Category: Ethical journalism

Once you hear the jackboots, it’s too late.

May 20, 2014December 1, 2019 · 34 Comments ·

Dr. Lawrence Britt examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to overlook some of the parallels with increasingly authoritarian characteristics of our own right wing government here in the UK.

Controlled mass media is one example of such a defining feature of fascism, with “news” being directly controlled and manipulated by the government, by regulation, or via sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship is very common. And then there is an obsession with “National Security” – with fear being used as a “motivational tool” by the government on the public.

In June 2013, a visit by Government national security agents to smash computer hard drives at the Guardian newspaper offices hit the news surprisingly quietly, when Edward Snowden exposed a gross abuse of power and revealed mass surveillance programmes by American and British secret policing agencies (NSA and GCHQ) last year. (More detailed information here).

David Miranda, partner of Glenn Greenwald, Guardian interviewer of the whistleblower Edward Snowden, was held for 9 hours at Heathrow Airport and questioned under the Terrorism Act. Officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.

This was a profound attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process, and as Greenwald said: “To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation.”

Absolutely. Since when was investigative journalism a crime?

Even the Telegraph columnist Janet Daley remarked that these events were like something out of East Germany in the 1970s.

This certainly raised critically important legal and ethical issues, for those involved in journalism, especially if some kinds of journalism can be so easily placed at risk of being politically conflated with terrorism.

Once again, the mild and left wing/liberal Guardian is under attack by our Tory-led government. In an extraordinary and vicious attack on The Guardian newspaper, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) communications chief and senior government spin doctor, Richard Caseby, has called for the newspaper to be “blackballed” and prevented from joining the new press regulatory body, because “day after day it gets its facts wrong.” Remarkably, “ineptitude or ideology” were to blame for what he deemed “mistakes” in the paper’s coverage of the DWP’s cuts to benefits. He called for the broadsheet to be kept out of the new Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), set up after the Leveson Inquiry into media standards.

As a former journalist at the Sun and The Sunday Times, Caseby certainly has an axe to grind against the paper that revealed how those right wing papers’ stablemate, the News Of The World, had hacked the voicemail of murdered teenager Millie Dowler, sparking the phone hacking scandal that prompted Rupert Murdoch to close the tabloid down.

richard caseby

Richard Caseby, pictured when giving evidence to MPs as managing editor of The Sun.

In July 2011 it emerged that Cameron met key executives of Murdoch’s News Corporation 26 times during the 14 months that Cameron had served as Prime Minister. It was also reported that Murdoch had given Cameron a personal guarantee that there would be no risk attached to hiring Andy Coulson, the former editor of News of the World, as the Conservative Party’s communication director in 2007. This was in spite of Coulson having resigned as editor over phone hacking by a reporter. Cameron chose to take Murdoch’s advice, despite warnings from Nick Clegg, Lord Ashdown and the Guardian. Coulson resigned his post in 2011 and was later arrested and questioned on allegations of further criminal activity at the News of the World, specifically regarding the News International phone hacking scandal.

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons served a summons on Murdoch, his son James, and his former CEO Rebekah Brooks to testify before a committee on 19 July. After an initial refusal, the Murdochs confirmed they would attend after the committee issued them a summons to Parliament. The day before the committee, the website of the News Corporation publication the Sun was “hacked”, and a false story was posted on the front page claiming that Murdoch had died. Murdoch described the day of the committee “the most humble day of my life.” He argued that since he ran a global business of 53,000 employees and that the News of the World was “just 1%” of this, he was not ultimately responsible for what went on at the tabloid.

On 1 May 2012, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee issued a report stating that Murdoch was “not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company.”

On 3 July 2013 Exaro and Channel 4 news broke the story of a secretly recorded tape. It had been recorded by Sun journalists, and in it Murdoch can be heard telling them that the whole investigation was “one big fuss over nothing”, and that he, or his successors, would “take care” of any journalists who went to prison.

He said: “Why are the police behaving in this way? It’s the biggest inquiry ever, over next to nothing.” Murdoch believes that he doesn’t have to be accountable. His initial refusal to testify, despite being summonsed, is extraordinarily indifferent and arrogant.

In connection with Murdoch’s testimony to the Leveson Inquiry “into the ethics of the British press,” editor of Newsweek International, Tunku Varadarajan, referred to him as “the man whose name is synonymous with unethical newspapers.”

Not a shred of concern raised about any of this or Murdoch’s nasty and corrupt myth industry, and right wing scapegoating empire, coming from our government, a point worth reflecting on for a moment. Miliband said the phone-hacking was not just a media scandal, but it was a symbol of what was wrong with British politics. He called for cross-party agreement on new media ownership laws that would cut Murdoch’s current market share, arguing that he has “too much power over British public life.” He said: “If you want to minimise the abuses of power, then that kind of concentration of power is frankly quite dangerous.”

Meanwhile, Iain Duncan Smith is “monitoring” the BBC for any “left wing bias”. Gosh, I just bet that took the jolly well-known ardent commie Chris Patten by complete surprise…

The BBC Trust said that a programme called the “Future of Welfare”, written and presented by John Humphrys, breached its rules on impartiality and accuracy. It found that the programme had failed to back up with statistics claims that there was a “healthy supply of jobs”.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, defended Humphrys as a “robust broadcaster” and said the documentary was “thoughtful and intelligent”. And perhaps most importantly, it endorsed the Governments’ punitive and callous welfare “reforms.”

Duncan Smith was infuriated by the BBC’s coverage of the ruling, which he felt gave “too much airtime to campaigners.” Too much for what, exactly, we have to wonder. Perish the thought that anyone may dare to poke at the half-timbered facade of Tory ideology – Duncan Smiths’ rhetoric is a painful parody of fact that loudly dismisses – and intentionally obscures – the private despair and ruined lives of so many of those least able to speak up for themselves.

He said: “I have just watched reporting on the BBC about the Government winning a High Court judgement on the Spare Room Subsidy (that’s the Bedroom Tax to you and I) that once again has left me absolutely staggered at the blatant Left-wing bias within the coverage. And yet the BBC Trust criticise John Humphrys’s programme, which was thoughtful, intelligent and born out of the “real” life experience of individuals.” The same Duncan Smith, who chooses to deny the all too painful and impoverished real life experiences his policies have inflicted on many. He prefers to lie them away from public attention. Or dismiss them as merely “anecdotal”.

Duncan Smith’s credibility doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny here, as someone attempting to verify “accuracy” and er… statistical claims. Ah, yes. The Department of Work and Pensions – Iain Duncan Smiths’ Department – has a long track record of misusing statistics, making unsubstantiated inferences and stigmatising claimants, and it’s clear these are tactics used to attempt to vindicate further welfare cuts. In fact several minsters, including Cameron, have been officially rebuked by the Office of National Statistics for telling lies, and in Duncan Smith’s case – on at least 3 occasions this past 12 months despite warnings regarding his dishonest claims in the media, as well as in parliament.

So considering all of this, it was with some incredulity that I read Caseby’s comments in the Huff Post earlier: “Should the new IPSO members accept (editor Alan Rusbridger) as a johnny-come-lately? No, rather he should be blackballed. Sorry, but the Guardian isn’t fit to become a member of IPSO until it starts valuing accuracy.”

And: “In the end, of course, it’s IPSO’s decision. But should the new standards body be so gracious as to invite him in, I guess I’ll be waiting to lodge the first complaint.” He said an MP had complained to the Office for National Statistics over The Guardian’s reporting of its data. I bet that was said without a trace of irony, too.

So, if alleged (and improbable) benefits inaccuracies “should get [The] Guardian blackballed,” what is this spin doctor’s recommendation for the perpetual propagandarising, lying, right wing media and a lying government minister’s serial offensive “benefits inaccuracies”?

Oh … of course, this is Iain Duncan Smiths’ relatively new pet guard dog.

An interesting choice of word from Caseby – “blackballing”, which is a rejection in a traditional form of secret ballot, where a white ball ballot constitutes a vote in support and a black ball signifies opposition. This system is typically used where a club (or Lodge) rules provide that, rather than a majority of the votes, one or two objections are sufficient to defeat a proposition. Since the seventeenth century, these rules have commonly applied to elections to membership of many gentlemen’s clubs and similar institutions such as in Freemasonry. It’s an apt term because of its association with conservatism, tradition and secrecy.

In contrast, and unlike many whistleblowers who remain anonymous, Edward Snowden chose to be open and go public. Snowdens’ sole motive for leaking the documents was, in his words, “to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.” He believes that the global public is due an explanation of the motives of those who act outside of the democratic process.

To “protect democracy” we have governments that are subverting the law. This is a fundamental paradox, of course and Snowden saw this could lead to the collapse of democracy and critically endanger our freedom. And Snowden reminds us that what no individual conscience can change, a free press can. It has to be one that is free enough to allow a diverse range of political commentaries, rather than a stranglehold of right wing propaganda from the Murdoch empire and its ideological stablemates.

I think that the process of dismantling democracy started in May 2010 here in the UK, and has been advancing incrementally ever since, almost undetected at first, because of pervasive government secrecy and a partly complicit, dominant right wing media.

But once you hear the jackboots, it’s far too late.

With big thanks to Robert Livingstone

Related

The Transparency of Lobbying, non-Party Campaigning, and Trade Union Administration Bill is a calculated and partisan move to insulate Tory policies and records from public and political scrutiny, and to stifle democracy. The Government’s Lobbying Bill has been criticised by bloggers and campaigners from right across the political spectrum, with the likes of Owen Jones and Guido Fawkes united in agreement over this issue: that the Bill is a “Gagging Act”. Five Conservatives – Douglas Carswell, Philip Davies, David Davis, Zac Goldsmith and David Nuttall – voted against the Bill, whilst others also expressed concerns.

The Bill will treat charities, think tanks, community groups and activists of every hue as “political parties”. From small groups addressing local matters to big national organisations, all equally risk being silenced in the year before a general election, to avoid falling under electoral law. Any organisation spending £5,000 a year and expressing an opinion on anything remotely political must register with the Electoral Commission. Since most aspects of our public life are political, (and a substantial proportion of our private life has been increasingly politicised under this authoritarian government) this stifles much essential debate in election years when voters should be hearing and evaluating policy choices.

The ‘Let Lynton Lobby Bill’: Grubby Partisan Politics and a Trojan Horse

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A letter of complaint to Andrew Dilnot regarding Coalition lies about employment statistics

May 14, 2014March 12, 2016 · 28 Comments ·

I’ve written the following to Andrew Dilnot:

Dear Sir,

I write in response to the government claims made recently regarding employment. During Prime Minister’s questions in Parliament on Wednesday, Mr Cameron said that the number of people in full-time employment had risen. Other ministers, such as Esther McVey have echoed these claims.

“We are growing the economy and we’ve got more people in work,” Mr Cameron said.

And: “The number of people out of work in the UK fell by 133,000 to a fresh five-year low of 2.2 million in the three months to March, official figures show.The jobless rate also fell to a five-year low of 6.8%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said”.

I am very concerned about the accuracy of these claims, and should like to challenge both the validity and reliability of them, given the current methodological problems with measurement, which the ONS have acknowledged in part, previously.

To count as unemployed, people have to say they are not working, are available for work and have either looked for work in the past four weeks or are waiting to start a new job they have already obtained. Someone who is out of work but doesn’t meet these criteria counts as “economically inactive”. The results from a selected sample, based on narrow criteria, are then weighted to give an estimate that reflects the entire population.

The other measure of joblessness – the claimant count – is published for each single month. It doesn’t suffer from the limitations of sample size and sampling frame, because it derives from the numbers of Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) claimants recorded by Jobcentre Plus, so a monthly figure is possible right down to local level. But because many people who are out of work won’t be eligible for JSA, it’s an even narrower measure.

I draw your attention to the following, taken from the Summary of recommendations: Response from the Employment Related Services Association (ERSA) to the Work and Pensions Select Committee inquiry into Jobcentre Plus, dated May, 2013:

Jobcentre Plus performance metrics:

The effectiveness of Jobcentre Plus (JCP) should be measured by sustained job outcomes rather than off-benefit flows to create greater incentives to support jobseekers into employment and provide a more accurate picture of success rates. This would address potential perverse incentives to sanction claimants inappropriately, plus ensure greater comparability between JCP provision and contracted out provision.
Such a change could help to provide greater transparency in order to identify those who would benefit from intensive employment support. Such a performance metric would prevent the phenomenon of ‘cycling’, jobseekers moving between short term jobs and unemployment for many years, but not building up the length of time of continual unemployment to qualify them for specialist support.

