The Hostile Environment for Disabled and Sick.

[treelover]

DWP loses court fight over treatment of severely disabled

UK government discriminated against people left worse off by universal credit, say judges

www.theguardian.com

The government has suffered a humiliating court defeat after it was found to have unlawfully discriminated against thousands of severely disabled people who were left financially worse off after moving on to universal credit.

The court of appeal dismissed a challenge by the Department for Work and Pensions to two previous high court decisions that protected claimants in receipt of severe disability premium against a drop in income under the new benefit.

A victory?

 

[treelover]

The Guardian view on welfare policy: cutting out the poor | Editorial

Editorial: Benefits need to be determined by evidence and humanitarian concerns, not just the balance of political power

www.theguardian.com

Guardian finally comes out against the welfare reform, not enough, no acceptance of the systematic nature of the welfare reforms, no Windrush style investigation, but its a start, now lets see if the Unions, etc, have motion to Conferences, etc about it.

 

[treelover]

Have you been affected by changes to disability welfare payments?

We’d like you to help us document how problems with welfare benefits have affected people with disabilities. Share your experiences

www.theguardian.com

 

[Shechemite]

STAFF at a private hospital were caught on camera intimidating a patient during an inspection by health watchdogs.

Cygnet Hospital in Boxted Road, Colchester, is still rated inadequate following a visit by Care Quality Commissioner (CQC) inspectors in November.

The facility cares for people with mental health problems and severe learning difficulties and a report says people working there intimidated a patient prior to restraining them and failed to follow their management plans.

Medication was also found not to be administered under the correct legal authority with some consent forms inadequately filled in.

Other findings included that ligature risk assessments were not thoroughly completed and some staff alarms did not work.

Hospital staff 'intimidated mental health patient' according to damning report

STAFF at a private hospital were caught on camera intimidating a patient during an inspection by health watchdogs.

www.gazette-news.co.uk

 

[treelover]

At least 69 suicides linked to DWP's handling of benefit claims

Report warns true number of cases where claimants took own lives as a result of DWP actions could be far higher

www.theguardian.com

The evidence is coming now, will we see the necessary robust responses?

 

[8ball]

At least 69 suicides linked to DWP's handling of benefit claims

Report warns true number of cases where claimants took own lives as a result of DWP actions could be far higher

www.theguardian.com

The evidence is coming now, will we see the necessary robust responses?

No idea, how many molotovs have you got?

 

[treelover]

I have done my bit, believe me, but will civil society, etc, step up to the plate?

 

[8ball]

I have done my bit, believe me, but will civil society, etc, step up to the plate?

Nope.

 

[Shechemite]

EHRC taking legal action against the government apparently

 

[Shechemite]

 

[treelover]

Locked away: the national scandal you may have missed | John Harris

The way the NHS, local authorities and private providers treat our most vulnerable people should shame us all, says Guardian columnist John Harris

www.theguardian.com

Shameful.

Anne Longfield, Children's Commissioner on her 2019 study found:


“There are hundreds of children in England growing up behind closed doors, locked away for their own safety or the safety of others. They should never be invisible or forgotten. Our research shows the system that detains them is messy and the state often lacks very basic information about who all these children are, where they are living and why they are there. Shockingly, we found over 200 children who would have remained completely invisible in the national data had we not asked about them... "

Private asylums mentioned in the article, what next paying to see the inmates?

 

[treelover]

Adele’s first phone conversation with Eddie came a couple of weeks after he was admitted. “He said: ‘I don’t like it here; they’ve got lockers.’ I said: ‘That’s absolutely fine – you can keep all your things there.’ He said: ‘No, Mum – the lockers are for me.’” What he was describing was a seclusion room: “a bare room, with no windows. Sometimes they put in a plastic mattress. There was no toilet in the one Eddie was in: he was given a bowl.”

FFS, 18th C!

Why isn't this making people hit the streets?

 

[existentialist]

FFS, 18th C!

Why isn't this making people hit the streets?

Are you hitting the streets? Perhaps therein lies the answer to your question.

 

[Proper Tidy]

FFS, 18th C!

Why isn't this making people hit the streets?

Fucking hell.

There's been a bit of coverage in welsh press lately of teens/young adults being sent to a place in birmingham. The two kids I've seen cited were both in a place in carmarthenshire which got shut down so shunted off to birmingham. Parents not allowed contact. Horrible stuff.

 

[treelover]

Are you hitting the streets? Perhaps therein lies the answer to your question.

I am talking about allies who are in a position to physically do something, i have made my situation clear, I shouldn't be picked up on it, i wonder if you would question another minority member's of their lack of activity or otherwise.

 

[existentialist]

I am talking about allies who are in a position to physically do something, i have made my situation clear, I shouldn't be picked up on it, i wonder if you would question another minority member's of their lack of activity or otherwise.

Yes I would, if the entirety of their output was hectoring guilt-trips that implied that the poster felt they had some kind of moral authority over the rest of the world. You might have many very good reasons for not taking action, but that doesn't entitle you to lecture the rest of the world on their failings. At least, not without some kind of pushback.

You could make exactly the same points (almost all of which I broadly agree with) without the whining undertones telling us how much more enlightened you are than the rest of us.

 

[Pickman's model]

I am talking about allies who are in a position to physically do something, i have made my situation clear, I shouldn't be picked up on it, i wonder if you would question another minority member's of their lack of activity or otherwise.

Did I imagine disabled people attaching them to the gates of downing street years back? It's really fucking patronising to suggest disabled people aren't in a position to do something physically themselves

 

[treelover]

Actually they are cautious about doing these sort of things that they were great at doing, not least as the police shared their info with the DWP, thhey need allies, where are they?

now, do i recall an outraged left doing something about the above?

mmm...

