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Post by Admin on Jul 10, 2020 21:20:33 GMT
Money well spent - Cost of rolling out universal credit rises by £1.4bn, say auditors NAO says benefit may not be able to meet aim of getting more people into work www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/10/cost-of-rolling-out-universal-credit-rises-by-14bn-say-auditorsThere is still no evidence that universal credit benefit is meeting its central aim of getting more people into work – while the costs of implementing it have risen by £1.4bn and it remains beset by delays, according to the government spending watchdog. In a critical report, the National Audit Office said that although more claimants were being paid on time, the controversial five week wait for a first universal credit payment continued to exacerbate many claimants’ debt problems and push them into hardship. Vulnerable claimants – including those with physical, mental or learning disabilities, people with few digital skills, or with chaotic lives – were more likely to struggle with their claim, the NAO said, with the complicated process of moving onto the benefit causing payment delays and financial problems for these claimants. “The Department for Work and Pensions needs to better understand and address the needs of vulnerable people and those with more complex claims, who may be at greater risk of struggling under the universal credit regime,” the report concluded.
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Post by Admin on Jul 14, 2020 19:30:45 GMT
NEW REPORT: UNIVERSAL CREDIT INCREASING DEBT AND FAILING DISABLED PEOPLE Posted by June Knight 12th July 2020 3 min read welfareweekly.com/new-report-universal-credit-increasing-debt-and-failing-disabled-people/NEW REPORT: UNIVERSAL CREDIT INCREASING DEBT AND FAILING DISABLED PEOPLE SNP RENEW CALLS FOR ADVANCE PAYMENT GRANTS NOT LOANS Following new research showing the five week-wait and advance payments under Universal Credit are contributing to financial hardship and debt – particularly for disabled claimants – the SNP has renewed calls to make advance payments non-repayable grants instead of loans. The report by the National Audit Office said the Department for Work and Pensions needs to do more to support vulnerable people and others claiming Universal Credit, revealing that disabled claimants and people on low incomes are more likely to claim advances and have other debts to repay from their Universal credit. Claimants and representative organisations told the NAO that the wait for the first payment contributes to financial hardship and debt, despite the availability of advances. The SNP Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary has said the solution to this would be to turn the advance payments into non-repayable grants once the claimant has been deemed eligible for Universal Credit. This would take away the need to reverse the five-week wait, which the DWP has said would be “operationally challenging”, and minimise the risk of fraud – the reason given by the UK government for not implementing grants instead of loans. The architect of Universal Credit, Ian Duncan Smith MP, has admitted that keeping Universal Credit advance payments as loans instead of grants “is a policy decision, not a structural issue, so whatever the Government decides to do it is wholly feasible to do it.” Commenting, Neil Gray MP said: “The Chancellor’s statement on Wednesday was a missed opportunity to put building a fairer society at the heart of the recovery – with no measures to put cash in the pockets of those that need it most and lift people out of poverty. And the Tories are missing another opportunity to address rising debt issues by refusing to make advance payment grants instead of loans. “Addressing this issue is not an impossible task, as the SNP and leading anti-poverty organisation have repeatedly made clear by proposing a simple solution. The Tory government’s decision to keep advance payments as loans – which are pushing people into, or further into, debt – instead of making them non-repayable grants is a political decision, and nothing to do with operational or fiscal challenges. “There is overwhelming support for the UK government to implement our proposal, and with unemployment rising and incomes being cut back, it is more critical than ever that the UK government starts taking serious action to address rising poverty and rising debt. NAO Report – Universal Credit: Getting to first payment Some 80% of claims by low-income households, 67% of claims including someone who has limited capability for work because of a disability or health condition, and 70% of claims including a disabled child had a deduction applied to their first payment to cover advances repayments or other debts. This compares to 61% of all claims. Around 57% of households making a new claim take a Universal Credit advance payment to help them manage during the five-week waiting period until their first payment. snpmedia@snpmedia.net
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Post by Admin on Jul 19, 2020 1:45:22 GMT
Tory Austerity & mismanagement of this Virus has prematurely killed 320 thousand people & created a lot of suffering, & we are seeing the end of the NHS, social care & social security system.
