FIT FOR WORK? LABOUR'S SCHEME LETS PEOPLE DIE WAITING FOR TRIBUNAL

Inspired by an excellent piece by John Souter, on Subrosa’s blog, about the Welfare Reforms introduced by the last government and pursued vigorously by this one, I was encouraged to develop the theme a little, both by comments on the story, and by this story I read relating to deaths of people found fit under the new scheme.

Let’s start of by making it clear that I know that people abuse the system; work and claim benefits, lie about circumstances. There will always be. Just as at the other end of the scale there are and always will be people who avoid paying millions in tax.

Of course one benefit cheat may fiddle a few thousands; a tax cheat, a few million a year.

I condemn both whilst accepting that they as inevitable as the sunrise.

But I caution that whatever the Daily Mail says, most "welfare" goes to people who do need it; people who would work if there was decent and suitable work, or people who desperately need help in their illnesses, or old age.

The new Welfare laws, as well as clamping down on the cheats, put these people’s lives at risk. Witness the stories told in After Atos. In one case the representative of a claimant went to Tribunal to say that his client would be unable to attend due to the unfortunate fact that he had died.

And the decision to cut pensioners’ benefits (Tory policy) is unspeakable. Private or company pensions are flat lining, bank interest which used to be a mainstay of elderly people, is practically zero (unless of course you have your money in the British Virgin Islands), domestic fuel prices are rising at twice the rate of inflation so far this year and more increases are predicted before winter, we already have a jaw-dropping annual death rate from cold related illness, and Osborne cuts £100 from old people’s winter fuel payment?

How would the cabinet feel if their own parents were shivering in the house, wrapped in blankets with one bar of a fire to keep them warm, checking the meter every half hour and spending most of the day in bed, eventually giving up trying to keep warm and just slowly slipping away, alone, cold and miserable?

Despite their best efforts to make us forget it by encouraging a wild orgy of celebration over this extended bank holiday (on credit cards), which is estimated to have cost the British economy in excess of £6 billion in lost productivity, and to have had a -0.25% effect on next quarter’s figures, they can’t hide that we are suffering with static wages, reduced in-work benefits, increased taxation (direct and indirect) and horrific price increases (4% inflation my butt!).

And in the meantime we are fighting two wars from which we are detached, and can afford weddings which they say make the country more cohesive. Well tell that to the “benefit cheat” who died before the tribunal could reverse the stopping of his benefits. He’ll not be feeling like he was part of one big happy Britain.

And remember, that could be you. Not today maybe, but next year, or in 5 years’ time. The stories in “After Atos” happened in Scotland. Ahead of Thursday’s elections I’d love to know if Iain Gray, Annabel Goldie and Tavish Scott support this very unScottish treatment of Scots perpetrated by their London counterparts.

WHY CAN'T WE SHOW MORE RESPECT?

I have just read with disbelief of an incident in Afghanistan which makes my even angrier than usual when reading of the UK’s involvement in that country.

Three British soldiers have been killed by a rogue Afghan soldier while on joint patrol in southern Helmand. This is not the first time have NATO trained Afghan personnel turned their weapons on British soldiers. In November last year 5 of our soldiers were killed by an Afghan soldier in a training base. The President of Afghanistan, Mr Karzai has written to the Prime Minister to apologise.

As an aside, once again it raises questions about how much infiltration of the Afghan army there has been by the Taliban. Clearly, I suspect, a great deal. The truth of the matter is that the Afghan president, a former employee of ex-Vice President Cheney of America, is happy to have the forces of NATO in his country, but we should not necessarily infer from that that he carries the population with him. After all, despite our claims that we are there to bring democracy to the country we all know that Mr Karzai was only elected President of the country by a rigged election process, to which we have given our tacit approval, thereby implicating us in the corruption.

That we have lost another three of our lads and, according to the Telegraph’s reporting of the story, another two injured, is sickening enough. But what I find completely unbelievable is that this story is in the press, and not just the Telegraph, but I see it features in The Guardian and The Mail and the BBC too, and at the time of writing, the families had not been informed. The Telegraph actually carried the line: The families of the soldiers involved in the incident are being informed, but anyone worried about relatives serving in Afghanistan can call a special helpline on 08457 800 900, as if it were some minor incident.

For heaven’s sake surely, even in the dog eat dog world of competitive journalism, we should be able to agree as human beings rather than journalists, that not a world of deaths or injuries of lads putting their lives on the line in the forces should be reported by the press until immediate families have been informed and time for more distant members to be contacted. The newspapers involved should hang their head in shame (credit here to the Scottish papers and the Independent); and someone at the Ministry of Defence (preferably the secretary of state) should be hung out to dry over it*.

Can you just imagine how unthinkably awful it must be for someone to read this online and dial that number with shaking fingers, possibly to be held in a queue..... ?

I know that many of us do not approve of this war, but it is not the fault of the lads or even their most senior officers that we are fighting it. It was a decision taken by government and approved in parliament by a majority of members. So no matter how disapproving we are of it, let’s treat the people at the sharp end and their families with more respect.



* It did occur to me that I was criticising newspapers using this story before the families had been informed, and yet drawing attention to it myself on this blog, and that that was perhaps a little of hypocritical. The penetration of this blog, however, is so minute in comparison to the newspapers and the BBC, that I decided that that was probably paranoia more than instinctive decency.