In particular, I wish to draw your attention to this from the same document – Response from ERSA to the Work and Pensions Select Committee inquiry into JCP, 2013:

4.1. JCP is measured by off-benefit flows rather than sustained job outcomes. This can create perverse incentives to move jobseekers into short term employment outcomes, rather than refer them to long term contracted out support. It can also create a perverse incentive to sanction claimants as discussed below.

ERSA recommends that whilst off-benefit checks are monitored for national statistical purposes, job outcome and sustainment measure, comparable to the Work Programme, should be introduced for Jobcentre Plus. This would enable analysis between the performance of JCP and contracted out provision and provide accurate value for money comparisons.

5.1. DWP point to off-benefit flows as an indication of the effectiveness of pre-Work Programme support. However, analysis undertaken by Policy Exchange calls into question the validity of off-benefit figures as a success measure given that many do not go into sustainable employment or simply move on to another type of benefit.

8.1 As identified by the Committee in its report into the experience of different user groups on the Work Programme, the use of sanctions is inconsistent.

Providers are obliged to notify Jobcentre Plus if a jobseeker fails to undertake an activity, for example if they miss an appointment. The decision as to whether to actually enact sanctions rests with Jobcentre Plus though. This means that sanctions are not applied even though a provider may think there is a clear case to do so. Conversely, a provider may be satisfied with the progress made by a participant but may be overruled by Jobcentre Plus who have a case for applying conditionality.

For example, one ERSA member reported that Jobcentre Plus decided to sanction a Work Programme participant for insufficient use of the Universal Jobmatch website, despite the fact that the provider had explicitly asked the participant to focus on resolving some other issues ahead of any formal job search activity. Sanctioning represented a great setback in the trust and progress made up to that point. ERSA agrees with the recommendation put forward by the Committee in its most recent report into the Work Programme for DWP to conduct a review of sanctioning activity with a view to ensuring that the processes are clearly understood by participants and consistently applied.

8.2 Part of the problem lies in the fact that Jobcentre Plus is measured by off-benefit flows rather than sustained job outcomes. This therefore means that a situation in which a Personal Advisor applies a sanction that may in fact damage an individual’s progress to employment, would register as a success according to the off-benefit flow measure. ERSA believes that measuring Jobcentre Plus success by sustained job outcomes would remove any perverse incentives to sanction individuals.

So, in summary, simply measuring how many people end their claims for benefits does not reveal the true impact of jobcentre services, nor does it accurately reflect the numbers of those moving into employment.

Let’s not forget that in 1996, the Conservative government introduced the jobseeker’s allowance that cut benefits to young people up to 18 years old – the new allowance was designed to replace unemployment benefit and income support. Young people excluded from eligibility for benefit are therefore absent from unemployment statistics.

The Department has simplified its performance measures and now primarily targets the move by claimants away from benefits, or “off-flow”, as a simple and intuitive measure of performance. However, this gives no information about how individual jobcentres perform in supporting claimants to work. Some may have found work but, in more than 40 per cent of cases, the reason for moving off benefits is not actually recorded.

I am also concerned that underemployment continues to remain very high, despite a small fall of 7,000 in the number in involuntary part time work, the total still stands at 1.42m. This is an increase of a 100 per cent beyond the pre-recession level of 701,000. The rise in employment also continued to be driven by self-employment, which is extraordinary as self-employment is a relatively small part of the UK jobs market. But although just one in seven workers are self-employed, over half of all jobs growth over the year has been in this type of employment. The TUC share this concern, and have said that some people have been forced in to self-employment as they have no alternative.

Previous TUC’s analysis suggests that rising self-employment is part of a wider shift towards insecure employment, rather than as a result of a growing number of people starting up new companies as ministers have claimed. Analysis shows that self-employed workers are often earning less, underemployed, and have less job security than employees.

One very important issue not currently considered is that since the government does not track or follow up the destination of all those leaving the benefit system, as discussed, the off-flow figures will inevitably include many having their claim ended for reasons other than securing employment, including sanctions, awaiting mandatory review, appeal, death, hospitalisation, imprisonment, on a government “training scheme” (see consent.me.uk and the Telegraph – those on workfare are counted as employed by the Labour Force Survey.)

Furthermore, last week Iain Duncan Smith met a whistle-blower who has worked for his Department for Work and Pensions for more than 20 years. Giving the Secretary of State a dossier of evidence, the former Jobcentre Plus adviser told him of a “brutal and bullying” culture of “setting claimants up to fail”.

“The pressure to sanction customers was constant,” he said. “It led to people being stitched-up on a daily basis.”

The whistle-blower wishes to be anonymous but gave his details to Iain Duncan Smith, DWP minister Esther McVey and Neil Couling, Head of Jobcentre Plus, who also attended the meeting. He said:

“We were constantly told ‘agitate the customer’ and that ‘any engagement with the customer is an opportunity to sanction.”

Iain Duncan Smith and his department have repeatedly denied there are targets for sanctions. However, the whistle-blower says:

“They don’t always call them targets, they call them ‘expectations’ that you will refer people’s benefits to the decision maker. It’s the same thing.”

He claimed managers fraudulently altered claimants’ records, adding: “Managers would change people’s appointments without telling them. The appointment wouldn’t arrive in time in the post so they would miss it and have to be sanctioned. That’s fraud. The customer fails to attend. Their claim is closed. It’s called ‘off-flow’ – they come off the statistics. Unemployment has dropped. They are being stitched up.”

Labour MP Debbie Abrahams, the member of the DWP Select Committee who set up the meeting, has renewed her call for an inquiry into inappropriate sanctioning. Debbie said:

“I am deeply concerned that sanctions are being used to create the illusion the Government is bringing down unemployment.”

It is my belief that the claims made by David Cameron and his ministers are an unwarranted, far-fetched inferential leap from methodological premises that don’t stand up to scrutiny, for all of the reasons I have outlined. I felt obliged to draw your attention to this matter, not least because I am not alone in my concerns, and I feel very strongly that it is immoral of any government to mislead the public to which it is meant to be accountable.

Yours sincerely
Ms Susan Jones.

–

Petition to Stop DWP Minsters Spinning Statistics

Thanks to Robert Livingstone for the pictures.

Cameron’s ‘divine inspiration’ came from Max Weber, not God

April 12, 2014June 20, 2022 · 19 Comments ·

The Department of Work and Pensions announce that they are to be re-named the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”. The government have released a statement that although they favoured the strappado, a variety of other methods of trial by ordeal will be used in addition to replace the Work Capability Assessment. Iain Duncan Smith has called for the introduction of dunking – a form of water ordeal and divination – to determine who is disabled enough to build the HS2.

Conservatives have reassured the appalled public by explaining that really, the old English word “ordǣl,” simply means a “judgement or verdict”, so not to worry, as pretending that a word means something else is a magick formula used for ensuring public compliance and conformity. Lynton Crosby has been announced as the new Pontifex Maximus of such formulae. Previous successes include the words “fair”, “reform” and the phrase “making work pay” in the context of the Tory’s neoliberal cunning stunts known collectively as the misnamed “welfare reforms.”

I can see where Cameron thinks he’s coming from with his recent claims of “divine inspiration”. Cameron’s social policies may certainly be regarded as a codified version of the Malleus Malificarum (The Hammer of the Witches).

His ideology is founded on principles similar to those found in Commentarius de Maleficius. There are some uncanny similarities between such legal treatises on witchcraft and the Tory Welfare “Reform” Act, especially regarding the establishing of entitlement to benefits.

“Christians are now the most persecuted religion around the world. We should stand up against persecution of Christians and other faith groups wherever and whenever we can,” says the Prime Minister.

Contrary to what you said, Christians have often been the persecutors, rather than the persecuted, Mr Cameron.

A witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving carefully manufactured public moral panics. This is a manipulated intense feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. Or in this case, that mythical beast of burden – the right-wing tax payer. Tories are moral entrepreneurs, who have despicably used the media to transform the poorest and most vulnerable social groups into folk devils. Conservatives have always created social tension and ensured that criticism and disagreement are difficult because the matter at the centre of such controversies are taboo.

The right-wing media have aided and abetted the Tories, who have long operated as agents of moral indignation. I can see a very clear, common framework of reference for prejudice and persecution here, Mr Cameron.

Proofs of practising witchcraft in Commentarius de Maleficius read a lot like Techniques of Neutralisation, (Sykes and Matza). The first “proof” is the identification of the “diabolical mark”. Usually, this was a mole or a birthmark. If no such mark was visible, the examiner would claim to have found an invisible mark. Or invent statistics. It seems using physical characteristics as an opportunity and excuse to persecute a social group is no new thing then, in the name of “God”, Mr Cameron. As you know.

The “diabolical pact” was an alleged pact with Satan to perform evil acts in return for rewards. Benefit “Fraud” is the new diabolical pact. Thus spake the grand inquisitor Iain “de Torquemáda” Duncan Smith.

Mr Duncan Smith claims to know of many invisible families with generations of witches, and feels the need produce imaginary statistics and to take measures to “prevent” this invisible culture of entitlement. To be afraid during the interrogatories is a sure sign of guilt.

This is called being Condemned by the condemners – it’s a formula ensuring an abdication of all responsibility for behaviour, and instead the condemned point to the people condemning them: they are the problem, not us. What they have done “wrong” excuses persecution, appalling and unforgivable political behaviour and policies.

Denying harm is another technique of neutralisation, which is evident in words like ‘support’, help’, which the Tories use to mask the fact that their blatantly punitive welfare policies are absolutely draconian, with sanctions, for example, involving the withdrawal of the means for citizens to meet their basic survival needs.

Mr Cameron, in 1540: Antonio Venegas de Figueroa, Bishop of Pamplona, sent a circular to the priests in his diocese, explaining that witchcraft was a false belief. He recommended medical treatment for those accused of witchcraft, and blamed the ignorance of the people for their confusion of witchcraft with medical conditions. Didn’t you get the memo?

…..For the extraordinarily evil and cruel are always with us.

Satirical swipes aside, Cameron’s deluded and quite alarming declaration that “divine inspiration was at work when it came to drafting a key concept for Conservative Party policy” is founded on the Tory affinity with hierarchies and social stratification – and this is reflected in the appeal to “higher authority”. Of course, much of our religious organisation is extremely hierarchical too. This is Cameron’s version of psychobabble, a warped and inverted idea of noblesse oblige, he’s clearly close to meltdown.

And what utter moral cowardice, Cameron’s claim is an attempt to endorse Tory policy by partially disowning responsibility for it himself. It’s obvious that Tory policies have not arisen from anything remotely resembling an “intelligent design”, from a Christian deity or otherwise.

Marx said that: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opiate of the people”. Yes, and for Cameron and his ilk, social control and moral codification is an attractive feature of religion. And aligning with a doctrine that makes a virtue of virtue, Cameron is attempting to add legitimacy to his unchristian and uncharitable “reforms”.

The Puritan work ethic has long considered indispensable for right wing political ideologues. Protestantism offers a concept of the worldly “calling,” and gives worldly activity and ruthless profiteering a religious character.

Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is a study of the relationship between the ethics of ascetic Protestantism, (which embodies values such as thrift, self help, and hard work) and the emergence of the spirit of modern capitalism.

Weber observed a correlation between being Protestant and being involved in business, and went on to explore religion as a potential cause of modern economic conditions. He concluded that the modern spirit of capitalism sees profit as an end in itself, and pursuing profit as virtuous.

Calvinism promoted the idea that profit and material success as signs and cues of God’s favour. Other religious groups, such as the Pietists, Methodists, and the Baptist sects had similar attitudes, but to a lesser degree. Weber proposed that that this new attitude broke down the traditional economic system, paving the way for modern capitalism, and once capitalism emerged, the ethic took on a life of its own. We are now locked into the spirit of capitalism.

Weber doesn’t exactly argue that Protestantism caused the capitalist spirit, but rather, that they are correlated. He also acknowledges the converse: that capitalism itself had an impact on the development of the religious ideas. It’s a teleology (a doctrine explaining phenomena by final causes) that would appeal to Cameron for obvious reasons.

Cameron clearly hasn’t spotted the gaping contradictions in what he claims. His cognitive dissonance arises from the fact that while he claims to hold true a predestination doctrine – that God has ordained all that will happen, especially with regard to the salvation of some and not others, (particularly associated with the teachings of St Augustine of Hippo and of Calvin), this contradicts Cameron’s beliefs that are evident in his “reforms” for the poor – which are based on the premise that the poor are responsible for their own circumstances, and may be “helped”, coerced, sanctioned and legislated into somehow different “choices” and circumstances.

Cameron fails to reconcile his apparent belief in predestiny with his punitive, welfare “reforms” apparently designed to coerce socially “responsible” citizens into work.

