Tag: welfare reforms

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.

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The Labour Party address welfare wrongs with human rights and strong equality principles.

July 5, 2013March 14, 2015 · 4 Comments ·

The Labour Party have always supported cumulative and equality impact assessments, and embedded this practice in their own legislative process. I know this because it was an issue I raised in discussion with Anne McGuire last year, I was very aware that the welfare reforms had not undergone such essential cumulative impact assessment. And now we are seeing the devastating impacts of those “reforms”.

Impact assessments were enshrined in Labour’s Equality Act, implemented in 2010. This issue is something that I have felt very strongly about, not least because equality and cumulative impact assessments are a positive way of safeguarding our most fundamental human rights. They also assure fairness and safety, and ensure that people’s circumstances are not made worse by policies.

Impact assessments are intended to ensure that neither discrimination nor adverse treatment to people from different groups occurs based on age, race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, transgender, pregnancy and maternity, socio-economic status, marriage and civil partnership and other groups who may experience disparities in opportunity. Where there is any identified potential for discrimination or adverse treatment, action plans will be created to counter this and demonstrate that the equality impact assessment process is leading to positive change. This is a legal requirement.

Labour have recognised it is disabled people and the most vulnerable who bear a disproportionate share of the austerity cuts, simply because of the inequality they face in employment, which means they are more likely to rely on benefits. In other words they are facing a double penalty simply because of their characteristics – disadvantaged in the (now somewhat limited) labour market and now targeted by benefit “reform”. (Cuts). This also raises further concern about human rights, since this Coalition action constitutes discrimination on the basis of “characteristics”, in accordance with Labour’s Equality Act.

The general duty to perform equality impact assessments applies across the full range of our public activities. This means that the duty applies to policy-making, budget setting, developing high level strategies, plans, procedures, reports, business cases, service provision, employment matters, and enforcement or statutory discretion and decision-making. Essentially, it applies to everything we do. It also applies to our functions in relation to procurement and contracting out services. In addition, the duty applies to private and voluntary bodies carrying out our public functions on our behalf.

However, under the Equality Act, the need for public bodies in England to undertake or publish an equality impact assessment (EIA) of their policies, practices and decisions was removed in April 2011 by the Tory-led Coalition, when the “single equality duty” was introduced. Public bodies must still give “due regard” to the need to avoid discrimination and promote equality of opportunity for all protected groups when making policy decisions. They are also required to publish information showing how they are complying with this duty – but can do that…

“…without having to carry out lengthy and detailed impact assessments.” – David Cameron

Although the Government have produced some perfunctory impact assessment of each individual policy strand of the welfare “reforms”, these documents are useless. Worse than useless, in fact, because they give us – the media, policy analysts and anyone else caring to look at them – the impression that we know what the impact of the Government’s welfare reform agenda will be. But we don’t. And the Government doesn’t either. This is due to the fragmented nature of our welfare system – many people claim more than one benefit and tax credit at a time.

As a result, the impact of the Government’s plan to cut several benefits in several ways will inevitably affect some households repeatedly. The Government’s impact assessments only consider each cut in isolation, and cannot quantify this cumulative effect. And so the government had identified dozens of individual groups who will experience a reduction in income, but gave no indication if they are actually identifying the same group over and over again. We now know that it IS the same group that has been hit by multiple cuts. Thousands of disabled people have been hit by as many as six welfare cuts simultaneously.

We do know from “Briefing on How Cuts Are Targeted” by Dr Simon Duffy that if we compare the relative targeting of the welfare cuts on different groups then:

People in poverty are targeted 5 times more than most citizens
Disabled people are targeted 9 times more than most citizens
People needing social care are targeted 19 times more than most citizens

For anyone, this represents the loss of substantial sums of money, essential for meeting fundamental needs. But for disabled people struggling with spiralling costs of living, and the withdrawal of public services and support also, such multiple financial losses are life-changing and devastating.

Individual impact assessments are utilised when making a single policy change here and there, but when dozens of changes are made simultaneously – 18 impact assessments were issued for the Welfare Reform Bill alone – this piecemeal approach is both inadequate and very misleading.

Each impact assessment identifies a relatively small amount of money shared across a large group. On the face of it, reading them, one might conclude that the cuts are being widely and fairly spread. But the reality is that three, four, or more losses affect a single person. This is the case for hundreds of thousands of people across the country. How can we evaluate the fairness of such a comprehensive package of cuts when its the case that the assessments have provided no real overview of who will be affected, and to what extent? We can not. That was very clearly the aim.

