Democide

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Democide is the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder. Democide is not necessarily the elimination of entire cultural groups but rather groups within the country that the government feels need to be eradicated for political reasons and due to claimed future threats. According to Rummel, genocide has three different meanings. The ordinary meaning is murder by government of people due to their national, ethnic, racial or religious group membership. The legal meaning of genocide refers to the international treaty on genocide, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This also includes nonlethal acts that in the end eliminate or greatly hinder the group. Looking back on history, one can see the different variations of democides that have occurred, but it still consists of acts of killing or mass murder. A generalized meaning of genocide is similar to the ordinary meaning but also includes government killings of political opponents or otherwise intentional murder. In order to avoid confusion over which meaning is intended, Rummel created the term democide for the third meaning.^[6]

The objectives of such a plan of democide include the disintegration of the political and social institutions of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups; the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity; and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.^[7]

Rummel defines democide as "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder". For example, government-sponsored killings for political reasons would be considered democide. Democide can also include deaths arising from "intentionally or knowingly reckless and depraved disregard for life"; this brings into account many deaths arising through various neglects and abuses, such as forced mass starvation. Rummel explicitly excludes battle deaths in his definition. Capital punishment, actions taken against armed civilians during mob action or riot, and the deaths of noncombatants killed during attacks on military targets so long as the primary target is military, are not considered democide.^[8]

He has further stated: "I use the civil definition of murder, where someone can be guilty of murder if they are responsible in a reckless and wanton way for the loss of life, as in incarcerating people in camps where they may soon die of malnutrition, unattended disease, and forced labor, or deporting them into wastelands where they may die rapidly from exposure and disease."

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Dying Is An Option Thanks To DWP

Reblogged from enoughisenoughdwp:

Nothing left to do but die

It has taken 3 days to type this, I can't concentrate for long and can't be bothered to correct.

I suffer from crippling depression And anxiety. I also have problems walking  and standing unaided  because of a spinal issue. 

I rarely leave my home and spend most of my time in bed or in front of a Telly. I have lost contact with friends as I just want to be  left alone 

I haven't been paid any benefit since mid February when my ESA was stopped.

The reason they stopped it was because I didn't attend my medical assessment at Atos. This was because I never received my notification.

I am no longer at the address it was sent to, but when I lived there, mail could be very sporadic because mine and others on the street, would be sometimes delivered to different flats and houses on the street.

I appealed their decision but was refused twice and later told, they were not appeals, but  reconsideration, even though I filled out a GL24 form.

I have reached the point that some days I feel life is no longer worth living. I was evicted 3 Weeks ago and currently living in a mice infested squat because I didn't want to be parted with my dog.

If it wasn't for my pensioner mother, I don't know how I would have survived. She has helped me out with small amounts of money here and there, but it is not fair on her as she is also in bad health.

After several months I tried to apply for job seekers but was met by a very unhelpful and spiteful bitch called Saba who works at the Dalston Job Centre. I'm sorry, but after that woman did to me, it's the first word that comes to mind.

From the first meeting she showed no interest and didn't even look at me when I was in front of her.

Things came to a head when I attended  Dalston Job centre for my first sign on. Saba was unfriendly, barked at me. I told her I was unable to look for the required 8 jobs and only managed a few, because of my dire state of mind. I was on the verge of being evicted, suffering depression so bad that I spent most of the day with a duvet over my me. Compounded with arthritis and a bulging disc in my back, I was lower than low. Even standing at the kitchen sink was an ordeal. My only relief is when I'm lying down.

Saba reluctantly decided I would be paid, but scolded me like a child and told me to show up with proof of 8 jobs I had sought next sign on

She got me to sign something and when I handed the pen back to her, she claimed I threw it at her. In fact it dropped from my hand as I have problems holding on to things, even a phone because my fingers are numb most of the time  and feel like pins and needles.

She told me my JSA was being stopped because I threw a pen at her. I insisted on seeing her manager (she refused at first but I insisted). Her manager who overheard everything told me he had called her aside and spoke with her even before I requested to speak to him.

After two Weeks on JSA it was decided by my doctor I not try to work.

That is when the nightmare got worse.

How long am I supposed to live like this? I can't handle the stress of calling DWP, I can't handle the abuse from them, I can't handle sleeping on a mattress in a mice infested squat. I don't think I have enough pills left to take my life and not enough on my oyster card to get into my nearest tube station to jump infront of a train. The easiest thing is to walk in front of a bus on Kigslad High Rd nr the job centre What more do they want from me? My doctor has written a letter to them but that is not enough.

To our current government, Dwp, the staff at Hackney and Dalston job centre. My blood will be on your hands when I summon up the courage to leave this world.

I can't just blame them for everything, my problems began long before my dealings with Dwp. It hurts to be awake. I just want to sleep and never wake up.

It has taken 3 days to type this, I can't concentrate for long and can't be bothered to correct.

I rarely leave my home and spend most of my time in bed or infront of a Telly. I have lost contact with friends as I have nothig  to share

I'm out of money, can't pay for my mobile phone bill and can no longer pay for top up for mobile broadband,  basics like  personal hygiene and food

I don't want to be a burden to my mother anymore and cannot bare the thought of asking her for more money.

