Tag Archives: social

More than a million are dead in UK because of avoidable social/economic inequalities

Hospital ward: what sends people here to die? Avoidable social and economic inequalities, apparently.

1,213,949 people’s lives were cut short between 2011 and 2020 in 90 per cent of areas in England, as a result of avoidable social and economic inequalities – according to analysis by the Institute of Health Equity.

Austerity and regressive funding cuts harmed health and worsened health inequalities well before the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the decade was marked by stalling life expectancy (declining for women living in the 10 percent most deprived areas).  

The IHE believes that not only is health the foremost concern of individuals, communities and businesses, but it is also an indicator of how well a nation is performing.

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The UK is now well below the EU average for how long people can expect to live in good health. The UK’s rankings have gone down since 2014. 

While healthcare is important in treating ill health, the causes of ill health lie in the conditions in which people are born, grow, live work and age. These conditions have deteriorated and resulted in worse health and shorter lives. 

IHE Director Sir Michael Marmot says we know what to do to improve health and reduce health inequalities – now we need politicians to act.

While there has been a lack of effective policies nationally, there has been local action. The IHE is working with over 40 local authoritieshealth care organisationsbusiness and voluntary sector. 

And it has set up a UK-wide Health Equity Network to help organisations and localities share best practice on implementing the evidence on reducing health inequalities. 

Sir Michael has published an open lettercalling on politicians to give us hope for a better future. 

The letter states:

The central plank of the next government must be to prioritise everyone’s health by implementing policies we know will reduce health inequalities.

As most of our health is determined by our social circumstances, health equity and well-being must be put at the heart of all policies:
• Develop a national health inequalities strategy for action based on the following eight objectives:
1. Give every child the best start in life.
2. Enable all children, young people and adults to maximise their
capabilities and have control over their lives.
3. Create fair employment and good work for all.
4. Ensure a healthy standard of living for all.
5. Create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities.
6. Strengthen the role and impact of ill health prevention.
7. Tackle racism, discrimination and their outcomes.
8. Pursue environmental sustainability and health equity together.
• Appoint an independent Health Equity Commissioner.
• Establish a new cabinet-level health equity and well-being cross-departmental committee.
• Ensure every place and local government in the UK is set up and funded to prioritise equity of health and well-being

Is this a good time to remind you that we can have anything we want. The UK is the world’s fifth-richest economy, so the money is there.

What’s lacking is the will to put it into what we need.

Do you think politicians will pay any attention to this?

Source: Taking Action – IHE


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Social energy tariff plan quietly scrapped

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Plans to launch an energy social tariff which would help low income households with energy costs have reportedly been “quietly shelved” by the Government.

The Tory Government first pledged to consider energy social tariffs – which are cheaper tariffs for certain groups – in 2022, and this was doubled down on by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Energy Secretary Grant Schapps last year.

However, Government sources have indicated that social tariffs are “no longer a priority” and that ministers were looking into other ways to help those struggling with energy costs.

The move comes despite calls from charities, organisations and energy companies themselves calling for the introduction of a social tariff for energy. End Fuel Poverty Coalition co-ordinator Simon Francis said the decision to “abandon plans” for energy bill reform would be a “slap in the face to British households.

Well.

You didn’t really think the Tories would do anything to stop the privateers from fleecing us all, did you?


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Kwarteng’s economics is compared to Harold Shipman’s social care

Kwasi Kwarteng: he needs to get used to this kind of criticism because he’ll be hearing it for the rest of his life.

Former Tory Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was left spluttering in indignation after a fellow guest on the BBC’s Politics Live compared his economic policies to mass murderer Harold Shipman’s idea of social care.

The incident was recorded by YouTuber Maximilien Robespierre, who provides his own commentary:

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The Israel/Hamas propaganda war: who do you believe?

The phrase for the people we’re seeing all over the mainstream and social media at the moment is “bad faith actor” – although some of them might actually believe what they’re saying.

These are people who put out falsehoods and disinformation, constantly, in order to gaslight you into disbelieving the evidence of your own senses.

So, for example, here’s Piers Morgan:

Here’s Jones’s response:

Morgan is wrong – but for a different reason – as This Writer has pointed out:

Yes: it doesn’t matter what Piers Morgan (or anybody else) says. We must judge Israel and Hamas on what we see them doing.

