Cutting Benefit deaths

That's a shame but understandable Jen. Just one more quote then:

"The welfare state is being dismantled and rebuilt as a machine to manage and discipline the workforce into accepting precarious labour, low pay and no social security net. Iain Duncan Smith is proud of this machine. The machine is not broken, as many critics have suggested. It is doing what it was remade and designed to do. It is efficiently driving all the hope out of a sickening and insecure labour class."

My sadness is that this was always what was intended and either those who voted Conservative knew this and feel it is the right way to go or they voted without finding out what they were voting for.

The article you mention is exclusive to the magazine, Gracesgran.

www.google.com/url?q=http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/dont-give-angry-population-hard-govern-depressed-population-easy&sa=U&ved=0CA4QFjAFahUKEwjYw4_qg-DHAhUB_XIKHY4zDPU&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNGA-sd78xrVFJVrmMSi0sycb2gIIg

This is good by Penny as well.
It's how I feel.

Good article Jen although I still don't trust any of the statistics. That, in itself, is an indictment of the government in that they do not produce easy to understand statistics during the changes being made.

In the article Debbie Abrahams says:
"People on IB or ESA are very sick and vulnerable and should not be vilified by Iain Duncan Smith as he did again earlier this week when he suggested that some people in receipt of sickness benefits are behaving in a fraudulent way. We should be caring for them, not humiliating and demonising them."

I can't find the link but in an article in the NS this week Laurie Penny heads it "No sick person responds to their diagnosis by thinking "I can scam taxpayers for £73 a week!""

Having talked about navigating the humiliating system for disabled people "without them being lied to every step of the way" She goes on to say "If the DWP would just come out and say that it doesn't believe the state should help people who are ill, disabled or injured, it would somehow be more bearable. At least people would know where it stood. But the stated aim of the welfare changes is to "get people working", because: "Work is the best route out of poverty."

Her analysis is that this is a "fib on several levels". She points out that in-work poverty is a larger drain on the benefits system than the unemployed and also that most of the things that help disabled people get back to work have been cut. She adds that the Tories have slashed carer budget and closed the Remploy factories.

She goes on to talk about the "propaganda assault" that "portrays the disabled and workless people as "scroungers", "sponging" off the state".

It's a long article and I think - if anyone can find a link - an eye opener.

I think bald statistics are always worth investigating. I'd want some proof about which of those deaths were actually caused by reduction or removal of benefits.

I see that the OP says she doesn't think establishing a causal link matters. It might not, certainly, but we don't know so it equally well might.

It might it not be that the bucket is not empty where the cancer drugs are concerned CelticRose but that even the conservatives are blanching at the cost of the drugs which make profits for the companies concerned. It may also be that the they are not giving very much quality or quantity of life for the cost. That sounds harsh - it is harsh, but some harsh decisions have to be made. Although I totally believe you can increase the size of the bucket, some choices will always have to be made.

Remember all buckets are being reduced, not because the money is not available but because the conservatives have decided that they have a mandate to pursue the extremes of their beliefs. They don't but while they can they will be as extreme as possible.

Sorry. Typo. Trisher.

I wonder how many buckets there are in fact. I read a few weeks ago that the NHS is cutting hip and knee ops by half. These are the most common ops apparently and there are too many of them. Will they be putting money saved from that bucket into another bucket? Read in the Guardian yesterday that certain cancer drugs are no longer to be supplied due to expense. Another empty bucket. If we can't afford private health care, how will we have a quality of life to the end of our days? And let's not forget the refugee money bucket. These people need a quality of life, too. Someone has posted that we are a rich country and can keep giving. I don't see how when you read Tricher's post.

www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2015/08/28/comment-ian-duncan-smith-has-shown-he-is-no-longer-fit-for-w

Article by Debbie Abrahams Labour MP who asked for the figures.

Why do you think there is "only so much money in the bucket" CelticRose? If that were true we would all still be living as they did in the middle ages - or even the stone age - as there would have been no growth in the economy. It seems to me that the Conservatives are very much anti-growth these days - except for the top 1% of course.