The following  people helped drive me over the edge

Dalston job centre, Hackney Job Centre, Francine (mare street jc) who was so cold and told me to kill myself if that's what I felt like doing , some woman called Begonia (mare st jc) who spoke very bad English and refused to give me her name yesterday and this morning, Jenny (mare st jct) who was rude some months ago and hung up when all I did was ask her a question.You are employed to help people not degrade them.

Rob on the Ajax Team at Mare St thanks for being very decent. Same goes to Delores at Dalston Job centre for being very patient and taking time out.

Cameron: dumping his support for sexually abused kids?

David Cameron outside Downing Street. Picture courtesy: Guardian

Politicians like journalists can be  creatures of the moment. Flitting from issue to issue – today will be the decision on implementing Leveson  on press regulation – they sometimes forget the bigger picture in the adrenalin rush of a crisis or a story.

Eleven years ago David Cameron, then a backbencher sat alongside Tom Watson, Labour MP, as a member of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. Together the two MPs signed up to a report on historical child abuse. One of the key recommendations of the report ( for those who want to read it all, the link is http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmhaff/836/83602.htm ) was that when the police ” trawl” for abuse victims and witnesses  those who are interviewed should get support from day one.

The recommendation states: “complainants should be offered appropriate victim support services, such as
counselling, from an early stage of their involvement in the investigation.”

Now 11 years later the police seem to be working overtime investigating historic child abuse cases. Operation Fernbridge – the police investigation into sexual abuse of children in the care of Richmond Council and their links to Elm Guest House in Barnes – has at least 16 potential children in its sights. The aftermath of the Savile inquiry could bring  many others into its scope and the don’t forget  Operation Fairbank investigating other child abuse  allegations and at least 30 investigations into child grooming across Britain. The scale of abuse is obviously much higher than people realise.

Officially the police and it now appears Downing Street believe all these former kids, some now in their 40s, are getting support. But evidence from two people who can be expected to be important witnesses in any trial involving the Richmond scandal suggests otherwise.

Details were published yesterday in the Sunday People and on the Exaro website. You can read the article in the People here (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/vip-child-sex-ring-victims-1768956)  and the harrowing view of two witnesses here (http://www.exaronews.com/articles/4897/witnesses-in-operation-fernbridge-plead-for-support-service) .

Suffice to say they are both highly critical. One, Sam, not his real name , says the help he was given : “as “inadequate, ill-conceived and suffered from a complete failure to understand what they (the authorities) were doing.”

He doesn’t blame the police who appear to have been sensitive in interviewing him but just left him with a list of referral agencies to fend for himself.The other is also having to find his own care while his GP prescribes sleeping pills.

I put this direct to Downing Street – including sending Mr Cameron’s office a heart-rending quote from one of them – and reminded him of what he signed up to 11 years ago.

The reply was :”Sexual abuse is a devastating crime and the Government is committed to ensuring that every victim has access to the specialist support they need. This is why the Ministry of justice is providing £10.5million in Government funding over three years to provide services to support victims of these heinous crimes.

“The Government funds 78 Rape Support Centres across England and Wales. These provide confidential and expert support, advice and counselling for victims of these heinous crimes. More centres are in the process of being established and expected to open soon.

“The Government is committed to providing a justice system that protects, supports and reaches the highest possible standards of care for victims. There are a number of measures which already exist to protect vulnerable and special victims, including rape and sexual abuse victims, throughout their involvement with the CJS, and a number of reforms are under  way to improve the system further.”

 The rape crisis centres are not dealing with these partcular Fernbridge cases or any historic childhood sex abuse and therefore Downing Street is misleading people by suggesting that all this money is going to help victims of child sexual abuse.

 No answer was given to my main point – did David Cameron  support what he had signed up to 11 years ago. And the suggestion is that this support is not there on the ground nor is it co-ordinated.

 

 This is stupid, short-sighted and frankly callous. Tom Watson, who has been approached by some of the witnesses who suffered child sexual abuse about lack of support, believes Cameron should use his power to make sure this is properly implemented and people have support from day one.

 

For a successful prosecution of people who committed these heinous crimes some 30 years ago, the government must ensure that the people who complained and will be witnesses are properly supported. It is no good  having witnesses in the court who can’t sleep, feel sick or can’t cope.

 

Shame on you Mr Cameron if  you sign up to reports and don’t do anything about it when you are in power yourself.

David Hencke

Workfare: Will we get more results?

We were told that more Work Programme performance data would be published this month.  I would be very surprised if that happens.  It would be only four more months after the last lot, and one cannot imagine that there's been such a dramatic improvement that the government will be keen to publish.  Without that improvement, A4e and the other providers will be in real difficulties.  The attachment fees were just about keeping them ticking over, and we know that A4e were in trouble a year ago.  So, will we soon hear about contracts being ended?

While we wait and wonder, you might care to read a couple of DWP documents.  There's an impact assessment justifying the legislation to ensure that they don't have to pay back the £130m wrongly taken from people who were sanctioned while the compulsory work schemes were illegal.  Then you could look at a number of documents which tell "the DWP reform story", downloadable from their website.  They call it a "communications toolkit".

Last week we were told that under Universal Credit, enquiries would have to be made via an 0845 phone number - in other words, expensively.  In fact, this was raised a year ago by the Mirror.  Last November the DWP confirmed this but said that "free claimant access phones" would be available in "a large number" of Jobcentres.  So that's all right, then.

One other item: there's an article about the Trussell Trust and food banks on the Independent's website.  What caught my attention was a comment by someone calling himself Marchie1053 - scroll down and find it.    He draws attention to the close links between the Trussell Trust and the Conservative party.  Interesting. 

