A guest blog by Mo Stewart
By definition, ‘propaganda’ means ‘information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a particular cause, doctrine or point of view.’
What is atypical is for the same propaganda to be promoted by every successive UK government since 2008, with relentless hostile rhetoric negatively impacting on the health, wellbeing and survival of many of the chronically ill and disabled community when tarnishing the UK welfare state and the people who need to use it. The political ambition used to justify what was to become a government-induced public health crisis is to eventually replace the welfare state with income replacement health insurance to reduce social security costs, which will continue to rise in what is an aging population. This is Margaret Thatcher’s [pictured, alongside her present-day successor in attacking people on benefits, Rachel Reeves] historic ‘dark legacy’ in the making by the adoption of neoliberal politics, which is the politics ‘at the root of all our problems’, with hostile political rhetoric used to relentlessly condemn the chronically ill and disabled community who are ‘economically inactive’ and claiming disability benefit.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
As long ago as 1982, during Thatcher’s first administration, previously confidential Cabinet minutes identified a disturbing discussion about how to reduce the UK social security budget. The conclusion was to adopt ‘the politics of fear’ to encourage the population to invest in private health insurance. And so they did, as successive administrations adopted increasingly hostile social policies, negatively impacting on those in greatest need, with the ultimate ambition being to demolish the UK welfare state.
The problem was that the psychological security of the welfare state was embedded within the public psyche and so political efforts towards removing it would be adopted by successive administrations, to threaten and intimidate disabled service-users, justified by the ambition to reduce future social security costs.
The John Major administration (1990-97) invited one of the most notorious healthcare insurance companies in the US in the form of UnumProvident Insurance to provide ‘welfare claims management’ to the UK administration. Identified as the second worst insurance company in the US in 2008 by the American Association of Justice, a distinction it continues to enjoy in 2025, this American corporate giant advised the UK government on how to remove the past psychological security of the welfare state for those in greatest need. They advised the need to ‘resist diagnosis, revise the ‘sick note’, encourage the government to focus on ability and not disability, change the name of Incapacity Benefit, and to give benefits not on the basis of a certain disability or illness but on ‘capacity assessments’ all came to pass in the UK when social policy reforms were influenced by UnumProvident Insurance.
The Blair administration (1997-2007) claimed to be ‘New Labour’ and advised that the party would be different from the traditional Labour Party. It was different because Blair moved the Labour Party from the left to the centre and adopted neoliberal politics, following Thatcher’s legacy in condemning the costs of the welfare state. Blair commissioned discredited policy-based research in 2005 to justify extreme welfare reforms and he encouraged the Malingering and Illness Deception conference in 2011, which identified the future condemnation of disability benefit claimants.
The Brown New Labour administration (2007-10) adopted the introduction of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) in October 2008, whose design was influenced by UnumProvident Insurance and so the WCA disregards all clinical need in order to resist access to the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) disability benefit which replaced Incapacity Benefit. The WCA is now also used to limit access to the health component of Universal Credit (UC), which has had a devastating impact on UC claimants.
Originally credited to Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda for Nazi Germany (1933-45), the concept that, if a big political lie is told often enough, for long enough, sooner or later people believe it, has worked well in the UK in the recent past. The adoption of extreme social policy reforms by the Conservative-led Coalition administration (2010-15) – which were destined to cause death, despair and preventable harm for many of those in greatest need – was only possible due to relentless hostile political rhetoric claiming, falsely, that Labour had spent excessively on the welfare budget and vast numbers of disability benefit claimants were bogus. This fiction was used to justify the adoption of extreme austerity measures, which were politically-motivated and not financially necessary, given that published evidence demonstrated that the largest spend on welfare costs as a proportion of government costs was by the Major administration, not New Labour.
We now live in a situation in the UK where those in greatest need who are unable to work are persecuted by the brutality of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which is not a story told to the British public as successive administrations all sing from the same song-book, aided by the right-leaning national press.
So, how did the UK arrive at a situation where the chronically ill and disabled community who are unable to work live in fear of the Department originally created to support them? What happened to the DWP to make it a Department to be feared instead of praised? What happened? Margaret Thatcher happened…
Thatcher was devoted to neoliberal politics, which is an ideology that has gradually swept the western world. It is the ideology of power, profit and greed, which is now ‘the norm’ in the UK as every administration since Thatcher adopted neoliberal politics, used to justify austerity policies with attempts to cut government spending on social programs.
