Tag Archives: Amber Rudd

Bad Times-ing: new radio channel announces Windrush Home Secretary will host show – in the middle of George Floyd racism riots

Amber Rudd: what a symbol of white privilege.

How tactless. How Murdoch.

Times Radio is a Rupert Murdoch venture – it’s run by his firm News UK – and will start broadcasting on June 29. So the organisation put out a press release today (June 2) announcing its initial line-up.

Fair enough? Not really.

You see, among the presenters is Amber Rudd, the former Tory Home Secretary who had to quit her job over her appallingly bad handling of the racist Windrush scandal.

She was the one who misled Parliament over a memo showing that the Home Office had a target number of people to deport from the UK, if you remember.

Now, after a week of violence in the United States over the killing by police of unarmed George Floyd, on the same day the Conservative governent here in the UK refused to release a report on the way black and minority ethnic people have been disproportionately harmed in the Covid-19 crisis… Times Radio announces this danger to black people will be hosting a happy-go-lucky radio talk show.

The message is clear: This privileged white woman persecuted vulnerable black people so we’re rewarding her.

The channel’s press release refers to “former Conservative Home Secretary Amber Rudd with her journalist daughter Flora Gill, talking about their different takes on the world, picking up on their popular social media interactions”.

And it quotes Rudd as saying: “It will be a great platform for me to put Flora in her place.” Will she be deporting her daughter, then?

If this Murdoch channel wanted to throw away listeners, it could not have done a better job than by starting with this. The reaction on social media has been poisonous:

https://twitter.com/JosieLong/status/1267774510339629058

Source: News UK announces Times Radio launch date: new national DAB station begins broadcasting on Monday 29th June | News UK

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70 cases of Covid-19 after France reopened its schools but the Tories STILL protest that ours will be safe

Michael Gove, Amber Rudd and all the Tory apologists must be cringing at their comments over the weekend, with the latest news from France.

Our cousins across the Channel sent a third of their children back to school last week, with classes capped at 15 students in order to maintain social distancing and prevent Covid-19 infection.

It didn’t work:

Just one week after a third of French children went back to school in an easing of the coronavirus lockdown, there has been a worrying flare-up of about 70 Covid-19 cases linked to schools.

French education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer sounded the alarm on Monday, telling French radio RTL that the return has put some children in new danger of contamination. He said the affected schools are being closed immediately. French media reported that seven schools in northern France were closed.

Mr Blanquer did not specify if the 70 cases of Covid-19 were among students or teachers.

Given that the incubation period for the virus is several days, people are “likely” to have been infected before the reopening of schools, he said.

Last week France recorded its first death of a child linked to Kawasaki disease, a mysterious inflammatory syndrome that some doctors say could be triggered by Covid-19.

The nine-year-old boy was one of 125 children in France currently with the syndrome.

Sure, people were “likely” to have been infected before the reopening of schools – but who knows how many people in the seven that had to be closed – teachers, pupils, and parents after the kids came home – have been infected as a result of the return?

Meanwhile, in the UK, the Tories are still (desperately) trying to convince us that when they reopen our schools at the beginning of June, our children, teachers and families won’t suffer the same fate. But they’ve provided absolutely no evidence to support these claims, that seem increasingly unrealistic.

Michael Gove talked a lot of nonsense on TV:

So did Amber Rudd:

She said:

They have to go back because we need to make sure that our children go back and that all the issues to do not just with education, but also with security, safety, mental health issues, safeguarding, those children need to go back to school.

Gibberish!

In the UK, fears are rising that the government is putting teachers and parents at risk of Covid-19, and children in peril of dying from the new syndrome similar to Kawasaki disease. Considering the situation in France, these are proving justified:

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson tried to claim that

children are at the heart of everything we do

and came a cropper – because some of us have long memories:

There will be no test, track and trace system for teachers and pupils:

Instead, they will have to self-isolate, along with anybody likely to be infected – as happened at this school in Colne:

No consideration has been given to the fact that infected children will share items including food with others:

Nor, it seems, has any been given to the facts of opening schools at this time:

What will happen?