Reading though the Tory-led “equality impact assessment” for universal credit, I can say that the emphasis is strictly on justifying the legislation, and utilises Coalition propaganda, and glib, superficial assurances such as “there will be significant opportunities to promote equality for disabled people through improving work incentives and smoothing the transition into work”, without any explanation as to how this will be achieved. And of course we know that “work incentives” are actually punitive measures, including the use of sanctions, rather than support offered in any meaningful and real way.

And only the Tories would have the utter mendacity to claim that benefit CUTS will contribute to a reduction in the poverty rate amongst disabled households. We know that this is a very blatant lie. It doesn’t take any degree of genius to work that out, either

I have written to the Labour Party to raise my own concerns about the Coalition’s abandonment of effective impact assessments, as a means of protecting human rights and as a way of ensuring that policies are fair, safe, none discriminatory and democratic. I know many others have also campaigned regarding this important issue.

I have had the following response from Liam Byrne:

“Dear Susan,

Time to come clean.

After more than three years in power, it’s time for this Government to finally come clean and tell us exactly what impact their changes will have on the lives of disabled people and their carers. So on Wednesday 10 July, Labour will drag Ministers to the House of Commons to debate the changes they have made that affect disabled people, and at about 16:00 we will force a vote to demand a Cumulative Impact Assessment by October 2013 at the latest – and we will be calling on MPs from across the House to support it.

I am asking supporters to help build pressure on the government in three ways:

Write to your MP and ask them to back the motion
Write to your local paper and explain why we urgently need a cumulative impact assessment
Tweet your support using #MakeRightsReality

Here is the link to the motion – http://liambyrne.co.uk/?p=4534

This government is failing to support our disabled people. It’s time for Ministers to come clean, admit where they are getting things wrong and change course.

It’s time to start making rights a reality for disabled people.

Please forward this email to anyone who might be interested.

This is the motion in full:

That this House believes that the Government should publish a cumulative impact assessment of the changes made by this Government that affect disabled people (to be published by October 2013).

Yours,

Liam Byrne”.

Please support this move, by pressuring your MP, and by publicising the need for a cumulative impact assessment, and emphasising the crucial role it has in democratic process, as a way of ensuring policies are fair and safe, and as a fundamental safeguard of our human rights.

The Blame Game

February 17, 2013May 31, 2017 · 34 Comments ·

The Government are playing a game. They don’t serve the needs of the public. They serve a wealthy elite. The Conservatives don’t care about the consequences of taking money from the poorest and giving it to the wealthiest. But they won’t tell us that. They are playing the game that the game is not a game.

It’s called the “blame game.” As welfare “reforms” and housing cuts bite increasingly harder, do we ever reach the point where the government concedes that the horror and hardship caused to many is an inevitable consequence of their own policies? Not at all. Instead we see their adeptness at digging ever deeper holes of denial.

At least Thatcher admitted there was increased unemployment, that it was as a tool of economic policy, and it was, in her opinion, a price worth paying to bring down inflation. Shucks, shame that didn’t work, Maggie. We had high unemployment AND high inflation. But at least she was honest about her original intent.

The government denies that there is job insecurity, unemployment and underemployment. Or indeed any hardship at all; public sacrifices made through an elites’ economic policy-making. They blame anyone other than the ministers who have instituted the cuts. Whenever some new example of the horrendous effects of their policies is presented to them, they have a range of stock responses. You have to wonder if there is a standard Whitehall crib sheet for ministers. Cases that clearly indicate a correlation between their policies and harm are dismissed as “anecdotal evidence”, and that “no causal link can be established”.

Correlation often implies a causal link, but to find it, you have to investigate further, rather than issuing flat denials, loudly.

Here is what the crib sheet looks like, in the interests of democracy and open Government:-

Deny that alternatives to austerity are viable

The repetition of a lie ad nauseum is based on the idea Goebbels had – that 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, 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 Tories 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 Government funding, with our paid taxes, as well as stripping our welfare provision away.

The Conservatives 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 Neo-Liberalism, 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 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).

