Reblogged from Watching A4e:
An extraordinary story popped up in the news feeds this morning - extraordinary
because it's in the Express.
Headlined "Food Bank Britain: Thousands need charity handouts because of
welfare system failings", it talks about "scores of cases" which their
investigation has "uncovered" of "administration errors and punitive sanctions".
It goes on to list cases of ludicrous sanctions and a few admin errors, and it
ends with the verdict of the director of Oxfam's UK poverty programme. They
haven't bothered to ask the DWP for a response, just quoting Esther McVey's
platitude that sanctions are only used against people who were "wilfully
rejecting support for no good reason" and going on to prove her wrong. The
comments facility isn't available under the article. Why?
What has brought
about this startling conversion by the Express? Perhaps it's just opportunism.
They've realised