Trisher Only so much money in the bucket. We should be ashamed as a nation that this has happened. We should be looking after our own families and not relying on benefits. The recent refugee stories show how these families support their own relatives - old and young, near or distant.

www.mirror.co.uk/money/law-students-overturn-95-esa-6367138

I do not really read the Mirror, but here's another of their articles that I find quite exciting. If law students can sort this, how come it's allowed to happen in the first place? Doesn't the DWP have to satisfy lawyers in the first place that what they are doing is legal?

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/26-ways-tories-were-told-6364780

Over six months ago they were told to sort out the benefits problem, but haven't changed one thing.

I think he has made such a mess that nobody will take over from him. Cameron has to go along with him because he has nobody else to put in his place and dare not sack him.
Still only 36700 to debate a vote of no confidence in him. That surprises me. Perhaps most of those who want rid of him do not know about the e-petition website.

One of my biggest problems in trying to work out what the truth is with this is that, in my heart of hearts, I think IDS lies as he breaths. I'm sure he believes it is just politics but sadly that is my opinion.

jaynelinney.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/more-disability-benefit-data-refused-for-release-by-dwp/

Not only for deaths but also the number of people who have had their benefits cut, often drastically enough to be worried about the bailliffs at the door.

I notice a couple of corrections have been put at the end of the Full Facts article.

This one is interesting:

CORRECTION 30 Aug 2015: The article orginally said that: “If someone is found fit for work, they can appeal the decision, and continue to receive ESA during the appeal process.” That’s true of some of the people in the figures, but after October 2013 an additional stage of mandatory reconsideration by DWP was added before appeal during which people do not get ESA, as is now explained above.

Perhaps they will go on drawing out the facts.

www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2015/08/parliament-should-have-power-to-force-duncan-smith-to-resign-over-wca-deaths/

Michael Meacher thinks parliament should be able to force IDS to resign, even without the e-petition.
Can't wait for parliament to return and see this played out.

www.thenational.scot/news/he-cannot-talk-read-or-write-but-tories-want-severely-disabled-stuart-chester-fill-in-20-page-form-to-keep-benefits.6995

An interesting read, this.

Sorry about that, Skyjoe4.
That was the whole point of the photos on my previous link. They are all individuals, not just numbers used to make the DWP look better than it is.

Is your friend's photo on there? If not, that's another one to add to the personal stories.

So sorry for you Skyjoe4 and the loss of your friend. It does bring home that these figures all have a personal story behind them something we sometimes forget. Thank you for telling us.

This is very personal to me as an old friend of mine died just three weeks after being found "fit for work". She was found in her bed having passed away during the previous night from what turned out to be a serious underlying heart condition. She was just 47.

What shocks me most apart from her death is that despite being seriously ill she was found fit for work.

Why was she (and the others who died) found fit for work when clearly they were not. That's the question which needs asking.

IDS personally stated that the information was not available, then allowed his dept, the DWP, to produce figures in as uninformative a way as possible.
That is much more of a reason for him to resign than the made-up leaflet, I think.

I do not feel that, but I can understand his frustration.
It has taken him over two years to get that information. The DWP said they did not have the figures for most of that time. That was a blatant lie.
Now they are saying cause and effect cannot be attributed because they do not keep those figures. They are saying they do not know how or why all these people died. However, they could find out if they wanted to.
The diabetic who died because he had no food and no money to buy any, it was not their fault, it was his own because he never asked the right questions of the right people.

This was from last December on a different site.

tompride.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/iain-duncan-smiths-portrait-made-from-photos-of-people-who-died-for-being-poor/

However, the title is a lie, because nobody died for being poor, as no cause can be attributed to their deaths according to the statistics put out, as they are not names, they are just numbers, just percentages.

It's the same problem as I find with the Daily Mail Jen. If you are immoderate with your language you turn people away from what may well be worth-while facts. I understand anger at what is going on but the way he writes does not help. It is hard enough work getting points across without alienating the very people you are trying to appeal to. Perhaps many others would not be turned off - I am and will now wait to hear more.

It seems you feel that sort of writing adds to the feeling of authenticity and I feel it detracts from it. There is probably no changing that.