It's like most people are in a kind of deep hypnosis / mass delusion As if they are victim of some very dark occult magick They seem incapable of seeing / apprehending reality
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Post by Admin on Jul 22, 2020 20:17:08 GMT
DWP to increase support for vulnerable claimants after series of suicides Frontline staff will be required to liaise with NHS and police rather than cutting off people’s benefits www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/22/dwp-to-increase-support-for-vulnerable-claimants-after-series-of-suicidesThe Department for Work and Pensions is to overhaul its safeguarding systems following a series of high-profile failures in which mentally ill claimants took their own lives after having their benefits cut off by welfare officials. The department’s permanent secretary, Peter Schofield, told MPs on the work and pensions select committee that vulnerable people had sometimes “fallen through the cracks” in the social security system and been left without support. Recent cases include Errol Graham, 57, who was found starved to death in 2018 after his benefits were withdrawn when he failed to attend a jobcentre meeting, and Jodey Whiting, 42, who took her own life in 2017 days after her benefits were withdrawn. The National Audit Office revealed in February that over the past six years at least 69 suicides could be linked to problems with benefit claims, and that the DWP had failed to investigate many of these cases properly or learn from them. The work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, told MPs she had introduced the measures to protect vulnerable claimants. “I’m very conscious that when things go wrong they can go badly wrong for people and we need to be much more agile about how we pick that up,” she said. The changes include issuing new safeguarding guidance requiring frontline staff to support vulnerable claimants who fail to cooperate with jobcentre staff, by liaising with other agencies such as the NHS and police, rather than removing their benefits and abandoning them. The inquest into Graham’s death, held in 2019, heard that officials wrote to Graham after he failed to attend a fit-for-work test, made three unanswered phone calls and texts and made two “safeguarding” visits to his flat on successive days, none of which elicited a response. They then cut off his benefits. Asked by the coroner whether this was reasonable, given the DWP knew Graham had a long history of serious mental illness, a DWP official replied that by the terms of the safeguarding guidance at the time it was “the right decision … for us to have made”. Graham’s emaciated body, weighing just 28kg (62lb), was discovered by bailiffs sent to evict him eight months after his benefits were removed. His family believe he would not have died had the DWP done more to understand his mental health issues before cutting off his only source on income. The family has launched a legal challenge accusing the DWP of failing to make proper adjustments to protect vulnerable claimants, leading in Graham’s case to “degrading and inhuman suffering” and, ultimately, his death. Schofield told MPs the new guidance was coupled with the introduction of regional safeguarding officers and a new top-level DWP serious case panel. “We genuinely want to listen and and learn and make sure that when we see things that have gone wrong, we make changes that make ensure they do not happen again.” He admitted that things often went wrong after a vulnerable claimant “falls through the cracks” when information was not shared with other agencies. “What we have not been great at, I would say, is pooling the information we have got.” Under the new guidance, a case conference with other agencies would be called to understand more about a claimant who failed to attend a “mandatory intervention” such as a jobcentre meeting. “Basically, what we would seek to do is provide support, not removal of benefits,” said Schofield. Alison Turner, Graham’s daughter-in-law, told the Guardian the changes outlined by the DWP had come far too slowly, given how long shortcomings in the safeguarding system had been known about. “The changes outlined today should have been standard procedure years ago,” she said.