 

[Shechemite]

I am talking about allies who are in a position to physically do something, i have made my situation clear, I shouldn't be picked up on it, i wonder if you would question another minority member's of their lack of activity or otherwise.

No please stop this. It just ruins all the useful stuff you say and do.

 

[Shechemite]

What would ‘hitting the streets’ look like in this context treelover? What’s the plan?

We already hit the streets.

Search Twitter - #caminolb For example

 

[existentialist]

Actually they are cautious about doing these sort of things that they were great at doing, not least as the police shared their info with the DWP, thhey need allies, where are they?

now, do i recall an outraged left doing something about the above?

mmm...

I have a very clear sense that your studied - and continual - disappointments at the failings of "the left" seem to confirm a conclusion you have already reached, and you're thereby rather pleased to be proven right.

Which rather begs the question of whether you'd actually notice what "the left" was doing, if it was something that didn't confirm your preconceived notion?

 

[Pickman's model]

Actually they are cautious about doing these sort of things that they were great at doing, not least as the police shared their info with the DWP, thhey need allies, where are they?

now, do i recall an outraged left doing something about the above?

mmm...

the thing about allies is, they do stuff with you. they don't do stuff for you, you're asking - as ever - for people to substitute themselves for the disabled. and if someone did do something like that you'd be the first person to pipe up and knock them down.

 

[Shechemite]

you're asking - as ever - for people to substitute themselves for the disabled. and if someone did do something like that you'd be the first person to pipe up and knock them down.

Welcome to our movement

 

[treelover]

DWP accused of offering disabled people 'take it or leave it' benefits

Lower value ‘deals’ allegedly offered to vulnerable people appealing against decisions

Vulnerable and disabled people are being pressured to accept unrecorded telephone “deals” paying thousands of pounds less in benefits than they may be legally entitled to, charities and lawyers have said.

The Department for Work and Pensions has been accused of making “decide right now” offers to people who have appealed against a decision to deny them benefits. In some cases the people say they were told the offer would be withdrawn if they did not accept it within minutes.

It is claimed that by making the lower offers over the phone, the DWP is trying to settle cases that could lead to payments of significantly more each year if they go to a tribunal. Around 70% of such appeals go in favour of the people who bring them.

DWP accused of offering disabled people 'take it or leave it' benefits

Lower value ‘deals’ allegedly offered to vulnerable people appealing against decisions

www.theguardian.com

Not fit for purpose again, making very vulnerable people offers they can't refuse so not to go to appaeal, etc, some with severe cognitive difficulties.

 

[brogdale]

Not fit for purpose again, making very vulnerable people offers they can't refuse so not to go to appaeal, etc, some with severe cognitive difficulties.

Utter fucking disgrace.

 

[treelover]

The War on Disabled People
Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe
Ellen Clifford
Blows the lid on what has been described by the UN as a 'human catastrophe' – the government’s war on disabled people

In 2016, a United Nations report found the UK government culpable for ‘grave and systematic violations’ of disabled people’s rights. Since then, driven by the Tory government’s obsessive drive to slash public spending whilst scapegoating the most disadvantaged in society, the situation for disabled people in Britain has continued to deteriorate. Punitive welfare regimes, the removal of essential support and services, and an ideological regime that seeks to deny disability has resulted in a situation described by the UN as a ‘human catastrophe’.

In this searing account, Ellen Clifford – an activist who has been at the eart of resistance against the war on disabled people – reveals precisely how and why this state of affairs has come about. From spineless political opposition to self-interested disability charities, rightwing ideological myopia to the media demonization of benefits claimants, a shocking picture emerges of how the government of the fifth-richest country in the world has been able to marginalize disabled people with near-impunity. Even so, and despite austerity biting ever deeper, the fightback has begun, with a vibrant movement of disabled activists and their supporters determined to hold the government to account – the slogan ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ has never been so apt. As this book so powerfully demonstrates, if Britain is to stand any chance of being a just and equitable society, their battle is one we should all be fighting.

ACADEMIC: Politics & International Relations: Books: Bloomsbury Publishing (UK)

www.zedbooks.net

New book coming out, wonder if it will have any impact

 

[Pickman's model]

New book coming out, wonder if it will have any impact

you'll have to wait till june to see a copy but possibly reviewed in the bourgeois press beforehand

will you be pre-ordering, treelover? incidentally, i wonder what you make of the bit about the fight back having started.

 

[Shechemite]

New book coming out, wonder if it will have any impact

Impact on who?

On us? What does Clifford (who is selling herself short in the company she keeps) have to say to us that we don’t already know?

On the rest of the class? We shouldn’t be relying on activists to be building solidarity should we? We can do that ourselves surely?

On the enemy? I find more satisfaction in overcoming the enemy than in earning their sympathy. Can’t speak for anyone else

 

[Pickman's model]

Impact on who?

On us? What does Clifford (who is selling herself short in the company she keeps) have to say to us that we don’t already know?

On the rest of the class? We shouldn’t be relying on activists to be building solidarity should we? We can do that ourselves surely?

On the enemy? I find more satisfaction in overcoming the enemy than in earning their sympathy. Can’t speak for anyone else

MadeInBedlam, what is best in life?
MadeInBedlam: to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!

 

[Shechemite]

MadeInBedlam, what is best in life?
MadeInBedlam: to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!

Yeah cause you’re just living your best life aren’t you fella. How’s the recovery going?

Can you take your adolescent edgy goth bullshit elsewhere. I can set up a thread just for you if you’d like?