Unrepentant IDS will persecute the sick no matter what the death statistics say

ids-auschwitz-meme

The publication of the DWP’s damped-down death statistics (we’ll be given ratios because the actual number of deaths is too inflammatory, we’re told) will be a victory for those of us who have campaigned for the facts, no matter what they actually say.

If you didn’t know already, the DWP only announced that it would publish these figures on Thursday (August 27) after This Writer supplied his submission to the Information Tribunal on the DWP’s appeal against providing the actual numbers – a submission which included a request to have the appeal struck out on the grounds that it is an abuse of process.

Suddenly the date of publication went from being “before the end of autumn” (according to Priti Patel) to August 27. Clearly the DWP was terrified that it would lose control of events and the public would get accurate information, and acted accordingly.

In short: IDS and his department fell apart like a paper bag in a thunderstorm.

It is impossible to say what the statistics will reveal, when they are finally published (at 9.30am on Thursday, it seems). Perhaps they will provide exhaustive information on the deaths that have taken place, broken down into the groups requested by This Writer and others (it is said to be in response to FoI requests), and also providing information on the causes of the deaths, with appendices containing the raw data used to produce the report.

Alternatively, we could get a dumbed-down piece of fluff that provides as little as possible that can be used to find out the extent of the carnage, but can be waved at us by Iain Duncan Smith as evidence that he has given us what we wanted… and as evidence that any figures demanded by the Information Tribunal are of little consequence.

That is the aim – damage limitation. To make it seem that nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Plausible deniability.

The DWP already believes it has plausible deniability for every dodgy death on its books; no DWP representative can be said to be directly responsible for any of the deaths – they were a consequence of claimants’ illnesses, right? Even the suicides can be claimed as indicative of claimants’ poor mental health – except we know that anyone confessing suicidal thoughts at a work capability assessment is immediately asked why they haven’t already killed themselves.

Not conclusive? Maybe not. But then, that isn’t the only evidence available. It’s all part of a bigger picture.

In December last year, This Blog published a series of articles (here’s one) explaining how the DWP’s behaviour may be equated with the Nazi ‘chequebook euthanasia’ programme that eventually became known as Aktion T4 – a programme that caused the deaths of 70,000 German people with (among other problems) mental illnesses, before its methods were used against entire races the Nazis considered undesirable, in the extermination camps.

“It could be argued that the Coalition Government doesn’t have any blood on its hands. Nobody goes around the United Kingdom subjecting the sick and disabled to so-called ‘mercy’ killings, after all,” I wrote.

“They just subject people – who are already in an unstable frame of mind – to a highly pressurised ‘fitness’ test and then demand to know why, considering their condition, they haven’t killed themselves yet. Then they let those people do all the work themselves.”

On Thursday, it’s just possible that we might find out how successful they’ve been. If there have been more than 70,273 deaths in the last few years, the Conservative Party will have beaten the Nazis.

And Iain Duncan Smith intends to continue. Only this week, he announced a new plan to purge the Employment and Support Allowance benefit bill of mentally ill claimants. He told us “Work is good for your health”.

In fact, if you have a mental illness, work can drive you to an early death via a combination of (among others) stress, anxiety, depression and paranoia.

Duncan Smith’s claim that “Work is good for your health” may therefore be seen as a lie – almost as great a lie as the slogan from which it was adapted.

You’ll be familiar with it: “Work makes you free” – it hangs in its more familiar form of “Arbeit macht frei” over the gates of the Auschwitz extermination camp that Duncan Smith visited in 2009.

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40 Comments

  1. Nick August 25, 2015 at 11:18 pm - Reply

    as long as IDS/Boris Karloff is alive there will be deaths that’s for sure and everyone needs to watch their backs

    • Joanna August 26, 2015 at 1:27 am - Reply

      Unfortunately, there will always be someone waiting to take their place, I only hope his children have developed some sort of fair, kindly minds of their own? Otherwise we could be doomed!!!!

      • Nick August 26, 2015 at 9:45 am - Reply

        IDS will get stopped at some point by someone as if he were not he could over time wipe out all long time sick people

        Disabled only if housebound will fair better but any disabled person who can leave the house will end up in the workhouse or starve to death

        As i say only someone like corbyn if elected labour leader could save this group from forced euthanasia as that is where i believe IDS will be heading in the years to come

        • Mike Sivier August 26, 2015 at 10:42 am - Reply

          He’s already there – although his DWP persuades people to euthanize themselves, so it doesn’t have to take the blame.