You can’t argue from a perspective of predetermination that only poor people are responsible for their actions and situations of poverty – that only poor people have a degree of free will – and then go on to formulate punitive policies based on notions of “deserving” and “undeserving” poor people, and a redistribution of wealth from the poorest to the wealthiest. AND claim you believe in God. With a straight face.

The stunning hypocrisy and incoherence of Cameron’s claim to “divine inspiration” for such uncharitable, unkind, inhumane, persecutory and malevolent deeds as the welfare “reforms”, when empathy and compassion are so widely regarded to be central to Christianity, amongst a diverse range of religions and world-views, demonstrates only too well that Cameron lacks the integrity, depth, basic empathy and regard for others that is crucially required of a leader. He has absolutely no conscience, compassion, remorse or shame.

Pictures courtesy of Robert Livingstone

The just world fallacy

December 17, 2013November 3, 2017 · 29 Comments ·

The Tories now deem anything that criticises them as “abusive”. Ordinary campaigners are labelled “extremists” and pointing out flaws, errors and consequences of Tory policy is called “scaremongering”.

Language and psychology are a powerful tool, because this kind of use “pre-programs” and sets the terms of any discussion or debate. It also informs you what you may think, or at least what you need to circumnavigate first in order to state your own account or present your case. This isn’t simply name-calling or propaganda: it’s a deplorable and tyrannical silencing technique.

The government have gathered together a Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) – it is a part of the Cabinet Office – which is comprised of both behavioural psychologists and economists, who apply positivist (pseudo) psychological techniques to social policy. The approach is not much different to the techniques of persuasion used in the shady end of the advertising industry. They produce positive psychology courses which the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are using to ensure participants find satisfaction with their lot; the DWP are also using psychological referral with claims being reconsidered on a mandatory basis by civil servant “decision makers”, as punishment for non-compliance with the new regimes of welfare conditionality for which people claiming out of work benefits are subject.

Positive psychology courses, and the use of psychological referral as punishment for non-compliance with the new regimes of welfare conditionality applied to people claiming out of work benefits are example of the (mis)application of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

CBT is all about making a person responsible for their own thoughts and how they perceive events and experiences and can sometimes be used to empower people. But used in this context, it’s a political means to push an ideological agenda, entailing the “responsibilisation” of poverty, with claimants being blamed for not having a job or for being ill and/or disabled.

However, responding with anger, sadness and despair is normal to many events and circumstances, and to deny that in any way is actually grotesque, cruel and horrendously abusive – it’s a technique called gaslighting – a method of psychological abuse that is usually associated with psychopathic perpetrators.

Gaslighting techniques may range from a simple denial by abusers that abusive incidents have occurred, to events and accounts staged by the abusers with the intention of disorienting the targets (or “victims”.)

The government is preempting any reflection on widening social inequality and injustice by using these types of behavioural modification techniques on the poor, holding them entirely responsible for the government’s economic failures and the consequences of class contingent policies.

Sanctions are applied to “remedy” various “defects” of individual behaviour, character and attitude. Poor people are being coerced into workfare and complicity using bogus psychology and bluntly applied behavioural modification techniques.

Poor people are punished for being poor, whilst wealthy people are rewarded for being wealthy. Not only on a material level, but on a level of socially and politically attributed esteem, worth and value.

We know from research undertaken by sociologists, psychologists and economists over the past century that being poor is bad for mental wellbeing and health. The government is choosing to ignore this and adding to that problem substantially by stripping people of their basic dignity and autonomy.

The application of behavioural science is even more damaging than the hateful propaganda and media portrayals, although both despicable methods of control work together to inflict psychological damage on more than one level. “Positive psychology” and propaganda serve to invalidate individual experiences, distress and pain and to appropriate blame for circumstances that lie entirely outside of an individual’s control and responsibility.

Social psychologists such as Melvin Lerner followed on from Milgam’s work in exploring social conformity and obedience, seeking to answer the questions of how regimes that cause cruelty and suffering maintain popular support, and how people come to accept social norms and laws that produce misery and suffering.

The “just-world” fallacy is the cognitive bias (assumption) that a person’s actions always bring morally fair and fitting consequences to that person, so that all honourable actions are eventually rewarded and all evil actions are eventually punished.

The fallacy is that this implies (often unintentionally) the existence of cosmic justice, stability, or order, and also serves to rationalise people’s misfortune on the grounds that they deserve it. It is an unfounded, persistent and comforting belief that the world is somehow fundamentally fair, without the need for our own moral agency and responsibility.

The fallacy appears in the English language in various figures of speech that imply guaranteed negative reprisal, such as: “You got what was coming to you,” “What goes around comes around,” and “You reap what you sow.” This tacit assumption is rarely scrutinised, and goes some way to explain why innocent victims are blamed for their misfortune.

The Government divides people into deserving and undeserving categories – the “strivers” and “scroungers” rhetoric is an example of how the government are drawing on such fallacious tacit assumptions – that utilises an inbuilt bias of some observers to blame victims for their suffering – to justify social oppression and inequality that they have engineered via policy.

The poorest are expected to be endlessly resilient and resourceful, people claiming social security are having their lifeline benefits stripped away and are being forced into a struggle to meet their basic survival needs. This punitive approach can never work to “incentivise” or motivate in such circumstances, because we know that when people struggle to meet basic survival needs they are too pre-occupied to be motivated to meet other less pressing needs.

Maslow identifies this in his account of the human hierarchy of needs, and many motivational studies bear this out. This makes the phrase trotted out by the Tories: “helping people into work” to justify sanctions and workfare not only utterly terrifying, but also inane.

Unemployment is NOT caused by “psychological barriers” or “character flaws”. It is caused by feckless and reckless governments failing to invest in growth projects. It’s not about personal “employability”, it’s about neoliberal economics, labour market conditions, political policies and subsequent socio-structural problems.

Public policy is not a playground for the amateur and potentially dangerous application of brainwashing techniques via the UK government’s Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) or “nudge unit”. This is NOT being nasty in a nice way: it is being nasty in a nasty way; it’s utterly callous.

The rise of psychological coercion, “positive affect as coercive strategy”, and the recruitment of economic psychologists for designing the purpose of monitoring, modifying and punishing people who claim social security benefits raises important ethical questions about psychological authority. Psychology is being used as a prop for neoliberal ideology.

We ought to be very concerned about the professional silence so far regarding this adoption of a such a psychocratic, neo-behavourist approach to social control and an imposed conformity by this government.

Pictures courtesy of Robert Livingstone

From Psycho-Linguistics to the Politics of Psychopathy. Part 1: Propaganda.

The Poverty of Responsibility and the Politics of Blame

Whistle While You Work (For Nothing): Positive Affect as Coercive Strategy – The Case of Workfare by Lynne Friedli and Robert Stearn (A must read)

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Syria, Miliband’s principled dignity, Murdoch and toxic Tory tantrums ladled up with corruption

September 3, 2013May 1, 2017 · 19 Comments ·

It’s worth considering that in the past few years President Bashar al-Assad’s Government has allegedly killed over 100,000 people in Syria, amongst them were many civilians, including women and children, so we need to ask why, exactly, would allegedly using chemical weapons on 1,300 people suddenly be much more of an issue and a matter of national interest for America, Britain and France?

My own view of the situation is that aggressive intervention is an absurd and incoherent solution. We cannot bomb people into democracy or shoot them into observing human rights. Punishing a dictator for killing his own people by simply killing more of his own people seems beyond cruel. The gesture of war will not punish the guilty, such as members of the tyrannical Assad regime: it will simply kill ordinary people and their children, topple buildings and cause injuries and hardship to the innocent. It seems to me to be a spectacularly pointless and peculiarly brutal proposal.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the public is quite rightly skeptical that employment of aerial bombardment is a cure-all for the world’s ills, after hard-learned lessons from Iraq, and our various other interventions, dressed up as “humanitarian aid”.

Of course it didn’t take much digging to find that there are some vested interests in oil and gas on Syrian territory. There is profit to be made by a local subsidiary of the New York-listed company, Genie Energy – which is advised by former vice president Dick Cheney, and shareholders include Rupert Murdoch and Jacob Rothschild. Israel has granted the US company the first license and it will now have exclusive rights to explore a 153-square mile radius in the southern part of the Golan Heights for oil and gas, John Reed of the Financial Times reports.

The Golan Heights – a disputed geopolitical area, is comprised of a two-thirds of land that was seized violently by Israel in the 60s in the Six-Day War, (and this is not internationally recognised as Israeli territory, it remains disputed, but Israel effectively annexed it in 1981), and the remaining third lies in Syria’s domain.

I visited the Golen Heights some years ago, and had a hairy moment or two on land which was peppered with Syrian mines, trapped there between snipers, at the border of the Israeli-claimed territory. Discarded shells and rockets littered the landscape, which had become strange and ugly monuments to human conflict. Yet we must never despair of human nature. Man’s nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love, according to Ghandi.

But not so easily under such profiteering, greedy and corrupt governments.

Israel’s administration of the area – which is still not recognised by international law – has been reasonably peaceful in recent years, until the Syrian civil war broke out 23 months ago.

“This action is mostly political – it’s an attempt to deepen Israeli commitment to the occupied Golan Heights”, Israeli political analyst Yaron Ezrahi told FT.

“The timing is directly related to the fact that the Syrian government is dealing with violence and chaos and is not free to deal with this problem”.

Earlier this month it was reported that Israel is considering creating a buffer zone reaching up to 10 miles from Golan into Syria to secure the 47-mile border against the threat of Islamic radicals in the area.

Both President Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, have mentioned Israel’s “needs” as one justification for an attack on Syria.

The Guardian reports that three months ago, Iraq gave the green light for the signing of a framework agreement for construction of pipelines to transport natural gas from Iran’s South Pars field – which it shares with Qatar – across Iraq, to Syria.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the pipelines was signed in July last year – just as Syria’s civil war was spreading to Damascus and Aleppo – but the negotiations go back further to 2010. The pipeline, which could be extended to Lebanon and Europe, would potentially solidify Iran’s position as a formidable global player.

The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline plan is a “direct slap in the face” to Qatar’s plans for a countervailing pipeline running from Qatar’s North field, contiguous with Iran’s South Pars field, through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, also with a view to supply European markets.

The difference is that the pipeline would bypass Russia.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have received covert support from Washington in the funneling of arms to the most virulent Islamist elements of the rebel movement, while Russia and Iran have supplied arms to Assad.

And of course Israel has a direct interest in countering the Iran-brokered pipeline. In 2003, just a month after the commencement of the Iraq War, US and Israeli Government sources told the Guardian of plans to “build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel” bypassing Syria. The conflict therefore and the future of Syria continues to be at the mercy of rival foreign geopolitical interests in dominating the energy corridors of the Middle East and North Africa.

And let’s consider who sold weapons of mass destruction to unstable middle eastern countries in the first place. It’s emerged recently that Vince Cable and other Ministers are to face questions over a decision to allow export of substances used to make chemical weapons to Syria, only months after the country descended into civil war.

Commenting on the reports, which were first published in the Sunday Mail, Labour’s shadow business secretary, Chuka Umunna MP, said: “The chair of the joint intelligence committee confirmed last week that their assessment was that the Syrian regime had used lethal chemical weapons on 14 occasions from 2012. There are, therefore, very serious questions to answer as to why, in January 2012, export licences for chemicals to Syria which could be used in the manufacture of chemical weapons were approved”.

Far from being a beacon of human rights, the UK has little legitimacy around the world when it comes to intervening in wars – a fact that parliament eventually recognised in its welcomed vote last Thursday.

Can you see what this is yet? As ever, with any Conservative proposition made in earnest, the money trail always reveals the true motivation behind it.

It is widely accepted that David Cameron has a streak of petty, bullying arrogance which often reveals itself at prime minister’s questions. I was pleased to see this reported in The Guardian: “Now Cameron and his henchmen have been trying to spin his humiliating defeat by parliament over military intervention in Syria into an unedifying character assassination of Ed Miliband. It wasn’t Miliband who attempted to grandstand by bouncing parliament prematurely into attacking Syria”.

The Labour leader hasn’t been responsible for perhaps the most monumentally misjudged British foreign policy in recent times. Cameron began two years ago demanding regime change – which didn’t work. Then he resourced the rebel forces – which failed, too. Then he tried to send arms to the rebels – until cross-party opposition in parliament blocked that: perhaps he forgot the series of protests by MPs resulting in the vote opposing his policy by 114 to one on 11 July on a backbench motion moved by Tories?

The Daily Mirror reports that the UK arm of strategist Lynton Crosby’s lobbying empire represented the Syrian National Council. Cameron stepped up his calls for action – including arming forces trying to oust Bashar al-Assad – after hiring the Australian as his elections adviser last year.

