Monthly Archives: April 2019

Pascal Lamy’s verdict on Iain Duncan Smith’s idea of Brexit is priceless

The BBC’s Politics Live is not normally the place to go for incisive political debate, or even satire. Mostly it’s just a gang of right-wingers sitting around a table saying how great the Tories are and how awful Jeremy Corbyn is.

But that changed when former World Trade Organisation director Pascal Lamy was brought in to debate Brexit with, among others, former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith.

Mr Lamy’s responses made my day. Here’s a quick snapshot:

I believe this edition of Politics Live will remain on the BBC’s iPlayer for a while. Catch it before they edit the segment out!


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Local voters turn away from the Tories and their swingeing cuts to embrace Labour’s message

Labour is enjoying strong appeal among voters in the local elections on Thursday (May 2), with a message of opposition to cuts by the Tory government that will take £1.3 billion out of the economy:

The Tories, by contrast, aren’t doing quite as well:

Ross Kempsell, Political Editor at talkRADIO, has reported that many Tory candidates are not even bothering to canvass, just leaflet drop, with one source saying: “Why would I get screamed and shouted at about something I can’t change, she’s [Theresa May] no idea what we are facing”.

I’ve got a pretty good idea: Wipeout.


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The Home Office is continuing to harm the vulnerable – due to incompetence and bullying?

Sajid Javid: Didn’t he say he would end the “hostile environment” policy that is harming so many innocent people?

The “hostile environment” at the Home Office is alive and thriving under Sajid Javid, it seems.

It is surprising that the Tories have claimed they want to make whistleblowing easier.

Can’t they tell from this example that they’ll be overrun by complaints from inside the civil service?

Chaos, incompetence and bullying of Home Office employees is resulting in failed deportations and the unlawful detention of vulnerable and desperate people, whistleblowers allege.

Source: Home Office chaos and incompetence lead to unlawful detentions, claim whistleblowers | UK news | The Guardian


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Labour MP says two-fifths of her constituents on Universal Credit are considering suicide

[Image from Twitter].

Cat Smith, a Labour MP, has written to Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd to say – well, read it for yourself:

I’ve just had 40% of my constituents at advice surgery today tell me they’re ready to end their lives because of the misery of your Universal Credit system. Letter to follow with the individual cases, but ultimately the system is failing.

Cat Smith MP

The DWP’s favourite excuse for benefit related suicides is that the issue is extremely complex and no suicide could be exclusively attributed to the department’s behaviour. But can that claim withstand the direct blame of the people concerned?

Source: ‘40% of my constituents at my surgery today are ready to end their life over Universal Credit’ – Dorset Eye


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Reminder: We have a health secretary – and a government – that wants to privatise the NHS

Matt Hancock: Turning his back on decent health care.

Andrew Lansley introduced a law to privatise the health service by stealth; Jeremy Hunt part-wrote a book in support of it. Why should we think Matt Hancock is any different?

Answer: We shouldn’t. Look:

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been accused of being “in hock to fringe right wingers” after teaming up with a think tank who want to close hospitals and ramp up NHS workers’ hours

The top Tory is today launching a report by right wingers the Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), calling for more automation in the Health Service.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance? A think tank? That’s over-exaggerating their role considerably. These are far-right Tories who want to pay as little tax as possible by cutting the state’s contribution to services – to nothing, if possible.

Introducing the report, Mr Hancock is expected to say technology can “transform the way we deliver public services” and free nurses up “to do more of what they love and do so well: treating and caring for patients.”

This means the TPA wants to introduce mechanical error into healthcare, making it far more possible for patients to be wrongly-diagnosed, ill-treated and even allowed to die.

But the TPA’s website calls for a dramatic reduction in the number of Hospitals and called for the NHS to move to an “insurance-based model.”

So not only do they want your health to be in the care of machines that simply won’t know what they’re doing – consider the daft tick-box “work capability assessments” that have terminated the lives of so many sick, disabled and vulnerable benefit claimants – but they want you to pay through-the-nose for that care.

