Denied work, Britain's poor have become 'untermensch'

An article from RT.com by Tony Gosling, which pretty well sums up "Great" Britain as experienced by millions today...

Not satisfied with their seventh home, brace of sports cars and servants, the rich are paying Tory politicians, press and the City to grind the faces of Britain’s poor into the dirt.



Millions of hardworking families can no longer afford a social life, shoes for their children, to go swimming or to the cinema.

A depraved Sheriff of Nottingham is ruling Britain. While the superrich loan shark 0.001 percent are given the red carpet treatment to loot the family silver, Sheriff Cameron and his Bullingdon Club bullies are putting all the blame at the door of whom? The destitute and disabled.

Past recessions and the desire of businessmen to drive down wages and conditions have swelled the numbers of the unemployed in Britain to around 3 million. Since the post-World War II Labour Party ‘National Insurance’ and ‘Social Security’ laws, these jobless have always been given enough by the government to live on. But those days are over under this sheriff, the poor are being lashed.

Including government help with inflated housing costs, Britain has around 25 percent of the population dependent on various welfare payments. Cameron’s wheeze is an online ‘Universal Credit’ scheme to lump all these payments into one. After several hiccoughs and cost overruns the latest 140 million pounds (US$225 million) written off from this pilotless project just this week beggars belief. It could have provided a year of low paid public sector jobs for around 10,000 people languishing on the dole and saved the taxpayer a cool 300 million pounds altogether.

It has been left to the poorest in society, struggling after being stripped of their statutory legal aid, to challenge these attacks in the courts. Last month forced laborer Cait Reilly won a Supreme Court challenge and her slavery scheme was ruled unlawful. Now this week government abolition of ‘Independent Living Allowance’ for disabled people has also proved Sheriff Cameron and his poor-bashing henchman Iain Duncan-Smith have been breaking the law.

This week figures emerged too that a staggering 700,000 of Britain’s poorest unwaged, while denied work, have had their subsistence payments removed for not complying with a privatized scheme called the ‘Work Programme’, designed to bully them into low paid work.

Undercover recording back in 2012 revealed privatized employment staff being trained to regard the jobless as not deserving anything to live on at all. Job advisers were told by training staff to regard clients as ‘benefit scrounging scum’.

My own experience on this scheme verifies consistent bullying tactics are being used daily on the thousands of the weakest in society. The complaint system which I tried to use turned out to be a crooked sham, but the private company running my scheme, Seetec, still stands to be rewarded with approximately 15,000 pounds of taxpayers money for doing nothing to help me find work at all.

While on the program I witnessed one unwashed, educationally subnormal young man of about 25 arrive for his interview in clothes that looked as if they hadn’t been changed in weeks. Just before he sat down, his ‘job adviser’ yelled at him in front of the whole open plan office, “Back again are you? You said you would. Why haven’t you got a job yet?!”

The young man visibly shrank back from the chair as if he was preparing himself to receive a physical punch, his eyes were darting around as if for a safe place to run to, or perhaps someone he could trust.

The young woman who had stopped talking to me, my adviser, visibly cringed. Not saying anything she made it clear to me she didn’t approve of her colleague’s behavior – the cruelty was naked and inexcusable. She left the job shortly afterwards.

Before I left that day another client told me the police had been called to deal with a fight earlier, but as he was telling me the story I had to get up and move away. Another client started swinging his right arm back and forth, remonstrating about how he had been practicing throwing hand axes, grinding his teeth as he described what a mess they made of someone you didn’t like when lodged in their back.

On the way out that final day I got chatting in the lift to a 50-year-oldish woman who told me she had a degenerative nervous disease. Government contractors ‘Work Capability Assessment’ company, ATOS had certified her ‘fit for work’ so she had to struggle into Bristol City center three times a week to apply for jobs she knew – in competition with able bodied young people and migrants – she could never get.

Since Britain has enjoyed such high living standards and maintains its position as one of the wealthiest handful of countries in the world, we are feeling the ‘pinch’. The sense of injustice and moral outrage has become palpable on the BBC TV’s weekly ‘Question Time’ which nowadays breaks out into angry exchanges despite the producers largely keeping the socialist left off the panels.

It’s a policy designed to start a second civil war, threatening ordinary people with starvation, prison or eviction seems to be all Britain’s coalition government can think of to ‘motivate’ the populace.

Just as Switzerland’s wicked Gessler had his William Tell and France’s Villefort family had their Count of Monte Cristo, quietly Britons are beginning to see Robin Hood’s Merry Men coming together.

The market’s nightmare vision is for a Big Brother technocrat and authoritarian regime. But what Britain and the rest of the NATO zone really needs is a reasserting of the Universal Declaration of Human rights, a united front for an updated set of universal social standards with no sinister strings attached.

Switzerland and Cyprus are now proposing one excellent solution, the basic income, but go one stage further and we can guarantee citizens for free what that basic income is supposed to provide.

As its first priority the state should abolish the threat of eviction, instead making the dignity and subsistence the order of the day. Water, food, healthcare, energy and a rent-free roof over every head. Above and beyond that people will have plenty of time to work and better themselves, with taxes kicking in as families pursue more luxurious lifestyles.

A nationalized banking system that goes hand in hand with good government would force the moneychangers out of the temple, to serve the people once more. We’d have no more of their weasel words: ‘There’s not enough money for that!”