Hence, those in greatest need were always destined to suffer more than anyone else, having been identified as being a financial burden. Successive social policies were adopted using a fiscal priority, whilst disregarding the impact on health and wellbeing, justified by the relentless political persecution of disability benefit claimants supported by banner headlines in the national press, and linked to an increase of 213 percent in prosecuted disability hate crimes, including murder, during the Coalition government’s term in office (2010-15).
This manipulation of the British public has been ongoing for a long time as successive administrations have attempted to justify the unjustifiable and disregard the thousands who have died when ‘killed by the State’, with a refusal to admit that the adoption of the WCA to limit access to disability benefit was always destined to cause a public health crisis.
The question remains: how many more chronically ill and disabled people who are unable to work will be killed by the State when no-one is held to account? Quite clearly it is past time for the adoption of an Independent Advisory Panel on DWP-Related Deaths.
The number of MPs who do not know how bad things are is cause for serious concern, especially the more-than-200 new Labour MPs elected in 2024. They need to be alerted to the political history of this ongoing DWP brutality against those in greatest need.
Readers of this article are encouraged to share the link with family and friends and to send the promotion of an Independent Advisory Panel on DWP-Related Deaths to their MP to alert them to this ongoing government-induced public health crisis.
All MPs should be encouraged to attend an Early Day Motion to discuss this urgent proposal, which will be brought to the House of Commons by John McDonnell MP. There need to be as many MPs as possible in that debate, supporting the need for the brutality of the DWP to be finally held to account.
©Mo Stewart, 2025
Mo Stewart is a former healthcare professional, a disabled female veteran who has been an independent disability studies researcher since 2009. The research has informed welfare reform debates in the House of Lords and the House of Commons since 2011 and contributed to the evidence used by the United Nations to investigate the UK government for breaches of the Human Rights of sick and disabled people. Endorsed by the disabled community and by academics, the research has identified the adoption of lethal social policies, copied from corporate America, and linked to the death of thousands of the most vulnerable of all, as the UK welfare state is systematically demolished, as planned over 30 years ago by a notorious Conservative government. http://www.mostewartresearch.co.uk/
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Health Warning: Government! is now available
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The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
The power of propaganda
A guest blog by Mo Stewart
By definition, ‘propaganda’ means ‘information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a particular cause, doctrine or point of view.’
What is atypical is for the same propaganda to be promoted by every successive UK government since 2008, with relentless hostile rhetoric negatively impacting on the health, wellbeing and survival of many of the chronically ill and disabled community when tarnishing the UK welfare state and the people who need to use it. The political ambition used to justify what was to become a government-induced public health crisis is to eventually replace the welfare state with income replacement health insurance to reduce social security costs, which will continue to rise in what is an aging population. This is Margaret Thatcher’s [pictured, alongside her present-day successor in attacking people on benefits, Rachel Reeves] historic ‘dark legacy’ in the making by the adoption of neoliberal politics, which is the politics ‘at the root of all our problems’, with hostile political rhetoric used to relentlessly condemn the chronically ill and disabled community who are ‘economically inactive’ and claiming disability benefit.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
As long ago as 1982, during Thatcher’s first administration, previously confidential Cabinet minutes identified a disturbing discussion about how to reduce the UK social security budget. The conclusion was to adopt ‘the politics of fear’ to encourage the population to invest in private health insurance. And so they did, as successive administrations adopted increasingly hostile social policies, negatively impacting on those in greatest need, with the ultimate ambition being to demolish the UK welfare state.
The problem was that the psychological security of the welfare state was embedded within the public psyche and so political efforts towards removing it would be adopted by successive administrations, to threaten and intimidate disabled service-users, justified by the ambition to reduce future social security costs.
The John Major administration (1990-97) invited one of the most notorious healthcare insurance companies in the US in the form of UnumProvident Insurance to provide ‘welfare claims management’ to the UK administration. Identified as the second worst insurance company in the US in 2008 by the American Association of Justice, a distinction it continues to enjoy in 2025, this American corporate giant advised the UK government on how to remove the past psychological security of the welfare state for those in greatest need. They advised the need to ‘resist diagnosis, revise the ‘sick note’, encourage the government to focus on ability and not disability, change the name of Incapacity Benefit, and to give benefits not on the basis of a certain disability or illness but on ‘capacity assessments’ all came to pass in the UK when social policy reforms were influenced by UnumProvident Insurance.
