In praise of Iain Duncan Smith's Welfare Reforms

Thank you MamaCaz for providing the very illuminating link. I suppose what the writer said about the absence of ministers in interviews should have occurred to me before but it hadn't. I really can't remember the last time IDS was involved in a face-to-face interview in which he had to defend his policies.

That is ridiculous and surely against the Disabled Discrimination act.
And edwina is just rentamouth (oops)

Sue Marsh is an amazing campaigner, for the sick and disabled especially, but for everyone who may one day need the support of the safety net offered by the welfare state. She highlights how the cuts made in the name of austerity are falling out of all proportion on the sick and disabled who at the same time are being demonised by propaganda. She was asked to appear in the program this week then shoved around from pillar to post and as her wheel chair was deemed a fire hazard..

Is that down to the government or the producers of the various programmes? Not sure if you mean disabled people are not treated well by the programme makers? Anyway, one can hardly call Edwina a spokesperson for the government

Brilliant, Mamacaz. I read some of it yesterday as it's linked from www.falseeconomy.org.uk which has other links for those who are interested. I think the way that disabled people are still being treated in TV studios is absolutely appalling.
It's quite laughable that the best government spokesperson who could be found was Edwina Currie, not well known for her probity.

I have been wondering for quite a while how on earth the DWP and the government were managing to keep the true state of chaos surrounding their welfare reforms out of the public eye. However, yesterday I stumbled across something that seems to throws a light on it

It seems that their tactic involves simply refusing to put anyone forward for discussions over which they have no control. No debate, so no risk of their lies being revealed in front of the general public by a quick-witted and well informed opponent.

Paragraphs 5-7 are the ones that I'm referring to (though the rest makes quite interesting reading too):

diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/

DH needed a doctor in th middle of the night recently, out of hours service doctor recommended an ambulance which they arranged. Paramedic here within minutes, carried out checks, ambulance here within 10minutes. He went to hospital had all the checks OK now.

NHS debate now on in parliament. That's what Andy Burnham is talking about, A&E.
It worked for me, whitewave, last Easter. Otherwise I would be dead by now.

Not everything is all bad. When my husband was experiencing heart failure last year I dialled 999 and the person on the other end kept me on there asking questions as to my husbands condition and getting me to check stuff etc all the time until the ambulance arrived. When it did so he advised me that the ambulance was outside the house and to open the door to let them in - WONDERFUL service and I can't speak too highly of the hospital either. Please we mustn't lose this, our NHS is so precious.

I am from Stafford.

Sorry, Margaret, but do you think the hospitals are in a better state now?
Last week, there was a woman recorded phoning up for an ambulance because she thought her husband was having a heart attack. The fourth phonecall, she said, "I think he's just died." All the ambulances were stacked up outside A&E because there were no beds in the hospital for patients to be moved to.
My husband died two years ago in the Liverpool care pathway. It was a good way to go for him.
Interesting statement on False Economy website. They have a link to the Office of National Statistics website. On 24th January, Cameron told parliament that wages in every percentile except the top one went up last year. The ONS states that every year since 2010 wages have gone down.
This information was put into the public domain on 31st January. Cameron must have known about it. I have not heard him apologise for misleading the house yet.

I certainly don't think Labour cared two hoots about the electorate when they were in. They just cared about keeping themselves in power, and feathering their own nests (also tories and lib dems before I get an angry response )
Hospitals were in a terrible state. Liverpool Pathway anyone? Stafford Hospital? Targets at the expense of care. I had a major op during that time and ward sister was tearing her hair out at the daft "rules" introduced and paperwork.

New Labour certainly didn't get everything right, Iraq being a prime example. The level of investment in Sure Start family centres, education and the nhs was positive, and necessary. The cuts ensure that family centres and family support services are being slashed, alongside benefits. Alongside that, the government/some of the media, are painting benefit claimants as feckless scroungers. It's like groundhog day -

I do not blame the Tories for all the problems, but I do blame them for using the worldwide financial crisis to force unnecessary austerity measures on the country, and cause much misery. Their aim is to dismantle the welfare state and introduce a privatised version of it dominated by big-business and profit, and they are doing so without a mandate, but with the support of the Liberals. Shame on them! Sadly, I don't have much confidence in Labour either. So its back to my cup of cocoa, now.

Stafford Hospital problems occurred under Labour,

durhamjen

'I have no respect for anyone who sticks up for them' .

By that I take it you mean any GN who does not share your point of view also.