Frank Roy, a member of the Foreign Affairs select committee, said: “We need to know that David Cameron’s crusade has not been inspired by his lobbyist chum. It would be quite wrong if Lynton Crosby was using his position to influence the Prime Minister on such an important foreign policy issue on behalf of a former client.”

Roy’s comments came as it was alleged that Cameron had pushed for a more “robust” response to the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Gosh.

Authorising the export of chemicals to Syria is simply part of a long trend of support for dangerous technology which undermines this country’s legitimacy when it comes to speaking about human rights. Thatcher’s government sold the components for chemical weapons to Iraq, and Saddam Hussain directed The Al-Anfal campaign – genocide – on the Kurds. The Reagan and Thatcher governments continued to aid Iraq after receiving reports of the use of poison gas on Kurdish civilians.

So Cameron now insists “something must be done” in response to the chemical weapons attack in Syria. All of a sudden. And the Conservative “liberal interventionists”, who trumpet so loudly their commitment to spreading “democracy” around the globe, are not very happy at this wonderful and long overdue sign of a democratic resurgence in Britain.

Polls showed that just 8% of Britons wanted immediate weapons strikes on Syria, but despite that, the “democracy by bombs” crusaders are condemning the vote as a “black day for democracy”. Oh, such irony. Ah, the Newspeak.

The Murdoch-owned Times wheeled out Tony Blair, the High Priest of “liberal interventionism” to support an attack on Syria earlier this week, but this tactic showed just how laughably out of touch the Times is with public opinion. And Ed Miliband has once and for all, finally drawn a clear and indisputable line underneath the Blair era, anyway. Miliband had already denounced New labour, and distanced himself from Blair earlier this year, in his speech to the the Fabian Society.

Opposition to British involvement in an attack on Syria was led by Miliband, who took a brave and principled stance that resonated strongly with public wishes, too. I’ve seen many say that it felt like we have a democracy again, and the following day there was a sudden rebellion which was widespread, and across the political spectrum, with Cameron’s own ministers voting against him. It wasn’t just the genuine anti-war left who opposed an aggressive strike, but some traditional Conservatives too, with some Conservative-supporting newspapers such as the Daily Express taking a strong line against intervention.

Miliband’s decision to oppose the Prime Minister’s motion on Syria authorising direct British military involvement sparked fury in No 10 and even led to deplorable accusations he was providing “succour” to Assad. Cameron couldn’t keep his fury in check. He called Miliband a “copper-bottomed c*nt” in public.

Miliband said Cameron must now “find other ways” to put pressure on Assad: “There are other routes than military means to actually help the people of Syria,” he said. “I don’t think the Government should wash its hands of this issue”.

“I think all of the focus of the Prime Minister and the Government in the coming days needs to be working with our allies to find other ways to press President Assad, to take action with our allies to put the diplomatic, political and other pressure that needs to be put on the Government there. We need the peace talks to get going. So there are other things the Government should be doing”.

He added that Britain “doesn’t need reckless and impulsive leadership, it needs calm and measured leadership”.

The Murdoch media empire, propagandising for the US-led wars of the last two decades, is now isolated in its obsessive screeching for military action, and the fact that MPs ignored the bellicose pro-“intervention” editorials in Murdoch papers is a clear indication as to just how much they are declining in influence.

Let us not forget that it has been an iron law of politics since most of today’s Cabinet were in kindergarten that you do not “take on” Rupert Murdoch. And that if you were foolhardy enough to try, you would end up fatally wounded.

Ed Miliband did. He has shown he has principles and courage on many occassions, sadly this is very seldom reported and reflected fairly in the media. And Miliband didn’t just take the easy option of calling for specific action targeted at the paper where the hacking scandal began – that would have been a safer way of doing it – but by calling for a whole judicial enquiry. Rupert Murdoch probably thought that Ed would leave it at that. But no, when the leader of the Opposition turned up at the proceedings of that enquiry, he said explicitly that if he were Prime Minister, he would seek to limit the percentage of media that one man could own. Quite properly so.

Then there was the banks. Now many in the Labour party would have preferred him to stick safely to making outraged noises about misconduct. No, he once again called for a wider enquiry. When Cameron accepted that proposition of misconduct, Miliband pushed for one wide enough to cover the whole culture of banking which had led to the crisis – a much bigger threat to the banks. After that, Ed threatened them with separation between their investment (casino) and retail (piggy bank) arms. Each time Miliband had the opportunity to ease off, he went further. These are not the actions of a weak leader.

Some will argue that the banks and the media were both wounded giants: once-powerful interests which had been left limping by the financial crisis and the phone hacking scandal respectively. But Ed Miliband didn’t stop with them. In the last few years he has taken on the energy companies too. Not in a small way either, for example, by threatening to legislate to make sure that they give the elderly their cheapest tariffs (although he has done that too). But by actually threatening to break up the Big Six unless they start giving consumers a better deal. That is not a small threat for a potential Prime Minister to make. I have every faith in this man, as a decent, principled and strong leader of the Labour party and future Prime Minister.

Miliband clearly outlined his view that there needed to be a proper international process at the United Nations that was evidence-led, and as he argued powerfully that we needed the “time and space” to come to a judgement and that we shouldn’t rush headlong into a political timetable that was being driven elsewhere, one or two churlish Tory MPs, including Ministers, regrettably, chose to heckle him with the word “weak”. They wish.

The bullying, truculent and outrageously burlesque reactions of the Conservatives to this forced renewal of British democracy, and the obvious strength of the Opposition leader tells us just how significant this is.

—

Further reading:

On Syria, Ed Miliband deserves praise not poison

David Cameron Lost The Syria Vote Because Of A Failure Of His Leadership

The Drums of War

Pictures courtesy of Robert Livingstone

Quantitative Data on Poverty from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

July 22, 2013July 12, 2015 · 24 Comments ·

The minimum cost of living has soared by a quarter – 25% – since the start of the economic downturn, according to a report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which details the true inflationary pressures facing low income households. The research finds families are facing an “unprecedented erosion of household living standards” thanks to rapid inflation and flat-lining wages.

Cuts to benefits and tax credits have exacerbated the problem over the past 12 months, according to the report. Now we are seeing the hard evidence that the Coalition’s “reforms” are pushing employed people in low paid work and unemployed people into absolute poverty, as our welfare system is no longer meeting basic living needs, and Government policy has distorted the original purpose of our social security, using rhetoric about costs to “the tax payer”, whilst carefully excluding the fact from their monologue that most benefit recipients are also tax payers.

A frightening consideration is that this report doesn’t include the latest round of benefit cuts – the very worst of them to date – that were implemented in April of this year. The report was produced prior to then, covering the period up to April, but doesn’t include it.

A quarter of households in the UK already fell short of the income required to reach an adequate standard of living – for them a 25% increase in costs intensifies the everyday struggle to make ends meet. The price of food and goods we need for an acceptable living standard has risen far faster than average inflation. This has combined with low pay increases to create a widening gap between income and needs.

The freeze in child benefit, the decision to uprate tax credits by just 1% and the increase in the cost of essentials faster than inflation mean that a working couples with children an working lone parents will lose out, making a mockery of the Coalition’s claim of “making work pay”.

Over the past five years:

• Childcare costs have risen over twice as fast as inflation at 37%.
• Rent in social housing has gone up by 26%.
• Food costs have increased by 24%.
• Energy costs are 39% more.
• Public transport is up by 30%.

Some further shocking Key findings from the Poverty and Social Exclusion Project – The Impoverishment of the UK report reveals that:

• Over 30 million people (almost half the population) are suffering some degree of financial insecurity.
• Almost 18 million people cannot afford adequate housing conditions.
• Roughly 14 million cannot afford one or more essential household goods.
• Almost 12 million people are too poor to engage in common social activities considered necessary by the majority of the population.
• About 5.5 million adults go without essential clothing.
• Around 4 million children and adults are not properly fed by today’s standards.
• Almost 4 million children go without at least two of the things they need;
• Around 2.5 million children live in homes that are damp.
• Around 1.5 million children live in households that cannot afford to heat their home.

Since 2010, wages have been rising more slowly than prices, and over the past 12 months, incomes have been further eroded by cuts to benefits and tax credits. Ministers argue that the raising of the personal tax allowance to £10, 000 for low income households will help, however, the report says its effect is cancelled out by cuts and rising living costs.

I would add that for many who are low paid, and the increasing numbers of part-time workers, this political gesturing is meaningless. The policy only benefits those who earn enough to pay tax. Most of this group are affected by the benefit cuts – many have to claim housing benefit and council tax benefit, and they are therefore likely to be affected by the bedroom tax and the poll tax-styled reductions to benefits under the Localism Bill, to compound matters.

It has to be said that the greatest percentage change in net income from the personal tax free allowance of £10,000 is seen by those on the upper end of the income scale – not, as is often claimed, low earners. This does explain the policy. Increasing the personal allowance serves to increase the gap between the those on the lowest incomes and those on middle range incomes, resulting in low income households falling further into poverty.

At the low paid end of salaried work there are a cohort of workers trapped in a cycle of very poorly paid, low – skilled work, zero hour contracts, with few, if any, employee rights. They tend to work for a few months here and there, in work that is often seasonal. There is no opportunity for saving money or hope of better employment prospects.

This group of workers tend to live hand to mouth from one pay day to the next, so have no opportunity to build a reserve when the contract ends, there is nothing in reserve.

The net result is that it is increasingly very difficult for low-to-middle income families to balance the weekly budget. There is now a widening gulf between public expectations of a minimum decent living standard and their ability to earn enough to meet it. I would add that the gap between low and middle income families is widening, and will continue to do so because of the impact of policies that have recently been implemented.

Welfare support is one of the hallmarks of a civilised society. All developed countries have such support for the vulnerable, and the less developed ones are striving to establish their own. Welfare states depend on a fair collection and redistribution of resources, which in turn rests upon the maintenance of trust between different sections of society and across generations. Most of us have paid for our own welfare.

It’s a common rhetorical trick for politicians is to talk about “looking after the tax payer.” However the reality is that they are often only really concerned with particular tax payers – the electoral groups that determine the outcomes of elections – often people on middle-incomes. They talk as if tax payers are some hard-pressed group who are burdened by the poor and that the rest of us don’t pay taxes.

But the reality is that there are many different taxes (the Institute of Fiscal Studies counted at least 25). Also the poorest people don’t just pay tax, they often pay the most tax. Not just indirect taxes, like VAT, but also income tax and council tax. Many other taxes are hidden from view in duties or other background taxes like Employer’s National Insurance.

Most assume that the rich pay a much higher rate of tax than the poor. After all the income tax system is meant to place progressively higher burdens on people with higher incomes. However, when you look at the rates of tax paid by each household it is very surprising.

The highest rate of tax, that is the share of income lost in tax, is paid by the poorest 10% of households (or families). The poorest 10% of families pay 45% of their income in tax. The other 90% of families pay quite a similar rates of tax, varying between 31% and 35%.

The three things to remember when politicians talk about tax:

1. Tax payers are not a special class of people – we are all tax payers.
2. Tax payers are not burdened by the poor – the poor are actually super tax payers.
3. Tax cuts come in many different shapes and sizes – not everybody benefits equally. The wealthiest profit the most.

(Information taken from here)

Statisticians hold two basic definitions of poverty – relative poverty is a measure which looks at those well below the median average of income (60% of income) – who are excluded from participating in what society generally regards as normal activities. This kind of poverty is relative to the rest of society, and is the type that we have seen and measured since the welfare state came into being.

Absolute poverty refers to a level of poverty beyond the ability to afford the essentials which we need simply to live and survive. People in absolute poverty cannot afford some of the basic requirements that are essential for survival. It is horrifying that this is now the fastest growing type of poverty in Britain, according to research bodies such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and Joseph Rowntree Foundation. When the IFS produced its report on growing child poverty, David Cameron’s callous, calculated and unflinching reaction was to question the figures, rather than accept the consequences of his Government policies on citizens.

And it IS calculated and deliberate legislative spite. The Government’s own impact assessment has demonstrated that the 1% uprating in the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Act will have a disproportionate effect on the poorest. Families with children will be particularly hard hit, pushing a further 200,000 children into poverty. In addition, those with low to middle earnings and single-earner households will be caught by the 1% limit on tax credit rates. These new cuts come on top of the cumulative impact of previous tax, benefit and public expenditure cuts which have already meant the equivalent to a loss of around 38% of net income for the poorest tenth of households and only 5% for the richest tenth.

