Sue Marsh writes about the DWP's refusal to send anyone on the radio to debate her on the ESA cuts.
I’ve just heard the Department for Work and Pensions has refused to send anyone to Radio 4’s You and Yours show on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow (12 noon) to defend and debate with me the changes we exposed in #esaSOS.
Despite leading barristers saying they are illegal and professors of medicine saying they are immoral and unworkable, the DWP haven’t answered a single point we raised. Again.
It’s remarkable. People are suffering – 140,000 people have been proven to have been unfairly stripped of their livelihood. We challenge them, they don’t even deny we’re right, but they sit there in their ivory towers and say, “so sue us”.
Well, DWP, we will and if you think I’ll stop at defeating you on ESA you’re wrong. I’ll make sure every last one of you is held personally accountable for the horrific assault you’re inflicting on vulnerable people in the UK who need you most.
In the next few weeks, I will release stories proving you are liars and cheats. I promise, you will not be able to hide from these. You will have no defence, no one to blame but yourselves. And yes, I’ll do it from my hospital bed, and yes, I’ll do it fed into my central line, and yes, I will win.
And think on this DWP – you’ve left me the whole show to say what I like unopposed.
This article was originally published on Sue’s blog, “Diary of a Benefit Scrounger”; follow Sue on Twitter: @suey2y.
See also:
• ESA SOS: Another day, another attack on disabled people – January 17th, 2013
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64 Responses to “Comment: IDS and the DWP can run, but they can’t hide”
LB
No. It’s absolutely wrong to take money from poor people, to hand out to people because you want to massage the unemployment figures. That’s imoral and evil.
So what’s going on? The state is bust. Bankrupt. They have taken all the money from poor people. Just go off and calculate how much tax the min wage earner has to pay. Then they are given a promise that we will pay your pension.
The problem is that all those pension promises and debts total up to 7,000 bn. Again its down to a fraud. The pensions aren’t listed as a debt.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_263808.pdf Bottom of page 4.
5,010 bn of debts for pensions, and that’s 2 years out of date. Now its over 5,300 bn.
1,100 bn of borrowing on top.
400 bn of PFI.
Then there are the insurance contracts.
So, total debt, and nothing to do with the banks either, of well over 7,000 bn.
Compare that with taxation – 550 bn. Hmmm, 14 times geared and no assets.
Spending 700 bn. 30% overspend.
It’s bust. It’s evil.
In my life time the UK will go all Greek.
Now, look at your reaction and mason dixon’s reaction. Not paying the money will be a human rights violation. People should have a choice over whether or not they label themselves disabled, and they should get money for it. It’s the government that pays.
Well it isn’t. It’s other people’s pension money you are spending. 430,000 taken from a 26K a year worker. When they tweak, and when their pension isn’t paid, expect violence.
Mason Dixon, Autistic
Yes, it was someone at Sheffield Hallam making the claim and who could not support it with evidence. Which part of that paper has you convinced that IB claims have ever been used to manipulate jobless figures?
Waiting on your response in regards to the non-existent net costs of the rise in claims.
LB
There are lots of papers. All point to hidden unemployment.
What other evidence is there to back this up?
Well, we have finally an objective test for those who qualify.
What we find is that lots of people don’t turn up for the test. A considerable number of those know they will fail. Evidence for the assertion.
Significant numbers fail the test.
Now I know what the reply is here. 40% succeed on appeal, so that must mean 40% should be getting the benefit. Hmmm, logic failure. Those appealing are not representative of the claimants as a whole. They are the marginal ones. If those 5% either side of the line make an appeal, I would be expecting 50% to succeed on appeal.
Similarly, you can’t explain the increase. A small percentage, again from SHU and other research explains a small percentage, the increase number of women in the workplace, and the increase in population.
The excuse that its the NHS saving or maiming babies doesn’t wash. The elderly argument doesn’t wash either. People are living longer, but healthier. The periods of time at the end where they might claiming hasn’t increased.
Still, its all people’s pension money that’s been spent. Something you won’t talk about.
How do you feel telling someone on 26K a year whose just retiring, have a great time on 5K a year, we’ve given away 14K a year of your pension to hide the unemployed off the figure. Do you think they are going to thank you for putting them into poverty? I doubt it, so you will hide it.
Mason Dixon, Autistic
“There are lots of papers. All point to hidden unemployment.”
Making them academically worthless- the very definition of an echo chamber.
That word, ‘objective’, I don’t think you know what it means. I’d prefer an accurate test over an ‘objective’ one. A monkey can be trained to tick-boxes, type numbers and give responses- those are objective. It takes an expert to understand and explain accurately what it is supposed to mean.
You’re drifting off-topic and into repeating tired old debunked canards; yes they can be explained because they’ve been done to death but no matter how many times they are addressed people like yourself act as if nothing happened and you’re grasp of statistics is horrible even when you are arguing against something I hadn’t even mentioned. Can we come back to the matter of the non-existent net cost rise and the inability of those asserting IB figures are used to manipulate unemployment to actually demonstrate what they claim?
Mason Dixon, Autistic
“Similarly, you can’t explain the increase.”
Residents and patients in care homes and psychiatric wards are ineligible to claim any form of out of work benefit, including the then Invalidity Benefit. They are reintroduced into the community by the hundreds and thousands each year over a period of seven years, they are no longer ineligible to claim Invalidity Benefit. Invalidity Benefit claims suddenly rise and then suddenly stop.
I explained it earlier. What was so hard about understanding it?