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Post by Admin on Jul 25, 2020 13:03:51 GMT
DWP crashes to another court defeat over sickness benefits voxpoliticalonline.com/2020/07/25/dwp-crashes-to-another-court-defeat-over-sickness-benefits/The High Court has just ruled that a rule allowing the Department for Work and Pensions to force some benefit claimants to wait – unpaid – for a mandatory reconsideration before they can appeal against refusal is unlawful. The system previously demanded that, if a claim for income-related Employment and Support Allowance was refused, claimants would have to wait for a “mandatory reconsideration” of their case to take place before they could appeal. This could take weeks, and has often taken months, in which the claimant – who is claiming because of serious illness, remember – has no income on which to survive. Mr Justice Swift ruled that the demand that a mandatory reconsideration must take place before a claimant can appeal is a “disproportionate interference with the right of access to court” – in some cases. This case was brought by law graduate Michael Conner, with crowdfunded aid from the website Benefits and Work – and represents a considerable victory for the claimant, the website, and crowdfunded legal proceedings in general. Mr Connor had been forced to wait 18 weeks while the DWP carried out a mandatory reconsideration of his ESA decision. During this time he had no right to claim ESA. If he had been able to lodge an appeal, he would have been paid ESA on a probationary rate, dependent on the provision of medical evidence by his doctor. The judge said that after his benefit was cancelled on October 18, 2018, Mr Connor applied for a mandatory reconsideration. But, in an “error” of the kind that benefit claimants have come to expect from the DWP, he said “no action was taken in response… The request for revision was incorrectly entered onto the Secretary of State’s electronic document management system. “The document was not recognised or recorded as a request for reconsideration, and instead was classified as ‘unstructured whitemail'” and “it was not until 6 March 2019 – 4 months after Mr Connor’s request had been received – that it was identified as a request for revision.” Mr Connor had managed to claim Income Support and Carer’s Allowance in the meantime, so he decided not to appeal the decision. Instead, he informed the DWP that he intended to challenge the legality of the rule making him unable to appeal until a mandatory reconsideration had happened. He pointed out that: The rule creates an open-ended deferral of the right to appeal that could leave claimants without income for an unlimited period – as evidenced by his own case. Its effect is anomalous as ESA is payable before a decision is made and while an appeal is taking place, but not while the DWP is going through the mandatory reconsideration process [or, more likely, forgetting about it – in the opinion of This Writer]. If an appeal is started, there is no provision for back payment of ESA to cover the period of the revision decision while an appeal is ongoing. So the interference is disproportionate because “it places benefits claimants, such as him, who are vulnerable, in a position of ‘legal and financial limbo, distress and destitution’ for the duration of the revision process that must be pursued before an appeal can be commenced” – and there is “no limit on the time permitted to the Secretary of State to determine an application for revision.” In his ruling, Mr Justice Swift said: “It is anomalous that the payment pending appeal arrangements for ESA … do not extend to ESA claimants who are required … to request the Secretary of State to revise a decision and await her decision on that request before initiating an appeal. “At the hearing of this case I gave the Secretary of State the opportunity to … explain why no provision exists to pay ESA to claimants… None of this further information provides the answer. “My conclusion is that [the regulation in question] is a disproportionate interference with the right of access to court, so far as it applies to claimants to ESA who, once an appeal is initiated, meet the conditions for payment pending appeal. “The advantage permitted to the Secretary of State by [the] regulation … comes at a cost to ESA claimants. There is no explanation for that. “There is no evidence to support a conclusion that the objective pursued by [the] regulation … would to any extent be compromised if payments like the payments pending appeal made to ESA claimants who are pursuing appeals to the Tribunal, were made to them while they waited on the Secretary of State’s revision decision. “In the absence of payment equivalent to payment pending appeal, the application of [the] regulation … to ESA claimants does not strike the required fair balance, and for that reason is an unjustified impediment to the right of access to court guaranteed by ECHR Article 6.” Benefits and Work has stated: “Sadly, the ruling does not apply to other benefits such as PIP or DLA. Nonetheless, it is an important victory and it means that ESA claimants, who are often faced with the prospect of many weeks without funds if they wish to appeal, are now in a much better position when challenging a decision.” It will be interesting to see what will happen now. The ruling is that the current situation is unlawful but no further remedy has been put in place beyond a statement to that effect. What will happen to ESA claimants who must go through the mandatory reconsideration process now? Will they be paid while their case is reviewed? That seems the logical course. But I fear the DWP may find a way to duck out of it. Source: Connor, R (On the Application Of) v The Secretary of State for Work And Pensions [2020] EWHC 1999 (Admin) (24 July 2020)
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Post by Admin on Jul 27, 2020 10:34:20 GMT
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Post by Admin on Jul 31, 2020 9:42:26 GMT
Universal credit needs £8bn overhaul, says cross-party report Lords committee finds reforms are needed to make benefits system ‘fit for purpose’ amid Covid-19 crisis www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/31/universal-credit-needs-8bn-overhaul-says-cross-party-reportUniversal credit needs a massive £8bn overhaul to make it reliable for the millions of families who will depend on it as the Covid-19 economic crisis grows, a cross-party House of Lords committee has concluded. The economic affairs committee said public support for the troubled universal credit system was “seeping away” because of multiple design faults, the inadequacy of benefit rates, and lack of specialised support for claimants. It proposes a series of reforms to make universal credit “fit for purpose”, including an urgent catch-up increase in the generosity of benefit rates: “Universal credit should be set at a level that provides claimants with dignity and security,” it says. The committee’s chair, Lord Forsyth, said the committee broadly agreed with universal credit’s original aim of simplifying the benefits system. “However, in its current form, it fails to provide a dependable safety net. It has led to an unprecedented number of people relying on food banks and not being able to pay their rent.” The £20-a-week increase in the universal credit standard allowance introduced in April as a temporary boost to help claimants with extra pandemic costs should be made permanent, the report says, while work allowances should be increased to allow claimants to keep more of their award as they move into work. Forsyth is a Tory former government minister, while the committee’s Conservative members include the head of the NHS track-and-trace system, Baroness Harding, and the cross-bencher former Treasury permanent secretary Lord Burns. A decade of social security cuts meant benefits no longer reflected the cost of living, the peers say. The monthly standard allowance for a couple aged over 25 is currently £594.04, on top of which they may receive additional payments for housing and children. For a single person under 25 it is £342.72 a month. The committee is critical of the five-week wait for a first universal credit payment, which it says can push vulnerable claimants into debt, food bank use and rent arrears. Claimants should be given a non-repayable grant to help tide them over this critical waiting period, it recommends. Nearly £6bn of historic tax credit debts currently deducted from claimants’ monthly universal credit payments should be written off, it says. “The government should not jeopardise the financial security of claimants by seeking its recovery.” The wide-ranging report calls for the removal of the “unfair” two-child limit on benefits, and a review of the level of the benefit cap. It says “less emphasis” should be placed on benefit sanctions, saying they can push people into extreme poverty and there is little evidence that they incentivise people to move into work. The report, entitled Universal Credit Isn’t Working, sets out several principles that should guide the “substantial reform” needed to improve it, including dignity and respect for claimants, adequate income levels, security and stability, flexibility and fairness. The minister for welfare delivery, Will Quince, said the effectiveness of universal credit during Covid-19 proved that the case for it had never been stronger. “We welcome the acknowledgement by the committee that universal credit is here to stay and we will consider their recommendations in detail.”