According to a TUC report, average wages have dropped by 7.5 per cent since the Coalition came into office. This has a direct impact on child poverty statistics, which the government has conveniently ignored in its latest, Iain Duncan Smith-endorsed, child poverty figures.

Child poverty is calculated in relation to median incomes – the average income earned by people in the UK.

If incomes drop, so does the number of children deemed to be in poverty, even though – in fact – more families are struggling to make ends meet with less money to do so.

This is why the Department for Work and Pensions has been able to sound an announcement that child poverty in “workless” families (which translates from Tory propaganda-speak to “victims of the Government- induced recession”) has dropped, even though we can all see that this is nonsense.

As average incomes drop, the amount received by families not in work – taken as an average of what’s left – appears to rise, even though, as we know, the increase is not even keeping up with inflation any more.

Liam Byrne said: “The Institute of Fiscal Studies report shows that the price of ministers’ failure on child poverty isn’t just a million more children growing up poor – it’s a gigantic £35 billion bill for the tax payer. It’s not just a moral failure, but an economic disaster.”

“Ministers should be doing everything they can for struggling families but instead they are slashing working families’ tax credits whilst handing a massive tax cut to the richest people in the country. That tells you all you need to know about this Government’s priorities.”

And – “Not only is there a cost attached to rising levels of child poverty but the trend is illegal. Left unabated child poverty will reach 24% in 2020, compared with the goal of 10% written in law.”

Iain Duncan Smith, the welfare and pensions secretary, has publicly questioned whether poverty targets are useful – arguing that “feckless” parents only spend money on themselves. The spirits of Samuel Smiles, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo, they of the workhouse mentality, speak clearly in booming voices through Iain Duncan Smith from across the centuries.

And of course the Department for Work and Pensions ludicrously continue to blame the previous Administration. We know, however, that the research here shows starkly that poverty has risen under this Government, and we are now seeing cases of childhood malnutrition, such as scurvy.

The breakfast clubs established under the previous Labour Government, as a part of the Extending Schools program and Every Child Matters Bill often provided crucial meals, particularly for children who relied on school provision – in fact, for one in four of all UK children, school dinners are their only source of hot food. Malnutrition is rising and schools see children coming in hungry.

The previous Government recognised the importance of adequate nutrition and saw the link between low educational attainment, behavioural difficulties and hunger in school. The breakfast club provision also helped parents on low incomes in other ways, for example, the free childcare that these wrap-around services provided is essential to support them to keep on working.

There are further issues worth a mention from Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review, that are not in the report. They are worth a mention not least because they tell you all you need to know about the Coalition. They speak volumes about Tory-led intention, malice and despicable aims. They expose the lie once again that the Tories “support” the most vulnerable citizens.

I’m very concerned about Osborne’s plans to set a cap on benefits spending. This cap will include disability benefits, but exclude spending on the state pension. Disabled people have already faced over £9 billion of cuts to benefits they rely on, with at least 600,000 fewer expected to qualify for the new Personal Independence Payment, which is replacing disability living allowance, and over 400,000 facing cuts to their housing benefit through the bedroom tax. Disabled people of working age have borne the brunt of cuts, and the Government is once again targeting those who can least afford to lose out.

By including “Disability Benefits” in the cap, the Government have signalled clearly that they fully intend severing any remaining link between social security and need. We are hurtling toward a system that is about eradicating the cost of any social need. But taxation hasn’t stopped, however, public services and provisions are shrinking.

Barely a month now passes without one of David Cameron’s ministers being rebuked for some act of statistical chicanery (or, indeed, the Prime Minister himself). And it’s not just the number crunchers at the UK Statistics Authority who are concerned. An alliance of 11 churches, including the Methodist Church, the Quakers and the Church of Scotland, has written to Cameron demanding “an apology on behalf of the Government for misrepresenting the poor.”

Many people have ended their lives. Many people have died because of the sustained attack from our Government on them both psychologically and materially, via what ought to be unacceptable, untenable and socially unconscionable policies. People are going without food. People are becoming homeless. There are people now living in caves around Stockport. The UK is the world’s six largest economy, yet 1 in 5 of the UK population live below the official poverty line, this means that they experience life as a daily struggle for survival.

And this is because of the changes this Government is making. And we are allowing them to do so. Unless we can form a coalition with other social groups in our society, we are unlikely to influence or produce enduring, positive political change. But that will only happen once others realise that they are not exempt from the devastating changes, or the long term consequences of them. It’s down to us to ensure that the public are informed, since the maintream media have abdicated that responsibility.

The author of the Joseph Rountree Foundation report, Donald Hirsch, says the cumulative effect is historically significant:

“From this April, for the first time since the 1930s, benefits are being cut in real terms by not being linked to inflation. This combined with falling real wages means that the next election is likely to be the first since 1931 when living standards are lower than at the last one.”

Further reading:

Briefing on How Cuts Are Targeted

Who Really Benefits from Welfare?

The system make little difference to the incomes of the poorest
People in poverty pay the highest rates of tax
It is hardest for the poorest to earn, save and be a family
Most money actually goes to the better-off.
(This article was taken from a longer piece of work: Poverty and Patrimony – the Evil Legacy of the Tories.)

Thanks to Robert Livingstone for his brilliant artwork

Nothing News under the Sun

July 13, 2013September 1, 2016 · 4 Comments ·

A guest post by Samantha Baldwin

I write regarding the Sun newspaper, the Sun or Scum newspaper is not a working-class newspaper, but a far-right, anti-working-class, anti-trade union, phone-hacking, scouser hating and baiting, phone hacking, Levi Bellfield aiding, war-mongering, bigoted, homophobic, racist, xenophobic, lying, unprincipled, two-faced rag. I am not saying those things because I don’t like its political stance, or crap journalism or sensationalism. I can back them up one by one, and unlike the Scum, I will provide serious analysis of why it is all those things.

ANTI-WORKING CLASS
The Scum viciously condemned Labour’s plans to bring in the Minimum Wage and has said it shouldn’t rise. It opposed the Social Chapter and has backed moves to come out of it. This means agency workers, part-time workers, temporary workers will all lose rights, as well many low-paid and minimum wage workers. It condemned the postmen for going on strike in 2009, the train drivers in 1994, attacked the printers at Wapping and printed a false front page about Arthur Scargill in 1984 and backed the pit closures. It backed the poll tax, called protestors scum, and attacked the 50% tax rate on those on £100,000 a year or more, saying it drags us all down to a drab level. How many Scum readers are on that a year? It has backed Royal Mail privatisation, public spending cuts, tax cuts and breaks for the well-off.

ANTI-TRADE UNION
The Scum attacked Labour’s giving GCHQ workers the chance to join a Trade Union in 1997 after a 13-year-ban. They have repeatedly attacked them as reds and said they restrict business, and even have said there is no need for them. They have launched attacks on Trade Union leaders, which have been filthy, vicious, personal and at times, inaccurate.

FAR-RIGHT
The Scum claims to hate the far-right BNP. Yet look at their policies. The BNP is racist. The Scum is racist. The BNP is Xenophobic. The Scum is Xenophobic. The BNP wants hanging back. The Scum wants hanging back. The BNP wants us out of Europe. The Scum wants us out of Europe. The BNP is anti-immigration. The Scum is anti-immigration. The BNP doesn’t like Trade Unions, neither does the Scum, so what are they complaining about?

BIGOTED
The Scum referred to the mentally ill boxer “Frank Bruno” as bonkers in 2003. It has launched attacks on Asylum Seekers that the BNP propangda chief would be delighted with. It has attacked homosexuals, the unemployed, single parents.

HOMOPHOBIC
The Scum opposed Edwina Currie’s bill in 1994 to lower the age of consent for homosexuals from the age of 21 to 18. Then it opposed the equalization bill that Labour brought in during 1999, and backed the homophobic section 28. It has tried to equate homosexuality with paedophilia. It has referred to pulpit poofs in the Church of England, lied saying that Elton John uses rent boys. It opposed civil partnerships and Television personality Piers Morgan, a former Editor of the Daily Mirror and of The Sun’s Bizarre pop column, has said that during the late 1980s, at Kelvin MacKenzie’s behest, he was ordered to speculate on the sexuality of male pop stars for a feature headlined “The Poofs of Pop”. He also recalls MacKenzie headlining a story about the first homosexual kiss on BBC television soap opera EastEnders “EastBenders”. It also said that only homosexual sex could give you AIDS.

RACIST
Readers were encouraged to wear free badges with the slogan ‘Hop off, you frogs’. When in Sept 1985, Hackney Council proposed re-naming a street after Indian nationalist Shahid Bhagat Singh, the Sun headlined: ‘Lefties start a singh and a dance in the street’. When head-teacher Ray Honeyford was forced to quit a Bradford school with many Muslim pupils, a Sun cartoon (17 Oct 85) showed Asian parents in turbans, dhotis and saris perched on the school roof with a steaming pot of curry to pour on an Honeyford approaching the school. The caption read: ‘The Madras curry will finish him off.’

The Scum backed apartheid in South Africa and attacked the ANC and Nelson Mandela as terrorists. It employed columnists such as Garry Bushell who defended the racist Tory MP for Welwyn David Evans who referred to “Black bastards” in 1997 and said he was a racist. It has made subliminal references to black people and racism in the past.

LYING
Where do I start…. The Dunn of the Sun, Elton John uses rent boys, the Hillsborough article, which for me, has been the most evil headline ever on a newspaper, vicious and personal attacks on Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Arthur Scargill and Gordon Brown which have been dishonest at times. The Sun also did a story extensively quoting a respected American psychiatrist claiming that British left-wing politician Tony Benn was “insane”, with the psychiatrist discussing various aspects of Benn’s supposed pathology.[10] The story was discredited when the psychiatrist in question publicly denounced the article and described the false quotes attributed to him as “absurd”, The Sun having apparently fabricated the entire piece.

TWO-FACED
The Scum attacked Benny Hill for having topless women on his shows whilst having topless 17-year-old page 3 girls. It attacked Labour’s policies up to two weeks before when the 1997 General Election was called, and then said it was backing Labour when it knew the Tories had no chance of winning. It loudly backed far-right policies up to 2001 and 2005, but backed Labour because it knew they had no chance of winning.

It said in 1983 that “Do you want this old fools to run Britain” with reference to Michael Foot’s age. He was nearly 70 then. A year later it enthusiastically backed 73-year-old Ronald Reagan’s bid for re-election as USA President. In January 1994 it attacked Benn, Galloway et al for saying troops should be removed from Bosnia. A month later, it attacked John Smith for saying more should be sent saying he was bland and no radical etc!

In January 1994 it said we were fools for backing John Major, despite vigorously backing him to be PM three years earlier and less than two years earlier at the 1992 General Election. It called Tony Martin a hero and then demanded the reintroduction of hanging.

It attacks benefit fraud and calls for welfare cutbacks, whilst News International hasn’t paid Income Tax into the UK since 1987. It backs whoever it thinks will win an election, hence its vigorous support for Cameron, and imagine its fury when he failed to win outright in 2010.

It demanded the hanging of Levi Bellfield, and supported the Sarah’s Law campaign and put up a financial reward for the capture of Milly Dowler’s killer, whilst News International hacked into her phone, and misled the police and her parents, derailed the murder inquiry and gave her parents false hopes, and helped Bellfield to go free to kill twice more and almost a third time. And hacked into a phone given to Sara Payne’s mother.

PROMOTION OF VIOLENCE
In 2000 the Scum and News of the World launched an hate campaign against paedophiles. This meant many were driven underground and a woman’s house was attacked and vandalised. She was a paediatrician. A man was punched in the face three times who was totally innocent, as he was mistook for a paedophile.

In Feb, 2003, the Sun published the mobile phone number of their favourite bogeyman Abu Hamza (preacher at the Finsbury mosque, North London), effectively inviting readers to make abusive calls to him. This no doubt happened but misdialled phone numbers also received hundreds of death threats. For example, a man from Newport, Wales whose mobile differed from Hamza’s by 1 digit, received 200 death threats on one morning from angry Sun readers.

No doubt there are many more examples, but those are the ones I can think of, and I think they perfectly illustrate my case that the Scum is all of the things I have wrote about it.

—————————————————————————

Further reading:

Four ways the British Public is completely wrong about the British Public – by Us vs Th3m (to which I’ve added.)

Some brilliant research by the Royal Statistical Society looked at how much the public actually knows about… well, itself. The answer? Not a lot.