Repeat that implementing the cuts is avoidable

The trick is to give the impression that all the cuts can be made painlessly by eliminating luxuries and sacking “backroom staff”. Cameron used this one at PMQs last week when he accused Councils of making high-profile cuts “to try to make a point,” and not because they need to. Delivered with a straight face and psychopathic calm, this sounds like a feasible lie that some will believe. So, central government is severely reducing budgets to Local Authorities, leaving them with a kind of impossible table cloth pulling trick to accomplish. Rip away the funding and hope the contents of the table – local services and provisions – stay put, and don’t crash to the floor. Of course, Labour Councils will be affected by the cuts more than other Councils, too. That also works out well for the Conservatives.

Blame the previous Labour Government. A lot

“It’s all their fault we have too few homes.” The Conservatives focus on the fact that housebuilding in Labour’s very last year was the worst they achieved, even though we know that was because of the credit crunch. The government won’t admit either that housebuilding under the Coalition is on average 45,000 homes less per year than the output under Labour, or that 2010/11 and 2011/12 were the two worst years since the war for English housebuilding. They don’t mention that Thatcher sold off all of the social housing stock, either. Again, they blame local government. Westminster is putting homeless families up in expensive hotels and Camden is sending them to Coventry (or Leicester, Liverpool, or somewhere else absurdly far from London). The Government say, hiding their smug smiles, how stupid this is, and tell them to stop it, even though both they and we know they cannot.

Don’t admit that cutting welfare affects anything else.

Cuts in all benefits for private tenants and the bedroom tax will mean that more people will become homeless, and more people will need accommodation with lower rents ad fewer rooms in the social sector. The government deny that this will happen. Most of the political debate at the moment is focused on the consequences of the bedroom tax, which they claim is “fair”and the implications of private sector high rents, local rent allowance caps, (and in some areas, councils are quietly imposing a bedroom tax on those in privately rented properties, too, despite the rhetoric that this will affect only those tenants in social housing) the poll tax style council benefit reductions and DWP related benefits cap have been somewhat obscured.

Current debate does not, and probably cannot cover the depth of utter disruption and destruction to people’s lives that these changes are going to bring about. That is partly because the full details of the changes are not being released by this government in a transparent and timely manner.

If any evidence emerges that shows them to be wrong, under no circumstances will the government agree with it. All valid criticism and evidence will be passed off as “scaremongering”. Better still, the government don’t read the evidence then no-one can accuse them of knowing the facts but ignoring them. Alternatively, officials may be able to find an obscure or outdated source that on the surface appears to contradict the evidence.

Blame the victims

Extravagant housing benefit claims may only happen in a few isolated cases, but even so the press will amplify and stigmatise those few, especially if they are large families, unemployed, migrants or – even better – all three. The government gives the impression that such claims make up most of the welfare budget. They won’t ever admit that over half of welfare spending goes to older people, as they are seen as deserving of it, by the general public. Athough older people may not be as secure as they think – there’s a little rhetoric creeping in that portrays elderly people needing social care as being a “burden” on “the tax payer”. That never bodes well for a social group, it usually signals some significant cut to their income and support.

If the government is talking about housing benefit, they will try to give the impression that it’s spent by the tenants themselves to fund their indolent lifestyles – they won’t ever confess that the money goes directly to landlords who are pushing up rents because there are insufficient houses available. There is the old Poor Law binary conceptual schema, especially resurrected to inform Tory narratives – the notion of “deserving” and “undeserving” poor, which is implicit in all of their anti-welfare and anti-public service rhetoric.

The government use keywords and sound bites in debate, speeches and in the media. They repeatedly refer to “scroungers”, “hard working families” , “the workshy,” “strivers” and “skivers” and talk about “subsidised housing,” and not council homes. (£23,000,000,000 every year is given to private landlords in subsidies by tax payers). This helps “confirm” the impression that most welfare spending is a waste of (“striving” tax payers’) money.

Suggestions for new and even more derogative terms are always welcome. IDS made a good attempt to link welfare recipients in the public collective consciousness with drug addicts and alcoholics. Other MPs are following his lead. Again, evidence that is presented to the contrary is dismissed, usually with angry derision and a renewed psychological and linguistic assault on the victims, and/or the label of “scaremongering” directed at the critic that presented the evidence.

Another important strategy employed by the Tories is to manipulate the victims of their savage cuts via propaganda, so they blame each other. Those in low paid work can blame the poor unemployed for the economic recession and the misery of the cuts, those unemployed people can blame poor immigrants, and everyone can blame the poor “feckless” and “fraudulent” sick and disabled people. The Conservatives are very adept at creating social divisions by constructing folk devils and generating moral outrage. It’s an old and established bullying tactic to blame the victim, as this serves to cover up the abuse of the victim or to “justify” that abuse.