Watching A4e

We could stop the Bedroom Tax if we Chose to. Here's how

It's funny, isn't it. Every one of the policies we oppose are easily defeated.

Abolishing Disability Living Allowance, Severe Disability Premiums, the Independent Living Fund.
The Bedroom Tax, Council Tax Cuts, Slashing tax credits for disabled children.
The feared and hated Employment Support Allowance, limiting it to just one year, Workfare.
NHS "reform" press abuse, energy profiteers, loan sharks, slave wages

In just an hour or two, we could get rid of the lot.

There are 65 million of us and 650 of them. We just have to say "Erm, no thanks."

"We didn't vote for this, sorry, now off you go and think again."

It really is as easy as that. (Other countries do it all the time, we just seem to have forgotten why we fought for democracy in the first place)

So. At the end of the comment section on THIS post : http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-human-story-behind-bedroom-tax.html
The last 4 or 5 comments (left by an "A Smith" - sorry efforts to trace unsuccessful - if this has been posted elsewhere, I hope you'll forgive me) DO appear to give an excellent blueprint for destroying the Bedroom Tax.

Effectively, (and it IS vital you read the comments A Smith left if you want to really understand why I agree, I think this would work) councils will issue a "Benefit Decision Notice (BDM)" to say that you will be affected by the Bedroom Tax. 

The letter will describe how you can appeal. 

If everyone affected reads the comments A Smith left, writes back to their council asking them to explain/reconsider within 7 days

Then appeals within one month of the BDM

The system - and local council's ability to deal with the fallout - would come grinding to a halt. It simply could not function and would cost millions more than the tax will save. 

Again, to take part, it's crucial you read all of A Smith's shared reasoning and advice here in the comments thread, at the end : http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-human-story-behind-bedroom-tax.html

So, a quick click on the link above and 10 minutes to read the comments. 

Then, a letter, with stamp, once you get your BDM sent immediately. 

A further letter requesting an appeal (there is even a template you can use left by A Smith) SENT WITHIN ONE MONTH OF ORIGINAL BDM

That's it. All there is to it.

If all 660,000 people affected objected, then asked to go to appeal, the system would collapse.

All for the sake of a 10 minute read and 2 letters.

DWP estimate 200,000 people will lose their homes from this policy. 440,000 of those affected have disabilities.

We can accept it passively, or like the poll tax, we can say "Actually, no, I don't think so"

That's it. All there is to it.

So if you agree, share this post. Send it to friends you think might be affected. Email it. Help any vulnerable friends you have to take the simple action. The Bedroom Tax is a BIG deal on social media but do we want to moan about it or stop it? If we want to stop it, share this post and act.

The only thing allowing ALL of these policies to go forward, is our acceptance.


Aha! Thanks to the wonders of twitter, we've found the original post. It was on SPeye here http://speye.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/bedroom-tax-why-and-how-all-tenants-should-appeal-and-the-impact/ and author IS a housing advisor. 

Diary of a Benefit Scrounger

Cameron's Bullingdon Club 'burn £50 notes in front of beggars'

Bullingdon Club initiation ceremony claim: New members of David Cameron's old club 'burn £50 note in front of beggar'

 

 

A friend of one of the exclusive club’s super-wealthy members revealed the sick prank to an Oxford student newspaper

 

Ex-member: David Cameron



New members of David Cameron’s old Bullingdon Club have to burn a £50 note in front of a beggar as part of an “initiation ceremony”, it has been claimed.

A friend of one of the exclusive club’s super-wealthy members revealed the sick prank to an Oxford student newspaper.

It was immediately condemned last night by Labour MP Ian Mearns.

He said: “This kind of thing takes us back to the loads-of-money days under the last Tory government.

“Then it wasn’t just about having cash – you had to rub it in the faces of those who didn’t. It’s distasteful and disgusting.”

The Bullingdon revelations came as figures showed a rise in those sleeping rough.

One night in autumn last year councils found 2,309 out on the streets compared to 2,181 in 2011.

The boozy Bullingdon club is infamous for trashing Oxford restaurants and its other former members include Chancellor George Osborne and London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Earlier this month a Bullingdon member is alleged to have set off fireworks in a club.

MIRROR

Why are more middle-aged men turning to suicide?

This Guardian Video sensitively looks at the issue of suicide as National Statistics suggest that the number of middle-aged men killing themselves is rising with the marked increase of unemployment and financial problems.

Why are more middle-aged men turning to suicide?

Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest that the number of middle-aged men killing themselves is rising.

The number of suicides among women has fallen over the past 30 years, but the figure for men has not dropped at the same rate.

Men in the 30 - 45 age bracket are most likely to turn to suicide, but since 2007 there has been an marked increase in the number of men in the 45 - 55 age group who are taking their own lives, and unlike other groups this has not dropped since.

What is causing this and what can be done to tackle it?

Tim Samuels reports for BBC Newsnight.

If you, or someone you know, has been affected by the issues raised in this report on suicide, click here to find details of organisations that can help.

Source; Guardian

Unum bragged about ‘driving government thinking’ on incapacity benefit reform

An insurance company set to make huge financial gains from incapacity benefit (IB) reform bragged about “driving” the government towards those reforms, evidence obtained by Disability News Service (DNS) has revealed.

The US insurance giant Unum has repeatedly denied attempting to influence IB reform over the last two decades, despite mounting evidence that it has done so.