Now here’s Jacob Rees-Mogg on the BBC’s Question Time:

Of course, there’s no evidence that Israel did bring incubators to al-Shifa hospital; in fact, it seems more likely that they brought the guns that they then claimed were Hamas weapons, under the label “medical equipment”.

And who did the killing at that rave (it wasn’t a peace rally)? Evidence seems to be showing that it was the IDF’s “friendly fire” that did it.

Next up: Mark Regev, an advisor to Israely prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, talking about the deaths of Palestinian children, caused by Israel:

Regev’s claim that Israel will destroy Hamas is false. Hamas is an international organisation and cannot be destroyed just by smashing it in Gaza. Also, the murder of Gazan civilians means their relatives are likely to be radicalised.

Mehdi Hasan absolutely nails Regev on the disinformation coming from Israel.

But let’s have that comment about whether Israeli forces have killed children:

The claim is that Gazan children haven’t been killed by Israeli dropping the equivalent of two Hiroshima atomic bombs on their homes, but (presumably) that Hamas killed them.

Do you believe that?

And then there’s the revision of the Israeli death toll – down by 200:

It is unrealistic to expect Hamas to have burned its own members to cinders.

Perhaps this is more convincing:

“This also adds legitimacy to claims that many Israelis found burned beyond recognition were friendly fire victims.” Like all those burned bodies that were supposed to be Israeli babies?

First we were told they were beheaded by Hamas, then they were burned by Hamas. Now it seems they were burned by the IDF.

“Yesterday an Israeli official admitted on TV that Israel had misidentified HUNDREDS of dead Hamas fighters as Israeli because there were so many corpses that were too badly burned to identify. Unless you believe Hamas was also burning hundreds of its own fighters alive, it’s safe to assume that the burned corpses seen in all the images Israel has been bandying about since October 7 were in fact victims of Hellfire missiles fired by IDF forces. The IDF, not Hamas, burned people alive — both Israeli and Palestinian.”

Here’s another claim:

I’m not sure what’s depraved about a woman giving birth in captivity. It happens in prisons, I hear. And we know from former hostages that they have access to medical treatment. The depravity would have been if this lady had been taken to a Gaza hospital and forced to give birth while the IDF was attacking it, or if the baby had needed an incubator but couldn’t use one because the IDF had cut power to it.

“Borrell, in his press conference held today Friday in the city of Ramallah, surpassed the limits of decency and diplomacy, when he tried to distort the right of the Palestinian people to resist the occupation, which is a right guaranteed by international law.”

This is accurate – it is a right guaranteed by international law.

“We see that the US and the EU are violating international law by giving the occupation the green light to commit more crimes and massacres against our people.”

Arguably true. These organisations (the US government and the EU) are supporting Israel, despite actions that are arguably war crimes.

“We reaffirm the right of our people to continue their struggle and resist the occupation, as we find it a very legitimate and legal right. The Palestinian people are the only ones who have the right to sovereignty over their land, and no one has that right to dictate over them.”

Israel has invaded, occupied and stolen Palestinian land. It remains Palestinian land, even though it has been stolen, so this is arguably accurate.

“Our people will remain committed to their legitimate rights, defending them by all means until the occupation is defeated and eliminated, and their state is established, with Jerusalem as its capital.”

Okay… if it’s a commitment to legitimate rights, then this is a call for a two-state solution. But you can bet someone is saying it’s a demand for Israel to be dissolved.

Now try this, for distortion – from Sussex Friends of Israel:

How is this doctor’s honestly-held belief, based on her experience, disinformation?

Back to al-Shifa hospital now where, according to the BBC, Israel has fabricated its claim that Hamas had a command centre there:

Now here’s Norman Finkelstein, with a new revelation:

So: 11,000 people were killed “because of a hole in the ground”.

And it gets worse:

Let’s go over to the United Nations:

A UN rapporteur has said Israel cannot claim it is acting out of self-defence under international law:

It means Israel does not have any excuse for the war crimes it is committing.

Opponents of this point of view may claim that Francesca Albanese is biased towards Palestine – but she has that covered too:

Empirically, the weight of opinion is turning against Israel, with expert evidence and opinion showing that Israel is wrong to do what it is doing and lying about what it has done.

This is an ongoing situation, though. Let’s see what happens next.

After bombing a hospital, Israeli air strike(s) hit church(es)

Today (October 20, 2023), this happened:

If I’m reading the reports right, the BBC has not even bothered to report on the air strike above, because it has another church to mention:

“On Thursday, an Orthodox Christian church compound in Gaza City where church authorities say hundreds of people were sheltering was hit. Israel says its jets had targeted a nearby Hamas base used to fire rockets at its territory and it was reviewing the incident.”

