McLoughlin: I don’t have a screenshot of his appearance on The Andrew Marr Show so you’ll have to make do with this image from Question Time instead.

Kerry-Anne in The Canary is right to bring to our attention the fact that Tory chairman Patrick McLoughlin lied to the BBC’s Andrew Marr about the usefulness of his party’s spending on disability benefits.

She was certainly right to question the fact that Mr Marr did not challenge McLoughlin’s claim.

But perhaps she is unaware that his words were a rehash of a claim made by Damian Green last November, while being grilled by SNP MSPs over the film I, Daniel Blake (which coincidentally comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray today, unless I’m mistaken).

So we’ve got plenty of ammunition with which to shoot it down – including Kerry-Anne’s own piece.

How about this, by Sue Jones: “Exactly how much of that spending has gone to those people needing essential support, and how much has been spent on contracting private companies, ironically to save money and cut support for disabled people, in order to “target” the ever-shrinking category of “those most in need”?

“And given that the government’s track record up until the end of [2015] indicates that ministers have been atrociously negligent in observing the human rights of disabled people, how do the more recent cuts to ESA, and proposals set out in the work, health and disability green paper remedy that, precisely?”

Perhaps you would prefer to use this, by an unnamed gentleman from the Muscular Dystrophy UK website: “If you think people losing their cars, their jobs, their homes, unprecedented reliance on foodbanks, destitution & even people taking or losing their lives are indicative of successfully supporting disabled people & an efficient way of distributing £50 billion then we have very contrasting definition of success.

“And exactly how much of this alleged £50 billion outlay does the DWP waste on maintaining an IT infrastructure that’s not fit for purpose? And I would be very interested to know exactly how much of this alleged £50 billion the DWP spend, is spent by them defending & enforcing their draconian measures (such as the bedroom tax) in court via First Tier Tribunals, Upper Tribunals & beyond.”

You might even like to consider This Writer’s own contribution: “Mr Green’s arguments are that he does not want disabled people to have any rights, so the UN’s rights-based arguments are irrelevant; that he measures his success according to the amount of money spent on pushing disabled people into work, whether they can do it or not, and that – underpinning his entire philosophy – he relies on an outdated and discredited model of disability, that was originally created to allow a corrupt American insurance company to dodge paying out on its policies.”

On Sunday 26 February, the chairman of the Conservative party told a lie on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. And the host failed to challenge it.

Conservative party chairman Patrick McLoughlin told the BBC’s Andrew Marr that his government were “very generous” to disabled welfare claimants. Challenged on forthcoming cuts to disability benefits, McLoughlin told Marr:

“We’re spending, as a country, over £50bn a year supporting people who’ve got disabilities in this country. So I think we give overall…very generous schemes.”

Source: The chairman of the Conservative party told a barefaced lie on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, and no one said a word [VIDEO] | The Canary

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