make the UK the leading research and technology economy in the world for mental health, bringing together public, private and charitable investment. Improving treatment services will not be sufficient, however. We will also reform outdated laws to ensure that those with mental illness are treated fairly and employers fulfil their responsibilities effectively. The current Mental Health Act does not operate as it should: if you are put on a community treatment order it is very difficult to be discharged; sectioning is too often used to detain rather than treat; families’ information about their loved ones is severely curtailed – parents can be the last to learn that their son or daughter has been sectioned. So we will introduce the first new Mental Health Bill for thirty-five years, putting parity of esteem at the heart of treatment.”

Green party

“Bring mental health care in line with physical health care and ensure people experiencing mental health crises are supported close to their home and support networks. Introduce mental health awareness training within the public sector and encourage a more open dialogue on the issue in wider society.”

Labour party

“In order to protect services, we will ring-fence mental health budgets and ensure funding reaches the frontline. We will end the scandal of children being treated on adult mental health wards and stop people being sent across the country, away from their support networks, to secure the treatment they need by bringing forward the ending of out-of-area placements to 2019. Labour will also bring an end to the neglect of children’s mental health. Half of people with mental health problems as adults present with symptoms by the age of 14. Yet, across England only 8 per cent of mental health funding goes to services for children and young people. In recent years, referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services have increased by two-thirds, and the number of young people presenting to A&E units with psychiatric conditions has doubled. Suicide is now the most common cause of death for boys aged between five and 19. Labour will invest in early intervention by increasing the proportion of mental health budgets spent on support for children and young people. We will ensure that access to a counselling service is available for all children in secondary schools. Giving mental health the same priority as physical health means not only ensuring access to services, but also making improvements, to those services. Choice is important in a modern NHS, and patients who receive their therapy of choice have better outcomes. Labour will therefore ask the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to evaluate the potential for increasing the range of evidence based psychological therapies on offer.”

Liberal Democrat party:

“Make waiting times for mental health care match those for physical health care.”

Rights

Conservative party

“We will build on the proud Conservative record in supporting those with disabilities, including the landmark Disability Discrimination Act of 1995. We want to see attitudes to disability shift as they have for race, gender and sexuality in recent years: it should be completely unacceptable for people with disabilities to be treated negatively.”

Green party

“Defend the Human Rights Act and UK membership of the European Convention on Human Rights, and reinstate funding for the Equality and Human Rights Commission.” “Action to tackle racism and discrimination on the basis of faith or disability, real equality for LGBTIQA+ people, equal rights for mixed gender couples to have a Civil Partnership.”

Labour party

“Labour supports a social model of disability. People may have a condition or an impairment but they are disabled by society. We need to remove the barriers in society that restrict opportunities and choices for people with disabilities. We will build on the previous Labour government’s commitment to people with disabilities in 2009 as signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and incorporate it into UK law.”

“Labour will strengthen access to justice for people with disabilities by enhancing the 2010 Equality Act, enabling discrimination at work to be challenged. We will ensure that under the Istanbul Convention, disability hate crime and violence against women with disabilities is reported annually, with national actions plans to address these issues.”

“Labour will retain the Human Rights Act.”

“We will reintroduce funding for the preparation of judicial review cases. Judicial review is an important way of holding government to account. There are sufficient safeguards to discourage unmeritorious cases. We will review the legal aid means tests, including the capital test for those on income-related benefits. Labour will consider the reinstatement of other legal aid entitlements after receiving the final recommendations of the Access to Justice Commission led by Lord Bach.”

“We will extend the Freedom of Information Act to private companies that run public services.”

“A Labour government will enhance the powers and functions of [the Equality and Human Rights] commission, making it truly independent, to ensure it can support ordinary working people to effectively challenge any discrimination they may face. A Labour government will reinstate the public sector equality duties and seek to extend them to the private sector, ensuring all citizens benefit from this Labour legislation.”

“Labour will legislate to make terminal illness a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.”

Liberal Democrat party

“Defend human rights by opposing any attempt to leave the European Convention of Human Rights.”

Social care

Conservative party

“our forthcoming green paper will also address system-wide issues to improve the quality of care and reduce variation in practice. This will ensure the care system works better with the NHS to reduce unnecessary and unhealthy hospital stays and delayed transfers of care, and provide better quality assurance within the care sector. We will reduce loneliness and promote technological solutions to prolong independent living, and invest in dementia research. As the majority of care is informally provided, mainly by families, we will give workers a new statutory entitlement to carer’s leave, as enjoyed in other countries.”

[To note the Conservative manifesto also made a commitment to changing how much people have to pay for social care but since it came out the leader of the Conservatives Theresa May has done a u-turn. The manifesto says: “the value of the family home will be taken into account along with other assets and income, whether care is provided at home, or in a residential or nursing care home. Second, to ensure this is fair, we will introduce a single capital floor, set at £100,000, more than four times the current means test threshold. This will ensure that, no matter how large the cost of care turns out to be, people will always retain at least £100,000 of their savings and assets, including value in the family home. Third, we will extend the current freedom to defer payments for residential care to those receiving care at home, so no-one will have to sell their home in their lifetime to pay for care.” Their position now seems to be that the amount will not be £100,000 but will be set after the election.]

Labour party

“In our first term, Labour will lay the foundations of a National Care Service for England. Our first urgent task will be to address the immediate funding crisis. We will increase the social care budgets by a further £8 billion over the lifetime of the next Parliament, including an additional £1 billion for the first year. This will be enough for providers to pay a real living wage without cutting the quality of care they provide. It will allow implementation of the principles of the Ethical Care Charter, already adopted in 28 council areas, ending 15-minute care visits and providing care workers with paid travel time, access to training and an option to choose regular hours. Labour will also increase the Carer’s Allowance for unpaid full-time carers to align the benefit with rates of the Jobseeker’s Allowance… Improving the quality of social care is a vital part of providing dignity in older age and independence and support for people who are vulnerable or have a disability or a mental health condition. Labour will build a new National Care Service. We will also set out the funding alternatives clearly and honestly, seeking to implement change through consensus.”

Liberal Democrats

“Save the NHS by putting a penny in the pound on income tax to give the NHS and social care services the cash they need.”

“Our longer-term objective will be to bring together NHS and social care into one seamless service – pooling budgets in every area by 2020 and developing integrated care organisations.”