Unum is the largest provider of “income protection insurance” (IPI) in the UK, and tougher welfare rules – including replacing incapacity benefit with employment and support allowance (ESA) – are likely to persuade more people to take out IPI, boosting the company’s profits.

Unum even launched a major media campaign in 2011 just as the coalition began a three-year programme to reassess about 1.5 million existing IB claimants through the new, stricter test, the work capability assessment (WCA).

Now DNS has secured a copy of a Unum document on the assessment of “incapacity”, which was published in 2005.

The document was written by Michael O’Donnell, then the company’s chief medical officer and now in the same role at Atos Healthcare, which carries out WCAs on behalf of the government.
O’Donnell says in the document that Unum has “always been at the leading edge of disability assessment and management”.

He adds: “We know that our views and understanding are not yet in the mainstream of doctors’ thinking, but Government Policy is moving in the same direction, to a large extent being driven by our thinking and that of our close associates, both in the UK and overseas.”

Unum has admitted there has been widespread criticism of its past actions in the US, mainly over its refusal to pay out on large numbers of genuine insurance claims by disabled people, a record mentioned in last month’s Commons debate on Atos and the WCA.

But Unum has also faced criticism in the UK. In a parliamentary debate in 1999, MPs accused the company of refusing to pay out on valid insurance claims from disabled people who had lost their jobs due to ill-health or disability.

Unum continues to dismiss claims that it pushed the government to introduce the ESA/WCA system.

In 2011, John Letizia, Unum’s head of public affairs, told Disability News Service (DNS): “At no time have we influenced the government on the design of the reforms to the welfare state or on the level of benefits that claimants receive.”

And in the same year, at the Conservative Party conference, Unum’s chief executive, Jack McGarry, said: “We haven’t tried to influence the welfare agenda around reducing welfare or making it harder to claim. To my knowledge we have not done that.”

This week, Letizia told DNS again that Unum had not attempted to influence the government’s welfare reform agenda.

He said: “We will never ever deny that there were discussions between Unum and the previous government and there continue to be [with the coalition].”

But he added: “In all the discussions going back over the last five years on welfare reform Unum made absolutely no attempt to influence government policy on the welfare debate, on the ESA or WCA or personal independence payment or disability living allowance, in setting the government agenda.”

After DNS shared the document with Letizia, he declined to comment further.

Mo Stewart, the disabled activist who has done most to highlight concerns about Unum, said the new evidence was “very significant”, and called for an independent inquiry into the role of the company in influencing UK welfare reform, particularly when it had such a “disturbing past history”.

She said: “This entire situation confirms the dangers of a government that confuses its priorities, and places the welfare budget as a much higher priority than the needs of its own chronically sick and disabled people.”

She added: “The WCA is a replica of the assessment system used by Unum to resist funding insurance claimants.

“It is a bogus, dangerous assessment and, with this evidence, it is now time that this DWP medical tyranny was ended.”

A DWP spokesman said: “The WCA was designed from the outset with the involvement of a wide range of experts and disability representative groups and has been subject to rigorous independent review.”

14 February 2013

Disability News Service

Bedroom Tax really is David Cameron's Poll Tax moment

An ICM poll in May 1990 showed that 22% of voters backed the Poll Tax (here). This weekend, a poll from ComRes showed that 28% of voters want David Cameron to push on with the Bedroom Tax (here). It is also worth noting that Tory strength in the opinion polls was 32% in mid 1990, and is in and around the same figure today. 

Those most opposed to the Bedroom Tax are Scottish voters, and voters from the North of England. This echoes the Poll Tax period that saw Scotland lead the resistance. Voters most opposed the Bedroom Tax are Plaid Cymru voters, SNP voters and Labour Party voters in that order. But it is worth noting that not even a majority of Tory voters want Cameron to push ahead with the Bedroom Tax. More than 80% of Tory voters think it is wrong that households that have soldiers fighting for their country in Afghanistan should be lumbered with the £1,300 tax. 

There are some differences between the two periods needless to say. Opinion was more firmly set against the Poll Tax with a lower percentage of "don't knows". The unfairness of the Poll Tax was felt by many more people than will lose out under the Bedroom Tax. For the Bedroom Tax protests to remain containable, David Cameron will be hoping that those unaffected by the Bedroom Tax, stand by the sidelines while their neighbour suffers. If ever there was a time that the Tory Party desperately needed the saying "There is no such thing as society" to be true, then that time is surely now.

We in Labour Left will be holding more than 30 Bedroom Tax Protests nationwide on the 16 March. Further demonstrations are earmarked for the 30 March by the Anti-Bedroom Tax campaign. We are calling on David Cameron to delay this Bedroom Tax by at least 1 year, so that its impact on the disabled, single parents, non-resident parents, pensioners, soldiers and carers can be properly thought through. 

The Green Benches

Tories drawn curtains demonisation: their inspiration? [Video]

Seems this is what inspired the Tories to demonise and divide the public?  And their inspiration for conscripting the poor into unpaid forced labour schemes?

PCS Union: Workfare a stain on welfare state

Standing up for the poor and vulnerable: Day Four at TUC Congress

A vigorous defence of the welfare state was spearheaded by PCS to open the final day of proceedings at the 2012 TUC Congress.