          • Nick August 26, 2015 at 2:27 pm

            his days are very limited mike i feel as we know from history tyrants virtually always end up dead in one way or another. And IDS will probably be no different

  2. Bipolar's gf August 25, 2015 at 11:52 pm - Reply

    I don’t think that it should be black and white about work and benefits if you’re disabled, sick or unwell. The fact is that it is. If you say in a WCA that you can work for four hours a week, for example, you’re marked fit to work and that’s the end of it. ESA claimants should be able to do limited work, if they want to and can, without fear of losing their benefits. I fear, however, that isn’t the point of IDS’s speech.

    • Florence August 26, 2015 at 11:01 am - Reply

      Under the old Incapacity Benefit there was allowed work – up to 16 hour a week, without affecting benefits. It allowed those who wanted to do a little work for the social, self image, gaining new skills, and other aspects to do so, but it also allowed attempts to return to work to fail, without losing all benefits.

      • sasson1 August 27, 2015 at 6:44 am - Reply

        Housing Benefit is reduced if you earn anymore than the £20 disregard, for ‘permitted work’.

    • oliver August 26, 2015 at 1:06 pm - Reply

      apparently ESA/EESA claimants can work up to 16 hours a week or earn up to £100 a week extra on top of their benefit and they get to keep it all along with all their benefit. i was recently told this by the dwp. certainly seems odd tho an it wouldnt surprise me if there was some sort of stitch up thatl happen in the process your not told about.

      • Mike Sivier August 26, 2015 at 6:38 pm - Reply

        Are you sure that’s not their carers?

      • James Kemp August 27, 2015 at 12:03 am - Reply

        Hi Mike and oliver nope you can earn up to 111 pounds or the minimum wage of 16 hours but please check this yourself. currently on i think the work assistance program i have looked into it for myself and i am on the support group been reluctant as it feels a little too much like a gotcha…

        opps sorry you lose your benefits if you work constantly and earn the only thing is it’s constantly told one thing then another person in the DWP claims something different!

      • hugosmum70 August 27, 2015 at 5:55 pm - Reply

        My son was told exactly the same only it was £90 before it affected his benefits if you started a business up and became self employed. but only businesses that these so called coaches come up with are photographic businesses or painting & decorating. the former is something every Tom,Dick or Harry can do if they own a digital camera.must be hundreds of photographers in the UK trying to make a living with no success, too many doing it now.either as a business or a hobby.my son was one. it failed. they still kept on at him to try again. hes getting nowhere with it. i know 2 people (within my very small family/circle of friends) who have tried the latter. one failed hopelessly. the other is trying yet again. but people just do not have the money for the luxury of photographs. cheaper to go out and buy a camera yourself.and decorating a room,unless your rolling in money, is also a luxury they cant afford to pay a business to do for them, (i say business as opposed to professional —these people are NOT professionals… they’ve possibly done a short course only at local technical college,if anything at all) they either do it themselves or find someone who doesn’t charge the earth. (or a family member who will do it for nothing or next to nothing..if they can . )

  3. Ruby August 25, 2015 at 11:55 pm - Reply

    I have heard that my ex colleague with Borderline Personality Disorder has now been sectioned due to the continuing harrasment of the DWP.

    Only anecdotal not hard evidence but this is how they get away with it..

    • Mike Sivier August 26, 2015 at 12:54 am - Reply

      You are exactly right. That IS how they get away with it.

      • Joanna August 26, 2015 at 1:21 am - Reply

        Even if the DWP says the deaths are a consequence of the claimant’s illness, then they should be adequately provided for IN The Support Group? If the result of their illness, is a worsened condition or death, then how can they Possibly be ready for work within 1 year!?! Why can’t anyone with any sort of clout see that plain logic. And why aren’t at least some Doctors fighting back? After all don’t they have years of knowledge and the Hippocratic Oath on their side!?!!!! Or is it meaningless????

        • Mike Sivier August 26, 2015 at 9:27 am - Reply

          In the support group, you are not expected to be ready for work within a year. That’s the work-related activity group.

      • onthesideofahill August 26, 2015 at 6:56 am - Reply

        Probably because they know their own “anecdotal evidence” as published has been proved to be lies and fabrications.
        Sorry to hear of your colleagues suffering.

    • Phil Lee August 26, 2015 at 2:06 am - Reply

      Shame it isn’t IDS and his odious cronies that were sectioned – surely there must be sufficient grounds?
      I’m sure he’ll use that as a fall-back plea when he’s eventually placed on trial for his multiple crimes against humanity.
      And WHAT THE **** ARE THE POLICE DOING, ALLOWING THIS LUMP OF ROTTING EXCREMENT TO WALK THE STREETS?
      He is a clear danger to the safety of others, yet they PROTECT him?
      They do know that they can’t rely on the Nuremberg defence don’t they?