I think we’ll see a concentrated campaign by the Tories and their puppets in the press, to persuade the public that there is no harm in sending their children back to school at the start of June – and that anybody saying otherwise is a fool at best, and an enemy of the people at worst:

Will it work?

Well…

And the Tories?

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Petition launched to scrap privatised disability benefit assessments after brother’s death

Dave Smith with his (now late) brother Jamie Oliver. After denying him PIP twice, the DWP wanted him to attend an appeal hearing – five months after he died.

The brother of a disabled man who was denied essential benefits while he was dying has launched a petition to end the outsourcing of assessments to private companies by the UK government.

This Site covered the case of Jamie Oliver a few months ago. He died on April 9 after a long battle with chronic liver disease – and after being refused Personal Independence Payment by the DWP on the grounds that he wasn’t sick enough – twice.

Five months after his death, in one of the hugely distressing and insulting cock-ups that have made the DWP infamous, one of Mr Oliver’s children discovered a letter saying an appeal hearing had been arranged for late September.

The move infuriated Mr Oliver’s brother Dave Smith, of Hastings, – whose MP happens to be Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd.

In an incendiary Facebook post, he wrote: “I honestly cannot think of an organization as shambolic, insensitive, incompetent and unhelpful as the DWP and the sooner all this PIP/Universal Credit fiasco is kicked into touch the better.”

According to Disability News Service:

He has launched a petition that he hopes will secure enough signatures – 100,000 – to ensure the issues are debated in parliament.

His petition calls for an end to the use of private contractors for DWP disability benefit assessments, both for PIP and for employment and support allowance (and its universal credit equivalent).

He says in the petition that the disability benefit assessment system is linked to many suicides and “accelerated deaths”, like his brother’s.

And he says he believes that there have been “multiple lies” in the written assessment reports completed by nurses, paramedics and occupational therapists working for Atos and Capita (the other PIP assessment contractor).

If you feel strongly about this, visit the petition site and sign.

You can find much more information on Mr Oliver’s case here: Months of PIP distress ‘hastened my brother’s death’ – Disability News Service

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Amber Rudd quits the cabinet and Conservative party – of her own accord. But who’ll replace her?

Amber Rudd: This image from 2017 probably reflects her mood right now.

You know the situation in the Conservative government must be bad when Amber Rudd quits the cabinet – wihout being forced out.

Ms Rudd famously resigned as Home Secretary in the midst of the Windrush Scandal to divert blame from Theresa May (who had been the Home Secretary most responsible for it but who was prime minister at the time the scandal hit).

This time she has resigned from her role as Work and Pensions Secretary – and from the Conservative Party itself – because she thinks the Tories are drifting too far to the political right.

And she doesn’t think prime minister Boris Johnson is being honest about Brexit, either!

According to the BBC, in her resignation letter, Ms Rudd said she could not “stand by” while “loyal moderate Conservatives are expelled” – as 21 were on Tuesday for supporting a motion to debate a Bill to prevent “no deal” Brexit (not even for supporting the Bill itself).

According to the BBC report:

The work and pensions secretary said she no longer believed leaving the EU with a deal was the government’s “main objective”.

She described the sacking of 21 Tory MPs on Tuesday as an “assault on decency and democracy”.

In her resignation letter to PM Boris Johnson she said: “I joined your cabinet in good faith: accepting that ‘No Deal’ had to be on the table, because it was the means by which we would have the best chance of achieving a new deal to leave on 31 October.

“However I no longer believe leaving with a deal is the government’s main objective.”

With a general election looming in the near future (although not when Boris Johnson wants it!) and a majority of just 346, it seems Ms Rudd may not last much longer in Parliament.

Despite her many failings, though, she’ll be able to leave with her head held high.

But this means the role of Work and Pensions Secretary is open again.

And people in low-paying jobs, who are unemployed, have a long-term illness or are disabled, have good reason to fear the possibilities.

Will Esther McVey make a return to Caxton House? Or – worse – could Iain Duncan Smith be lined up to launch a second campaign of hate?

Source: Amber Rudd quits cabinet and Conservative party – BBC News

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‘I don’t believe it. I’m going to die and I’m STILL not sick enough for PIP!’

