Rudd thinks heartbreaking Universal Credit stories are about one or two people. Per HOUR, maybe.

At the time of writing, Amber Rudd has spent the last couple of days releasing statement after statement about changes she is making to the way the Department for Work and Pensions treats benefit claimants. I thought I was going to write an article about some of that nonsense.

Then I found that she had made a claim so boneheaded in its wilful ignorance of reality that it deserves special treatment.

Referring to the ongoing train crash that calls itself Universal Credit, she actually said: “Some of the criticisms that have come from various publications have been based on one or two particular individuals.”

This was in an interview with the Mirror, which has spent years highlighting “stories ranging from flaws in the system affecting millions, to struggling readers who’ve been forced to food banks”.

No, no. According to the Conservative cabinet minister who had to resign as Home Secretary because didn’t know the government department for which she was responsible had deportation targets (I think she did know), the government department for which she is now responsible has only harmed “one or two” Universal Credit claimants.

Oh, really?

Claimants like Lee Carroll, who was told he could not have any Universal Credit because he was in prison – even though he doesn’t have a criminal record?

How about Debbie Ballard, who suffered a miscarriage – that’s right, her baby died – because a Universal Credit “error” led to her landlord evicting her and her partner?

That’s two people, just from news stories published in the last few days.

Oh, but here’s another: Mark Scholfield – the DWP delayed his first Universal Credit payment for eight weeks. It arrived the day after he died.

Going back a little further, what about Brian Bailey?

Amy Nice?

Steve Pogson?

The list goes on and on and on. And Amber Rudd tells us Universal Credit has only ever harmed “one or two individuals.”

As Nicola James on Twitter put it: “DWP Secretary @AmberRuddHR claims that ‘heartbreaking benefit stories’ are representative of just 1 or 2 people. RT if you believe that Amber Rudd has knowingly missed quite a lot of zeros off that figure.”

What do you think?

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No Comments

  1. Justin January 12, 2019 at 11:42 pm - Reply

    In the meantime we found 14 million for a ferry company that after due diligence we found out they had no ferries, something is so seriously wrong they need to be investigated and there needs to be rule changes to make ministers accountable by law if necessary for there departments

  2. Pat Sheehan January 13, 2019 at 12:03 am - Reply

    Pitiful Amber Rudd, pretty well all her colleagues I should think, the establishment, their retinue and cronies and a large part of their sycophantic and indifferent supporters are simply far too well off financially for their own good and inevitably ours!
    Their incomes, their standard of living, their cosy abodes in affluent areas, their guaranteed, gold-plated, pension pots, their investments on-shore and off-shore and any other lucrative deals they have an eye open for along their comfortable, leafy way are clearly clouding their individual and collective judgement: to the extent that they have created a dual existence in the dis-United Kingdom and they don’t venture far enough from their fool’s paradise to see a difference!
    They have no idea of what is going on even when their victims die of malnutrition and neglect on the freezing streets of Westminster before their very eyes: they are clueless to the outcomes of their savage policies and posturing and refuse point-blank to pay attention!
    Clearly a significant ‘Pay Cut’ for all politicians, senior civil servants, the ‘establishment’ and all their retinues and other hangers-on at or near the peak of the steaming greed and avarice pile is the only effective and corrective remedy that would address this outrageous and atrocious, dictatorial state of affairs!
    In a ‘democratic’ system it would simply not be tolerated!

  3. Tony Dean January 13, 2019 at 9:06 am - Reply
  4. Terminator January 13, 2019 at 9:25 am - Reply

    Why can’t the changeover only be just a letter stating that after a payment your new payments will be 4 weekly/monthly from the following payment? This would cut out the cluster f*ck of trying to make out its a new claim, then some people saying I won’t give you my bank details, if you want them send me the form to add them. I was personally told by someone for PIP we would use the same details and said the number and sort code out down the line.

  5. Robin Baldock January 13, 2019 at 9:38 am - Reply

    Thanks .

    Probably a more effective refutation than naming five or six would be to give some stats linking them to the examples. Of course the DWP are doing their best to avoid collecting stats but the rise of foodbank use, and probably someone somewhere is collating the numbers reported in the press or the numbers reported in other ways…..

    • Mike Sivier January 13, 2019 at 5:37 pm - Reply

      I named representative samples. My point was that victims of Universal Credit are legion.

  6. nmac064 January 13, 2019 at 11:55 am - Reply

    Very convenient that this odious woman, like all the other nasty Tories, puts her head in the sand.

  7. DB P January 13, 2019 at 4:13 pm - Reply

    After hearing Rudd speak about the changes to Universal Credit you can still see how very out of touch she is about people on benefits…

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