The Blair administration (1997-2007) claimed to be ‘New Labour’ and advised that the party would be different from the traditional Labour Party. It was different because Blair moved the Labour Party from the left to the centre and adopted neoliberal politics, following Thatcher’s legacy in condemning the costs of the welfare state. Blair commissioned discredited policy-based research in 2005 to justify extreme welfare reforms and he encouraged the Malingering and Illness Deception conference in 2011, which identified the future condemnation of disability benefit claimants.
The Brown New Labour administration (2007-10) adopted the introduction of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) in October 2008, whose design was influenced by UnumProvident Insurance and so the WCA disregards all clinical need in order to resist access to the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) disability benefit which replaced Incapacity Benefit. The WCA is now also used to limit access to the health component of Universal Credit (UC), which has had a devastating impact on UC claimants.
Originally credited to Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda for Nazi Germany (1933-45), the concept that, if a big political lie is told often enough, for long enough, sooner or later people believe it, has worked well in the UK in the recent past. The adoption of extreme social policy reforms by the Conservative-led Coalition administration (2010-15) – which were destined to cause death, despair and preventable harm for many of those in greatest need – was only possible due to relentless hostile political rhetoric claiming, falsely, that Labour had spent excessively on the welfare budget and vast numbers of disability benefit claimants were bogus. This fiction was used to justify the adoption of extreme austerity measures, which were politically-motivated and not financially necessary, given that published evidence demonstrated that the largest spend on welfare costs as a proportion of government costs was by the Major administration, not New Labour.
We now live in a situation in the UK where those in greatest need who are unable to work are persecuted by the brutality of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which is not a story told to the British public as successive administrations all sing from the same song-book, aided by the right-leaning national press.
So, how did the UK arrive at a situation where the chronically ill and disabled community who are unable to work live in fear of the Department originally created to support them? What happened to the DWP to make it a Department to be feared instead of praised? What happened? Margaret Thatcher happened…
Thatcher was devoted to neoliberal politics, which is an ideology that has gradually swept the western world. It is the ideology of power, profit and greed, which is now ‘the norm’ in the UK as every administration since Thatcher adopted neoliberal politics, used to justify austerity policies with attempts to cut government spending on social programs.
Hence, those in greatest need were always destined to suffer more than anyone else, having been identified as being a financial burden. Successive social policies were adopted using a fiscal priority, whilst disregarding the impact on health and wellbeing, justified by the relentless political persecution of disability benefit claimants supported by banner headlines in the national press, and linked to an increase of 213 percent in prosecuted disability hate crimes, including murder, during the Coalition government’s term in office (2010-15).
This manipulation of the British public has been ongoing for a long time as successive administrations have attempted to justify the unjustifiable and disregard the thousands who have died when ‘killed by the State’, with a refusal to admit that the adoption of the WCA to limit access to disability benefit was always destined to cause a public health crisis.
The question remains: how many more chronically ill and disabled people who are unable to work will be killed by the State when no-one is held to account? Quite clearly it is past time for the adoption of an Independent Advisory Panel on DWP-Related Deaths.
The number of MPs who do not know how bad things are is cause for serious concern, especially the more-than-200 new Labour MPs elected in 2024. They need to be alerted to the political history of this ongoing DWP brutality against those in greatest need.
Readers of this article are encouraged to share the link with family and friends and to send the promotion of an Independent Advisory Panel on DWP-Related Deaths to their MP to alert them to this ongoing government-induced public health crisis.
All MPs should be encouraged to attend an Early Day Motion to discuss this urgent proposal, which will be brought to the House of Commons by John McDonnell MP. There need to be as many MPs as possible in that debate, supporting the need for the brutality of the DWP to be finally held to account.
©Mo Stewart, 2025
Mo Stewart is a former healthcare professional, a disabled female veteran who has been an independent disability studies researcher since 2009. The research has informed welfare reform debates in the House of Lords and the House of Commons since 2011 and contributed to the evidence used by the United Nations to investigate the UK government for breaches of the Human Rights of sick and disabled people. Endorsed by the disabled community and by academics, the research has identified the adoption of lethal social policies, copied from corporate America, and linked to the death of thousands of the most vulnerable of all, as the UK welfare state is systematically demolished, as planned over 30 years ago by a notorious Conservative government. http://www.mostewartresearch.co.uk/
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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