They published a list of their top ten biggest misconceptions about key social issues. Here’s the four most jaw-dropping ways the public gets its statistics completely wrong:

1. We have NO IDEA how many young teenage girls get pregnant

2. We think there are WAY MORE old people than there actually are

3. And that’s nothing compared to how wrong we are about Muslims. We think there are SOOOOO MANY Muslims

4. Also we are TOTALLY OUT TO LUNCH when trying to guess how many benefit fraudsters there are

Key takeaway thought from this: excellent job, media and Tories! You have successfully convinced us we live in your completely contrived, pre-fabricated fantasy world

Images courtesy of Robert Livingstone

The Great Debt Lie and the Myth of the Structural Deficit

July 12, 2013December 15, 2018 · 39 Comments ·

The case for austerity measures rests on the Great Debt Lie and the myth of the structural deficit.

The 2008-9 recession was the worst we have experienced globally for sixty years, and it was predicted by no-one. The Labour Government responded to the global crisis with fiscal stimulus. From the start of the financial crisis, Labour took decisive and clear action (including temporarily cutting VAT to boost demand), and it has become increasingly clear that it was this decisive action that brought about the green shoots of recovery by the last quarter of 2009. (Radeke, 2009).

This, combined with the usual effects on GDP of a recession, meant that the budget deficit rose. But without such swift action we simply would not have the signs of tentative recovery that we saw as a result. So what went wrong? What happened to the ‘green shoots of recovery’ that were carefully nurtured by the last Labour Government?

That would be the Tory-led Coaliton. The difference between the recession that happened under Labour and the one under the Tories is that the global banking crisis would have caused recession no matter which party was in office at the time, whereas the current recession is a ‘homegrown’ one that can be directly attributed to Conservative economic policy. Conservatives always cause recession, Margaret Thatcher did, John Major did, and now, David Cameron has.

This Government is cutting the very measures that would ensure not only growth in the short-term, but economic security in the future, too. They are portraying their cuts as ‘necessary’, eliminating ‘waste’, and ‘efficient’, when in fact they are seriously jeopardising our future economic prosperity: cuts in funding for Regional Development Agencies; scrapping the Future Jobs Fund, which was a success and supported at least 200,000 people back into work through the recession; withdrawing industrial support, and the proposed and systematic cuts to public services, for example.

That is before we even begin to discuss the damning, detrimental economic and social implications of the welfare ‘reforms’ (CUTS), and the Localism Bill (more CUTS), and Legal Aid Bill (even more coordinated and carefully planned Tory CUTS that will serve to keep quiet and hide away subsequent evidence of the rising numbers of impoverished, destitute and starving victims of all of the other CUTS – and subsequent human rights abuses).

And there seems to be very little evidence to support their decisions. No facts, no consultation, no listening to expert advice. Just the ideology of the small state, propped up by notions of ‘self-reliance’ – but only for the poorest citizens of course – being pursued by the Tory right and the Orange Book Liberals.

The Tory budget is highly regressive, hitting the poorest -people the hardest while asking for very little from those at the top.

Here are some facts which demolish the fallacy that the present economic crisis is the result of excessive spending, leading to unsustainable debt:

Analysis by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has concluded that on the eve of the financial crisis ‘the public finances were in a stronger position than they had been when Labour first came to power in 1997.
Average annual spending and taxation were both lower as a proportion of GDP under the last 3 Labour Governments (38% and 35.4%) than under the 4 Conservative governments which preceded them (40% and 35.5%).
National debt was lower as a proportion of GDP at the start of the financial crisis in 2008 (36%) than in 1997, the last year of John Major’s Conservative government (42%). The national debt is forecast to hit 74.7% of GDP this year and peak at 79.9 per cent in 2015-16.
In 2010, the UK’s national debt as a proportion of GDP (52%) was the second lowest of the G7 countries.

The budget deficit is no more ‘structural’ than an overdraft in your bank account when you spend more than you earn. There is either a real deficit or not, and if there is, then it is due to either excessive spending or an inadequate tax take. The Conservatives like to reduce taxes for the wealthiest citizens.

Since it can easily be demonstrated that the problem is not the former, then it must be the latter – caused by the financial crisis and consequent recession and likely to be aggravated when taxes are cut later during this parliament to the benefit of high earners, corporations and banks.

As The Investors Chronicle states (15th February 2010): “The idea of a structural deficit serves a political rather than analytical function. It’s a pseudo-scientific concept which serves to legitimate what is in fact a pure judgement call – that borrowing needs cutting.”

Osborne began to revive the myth of the structural deficit in June 2010, when it was becoming clear that the deficit would be under £155 billion, well below the Treasury’s £178 billion estimate made six months earlier.

In other words, the deficit was narrowing after Labour increased spending in 2009. The fact that the US, which has made no serious deficit reductions, has suffered almost the smallest recession of any major developed economy, whereas Ireland and Greece have suffered the worst because of drastic spending cuts further undermines the Government’s claim that radical austerity measures are needed – and shows that Osborne’s main aim is not to reduce the deficit but to accelerate the transfer of wealth to the already very rich.

And if anyone still wants to talk about a ‘structural’ deficit, then they should remember that the last 3 Labour Governments managed to earn enough to cover their spending for 4 of their 13 years in office, whereas Thatcher and Major only managed to balance the books for 2 out of 17 years.

The Coalition continue to deny that alternatives to austerity are viable. As a Tory lie repetition strategy, this is based on the idea Goebbels had – repeated lies will somehow convince people that they are true. Cameron was busted when he repeatedly told the lie ‘We are paying down the debt.’ Despite being rumbled and rebuked, the Coalition have stuck with this lie doggedly.

The bonus of the lie is that it may undermine the Opposition’s economic credibility, and the Conservatives particularly delight in the lie that it’s all Labour’s fault because they ‘overspent’ as it further justifies austerity measures and starving public services of lifeline government funding with our paid taxes, as well as stripping our welfare provision away. There will be more cuts to come, too.

It was the Tories that lost the Moody’s Investors Service triple A grade, despite pledges to keep it secure. Moody’s credit ratings represent a rank-ordering of creditworthiness, or expected loss. The Fitch credit rating was also downgraded due to increased borrowing by the Tories, who have borrowed more in 4 years than Labour did in 13.

The Coalition have REALLY messed up the economy. We know it’s a big fat Tory lie that cutting spending at a time of economic recession will re-balance public finances. As many academics and economists have stated, cutting spending when the economy is flat is likely to cause further contraction to the economy, and that will negatively affect public finances, rather than help at all.

The Government will never confess to this because they are so tightly ideologically bound to an übertreiben Neoliberalism, no matter what the cost is in human terms, or even in economic terms. What we need is Labour’s expansionary fiscal policies, not contractionary ones.

Real, sensible economists (and not the token greedy businessmen the Conservatves trot out to address the public with neoliberal ideology) know that the only way to address a recession is to grow the economy, and that means more public spending in the short term to stimulate economic activity and cutting if needed when the economy is back on the up (which needn’t mean absolute cuts, but relative cuts because the economy is growing).

The Tories continue to blame the previous Labour Government for its own actions – The Blame Game

Letter from Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Andrew Dilnot to Labour’s Rachel Reeves – Public sector net debt and net borrowing

Cameron rebuked by the UK Statistics Agency chief Andrew Dilnot – Dear Prime Minister

Investors around the world are putting their trust in the only Labour government in the UK – Investors give thumbs up to Labour

Tory Coalition set to borrow more in five years than Labour in 13. Conservative Mark Field confirms.

A list of official rebukes for Tory lies .

Labour’s economic record given clean bill of health at home and abroad

“The economic situation explained in 3 minutes. Tory austerity has given us the slowest recovery since the South Sea Bubble. Professor David Blanchflower absolutely slaughters Cameron over his pre-excuse warning over the world economy, he blames Tory austerity for tanking Britain’s economy and preventing a recovery, and states that any recovery we do have is simply part of the cycle as long as you don’t wreck it with austerity, and confirms that our economy was on the RISE in 2009 / 2010.” From The World At One, Radio 4, 17th November, 2014.

Many thanks to Robert Livingstone for translating my comment into a meme

All facts and figures used here have since been fact checked by Factcheck.

I don’t make any money from my work. But if you want to, you can make a donation to help me continue to research and write free, informative, insightful and independent articles, and to provide support to others. The smallest amount is much appreciated – thank you.

No value in empty gestures: a retrospective analysis of Labour’s response to the the retrospective Sanctions Bill

June 11, 2013July 22, 2015 · 9 Comments ·

A few months ago, two young workers at Poundland appealed to the courts against being forced to work for no wages, or else forfeit all their benefits. A court ruling deemed the regulations governing Job Seekers Allowance related sanctions imposed on claimants Cait Reilly and Jamieson Wilson unlawful, and therefore opened up opportunities to claimants having repayment of lost benefits. There were around 230,000 people – other previously sanctioned jobseekers, which means a total of around £130 million may have reclaimed.

The Tories quickly wrote an Emergency Bill to retrospectively make those same regulations lawful. This was a shocking and tyrannical move that certainly contravenes human rights, and needs to be challenged under EU Human Rights legislation, and hopefully this will come to pass when Cait Reilly and Jamieson Wilson take their case further, to the Supreme Court.

However many people have criticised the Labour Party for its decision of abstaining from the vote on the Emergency Bill. It’s worth noting here that such a move is not the same thing as “supporting” the Tories regarding the Emergency Bill – as the Guardian misreported. Had the Labour Party supported the move by Ian Duncan Smith, they would have voted for the Bill. However, they did not.

Crucially, this two-clause Bill outlined that the same rules would apply as before, as if the case made by the two Poundland workers had never been brought forward.

This is of course objectionable on several grounds. It was retrospective in application, which as always been a cardinal principle of English law should be avoided. It set an appalling precedent that when the courts had struck down a law or regulation as having failed in due process, it could simply be overturned by Government without any proper regard being given to the court’s reasoning or argument for reform.

However, “A leaked email shows staff being warned by managers that they will be disciplined unless they increase the number of claimants referred to a tougher benefit regime.” The Guardian

That’s something which has been persistently denied by Tory Ministers – but it is something which the Labour Party’s initiated review of sanctions will now strive to get to the bottom of. Well done Labour.

“This is why we took difficult decisions on the Jobseekers’ Bill to secure an independent review of sanctions. We knew there were sanctions targets and now we’ve secured an independent report to Parliament to put right a regime in Job Centres that’s running out of control.” Liam Byrne.

Many Labour MPs – including front benchers – were aware of the whistle-blowing case before the vote, which was one of the main factors in the decision to abstain from voting.

Labour’s decision to abstain from voting on the Emergency Bill resulted in an unprecedented rage and knee-jerk responses from so many on the Left, and the situation was not helped by the fact that the media did not publish Labour’s press releases on the matter, the crass misrepresentation of Labour’s position on the Bill was considerable and widespread, with claims made that Labour “supported” the Government’s move.

The Government must have been laughing heartily at that one. Yet the situation was a difficult and complex one for the Labour Party, and I maintain that they made the best possible decision they could from where they were situated: between a rock and a very hard place. Well done Labour.

The Emergency bill reinstated the Department of Work and Pension’s power of sanction. Labour supports fair and proportionate sanctions in the context of a guaranteed six-month minimum-waged job. Labour’s position on sanctions is fundamentally different from the one currently held by the Coalition, and crucially, does not incorporate targets to remove benefits from vulnerable people for no good reason.

It was a no-win choice for Labour, with the Liberal Democrats and Tories combined in their vote, there was no way of making an impact or stopping the Bill by voting anyway. The abstention came with negotiated and hard won concessions, and that was the best possible outcome that labour could secure. It’s important that we understand the complexities of the situation that arose in order to see this.

Ian Duncan Smith had let it be known that if the £130 million were to be repaid, Job Seekers Allowance would be reduced. The losses of the 230,000 already sanctioned were therefore pitched against potential losses for millions of other jobseekers.

That is an appalling prospect, and it was not a threat from Iain Duncan Smith that was widely publicised. It ought to be. It shows clearly that the Opposition are facing the same oppressive authoritarianism as we are.

The important concessions maintain and uphold the right of appeal for jobseekers, and will ensure an essential review of sanctioning practice happens. The review will serve as a guarantor to the Government having its abuses of the sanction system exposed. It wouldn’t have been highlighted otherwise, since review is the best opportunity for a party in opposition to challenge effectively, and demonstrate gross unfairness, and misapplication and administration regarding policies. Especially when the Government doing the maladministration is an authoritarian one. Well done Labour.

Whether or not this will reduce the angry and hysterical knee-jerk responses that many in the party feel and have articulated towards both Byrne and the Labour leadership remains to be seen, but the importance attached to the review of sanctions, and the other secured concessions certainly makes sense to me.

A vote would have been an empty and meaningless gesture, which, perhaps, may have appeased the Narxists, but with no presented opportunity to improve the lot of jobseekers. For me, looking after the interests of the most vulnerable citizens is paramount. Labour did the right thing here.