Links to GE2017 political party manifestos

Conservative party: https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto

Green party: https://www.greenparty.org.uk/green-guarantee/all-manifestos-alternative-formats.html

Labour party: https://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017

Liberal Democrat party: https://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto

Manifesto accessible formats

The Conservative party has not produced any accessible formats.

Green party

Audio: https://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/gp2017/Green%20Party%20pleges.mp3

British Sign Language: the Green party has produced BSL videos for each section of its manifesto

Easy read: https://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/images/greenguarantee/gg-easyread-summary.pdf

Labour party

Audio: https://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017/accessible-manifesto#manifesto-Summary

Easy read: https://www.labour.org.uk/page/-/Images/manifesto-2017/LabourManifestoEASYREAD.pdf

Key manifesto pledges in Sign Supported English: https://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017/accessible-manifesto

Liberal Democrats

Audio part 1: https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/themes/5909d4366ad575794c000000/attachments/original/1495189781/Lib_Dem_Manifesto_2017_Part_1.zip?1495189781

Audio part 2: https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/themes/5909d4366ad575794c000000/attachments/original/1495189820/Lib_Dem_Manifesto_2017_Part_2.zip?1495189820

British Sign Language: https://www.libdems.org.uk/bsl

Easy read: https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/themes/5909d4366ad575794c000000/attachments/original/1495011810/easy_read_manifesto.pdf?1495011810

Apparently they’re Liars & Cheats but they’re Tories so what would you expect – Mass tweetout

Action, All Posts, Politics 1 Response »

Apr 242017

These are a list of GE 2015 election fraud MPs who cheated to win their seats. Their twitter names are included in this post and we suggest people remind them of what they’ve done. You might also like to add in @theresa_may to any tweets you make.

The twitter details are collated at the end of the post for easier use.

Wells

James Heappey beat Liberal Democrat Tessa Munt by 7,585 votes.
Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat) 18,662 32.8%

Spending limit: £16,092.51

Declared: £14,575.64

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £633.13

@JSHeappay

Northampton North

Michael Ellis beat Labour’s Sally Keeble by 3245 votes.

Spending limit: £12,248.64
Declared: £11,418.70

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,320.06

@Michael_Ellis1

North Cornwall

Scott Mann beat Liberal Democrat Dan Rogerson by 6,621 votes.

Spending limit: £14,732.43
Declared: £14,476.55
Not declared: hotels, food.

@scottmannmp

Weaver Vale

Graham Evans beat Labour’s Julia Tickridge by 806 votes.

Spending limit: £14,856.63

Declared: £13,720.32Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,013.69

@GrahamEvansMP

Sherwood

Mark Spencer beat Labour’s Léonie Mathers by 4647 votes.

Spending limit: £15,187.20
Declared: £12,760.00

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £277.20

@Mark_Spencer

Thornbury and Yate

Luke Hall beat Liberal Democrat Steve Webb by 1495 votes.

Spending Limit: £14,709.21
Declared: £13,128.08

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £568.87

@LukeHallMP

Kingston

James Berry beat Liberal Democrat Ed Davey by 2834 votes.

Spending limit: £13,660.32
Declared: £12,296.37

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £786.05

@JamesBerryMP

Broxtowe

Anna Soubry beat Labour’s Nick Palmer by 4287 votes.
Conservative gain

Spending limit: £15,000.09
Declared: £14,106.96

Not declared: bus, hotels, food, except for £140 paid to Beeston Conservative Club for “refreshments for Team 2015 activists”

Total estimated overspend: £1,256.87

@Anna_Soubry

Amber valley

Nigel Mills beat Labour’s Kevin Gillott by 4205 votes

Spending limit: £14955.09
Declared: £13881.62

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,076.53

@NigelMillsMP

Morecambe and Lunesdale

David Morris beat Labour’s Amina Lone by 4,590 votes.

Spending limit: £14,626.23
Declared: £14,118.09

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,641.86

@Davidmpmorris

Yeovil

Marcus Fysh beat Liberal Democrat David Laws by 5313 votes.

Spending limit: £16,242.54

Declared: £14,870.73

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £778.19

@MarcusFysh

Pudsey

Stuart Andrew beat Jamie Hanley by 4,501 votes.

Spending limit: £12,823.38
Declared: £12,314.60

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,641.22

@StuartAndrew

Plymouth Sutton and Devonport

Oliver Colvile beat Labour’s Luke Pollardby 523 votes.

Spending limit: £12,846.18

Declared: £8,769.37

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,926.81

@olivercolville

Lincoln

Karl McCartney beat Labour’s Lucy Rigby by 1,443 votes.

Spending limit: £13,136.28

Declared: £12,628.68

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,642.40

@KarlmccartneyMP

Torbay

Kevin Foster beat Liberal Democrat Adrian Sanders by 3,286 votes.

Spending limit: £13,217.88
Declared: £12,193.42

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,125.54

@Kevin-j-foster

South Thanet

Craig Mackinlay beat UKIP’s Nigel Farage by 2,812 votes.

Spending limit: £15,016.38
Declared: £14,837.77

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,971.39

No twitter

Nuneaton

Marcus Jones beat Labour’s Vicky Fowler by 4,882 votes.

Spending limit: £14,768.88
Declared: £13,435.51

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £816.63

@MarcusJonesMP

Cannock Chase

Amanda Milling beat Labour’s Janos Toth by 4,923 votes.

Spending limit: £15,355.23
Declared: £14,465.95

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,260.72

@amandamilling

Cheltenham

Alex Chalk beat Liberal Democrat Martin Horwood by 6,516 votes.

Spending limit: £13,229.34
Declared: £12,576.45
Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,497.11

@AlexChalkChelt

Dudley South

Mike Wood beat Labour’s Natasha Millward by 4,270 votes.

Spending limit: £12,295.68
Declared: £11,452.60

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,306.92

@mikejwood

Sutton and Cheam

Paul Scully beat Liberal Democrat Paul Burstow by 3,921 votes.

Spending limit: £12,760.38

Declared: £12,461.20

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £1,850.82

@scullyp

Bury North

David Nuttall beat Labour’s James Frith by 378 votes.

Spending limit: £12755.40

Declared: £7151.30

Not declared: bus, hotels, food

Total estimated overspend: £3,448.10

@DavidNuttallMP

Following further investigation by Channel 4 News, another six MPs have been identified who were visited by the Battlebuses but failed to declare the costs.

