Claimants suddenly develop mysterious superpowers after being sanctioned | Politics and Insights
We all know that the Tory welfare “reforms” are the gift that just keeps on giving. Various people from an alternative universe where benefit sanctions and starvation actually work to motivate have told us so. I think in that universe was you can see Skinner and Pavlov’s house.
I digress.
My recent benefit sanction really worked wonders. I was so delighted to be chosen for this special treatment by the government, and for no reason in particular. I really don’t deserve it. I have now developed spectacular superpowers as a result, and a special liking for hospital food. Every time I have a hypoglycemic attack coz I have no food, and a bout of Raynaud’s because I’ve no electricity or gas, hey presto, I get rushed into hospital where I can eat and eat until my belly is full. And there’s even heating! I couldn’t manage that with my benefit. And no worries about becoming homeless now I have a near-permanent bed. My life is transformed!
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If IDS truly wanted to help people he would not be taking money off them!
The aim is to save money and nothing else and anyone who believes him is seriously ‘misguided’ (to be polite)
It is a losing battle, circa Rothermeres, Barclays and Murdochs and their hangers on have all jumped to the governments defence.
Your previous article about tabloids may be satire but when you include Sky, the MSM along with newspapers and their associated titles, you have a lot in the hands of a few.
You only have to look at front pages and how they carry “soft” or “bash” news when other things should be covered.
It is one of the reasons that the release of the benefit death statistics will have a small impact.
Watch again as Duncan-Smiths pals all jump to his defence, blaming those awful lefties (it has already started)
As I say, IDS isn’t going anywhere.
I’ve just done an interview about the death statistics, with another two (possibly three) on the way, and I know The Guardian‘s Comment is Free column will be covering it on Friday.
It may still be a small impact but we’ll see.
Great news Mike, I admire your determination.
But if it’s not with any of the so called “big names” it will not stretch very far.
I can hazard a guess it is not with any places owned by the names I mentioned above.
As much as you and readers of your blog (myself included) dislike them, it is always worth having a look to see what the opposite side are thinking.
I read other websites and their associted comments/forums and coupled with personal experience I know that you are swimming against the tide.
Guy Debords Cat made a true comment, the reason some on the right dislike media studies is that a well run one that does real research shows up just how bad our so called free press and media actully are.
I found the articles on NHS whitleblowers btw, unfortunately I am away and can’t access a computer to link to them (on smartphone for the next week or so)
Just google “Conservatives encourage NHS whistleblowing”
We don’t know how far any coverage of this will go, yet. Speculating on it is pointless. I’m doing interviews and we’ll all just have to see where they are published.
I think you are mistaken about the impact that can be made, even without the help (if you can call it that) of the Murdoch empire and the other right-wingers.
Look at what happened in 2012, when the DWP’s last ‘ad-hoc statistical release’ on benefit-related deaths came out – there was hardly a whiff of it in the mainstream news, yet the public response was such that the DWP was afraid to provide any further information – and is only doing so on Thursday because it feared having to release the actual number of deaths (thanks to my strike-out application on the DWP’s FoI appeal) first.
You are correct that it is always worth reading the right-wing rags, to find out what the other side are thinking. I do this; I’m sure many of my colleagues on this side of the political spectrum do the same.
But I’m not swimming against the tide. Let’s all see what kind of splash this makes, eh?
Whatever happens, it won’t be a “small” impact. For those of us who have followed your journey, twists, turns, and more to come if you can’t get the tribunal in November refused, and then probably still more, ANY figures will be a MASSIVE impact.
However they mangle the figures on Friday, it will establish beyond doubt, despite IDS’s denials and lying in the HoC and prevarication, that the raw data exists.
It will be quite an emotional time for us all, I expect, too, because any figures will be based on real people, vulnerable, ill, disabled, dying. They were like millions of others who used their entitlement to the safety net of Social Security, and found cruelty.
Any figures will be terribly sad, and a stain on the UK as a whole for turning and looking away as the basic humanity that was enshrined in the original Welfare State has been wiped away.
If they are the people who are keeping him in power (and they clearly are), they risk being tried alongside him. Of course, the rats will be rushing off as soon as the ship starts sinking, but by then I suspect their crimes will be too well (self) publicised.
And then, IDS and friends will certainly be going nowhere for a long, long time, even if they survive to face trial. How long do you think any of them would last in a prison population?
Maybe we could open a book on it?
politics for the people IDS is a swine the thing knocks me sick when he says ” the reality is” the reality is your a lying conniving jumped up little ****! with far too much power over vulnerable people’s lives!!!
And how much money has been saved then, enough for IDS to claim another breakfast and underpants cleaning?
Tweeted @melissacade68
The reality regarding IDS is that in 2003 he and his millionaire wife should have been vigorously investigated by the Fraud Squad for embezzlement.
Weren’t they?
So when we get sanctioned, we all become like the comic book characters from Marvel and DC Comics and develop superpowers, is this to help us look for work these new found gifts, why didn’t they say, doesn’t sound so bad, get money stopped, I develop telepathy, brilliant!