The Tories managed to use others to persecute victims further in order to oppress and silence them. Scapegoating victims and persecution of selective social groups is also one of the hallmarks of an authoritarian government, one that does not serve the needs of the public, but rather, sees the public as a means of serving government ends.

Deny that the cuts are taking place

The government will point out if there is any part of any budget that they decided to protect, however small, and they will grossly exaggerate its importance. Take a historical lesson from Grant Shapps: every time someone has said funding for homelessness is being cut and services are being decimated, he would point to his department’s very small fund for homelessness prevention, and claim that because it hadn’t been reduced, other services had been unaffected, or – oh yes of course – any cuts are the fault of the Local Authorities. The ones that have had their funding drastically cut by central government, and that face even more cuts once the Localism Bill has been implemented.

It’s obvious to all that the scale of the welfare cuts in reality must mean massive suffering and hardship. Furthermore, Labour find and present deserving examples of cases, such as people dying of cancer, homeless ex-servicemen, that sort of thing. (There are many, many deserving examples of cases, too.) One Tory tactic is to almost always offer to investigate the particular case, implying they may do something (even though they won’t.) Another is that they point to the money that’s been set aside for special cases (e.g. Discretionary Housing Payments). They never fail to give the impression that this is sufficient to deal with any genuine hardship.

Usually there is mention of an amount e.g. Discretionary Housing Payments total £60 million in 2012/13. This will seem a large sum to the public even though it’s only a tiny fraction of the cuts taking place. There isn’t a chance in hell that such a small amount of funding “on one side” will alleviate the chaos, suffering and mass homelessness as a result of the bedroom tax, council “poll” tax and benefit cap and all of their terrible effects hit hard, which they undoubtedly will despite the pseudo-reassuring Tory rhetoric that glides with glib indifference over the surface of these socially regressive horrors.

Stick a public plaster on it

Unfortunately some problems are so big and so obvious that the government have to pretend they are doing something about them. For example, everyone knows builders have almost stopped building. Given that the housing budget had one of the biggest cuts of all in the latest Spending Review, there’s precious little they can can do, but they will nonetheless pretend otherwise. Firstly, they argue that output is going up even when it’s going down (Tory tip – don’t appear on Sunday Politics, choose programmes where they don’t do their research.) Secondly, the government always have to hand some useful initiative available that sounds like it might solve the problem, even if it’s far too small to make any difference.

Grant Schapps gave us NewBuy and FirstBuy, which both sound sufficiently impressive, but then they may need to invent one or two more when people realise how inconsequential they are. The government have said they are selling more homes under the right to buy scheme, as if this helps solve the problems, even though they aren’t and it doesn’t.

Richard Vize made an excellent point in the Guardian last week that Cameron and Co. are undermining Local Government and failing to prepare people for the depth of the cuts that are now hitting them – with much worse still in the pipeline. He says that ministers are “giving the impression that public services can indeed manage cuts without pain or profound change. They can’t.”

How on earth can the government expect to be taken seriously, if they make cuts on an unprecedented scale over a dangerously tight time-scale, but refuse even to admit there might be consequences for public services?

Perhaps the frightening answer is that they refuse to admit it because their intention is to push ahead relentlessly, and regardless of public opinion, and that they don’t care about the consequences.

Picture courtesy of Robert Livingstone

The ESA ‘Revolving Door’ Process, and its Correlation with a Significant Increase in Deaths amongst Sick and Disabled People

January 11, 2013February 15, 2017 · 131 Comments ·

A Department for Work and Pensions Freedom Of Information request (FOI) yielded a response showing that people having their claim for Employment Support Allowance (ESA) stopped, between October 2010 and November 2011, with a recorded date of death within six weeks of that claim ceasing, who were until recently claiming Incapacity Benefit (IB), totalled 310. Between January and November 2011, those having their ESA claim ended, with a recorded date of death within six weeks of that claim ending totalled 10,600.

Bearing in mind that those who were successfully migrated to ESA from IB were assessed and deemed unfit for work, (under a different assessment process, originally) one would expect that the death rates would be similar to those who have only ever claimed ESA. This is very clearly not the case.

