As the Guardian report this morning:
People who have been stripped of benefits could be charged by the government for trying to appeal against the decision to an independent judge.
To contextualise this they say:
Earlier this week figures showed that in the past year nearly 900,000 people have had their benefits stopped, the highest figure for any 12-month period since jobseeker's allowance was introduced in 1996. In recent months, however, 58% of those who wanted to overturn DWP sanction decisions in independent tribunals have been successful. Before 2010, the success rate of appeals was 20% or less.
They then note:
One welfare legal adviser said the number of appeals being lodged at independent tribunals would be decimated if the government introduced a charge.
I am sure decent people would like tho think this is some mistake. It is not. This is the philosophy of neoliberalism. All of life is reduced by that ideology to a state of competition. You have to compete for everything and access to nothing is guaranteed.
So, in this case access to justice is denied to those who cannot compete successfully enough in the market to secure the resources to access an appeal. The fact that they are already claiming benefits because they have not won in the market place is their own fault to those of this mindset. The fact that this decision compounds that is just the way that competition works. It's not injustice to them; it's the natural order of competition with which they think they must not interfere because this is, they think, the way to create maximum overall well being - even if not well being for all.
This is what I have called the Cowardly State. It is the state that runs away from duty to those it is meant to represent. It is the state that is being corroded from within by an irrational belief that competition solves all issues. It is a state without compassion for the losers from competition - because they are part of the natural order of being. It is a state that promotes injustice. It is a state that affronts all notions of decency. It is a state I oppose.
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This is absolutely appalling and how this will be allowed is beyond me. Thank you for bringing this to the attention of your audience. What do you think about employees having pay to take their employers to court for instances of perceived unfair dismissal etc.?
This is no surprise and unfortunately will be supported by a small majority of the populace who have been ‘groomed’ by this foul Government to channel their anger in the wrong direction. Sanctions are coming in for the most bizarre reasons (http://stupidsanctions.tumblr.com/) and reducing people to total penury for 4 weeks, 3 months or three years in some cases.
You should have pointed out Richard that it is NOT because the neo-libs want people to compete or to be subject to market forces because we DON@T have these -as you know we have oligarchy where markets are rigged and where competition is stifled and wealth syphoned from communities.
The American economist Mike Norman hits the nail on the head:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PvWXTsR6kQ&list=UUZhuQXtpH2dXeEAX_5MKGow&feature=c4-overview
I truly worry about the direction this country is taking. What kind of mind conceives an idea like this? The wilful cruelty of this policy is almost beyond belief. Once upon a time I would have asked how low can they go, but now I know that there are no limits.
“What kind of mind conceives an idea like this?”
The one that looks at opinion poll after opinion poll, considers the reaction to shows like Benefit Street and then hears a huge chunk of the Great British Public, roar and shout – generally via the ‘Red Tops’, “Enough is enough…..make it tougher to get benefits…..the good times are over….we can’t afford to keep paying the idle…”
That’s the problem HMG faces – to keep a welfare system going (which is a good thing) whilst trying to keep a lid on costs and please each and every user of the Welfare state…..which is costing all of us billions of pounds a year and that bill is only going to go one way.
Like it or not – and I admire much of the optimism of the posters on here plus Mr. M himself – taxing more and taking more from the ‘wealthy’ (what ever that means) won’t solve the issue…..
….perhaps the time has come for a Royal Commission to actually examine and ask what the welfare state should cover and how as a nation we should pay for it….
…because sooner or later you and I and the rest of the Great British Public are going to have to deal with those questions – and the longer they are left, the worse / harsher the solution will be.
Making Benefit claimants pay for their appeals really is the pits. Picking up on your theme, Richard, of forcing those who have “failed” in the (rigged) competition to compete yet harder, I’m powerfully reminded of a (true, I aassure) you example of some researchers who kept getting the “wrong” results with an experiment with some lab rats.
So what did they do? Change their hypothesis? Oh, dear me, no! They killed the rats, and got a new batch. Sound familiar? Seems to me, yes. The Con-dems would certainly rather the claimants vanished and went away.
If anyone wants a glimpse into the mind of such a neoliberal, Richard, they could do no better than read Decca Aikenhead’s interview in last Saturday’s Guardian, with the darling of the Daily Mail (and daytime TV, I believe), Katie Hopkins. Not a jot of compassion or humility in sight, nor any wish to, or belief in, helping anyone other than herself and immediate siblings.