At least the review and the maintaining of the right to challenge sanctions have been a significant gain from a very difficult situation. Well done Labour, for prioritising content over style, for ensuring that your response was based on an in-depth analysis, and not on the quick and easy option of a populist, superficial ideal – an empty, meaningless gesture of voting, whilst knowing you would gain nothing. Well done Labour. For prioritising and supporting the rights of vulnerable jobseekers. Quite properly so.

Statement from Liam Byrne, the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensioners.

“Most people are against the very idea of a retrospective Bill, especially a Bill pushed through Parliament so fast. I agree. It’s a terrible idea to rush ahead on this. Retrospective legislation does happen from time to time. But the government is moving too fast. It’s taken four weeks to bring forward a Bill that the government wants to push through Parliament in days.

So that’s why we are voting for a motion in the Lords deploring the speed with which the government acted – and its why we’ve argued so hard to maximise the time we have to improve the Bill. But we should be clear about something. If the DWP loses its Supreme Court case in a few weeks time, it might find itself liable for £130 million. Where would that money come from? The Employment Minister Mark Hoban told the House yesterday that it could only come from further benefit cuts.

And here’s the choice I faced in the Commons. Do I do everything to foul up the timetable of the bill, safe in the knowledge that because we lack a majority, the Tories and Lib Dems would ultimately win any vote they liked, whenever they liked? At best this might have delayed the Bill a week or two. Or, do I let the Bill go through before Easter in return for two critical concessions which Labour MP’s actually can actually use in practice to help people over the next two years?

I think we made the right call.

To be honest, I was surprised that Iain Duncan Smith accepted the concessions I demanded. Had I wanted to grandstand I could have forced votes that delayed the timetable a bit. This would have been the small “p” politics of parliamentary legislation. It would certainly have been easier for whips to convince colleagues who were concerned. But even now, after all the fury, I think the most honest way was to gain a guaranteed concession and bank it. Labour are in opposition. We don’t normally get any concessions at all. But now we’ve got two vital changes.

First, we had to make sure that people hit by sanctions have an iron-clad right of appeal against a sanction decision. That’s the right we’ve now ensured is written onto the face of the Bill; it’s the right to appeal on ‘good cause’ (for example, refusing to take a pointless course which is inappropriate) within a 13 month timetable.

There’s something else at stake here. I actually think it’s impossible for anyone to stand in Parliament and say that not one single sanction issued by DWP since 2011 is unfair. We’re not psychic. How could we know? The key thing the DWP got wrong was their notification letters which were too short. Instead of saying:

“If you fail to take part in the [name of employment programme] without a good reason under the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011, your Jobseeker’s Allowance could stop for up to 26 weeks. You could also lose your National Insurance credits.”

They should have said:

“Under the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011, your Jobseeker’s Allowance could stop for up to 26 weeks if you fail, without good reason, to take part in [name of employment programme]. This would include failing to complete any activity that your Provider has required you to do.

Two weeks, for a first failure
Four weeks, if you have previously received a two-week sanction, whether in relation to your participation in the Work Programme or any other scheme set up under the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011, within the last 12 months; or
26 weeks if you have previously received a four-week or 26-week sanction, whether in relation to your participation in the Work Programme or any other scheme set up under the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011, within the last 12 months.

This was the lack of detail that provoked the Court of Appeal striking down the government’s sanctioning power. I don’t think we know whether every single sanction decision issued since 2011 is wrong. That’s why we need to ensure people hit by sanctions have the right of appeal – to protect the innocent – and that’s what we got guaranteed on the face of the bill.

Second, there’s something else. I’ve heard too many stories – not least from my own constituents – about people being wrongly sanctioned. And that’s why I insisted – and won – an independent review of the sanctions regime with an urgent report to Parliament. We need to use this to ruthlessly expose bad behaviour. It is actually one of the practical things we can do to make a difference over the next year.

The final argument about Labour’s stance on the Bill, is for many, the most emotive; it’s the wide anger about the very existence of ‘mandatory work activity.’ Labour’s view is that work experience can help get young people into work – but – and this is the crucial ‘but’, we strongly feel that young people should be given a real choice of a real job with a real wage. That means a tax on bankers’ bonuses to create a fund which we would spend offering over 100,000 young people a six month job, with training and job search paid at the national minimum wage. And that’s what we will vote for in the House of Lords over the next few days.

Not one Tory spoke on this Bill in the Commons. We’re different. Labour MP after Labour MP spoke in the Commons. We care about this – and we’re right to debate it with passion and vigour When we stop being angry about this kind of issue will be the day that we lose our soul. But, let’s be under no illusion. Only by standing shoulder to shoulder will we ultimately push this terrible government into Opposition. We are Labour because we care and debate questions like this so passionately. We reject the politics of divide and rule. And we’ve learned the hard way that unity is strength.”

Liam Byrne.

“The Labour Party used the emergency legislation to ensure that all bad sanctioning decisions can be appealed and even more importantly, that the whole sanctioning regime is reviewed. We forced the Government to implement an independent inquiry into the sanctions regime as part of the Jobseekers Bill and voting against the Bill would have prevented this.

Labour is now gathering evidence to submit to that inquiry. If you have evidence of sanctions being handed out inappropriately I would be grateful to have them, so I can include them in Labour’s submission to the independent review.”

Jon Trickett, MP

Well done Labour.

Further reading:

Leaked jobcentre newsletter urges staff to improve on sanctions targets

Hodge demands explanation for DWP denial of jobcentre sanctions targets

Liam Byrne writes to IDS over sanctions whistleblower

Many thanks to Robert Livingstone, once again, for his brilliant art work

Essential information for ESA claims, assessments and appeals

April 21, 2013December 7, 2017 · 186 Comments ·

Essential Information for claims, assessments and appeals.

There are three essential ideas to keep in mind when claiming Employment Support Allowance (ESA) because of the nature of the ESA50 form, and the fact that Atos are seeking to deny benefits, and NOT assess disability: this will not be a fair investigation of your health issues.

This information needs to be shared widely so people are made aware of them, and can use them when claiming ESA or appealing.

These very helpful ideas are:

Reliably, repeatedly and safely
Exceptional circumstances – Regulations 25 and 31, 29 and 35
Atos assessments and pitfalls – how they try to deceive you

1. Reliably, repeatedly and safely.

‘Lord’ Fraud made this statement in the House of Lords:

“It must be possible for all the descriptors to be completed reliably, repeatedly and safely, otherwise the individual is considered unable to complete the activity.”

You might be able to go up three steps once – but if cannot do it “reliably, repeatedly and safely”, in Freud’s own words you CAN NOT do it at all.

Apply the phrase “reliably, repeatedly and safely” all through your ESA50 or appeal form, use it on each of the descriptors. Make sure you state clearly which activities you can not do reliably, repeatedly, safely and in a timely manner, because Atos will otherwise assume you are consistently capable of them all.

2. Exceptional Circumstances – Regulations 25 and 31 for Universal Credit and Regulations 29 and 35 for current and ongoing ESA claims and Contribution-based ESA.

Regulations 25 and 31 will replace the old Special Regulations 29 and 35 from April 2013 for Universal Credit. This is in preparation for the abolishment of income-related ESA only, and not contribution-based ESA.

However, the old Regulations 29 and 35 still apply to ongoing cases that are not yet affected by Universal Credit, and will remain in place indefinitely for all Contribution-based ESA. So there are two sets of Regulations in place for Exceptional Circumstances.

Income-based ESA will be replaced by Universal Credit, as (or if) it is rolled out, but there will be the same additional financial components added as we currently have for ESA – you will be able to claim either the work-related activity or the support component.

The contents of both sets of Regulations are essentially the same. They are applied in the same way. 25 and 29 are for those who are not capable of work, and would usually be placed in the Work-Related Activity Group, and 31 and 35 apply to those not capable of work-related activity, and would normally be placed in the Support Group.

Because of the tick-box nature of the ESA50 form, it is likely that people will fall below the number of points required to be declared incapable of work – it doesn’t take into account variable illnesses, mental illness, or the effects of having more than one illness.

However, the Exceptional Circumstances Regulations may cover us – they both state that the claimant should be found incapable of work (Regulation 29 for ongoing ESA claims, 29 for Universal Credit) or work-related activity (Regulation 35 for ongoing ESA claims, 31 for Universal Credit) if:

they have an uncontrolled or uncontrollable illness, or “the claimant suffers from some specific disease or bodily or mental disablement and
by reason 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/work-related activity”.

If you feel this reflects your circumstances, then we suggest adding something like this, where you put “other information” on the ESA50:

“If the scoring from my answers above is insufficient, then I believe applying the Exceptional Circumstances Regulations would be appropriate due to the severity and interaction of my conditions, and my inability to reliably, repeatedly and safely encounter work-related situations and/or safely perform work-related tasks.

I am taking all available and appropriate medication as prescribed by my doctor(s), and there are no reasonable adjustments to a workplace which would mitigate my medical condition(s).

Therefore I believe being placed in the Support Group would be appropriate, because there would be a serious substantial risk to mental and/or physical health if I were placed into a workplace environment or in the work-related activity group.”

You can word it yourself, of course. Please change the wording to fit your situation, delete “mental” or “physical” if appropriate, leave both in if necessary. If your illness cannot be controlled at all, or medication can’t be used to control it, add that instead.

Regulations 29 (for ESA) and 25 (for Universal Credit) cover people who might be put in the Work-Related Activity Group (WRAG), which has work-focused activities, sometimes it has workfare placements, and sanctions may apply, while Regulations 35 (for ESA) and 31 (for Universal Credit) cover people who are not well enough for any kind of work activity. This is for people who might be placed in the Support Group. There are no conditions placed on you for getting your ESA, such as workfare, if you have limited capability for work-related activity.

You can ask your doctor to support you with this claim, as it is stated in the regulations:

“(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” may be presented to support your case.

You can ask for copies of any communication from your consultant to your GP. You can also ask to be copied into any further correspondence between your doctors.

Here are some links so you can download and print off documents to give to your GP to support your claim or appeal. You ought to submit copies of these to the DWP as soon as you can. (Make sure that you keep a copy).

In some cases, this may mean that your case will be reconsidered in your favour without having to wait for a tribunal hearing.

These templates are for ongoing ESA claims and Contribution-based ESA:

(CLICK) Cover letter for your GP

(CLICK) ESA Appeals Letter for your GP

(CLICK) Legal Advice of Counsel for GPs: Prevention of Avoidable Harm Interpretation and Application of ‘Substantial Risk’ ESA Regulations 29 & 35

With many thanks to the Black Triangle Campaign for these extremely helpful links and templates.

Please remember: Regulations 29 and 35 still apply to all ongoing ESA claims, and will remain in use for contribution-based ESA claims.

Regulations 25 and 31 apply to Universal credit when that is rolled out. If you are one of the few currently claiming Universal Credit in one of the pilot areas, and if you are not eligible for contribution-based ESA, Regulations 25 and 31 apply now. You may amend the print off documents for your GP, as they cite the Regulations most likely to be applicable at the moment.

The full text of the legislation appears at the end of this article (Appendix A).

3. The Atos assessment and what you need to know.

You have a right to ask for your assessment to be recorded. You will need to request this in advance, but it’s worth making sure you use this opportunity to gather evidence on record because in doing so, you make it much more difficult for the Health Care Professional (HCP) to disregard what you tell them and write “inaccuracies” in their assessment report. We would strongly recommend you exercise this right.

It’s also worth knowing that Atos don’t conduct “medical” assessments, they conduct “disability analysis“. You are not a patient to Atos, you are a “claimant”.

Bear in mind throughout the assessment that your answers to any apparently innocent questions, such as:

Do you watch television
Do you read
Do you use the internet

These may be translated into phrases for the assessment report such as:

Can sit unaided and unsupported for at least half an hour.
Has no problems with concentration and focus
Has no visual problems

Assessment starts on the day of your appointment with the HCP reading the form you completed when you applied for benefit. Remember that every single question you are asked is designed to justify ending your claim for ESA and passing you as “fit for work.” That is what Atos are contracted to do by the Government. This is not a genuine medical assessment, but rather, an opportunity for the DWP to take away the financial support that you are entitled to.

Things that are noted from your form:

Did you complete the form yourself
Is the handwriting legible
Are the contents coherent

These observations are already used in assessing your hand function, your cognitive state and concentration.

Further observations made:

Do the things you have written add up, is there consistency
Does your medication support your diagnosis
What tests have you had to confirm diagnosis. For example a diagnosis of sciatica is not accepted unless diagnosed by MRI scan
Do you have supporting medical evidence from your GP or consultants. If you do, it shows that you are able to organise getting this information

When the HCP has read your form they input some data into the computer system. The assessment properly begins when they call your name in the waiting room.

