Charities: Govt rhetoric on welfare leading to inciting attacks on disabled people..

[roctrevezel]

I don't want to turn this into a bunfight, but why didn't these Labour MPs do anything about this when their party was in government?

.

A clue, (one of the attendees not listed because he was of no importance back then was David Miliband.)
http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/articles/rutherford07.html
New Labour, the market state, and the end of welfare
Jonathan Rutherford

Jonathan Rutherford looks at the connections between government and the insurance business in their joint project to reduce eligibility for sickness benefits.

© Soundings 2007
In November 2001 a conference assembled at Woodstock, near Oxford. Its subject was 'Malingering and Illness Deception'. The topic was a familiar one to the insurance industry, but it was now becoming a major political issue as New Labour committed itself to reducing the 2.6 million who were claiming Incapacity Benefit (IB). Amongst the 39 participants was Malcolm Wicks, then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Work, and Mansel Aylward, his Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). Fraud - which amounts to less than 0.4 per cent of IB claims - was not the issue. The experts and academics present were the theorists and ideologues of welfare to work. What linked many of them together, including Aylward, was their association with the giant US income protection company UnumProvident, represented at the conference by John LoCascio. The goal was the transformation of the welfare system. The cultural meaning of illness would be redefined; growing numbers of claimants would be declared capable of work and 'motivated' into jobs. A new work ethic would transform IB recipients into entrepreneurs helping themselves out of poverty and into self-reliance. Five years later these goals would take a tangible form in New Labour's 2006 Welfare Reform Bill.

 

[treelover]

Suprised Purnell hasn't been pied...

 

[treelover]

'A clue, (one of the attendees not listed because he was of no importance back then was David Miliband.) '


wow, didn't know that...

 

[audiotech]

I share your anger about the majority of Labour MP's in government doing little. Those who 'rebel' are few and far between and have little voice against the executive when they do, an executive that's all powerful in today's Parliamentary system. I was pointing out that sometimes you'll find a different response from MP's representing their constituents.

 

[treelover]

'Is Labour abolishing illness?

Alison Ravetz

Published 01 May 2008
52 comments

The new rules on incapacity benefit stake everything on a major gamble: that a large proportion of claimants are, in fact, well enough to work

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2008/05/work-benefit-claimants-reform



Purnell really is the new Keith Joseph, he sees things in a purely academic way and has no concern for the consequences, with his new ideas of contributions or 'deserts' as D/Milliband calls it(now it is all very clear) he said disabled people will be protected as they can't work, but his welfare reforms mean that through the Work Capability Assessment many people will be 'reconfigured as 'fit to work' and thus put onto these programmes as illness is abolished*. Then again, was there anything new apart for robbing Peter to pay Paul(taking way bus passes etc)

btw, he has the ear of Ed Milliband and the former banker Liam Bryne, expect to see these proposals become LP policy.

thee above article from 2008 highlights this

 

[dynamicbaddog]

Saw the headlines of the Daily Mail and Express today along the lines of "3 out of 4 benefits claimants actually fit for work". I usually feel like pulling the papers out all over the floor but I'd probably get done for criminal damage and get 4 years inside.

Someone ought to do fake Daily Mail front pages that you could just print out and lay over the top of the stack saying something like '3 out of 4 Daily Mail readers actually paedos'.

good article here exposing the real facts behind those headlines
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/07/government-spin-war-on-disabled-continues/

the articles confuse applicants ( to which these statistics refer) and pre-existing claimants ( that the newspapers seek to slam). Furthermore, Richard Exell over at the TUC has got down among the data, to show that the 75 per cent figure is pure spin.

 

[treelover]

hopefully when the new Press Watchdog is in place, these smears and misinformation can be effectively challenged.

 

[SpineyNorman]

You are being sarcastic, right?

 

[ViolentPanda]

You are being sarcastic, right?

He must be, because there's fuck-all chance of a press watchdog depriving a sector of the media of the ability to shit on those least able to defend themselves.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Incredibly, even Daily Mail readers are starting to catch on to the fact that the reform of DLA is joke.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/a...enefits-wasted-lives-millions-claim-them.html

Just read some of the comments marked as most popular.