Furthermore, there are NO alarming increases in mortality rates amongst those who are still in receipt of Incapacity Benefit – there were approximately a million and a half claimants, compared to less than a million ESA claimants for this period. Many of those migrated so far have not yet had a Work Capability Assessment, as the Government decided to re-assess those people when their review from the Incapacity Benefit Personal Capability Assessment is due, for practical reasons. The migration process won’t be completed, it is anticipated, until 2014.

David Green from the DWP has urged that “care should therefore be taken when interpreting these figures”. Well I have taken care interpreting this data, Mr Green. My careful interpretation is that there is a probable correlation demonstrated here, linking the reformed Work Capability Assessment process and the withdrawal of lifeline benefits with an increase in mortality amongst sick and disabled people.

Incapacity Benefit was fair, it was a genuine social security provision. The “reforms”, including the new Tory-shaped ESA benefit, by stark contrast, are all about taking support and provision away from the sick and disabled, leaving them potentially very vulnerable. It’s very evident that there are measures in place to reduce successful claims for ESA, and many lose their lifeline support for the most arbitrary or manufactured reasons.

Indeed, the Tories have been very keen to articulate the welfare “savings” that they anticipated with regard to the disability benefits, including PIP, which is replacing DLA. But of course, these anticipated “savings” reflect a dark truth: the Government are setting targets to remove benefits from people, regardless of the impact of that imposed deprivation (and frank State theft of our tax funded welfare) on their wellbeing, health and safety. How else is it possible to predict probable “savings?”

Those claiming IB were not required to have continuous assessments, whereas those on ESA are constantly required to have the Work Capability Assessment. Many claimants have described a “revolving door” process of endless assessment, ceased ESA claim, (based on an outcome of almost invariably being wrongly “assessed” as fit for work), appeal, successful appeal outcome, benefit reinstated, only to find just 3 months later another assessment is required. The uncertainty and loss of even the most basic security that this process creates, leading to constant fear and anxiety, is having a damaging, negative impact on the health and wellbeing of so many.

A significant proportion of those required to have endless assessments have very obviously serious illnesses such as cancer, kidney failure, lung disease, heart disease, severe and life threatening chronic conditions such as multiple sclerosis, lupus, myalgic encephalomyelitis, rheumatoid arthritis, brain tumours, severe heart conditions, and severe mental health illnesses, for example. To qualify for ESA, the claimant must provide a note from a doctor stating that the person is unfit for work. There can be no justification for subjecting people who are so ill to further endless assessments, and to treating us as if we have done something wrong.

Marginalising and stigmatising vulnerable social groups via political propaganda in the media, using despiteful and malicious terms such as “workshy” and “feckless” is a major part of the Government’s malevolent “justification” to the public for removing the lifeline support from sick and disabled people, amongst whom are some of our most vulnerable citizens.

We are climbing Allport’s Ladder.

I have often suspected that Iain Duncan Smith is channelling the spirit of Goebbels.

In addition to very justified anxieties regarding the marked increase in disability hate crime that the Tory-led propaganda campaign has resulted in, many sick and disabled people have also stated that they feel harassed and bullied by the Department of Work and Pensions and Atos. Many talk of the dread they feel when they see the brown Atos envelope containing the ESA50 form arrive through the letter box.

The strain of constantly fighting for ESA eligibility/entitlement and perpetually having to prove that we are a “deserving” and “genuine” sick and disabled person is clearly taking a toll on so many people’s health and wellbeing. Many families of those who have died have said that the constant strain, anxiety and stress of this revolving door process has contributed significantly to their loved ones’ decline in health and subsequent death. The figures from the DWP, and the marked contrast between the ESA and IB death statistics certainly substantiates these claims.

The horrific, unforgivable and massive increase in deaths over this period coincides with the Government’s totalitarian styled rapid fire legislation – the “Reforms” – in the face of protest, horror, disbelief, fear and mass opposition. The Tories cited “financial privilege” to trample over opposition and stifle dissent, to drown out the voices of protest. Those protesting this Bill notably included many from the House of Lords. I lobbied the Peers, and emailed every single one of them, stating very clearly that the welfare reforms must not happen. I got a high number of encouraging responses. But David Cameron got his own way.

Cameron made a Freudian-style slip when he announced to Ed Miliband recently, during Parliamentary debate, that “We are raising more money for the rich.” Not that we didn’t already know this was so. Many of us – around 73 sick and disabled people every week – are paying for that wealth increase for the already wealthy with our very lives.