At this point the HCP assesses:

Did you hear your name being called
Did you rise from your chair unaided, did the chair have support arms or not
Were you accompanied – assessing your ability to go out alone
Were you reading a paper while waiting – assessing your concentration
Did you walk to the assessment room unaided, did you use aids correctly. Did you navigate any obstacles safely – assessing sight

The HCP will shake your hand on introduction – assessing your handshake, noting if are you trembling, sweating – signs of anxiety. Note that you are under constant scrutiny. The HCP will often ask on the way to the assessment room:

How long you’ve been waiting – assessing your ability to physically sit, and appraising your mental state
How did you get here today – assessing your ability to drive or use public transport

Formal assessment begins by listing medical conditions/complaints. For each complaint you will be asked:

How long have you had it, have you seen a specialist
Have you had any tests, what treatments have you had
What’s your current treatment. Have you had any other specialist input e.g. physiotherapy, CPN

The HCP will use a lack of specialist input/ hospital admissions to justify assessing your condition as less severe. Medications will be listed and it will be noted if they are prescribed or bought. Dates will be checked on boxes to assess compliance with dosage and treatment regime. Any allergies or side-effects should be noted.

A brief note is made of how you feel each condition affects your life
A brief social history will be taken – who you live with, if have you stairs in your house or steps outside your house
An employment history taken – when you last worked, what you work entailed, reason for leaving employment

Your typical day – this is the part of the assessment where how you function on a day to day basis is used to justify the HCP decisions. Anything you say here is most often used to justify the HCP “failing” you and assessing you as “fit for work”. The HCP records their observations.

Starting with your sleep pattern, questions are asked about your ability to function. This will include:

Lower limb problems – ability to mobilise to shop, around the house, drive, use public transport, dress, shower
Upper limb – ability to wash, dress, cook, shop, complete the ESA form
Vision – did you manage to navigate safely to the assessment room
Hearing – did you hear your name being called in the waiting room
Speech – could the HCP understand you at assessment
Continence – do you describe incontinence NOT CONTROLLED by pads, medication. Do you mention its effects on your life when describing your typical day
Consciousness – do you suffer seizures – with loss of continence, possible injury, witnessed, or uncontrolled diabetes
The HCP observations include noting how far you walked to the examination room, watching to see if you removed your coat independently, did you handle medications without difficulty, did you bend to pick up your handbag

Formal examination consists of simple movements to assess limited function. Things the HCP also looks at:

Are you well-presented, hair done, wearing make-up, eyebrows waxed
Do you have any pets – this can be linked with ability to bend to feed and walk
Do you look after someone else – as a parent or carer – if you do, this will be taken as evidence of functioning
Are you doing any training, voluntary work, do you socialise – this will be used as evidence of functioning

This is not a comprehensive list, but it gives you an idea of how seemingly innocent questions are used to justify HCP decisions to pass you as “fit for work.”

Mental Health:

Learning tasks – can you use a phone, computer, washing machine
Hazards – can you safely make tea, if you claim you have accidents, there must be emergency services involvement, e.g. fire service. Near miss accidents do not count

Personal Actions:

Can you wash, dress, gather evidence for assessment
Do you manage bills

Other observations made by the HCP – appearance and presentation:

Coping with assessment interview – any abnormal thoughts, hallucinations, confusion, suicidal thoughts
Coping with change – ability to attend assessment, attend GP or hospital appointments, shopping and socialising

More HCP observations include:

Appearance, eye contact, rapport, any signs/symptoms that are abnormal mood/thoughts/perceptions. Any suicidal thoughts
How you cope with social engagement- appropriateness of behaviour – any inappropriate behaviour must have involved police to be considered significant
Your capacity to cope with the assessment, overall responses and level of engagement with the assessor

Again, this is not an exhaustive list, merely some examples.

Additional information:

Special cases: exemptions from assessment include – terminal illness, intravenous chemotherapy treatment and regular weekly treatment of haemodialysis for chronic renal failure; treatment by way of plasmapheresis; regular weekly treatment by way of total parenteral nutrition for gross impairment of enteric function.

At present to qualify for ESA you need to score 15 points. This can be a combination of scores from physical and mental health descriptors.To qualify for the support group you must score 15 points in one section. As long as you are claiming income-based ESA then your award can be renewed at each assessment, if you gain 15 points.

Remember that you may also qualify without meeting the 15 points criterion, even if you don’t score any points, because of Exceptional Circumstances (Regulations 25, 29 and 31, 35) if there would be a substantial risk to your mental or physical health if you were found not to have limited capability for work and/or work-related activity respectively.

Contribution-based ESA lasts for 1 year only, unless you are in the Support Group. After 1 year, in the Work-Related Activity Group (WRAG), you may only get income-based ESA if your household income is below a certain threshold. It makes no difference how long you have previously paid National Insurance.

Further information:

Lord Freud – “Reliably, repeatedly and safely” – Source: Hansard, column 326, paragraph 4.

*There are Judges who interpret the law and where applicable, set precedent. There are Ministers who set policy. With specific reference to the use of repeatedly, reliably, safely, and in a timely manner, this is the result of Upper Tribunal judges interpreting the law and setting precedent through case law.*

Exceptional Circumstances: Employment and Support Allowance Regulation 25
Exceptional Circumstances: Employment and Support Regulation 31
Employment and Support Allowance: 2013 Regulations in full
Explanatory memorandum to all benefits 2013: Full legislation document
Recommended – Implications of the changes and advice: Employment Support Allowance claim update: Exceptional Circumstances – Regulations 25 and 31 and Universal Credit
Recommended – The Black Triangle Campaign: How to Gain Exemption f rom DWP/Atos ‘Fit for Work’ & WRAG decisions by Applying ESA Regulations 29 and 35 (see note for 25 and 31)
The new Work Capability Assessment 2013: DWP Guide
The Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2008 (as amended) – judiciary.gov.uk

Appendix A:

Regulation 25

25.—(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—

(a) the claimant is suffering from a life-threatening disease in relation to which—

(i) there is medical evidence that the disease is uncontrollable, or uncontrolled, by a recognised therapeutic procedure; and

(ii) in the case of a disease that is uncontrolled, there is a reasonable cause for it not to be controlled by a recognised therapeutic procedure; or

(b) the claimant suffers from some specific disease or bodily or mental disablement and, by reason 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.

(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.

*Regulation 25 outlines exceptional circumstances in which a person will be treated as having limited capability for work, but may be capable of work-related activities. People in these circumstances are placed in the ESA work-related activity group (WRAG)

However, there are further exceptional circumstances in which a person will be treated as having limited capability for work-related activity in addition, and will therefore be placed in the ESA support group. These are outlined by Regulation 31.

Regulation 31

31.—(1) A claimant is to be treated as having limited capability for work-related activity if—

(a) the claimant is terminally ill;

(b) the claimant is—

(i) receiving treatment for cancer by way of chemotherapy or radiotherapy;

(ii) likely to receive such treatment within six months after the date of the determination of capability for work-related activity; or

(iii) recovering from such treatment,

and the Secretary of State is satisfied that the claimant should be treated as having limited capability for work-related activity;

(c) in the case of a woman, she is pregnant and there is a serious risk of damage to her health or to the health of her unborn child if she does not refrain from work-related activity; or

(d) the claimant is entitled to universal credit and it has previously been determined that the claimant has limited capability for work and work-related activity on the basis of an assessment under Part 5 of the Universal Credit Regulations 2013.

(2) A claimant who does not have limited capability for work-related activity as determined in accordance with regulation 30(1) is to be treated as having limited capability for work-related activity if—

(a) the claimant suffers from some specific disease or bodily or mental disablement; and

(b) by reason 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-related activity.

For all ongoing cases where Universal Credit does NOT apply, and for ALL Contributions-based ESA claims:

Regulation 29

29.—(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) This paragraph applies if—

(a) the claimant is suffering from a life threatening disease in relation to which—

(i) there is medical evidence that the disease is uncontrollable, or uncontrolled, by a recognised therapeutic procedure; and

15(ii) in the case of a disease that is uncontrolled, there is a reasonable cause for it not to be controlled by

a recognised therapeutic procedure; or

(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.

Regulation 35

35.—(1) A claimant is to be treated as having limited capability for work-related activity if—

(a) the claimant is terminally ill;(b) the claimant is—

21(i) receiving treatment by way of intravenous, intraperitoneal or intrathecal chemotherapy; or

(ii) recovering from that treatment and the Secretary of State is satisfied that the claimant should be treated as having limited capability for work-related activity; or

(c) in the case of a woman, she is pregnant and there is a serious risk of damage to her health or to the health of her unborn child if she does not refrain from work-related activity.

(2) A claimant who does not have limited capability for work-related activity as determined in accordance with regulation 34(1) is to be treated as having limited capability for work-related activity if—

(a) the claimant suffers from some specific disease or bodily or mental disablement; and

(b) 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-related activity.

Appendix B

Most Atos HCPs are not doctors, they are usually nurses or occupational therapists. You can demand that a qualified doctor or specialist conducts your assessment under some circumstances. I’ve gathered the following list from various Freedom of Information responses from the Department for Work and Pensions.

List of conditions judged suitable for assessment by neuro – trained nurses/any health care profession, so make sure that you are seen by a qualified HCP:

Prolapsed intervertebral disc
Lumbar nerve root compression
Sciatica
Slipped disc
Lumbar spondylosis
Lumbar spondylolisthesis
Lumbar spondylolysis
Cauda equina syndrome
Spinal stenosis
Peripheral neuropathy
Neuropathy
Drop foot
Meralgia paraesthetica
Cervical spondylosis
Cervical nerve root compression
Cervicalgia
Nerve entrapment syndrome
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Trapped nerve
Paraesthesia
Tingling
Numbness
Brachial plexus injury
Polyneuropathy
Dizziness
Vertigo
Essential Tremor
VWF
Alzheimer’s

List of conditions judged by the DWP and Atos Healthcare as suitable only for assessment by doctors:

Stroke
Head injury with neuro sequelae
Brain haemorrhage
Sub Arachnoid Haemorrhage
Brain tumour
Acoustic Neuroma
Multiple Sclerosis
Motor Neurone Disease
Parkinson’s disease
TIAs
Bulbar Palsy
Myasthenia Gravis
Muscular Dystrophy
Guillain-Barre Syndrome
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Syringomyelia
Neurofibromatosis
Spina bifida
Polio
Fits (secondary to brain tumour)
Learning difficulties (with physical problems)
Nystagmus
Myelitis
Bells Palsy
Trigeminal Neuralgia
Paraplegia
Quadriplegia
Huntington’s Chorea
Huntington’s Disease

Further reading:

More on questions you may be asked at assessment: dwpexamination forum
How to deal with Benefits medical examinations: A Useful Guide to Benefit Claimants when up against ATOS Doctors
More support and advice here: How to deal with Benefits medical examinations
Step by step guide to appealing a ESA decision: Good Advice Matters

Important update

Clause 99, Catch 22 – The ESA Mandatory Second Revision and Appeals

Additional support:

The LawWorks Clinics Network is a nationwide network of free legal advice sessions which LawWorks supports.Clinics provide free initial advice to individuals on various areas of law including social welfare issues, employment law, housing matters and consumer disputes – List of LawWorks clinics

Thanks to Robert Livingstone for his valuable contributions.

With many thanks to Joyce Drummond for contributing such valuable information about the Work Capability Assessment.

With many thanks to The Black Triangle Campaign for sharing their work on the GP support letter template, and covering legal and explanatory documents

I don’t make any money from my work. But you can help me continue to research and write informative, insightful and independent articles, and to provide support to others by making a donation. The smallest amount is much appreciated – thank you.

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1. We have NO IDEA how many young teenage girls get pregnant

2. We think there are WAY MORE old people than there actually are

3. And that’s nothing compared to how wrong we are about Muslims. We think there are SOOOOO MANY Muslims

4. Also we are TOTALLY OUT TO LUNCH when trying to guess how many benefit fraudsters there are

Key takeaway thought from this: excellent job, media and Tories! You have successfully convinced us we live in your completely contrived, pre-fabricated fantasy world

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The case for austerity measures rests on the Great Debt Lie and the myth of the structural deficit.

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Essential Information for claims, assessments and appeals.

1. Reliably, repeatedly and safely.

2. Exceptional Circumstances – Regulations 25 and 31 for Universal Credit and Regulations 29 and 35 for current and ongoing ESA claims and Contribution-based ESA.

3. The Atos assessment and what you need to know.

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