Dave Smith with his (now late) brother Jamie Oliver. After denying him PIP twice, the DWP wants him to attend an appeal hearing – five months after he died.

As the UK slips into dictatorship, it’s business as usual at the Department for Work and Pensions; we haven’t had a voice in that organisation for years.

The latest scandal involves Jamie Oliver (not the TV chef), who died on April 9 after a long battle with chronic liver disease – and after being refused Personal Independence Payment by the DWP on the grounds that he wasn’t sick enough – twice.

Five months after his death, in one of the hugely distressing and insulting cock-ups that have made the DWP infamous, one of Mr Oliver’s children discovered a letter saying an appeal hearing had been arranged for late September.

The move has infuriated Mr Oliver’s brother Dave Smith, of Hastings, – whose MP happens to be Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd.

In an incendiary Facebook post, he wrote:

“If they want to see him at the appeal hearing I shall take along my “share” of his ashes and we shall see just how responsive he is to their questions.

“Amber Rudd, our dear MP, who also happens to be in charge of the DWP, was supposedly already dealing with the fact his claim had been declined twice (wasn’t sick enough apparently)

“Well her involvement has been so wonderfully useful they are still writing to a dead person at his original address even though they have all my details.

“How insulting for his kids too, one of whom found the letter addressed to their dead father!”

Directly addressing Ms Rudd, he stated: “Amber Rudd…. how many more certified terminally ill people have to die under your watch in charge of the DWP whilst being continually declined payment for benefit? You have even been on morning TV preaching how you are going to sort this shambles of a department out…… it’s not happening! In fact it’s getting worse!

“I honestly cannot think of an organization as shambolic, insensitive, incompetent and unhelpful as the DWP and the sooner all this PIP/Universal Credit fiasco is kicked into touch the better.”

Referring to his brother, Mr Smith stated: “One of the last things he said to us [was] “I don’t believe it. I’m going to die and I’m still not sick enough for PIP.”

Mr Smith has asked for people to share his Facebook post, so if you use that platform, please do. Let’s share awareness of the incompetence and unaccountability of this so-called public service.

Source: Man offers to bring brother’s ashes to appeal meeting after DWP said he ‘wasn’t sick enough’ | Metro News

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These cabinet ministers said proroguing Parliament is wrong. Where are their resignations?

Of course it shouldn’t come as any surprise that people working for Boris Johnson are hypocrites.

Here’s Amber Rudd saying she has told Mr Johnson that “prorogation is the wrong step… the wrong move… and I will continue to say that”.

Is she still saying that, now BoJob has told the Queen to prorogue Parliament?

How can she bear to continue working for him, if she is so set against prorogation?

Yet I don’t see any resignation from our Work and Pensions Secretary. Perhaps she’s tired of handing in her notice to prime ministers.

How about Sajid Javid?

Is he still in his new job as Chancellor of the Exchequer? Will he be delivering the speech on the spending review next week?

I guess that principle didn’t last very long, then.

Okay, how about fellow former Tory leadership candidate Matt Hancock?

The letter says “attempting to prorogue Parliament to deliver a no deal Brexit is neither serious nor credible… One of the benefits of Brexit is to restore Parliamentary sovereignty to the UK [he was wrong about this; Parliamentary sovereignty has never been surrendered by the UK]… To suspend Parliament explicitly to pursue a course of action against its wishes is not a serious policy of a prime minister in the 21st century”.

That is, unless the prime minister is Boris Johnson, of course.

Is there any movement out of the Cabinet on Mr Hancock’s part?

Not yet, it seems.

No – in fact they all appear to be perfectly happy to support a course of action they previously said they could not possibly accept.

They’re all on Twitter, though – so why not get in touch and ask them when Dictator Johnson will receive their resignation letters?

Amber Rudd is @AmberRuddHR

Sajid Javid is @sajidjavid

And Matt Hancock is @MattHancock

Dave M has already made his feelings clear:

If you can send them something wittier than Dave, please feel free to send it here too.

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When did Job Centre advisers gain their doctorates in mental health care?

It seems the Department for Work and Pensions is on a mission to discredit the medical profession in its entirety.

