Vox Political on LBC radio to discuss DWP lies
Vox Political’s Mike Sivier (that’s me) will be appearing on LBC radio at around 1pm to talk about the revelation that a coroner ruled that a man died as a direct result of being involved in a work capability assessment organised by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Thanks to the Daily Mail, we now know that the deceased was 60-year-old Michael O’Sullivan, of Highgate, north London, who took his own life six months after being found fit for work. The Atos assessor never asked him about suicidal thoughts and the DWP decision maker never considered relevant evidence from his doctors.
The DWP said this was because its policy on further evidence was “regrettably not followed in this case” and that it would circulate a reminder. We have no evidence that this was done or that further deaths did not follow because of similar omissions – and any claims by the DWP must be treated as suspicious.
This is because the DWP, knowing that a causal link between the work capability assessment and the death of claimants had been proved by north London coroner Mary Hassall in January 2014, spent the whole summer denying any such link to campaigners and MPs who were demanding publication of up-to-date claimant death statistics.
Even after its statistics – poor as they are – were published, the DWP kept up the pretence. Clearly, we cannot trust a word that comes out of that organisation.
… and that’s what I’ll be saying at around 1pm today.
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Good luck later today, keep calm and don’t let them rush you to reply to questions. You have solid evidence to support your claims. This is not a ‘one off’, there are many, many more cases that have yet to come to light.
I hope I managed to get that point across.
I am glued to LBC awaiting your slot Mike – Good luck and well done
What did you think? I enjoyed it very much.
I think you got your point across well particularly as Shelagh Fogarty (the presenter) had no real knowledge of the subject matter and you needed to clarify a few points. It was good that you stated that in this Mr O’Sullivans case he would not have appeared in the ad hoc statistical report as DWP had in effect chosen the period for the FoI request. Any further news on that by the way?
None so far.
Wish you all the best Mike
Give them “hell” mate! I will be listening
What did you think?
Tweeted @melissacade68
Well done Mike. Keep up the good work.
Go Mike!
Don’t forget Calum’s list http://calumslist.org/
Listened live online; excellent.
Thank you! I really enjoyed it.
Agree with what you said about Maximus – the assessments might as well be carried out by Starbucks – as it’s nothing to do with medical expertise – and is all about meeting targets (sorry expectations).
(I hope you do radio more – you have a good voice for radio and are polite and well informed. You could always use something like soundcloud to make your own podcasts).
I once intended to do podcasts, but didn’t have the time.
well done mike
i have told Owen to read out the deaths every week at PM’Q so that IDS will be up to speed on what goes on at the DWP
What an excellent idea!
I bet he doesn’t do it.
it is and should have been done from day one it’s hard to believe this has not been done as if you cant get the basics Right you’ll not be able to get anything else right
does this mean we all need to bombard our local mp with this idea
Couldn’t hurt.
It should be similar to when soldiers have died and they read out a list with condolences for the families.
indeed this country is very badly run on all levels and for the life of me i have no answer in how it will improve
my daughter who is a political consultant in millbank Westminster fully agrees with me for what that’s worth
I was on the show after yourself commenting on this. I’d really like you to read our story please.
Anyway to re-listen to it Mike i missed it..keep up the good work
Yes, if you check http://www.lbc.co.uk I think there is a page where you can download programmes.
I missed it!
Do you have a link to it?
It’s behind a paywall!
http://lbc.audioagain.com/presenters/33-shelagh-fogarty/386-the-whole-show
Can’t say I approve.
@Mike
Do LBC have something like iPlayer?
I think they do – you can download podcasts of a whole show. I’ll be right at the start of this one.
I clicked on it and it is asking me to subscribe, I don’t want to do that, is there anyway around it please?
It seems not. I’ve already said I’m disappointed about it.
Hope you gave that right wing station hell, great work again Mike.
They were very pleasant and accommodating towards me.
Keep up the good work Mike, it’s good to know there’s someone out there looking out for us. Thank you for all you do.
Just tried Mike, managed to start listening at 1pm but that’s too late. Tried listening earlier but was presented with a paywall.
There have been two articles on the Independent today about people killing themselves after declared ‘fit for work’. The wall of silence is crumbling!