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Post by Admin on Aug 11, 2020 5:30:24 GMT
Government guidelines for PIP assessment: a political redefinition of the word ‘objective’ Written by Kitty S Jones politicsandinsights.org/2016/10/14/government-guidelines-for-pip-assessment-a-redefinition-of-the-word-objective/Thousands of disabled people have already lost their specialist Motability vehicles because of Conservative PIP cuts and many more are likely to be affected. Personal Independence Payment is a non means tested benefit for people with a long-term health condition or impairment, whether physical, sensory, mental, cognitive, intellectual, or any combination of these. It is an essential financial support towards the extra costs that ill and disabled people face, to help them lead as full, active and independent lives as possible. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have issued a guidance document for providers carrying out assessments for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which was updated last month. It can be found here: PIP Assessment Guide. The DWP Chief Medical Officer states that this is a supplementary guidance, in addition to “the contract documents agreed with providers as part of the commercial process, providing guidance for health professionals [HPs] carrying out assessment activity and for those responsible for putting in place and delivering processes to ensure the quality of assessments.” Words like “fair”, “quality”, “support”, “reform” and even “objective” have been given a very subjective, highly specific Conservative semantic make-over, to signpost and reference a distinctive underpinning ideology, and to align them with neoliberal and New Right anti-welfare discourse and outcomes, over the last five years. There is some preemptive dodging of criticism and patronising get-out clauses in the document, for example: “It must be remembered that some of the information may not be readily understood by those who are not trained and experienced HPs.” This comment is indicative of the lack of transparency in the terms, conditions and process of assessments, and how they are generally carried out. It also emphasises the professional gap between the “health professional” employed by the state to carry out the “functional capacity” assessments in the context of a neoliberal welfare state, and medical health professionals, whose wider work is generally not directly linked to the politically defined conditionality of welfare support. If you fundamentally disagree with any of the approach outlined in the content of the document, or the policy, it’s because you “fail to comprehend it”, simply because you haven’t trained as a HP. I had no idea that HPs are the only people who can work out policy outcomes and who recognise government cuts, small state ideology and general cost-cutting measures for what they are, despite the thumping Orwellian semantic shifts and language use that is all about techniques of neutralisation (where the rhetoric used obscures or “neutralises” the negative aims and harmful consequences of the policy.) Firstly, the HPs are not so much “health professionals”, but rather, “re-trained disability analysts.” Their role entails assessing the impact of illness and disability on the “functional capacity” of individuals in direct relation to justification or refusal of a PIP award only. Furthermore, it is the decision of the HP to “determine whether any additional evidence needs to be gathered from health or other professionals supporting the claimant.” Often at the appeal stage, it turns out HPs frequently decide not to ask for further evidence. The DWP must take all medical evidence into account when making a decision about PIP claims. Yet the DWP say: “In many cases, appeals are granted because further medical evidence is provided.” However, neither HPs nor the DWP decision-makers contact people’s GP or other professionals for more information about their health condition very often. This indicates that people are having to go to court, often waiting months for their appeal to be heard, because of deliberately under-informed, poorly evidenced DWP decisions. Furthermore, it says in the government guidance to GPs: “Your patient should complete the forms to support their [PIP] claim using information that they have to hand, and should not ask you for information to help them do this, or to complete the forms yourself.” It seems that the DWP are determined to continue making ill-informed, medically unevidenced decisions as long as they can get away with it.
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Post by Admin on Aug 24, 2020 15:38:55 GMT
To: Rt Hon Therese Coffey MP Secretary of State for Work and Pensions No more PIP reassessments for people with Lifelong disability or conditions you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/no-more-pip-assessments-for-people-with-life-long-disability-or-conditionsWhen a disabled person has a lifelong disability, or condition that will not change and will not diminish, they should not have to go through Light Touch Reviews at 10 years. If someone cannot self-advocate, they can be taken advantage of and can be manipulated. Medical Consultants give enough evidence through their reports that 10 year Light Touch Reviews, or indeed ANY reviews shouldn't be necessary. Our daughter Holly is Certified Sight Impaired, On the DeafBlind Register, cannot use phones or fill in forms, yet we are still being told she will need a Light Touch Review at the 10-year mark, HOW? Unfortunately, we've already had an horrific PIP assessment when she turned 16 that we do not want to be repeated. Why is this important? Young people and Adults with special educational needs and a lifelong disability cannot self-advocate, nor can we rely upon the system to protect them any longer. Advocates come and go and social workers are not always available for the most vulnerable people in society, this must be addressed as soon as possible. These people are not shirkers, or workshy, they are genuinely disabled and being told despite evidence to the contrary that they must work, or that they don't qualify. They cannot defend themselves and quite frankly, our government should be doing its level best to protect these people, instead poorly qualified assessors employed by an American company, whose sole aim is to earn profits is in charge of this. We are being let down and it must stop, this interrogation type of assessment whereby an assessor assumes guilt before assessing is not protection, it is intimidation.