They are Neil Carmichael, MP for Stroud, @stroud-neil

George Eustice, MP for Camborne & Redruth, twitter account not used

Jake Berry, MP for Rossendale and Darwen, @JakeBerry

William Wragg, MP for Hazel Grove, @William_Wragg

John Stevenson, MP for Carlisle, @JohnStevensonMP

Mary Robinson, MP for Cheadle @MaryRobinson01

Collated twitter details

@JSHeappay, @stroud-neil, @JakeBerry, @William_Wragg,

@JohnStevensonMP, @DavidNuttallMP, @scullyp, @mikejwood,

@amandamilling,@AlexChalkChelt, @MaryRobinson01, @StuartAndrew,

@olivercolville,@KarlmccartneyMP,@Kevin-j-foster,@MarcusJonesMP, 3

@JSHeappay, @Michael_Ellis1,@scottmannmp,@GrahamEvansMP,@Mark_Spencer,

@LukeHallMP,@JamesBerryMP,@Anna_Soubry,@NigelMillsMP,

@Davidmpmorris,@MarcusFysh

With thanks to Daily Mirror for this information from their article

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/busted-29-tories-how-broke-7467603

Time to Trash the Tories #TrashTheTories #GE2017

All Posts, Action, Politics, Who2Vote4? 8 Responses »

Apr 202017

General Election Meme #TrashTheTories

You can download all the graphic images for the #TrashTheTories Campaign here to use yourself and share.

Take part in our online #TrashTheTories campaign

This week Theresa May announced yet another Tory U-turn scrapping their fixed term parliaments to call a surprise General Election. This couldn’t possibly be because the CPS is likely to charge 30 of the corrupt bastards with fraud I suppose?

Like most other people I’ve probably had enough elections in the past couple of years to last almost a lifetime but it does give us all an opportunity to show how powerful disabled voters are and to get rid of the Tory vermin once and for all. And we need to do that for all of those previously driven to their deaths and for others still being harassed and vilified simply for being disabled.

For the past 7 years disabled people have been treated as scapegoats for the rancid and vile Osborne austerity agenda. As a group of people we have endured cuts which have impacted on us 9 times more than others and for those with the highest support needs 19 times more. The UN has found the UK Tory government guilty of the grave and systematic violation of disabled people’s human rights thanks to the efforts of DPAC and our supporters who presented evidence to the inquiry carried out in October 2015. So we have indisputable evidence from an internationally respected organisation about the atrocities people have been forced to endure.

It is vital that disabled people and their friends and families are registered to vote on June 8^th and that they do vote to get rid of the Tories.

The deadline to register to vote is Monday 22nd May. If millions of people register in the next two weeks, then we’ll have already won.

Here are things you can do to make it happen:

1. Don’t lose your vote

If you’re not already registered to vote, register now. It takes just 2 minutes, and all you need is your national insurance number. Remember, if you’re a UK resident from the Republic of Ireland or a Commonwealth country you’re eligible to vote.

If you’re not sure where you’ll be on 8th June, make sure you register for a postal vote. Just fill out this form and post or email it to your Electoral Registration Office. It must reach them by 5pm on 23rd May, so make sure to send it this week.

If you want a postal proxy you must apply by Tuesday 23 May.

If you want a different type of proxy vote (someone to vote for you), you must apply by Wednesday 31 May.

For an emergency proxy vote, for example if you end up in hospital, it’s 5pm on the day of the election.

2. Get everyone you know to register

If every single one of us gets five people to register, we’ll win this election. Do your bit, make sure your friends and family are all registered to vote by 22nd May.

Share this video

Share this video on your Facebook and forward this email to five people telling them to register to make their mark on this historic election.

While real change is unlikely to happen without a leftist Labour party in power our first battle must be against the Tories and ridding ourselves of them. In the 2015 general election Ed Miliband effectively threw away the bulk of the Labour vote in Scotland by refusing to run on an anti-austerity agenda and this will be problematic this time round but not impossible to combat.

What if you have a Labour MP who you don’t think it’s worth voting for? I’ve already seen people in Southwark saying they would never vote for the Labour MP there and then there’s Birmingham Yardley’s MP, Edgbaston’s MP and others. Worse could you/should you vote Lib Dem aka the little yellow Tories with a seemingly homophobic leader if they offer the opportunity to trash the Tories? Tactical voting to eradicate one scourge on mankind or voting from the heart might be the choice only you can make.

You’re all adults so in spite of requests we have no intention of telling you how you should vote but will be presenting various facts, figures and policies for you to consider over the next few weeks plus organising some fun activities on and off-line for you to take part in.

Graphic Images to download and share (all made by the ever-brilliant Brian Hilton)

You can also download all the graphic images for the #TrashTheTories Campaign from here https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B37vGQoIDyPrVFBITDVoQkNzX0k

General Election Meme #TrashTheTories Ballott Box Meme for the #TrashTheToriesCampaign Loud hailer meme for the #TrashTheTories Campaign

Theresa May “Our Blood on Her Hands” Memes

Theresa May "Our Blood on Her Hands" Memes #1

Downloadable Leaflet

Southampton Hots Up – Battle for Independent Living Continues.

Action, All Posts, Events, Independent Living, Politics No Responses »

Feb 132017

#CareHomesStink

#RightsNotTelecare

#SupportNotCuts

Details of the Protest in Southampton & Online

This letter has come from the leader of the council.

Dear Tim,
I appreciate that some of you prefer to demonstrate against the Labour Council rather than the Tory government. But if you are going to do this please have the decent thing and contact us and check whether the thing you are demonstrating against is true. I know we are in the era of ‘alternative’ truth and ‘false news but we do expect you to know better.

The Facts
1. The Care act came in in April last year and requires us to complete annual reviews of all those in receipt of a care package. This created an additional burden on our already stretched social workers. It was proposed and approved that the Council employ through Capita additional social workers to carry out these reviews.
2. No instruction was issued with regard to the outcome of these reviews. No incentive was given to Capita to save money we simply wanted the reviews done.
3. Capita were unable to recruit enough Social workers to complete the work and an offer was made to the ones they had to work some weekends for an extra payment (£200).
4. The vast majority of these reviews (all of which were carried out by fully qualified and registered social workers) lead to no change. Some were adjusted to change the way a service was delivered using modern technologies and these have lead to a saving to the Council. A saving that means less jobs will be cut this year and less other services reduced.
5. An appeals process exists with these assessments’ which has been used by precisely zero clients.
6. As part of our arrangement with Capita we are gradually taking over this work with our in house team working alongside Capita employees. We expect in due course to take over all these reviews.