The tests are not "too tough"- they are largely irrelevant questions which have been declared "not fit for purpose" by a government appointed committee and they ignore doctors & senior medical consultant reports! They are mickey mouse tick box questionnaires that bear no relevance whatsoever to a claimant's true health status - particularly so for the chronically sick and disabled. Their only aim is to downgrade the amount of money a sick and disabled person receives by moving them onto a lower benefit. Come on Daily Mail - how about some decent, genuine reporting about the ATOS bonus paid "assessors" scam & the true cost of the appeals. Let's hear the other side of the story - instead of your standard government press release every day.

- Baxter, Amtphill

Of course, they manage to sneak immigration into a lot of the comments, but that is to be expected.

What a noble aspiration, lets get people working. FIRST CREATE THE JOBS, AND STOP GIVING THEM TO FOREIGNERS

- ron styles, yorkshire

Here are some of the lowest rated.

Having read comments from readers everytime this subject crops up, I get the impression that most Daily Mail readers are on Incapacity Benefit (or whatever its called now). They seem to have convinced themselves that they can not work in any capacity, although they find no problem with reading and writing daily comments on this site.

- nelly, uk

Everybody has known for a long time that these benefits are the lazy scroungers charter. The left wing looney liberals should visit many of the countries I have lived and worked in where the logic is simole - don't work, no money, no food, starve, then die. Simple

- hard done by private sector worker, bedale

 

[Mrs Magpie]

...and furthermore, some statistics about the rise in disability hate crime.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/data...y-hate-crime-increase-reported-incidents-data

 

[treelover]

No, by the liberal left I meant... err... the liberal left. It's unlikely that an organisation called the disability alliance would neglect disabled claimants and instead focus on fashionable causes, wouldn't you say? That's the second time in a couple of days you've made a weird, off target criticism of one of my posts, why? Is there a problem? Or am I missing something here?

By liberal left I mean the so called "left" in the Lib Dems, the Labour party, student politicos, etc. I certainly don't mean civil society organisations like the one in your post - in fact I mentioned that I'd volunteered for one such group.

Actually during the N/L years, the Disablity Alliance were very close to NL, its CEO left to become a LP Cllr, they also hosted the disability hub at one of the LP conferences, it was sponsored by Serco, the new organisation they are part of is funded to 'help' the Remploy workers find work in the private sector!

 

[treelover]

A clue, (one of the attendees not listed because he was of no importance back then was David Miliband.)
http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/articles/rutherford07.html
New Labour, the market state, and the end of welfare
Jonathan Rutherford

Jonathan Rutherford looks at the connections between government and the insurance business in their joint project to reduce eligibility for sickness benefits.

© Soundings 2007
In November 2001 a conference assembled at Woodstock, near Oxford. Its subject was 'Malingering and Illness Deception'. The topic was a familiar one to the insurance industry, but it was now becoming a major political issue as New Labour committed itself to reducing the 2.6 million who were claiming Incapacity Benefit (IB). Amongst the 39 participants was Malcolm Wicks, then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Work, and Mansel Aylward, his Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). Fraud - which amounts to less than 0.4 per cent of IB claims - was not the issue. The experts and academics present were the theorists and ideologues of welfare to work. What linked many of them together, including Aylward, was their association with the giant US income protection company UnumProvident, represented at the conference by John LoCascio. The goal was the transformation of the welfare system. The cultural meaning of illness would be redefined; growing numbers of claimants would be declared capable of work and 'motivated' into jobs. A new work ethic would transform IB recipients into entrepreneurs helping themselves out of poverty and into self-reliance. Five years later these goals would take a tangible form in New Labour's 2006 Welfare Reform Bill.

Good grief, missed that last time the thread was live, I had noticed he took a lot of interest in benefits, so he was at the infamous and seminal meeting...

Its now Wannsee, but it has had a very baleful influence on millions of lives..

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Sorry, it's just this was the most appropriate thread to post the hate crime stats.

 

[shagnasty]

Most peoples disabilities are not obvious ,so people are attacked are obviously more visible, by walking sticks etc.that makes it even worse,many people mainly older ones need walking aids.i don,t need a stick but as i get older i am more wobbly on my pins

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Those that really bear the brunt are people with learning disabilities.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Those that really bear the brunt are people with learning disabilities.

MH conditions as well I'd imagine.