The department has already done its best to deny the professionalism of doctors by disregarding their evidence in favour of the results of a “yes/no” multiple choice test administered by “health care professionals” who often know nothing about the health issue suffered by a claimant.

Now it is trying to cut doctors working on mental health out of the benefit system by claiming that rank-and-file Job Centre advisers are just as able to spot mental health problems – and recommend the best treatment.

They aren’t; they can’t. It’s just a cynical bid to stop people with mental health problems from claiming Employment and Support Allowance or Personal Independence Payment.

One would have thought the fact that mental health issues are routinely disregarded by decision-makers would be enough to discourage the mentally-ill from claiming these benefits; apparently not.

The government press release, announcing funds for a pilot project in Cornwall to continue, is transparent in its nonsense doublespeak:

Hundreds of residents from Bude to Penzance are set to benefit from improved mental health support as Amber Rudd announces £100,000 funding for a life-changing project.

The initiative means work coaches can continue to refer people with mental health conditions to specialist one to one support, without the need for a GP or clinical assessment.

“Without the need”? Translation: “Without the support of evidence from a qualified doctor who can bring their expertise to a benefit tribunal.”

The support is also designed to help people find their way back into the workplace when they’re ready.

Translation: “The intention is to ensure that people with mental illnesses must continue to seek employment, whether they are ready or not.”

In fact, this treatment seems more likely to worsen their mental health and force them towards suicide – a “positive benefit outcome” as far as the DWP is concerned (as This Site has mentioned many times before).

Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd showed her lack of any integrity at all by backing up the baloney to the hilt:

Amber Rudd, Work and Pensions Secretary, said:

“The pilot proved that work coaches are well placed to make sure people get help quickly and are supported to get their lives back on track so I’m delighted that it can continue.

“Importantly it has also shown that people trust their work coach to help them during their toughest times – and I’m very proud of that.”

Is that right?

I’d like to see independent evidence of that, from somebody who has been through the system.

Of course, that would be someone who is not still a part of the system – a person who could not be subjected to any coercion to say what Ms Rudd wanted; someone not living in fear of the cancellation of benefits.

Is there such a person?

And will they dare come forward?

In any case, if anybody in the DWP discovers what they consider to be a mental illness in a benefit claimant, they have a duty to report it to the NHS. Anything else is negligence and – if any harm comes to that claimant – could lead to serious allegations against the DWP.

Suppose somebody dies after the DWP decides to handle that person’s mental illness itself. Won’t it be opening itself to a charge of corporate manslaughter, at the very least?

Source: £100,000 fund to boost mental health support across Cornwall – GOV.UK

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Universal Credit claims another life – and the Tory-run DWP is still making excuses

Phillip Herron and his children: What will happen to them, now that Universal Credit-driven poverty has pushed him into taking his own life?

It is criminal. Civil servants from the Department for Work and Pensions might as well have killed Phillip Herron themselves:

A debt-ridden single dad of three who had waited weeks for Universal Credit took his own life — with just £4.61 left in his bank account.

Phillip Herron, 34, was trying to feed and clothe his family while out of work, falling behind with rent and trying to repay £20,000 debts — including payday loans of over 1,000 per cent interest.

He applied for government help but the month-long wait for Universal Credit drove him deeper into debt.

“That was the final nail in his coffin,” said his grieving mum Sheena Derbyshire, 54.

“When people turn to the Government for help they’re already desperate. To make them wait so long for payments is dangerous.”

But the DWP is still making excuses:

“Suicide is a very complex issue, so it would be wrong to link it solely to someone’s benefit claim.

“We are committed to safeguarding vulnerable claimants and keep guidance under constant review to provide the highest standard of protection.”

This is not true.

In fact, the DWP has been found to have ignored its own safeguarding rules whenever it suits that government department to do so – and if benefit claimants die, nobody cares.

Consider the case of Jodey Whiting. The DWP failed to follow its own safeguarding rules no less than five times in the weeks leading to her suicide in February 2017.

The DWP also 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.

After Ms Whiting’s death, and the failures that were identified, the Department for Work and Pensions should have done everything possible to ensure that nobody else was driven to suicide. That has not happened. Relatives of the deceased just get a message of false sympathy and an excuse.

