If we can name streets after fallen servicepeople, why not those who fell to Atos/DWP?

streetsignThe Labour Party’s Shadow Defence Secretary, Jim Murphy, has proposed that local authorities consider naming streets after deceased members of the armed forces, who died on active service.

Together with Hilary Benn, the Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, he said this would offer a lasting commemoration, showing the value we place on those who have served and been lost.

It’s a good idea, as far as it goes, and shows that Labour is following through on its ‘One Nation’ promise – here bringing us together through patriotism.

Why not take it one step further?

How about encouraging local authorities to name new streets – or rename current streets – for people who have died after the Department for Work and Pensions declared them fit for work (on the advice of Atos assessors)?

The street signs could feature an explanatory statement, showing how the named person died, what their illness was, and how the DWP/Atos had treated them.

It would be a lasting reminder, to Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians, of the blood on their hands.

The possibility of commemorating the Atos dead, as some have named them, has been on my mind lately. I had been considering contacting the national action groups to ask if there was a wall somewhere, decorated with photos and tributes to them (newspaper reports of their deaths would be enough). If not, I thought one could be created quite quickly.

Or a mobile display, that could be taken to the Houses of Parliament for demonstrations. That would be effective.

I remember when I visited Bosnia, back in the 1990s, they had a building up in the hills that was a memorial to everybody who had died for their country during the war in the former Yugoslavia. It was maintained by a lady who knew the details of every single person whose picture was on the walls – and there were hundreds lining them. The stories were terrifying, and touching, and it was impossible not to be moved by them.

Now Messrs Murphy and Benn have raised this street-naming idea.

Wouldn’t it be meaningful to have, on street corners across the country, memorials to one of the most shameful purges in the UK’s history – the time when the government turned on the most vulnerable in society and hounded them to death?

What sort of message would that put out to Conservative and Liberal Democrat election candidates, canvassing voters on streets named after people their policies, effectively, put to death?

Should it be made to happen?

What do you think?

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12 Comments

  1. Paul Smyth February 21, 2013 at 12:28 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on The Greater Fool.

  2. paul8ar February 21, 2013 at 12:35 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on paul8ar.

  3. Dave February 21, 2013 at 12:59 pm - Reply

    Given time we would run out of streets because of ATOS, a better idea would be to have a plaque placed on every street light in the country, a guiding light by night provided by those who perished under this spiteful government.

  4. Jack Johnson February 21, 2013 at 3:33 pm - Reply

    That would be a constant reminder to the fickle voters with short memories who put
    the neofascist Tories and their rent boy LibDem supporters back in office.

  5. Stephen Bunting February 21, 2013 at 3:45 pm - Reply

    At least get the idea in circulation!!

  6. Stephen Bee February 21, 2013 at 3:54 pm - Reply

    reblogged on https://www.facebook.com/groups/420430254683362/?ref=ts&fref=ts
    National Remembrance Day For The DWP/ATOS Dead Group

  7. rainbowwarriorlizzie February 21, 2013 at 4:36 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on HUMAN RIGHTS & POLITICAL JOURNAL and commented:
    In Favour of this..as we pray for all those lost and loved through the merciless killings due to Atos/DWP. There should be Memorials held and for the families too of those who have fallen to ATOS/DWP who couldn’t give ATOS!! Blessed be…:-(

  8. Ash Martin February 21, 2013 at 7:06 pm - Reply

    Yup…remember vividly one appeal I rep’d at where the bereaved turned up with the ashes of the appellant for the ESA appeal.

    • Mike Sivier February 21, 2013 at 7:12 pm - Reply

      You should make that story more widely-known. Have you sent it on to the main protest sites etc?

  9. Henrietta Sandwich February 22, 2013 at 12:07 pm - Reply

    Good idea.

  10. anon March 10, 2013 at 2:07 pm - Reply

    According to the Daily Mail, it seems the NHS has been employing foreign nurses with fake qualifications.

    Interestingly, ATOS also employs foreign nurses and medics – often because even such qualifications as they (claim to) hold do not meet NHS standards.

    So could the DWP/ATOS’s murdrous and inaccurate WCA tests in many cases be carried out by staff with fake qualifications?

    ATOS has already cost thousands of innocent lives.

    There needs to be an investigation. NOW.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290920/Freeze-foreign-nurses-NHS-chiefs-admit-idea-lied-qualifications-experience-using-fake-IDs.html#ixzz2N7aTXHcX

  11. anon March 10, 2013 at 2:14 pm - Reply

    Perhaps people could start to lay wreaths and photographs at the cenotaph – in London.and in every town.

    I would like to see a national newspaper with the guts to have in its centre pages a wall of photographs of the fallen – as there would have been by now for victims of war or (any) other disaster.

    It would still be only a tiny drop in the bucket.

    The reality is better summed up in the WWII photos of vast mass graves filled with concentration camp dead…or footage of vast military cemeteries. Could a single one of those hold all those who have died at the hands of the DWP/ATOS? I doubt it.

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