On the broader issue you blog about here, note that further into the article it quotes Justice Minister, Shailesh Vara repeating the mantra that this is all about ‘reducing the deficit being top priority.’ I wonder how much longer the government can keep up this clap-trap, particularly now the floods and Cameron’s interventions, have exposed the “There’s no money left” claim as a lie. Jonathan Freedland hit the nail right on the head when he wrote in The Guardian:
‘But now, four years on, it turns out that this is no longer true. The PM has told us that, should the need be urgent enough, there is money after all. Limitless supplies of it in fact; enough to defeat nature’s wrath.
This rather undermines the austerity message, for it shows what was always true – that the national belt is not tightened universally and for ever but can be loosened when government wants to loosen it…By announcing that “money is no object”, Cameron has delivered the last rites on what was the founding logic of the coalition: austerity, forced on the nation because there was supposedly no money left. Now we know that there’s plenty of money – just so long as the government want to spend it.’
And that as you, me and many others have always understood, is the nub of it. The poor, sick, disabled, public sector workers, councils that don’t happen to be in Tory areas of the country, and anything else that can be regarded as not ‘naturally’ Tory, can go hang.
Meanwhile within government and public service ever more ridiculous and petty minded suggestions for allegedly saving money are put forward by managers and policy makers as they seek to deliver ‘austerity’ cuts (so called, efficiency savings) to set percentages that have absolutely no relationship to what is feasibly possible given the roles and responsibilities of a public service (e.g. the EA and flooding).
But anyway, at least it’s good to see some significant others – such as Vincent Nichols and the other church leaders – finally seeing the wood for the trees and speaking out. Clearly Cameron and the Tories, aided by the majority of the press and media are going to continue to tough this out, with claim and counter claim. But it does make me wonder about what must be going through the minds of many LibDems, and particularly those of a social liberal tendency. They’ve been suckered into supporting a Tory party intent on recreating 19th century conditions for a huge swathe of the population of the UK. What a legacy for the party’s first foray into government, and what a millstone I hope it becomes for the likes of Clegg, Alexander, Cable and co.
Unfortunately, the Austerity meme has been repeated so often without people realising the fallacy of Composition at work here that many have swallowed it.
That it is ideological rather than the myth of it being an accounting necessity has been clearly shown by Modern Monetary Theory. The neo-libs want the shirt off our backs so they can get some economic rent out of them.
Ivan, thanks for this. Can’t help observing how the ineffable Dave has not only said “money’s no object” when the waters reach the Tory shires, but has even said they will be excused paying their Council Tax a) with NO suggestion central Government will pick up the tab, so starving Local Authorities of yet more funds when b) he has NO more right to say that than I have, since that is a decision for democratically elected and accountable Councillors, and not I’m the power of Nabob Dave, acting, for all the owrld like some latter-day Muammar “Mad Dog” Gadaffi. The man really is appalling.
Good point
But then, does he care about accountability?
I call withholding medical treatment to the old and chronically ill, based on cost, as cruel and inhuman. And there is now an unofficial official policy for that.
Official policy, labour and con-dem-lib, is that if you’re not working, you’re not worth anything.
You’ll also note that the politicians #### lickers, AKA the ‘free’ press, have got behind the benefit street and scrounging migrants denigration with glee.
Whichever party wins in 2015 will then turn the heat on the elderly, ‘scrounging’ pensioners will be front page.
Meanwhile, the corporate benefit cost rises towards the odd trillion pounds.
“Whichever party wins in 2015 will then turn the heat on the elderly, ‘scrounging’ pensioners will be front page.”
Bet they won’t – pensioners vote far more than any other block……
…which is why changes to pensions and retirement ages are set years in to the future by the politicians of today…..
I think this is what Atos mean when they say they want to quit their work capability assessment contract because it’s ‘not working’. Not because they think that stripping people who’ve been failed by the market of their only means of support is unfair; they mean that the law is upholding too many appeals and finding the market wanting. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/benefits-uk-testing-firm-atos-3168142
These proposals are Kafkaesque and spiteful, and further demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of human nature. Its a dereliction of duty that Rachel Reeves can only limit herself to talk about broken processes?! This is primarily a moral and ethical question, that is, should citizens have access to justice regardless of their means.
