The government has changed the address of some Department for Work and Pensions benefits departments so it is now impossible to track correspondence with them.
This is potentially hugely harmful to benefit recipients as they often must rely on tracking information about (for example) items sent by recorded delivery to be able to prove that DWP officers have received them.
We – and I certainly include myself among those who have experienced this – know that items that are not sent so they can be tracked are often “lost” – and, again, I put the word “lost” in quotation marks because my belief is that DWP officials deliberately lose them.
So this…
The new address for Attendance Allowance submissions is “Freepost DWP Attendance Allowance”. No postcode. That is all very well, but a client of mine tried to send an application “recorded delivery” or “signed for” and was told by the Post Office this was not possible without a postcode. My naturally suspicious mind wonders if this is deliberate by the DWP so that people cannot prove that they have had documentation delivered to the DWP.
… suggests to me that the DWP is hoping to “lose” many more items of correspondence in order to cause much more of the kind of frustration that leads to the deaths of benefit claimants.
Has anyone in receipt of other benefits been told they can’t track post any more?
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You have to wade through a lot of piffle paffle and wiffle waffle for the first couple of minutes. Anybody who has been paying attention will already know that much of what he says here is not true.
For example: “It is a fact that by adopting those measures [restrictions on our freedom that mean we have to stay at home except for necessary trips/exercise and keep two metres away from other people when we are out] we prevented this country from being engulfed by what could have been a catastrophe in which the reasonable worst case scenario was half a million fatalities.”
This is not true. By adopting these measures, we made it less likely that we would catch Covid-19 during the weeks in which those measures were adopted, meaning the National Health Service – that much-maligned organisation that the Tories have been starving for 10 years, in order to claim it is unable to cope with our health needs and so persuade us it is ripe for privatisation – would be better-able to cope with the thousands of new cases that have still been recorded every day. And it still has not been able to cope, because the Tories ignored advice from 2017, to stockpile personal protective equipment and have enough ventilators available.
The worst-case scenario, as This Writer recalls, was 250,000 deaths over the course of five or six peaks in infection rates. The UK has only just crested the first such peak. If a second arrives – and this seems likely, considering the latest information from Germany and China – then it may be as much as 10 times worse than the current wave that has caused around 60,000 deaths (although only half those are currently included in official figures).
He moves on to some waffle about millions of us being concerned over damage to their livelihoods and their mental and physical health, caused by the lockdown. He makes no mention that harm to people’s well-being is being caused by his refusal to introduce a Universal Basic Income, as the other measures the government promised to protect us were either inadequate, didn’t materialise or do not provide protection for everybody who has been endangered.
He wants to set out a plan to get us all back working for the benefit of the billionaires who run the country (he certainly doesn’t).
He says he has consulted across all four countries of the UK – although this seems unlikely, considering that Wales and Scotland immediately rejected his plan, such as it is.
It’s a conditional plan, he says: “We must protect our NHS. We must see sustained falls in the death rate. We must see sustained and considerable falls in the rate of infection. We must sort out our challenges in getting enough PPE to the people who need it, and yes, it is a global problem but we must fix it.” And we must ensure that the reproduction rate of the disease – ‘R’ – does not exceed one (this would mean that every person contracting the disease would be infecting more than one other person; creating a situation that the health system could not handle).
Then he takes a diversion to talk about the Covid alert system that some bright spark has devised. It’s like the DefCon system that warns us of the likelihood of nuclear war, with level one showing no evidence of the disease in the UK and level five meaning the NHS has been overwhelmed.
The Covid Alert Level will be determined primarily by R and the number of coronavirus cases, he says. So what was the point of talking about all the other things? I would have thought the death rate, at least, might have some bearing on whether we were at DefCon 5 or not.
“Over the period of the lockdown we have been in Level Four, and it is thanks to your sacrifice we are now in a position to begin to move in steps to Level Three,” he says. But he doesn’t say what levels four or three actually mean.
So what’s the point of telling us that?
He moves on to another diversion – telling us that, to keep pushing the number of infections down, we must reverse rapidly the epidemics in care homes and in the NHS; and we must have a world-beating system for testing potential victims, and for tracing their contacts. That may be true, but the general public cannot do anything about either of those matters. It is for the government and the NHS to do these things – not us.