Responsibility for Mr Herron’s death, ultimately, lies with Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd and with the DWP’s Permanent Secretary, top civil servant Peter Schofield.

How long must we wait until they are held to account for it?

Source: Single dad with just £4.61 took own life after waiting weeks for Universal Credit – Mirror Online

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DWP spaffs £200k up the wall trying to deprive just seven people of Universal Credit

“It’s only money”: That seems to be the Tory government’s attitude, when Tories are spending it. They wouldn’t dream of letting the rest of us have any, though. Contradiction?

That’s right – while you were watching right-wing buffoons arguing in the Tory leadership campaign, or watching right-wing buffoons trying to split the Labour Party, right-wingers were spending a lot of your money, attacking the poor.

Universal Credit pays around £3,000 per year, so the Tory-directed Department for Work and Pensions spent nearly 10 times as much money preventing seven people from getting UC than it would if it had simply paid them.

And the ruling is that they still have to be paid! In fact, one of the rulings was that the DWP wasn’t making its repayments large enough.

Worse still, the Department is appealing against all the decisions that have cost us so much money so far, no doubt on the orders of Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd.

So she’s spending even more of our cash!

And the Conservatives call themselves the party of financial responsibility. The party of delusion, more like.

Tory ministers blew almost £200,000 of taxpayer cash fighting seven single mums and disabled people over Universal Credit.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) racked up the huge bill defending three High Court battles that defeated its cruel policies.

In June 2018, top judges found the DWP acted “unlawfully” by denying top-up payments to two disabled men.

In May 2019 judges backed a claim by those same men, plus a third claimant, that said repayments were too small.

And in January 2019 four single mums won a challenge against a “nonsensical” glitch in UC that left them short of cash.

We can reveal the June case cost £91,529 in legal fees, the January case cost £52,446 and the May case cost £39,871 – a total of £183,846.

Yet Tory ministers are appealing all three cases – which means the bill is set to spiral further.

Source: DWP blows £200k fighting 7 single mums and disabled people over Universal Credit – Mirror Online

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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Will the DWP’s advertorials on the ‘facts’ of Universal Credit admit it forces people into ‘survival sex’?

Frank Field.

The chairman of the Commons Work and Pensions committee, Frank Field, has had his say on the Department for Work and Pensions’ plan for a series of advertorials in newspapers extolling the (imagined?) virtues of the widely-condemned Universal Credit system.

And it is damning.

If you’re not up to speed with the Department’s plan to spread pro-UC propaganda covertly via a series of wraparound adverts on the Metro newspaper – intended not to mention the fact that they are paid-for adverts rather than news stories, in contravention of Advertising Standards Authority rules – the details are here.

The DWP has already tried to soften up readers with a series of articles in local newspapers where stooges sang the praises of the terminally (literally, in the cases of some claimants) flawed so-called benefit. Read about those atrocities here.

The Department is run by Conservative minister Amber Rudd, who exists in a state of public denial of the harm she is doing to millions of people every day. You only have to read her response to the United Nations’ report on poverty in the UK to realise the truth of it.

Mr Field confined his criticism to mention of only one harmful effect of Universal Credit – but it was a doozy: So-called “survival sex” – people prostituting themselves because it is the only way they can find to make ends meet.

This is not a new phenomenon; Ken Loach referred to it in his seminal critique of the benefit system I, Daniel Blake.

Mr Field said: “If the DWP wants to understand the facts about Universal Credit, it could look to the horrific, harrowing evidence we heard. People – mostly women, single mums, students – are telling us that they are forced through sheer desperation to exchange sex for the means to feed, house and warm themselves and their children. Instead of going out to get the evidence for itself, the DWP just dismisses this testimony as anecdote and brushes it aside.

“Rather than wasting huge chunks of desperately needed resources on 10 weeks of advertorial, why won’t the Government just take a look at the terrible reality of the facts we and so many others are showing them, for free, and instead spend that money on making some of its claims about UC helping people come true?”

The answer to his question is obvious.

Because then the Tories would have to admit that the criticisms are accurate and Universal Credit is a failure. And they enjoy crushing poor people far too much to allow that to happen.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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The Livingstone Presumption is now available
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