    • Florence August 26, 2015 at 10:59 am - Reply

      Also only anecdotal, but I hear (via someone already in the system) that to get emergency help in the MH system is impossible, so the only option to ensure a bed is to be sectioned. The long term ramifications of being Sectioned are such that it will blight their lives, all for the sake of needing urgent help.

  4. kittysjones August 26, 2015 at 4:52 am - Reply

    The meme used was originally by Robert Livingstone

    • Mike Sivier August 26, 2015 at 9:26 am - Reply

      Thanks for that. I got it from a different site (via a search engine) and there was no attribution attached to it. I’m glad to give credit where it is due.

  5. marcusdemowbray August 26, 2015 at 6:45 am - Reply

    His messianic self-belief, his “beware the mild mannered man” promise of revenge, his deceit and arrogance and his callous disregard for suffering all indicate psychopathic tendencies.

    We should all write to our MPs and raise our concern about his fitness to hold Public Office. Parliament must surely have procedures for assessing if a member has problems. I hate to sound like I am prejudiced against those with emotional/mental problems, but IDS is a special case and he must not be allowed to continue his tyrannical crusade against society’s most vulnerable people.

    What the hell has happened to the UN Investigation into Crimes Against Humanity ???

  6. Mr.Angry August 26, 2015 at 7:26 am - Reply

    Let us all await the outcome tomorrow to see the extent of this murderous regime, if we get the truth which is doubtful. What can be done if this information is massaged which I am sure it will be. Does IDS just get away with it or can something be brought against him to end this tragedy?

  7. Rupert Mitchell (@rupert_rrl) August 26, 2015 at 7:28 am - Reply

    This does seem to repeat a Nazi mentality. The DWP should be there to assist people into suitable jobs; not persecute the sick and mentally ill. The only people who should be able to discuss and make a decision on a claimant’s medical condition should be properly qualified medical and psychological assessors and not some Nazi style regime. We can not allow this purge of decency to continue.

  8. Julia August 26, 2015 at 7:42 am - Reply

    I wrote a guest blog for you here a couple of years ago Mike. I have an as yet non diagnosed condition that mirrors M.S./Fibromyalgia.

    I was so completely stressed out from last autumn and especially after the election, that I’ve now developed angina. I believe it’s largely the worry and to some extent the extreme deterioration of my condition that’s caused the heart problem.

    You’re not left alone you see even if you don’t have problems with ESA/PIP (which I’m likely to get at some point). I have another care reassessment today. In a telephone conversation about it, when I said to the ‘assessor’ that I would have to get an advocate because I was too ill to cope with it on my own, she said (in not a nice tone of voice) ‘Well, you have an undiagnosed condition don’t you?’, and also curtly asked if she could speak directly to my doctor (which I refused for obvious reasons).

    When I asked my advocate about this. she told me that now you not only have to prove that you’re ill to the ESA/PIP assessors, but also to the care ‘assessors’, and that they are always aggressive. say ‘assessors’ because unlike the first assessment I had – conducted by a degree educated social worker – the assessors are not barely educated to GCSE level. This lady left messages on my answer phone, and she couldn’t even construct a sentence properly! She has no healthcare qualifications at all.

    So that’s what you’re reduced to; being humiliated by a greatly under-educated person. I’ve seen over the years how social services have cleared out the experienced and empathetic, and employed these types of people; hardly qualified to administration level, let alone conduct a ‘fit for work’ type of interview. Similarly at the DWP.

    No, IDS will continue his persecution, despite any statistics. If he was going to change his path, he would have done it after the FIRST death. Even in Thatcher’s government, the outcry about the damage removing housing benefit was having on people, made them firstly compensate people, and then eventually reinstate it. IDS will never change, and if he goes, likely someone will just carry on in the same vein.

    What is needed is a the legal profession to bring a class action charge of corporate manslaughter by all the people who have been affected by his policies; I can’t see anything else working, but of course the issue needs to keep being put into the public arena.

    • Dave August 26, 2015 at 9:31 am - Reply

      Anybody who has read Orwell’s 1984 will remember that Napoleon had certain dogs trained to terrorise the other animals. A parallel here? IDS as Napoleon and those ignorant assessors as dogs trained by IDS and the DWP?

      IDS would not find a post in any other European government, which is a measure how reactionary Cameron et al really are.

  9. bumblebee buzzz August 26, 2015 at 8:05 am - Reply

    Good Morning Michael and Good luck to you for Tomorrow

  10. wildswimmerpete August 26, 2015 at 8:30 am - Reply

    In the days of Invalidity Benefit and its successor Incapacity Benefit, a claimant could already undertake “permitted work” but on condition that doing so mustn’t make their condition any worse. Obviously the opposite now applies. I’m surprised the Tories haven’t offered to lease Auschwitz for use as a “treatment centre” with perhaps a wing for a boot camp for the young.