So Israel isn’t even bothering to deny responsibility now; religious sites are considered to be nothing more than collateral damage.

I’m not sure whether Article 8 of the Geneva Convention is the right rule to quote, but it is certainly true that under international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, religious buildings are offered special protection. These international laws of war bar firing upon or from a religious building.

So: another Israeli war crime.

And how about this:

“What’s wrong with him?” the clip asks. What indeed! It seems that Israeli officials are now so used to throwing their weight around without being contradicted, that they are trying to dictate what people from other cultures are or are not allowed to wear.

Bravo to the interviewer for standing her ground.

Meanwhile the war of words in the UK’s social media continues unabated:

What? Responsibility does matter. Sadly, Israel continues to refuse to take responsibility for its air strike, despite having initially done so; it then withdrew the announcement. How anybody can complain about Jeremy Corbyn in this context is bizarre.

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak continued to show his true colours: failing to support Gaza…

… and fawning to Gaza’s persecutor:

There are voices of reason:

And there are some less reasonable comments too:

Meanwhile, it seems Israel may have split opinions within its own population – violently:

Finally, there’s this piece of right-wing lunacy – that tries to assert that demonstrations for peace in the Middle East are in fact the opposite. Why do the authorities never ask questions about this kind of hate-mongering?

And if you do want to join the protest:

The Israel/Palestine conflict as seen on (This Site’s) social media

If you’ve been following the Israel/Palestine conflict on the mainstream media (I haven’t) it seems you may have been led to believe that the attack on Israel by Hamas was pure evil.

Palestinians have been accused of kidnapping children, raping women, murdering indescriminately. Has torture been in the mix?

Meanwhile, what has been said about the reasons given by Hamas for launching its attack in the first place? The constant – several times daily – abuse and occasionally murder of Palestinians (including children) by Israeli occupation forces? Anything?

The social media seems to have offered a more balanced view, as I hope to demonstrate below – with one caveat: there has also been a lot of foaming-at-the-mouth hatred – mostly towards Israel. This Writer can’t tell whether that has been by genuine lunatics or bad-faith actors trying to paint supporters of Palestinian independence as genocidal anti-Zionists.

Here’s some of the back-and-forth, as it appeared on my ‘X’ feed:

Let’s start with Keir Starmer saying there is “no justification” for the Hamas attack – and Jackie Walker’s response, explaining that it is a retaliation against Israel’s illegal occupation and colonisation of Palestine, that is itself an act of war:

This is self-explanatory – an Israeli minister evading questions about what her government and its armed forces have been doing to Palestinians:

Armed struggle by Palestinians against illegal occupiers is legitimate under international law:

Double-standards of Israel’s international supporters is demonstrated by their attitude to the same tactic as Hamas has employed, being carried out in Ukraine:

Former Cabinet minister Sajid Javid says Hamas has been proscribed by the UK as a terrorist organisation. The question is: was that decision justified in the light of what Israel has been doing to Palestine and Palestinians?

Israeli journalist Gideon Levy provides more insight into why people in Gaza might want to resist Israel:

Andrew Feinstein at Double Down News shows footage of what Israel has been doing in Palestine and demonstrates that Israel’s supporters in other countries like the UK are supporting this barbarity by silencing comment on it, many because they see Israel as the centre of an ethno-fascist movement of which they want to be a part:

UK broadcaster Adil Ray points out that Israel’s retaliation is not helpful:

Michael Walker of Novara Media points out how Israeli policy has attacked the very existence of Palestine. Why is it forbidden to question the existence of Israel when Israel illegally erodes the existence of Palestine?

Rapper and activist Lowkey explains the reality of the Israel/Palestine conflict:

Right-wing commentator Dan Hodges tries to score points against UK left-wingers by claiming that a movement that should support international peace has support for terrorism as the “price of admission” to fashionability (whatever that means):

An interesting historical note. I haven’t verified this, though:

Senior political correspondent for the Daily Express attacks Labour MP Apsana Begum for supporting Palestinian freedom from Israel. He seems shocked that Palestinians would say the attacks on Israel were due to Israel’s own behaviour:

More than half of British people feel “unfavourable” towards Israel, according to a poll:

Adil Ray (again), while approving of the messages of support for Israel, suggests that Palestinians might welcome support for their right to an unoccupied homeland:

Supporters of Palestinian independence celebrate the attack on Israel in London. Right-wing commentator Nile Gardiner wants them arrested as possible terrorists themselves, or even illegal migrants, on the basis that they support a strike for freedom from occupation.