And, judging from the criminal conviction against the Unum Corporation – the US insurance company that influenced successive governments into creating a system that tries to convince people their illnesses are in their minds rather than real – the plan is to swindle you out of your money and then deny you the care that it is supposed to fund.

It also calls for NHS staff to be exempted from parts of the EU Working Time Directive, which regulates the amount of hours people can work in a week.

So anybody stupid enough to remain an employee of the health service under Tory control will be worked to the bone – risking a slew of suicides (except the NHS is currently experiencing such an epidemic, due to the diabolical policies already introduced by the Tories).

The report claims the health service and adult social care sector could save a combined £18.5 billion by 2030 through increased use of technology.

The only things that won’t be saved are lives.

Source: Tory Matt Hancock teams up with think tank who want NHS replaced with insurance – Mirror Online


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More DWP cruelty as paralysed woman told she’s fit for work because HUSBAND missed appointment

This is a tale of disaster averted as the DWP has at least realised that a paralysed woman cannot be fit for work.

That said, it is vital that carers keep tabs on every communication regarding the people for whom they are providing that care.

Those of you who have been reading Vox Political for a long time will know that Mrs Mike has been sick/disabled for many years and I am her carer.

Her condition is such that she doesn’t always remember various medical appointments and has moments in which she suffers from the famous “brown envelope” fear. I have to be constantly vigilant and it is extremely tiring.

I wonder if DWP employees rely on that to achieve their benefit savings.

A paralysed woman with brain damage has had her benefits stopped and told by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to start looking for work, after her husband mistakenly forgot to attend a mandatory Jobcentre appointment.

Julie Rodger is a tetraplegic, due to hypoxic brain damage, and is completely dependent on the care provided by her husband Vince and others.

Vince wrote on Facebook: “To all who know me and know my wife Julie, the Government have in their wisdom taken Julie off her employment and support allowance due to an oversight on my behalf and now has been given her P45 to start looking for a job/work.

“Julie is a tetraplegic due to hypoxic brain damage and can’t do anything for herself.

“Julie will be attending the job centre on Monday morning after the miracle worker has been and rid her of her disabilities.”

Update: Julie has now had her benefits reinstated, but still has to prove she is unfit for work via the controversial (and sometimes inaccurate) assessment regime.

Source: Paralysed woman told to find work after husband forgot Jobcentre appointment


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Theresa May’s latest Brexit nightmare involves the Queen herself

Not satire: When we finally get a new Parliamentary session, started with the Queen’s Speech, “Well you’ve really made a mess of it all. Shall I get Philip to drive you home?” is about the minimum Mrs May should expect.

All the prevarication and delay over Brexit has backed Theresa May into a tight corner that could end her government – and not a moment too soon.

And it all revolves around the Queen’s Speech.

Each session of Parliament kicks off with a speech from Her Majesty, written by the government, setting out the agenda for the new session. The current session was expected to be two years long because of the extra work necessary to pass Brexit.

But now everything else on the programme has been handled except Brexit, and there’s no conclusion to that nightmare in sight because bringing it back to Parliament may result in another disastrous defeat, and that would force Mrs May to end the session.

It is certainly time to call an end to what has probably been the most disastrous Parliamentary session in UK history – but the Tories can’t do it because they think it may be electoral suicide.

They don’t think they can get majority support for any new legislative programme, you see. And support for the programme – as laid out in the Queen’s Speech – is the bare minimum requirement for any government to show that Parliament has confidence in it.

Without the confidence of Parliament – well, you can probably guess the rest.

Theresa May leads a minority government that has only ever been able to count on the support of the Commons due to a “confidence and supply” arrangement with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party – but that organisation’s confidence in Mrs May has been in short supply lately and the agreement will expire at the end of the current session. It seems unlikely that it will be renewed without another massive contribution from the magic money tree that the Tories have been telling us all they don’t have.

And Conservatives – including several grandees – are deserting the party due to their own disagreements with the leadership over Brexit and other matters.