Since the coalition government came into power in May 2010 there has been a clear rise in the levels of deprivation. New inequalities are having a destructive impact upon the lives of vulnerable people and services are becoming ever more fragmented, leading to wide variations in access across the UK.

Around £30billion of welfare cuts have been announced by the government, coupled with a sinister vilification by this government and right-wing tabloids to denigrate the welfare state and to demonise those without work, or unable to work, and young people, migrants and the disabled.

Proposing composite Motion 8 - which includes reiterating the principles of fair and equal pay, condemns ‘workfare’ policies and re-instating services necessary to support vulnerable groups – PCS president Janice Godrich said: “We face a government firmly in the interests of the richest 1% of society. It tells us that the welfare state is unaffordable but has already found the money to cut the top rate of income tax from 50% to 45% and to cut corporation tax from 28% to 24%.

“Cameron and Osborne are taking money from the disabled, the unemployed, lone parents and those struggling to pay rent to give to the super rich. But it’s not just this perverse re-distribution we should be concerned about, what we see is the see is the vilification and bullying of anyone on benefits. We see this with the work capability assessments carried out by Atos, the private I.T. company paid £100million a year to carry out these tests formerly performed by public sector workers. We know these tests are deeply flawed because disabled people tell us they are and the British Medical Association has called for them to be scrapped.

“Unemployed people are being bullied as well. The workfare schemes are a disgraceful stain on the welfare state our movement created. A society which refuses to support its most vulnerable has lost the right to call itself a civilised society.”

The motion was unanimously carried.

12 September 2012
Public and Commercial Services Union

Find out more about the PCS alternative to the cuts

Suicide training in Job Centres? Cancer patients scrubbing floors? Welcome to Cameron’s Brave New World

By Sonia Poulton
UPDATED: 17:19, 6 March 2012

So, the Welfare Reform Bill - the part that refers to sick and disabled people - limped bruised and bloodied over the finishing line in Parliament last week. The various acts of treachery and betrayal it contained making its final journey into law once it has been granted the Queen's royal assent.

 
It was inevitable, really, and disability campaigners who, for the past two years, have fought feverishly, and quite literally at times from their sickbeds, to oppose it, resigned themselves to the fact that nothing short of a Biblical-type miracle would reverse their fate.

 
However, it is only now that the full implications of what these reforms - or brutal acts of savagery as I prefer to call them - will actually mean to millions of seriously vulnerable people in our country. And it is an ugly realisation.

 
This is how I see it. In the life of most every politician there is one, or several, events that mark out their ‘D’Oh moment. This is not based on severity but on a feeling it should not have happened at all.

Brave New World? David and Samantha Cameron themselves claimed Disability Living Allowance for their child

For examples: Nixon - Watergate. Kennedy - Marilyn. Major - Edwina Currie. Tony Blair - Iraq. You get my point?

 
Well here’s my ‘D’oh moment prediction for David Cameron. He will be remembered as the Prime Minister - without a mandate, remember - who attacked the sick and disabled of our country with a vehemence beyond human comprehension. And when you think that he had a disabled son who tragically passed two years ago, well, then, it beggars belief even more so.
So, to bring the story up to speed.

 
Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair’s Governments set the blueprint of the welfare reforms that David Cameron has just forced through Parliament. And when I say forced I mean the type that requires extraordinary levels of subterfuge and manipulation to shoehorn into place.

 
He ignored panels and focus groups, charities and campaigners and he overturned the Lords' by invoking an archaic law of “financial privilege”, which allows the Commons the last say on money matters.

Such was his unstoppable zeal to push through reforms - contrary to all advice, personal and professional - that you had to wonder if it was a psychological issue driving him on.

Talk to any disabled or sick person right now and there is a word that crops up more than any other, a running thread central to what they are feeling. It is this: fear

Perhaps denied grief at the death of his disabled son. Bereavement affects us on an individual basis and there is no guarantee that it will manifest in logical ways.

 
So these cuts will now become law and, as a nation weeps, the details are sorrowful when applied to reality.

 
Here's an example. Any disabled or sick person who has been given more than six months to live - and is unable to financially support themselves - will be sent out to work. If they refuse, or back out of a scheme, then they will be subject to benefit sanctions.

 
This, it must be noted, is extraordinarily punishing towards disabled people when we consider how DWP boss, Chris Grayling, treats others involved in 'Workfare' type arrangements.

 
Consider, if you will, how he was forced to back-track last week following pressure from campaigners and businesses.  After a summit designed to get more businesses on board the Workfare bus, he announced that he would remove the threat of benefit sanctions for unemployed young people on job seeker allowance who drop out of the scheme.

 
Wow. In what world can young, fit people be given protection that we deny our most vulnerable? That's more suited to an Aldous Huxley script than real life.

 

Next up in the reforms will be an increase in multiple testing of patients, including those with Alzheimer's and Multiple Sclerosis, to see if they are fit for work. They will be tested repeatedly. It will cost a great deal of money to administer and it will wear already sick people to a pulp.

And as for children who dare to be born disabled, well that assistance previously available to them has been wiped out in Cameron's Armageddon on the poor. 

 
Sue Marsh, one of the co-authors of 'Responsible Reform - The Spartacus Report' - which launched a worthy counter-attack to the Coalition's WRB measures said: "We begged for £11 Million to protect profoundly disabled children into adulthood, but nuh-huh."

 
And yet we, as a nation, manage to find millions of pounds to pay Cameron's army of advisers and assessors including the allegedly fraudulent activities of back-to-work company A4E which was set up by the Coalition's 'families czar' Emma Harrison.