The next part is ironically hilarious. He states that he wants the health service to be “testing literally hundreds of thousands of people every day.”
He has not managed to test even 100,000 people a day, yet!
There’s more waffle… and then, more than halfway through the speech (seven minutes, 10 seconds if you want to check), he finally admits that “no, this is not the time simply to end the lockdown this week.”
So we’re all staying at home, then?
Apparently not.
Johnson went on to describe a change in emphasis for the lockdown that means some people will be required to go back to work. This applies only in England, although he did not make that clear at any point during his broadcast. Indeed, with all his talk of co-operation across the four UK countries, any viewer might easily be confused into thinking we all have to go back. We don’t.
At 7pm on Sunday May 10, Boris Johnson effectively ceased to be the prime minister of the UK and became prime minister of England.
“We said that you should work from home if you can, and only go to work if you must. We now need to stress that anyone who can’t work from home, for instance those in construction or manufacturing, should be actively encouraged to go to work. And we want it to be safe for you to get to work. So you should avoid public transport if at all possible – because we must and will maintain social distancing, and capacity will therefore be limited. So work from home if you can, but you should go to work if you can’t work from home.”
What?
Why would you remove a clear instruction (Stay At Home), to replace with something ambiguous & nonsensical, if you wanted aforementioned instruction to continue?
This Government knows exactly what it is doing & they will be shifting the blame onto everyone but themselves.
Construction workers, as I recall, were never told to observe the lockdown. That’s why navvies up and down the route of HS2 are grinding up the countryside, hell-for-leather. As for people working in factories: it will be interesting to see whether bosses pay any attention to social distancing rules.
The fact Boris targeted working class and service professions as those who should physically return to work regardless of lockdown restrictions is perhaps one of the most mask off demonstrations of social murder at the heart of government policy
Johnson said his government had been working on new guidance for employers to make workplaces safe but, given the Tory government’s lack of exertion on other promises during the crisis, this seems unlikely – or the result will probably be slapdash.
PM's statement gives bad employers carte blanche to force workers to return to work without any risk assessment or safety guarantees. Also total lack of clarity about what restrictions remain; it's no wonder Scotland/Wales don't support the meaningless 'stay alert' slogan.
No one should return to work before it is safe to do so.
If the PM wants some workers to return, he must first agree the necessary protections with trade unions. Instead the official guidance to ensure their safety is yet to be published.
— Judy Hamilton #ShieldingFor6Months&Longer 😷 (@secretspartacus) May 10, 2020
If workplaces aren’t safe – or if employees are not satisfied – then bear in mind that s.44 of the Employment Rights Act gives them the right to walk away from the job, as their work will be unsafe.
Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act gives you THE RIGHT TO WALK AWAY FROM UNSAFE WORK. Too many of us don’t know our rights. Do not go to work if you feel you’re jeopardising your health and the safety of others and contact your trade union.
By telling people to avoid public transport, Johnson pushed them into getting to their newly-reopened places of work in their cars – one person per vehicle – thereby ensuring traffic jams, parking problems and a massive spike in pollution.
In the event, thousands of people flocked back to public transport. The government promised guidance on how to use buses, trains and the Tube network safely – but in a typical display of the incompetence for which the Johnson administration is now justly famous, this arrived at 2pm today (May 11) – long after it was likely to do anybody any good.
He has just sentenced so many people to death. Its too early to ease restrictions. He has forced people who have no financial relief from the state to go back to work.'Actively Encouraging' poor people to work. People will die 3 weeks from now that didnt need to die.
Moving on to leisure activities, Johnson said it would now be possible (for people in England alone, remember) to take more and even “unlimited amounts” of outdoor exercise: “You can sit in the sun in your local park, you can drive to other destinations, you can even play sports but only with members of your own household.”
He added: “You must obey the rules on social distancing and to enforce those rules we will increase the fines for the small minority who break them.”
Is he hedging his bets here? Suppose there’s a spike in Covid-19 infections after people go back to work – will he try to blame it on people taking exercise in this way?