Keir Starmer wrongly says there is “no justification” for the attack on Israel; we know there is a reason. He says the perpetrators have “deliberately pushed back the prospect of peace agreements”. Was there any such prospect?

Important context is being ignored by the UK’s news media:

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he’s going to bomb Gaza into dust, and the people there should leave. This commenter asks the obvious question:

It seems the Hamas incursion into Israel included firing on people at the “Supernova Festival” – a rave held near Gaza. The event is being touted as a “festival for peace” by propagandists:

UK right-wing commentators say Hamas has been targeting civilians – raping women and kidnapping children. Here’s a response:

Renowned journalist John Pilger responds to claims that the Hamas attack was “unprovoked”:

Polling suggests more people in the UK want Palestine recognised as a state than don’t – although it is still a minority:

Here’s a 10-minute criticism of the United States for supporting Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s occupation while supporting Israel’s “occupation/ethnic subjugation” of Palestine. Isn’t that appalling hypocrisy?

Right-wingers respond to a tweet pointing out that Palestinians can’t leave Gaza:

This is self-explanatory:

A report on what is happening in Gaza as Israel retaliates. It seems the Israeli military response is not concerned about harming civilians:

Labour shadow minister David Lammy mourns the death of a British citizen who was in Israel and was killed in the Hamas attack, and supports Israel’s response. Former Labour MP Chris Williamson asks an obvious question and makes a pertinent comment:

Labour’s Wes Streeting supports Israel’s response – and then suggests that a peace deal might still be possible.

More will undoubtedly follow.


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Starmerite right-winger’s pretty housing theory is trumped by facts

House-building: Keir Starmer’s party wants you to think the ‘trickle-down’ effect means lots of social housing in every large estate but the fact is that they provide the bare minimum in order to maximise their profits. This is a lie.

I didn’t realise I’ve been helping hand this Starmerite head-banger’s posterior to him; all I did was make a passing comment.

But Luke Akehurst (for it was him – the right-wing scourge of socialists in the Substitute Tory Party) had to respond, and brought a torrent of facts down on himself, drowning out his feeble theory about house-building.

Here’s how it started:

Luke tried to come back – only to be clobbered by an expert who works in this field:

The idea of house prices dropping as more are built horrified some home owners (and there is a debate to be had about whether dwelling-places, that everybody should have as a necessity, should also be investment opportunities. But that’s for another time).

Luke stuck to his guns – only to be shot down again:

And again:

We know this is true; developers blackmail councils into removing any restriction on their profits, under threat of not seeing estates built at all. That’s the reason the Tories wanted to lift anti-pollution rules for estates near environmentally-fragile rivers; developers with planning permission were refusing to build while they had to pay the costs of mitigating measures.

Not knowing when to give up, Luke kept going – and it kept getting worse for him:

Land banking is where property developers buy land with a view to developing it in the future – or withholding it from development until they get what they want.

What we’re seeing here is evidence of the “trickle-down” effect in action (or, more accurately, inaction): the claim that, once wealthy businesspeople have enough money, they’ll allow it to pass down to people with less (in this case in the form of social housing) is disproved by the fact that they use their negotiating power to force councils to accept the bare minimum, thereby maximising the amount that they, personally, take home.

But Keir Starmer’s party is supposed to think “trickle-down” is nonsense, isn’t it?

Apparently not. What actually happens trumps airy-fairy theory and Luke’s support for what is happening indicates support for “trickle-down” economics that helps the rich over the poor.

It’s a revealing glimpse of the real thinking behind Starmer party rhetoric.

I tried to get Luke to see sense…

But it’s a forlorn hope. He’ll keep repeating his mantras because he wants us to believe them.

And that leads me to the big take-out from this story.

I don’t think this is about Labour politicians refusing to face the facts; I think it’s about them buying into the Tory/Nazi “Big Lie” concept.

This is the practice of repeating a claim that is known to be untrue, on the basis that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.

Think about that. Above, Luke has been told that his party’s ideas don’t work – time and again. But, time and again, he repeats the claims that have already been disproved.

My conclusion: He wants you to believe a lie.