 
Could we consider this? If this is really a cost-cutting exercise to fill the billion pound deficit, when is the Coalition going to start from within? The DWP spend over 25 thousand pounds per month on travel, hotels and stationery - surely there is something that could be curbed there rather than taking 20% from disability which, according to their own figures, only has 0.5% of fraud.

 
I'm writing this and I'm struggling to believe it at the same time, which is quite a conflict.

 
With all this insistence of paid employment for the terminally ill (despite the fact that we have almost 3million unemployed) it is no wonder that job centres, up and down the land, have been issued with details on how to handle suicides in their establishments. Something, apparently, they are anticipating rather more of since the WRB was voted in.

 
I think the expression ‘you couldn’t make this up’ is appropriate here.

 
Perhaps the aim is to finish off the sick and disabled sooner rather than later. Well that way, at least, you get to save on the medical bills of our increasingly privatised National Health Service.

 
After all, what use are such people to our society?

There is a notion, false obviously, that disabled and sick people make no contribution and only ‘drain’ the system. What short-sightedness. Such a statement assumes that only paid work has social value.

Legacy: Will Cameron be remembered as the PM who attacked the sick and disabled of our country with a vehemence?

What about other contributions including volunteer work - from charity shops to hospitals and schools? These roles are frequently staffed by disabled people, too.

 
Ironically, a number of disabled people will now be removed from such vital community roles and placed in a Workfare scheme - free labour to private businesses - so that they may mop floors, wash dishes or clean toilets. Ain't life grand?

 
Disabled people, like the majority of people, want to work but they also have to take account of how their illness or disability will affect their working life. Unlike the able-bodied and healthy, they do not know which turn their well-being will take when they wake in the morning. Whether they will be able to physically climb out of bed much less make it to the factory floor.

 
People on disability benefit are not living it up. If only. According to the group Family Action, some families survive on less than two pounds per day. Quite a contrast when you compare it to the Peers in the Lords who receive 300 a day just to show up and then get to enjoy smoked salmon in the tax-payer subsidised cafeteria (cost to the taxpayer is a mere 1.44million a year. bargain). Oh how the other half live.

 
So where will disabled and sick have to turn to now in their greatest hour of need? Well they can forget the Social Fund because that was viciously axed in these reforms, too.

 
For millions of people, a Social Fund loan - yes it was repayable, it wasn't a gift - was the difference between sleeping on a bed or a floor. The MP's who voted to banish this have no understanding of such destitution and poverty. Not while they are able to subsidise the purchase of their country mansions with their parliamentary expenses.

 

There are those who openly mock the disabled: Ricky Gervais's 'mong' comment says more about him than anything else

People are already impoverished and it is certain to get worse. I read one online disability forum where a woman with breast cancer and liver disease didn't know where she was going to get the ten pound needed for travel to hospital for an appointment.

 
Unlike David and Samantha Cameron, who claimed Disability Living Allowance for their child - and absolutely did not need to - many disabled now must adjust to seriously reduced circumstances since Cameron attacked DLA in the reforms and will replace with the patently detrimental Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

 
The transfer from DLA to PIP will remove help from 25% of those in receipt of the benefit now, despite the fact that this is a benefit that helps some disabled people to stay in work.
And therein lies much of the problem with these reforms. They lack joined-up thinking. They don't appear to have been thought through to a satisfactory end.

 
Take for example the perception within the Coalition, the DWP and the care services that everyone has a spouse and family to fall back on but that is not the reality for many people.
As a consequence of these cuts, more disabled people will find themselves in bedsits, or hostels or on the streets. There is a significant proportion of people with mental health issues and learning difficulties who find themselves in this situation already and it is certain to increase.

 
Well then perhaps it's time to resurrect another part of our history - seeing as David Cameron is clearly following a Dickensian blueprint for our poor - the workhouse.  Yes, that testament to our proud, class-conscious society.

 
Talk to any disabled or sick person right now and there is a word that crops up more than any other, a running thread central to what they are feeling. It is this: fear.

 
Fear of losing their homes when they no longer have DLA to top up their Housing Benefit shortfall where, thanks to the previous Conservative Government, private rents are uncapped and extortionate. Fear of losing their carer because there will be no allowance for them. Fear of being bed-ridden for the lack of anyone to lend support. Fear of losing ramps and assistance to get in and out of the house. Cold fear that this feeling of being unwanted and excluded from society is how it is going to be for the rest of their days.

With all this insistence of paid employment for the terminally ill it is no wonder that job centers, up and down the land, have been issued with details on how to handle suicides in their establishments.

In internet circles, where many disabled campaigners congregate, names are bandied around of those who have committed suicide through fear of going cold and hungry and feeling that they are increasingly a burden to society.

 
At the last count there were some 103 names linked to such suicides and I have actually heard people say that they would consider suicide as a way out of this constant state of anxiety and despair.

 
What alarms me is how this dispassion towards people with disabilities appears to be spreading from the Coalition down.

 
There are commentators who openly deride disabled people (Rod Liddle's ill-informed and hate-inciting rhetoric - a type of drunk-sick on paper - in a tabloid was one, but he's not alone). There are also comedians who mock disability. Ricky Gervais' 'mong' impersonation surely says more about him than it does about anyone else (although to be fair, Ricky has since claimed this to be naivety and that he was unaware that the term was still used to describe disability).

