Sunday 10 March 2019

How to impoverish disabled people, a lesson from Tory Britain.


Just imagine what it must be like to be a disabled person opening a letter that threatens to cut off your disability benefits if you fail to attend an interview five days ago.

Luckily the individual who received this letter has a good support network who are helping them to fight against this deliberate trap, but there are huge numbers of disabled people out there without strong support networks to help them fight against this kind of injustice.

People with mental health conditions and learning disabilities are particularly vulnerable to this kind of benefits denial trickery.

Whether people have mental health conditions or not, this kind of thing exacerbates their illnesses by loading masses of stress, anxiety, and depression on top of whatever they were already suffering with.

The last thing you need when you have a heart condition or terminal cancer is a prolonged bureaucratic fight to obtain the social security payments you're entitled to.


And just look at who the letter had been sent by. It's not from the DWP, it's from the private profit-seeking outsourcing company Capita who have been contracted to carry out the Tories' dirty work.

Chaos, inefficiency, and vast cost-overruns have been commonplace wherever the Tories have brought in profiteering outsourcing firms to do their dirty work in the welfare system. The WCA assessment regime has ended up costing more to administer than it ever saved in reduced benefits payments, unlawful Tory workfare schemes ended up subsidising private profit-making companies at the Taxpayers' expense, and the corporate-administered Work Programme ended up producing results that were worse than literally doing nothing at all!

The PIP assessment regime is no different. Costs have overrun so dramatically that instead of the £2 billion saving the Tories predicted in 2013, but figures from the OBR (page 113) reveal that by May 2018 it was already costing £4.2 billion more than they projected!

This disgraceful PIP letter is just one isolated example of the kind situations disabled people are suffering in Britain on a daily basis, but there's no denying that this kind of abuse is widespread and systematic.

When the United Nations investigated the treatment of sick and disabled people, they concluded that the Tories are inflicting "grave and systematic" human rights violations against disabled people.

Even if people were somehow unaware of the damning United Nations report, there are news stories virtually every day highlighting the disgusting consequences of these botched and malicious Tory welfare reforms. Stuff like tens of thousands of people dying within weeks of being declared fit for work, people with terminal illnesses being treated like scroungers, denied benefits, and told to 'get a job', people winning their benefits appeals after they died, people committing suicide because of all the stress and anxiety of having their disability benefits cut ...

There's absolutely no pretending that the Tory government aren't administering the systematic abuse of sick and disabled people, and there's no pretending that the millions of people who vote Tory simply consider this systematic abuse a "price worth paying" in return for whatever (probably imaginary) personal benefit they think they're getting from keeping this malicious and incompetent party in power.

Unfortunately we live in a nation of selfish "I'm alright Jack" bastards who actively endorse the Tory party and the system they've built which results in private profit-seeking companies running the show and sending con-trick letters like this.

Tory voters endorse this abusive system because they naively imagine that things like sickness, disability, or simple misfortune could never happen to them or their families, and they're absolutely chilled as long as this systematic abuse is targeted at other people.

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.




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10 comments:

Mark Angove said...

This sort of thing happens so regularly that you'd have to say it is a tactic rather than an administrative error.

Linda Evans said...

Help. I just tried to set up a direct debit to pay something to AAV monthly. I'm told the direct debit has been set up, but there never was a place to say how much it was for. Minor panic.

Unknown said...

My problem is private profit making companies using TAX payers money on human rights issues..

jace said...

I remember back in the Autumn of 2009 (I'll make up the date because I don't remember it now) I got three letters on the 21st October, all dated the 15th. One said I had to attend a face to face assessment. One reminded me of the face to face assessment. One said I'd missed the face to face assessment and my ESA assessment rate has been stopped.
This was in the days when ATOS was doing WCAs.
Assessments, if necessary, should be in-house. Outsourcing has been a disaster, except for the commercial companies that is. Mostly.

Anonymous said...

If your fed up with BREXIT, think of this. There may be more to concern's us than the bickering sideshow over the commercial side of leaving the EU. The EU has never been the enemy politicians have led us to believe, but the Tory motive is no less serious. Once we leave, we loose the jurisdiction of the European Courts of Justice, immediately with a 'No' deal, or a little later with one, how does this matter, in the eyes of politicians it matters a lot, not because it is good for you, but those in power, it means politicians can no longer be held to account in a court they have no influence over. Consider for one moment the heinousness crimes of genocide and hate fueled dereliction of duty imposed on the minorities of Britain, the sick, the unemployed, immigrants, to name a few. How convenient it will be for these perpetrators to loose the only system that may hold them to account. This is a system engineered by them for them in the hushed corridors of the commons. There is however, a glimmer of hope, that Brexit is rejected, and we can then add Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice to the charges. Certain members of the Tories have a lot to loose, and some, to gain, beware the ides of March. C.C; F.A.C.E.

Unknown said...

It's important to claim your inailaible rights, my opinion is, paying other parties to stay in power is not democracy.i am currently decoupling myself from this joking democracy and claiming common law jurisdiction, until a proper system is installed, I have no contract with these bastard's manipulation, spin, smears, lies, corruption..not in my name..

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Matt said...

My partner currently gets no benefits. We both have serious chronic health problems. He attempted to claim universal credit a few months ago. We applied, all seemed fine. However at the appointment to prove identity and address and rent the advisor refused to accept any of his proofs even though they were what the Web site asked for. A print out of our tenancy agreement (all done online) council tax bill, water bill and bank cards along with statements.

If they refuse to let you claim what can you do. I believe if boris johnson wins with a majority we will both be dead in 5 years time. I'm 50, he is 44.

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