Moving on again, he said step two of his plan to ease the lockdown would start on June 1 at the earliest: this is when he plans to begin a phased reopening of shops and send children back to school – in England, remember. Not in the rest of the UK.
The Department for Education appears to be taking this as an instruction: children will be sent back to school on June 1, whether it is safe to do so or not:
As confirmed by the Prime Minister this evening, we are asking education and childcare settings to prepare to open for more children from 1 June.
We will publish further guidance setting out more information for early years, schools and colleges tomorrow.
— Department for Education (@educationgovuk) May 10, 2020
Expect a big spike in Covid infections if he imposes this measure on that date. Children are major transmitters of disease at the best of times. And how does he expect to get children in school to conform with social distancing rules?
Boris Johnson is expecting first year primary school children to follow the social distancing guidlines & if he didn’t abandon all the ones he fathered & spent a few years raising them he would know that this is a dangerously stupid idea
Step three would start at the beginning of July at the earliest, and would involve the reopening of parts of the hospitality industry and other public places – if they can sustain social distancing.
I don’t think we need to think about this yet. By July 1, if Johnson has gone ahead and implemented the first two steps of his scheme, England will almost certainly be in the midst of a second wave of coronavirus infections and deaths.
I would suggest to people living there that this would be an appropriate time to demand the resignations from Parliament of Johnson and all those involved in his policies relating to Covid-19.
He goes on to say that “it will soon be the time – with transmission significantly lower – to impose quarantine on people coming into this country by air”. What good will that do? The right time for restrictions on travel into the UK was January – possibly earlier.
There’s more waffle – a lot of it – and then he ends with his new, meaningless, slogan: “Stay alert, control the virus and save lives.”
The tune we're all tapping our feet – and scratching our heads – to this Monday? It's that jive-talkin Boris Johnson and the Bee Jays with: 🎶Stayin' Alert🎶 #thanksborispic.twitter.com/ggiALBAxHx
I rarely comment on politics here, and avoid publicly siding with one party (all pretty useless at the moment) because no one should give a shit about celebs opinions. But it’s hard to imagine a greater display of inept leadership and muddled thinking then Boris just displayed.
PM’s mess of a statement has caused more confusion than clarity, creating worrying uncertainty about the return to work & how safety will be assured, opening up divisions between the UK’s nations and displaying a complete lack of clarity about what activities are now allowable.
— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) May 10, 2020
Dear Prime Minister
Where was the emphasis on employers to provide safe working conditions
Where was emphasis on protecting lives of working people
Where was emphasis on test, track & trace
Where was the emphasis to put people before profit
The PMs statement was shambolic. We have the highest death rate in Europe & he tells us it’s time for workers to go back to work but not use public transport. It’s a Government who has no idea, no plan & no care about the communities we serve. #livesbeforeprofit
Construction and manufacturing workers in England must go back to their jobs. Employers are receiving advice on how make their workplaces safe.
Nothing else has changed.
And the chances are that nothing will. The evidence of today shows that he will fall at the first hurdle – but we will have to wait a couple of weeks to find that out.
The verdict: Johnson’s new plan means alertness won’t matter; the virus will not be controlled and lives will be lost.
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Fist flying: Boris Johnson can make all the grand gestures he likes – but his speech would have been better if he had stood there and dribbled at us.
What a disaster: Boris Johnson is back at work.
His health may have improved but his patter is as rotten as it ever was.
Fortunately we are still able to get our money’s worth from his satirical value, as evidenced by this clip that reminds us he once hid in a refrigerator to avoid difficult questions:
He wasted no time getting himself back in the public eye, with an “address to the nation” at 9am today. Most of us were probably still in bed.
And we didn’t miss much. It was a remarkably content-free speech, focusing mostly on the concerns of his billionaire friends who are desperate for us all to get back to work, making money for them.
So he said the UK was almost at the point where lockdown restrictions could start to be lifted, and he would be telling us over the next few days how that might be done – but he won’t actually let it happen until he is sure a second peak of coronavirus infections and deaths can be avoided.
In other words: no change for now.
He said he measures his success by the fact that the NHS has not collapsed, but failed to recognise that it was only in danger because of Tory starvation policies over the last 10 years, when they were preparing the service for US-style privatisation.
