It’s NOT benefit fraudsters being targeted by Cameron, but the genuinely sick and even dying – Pride’s Purge

Last Updated: March 20, 2015By

DWP tells grieving mum her sick son must attend work interview – on the day of his funeral, writes Tom Pride.

The Department for Work and Pensions sent a letter to the mother of a dying man telling him he had to attend a work interview while he was in intensive care.

And although the man’s mother told the Job Centre about her son’s serious condition – they ignored her and sent another letter which arrived on the day of her son’s funeral:

Grieving Burntwood mum hits out over job centre’s letter

But this is NOT an isolated case or a simple mistake.

Read the rest of this article on Pride’s Purge.

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12 Comments

  1. Steve Grant March 20, 2015 at 7:56 am - Reply

    Yet another example of the total lack of empathy from public servants. Still,not long to go before the night of the long knives arrives and then they will learn what it’s like to be a non person…..As these objectionable public servants are probably all,union members why haven’t the Union said anything about the DWP employees behaviour and given guidance or are they more worried about their own jobs in the future? The notion that ” I was just following instructions” will not wash in the 21st century…..I forsee a backlash against the civil service on a huge scale and it’s about time.

    • Mike Sivier March 20, 2015 at 10:58 am - Reply

      The PCS Union has spoken out against what’s going on – but of course people on the receiving end of DWP employees’ spite haven’t accepted that. I suppose their attitude is that it’s hard to trust an organisation that preaches sympathy while its members practise cruelty. That goes for the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, too.

  2. NMac March 20, 2015 at 8:00 am - Reply

    This is the bullying nasty party doing what it is good at. Bullying the sick and the weak.

  3. Rupert Mitchell (@rupert_rrl) March 20, 2015 at 8:46 am - Reply

    Time and time again it has been proven that DWP is not fit for its originally intended function due to mismanagement bordering on a sort of hate and ethnic cleansing. Of course the cleansing need to start at the top and new decent blood brought in right now.

  4. Rupert Mitchell (@rupert_rrl) March 20, 2015 at 9:50 am - Reply

    This is where it all goes so terribly wrong. The DWP seem only interested in persecuting those in need in order to save money. Do your job properly and decently by genuinely going after fraudsters and thereby helping those whom you are supposed to.

  5. John Gainesm March 20, 2015 at 10:56 am - Reply

    Giddi-up Gideon, (the English chancer) has just done a first; he has delivered the First English Pay Day loan Budget in the history of finance:

    Osborne’s budget gift to payday lenders

    We’ve a gaffe-prone chancellor in Gideon AKA george Osborne: before it was the 4×4 in the disabled parking space, then it was the fine for not having a first class ticket. Now he’s caught out by The Sun for eating a “posh burger”.

    But it was through cold hard calculated class war yesterday that he reduced the poor to being even poorer, while allowing the rich to get richer.

    Using his announcement to introduce a new seven day waiting period before somebody can receive benefit, Osborne demonstrated that he will be tougher on the consequences of economic mess (joblessness, poverty) than the city louts who got us into this mess in the first place.

    http://leftfootforward.org/2013/06/osbornes-budget-gift-to-payday-lenders/

    • Mike Sivier March 20, 2015 at 1:01 pm - Reply

      Uh, John? The article is nearly two years old.

  6. Ian March 20, 2015 at 10:29 pm - Reply

    What else depresses me about this, apart from the fact it happens and does so regularly, is if the the story made the national press (big if) there’d be a queue of Tories a mile long in the comments section just itching to defend IDS and co. These people are devoid of any empathy and impervious to facts. They vote Tory against their own best interest on basis – it seems – that they don’t mind voting for a punch in the face as long as someone else gets a punch in the face and a kick in the plums. There’s a warped malice to them that won’t be cured. That’s why Rachel Reeves should fall n her sword, or be pushed onto it.

    There’s no need to appeal to these lunatics, they will NOT vote Labour ever and puts Labour’s natural voters off. The very fact that she tries to attract them casts doubt on her political nous and personal morality. If she doesn’t want to represent people on benefits – not that an MP has a choice, I think; they have to represent their constituents – then she can do without my cross in the Labour box.

    It’s only a small protest and many of us in the lower income and benefits bracket don’t vote anyway but that’s pretty much all I can do, other than registering my annoyance with her to the party. Still, must make her feel good, picking such a huge soft target to have a go at, good little Tory in disguise that she is.

  7. John Payne March 21, 2015 at 12:48 am - Reply

    I have been a victim of ATOS/WDWP bullying and after 2 years of fighting in 2 tribunals which must have cost thousands of pounds ended up with a heart attack and exacerbated all my medical conditions due to insulin dependant diabetes.Worked all my life (42 Years) but was put through this humiliating experience. I will be avenged.

    • Carolin Stevenson March 22, 2015 at 10:44 am - Reply

      John Payne -my husband worked all his life wasade redundant at 60+ and we were treated so badly that I fought for a full apology (which we received ) but what a fight that was ….

  8. amnesiaclinic March 21, 2015 at 8:48 pm - Reply

    Yes, it is bullying. Picking on the weak, the vulnerable and the sick is appalling. Good for you to take on the tribunals even though it cost you a lot in health.
    No one should be treated like this in such a rich country – but how sad there are many mini tories who think it is ok and acceptable.
    They have no idea they are on the hit list too!
    Pastor Niemoller’s words are only too prophetic and true.

  9. Helen Flower March 22, 2015 at 7:30 pm - Reply

    These letters would have been issued automatically by a computer, not by a human being. The Job Centre staff should have put a hold on all correspondence once they had been informed about the customer’s circumstances. Most bureaucrats do not care enough to do this. Whatever happened to empathy and do as you would be done by?

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