Original article – http://rt.com/op-edge/britain-poor-denied-work-425/

 

An open letter to our great leader...

Source - http://socialawareness2013.wordpress.com/2013/11/09/jennys-dla-was-stopped/


Dear Mr Cameron,

Chester and Ellesmere Port Foodbank (Wednesday, 6 November 2013): ‘Jenny shared her story with one of our volunteers, and requested that we share it with you (everyone). We are privileged to do so.’

Jenny

Jenny came to the Chester and Ellesmere Port Foodbank last month, having been diagnosed with terminal Cancer. Her prognosis was three to six months. She already suffered with several chronic illnesses preventing her from working over the last two years and was in receipt of Disability Living Allowance. Having no family she was trying to “put her house in order”, ensuring all her bills were paid and saving up for her funeral. Her DLA was stopped; the reason given was that as she was not expected to survive the required time, she did not qualify for this benefit!

She came to the Foodbank not for herself but to bring a neighbour who had mental health issues and short term memory problems. He had been 30 minutes late for his appointment at the Benefit office (he had forgotten the time!) and had therefore been sanctioned. He had not eaten for three days. They were both given a meal and the time to talk of their problems and referred to the appropriate agencies for food vouchers and further support and help. Several weeks later Jenny came to the Foodbank to thank everyone for the help and food that was given and the kindness and support that was shown in their time of need. Jenny died three weeks later.

Where did Jenny fit in your striver/scrounger world, Mr Cameron? Evidently she did not fit at all, she was abandoned to die in poverty as a direct result of your government policies and in particular the welfare policies of Iain Duncan Smith.

I have not worn a poppy for many years now because I cannot bear the hypocrisy of those who wear it religiously at this time of year and gather at the Cenotaph to display their hypocrisy and yet smile as they kill the poor, the sick and disabled and our children, today.

http://chesterellesmereportfoodbank.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/08/poppy-last-time-remembrance-harry-leslie-smith

 

Blind and severely disabled teen "bullied" by Government into PROVING he can't work


Fred Hazle reached the end of his tether so took his son James to Downing Street to tell David Cameron: “If my son can work, YOU give him a job”

A defiant dad took an emotional stand yesterday over the Government’s “bullying” calls for his severely disabled son to prove he cannot work.

Bus driver Fred Hazle, 49, reached the end of his tether so took his blind lad James, 19, to Downing Street to tell David Cameron: “If my son can work, YOU give him a job.”

The father and son made the journey after receiving a barrage of demanding letters from the Jobcentre – including three in four days – as part of the Government’s “fit to work” scheme.

The letters threaten that James’s £71.95 a week in benefits will be stopped unless there is evidence that he cannot hold down a job.

James needs round-the-clock care and has the mental age of a five-year-old. He has severe learning difficulties, epilepsy and autism.

The demands about losing his benefits have been sent despite James’s doctor already telling officials the teenager can’t work and his condition will never improve.

Fred pleaded yesterday to see the Prime Minister or Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith.

But the battling dad was turned away.

He said: “If they say James can work, they can give him a job. Let’s see them take him on in one of their departments.

“I wanted them to see him and tell me he can work but they wouldn’t. He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth but it’s not about the money, we can take care of him.

“It’s the fact they are treating him like a second-class citizen because he is disabled.

“He got allowances and benefits when he was a kid but now he’s an adult they come on all threatening even though they’ve got the paperwork.

"It’s disgusting bullying and intimidation on someone who can’t defend himself. I’ve fought the system for my boy for 19 years and I’m not putting up with it any more.”

thin a fortnight, letters began arriving on the family’s doormat in Dagenham, East London, saying the funding would be stopped if they did not provide further proof of James’s disability.

A flood of warnings then arrived on August 5, 8 and 9 from the Jobcentre Plus head office in Glasgow.

Despite numerous calls to the Jobcentre hotline explaining the situation, the letters kept coming.

Fred says that after yet another demand, he eventually took James – who was born without optic nerves – to their local Jobcentre to prove his point.

The woman behind the counter burst into tears when she saw James, said Fred.

The dad added: “The GP told the DWP that James’ condition will never get better. It will only get worse.

“The Jobcentre said they want more proof than that so I took him down there.

“The assistant was so shocked she cried. She rang head office to say there was no job he could do – only to be told she wasn’t medically qualified to make an assessment.

“The DWP haven’t sent anyone to see us or told James to go for an assessment anywhere. They’ve had no contact with the boy but they are constantly on at me and his mum. It keeps us up at night with worry.

“All they need to do is sit down with us and meet him. But they hide behind threatening letters instead.

“Then I go to see them and no one will come out. I’m willing to do what needs to be done. I’d get myself arrested just to be noticed but what good will that do my son?

“We don’t have a voice. No one in the Government cares about us little people.”

A DWP spokesman said nothing more could be done without more “evidence”.

The spokesman added: “We’re committed to helping people who are capable of work get off benefits and into paid employment, while giving unconditional support to those who need it.

"A decision on whether someone is well enough to work is taken after a thorough assessment and after consideration of all available supporting medical evidence.

“We’re still waiting for that in Mr Hazle’s case, but have extended the deadline for him to send us his form because of his condition.”

The DWP said the percentage of people with mental health conditions who go into the support group for ESA has more than tripled since 2010.

The numbers receiving ESA is at its highest level ever with 2.4 million claimants.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/james-hazle-blind-severely-disabled-2711526