Keir Starmer’s party is lying to you. And not just about this.


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Has Rachel Riley libelled defenders of Michael Rosen? Will they sue?

Michael Rosen.

It seems Rachel Riley is playing her old games again – and this one appears to be in very poor taste.

She has responded to a piece of – journalism? – by someone called David Hirsh, raking over the behaviour of a person who is no longer alive and therefore unable to speak for himself. It is not clear to This Writer whether the deceased’s family were involved.

The piece about Peter Newbon, who was a leading figure in an organisation known as Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS), appears to have made certain claims about the beloved children’s author and poet, Michael Rosen – on which Ms Riley commented as follows:

Note that she did not provide any information explaining the reason her “stomach turns” at the mention of Mr Rosen. This is familiar behaviour; by allowing others to draw their own conclusions, it may be possible to deny those conclusions later.

But is it possible to work out what one may reasonably deduce is the reason Mr Rosen has such an effect on Ms Riley’s digestive system? I have not read the Hirsh article – but I believe I have enough information from the following exchange between him and Mr Rosen:

(I’m not going to refer here to the Jamie Wilson court case, in which Newbon was also involved. If you want more information on that, details are available here.)

So the claim is that the late Mr Newbon was bullied by people including Mr Rosen, and that this led to his suicide.

In that case, we need to examine how Michael Rosen knew Peter Newbon. And we find this:

The image, tweeted by Newbon, shows former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn apparently reading the anti-Semitic book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to children.

In fact, he had been reading Mr Rosen’s book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, and the words with which Newbon accompanied the image paraphrase that work: “Oh no! A J-…er, I mean a ZIONIST! A nasty, horrible Zionist! We can’t go over him, we can’t go under him, we’ll have to make an effigy…” instead of: “We can’t go over it, we can’t under it. Oh no! We have to go through it”.

Hirsh has said Newbon did not create the image; he merely shared it. But every share is a new publication of the image and any message it conveys. Furthermore, the words above the image appear to have been typed in by Newbon. Were they his words, or those of whoever created the meme? Either way, if he typed them into his tweet, we may infer that he agreed with the message that they convey.

Mr Rosen had contacted Newbon’s employer, Northumbria University, to complain about its lecturer sharing the image, which he described as “loathesome and antisemitic” – and he was not alone; the university received around 4,000 complaints in total.

I think we may reasonably infer that this is the “bullying” to which Hirsh referred. How he can describe Mr Rosen’s complaint in that manner, or as “antisemitic”, is a mystery as Mr Rosen, being Jewish, may quite clearly be seen as the victim of anti-Semitism here; the tweeted image links him – a Jew – with an anti-Semitic book which was once said to have been written by Jews and which makes claims calculated to provoke hatred against Jews.

I have no information on Newbon’s own ethnicity. If he was Jewish himself, then for Mr Rosen to have been anti-Semitic towards him, Mr Rosen’s complaint would have to have exhibited hatred towards him because he was a Jew – and we have no evidence of this.

And a complaint about a tweet that may clearly be taken as an attack on Mr Rosen may not be described as bullying in any way. Or so it seems to This Writer. It seems to me, based on the evidence, that he is the victim:

So I can find no clear basis for Ms Riley’s apparent comment that the Hirsh article reminds her of any reason her “stomach turns” at the mention of Mr Rosen.

Her tweet certainly appears to have turned the stomachs of people who enjoy his work or have personal experience of him. A few hours after her initial tweet, Ms Riley followed it up with this:

To This Writer, the comment is very strange – firstly because I can only find two responses to her previous tweet on the subject, that criticise her. Is that really enough for her to pass comment as though there was a large backlash?

Secondly, it does not make grammatical sense – and this leads me to suggest that it may be taken to mean something else: not that she isn’t bothered by people she claims are antisemites being upset at her comment about Mr Rosen, but that if people do criticise her for that comment, she is not bothered because they are all antisemites.

Again, there appears to be no evidence to support a claim that every respondent is an anti-Semite.

It strikes This Writer that these tweets may create something of a difficulty for Ms Riley, in legal terms, because anyone defending Mr Rosen in response to her comments – either before or after her “Antisemites upset again” tweet – may reasonably infer that tweet to refer to them. And they may consider it to be libellous against them.

So not only is it possible that she and her employers at Channel 4 may receive a complaint about her behaviour from Mr Rosen – they already have from at least one other person…

… but she may also receive a “letter before action”, either individually or as a group, from a large number of people, some of them celebrities in their own right.