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Post by Admin on Sept 1, 2020 8:34:42 GMT
Government spends £120m in taxpayer money fighting disability benefit claims in two years, figures show Exclusive: New data reveals cost of administering appeals soared by 39 per cent between 2017 and 2019 www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/disability-benefit-appeals-pip-esa-cost-dwp-a9512071.htmlThe government has spent more than £120m in taxpayers’ money fighting disability benefit claims in the last two years – despite losing three-quarters of tribunal appeals, The Independent can reveal. Data shows the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) shelled out £61m on staff costs for the appeal process of the two main disability benefits in 2018-19, up from £44m two years before. Over the same period, the number of claims for the benefits – known as Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Employment Support Allowance (ESA) – increased by 13 per cent, indicating that rise in costs is far greater than the increase in applications. Claimants go through an initial, internal appeal with the DWP called mandatory reconsideration, before being able to take their case to tribunal, where the government can challenge their case. But the latest figures show 76 per cent of PIP and 75 per cent of ESA appeals cleared at tribunal hearing are overturned in favour of the claimant. Labour MP Stephen Timms, chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, told The Independent the DWP’s “continuing failure” to make correct decisions on PIP and ESA claims was having a “devastating” impact on disabled people at a “staggering cost” to the public purse. “Rather than fighting these cases at tribunal, knowing it is likely to lose, the department could save itself a great deal of money and effort by simply paying disabled people the benefits they’re entitled to in the first place,” he added. Campaigners said it was “alarming” that this amount of money was being spent on appeals for a process riddled with “routine inaccuracies”, and warned that the current system was leaving many disabled people facing “agonising” delays to get vital support.
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Post by Admin on Sept 5, 2020 18:17:43 GMT
SEPTEMBER 4, 2020 Austerity and Fascism by ROB URIE www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/04/austerity-and-fascism/After four years on the outs with the establishment press, the national security and surveillance states and the PMC, one might imagine that Donald Trump is unelectable. And given near daily warnings of incipient fascism, one might imagine that the intellectuals and academics of the age are offering developed theories of its origins for all to consider. More specifically still, one might imagine that a competing political party would understand the risks of the historical moment and rise to the occasion by offering the public whatever is needed to defeat the threat. Alas, an object lesson in how so-called civilizations unravel is underway. Institutional constraints, in the form of defenses of capitalism in its neoliberal form, go far in explaining the Democrats’ paucity of programs to fix what ails us. In historical terms, it’s as if nothing like the current predicament had ever played out before. As if to demonstrate the intellectual vacuity of the political analyses of the last four years, a film directed by Frank Capra for the U.S. Department of War in 1942 recently resurfaced. Intended as rally-the-troops propaganda, the film gives a more nuanced understanding of the rise of European fascism than the endless ‘psychology of fascism’ pablum produced by left intellectuals since 2016. To cut to the chase, the New Deal provided enough jobs for economic refugees from the Great Depression to reduce the allure of European style fascism in the U.S. The film was commissioned by the Roosevelt administration, so in that sense the administration was touting its own programs with the thesis. However, the intellectual roots of the ‘fascists cause fascism’ theory currently in vogue are more compromised still. That argument was crafted by capitalist economists after WWII to exorcise the role that the Great Depression played in creating the material conditions in which European fascism arose. The cause-or-effect conundrum from the 1940s gets to the heart of the 2020 presidential election. With the