I appreciate you have had bad experiences and I understand how you feel, I will also defend your right to make that statement but it is not just you and yours who have had contact with the NHS and been served very badly by it. I urge you to remember that under successive governments there has been malpractice. It does not belong to Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Monster Raving Loony.

I would also like to say I should imagine we all know somebody on benefits.

Tories have been in for 4 years now. They cannot blame Labour for the mess in the NHS or the bedroom tax or selling off all the council houses and the gerrymandering which is following again.

Of course I do, durhamjen. You seem very angry, for good reason I'm sure, but it's all getting a bit 'let's blame the tories for everything', as though Labout has all the answers.

Even New Labour did not make such a mess of the NHS or force people out of their homes illegally.
With my mother being a nurse, and my husband being a diabetic since he was 11, then falling off a ladder and breaking his back, becoming doubly incontinent, then getting cerebellar ataxia, then dying of brain cancer, I have had quite a lot to do with the NHS over the years. It has never been anything like as bad as it is now under this shambles, the government which said no top-down reorganisation, and it was safe in their hands.
I have no respect for anyone who sticks up for them.
I assume you do not know anyone who claims benefits, Ana.

Such as Labour...?

I was just thinking it's no wonder the Tories want out of the EU. The number of Tory laws that have been called into question as far as human rights is concerned seems to grow day by day.
YaYa, this is just a continuation of the Tory feeling that they are right, no matter what.
The Lewisham Hospital debacle meant that Hunt has changed the law so that any hospital that is doing well can be taken over by a failing hospital if it fits their plans. The same with schools and with the bedroom tax. They are now trying to close the loophole which they forgot about when they planned to get rid of benefit claimants.
I know we are not supposed to crossthread on here, but surely even Tories can see a plot somewhere.
Can someone please shoot the lot of them so we can start again with a government that cares about the whole population instead of just their cronies?

Many people on zero hours, minimum wage contracts face huge problems claiming either tax credits or housing benefits without which they are unable to house and feed themselves and their families despite being as hard working as anyone in full time stable positions.

As to benefit reforms - think about all those who are dying destitute...see this article for just a few examples, the actual numbers are horrific. It does not take much for carefully constructed life to fall apart, illness, divorce, redundancy and now a very, very fragile safety net.

[[ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/new-atos-shame-sick-and-disabled-benefits-applicants-forced-to-go-weeks-without-money-as-a-result-of-new-rules-for-appeals-9107586.html]]

Quote "*People with serious disabilities and health conditions are being left for weeks with no financial support by Government changes to benefit assessments.*

Under new rules introduced by the Department for Work and Pensions in October, anyone wanting to appeal a decision that they are fit to work first has to have all their paperwork looked at again, while receiving no sickness benefits. The Citizens Advice Bureau believes this will result in thousands of people being wrongly forced to survive on no income at all.

The Government said that this "mandatory reconsideration" would cut down on bureaucracy and take just two weeks, but some disabled and sick people are being wrongly assessed and left with no support for months on end.

Kate Green MP, the shadow minister for equalities, said that "the government are putting vulnerable people in an impossible position".

"They urgently need to get a grip to ensure the system is fair and effective,” she added.

The Work Capability Assessment, which until recently was exclusively carried out by Atos healthcare, is so notoriously slapdash that in 2012 more than 42 per cent of appeals against decisions were upheld. Their poor performance is understood to have prompted the assessments contract being put out to tender.

Blunders include ruling that a 39-year-old woman from Livingstone with a brain tumour was fit to work just weeks before she died and a double heart and lung transplant patient from Essex dying nine days after being declared well enough for employment.

Previously if a controversial assessment wrongly concluded someone was well enough to work, people could appeal immediately, and received benefits while they did this. Now a formal appeal can only be launched after this reconsideration process is completed."

I think one of the problems Brandawymms, is that you can no longer say "no thanks" when you want to.

Bank work or supply teaching is not the same as zero hours contracts as I understand it. A lot of zero hours contracts mean that the employee cannot work elsewhere, but is on permanent contract to one employer.
Therefore, unlike with teacher supply, which I used to do, you cannot pick and choose your schools. It was possible because my husband had a job that paid the bills. My work was extra, and we did not have to rely on my pay to pay the mortgage until we moved down to Hampshire. We soon moved back up North.
As this discussion shows, we do not understand what it means. This is why Vince Cable needs to hold a public enquiry into zero hours contracts. At the moment it appears that the workers are exploited by this contract. Cable is going to hold an enquiry in secret. That's wrong.

After I retired as a full time nurse I went on a zero hours (bank) contract. It was great, did what I wanted when I wanted and said no thanks when I wanted.