 

[treelover]

Have just finished an analysis of BBC coverage for a bit of research on prejudice. The findings suggest to me that the BBC (the great public service broadcaster) must take a good share of the blame for disabled people becoming objects of hatred and violence.
Here are just a couple findings:
- All 20 randomly selected BBC News website items about disability and benefits were about people cheating on their benefits and none provided any critique of government welfare policies.
- There was no indication in any of the items that disability benefit fraud is very low. The items might well have given the impression that cheating on disability benefits is the norm.

From CIF, RupertBH

concurs with all my experience...

 

[treelover]

Sorry, it's just this was the most appropriate thread to post the hate crime stats.

eh, nowt to be sorry for, imp info...

 

[Frances Lengel]

Those that really bear the brunt are people with learning disabilities.

"Mate crime" and such?

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Well, I was more thinking of what I've seen on the street, public transport etc but several people I know have been targeted for money etc

 

[William of Walworth]

...and furthermore, some statistics about the rise in disability hate crime.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/data...y-hate-crime-increase-reported-incidents-data

Depressedly, very depressedly actually, I'm not surprised by this

Anyone here ever worked with people SOME** of whom really, really hate people on benefits?

**(a minority, but at times nastily vocal)

This kind of mood music, combined with some people just being small minded, resentful, hateful arseholes, leaves anecdotes of people 'scamming' disability benefits, as if it's a piece of piss to do this, all too infrequently challenged. Not even by myself because it's pretty hard not to lose your calm when confrinted by bigots, hard not to lose the rag and be counterproductive because of that ....

And the SW Evening Post's reportage of such things, focussing on areas/localities that people know well, has a receptive and gullible audience/believership amongst SOME around here.

'SOME' capitalised because :

(a) it is only minority -- but a highly loudmouthed, very twattish one -- and they do influence those around them, even when most don't actively join in

and also

(b) because in another thead I've recently been accused of being bigotted against my area, or even (by suggestion) the Welsh myself, for expressing frustration against this kinda thick as pigshit, smallminded, backward vileness.

Which I'm very sure happens country/UKwide, but I post as I find, and I'm finding far more of this around here than I used to before I moved into the area.

BUT I am very much NOT saying that 'all' SA-area dwellers think like this, or that all that do are Welsh/SA-area natives anyway.

More relevantly though -- how the hell do you even start to challenge or question people who are determined to think that benefit claimants are scammers and that the disabled are frauds?


People just want to believe it .... my current pessimism knows few bounds about this ...

 

[William of Walworth]

Thought occurred that posting today's obituary of Alf Morris by Andrew Roth might be appropriate here.

A determined voice/campaigner for the sick and disabled, back in the days when Labour still
had some good'uns, actually achieving stuff!

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Just read this....

Disability hate crime and three wishes for our Paralympic legacy

By Katharine Quarmby
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012...e-and-three-wishes-for-our-paralympic-legacy/

 

[frogwoman]

What i dont understand is why people would want to attack somebody in a wheelchair. I mean what the fuck? Really? I suppose some people are just cunts and bullies but even so. How can the default assumption about people in wheelchairs now be that they are faking it or has there always been that prejudice and they are just findin an extra "reason" for it?

Has there always been a proportion of disability hate crime or has this got drastically worse in the last few years?

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Has there always been a proportion of disability hate crime or has this got drastically worse in the last few years?

It's always been around, but much worse lately.

 

[frogwoman]

What the fuck?

Are the people committing these crimes young teenagers or are they older?

 

[Mrs Magpie]

All ages, although the ganging up in jeering groups is usually teenagers.

 

[ericjarvis]

What i dont understand is why people would want to attack somebody in a wheelchair. I mean what the fuck? Really? I suppose some people are just cunts and bullies but even so. How can the default assumption about people in wheelchairs now be that they are faking it or has there always been that prejudice and they are just findin an extra "reason" for it?

I think we've just become a nation of bullies.

Has there always been a proportion of disability hate crime or has this got drastically worse in the last few years?

Yes and yes.

 

[frogwoman]

I just can't understand why though I know kids are cruel to one another when at school and I was bullied at school at times because of behaving "weirdly" but for a grown adult to physically attack somebody in a wheelchair or who is blind? What the fuck? I mean seriously? I don't understand it. I know that a lot of racism etc happens because people feel "threatened" but what is threatening about somebody in a wheelchair?