current contest taking place between a right-wing demagogue and an austerian, neoliberal, neoconservative Democrat, both ‘sides’ of the capitalist party are courting disaster. While European-style fascism requires a right-wing demagogue to motivate it, it seems that a right-wing demagogue won’t ascend to power outside of material conditions conducive to fascism. Donald Trump has been in office for nearly four years now and good, old-fashioned, American police-state violence is as close as the U.S. has come to European-style fascism. But good, old-fashioned, American police-state violence, when combined with political control by capital and the rich, murderous and seemingly unstoppable foreign policy that supports the needs of capital, and the largest and most intrusive carceral system in the world, reads a lot like fascism. And whatever one thinks of Donald Trump and the Republicans, the creation of this state of affairs is 1) rooted in American history from slavery to convict leasing to for-profit prisons, 2) has seen a resurgence coincident with the rise of neoliberalism and 3) required liberal support to get past opposition from traditional Democratic constituencies. Interestingly, the film alludes to the charge made by German fascists that the U.S. built its industrial base using the same methods and economic practices that the Nazis were being condemned for using. Historian Adam Tooze wrote The Wages of Destruction around 2006 to make a related argument derived from Nazi source materials. It’s fine and well, necessary, and the only morally and politically appropriate response, that the Americans would take the argument to heart and come out on this side of WWII firmly rejecting the social, political and economic practices that the Nazis learned from the U.S. But that isn’t what happened. Neoliberal theorists, including economists Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, created an idealist explanation of the rise of European fascism in which fascist leaders used propaganda to convince weak-willed followers to follow them over the cliff to the utter catastrophe of WWII. Fair enough as far as it goes. Left out were the material conditions of the Great Depression. The Weimar back-and-forth, settling on austerity in the form of cutting social expenditures while millions of German workers were out-of-work and destitute, left them vulnerable to promises of economic salvation from the fascists. Part of what is alarming about the debate is the contention that the material conditions of the Great Depression were incidental to the appeal of fascism. This has been the position of the American left for the last four years. It is the view from a well-cushioned armchair, not from the losing side of a decades long battle with capital. It also explains the class divisions that came to the fore after the 2016 election. The insightfulness-lite of using an effete, and opportunistically clipped, explanation of European fascism to call the economically dispossessed ‘fascists,’ would seem a right-wing caricature of the latte-sipping-left had it not actually happened. Were it not for liberal support for police state institutions and tactics, it would be relatively easy to answer the ‘law and order’ canard that Mr. Trump is now offering as a campaign slogan. The multi-tiered American legal system, where the rich have immunity from prosecution, the PMC will occasionally be charged, but can generally afford adequate legal representation, while the poor can be shot on sight with impunity, is the product of history and the existing distribution of power. Part of this history includes Democrats arming and empowering the police to act with impunity against the poor. Whether or not this constitutes fascism likely depends on which end of the gun one finds oneself. The problem for both parties is that the party leaderships and patrons would be at risk if ‘law and order’ were ever applied to them. While the (George W.) Bush administration bears major responsibility for war crimes in and against Iraq, ‘PAYGO Nancy’ Pelosi had a senior oversight role on the House Intelligence Committee when she was informed of illegal torture being conducted by the CIA. Barack Obama ran out the clock on prosecuting financial crimes by knowingly letting the statutes of limitation expire. Economic sanctions carried out by both parties could be argued to be forms of collective punishment, a war crime.