 
There is also, according to recent figures, a 40 per cent increase in disabled attacks in the past year alone.  Hardly wonder when the general public are constantly being goaded with the idea that we are 'mugs for supporting scroungers'. Talk like that tends to breed resentment.
And then there's this. An occurrence that should serve to alarm us all.

 
The British Medical Journal published a paper from Oxford University don Francesca Minerva, a philosopher and medical ethicist, who argued that doctors should have the right to kill newborn babies including those born with disabilities because, according to Minerva, a young baby is not a real person and so killing it in the first days after birth is little different to aborting it in the womb.

But here's what gives me hope. Ever since last week's rubber stamping of the Welfare Reform Bill, disability campaigners have begun a serious fightback and are preparing, like an army, to overcome this wickedness that has been wrought on them.  Information is being compiled and exchanged, despite ill-health and disability I have never witnessed such a bank of people determined to overcome the odds piled on them.

 
Let us not forget, and despite the mainstream media's best efforts to convince us otherwise, this is not about the neighbor with the apparent bad back who plays golf at weekends (who can also be genuinely disabled but even disabilities allow for better days when activity can increase), but about some of the most horrendous acts against truly vulnerable people.

 
This may not affect you. Perhaps your parents, or yourself even, have a sufficient financial cushion not to worry about that. What an enviable position to be in.

 
But what about those less fortunate?

 
I believe - and I’ve 47 years of a colourful life to base this judgement on - that the UK is comprised of essentially decent people. Citizens who care enough to see beyond their own selfish existence.

 
The people I know don’t want to be - and neither are they - the type of people who turn their backs when the going gets tough. They actually seek a more compassionate life on earth where we are prepared to support and contribute to each others lives.

 
In is unconscionable that these disability reforms have been allowed to happen. To be fair, we all knew it was a Conservative agenda, but a Liberal one as well? Goodness how Nick Clegg can ever recover from this I do not know. My imagination is not that good.

 
So the Welfare Reform Bill, after decades in the making, has finally come to pass. Oh, how proud are we as a nation? We did it. Gave those sick and crippled unfortunates a good old kicking. Let’s give ourselves a collective pat on the back for allowing this to proceed. Makes you proud to be British, doesn't it?

More from Sonia Poulton...

•   The Paralympics celebrate the strength of disabled people – as do all the protests that accompany them 30/08/12
•   Empathise with 'outsider' Julian Assange if you want, Mr Galloway, but don’t diminish sexual assault while doing it 22/08/12
•   So much is wrong about London 2012, but I would never criticise the stars of the show 09/08/12
•   Will Ed Miliband stand up for the disabled against distressing and unreliable work capability tests? 02/08/12
•   Clare's Law is designed to protect men and women from violent exes – but it wouldn't have saved me 17/07/12
•   Yes, Prime Minister, London 2012 will generate billions in profit. But for business, not people 12/07/12
•   With supermarkets donating food to poor families and soup kitchens, has Britain returned to the 1930s? 03/07/12
•   Is the BMA misguided to vote in favour of neutral counselling for women considering abortion? 28/06/12
•   Fathers worried about their daughters' future should take more responsibility for raising them in the first place 15/06/12
•   VIEW FULL ARCHIVE

Sonia Poulton

This is not wartime Nazi Germany and Cameron's attacks on the vulnerable and needy must be stopped [Sonia Poulton]

Dastardly: Sonia Poulton says David Cameron and the Coalition Government has surpassed itself in its campaign of terror against some of the most needy in our society

I'm unwell at the moment. I have a streaming nose, high temperature, cold shakes and low blood pressure. I get light headed when I stand and I have fallen over a couple of times this week. What I am experiencing has made me a bit miserable and snappy (sorry loved ones), not to mention bruised and sore from head to foot, but it's not life-threatening, not terminal. Unlike what many others are enduring.


I reveal my current state of health not because I wish to elicit sympathy (or even garner a gift or two, but either is always nice) but because I wish to highlight that even though I am physically poorly, I still felt compelled to rise from my sickbed and write.


Why? Because over the past week or so I have sat back and watched our Coalition Government surpass itself in its campaign of terror against some of the most needy in our society.

There we were thinking it impossible that David Cameron's Tory party could become even more dastardly, even more duplicitous, in their devastating aims against those in vulnerable groups - sick, disabled, single parent families and the elderly - but they have.

Take their next much-vaunted initiative - the Workfare programme. Controversial certainly - who can forget the graduate who declined to work at Poundland as part of the scheme? She who was reviled and martyred, depending on your political persuasion, reading pleasure and sense of justice, for refusing to work at the budget chain store so that she would continue to receive 'benefits' as she searched for the job she had studied and qualified for.


I agreed with her. I deplore the Workfare programme for many reasons but primarily because it is deplorable. Trumpeted as a programme that will give the unemployed key skills, it serves nothing of the sort.


What it is, in actuality, is a benefit system for sections of our work force. And there was I, foolishly, thinking that when you are part of the capitalist work force then the appropriate term for remuneration received is salary. Apparently not. These days, and under Cameron's stewardship, we receive 'benefits' to become part of the job market.

Controversial: The Government's Workfare programme has been trumpeted as a scheme that will give the unemployed key skills

Fair? Tesco is one of the firms set to benefit from the Workfare programme

Let me be clear. There is nothing wrong with getting hands-on experience that will enable progression in your chosen path, and we've all done plenty of that, but there is everything wrong with being forced to work in a place that has nothing to do with your aims and ambitions and everything to do with creating a labour force that verges on slavery to the system.