There are many who have so tragically lost their lives because of this malicious Government’s brutal and grossly unjust economic war on the poorest, on sick and disabled people and on the most vulnerable citizens, because of the Tory-led ransacking and plundering of our welfare provision and social support programs.

But just one life would be one too many.

Further reading:

The Black Triangle Campaign

Many thanks to Robert Livingstone for his outstanding artwork.

This is an excerpt taken from a much longer piece of work – Remembering the Victims of the Welfare “Reforms.”

The Tories are not simply “out of touch”, their policies are deliberate and malevolent

October 15, 2012January 18, 2023 · 53 Comments ·

It’s a common belief that inhumane Tory policies – which are directed at taking money and support from the most vulnerable citizens – have happened because of a kind of naivety, lack of experience, or a simple egocentricity of the privileged. Or general incompetence.

These certainly may well contribute to the obvious lack of joined-up thinking, apparent when we step back to consider that the most vulnerable citizens in our so-called civilised society are suffering and dying as a direct consequence of recent legislations and “reforms,” but it certainly doesn’t explain why the Tories persistently and historically CHOOSE to continue to ignore any other account of social reality but their own. That implies some intentionality, to me. Selective perception involves a certain degree of free will. And choice.

So we are now almost through the doorway to the “mad or bad” debate.

Tories also reduce every single human deed to an underlying motivation of greed for financial gain, no matter what the circumstances. They know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Some would argue that this is classic Freudian projection. But that doesn’t account for the fact that the Tories normalise and make a virtue of the financial gain principle, for the wealthy, big business and of course, the Tories themselves. That corrupts government policy and our democracy.

These motivations are held to be universal, and are translated into a vice when it comes to ordinary, everyday people, or in particular, poor and vulnerable people. That doesn’t hang together coherently at all, nor does it corroborate the view that the Tories are simply out of touch with everyday experience, since there is a deep and fundamental – and very apparent – contradiction here. It is a very significant flaw in their ideological grammar.

Human beings are not static when it comes to ideas and beliefs: we are capable of learning, and in a variety of ways: though experience, through the experience of others, through historical accounts, evidence and so on. The Tories simply choose to overlook the need. They prefer, instead, to stay put, or regress, and simply insist that they know best. Challenge a Tory, and they often believe that simply talking louder, and over the top of you will somehow make what they are saying “right.” They are not called “Conservative” for nothing – they do like to maintain a status quo and resist progressive change.

Tory notions of change apply only to their idea of how a society ought to be, hence the proliferation of legislation these past couple of years. The Conservatives are unravelling the progress we have made as a society, because they prefer the simplicity of basic feudal relationships. I’m not really joking here, unfortunately. The Tories are re-privileging the privileged and reinforcing a traditional hierarchy.

It’s as if the clocks stopped the moment the Tory-led Coalition took Office, and now we are losing a decade a day.

The truth is that austerity is NOT about deficit-cutting. It’s just the cover for Tory ideology. It is actually about shrinking the State and squeezing the public sector until it becomes marginal, then non-existent, in an entirely market-driven society. The banking crisis-generated deficit has been a gift to the Tories in enabling them to launch the narrative that public expenditure has to be massively cut back, which they would never have been able to get away with without the deficit-reduction excuse in the first place.

Austerity won’t benefit the economy: it will damage it further, since the cuts will reduce the income of those that spend proportionally the most money and add to the economy – the poorest. Taking more money out of an already struggling economy and impacting local economies will simply exacerbate the problem. In the longer term, the Tories will destroy our prosperity as a nation, because they are disaster capitalists. Worse, they don’t care if citizens die as a consequence.

“We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had too much” – John Kenneth Galbraith

Nope, that hasn’t happened, the Tories are still taking money from the poor and handing it to the wealthy. Why? Is it because the Tories are phenomenologically impoverished and incapable of learning, ever? No, I don’t think so.

I think it’s much worse than that. I think that the Tories DO understand the consequences of their ideologically-driven policies, but they don’t care. Money for the wealthy has to come from somewhere, after all. The whole “out of touch/lack of experience” proposition overlooks the fact that the Tories refuse to listen, quite deliberately, they exercise authoritarian tactics to shut people up – such as excluding those people from debate who oppose their views – witnessed during the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill, for example. Then there is the “monitoring” of the media for alternative political “biases.”