These are the facts – so please tell me what you are demonstrating about.

Simon

So if those are the facts why do the leaked emails say – either the Labour council leader has no idea about what is happening in Southampton or -well – or he’s just downright lying. Take your pick.

1) From Sue Thomas, sent 15/9/16

Hi All,

The cavalry is on the way!!!

Have just heard from Adam Tait we have 3 new colleagues joining us on Monday, pulling the stops out to make sure they can ‘hit the road’ with you with the minim delay.

Adam is also suggesting some incentives for the Team. He is well aware of some of the difficulties we have had, and that you are giving me the best performance you are able.

But, now we need MORE!! The suggestions below are cut & paste from Adams e-mail to me.

FROM ADAM’S E-MAIL

I’m not sure how weekend working might go down with the existing team (as a one off) but if we included these days we have an extra 4 days available for eight of the team people and two available for 11 of the team until we have TIB on 27^th September. I would suggest we offer an extra incentive if any of the team are prepared to work these weekends or part of…. starting this weekend. It’s short notice but if we paid their existing rate at time and half or double time you may get some take up? I’m not sure if we would need to report these days within the MI suite but that’s not my call. An alternative might be payment of increased hours worked in the week. Again as a one off.

In addition, as the next week or so is so critical I am happy to roll out an extra incentive scheme at the earliest point whereby if a person manages to improve their performance by x% from the previous 4 week average they receive a £y bonus. 10% = £100, 20% = £200 etc. This can be measured across both productivity levels and the savings achieved. If one person improves their productivity by 20% and savings by 20% they receive a £400 bonus.

AGREED WEEK-END RATE TIME & HALF

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AND CONTACT ME NO LATER THAN 5PM WITH YOUR RESPONSE (EVEN IF YIOU ARE NOT INTERESTED) THIS IS NOT A LONG TERM COMMITMENT – IT’S EMERGENCY FIRST AID TO ENSURE OUR SURVIVAL!!!!

If you want to discuss with me you’ve got my numbers.

Regards – Sue

Sue Thomas – Lead Practitioner,

Capita Review Team,

Adult Social Care,

Southampton City Council,

Southampton SO14 7LY

2) From Sue Thomas, 8 November 2016:

Good Morning,

Another late night last night – Conference Call. Followed by several hours ‘bashing my brains’ for answers.

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY – THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT

As you know our Productivity and the Financial Efficiencies we are making are under great scrutiny.

Looking at all the figures in the Reports last night it was very clear that both Productivity and Efficiencies have fallen dramatically.

The senior managers who are leading this transformation want to know why it appears we are failing to realise the results in service delivery and savings they anticipated

By commissioning this Project. They in turn are being asked to explain to Councillors of SCC.

Issues such as changes to the Team, Reduced size of Team, Annual Leave, Bank Holidays etc. have all been taken into account but things still don’t add up.

I have stressed how hard you are all working – but we don’t appear to be getting the results we had during the Pilots.

As I said at the Team Meeting yesterday I think it may be about the ways in which we are working – IF IT’S NOT ABOUT HARD WORK, IT MUST BE ABOUT SMART WORK!!!

I HAVE PUT MY NECK ON ‘THE CHOPPING BLOCK’ – YOU HAVE PRODUCED THE RESULTS BEFORE, I KNOW YOU CAN AND I BELIEVE YOU WILL DELIVER THE RESULTS REQUIRED.

NOW I HAVE TO PUT MY MONEY WHERE MY MOUTH IS – PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!

REMINDERS

BE ASSERTIVE WHEN MAKING APPOINTMENTS – SCC ARE REQUITRED BY LAW TO COMPLETE THESE ASSESSMENTS/REVIEWS (NEW LEGISLATION 2014)

AS MANY VISITS AS POSSIBLE BEGINNING OF THE WEEK – WEDNESDAY PM – RECORDING

CASE ‘OPEN’ DAY OF VISIT – MINIMISES DAYS CASE LEFT OPEN (ASSUMING INACTIVE/UNPRODUCTIVE)

CLOSE WHEN ANY REFERRALS HAVE BEEN MADE (MAX 2 DAYS)

L.D WILL TAKE A LITTLE LONGER – THIS IS RECOGNISED BY ALL.

15 min. CALL OUT!! TELECARE –IN!!

ASSESS NEED NOT WANT.

ACTIVELY ENCOURAGE DIRECT PAYMENTS

CAREFUL ATTENTION WHEN RECORDING WORK SHEETS, YOUR WORK SHEETS INFORM THE WEEKLY REPORTS FOR THE DECISION MAKERS – DON’T SHOOT YOURSELF IN THE FEET!!

THE WORK SHEET IS CHANGING THIS WEEK PLEASE TAKE EXTRA CARE.

THINK ABOUT ASSET BASED ASSESSMENT, FOR THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR I WILL BE SENDING INFORMATION.

We don’t have very much time to turn this situation around. if we can’t/don’t do it all the hard work you have put in so far will have been for nothing.

Not to put too fine a point on things WE ARE ALL ON THE WAY HOME.

I AM NOT ASKING YOU TO STAND BEHIND, ME I’M ASKING YOU TO STAND BESIDE ME SO WE CAN BRING THIS PROJECT TO A SUCCESSFUL (FOR ALL OF US!!) CONCLUSION TOGETHER.

Regards – Sue

Sue Thomas – Project Lead Practitioner,

Capita Review Team,

Adult Social Care,

Southampton City Council,

Southampton SO14 7LY

DPAC’s response to Simon:

Capita offered their staff bonuses of up to £400 to cut people’s packages (Capita said that this was never introduced but they haven’t denied that they made the offer).
Capita’s freelance social workers were paid more than £1,000 a week (after tax) and put up in three-star hotels while they were encouraged to cut people’s packages.
The emails clearly show that they were asked by the council to produce savings (ie cuts).
The Council Leader says “. Some were adjusted to change the way a service was delivered using modern technologies and these have lead to a saving to the Council.” We do not believe Telecare is an acceptable alternative to human support and nor are packs of incontinence pads. If the council leader thinks the following email from a Capita manager is acceptable, then he should be ashamed of himself and needs to resign: The manager suggested an “extra incentive” for the team if they could improve on their previous “performance” and suggested that the bonus “can be measured across both productivity levels and the savings achieved. If one person improves their productivity by 20 per cent and savings by 20 per cent they receive a £400 bonus.” The council never commented on the ‘extra incentive’ email, we can’t think why not.
Does he also think the other email that was sent by capita to their team is acceptable? “The senior managers [from the council] who are leading this transformation want to know why it appears we are failing to realise the results in service delivery and savings they anticipated by commissioning this project. They in turn are being asked to explain to Councillors of SCC [Southampton City Council].”
Another thing to note is that the whistle-blower said that it was the service-users with no support networks to advocate on their behalf with the council who were often the ones who were having their packages cut. This might explain why there have not been any appeals (if that’s true).
I suspect that, if you take away the care packages that included residential care (which are almost impossible to cut), the proportion of direct payments packages that were cut is significant.
I notice the council leader says that ‘No incentive was given to Capita to save money’. That doesn’t mean that they didn’t tell Capita that they wanted them to save money (which they did). My understanding is that Capita knew they would lose the contract if they didn’t make those savings. That seems like an incentive to me…

The potential reality of basic income schemes

All Posts, Benefits, OCAP, Politics 6 Responses »

Jan 022017

Basic Income:

Progressive Dreams Meet Neoliberal Realities

John Clarke

Up until now, the concept of Basic Income (BI) has enjoyed a greater history of being proposed than of being implemented. We may well be approaching a period, however, when this changes. The Ontario Government is holding consultations on setting up a BI pilot project. The Legislature in another Canadian Province, Prince Edward Island, has agreed to test out a version of BI. Pilot projects are also impending in Finland, the Netherlands and Scotland.

Basic Income has been suggested in an exceptionally wide range of forms, often with completely different objectives in mind. In fact, we can draw a line between the models that are concerned with improving lives and raising living standards and those that are focused on intensifying the capacity for capitalist exploitation. Among those in the ‘progressive’ category there is considerable diversity. There’s the ‘universal demogrant’ that provides an income to everyone and the concept of a ‘negative income tax’ involving some level of means test. BI proposals come from liberal quarters that are responsibly redistributive, reduce poverty and inequality and ease up on bureaucratic intrusion. The above mentioned proposal for an Ontario pilot project would be part of this camp. Then there are the models that have more radical, transformative objectives in mind. These suggest that BI could be used to take from employers the power of economic coercion itself by severing the link between work and income. Often such ideas are tied to the notion of preparing for sweeping technological displacement and a ‘workless future’ by providing secure, adequate and unconditional income. Given the vast extent to which forms of unpaid labour are performed by women in this society, it is hardly surprising that there are also feminist arguments for BI.

I have to say that the one really common thread that I see running through all of the notions of a progressive BI is that they pay great attention to explaining how nice their systems would be but give little if any thought to the concrete prospects of implementation. Before looking further at these deficiencies and proposing an alternative approach, it might be useful to consider more seriously the neoliberal version that is hanging like a sword over all our heads.

Neoliberal Version

The deeply reactionary ideas of Charles Murray have extended to some very sinister proposals for BI. There are two basic elements that shape his system. Firstly, the universal payment, after the compulsory purchase of private health insurance, is set at the dreadfully low amount of $10,000 a year. Secondly, he is utterly insistent that all other systems of provision must be dismantled as a BI is put in place. Canada’s right wing Fraser Institute, recently used its blog to stress the same points as Murray, making clear that the level of provision must not interfere with the supply of low waged workers.

If governments today, as they intensify the neoliberal agenda, are starting to consider the possibilities of BI, I see three factors at work. Firstly, there is the not unimportant issue of legitimacy. Particularly because they are being provided with a generous amount of ‘progressive’ cover, they are able to present their deliberations on BI as a responsible weighing of the common good. The Ontario Liberals stand out as international champions in this regard. Their BI pilot project consultations, have enabled them to put in place yet another round of fake dialogue, with the empty promise of a “better way” diverting attention as they push people even deeper into poverty. The World Bank and the IMF have been worrying out loud about the backlash against their austerity agenda and its devastating impacts. That IMF economists are themselves musing about BI, is perhaps significant in this regard. It advances their agenda but can be dressed up to look progressive. It may be the best thing for the institutions of global capitalism since the myth of ‘poverty reduction’.

The second element of BI that I think is of interest to the architects of neoliberalism is that it can fine tune economic coercion as they create an ever more elastic workforce based on the most precarious forms of employment. The income support systems that emerged out of the Poor Law tradition, stressed intense restrictions and moral policing. Along with horribly inadequate benefit levels, this has been very useful in driving people into low waged work to an unprecedented extent. It may, however, be time to rethink this to a degree. If people are moving between poverty wages and poverty level benefits more frequently in a precarious job market, perhaps they can be more effectively prodded into the worst jobs with less intrusive benefit systems. A less rule bound delivery of poverty income, that gives people a chance of retaining their housing, may be needed to keep them job ready. Linked to this, of course, is the huge boost to the employers of a BI system that constitutes a form of wage top up. Provided the payment is meagre, it will not impede the flow of low paid workers but it will mean that their employers receive a subsidy that absolves them from having to pay living wages or come under pressure to increase the amount they do provide.

Thirdly, the great advantage of neoliberal BI is that the inadequate and dwindling payment it provides turns those who receive it into customers in the marketplace. In my opinion, BI would be far from the best way to strengthen the social infrastructure at any time but in the context of an intensifying agenda of austerity and privatization, it is a recipe for disaster. It’s really about the commodification of social provision. Your payment may actually be less conditional and somewhat larger but, as you shop through the privatized remains of the social infrastructure, with inadequate means and very few rights, you are dramatically worse off. That, in my view, is what is being prepared by those who will actually implement a system of BI and the hopes and wishes to the contrary of its progressive advocates don’t count for very much.

Progressive Dreams

I said previously that proposals for redistributive or transformative models of BI are generally marked by a tendency to focus on the desirability of what is being advanced while paying much less attention to actual prospects for implementation. I’ve yet to see, quite bluntly, any serious attempt to assess what stands in the way of a progressive BI and what can be done to bring it into existence. It simply isn’t enough to explain how just and fair a given model would be if it could be adopted. In order to credibly advance BI as the solution, there are some questions that must be settled.