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Post by Admin on Sept 9, 2020 10:37:55 GMT
9 September Update: Online PIP Claims Coming, DWP Spends Extra Millions To Try To Win Appeals, Claim Numbers Plummet www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/4273-9-september-updateDear Reader, In this edition we reveal that it should be possible to make online claims for PIP by the end of the year. We look at the latest PIP figures from Northern Ireland, which support earlier findings that claims and mandatory reconsideration requests are nosediving right across the UK. Increased poverty amongst disabled claimants is the certain result. If you’ve claimed PIP for arthritis, we ask for your help to change lives for the better, as we begin a fightback against those falling PIP claim numbers. We also discover that the DWP is pouring additional tens of millions of pounds into resisting PIP and ESA appeals, as it tries to cut the number of successful disability benefits claims. Meanwhile, the advice agencies that fight the claimants corner have been reduced to temporary funding by at least one local authority And at this time of unprecedented upheaval we’ve published a readers’ survey we’d be really grateful if you would complete, to tell us what we are doing well and what we need to change. Finally, training news. There’s still a few places left on our October Zoom training session for professionals on claiming the PIP mobility component on mental health grounds. And volunteers are about to start work assessing our first on-demand training module. We’ll begin publishing the modules in the next two months.
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Post by Admin on Sept 21, 2020 11:04:10 GMT
"It's repulsive to see people whingeing about 'subsidising the poor'. I never had a problem with paying taxes towards public services. What really pisses me off is those people are subsidising the rich. Our public funds and public services are subsidising the rich, while those services are being sucked dry by vulture capitalists, the greed of which the Tories have fed generously. Meanwhile, absolute poverty, not seen since before the welfare state came into being, has become re-established over the last decade. Absolute poverty means that people can't meet their basic survival needs. But the welfare state has been drained by private companies who are paid generously by the government with public funds for contracts that are about taking social safety nets apart and leaving people who have paid into the system in good faith with hardly anything to fall back on when they experience difficult circumstances. The wealthy bankers and financier class caused the global crash, not the poor. But it was the poorest citizens who bore the heaviest burdens of austerity. Now they continue to bear the burden of greed and the perverse incentives of rogue multinational companies and a mercenary government. Blaming 'poor people' for the loss of effective public services and the general state of affairs in the UK is cowardly and dumb. Banks like JP Morgan demanded that governments imposed austerity, demanded your civil liberties were removed, worker's rights taken away, your democracy subverted, your right to protest squashed. They demanded a 'powerful, centralised government'. Authoritarianism, in other words. These things came to pass." The government permitted them their own way, bit by bit. Because it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. They even left a paper trail outlining all of this. See here - Kitty jones JP Morgan wants Europe to be rid of social rights, democracy, employee rights and the right to protest Written by Kitty S Jones politicsandinsights.org/2013/06/26/jp-morgan-wants-europe-to-be-rid-of-social-rights-democracy-employee-rights-and-the-right-to-protest/
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Post by Admin on Sept 26, 2020 17:07:42 GMT
The Conservatives secretly changed their disability benefit assessment system to give disabled people much less time to protest against a wrong decision. Tories are attacking disabled people again while we’re looking the other way voxpoliticalonline.com/2020/09/26/tories-are-attacking-disabled-people-again-while-were-looking-the-other-way/The Tory miniser for disabled people, Justin Tomlinson, revealed details of the secret change in a letter to the Commons Work and Pensions committee, after its chair, Stephen Timms, raised the issue on behalf of claimants. It has been usual practice for claimants to request and receive a copy of their assessment report within days of the report being submitted to the DWP. They have been able to request a copy of their report, check it thoroughly, raise any issues with the assessment providers and receive responses before they have received the decision. In a fair, sane system, this is appropriate. So of course the Tories have changed it. It can take up to 15 weeks for claimants to receive the decision. Once they do, and if they disagree with it, they will have about three weeks – or less – to make a request for a mandatory review. The 30+ page assessment report is a key part of the process and it will take about 10 days from requesting a copy to receiving it. This leaves very little time for them to see the recommendations made, to analyse the report, to check it for accuracy, to see if there are any errors, and to prepare and send a request for MR if necessary. Many people with disabilities are very weak, due to their condition, and do not have the strength of will needed to push through a dispute with the government that has a short time limit. You can be sure the Tories had this in mind when they secretly made this cruel change.
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Post by Admin on Oct 2, 2020 11:34:39 GMT
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