Astonishingly, the deplorable - I think I mentioned that already - Workfare has reached new lows this week as it became transparently clear that it also serves to line the overflowing coffers of wealthy corporations while making the already poor, poorer still.
The thing about Cameron's Workfare programme is it's almost too easy to criticise.

The problem is not knowing where to start but wondering if I shall ever finish.

 

Presumably Tesco's slogan 'Every little helps' (the shareholder) is a similar mantra to the Coalition's 'We're all in this together' (politicians and bankers, that is). In that it benefits the few and not the many.

 

So I ask just this: how can it possibly be right for a multi-national - such as Tesco - to benefit from free labour?


That's wrong. Clearly. If staff are needed by our numero uno retailer then Tesco should have an absolute obligation to pay them the going rate. And not a penny less.


Presumably the company's slogan 'Every little helps' (the shareholder) is a similar mantra to the Coalition's 'We're all in this together' (politicians and bankers, that is). In that it benefits the few and not the many.


What Tesco, and other participants in the Workfare scheme, receive is far greater than what they give.


We, as the country, are, quite literally, paying the consumer giant to make even more money. And we are doing that by having our taxpayer funded job seekers work free for the company.


Does that sound right? It might if your view of life is from Downing Street, but it's not from elsewhere.


You have to wonder how many MP's have fat wads of shares at stake in the Workfare scheme. I know I do. It may not be illegal for them to benefit from increased corporate share prices that Government initiatives may bring them personally, but it sure is highly questionable.

Disability benefits

And this brings me to what I consider to be the most heinous of the Coalition's attacks this week and the one that finally prompted me from my sickbed.


As a result of Cameron's spurious recent behaviour in pushing through crippling, quite literally for some, amendments to disability benefits, it has become clear that the attached issues are even more heinous that the blueprint of the Welfare Reform Bill, itself.


And it is this: disabled people will now face the prospect of unlimited unpaid work or they will be subject to cuts in their benefits. For millions that is nothing more than a line on a page but for many terrified and suicidal others, it is anything but.

Unfair: Under new rules disabled people now face the prospect of unlimited unpaid work or be subject to cuts in their benefit

Even from the outside - in that neither I or my daughter currently require disability or sickness benefits, thankfully - it is clear that this will result in a deeply troubling outcome for those directly affected.


The consequences of this cannot be overstated. It will be, quite simply, devastating. As a number of institutes have not been slow in expressing their very real concerns.


The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) have written to the Coalition outlining the dangers of forcing sick and disabled people into the job market (the one that currently stands at almost three million unemployed by the way).


The RCP have a number of fears about the inadequacies of such a system. They worry, quite rightly, that managers in job centres and private companies - whose job it is to get people back to work - have inadequate health expertise and will push those with mental health issues into inappropriate placements.


Forcing people who have more than six months left to live - yes it is that stark, again - to earn a living is an outrage on a previously unseen scale.


Even I'm shocked by the ruthlessness of it and I wouldn't put anything past this compassion-free zone that is Parliament.

Cultural observers could not fail to notice similarities between what is taking place here and what occurred in Hitler's Germany

If nothing else the Coalition are proving themselves, over and over again, to be worthy defenders of the rich. If you're in the top percentage of income earners in this country then you, too, should be OK. I'm talking about the CEO, the landowners and shareholders. The banking industry, the pharmaceutical giants, the retail multi-nationals.


It's no great secret that one of the main reasons that MP's take care of business is because so many of them have financial interests in the businesses that they do business with. They are protecting their own interests while governing over the rest of us and insisting we do the same.


Morals aside, and I feel we must put them aside when referring to many, many politicians - and particularly much of the current shower in power - you can't really blame them for protecting their assets. They know which side their bread is buttered, or that of their colleagues, and they never fail to deliver or to resort to type in that regard.
Some people have written to me complaining that I get too angry when I write about our Government. But I AM angry. I believe we all should be outraged and I'm shouting because I want people to hear it.


Let us make no mistake what we are witnessing from our Coalition Government is absolutely, unquestionably, categorically scandalous.


The ritual humiliation, brutalisation, threats and punishment of anyone who is considered 'a burden to the state'. Anyone who is less than perfect, anyone who dares to find themselves in a position where they need the state to support them. Those people are the subject of shocking and terrifying behaviour at the hands of David Cameron's Coalition.


Cultural observers could not fail to notice the similiarites between what is taking place here towards sick, disabled, elderly or any group perceived to be vulnerable and weak and what occurred in Hitler's Germany.


This may not be ethnic cleansing that we are witnessing - and some are already experiencing - but it's a type of cleansing all the same.


There are hundreds of thousands of people around our country right now who are absolutely petrified for their future. It appears so hopeless. There have already been a number of suicides from people who left behind messages to the effect that they simply could not take the hardship any more. Could not face another winter without sufficient food or heat. And in the UK in 2012. Doesn't it make you proud?


Some of the actions that are being carried out around our great country - and it's still great no matter what the idiots trying to make it's not say - are an absolute living outrage and we cannot condone it in any way shape or form.


This Coalition have long since crossed the line of decency. Their attacks on those who need our help the most are vile, and transparently so, and must be stopped. Else we all live to regret it.
Sonia Poulton