Firstly, income support systems came into being because, while employers welcome an oversupply of labour and the desperation that comes with it as something that boosts their bargaining power, the total abandonment of the jobless creates social unrest. Some measure of income support, provided as a reluctant concession, has proved to be necessary. However, the systems of provision that have been put in place have always been as inadequate as possible so as to undermine employer strength as little as possible. A widely delivered or even universal adequate payment would greatly tilt that balance back the other way. What reason is there to think that this is likely to be implemented?

Secondly, over the last several decades, concessions made during the post war years have been taken back. Trade unions have been weakened, workers’ rights undermined and low waged work has increased considerably. The degrading of income support systems has been central to creating the climate of desperation needed to achieve this. Not only have benefits for the unemployed been attacked but other systems, especially for disabled people have been undermined so as to generate a scramble for the worst jobs. This has led to a shift in the balance of forces in society and we are fighting a largely defensive struggle. Given this very unfavourable situation, in which unions and movements are not in the ascendancy, how can it be supposed that those profiting from the present situation are likely to accept a measure of redistributive social reform that is at least as sweeping as anything put in place during the post war boom? What is the plan to make this happen?

Thirdly, as right wing governments and political parties directly linked to the most reactionary business interests consider BI and set up pilot projects that provide meagre payments and focus on how to ensure people on social benefits become low waged workers, what reason is there to imagine that a progressive BI, rather than the neoliberal variant, is being cooked up?

Regardless of these issues, it is sometimes asserted that an adequate system of provision must be put in place simply because we are moving toward a “workless future.” In such a society, it is suggested, masses of people who have been displaced will have to be provided for and the capitalists will have to think like Elon Musk, of Tesla Motors and support BI because it is the only sensible and rational solution. To imagine such responsible provision for the future is to place undue faith in a system based on the making of profit. If they won’t stop building pipelines in the face of environmental catastrophe, there’s little reason to expect them to worry too much about sensible solutions to technological displacement. There simply is no post-capitalist capitalism and no social policy innovation that is going to bring it about.

At a recent panel on Basic Income that I spoke at, the moderator posed a challenge. She accepted that BI might not be a way forward but asked, if that were so, what “bold vision” could be advanced in its place. It’s a fair question but a realistic appraisal of what we are up against is still obligatory, even if that has some sobering aspects to it. The great problem that we have is that the neoliberal years have done a lot of damage. The level of exploitation has been increased and working class movements have been weakened. While what we demand and aspire to is very important, the bigger question is what we can win. What’s disturbing about the left wing turn to BI is that is seems to think there is a social policy end run around the realities of neoliberalism and the need to resist it. There is no such thing.

British Labour Party and BI

With very good reason, there has been considerable excitement internationally around the Jeremy Corbyn leadership in the British Labour Party. His close ally, Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, has been paying some attention to adopting BI, as part of a platform that would express a break with the austerity consensus. McDonnell, from a position on the left of a major social democratic party, raises the possibility of a ‘best case scenario’ for progressive BI. For that very reason, the question is posed of whether the ‘bold vision’ I spoke of should be framed around the universal payment concept or devoted to other objectives.

“

Basic Income, when all is said and done, is a vision for nothing more than the means to be a customer in an unjust society that decides what is for sale.”

In my opinion, if we are to consider goals we set and demands we put forward in the face of neoliberalism, that are based on the needs of workers and communities and create the conditions for challenging capitalism itself, we sell ourselves well short if we settle for something so limited and inherently conservative as the universal payment. BI, when all is said and done, is a vision for nothing more than the means to be a customer in an unjust society that decides what is for sale. How much bolder and more meaningful to fight for free, massively expanded and fully accessible systems of healthcare and public transportation? How much better to focus on the creation of social housing and try to expand it so that, not only the poorest, but most working class people enjoy its benefits? There is universal child care and vast array of important community services to pay attention to. Moreover, we can work to wrest as much power as possible out of the hands of the mandarins of state bureaucracy and fight to increase the control working class people exercise over the public services they rely on. When it comes to existing systems of income support, we should not for a moment accept their poverty level benefits, bureaucratic intrusion and forms of moral policing steeped in racism and sexism. There is a fight to be taken forward for living income, full entitlement and programs that meet the real needs of unemployed, poor and disabled people, as opposed to the present ‘rituals of degradation’ they embody. At every point, let’s try to ensure that these expanded services are not paid for by other working class people but by forcing the corporations, banks and those who own them to pay by increasing their tax burden and imposing levies on their wealth.

The struggle to expand and improve public services would have to, of course, be linked to workers’ struggles for living wages, workplace rights and real compensation for injured workers. Beyond this, let’s challenge as much as we can the ‘business decisions’ that deplete resources, pollute and threaten us with ecological disaster.

I am suggesting that our movements need to challenge, rather than come to terms with, the neoliberal order and the capitalist system that has produced it. For all its claims to be a sweeping measure, the notion of progressive BI is a futile attempt to make peace with that system. In reality, even that compromise is not available. The model of BI that governments are working on in their social policy laboratories will not ‘end the tyranny of the labour market’ but render it more dreadful. The agenda of austerity and privatization requires a system of income support that renders people as powerless and desperate as possible in the face of exploitation and that won’t change if it is relabelled as ‘Basic Income’. •

John Clarke is an organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP).

English Translation of article published in Junge Welt magazine – The Legacy of Brexit for Disabled People in the UK

Access to Work, Action, All Posts, anti racism, News, Politics 1 Response »

Dec 232016

It’s difficult if not impossible to adequately define the outcomes of Brexit for anyone living in the UK let alone for disabled people. The result where a small minority of the electorate voted to leave the EU has so far caused massive political turmoil but no concrete proposals as the new unelected Prime Minister, Teresa May, thrashes around wildly clutching at straws.

What is certain is that the promise of an extra £350 million a week for our National Health Service has not and will not be forthcoming. In fact this promise promoted widely by the Leave campaigners in the Tory Party and a reason why many UK citizens were conned into voting to leave turns out to have been an outright lie.

Many of the more deluded disabled people who also voted to leave did so simply because they wanted to punish David Cameron the then Tory Prime Minister who was stupid enough to call a referendum in the first place. Having resigned first as Prime Minister and then a little later as a Member of Parliament I’m sure the multi-millionaire Cameron is indeed ‘suffering’. What is certain that disabled people will.

As soon as the outcome of the referendum was known Cameron together with a whole host of Leave politicians turned their backs on guiding the UK through the Brexit process – no doubt so they don’t get blamed for the ensuing disaster.

The devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not want to leave the EU and in the case of Northern Ireland the Good Friday agreement and peace process means that there must be a parliamentary vote if Northern Ireland is to leave the EU. There is also a legal challenge to seek a parliamentary vote on Brexit as the outcome of the referendum is advisory only. So chaos reigns as the UK population dangle precipitously in limbo.

As well as months spent focussed on the referendum campaign, the immediate aftermath was an election for a new Tory Party Leader and a second internal party election to try to remove the previously democratically elected Labour Party leader. During these many months of political bat and ball and trips around the country by various politicians the rights of disabled people have largely been forgotten especially by the media. Serious campaigning has been put back months as the political focus has been firmly placed elsewhere.

On a plus point the fascist party UKIP which very much led the Brexit campaign on an anti-immigration stance have also fallen into disarray and appear on the verge of oblivion. There have already been several elections for a new leader with none of them being successful in finding someone who stayed more than a couple of weeks. As the old British saying goes “every cloud has a silver lining”

What is certain for the UK is that Brexit has led to a massive increase in race-related hate crime and there is no doubt those who perpetrate these crimes feel their actions are vindicated by the vote to leave. Xenophobia is rampant in parts of the country fuelled by some of the media as well as the Brexit campaign rhetoric. Disability hate crime has been rising year on year since 2010 in part thanks once again to the media-fuelled ‘useless eater’ and scrounger propaganda. For disabled people as well as those perceived to not be British hatred and abuse is only likely to increase in the post-Brexit frenzy that currently pervades the country.

Since Brexit as well the value of the pound has slumped which has already led to an increase in price for even essential daily items including for some the #Marmitegate tragedy where the price of Marmite has already risen in some cases by 12.5 % in shops.

Price increases for food and other essential items is likely to pose a particular problems for disabled people and others in receipt of UK Social Security payments as there is an austerity-led freeze on the amount of benefits which will be paid until at least 2020. The UK already has some of the lowest rates for out-of-work benefit payments in the EU so starting from a very low base rate the value of payments will fall even further as exchange rates fall.

On top of this fall in the value of the pound and freeze on increases in social security payments early in November an austerity-led cap on the total overall amount of benefit payments per household will result in massive reductions of £3,000 less per annum being paid to claimants. Many of those affected by this drastic cut will be disabled although other disabled people will be exempt from this cut.

From next April 2017 disabled people who make a new claim for Employment and Support Allowance and who are found not to be fit for work but able to undertake Work Related Activity which involved forcibly being made to jump though inappropriate and unacceptable hoops to continue being entitled to payments will also see their weekly income cut drastically by one-third. All of these changes will as already said be taking place at the same time the value of the pound falls against other currencies. Needless to say fuel prices are also continuing to rise and the number of UK residents on low incomes who have to choose between eating and heating because they can’t afford both continues to rise.

As disabled people and others wait for the mythical 35 million a day that we’re apparently saving by leaving the EU to be redeployed to help fund our National Health Service as promised we find our Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt putting in place plans to drastically reduce both the number of hospitals – down from 9 to 5 in London – and health service funding elsewhere in the UK through the implementation of Sustainability and Transformation Plans. This is very definitely not what Brexit promised for our health service. Hunt has also further undermined our NHS by stating that we want British only doctors in the near future in spite of the fact that around one-third of doctors currently are from other EU countries.

For disabled people who need personal assistance to live and take part in society Brexit is also bad news. Many people employ care workers/personal assistants from EU countries and now not only does the fall in the value of the pound affect the exchange value of wages paid but on a longer term basis no-one, neither the employers or the employees, have any idea about a future right to work here when the UK leaves the EU. It could of course be years before any more is known.

Workers rights generally are very much an unknown quantity at the moment as well. Teresa May has said the Conservatives want to protect those in place yet many people are on insecure zero hours contracts with no legal protections. The introduction of fees for Employment Tribunal hearings has also negatively affected worker’s rights to challenge unfair dismissals. All of these issues regarding employment rights continue to disproportionately affect disabled workers and the fear that once EU constraints on our employment laws are removed is causing major concerns for those disabled people who are in work.

For disabled people not in work the ending of Workfare and Work Choice schemes funded by the European Social Fund can really only be seen as positive. Neither of these schemes worked well in finding disabled people suitable or sustainable employment opportunities.

Workfare schemes in particular have been likened to unpaid slave labour which they were since claimants were forced to work for no pay under threat of having their benefits removed if they did not. Having said that there were a number of locally EU funded schemes to help disabled and other people into work which have worked well and for which there will now be no further EU funding available.

In other areas of life shared by disabled and non-disabled people the loss of European funding from the Social Fund, from the Common Agricultural Policy and from Regional Development grants will nevertheless be grossly detrimental to the overall standards of living and is likely to have a further negative trickle down impact on food prices. The idea that these funding streams will be replaced by our own government’s spending is laughable given their ongoing austerity agenda and determination to replace Trident nuclear weapons.

A Disappointing Start to the Labour Party Roadshows – GMCDP uninvited

Access to Work, Action, All Posts, News, Politics 1 Response »

Nov 112016

GMCDP uninvited

On 28th October, Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP) were contacted by the office of Debbie Abrahams, the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and invited to provide a key speaker for the launch of the Labour Party Disability Equality Roadshow on November 11th 2016.

The Labour Party said they wanted

“to ensure that we listen directly to the views of disabled people on a wide range of issues as we begin to develop Labour’s policies for the next election. We hoped to have brief introductory speeches from Jeremy Corbyn, Debbie and yourself, before breaking out into smaller groups to discuss policy themes, drawn from the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.”

The invitation cited GMCDPs “promotion of a rights-based approach to disability, extensive experience of campaigning to assert the rights of disabled people” and we, of course, were pleased to accept.

Two of the major issues that have been important to disabled people, we said, are Independent Living and Assisted Suicide, and we would like to talk about them. This seemed to worry our contact, who said that Labour had not got a formal policy position on the future funding of the ILF and he was concerned that this might be a difficult issue for Jeremy Corbyn and Debbie Abrahams to respond to if this was brought up. We explained that this was broader than the ILF and we wouldn’t be looking to put anyone on the spot, or expecting any commitment from Labour about this on the day.

Despite such reassurances from ourselves the Office of Debbie Abrahams has now withdrawn its invitation to GMCDP to provide a speaker. Although we will still attend, we are immensely disappointed.We have been a part of – and are linked into – disabled people’s organisations and networks and have offered to speak on two of the most serious matters facing disabled people today. We are astounded that the Labour Party does not want to hear us. Because of this we have decided to make our views available widely and are posting this message on our website. Please circulate it as widely as possible, so that the Labour Party knows just how important these matters are.