    • Florence August 26, 2015 at 12:12 pm - Reply

      You’re absolutely right. IB was far more centred around ensuring health wasn’t adversely affected by attempts to return to some work, or to do some regular work. Indeed, there was a specific duty on the Job Centre disability and work advisors to ensure that the MH would not be affected. Those with work-related mental & physical health issues would be asked directly if returning to the workplace would cause harm or distress, and they took your word for it, and left you alone while encouraging you to engage with them if you felt ready to.

      Many who have been bullied out of work (disabled, sick & previously well) can have dreadful problems with anxiety, panic, agoraphobia, right up to full blown PTSD. These will be among the worst hit with the attack on those with MH problems, but it will also create MH issues in the physically ill too. One wonders just how the new “CBT miracle cure” will be used in this new attack on the sick, and what the real agenda is for the Support Group.

  11. A-Brightfuture August 26, 2015 at 11:09 am - Reply

    Its a topsy turvy world of IDS and being painted with the “crazy brush”, the top psychologists who devised the whole disability denial are the ones who really need dragging to the courts for breach of code of conduct.
    Top of the list is “Do no harm”.
    They used their psychological knowledge to help the likes of IDS to manipulate the masses. Its so easy to brainwash the ignorant. Which makes me wonder who are the ones that really have the MH issues, the folks who have MH issues or the devious manipulators.

    The whole upside down, wrong is right, right is wrong, black is white mentality of the DWP has not only caused absolute chaos with its claimants, it also has brainwashed the employees of the DWP. and half the country.

    Cult mentality.
    Nobody ever really recovers from brainwashing without proper help.

  12. Mr.Angry August 26, 2015 at 2:57 pm - Reply

    Do any VP readers know what time these stats are coming out and will they be available on the net? appreciate any information my thanks in advance.

  13. Andy C August 26, 2015 at 5:53 pm - Reply

    Hi Mike,

    I previously shared a list of points about IDS’s character to you ages ago (now it is numbering 34 (!!!!)) It’s started getting unweildy in size so I created the folliowing blog with a single blog0post about IDS and all of his exaggerations and lies (all with links pointing direct to sources, I think i’ve linked to this site because of one his many laughing moments in response to MP’s fears)

    So, as well as his recent “Work is good for your health” comment, from the blog – http://the-klaxon.blogspot.co.uk/

    20) He has in the past visited Aushwitz, but on a BBC interview he was caught saying

    “…Work actually helps free people…”

    Arbeit Macht Frei anyone? (If you don’t know these were the words over the gate to the entrance of Aushwitz)

    4mins 19seconds in on BBC morning news
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGY15gSc8OM

    “Iain Duncan Smith MP: Reflections on a visit to Auschwitz amid political crises back home” Iain Duncan Smith, 20 May 2009
    http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2009/05/iain-duncan-smith-mp-reflections-on-a-visit-to-auschwitz-amid-political-crises-back-home.html

  14. Keith Jackson August 27, 2015 at 9:34 am - Reply

    Let us not lose sight of the fact that the whole Tory party is behind IDS so they are all complicit

  15. Chris Tandy August 27, 2015 at 9:54 am - Reply

    “Plausible deniability” (!)
    Being told you are “fit for work” assumes, not unreasonably, you will not die within the next six weeks.
    So:
    If I said, at a job interview, that my doctor had given me six weeks to live, I doubt if I’d reach the short-list for the position.
    However if being in good health, I was given the job, and subsequently met my death due to being struck by lightning or murdered or run over or some other unexpected fate that could happen to anybody……
    …….I feel that IDS and his DWP could “plausibly deny” being in any way responsible, and could thus defend their statement of the claimant being ‘fit for work’. Anything else is “implausible”, “undeniable” and “sadistic poppycock”.

  16. mrmarcpc September 3, 2015 at 1:35 pm - Reply

    He will not be stopped unless someone or some people stop him, his own party won’t, they’re right behind him, the only way they’d stop him was if public unrest got so heated, they would have no other choice but to, in fear of there being a full scale, nationwide riot, like with that ***** Thatcher and the poll tax, only reason that got curtailed was because of all of us standing up and shouting No More as one, that will be the only way to shut IDS and these nazi b*****ds down, no one in the tory party will, no one in tory Labour will have the balls to and certainly not tory Lib Dems either, it will be down to us, the people, to continue the fight, to keep the pressure up and on them like we have all being doing, that is the only way IDS and his cohorts and his agenda will be stopped!

    • Nick September 3, 2015 at 10:25 pm - Reply

      The poll tax was very different as it affected all households whereas the sick and disabled do not hence they will be no action being taken

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