So Mrs May is caught in a double-bind.

She can’t keep going because the only thing left is Brexit, and then she’ll have to stop anyway.

But she can’t stop anyway, and start another session, because Parliament will probably force the end of her government with a “no confidence” vote.

So now she is trying to fill up the extra time she thinks she needs with a B-list of weak-sauce Bills that she doesn’t think Parliament would reject.

But the DUP’s Nigel Dodds is already on the record as saying many MPs may not accept that.

She’s unsafe whatever she does, so she is doing nothing. Meanwhile, the UK stagnates. This is what happens when you put a great nation in the hands of a fool, at the head of a party of fools.


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DWP says there’s no need to review its safeguarding procedures. The late Stephen Smith might disagree

Remember the Department for Work and Pensions’ rejection of a petition demanding an independent review of its safeguarding procedures, after the death of Jodey Whiting?

The department had ignored its own safeguarding procedures no less than five times before Ms Whiting committed suicide in February 2017.

But the DWP said it had no plans for an inquiry into its treatment of claimants – and destroyed a report on other safeguarding failures – in only 18 London job centres – rather than allow it to become public after a Freedom of Information request was submitted for its release.

Only days after this became public knowledge, we learned that Stephen Smith – the man who was reduced to a state similar to concentration camp victims due to starvation caused by deprivation of benefits – had died.

He had succumbed to pneumonia which he had contracted as a result of DWP sanctions.

Now we find that the DWP had ignored the advice in not just one, but two letters from Mr Smith’s doctors, in its determination to find him fit for work in the fact of the evidence that he was not.

This is what one GP wrote in October 2017, after listing the serious health issues suffered by Mr Smith, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cervical spondylosis, osteoarthritis and the fact he had been fitted with a urinary catheter because of ongoing urinary issues:

“These medical conditions adversely impact upon his mobility and upon the activities used to assess eligibility for ESA and PIP. The nature of these chronic problems is such that they will worsen over time and mean that his mobility and functionality is impaired on a daily basis.

“Mr Smith will be in pain on standing and at the commencement of walking. Whilst on the balance of probability, he would be able to walk 20 metres, in my opinion, he could not mobilise a distance of twenty metres repeatedly without needing to stop due to pain and breathlessness.

“It is my opinion that not only could Mr Smith not walk 20 metres without pain or exhaustion, he coult not do it repeatedly or within a reasonable time period.

“In terms of cooking, his very limited respiratory tolerance, and his difficulties with lifting means that in practical term anything other than straightforward microwave cooking is likely to be beyond his physical capabilities.

“The need to monitor and change his catheter requires medical input and it would therefore be reasonable to describe Mr Smith as requiring assistance with toilet needs.

“The identified restrictions affecting Mr Smith’s mobility and daily living activities have been present for more than three months and, given the nature of his medical complaints, are likely to remain beyond the next nine months.”

Despite this expert advice, the DWP’s pen-pushers decided they knew better and found him fit for work, so in January 2018 another GP wrote to them again, as follows:

“Following a recent Work Capability Assessment this patient, in contradiction of my own knowledge of the patient over time, clinical assesment and medical certification, was found fit for work related activity.

“Because of my patient’s health condition there would be a substantial risk to my patient’s health if he were found not to have limited capability for work related activity.”

(Source: Revealed: Warnings about dying Stephen Smith that were cruelly ignored by the DWP – Liverpool Echo)

There was indeed a substantial risk to Mr Smith’s health. It was called the Department for Work and Pensions, and it led to his eventual death.

It’s a clear case of corporate manslaughter but nobody is facing any recriminations over it at all. The DWP says it is an “operational matter” and refuses to comment on it in any way other than that “lessons will be learned”, or some such blather.

Will any lessons be learned? We may find out the answer sooner than the DWP would like – ironically, from a man with almost the same name as the deceased.

Steve Smith had a stroke 11 years ago which left him paralysed from head to toe down the left side of his body.