I despair of politicians.
Indeed – behold the one party state which provides ‘socialism’ for the rich.
This is all inline with UNUM’s biopsychosocial model of welfare that has heavily influenced folk in the DWP and Lord Freud for several years now
http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2011/09/15/unums-game-plan/
and also that disgusting report by JP Morgan that you presented – http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2013/06/25/jp-morgan-wants-europe-to-be-rid-of-social-rights-democracy-employee-rights-and-the-right-to-protest/
I thought this was particularly apposite for Cameron’s neoliberal ‘moral mission’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK7gI5lMB7M IMO
Yes-very good. Didn’t Lord Freud refer to the food banks as an example of supply-side economics at work! Nothing to do with people going hungry!
I’m not sure Mr. M., will let this through, but in for a penny….
Like it or not, I think Lord F. pretty much said something that although very unpleasant, I’ve heard repeated by plenty of other members of the GBP…..in essence, that if free food is put up for grabs….there will always be a tiny minority that – oblivious to shame – will help themselves even if they don’t really need it….rather than spending their own cash….
….I’d call that a pretty a pretty harsh view of human nature….but c’mon, not everyone is a saint.
It’s for this reason that I think talk of giving out vouchers instead of benefits cash is b*****ks….all that would happen is that an illicit market would spring up in vouchers for ‘X’ run by all sorts of people….
…and the people who traded their vouchers would soon be knocking at the entry door of the Welfare net (if you’ll allow the image) and thus DWP would have to find them some more…..to avoid too many stories in the Press.
Let’s consider what is worse
Claiming some soup inappropriately
Or claiming millions in tax relief inappropriately
Allan The ‘free lunch’ is not going to the poor -and you know it, or should!
I would not be surprised if some people endorsed this though. You would be truly amazed at how many will try to justify the unjustifiable.
Picking on those who can’t fight back is actually regarded as tough and brave by certain politicians in this Orwellian world.
Stevo-it’s the psychology of the gutter : ‘I need someone worse of than me to feel my efforts are worthwhile.’ Or worse: ‘If I behave well, the rich will give me some crumbs off their table.’ The slave master beats the slaves as he/she is one rung higher! I big part of the next election will be about who is ‘tougher’ on benefit claimants -not the real issues -sadder than sad.
Too right Stevo. Just look at some of the reader comments from The Sheffield Star on the report from the national Atos action on 19 Feb. No matter how much evidence provided, including comments from the people who devised the Work Capability Test that it is not fair, they still insist on supporting it. They have no sense of irony either; look at the comments from Junean and Outspoken Tom… Fortunately, I think these people are very much a deluded minority. http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/sheffield-protest-over-fit-for-work-assessments-1-6449603
David – the neo-liberal austerity and vilification of the poor and needy has been backed up by about thirty years of dodgy, evolutionary psychology (Dawkins, Dennet)-they have been dumbed down and told about’selfish genes’ for so long that many believe it to be the ‘truth’ -we’re dealing with two types of fundamentalism here.
@Simon
Be careful not to conflate two different things, the genes are selfish but the human being in general is not. Social darwinists, and some who oppose them sometimes deliberately choose to misunderstand this point.
The neolibs take survival of the fittest out of the context its supposed to be seen in and extrapolate wildly to fit a wider ideological narrative (micro/macro anyone?)
Dawkins and Dennett have both derided attempts to do this, and both acknowledge that whilst humans can be selfish, they can be co-operative too – in fact co-operation is usually a winning hand for human flourishing from an evolutionary perspective. If we were all selfish survival of the fittest brutes civilisation would never had made it this far.
It still doesn’t deny there is a darker side to human nature, its just that social darwinists fall into the logical fallacy of selfish genes = darker side of human nature = survival of the fittest = we must be indifferent to the suffering of others.
Jeff-I agree, the point I was making is that the dumbed-down debate has allowed people to sue evolutionary psychology as a pseudo justification of ‘greed is good’ and rapacious practices.. Dawkins has done a lot of harm by not helping to clarify matters and Dennett likewise. The fundamentalist atheism hasn’t helped either because it gives people the illusion that they are being rational when n, infact,they are following belief systems that remain unexamined such as economic ideology. Cf. Steve Rose et al: ‘You are not your genes’.