The one joy we can derive from this whole saga is the fact that it proves once and for all that the NHS must never be privatised; a private health system simply would not take any precautions in advance of a global health emergency because it would infringe on its profits.
As it is, Tory mismanagement means the death toll in the UK is disproportionately high, and likely to become the second worst in the world behind the United States.
He recognised the contribution of people like Captain Tom Moore, who raised millions for the NHS at the age of 99 by walking laps of his garden – without acknowledging that it was only necessary because of his government’s failures:
The simple fact is that Tory incompetence has made the impact of the virus far, far worse than it had to be – as acknowledged by these commentators:
Boris Johnson just said ‘many people will be looking at our apparent success’ in relation to Britain & Coronavirus. Our death toll is heading to be the 2nd worst in the world. This is not a ‘success’, Prime Minister – apparent or otherwise.
Johnson's return to work is not a "boost to the country". His indolence & incompetence are why we are the worst hit country in the world after the USA. What this country needs more than anything is to be rid of him and his appalling gang of sycophants, ideologues & opportunists.
— Dr Ruth McQuillan 🕷️#Leftie Tosser #FBPE (@mcquillan_ruth) April 26, 2020
Now the Prime Minister is back, perhaps we can talk openly about the absolute catastrophe that has been the government’s response. One figure demonstrates the extent of the disaster: Britain counts for just 1% of the global population yet we make up 10% of all Covid-19 deaths.
We could start by mentioning the fact that his government’s offer of coronavirus testing kits for key workers has stalled on every one of the four days it has been running.
The kits ran out around two minutes after the service launched on Friday, and people were reportedly told there were none left on Saturday morning after around 15 minutes.
As of 10am on Sunday, home testing kits for England were listed as “unavailable” on the government’s website – two hours after booking slots reopened.
Key workers could no longer order any online by 9.10am on Monday – the fourth day in a row where tests have become unavailable within hours of the booking system opening.
That’s right – today it took just over an hour for the government to run out. This must be a serious blow to the Tory plan, which is to carry out 100,000 tests a day by Thursday.
And nursing staff are starting to refuse to work in places where PPE – Personal Protective Equipment – is not available to an acceptable standard. Who can blame them when so many of their colleagues have caught the coronavirus and died?
Johnson mentioned none of these facts in his speech today, knowing that his bluster would encourage the easily-led:
Boris will Milk Today for all it's worth, the fist will be flying, the finger will be pointing, in true Churchillian style and you will fall hook line and sinker for it.
BJ looks the same and still talks the same shite!!Prick Liar and thanks to us is he having a laugh seriously??I need to switch off before I launch my TV out the window!!😡😡😤😤I haven't missed him!!Blah blah economy economy!!!🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈
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Data publication: This is how the recipients of the New Year Honours probably responded to the announcement that their private details had been made public by the government.
They really can’t complain. We can be sure most of the New Year Honours recipients voted for this kind of Tory ineptitude so they can’t make much of a fuss about having received it.
Yes, the Tory-run Cabinet Office has managed to publish the home addresses of celebrities including Elton John and cricketer Ben Stokes, alongside those of police officers, politicians like Iain Duncan Smith and Ministry of Defence staff, and hundreds of “unsung” local heroes.
The Tory government even made the details available in an easily-downloadable list – to make it extra easy for enemies of the state to access the home addresses of its defenders.
The spreadsheet was posted on the government website at 10.30pm on Friday (December 27), and was taken down early today (December 28).
But experts reckon the breach will be hard to remedy, now it has happened. Even if the number of people who downloaded the list is known – along with their identities, how many of them will have passed it on? It could spread like a virus.
Clearly the Tory government doesn’t have the slightest idea about data protection and cannot stick by the rules that it made for itself.
Of course we already knew that. The biggest security risk in the country is current prime minister Boris Johnson.
The Tories passed a new Data Protection Act last year, intended to ensure that sensitive information of this kind would not be broadcast by organisations such as, say, Her Majesty’s Government.
The Cabinet Office, which published the list, is responsible for supporting the National Security Council and the Joint Intelligence Organisation. It coordinates the government’s response to crises and manages the UK’s cybersecurity.
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