Oh, and Jeremy Corbyn might also consider getting involved, considering the fact that he was also attacked in that doctored image, that an innocent person has suffered harm because of it, because of the Hirsh article and because of the Riley tweets, and that Hirsh himself has challenged him to take such action:

It seems clear that this kind of behaviour – that may harm the reputations and ruin the lives of good people – may continue until somebody with the wherewithal finally puts a stop to it.

Is it forlorn to hope that this could be the catalyst for that to happen?

While we wait to find out, please remember that I am one of those whose reputation and life has been harmed – and I’m still trying to pay my legal team after my own four-year battle with Ms Riley. If you have been moved by the story above, then please help in any of the following ways:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

And don’t forget that if you’re having trouble, or simply don’t like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it’s for the crowdfund!

ADDITIONAL NOTE: a few people on Facebook have suggested that people could not sue Ms Riley because “in order for a libel action to stand, the court has to be convinced that it could be interpreted as referring to a specific individual”. This is not true.

From my copy of Essential Law for Journalists:

“The test of whether the words identified the person suing is whether they would reasonably lead people acquainted with him to believe that he was the person referred to.” So, for example, Robin Ince (of The Infinite Monkey Cage on Radio 4) may have a prime facie case because he published a popular tweet defending Michael Rosen and Ms Riley tweeted words that may be taken as meaning anyone supporting him is an anti-Semite.

To continue: “During the late 1980s and 1990s the Police Federation, representing junior police officers, made good use of this aspect of the libel law in many actions against newspapers on behalf of their members… Many of the officers were not named… The test of identification is not whether the general reader knew who was referred to, but whether some individuals… did.”

Also, the person suing doesn’t even have to prove that the words they’re complaining about actually refer to them: “A journalist sued successfully over an article… which neither named nor described him. A person reading the article carefully would have noted various details which were inconsistent with a reference to [him]. However, the court said ordinary people often skimmed through such articles casually, not expecting a high degree of accuracy. If, as a result of such reading, they reached the conclusion that the article referred to the plaintiff, then identification was proved.”


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The taxman has 55 BILLION items of our data from social media spying. What about data protection?

HMRC: it’s using artificial intelligence to gather information about you. But is it gathering too much?

This does not seem right:

The taxman has been using its own data system for years to snoop on taxpayers.

HMRC holds billions of our data items, including email and bank records, as part of its system used to target taxpayers for investigations.

It has revealed that there are now 55 billion items of data relating to taxpayers in its ‘Connect’ system, which was launched to tackle the growing tax gap, according to tax investigation insurance experts PfP.

The tax gap is the difference between the tax that should be paid and the amount HMRC actually collects and last year the figure stood at £32billion.

The article goes on to say that Connect has been in use since 2010 and its database has now grown to 6,100 gigabytes of taxpayer data.

The implication is that none of the information about any of us has been discarded – and it seems to me that this is in breach of the Data Protection Act.

The fifth data protection principle states that information should not be kept longer than is required for the purpose for which it was collected.

No specific time limit is given but HM Revenue & Customs’ own guidelines suggest that six years is the reasonable limit.

That means, by its own measure, HMRC may have retained seven years’ worth of information illegally.

Source: Taxman is snooping on emails and social media – and now holds 55 BILLION items of our data on its AI system in a bid to tackle tax evasion


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If DWP monitors your social media activity, who decides what’s consistent with benefit claims?

This is a little worrying:

[Benefit fraud] investigators may … check … social media accounts and search … online profiles for pictures, location check-ins, and other evidence which may or may not be useful to them. Those who use social media a lot will leave a trail of their life and habits, often allowing investigators to piece together a picture of what that person’s life actually looks like.

If this is not consistent with the details of that person’s claim for benefits, that evidence may end up being used against them.

Who decides what is “consistent with the details of [a] person’s claim for benefits”?

The DWP is currently recruiting, as decision-makers, people who have no qualifications whatsoever for making such decisions.

What do they know about how people with disabilities live their lives – or the people who care for them (like This Writer)?

Terrible mistakes have been made in recent years, with payments withheld from people who deserved them – based on the flimsiest excuses.

Now it seems Tom Pursglove is opening the door for more – and worse.

Source: DWP could monitor social media activity and bank accounts in benefit fraud crackdown – LancsLive


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