That is a quite deliberate narrowing down of experience, not naivety, based on a lack of understanding. That’s deliberate, calculated and certainly bears all of the hallmarks of authoritarianism. That’s the wilful imposition of a pre-moulded, dystopic Tory version of reality onto a largely unwilling population.

The propaganda regarding unemployed, ill and disabled people is not based on naivety either: it is deliberate, and calculated, a horrible and wicked attempt to justify their small state ideology and punitive approach to stripping welfare provision from the poorest, and from vulnerable citizens to redistribute funds from the public purse to the already wealthy.

David Cameron, Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling have all contributed a selection of propagandic pieces of work to the press – largely the Sun, Express and the Daily Mail. The language they use – words like “scrounger” “fraud” and “workshy” and the implied “burden on the state,” together with their knowledge that so-called benefit fraud was a mere 0.7% (and that includes DWP’s own errors, too) indicates clearly that the policies aimed at removing welfare provision, and the propaganda campaign that has led to an increase in hate crimes directed at sick and disabled people, are absolutely intentional.

10,600 chronically ill and disabled people died last year between January and November, many within six weeks of their ESA claim closing. It’s very telling that the Department for Work and Pensions do not monitor or account for just how many of those were passed as “fit for work” by Atos, or awaiting Appeal.

Furthermore, this Government introduced targets which were written into the Atos contract when they renewed it in 2010: 7 out of 8 sick and disabled people to lose their benefits.

Bearing in mind that those targets exist BEFORE those ill and disabled people are assessed (and the Government have also redesigned the work capability assessment to make sure that there is a heavy bias towards withdrawing people’s support) then we can reasonably infer that the Government see those deaths – that have happened as a result of absolute poverty and extreme distress, some of our most vulnerable citizens have had their means of meeting their basic survival needs removed – as an intended outcome.

That the Government have not acted upon the high number of deaths associated with their welfare “reforms” is truly outrageous, and also indicates quite plainly, to me, that this “outcome” is not simply a by-product of their legislation, or incompetence, or lack of experience: it is calculated and intentional. All policies are intentional.

This is much, much worse than a little “Tory egocentricity,” incompetence, phenomenological ineptitude, or naivety: this is the deliberate, calculated and wholesale destruction of every State mechanism of support for the most vulnerable citizens as well as for the “ordinary” person. If people cannot meet their basic needs – food, warmth, shelter and so on, they die. That is fact, it’s common sense, something that everyone knows.

Yet this Government are taking away people’s only means of support. Social security, the safety net paid for by the tax paying public to ensure no-one dies of starvation or exposure. This Government have stolen our collective funds for social security, and blamed those they have stolen it from for their deed.

They blame the poor for poverty. They blame the unemployed for unemployment. But we know that the Government are to blame. Have you ever noticed that, historically, whenever poverty grows and inequalities become wider and deeper, look to the helm and lo and behold, we have a Tory-led Government steering the way. We need to put this Government out of our misery.

Every single “reform” has been about taking money away from the poorest and some of the most vulnerable people. The fact that the Legal Aid Bill has been timed for implementation next year, when the horrific consequences of the welfare cuts, the bedroom tax and the new council tax will become very apparent, as well as the Health and Social Care reforms, indicates quite plainly that these policies have been planned and coordinated for a long time.

The Legal Aid Bill means that challenging the Government regarding the reforms will be very difficult. Indeed, the Coalition have been steadily removing the essential democratic processes that safeguard our human rights and enable us to challenge effectively.

This is certainly an authoritarian Government.

We should hang their heads in shame.

It’s truly despicable. How utterly horrifying that they are getting away with it. There is an increasingly discernible taint of eugenics embedded in Tory ideology. This, and the propaganda, smoke and mirrors, media scapegoating diversions and theft from the poorest to handout to the wealthiest – these actions are intentional, calculated and are being increasingly inflicted and administered, whilst the general population waits passively in the wings, shrugging off the blow by hammer blow accounts: more bad news of further Tory cuts, more devastating consequences. More preventable deaths.

Too many people are finding temporary distractions, watching the idiot box, hoping quietly that those things they can see from the corner of their eye are not real.

Oh, but they are.

Hanlon’s razor is an eponymous adage that allows the elimination of unlikely explanations for a phenomenon. It reads: “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

However, I always considered intentional malice and stupidity to be strongly correlated characteristics.

Politics and Insights

Public interest issues, policy, equality, human rights, social science, analysis

Tag: welfare reforms

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