The life-threatening condition struck while he was on holiday in Turkey. He also had a brain haemorrhage and spent six weeks in hospital abroad where surgeons had to cut away his skull and operate on his brain.

After flying back to England, he was given a year to recuperate by his employers but after his condition failed to improve he lost his job.

After years in receipt of Disability Living Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance – and with no sign of improvement in his condition – it seems the DWP has arbitrarily decided he is fit for work and shut down his ESA claim.

You can read about his ordeal here.

Will he be the next victim of a government department that seems free to condemn people at will, and with impunity? And what can be done to get justice for people like Jodey Whiting and Stephen Smith?


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Tories could lose 1,000 seats in local elections – so BOJOB speaks up? Please…

Bojob – what a clown: Don’t take out your Brexit frustrations on our hard-working Tory councillors, he says. Chris Davies was one such Tory councillor and he is now in disgrace as a convicted expenses fraudster.

Conservative leaders are extremely concerned about the results of Thursday’s local elections because it seems they don’t have to cash to run their usual campaigns.

It seems clear from this that they don’t believe for a moment that their candidates could be elected on personal merit. See:

The Tories could lose as many as 1,000 seats in this week’s local elections, as the party reportedly faces running out of cash.

Party bosses fear they face losing up to a quarter of their 5,521 council seats across the country, according to the Sunday Express.

And the party’s chief treasurer is thought to be in “complete despair” because both Remain and Leave-backing donors are holding back their money.

(Source: Tories face losing 1,000 seats in crushing local elections wipeout – Mirror Online)

So who do you think they send in to try to calm the masses and get them voting for their over-privileged overseers?

If you guessed an overpaid but poorly-educated mophead with all the charm, poise and social grace of a semi-shaved orang-utan, then you guessed right.

Here’s Boris Johnson:

Once you get going you will find that canvassing in a British high street is as enjoyable as any other contact sport – and even more exciting, in the sense that you can never be entirely sure who is going to be on your side. As you weave from shop to shop in a kind of rolling maul, you develop an instinct about the members of the public who loom into your path. Sometimes you need to deploy the old side-step; sometimes you palm them off with another member of your team. But most times you will want to commit wholeheartedly to the tackle – thrusting out your garish campaign bumf, clasping their hand, and inquiring joyfully whether you can count on their support.

In case you haven’t worked it out (and I don’t blame you) he was making his case in a Torygraph article entitled Don’t take out your Brexit frustrations on our hard-working Tory councillors.

As a local newspaper reporter, I’ve had personal experience of these so-called “hard-working Tory councillors”.

One of them was a man called Chris Davies. He represented the Conservative Party on Powys County Council for several years and was a useless yes-man for the Cameron government. As far as I know, he never once spoke up in support of the under-privileged and vulnerable people of the county who needed help.

In 2015 the people of Brecon and Radnorshire, sick of the Liberal Democrats’ collusion with the Tories and the murderous hardship it had wreaked on ordinary folk, ejected their former MP – only to get Mr Davies instead.

And now he is a criminal, convicted of expenses fraud, awaiting the result of a petition to remove him as MP and have a by-election. He is a disgrace.

That is my experience of “hard-working Tory councillors”.

The Tories deserve to lose a lot more than a paltry thousand of them.


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Was Huawei contract a pay-off for former Conservative advisors?

Well, well, well… Huawei.

I didn’t know what to make of it when the row broke out over a leaked report saying Huawei was being contracted to help build the UK’s 5G communications network, despite concerns over national security.

Concerns over whether spyware would be inserted into the network had been commonplace in advance of the decision and it seemed odd to me that the Conservative government would ignore those concerns.

The possibility that this was the result of mischief by leading Tories who saw the issue as a tool to win points in a future leadership race seemed likely.

I mentioned this on Twitter last week:

Another user added a new perspective:

Now I’m hearing something else:

Could this be the reason the Conservatives are awarding a contract to Huawei – that they are giving a financial boost to former advisors?

It will be interesting to see whether the mainstream media ever allow this to see the light of day.


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