Please see below the speech we intended to deliver. Please circulate it as widely as possible, so that the Labour Party knows just how important these matters are.

1 Introduction:

Firstly I would like to thank Jeremy, Debbie and the Labour Party for inviting GMCDP to speak today at the launch of your Disability Equality Roadshow. Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People have no political affiliations, we have worked with past governments, Labour and Tory alike. We have also protested against both parties.

However, we are now living through an unprecedented period of sustained attacks on disabled people; the services we receive, the support we require and our very right to exist. You will no doubt have read the UN report published on Monday that state austerity policies ‘amount to violations of disabled people’s rights’. I mention this just so you don’t think that disabled people are making all this up.

We face inequality it all aspects of our lives, whether it be transport, housing, education or employment. Employment is a prime example of where we face inequalities at every level, from recruitment, retention, promotion and dismissal. To compound these difficulties the employment support programme Access To Work is being cut. Yes that’s right its being cut! At a time when we should be investing in support, the government is making cuts to this programme. This is impacting particularly upon Deaf People who require British Sign Language interpreters within the work place. If we want to see Deaf lawyers, Deaf teachers and Deaf members of parliament, cutting support is not the way to go about it!

However, for GMCDP and for disabled people’s organisations in the UK, there are two issues that are of greatest concern, two issues that we want to reach out to Labour on.

2 Independent Living

Firstly, the principals of Independent Living for disabled people are being dismantled. The Independent Living Fund has gone. It was established to support disabled people with the highest support needs to live independently within the community rather than locked away in residential care, and the government scrapped it! Jeremy knows this because unlike the majority of politicians who shrugged their shoulders and walked away, Jeremy stood with us outside the Court of Appeals in the cold and stood up for us in parliament and campaigned for the retention of the ILF.

So what has the closure of the ILF meant for disabled people? It’s meant that some disabled people are having their care support cut in half, some disabled people told to wear incontinence pads at night, despite the fact they are not incontinent. Southampton CCG are saying that anyone needing more than 8 hours care support a day now face the threat of going into residential care. Here in Greater Manchester, Rochdale council is planning cuts to its Learning Disability Services by moving some people who have existing tenancies into residential care.

What we need is a national, needs-led system, independent of local authorities to administer independent living support, free at point of delivery and paid for through taxation. This system should build on the learning from the Independent Living Fund and be a key strategic mechanism for ensuring Disabled people’s rights under the UNCRPD are fully and consistently realised across the country.

3 Assisted Suicide

The other big issue, the scariest issue, the most misunderstood and misreported issue is disabled people’s opposition to the legalisation of Assisted Suicide.

At times it feels to us that we are fighting a pincer movement.

On the one side we have austerity and the narrative that has been spun by successive governments that disabled people have had it too easy for too long, that we are bleeding the county dry and that we are unsustainable and an unacceptable expense (I thought that was the banks, but apparently not). There was the punitive introduction of Workfare, the bedroom tax, cuts to Disabled Students Allowance, cuts disguised as reforms to ESA, DLA which are relentless and ongoing.

On the other side we have repeated attempts to introduce Assisted Suicide legislation. Let us be clear that GMCDP, DPAC, Inclusion London and all the other major UK disabled people’s organisations or disability charities strongly oppose any attempt to introduce any Assisted Suicide legislation. At a time when we are facing massive cuts to services and benefits, we need support to live, not assistance to die. It is not only disabled people who oppose Assisted Suicide. The British Medical Association and Royal Colleges of Physicians, GPs and Surgeons and The Association for Palliative Medicine are all opposed to changing the law in relation to Assisted Suicide.

Despite this, supporters of Assisted Suicide claim that disabled people’s opposition to Assisted Suicide isn’t relevant as any such legislation would only apply to people who are terminally ill with less than six months to live and that safeguards would be put in place to protect the vulnerable (I think that means people like me). Well our concerns are relevant because we have the evidence from countries like Belgium, Holland and parts of the USA where Assisted Suicide is already lawful. In almost all cases there has been some kind of ‘mission creep’ on the criteria of who is eligible. It’s follows a similar pattern. At first it is limited to those with ‘less than six months to live’, then is extend to those in ‘chronic pain’ and eventually encompasses those found to be experiencing ‘unbearable suffering’. All such criteria is subjective and ultimately divides society into those deemed worthy to live and those deemed not worthy of life. So we vehemently oppose legislation that would give the state the power to end our lives through fear and coercion and then sold to us as ‘choice’.

Conclusion

Imagine the power we could harness if all those, either for or against Assisted Suicide could instead turn their energies to fighting for better palliative care for all. Fight for a better funded NHS and a social care system that enables people to maintain their choice, control and dignity. Not being able to wipe your own bum, or hold a spoon or dress yourself are not reasons to kill people or lock them away in residential care or withdraw their support so they become prisoners in their own homes.

So we are asking the Labour leadership to talk to disabled people’s organisations about Independent Living and about our opposition to Assisted Suicide. Today is a great start but if you want your policies to be the policies that disabled people support, that disabled people endorse and ultimately vote for, then there must be an ongoing dialogue. So here’s our contact details not just GMCDP but our sister organisations, Not Dead Yet UK, the Alliance for Inclusive Education and the other organisations I have already mentioned. Work with us. You provide the tea and coffee and we’ll bring the biscuits.

Thank you.

A quick reminder of DPAC’s stance on isms and phobias

All Posts, anti racism, News, Politics 4 Responses »

Nov 032016

Following the receipt of several requests for support from people which included phrases such as “my benefits have been cut because we give too much money to immigrants” or “if we didn’t waste so much money on food aid our benefits wouldn’t be cut” this is just a quick reminder to everyone that DPAC campaign from a non-racist, non-homophobic, non-sexist position.

We do not agree with hate fuelled rhetoric against any group of people, pedalled by the likes of the Daily Mail and Express, and do not support the divisions into ‘them’ and ‘us’ which allow the government to weaken any joint fight back against attacks to claimants and others.

Neither do we support the scapegoating of migrants and refugees

If you do hold a racist, homophobic, ageist, or sexist viewpoint please seek support elsewhere. We’re sure your local UKIP branch would be happy to welcome you.

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