They Call Him Gaunty

Jon Gaunt (an ironic surname given his appearance) appears yet again on the current incarnation of BBC’s Sunday morning anaemic hot air balloon, Sunday Morning Live (the only three words with any veracity involved). This man angers me to a level beyond any of his ghastly contemporaries. These people (it was David Vance last week) seem to occupy a special place in the BBC booking team’s little black book.

Somehow they managed to squeeze him into a chair, but that never stops him leaking out to bear down on whoever has the misfortune of sitting next to him. It’s like watching a loaf of bread rise in an oven, except instead of dough you have ignorance and hate. The reason he angers me most is his boorish discussion tactic of shouting down anyone who dares to disagree with him, while claiming to represent the ‘ordinary working people’, and of huffing and sighing under anyone else if they do manage to get more than a couple of words in.

Every single interview or debate in which he participates ends up like this. Yet they still invite him on. It is clear then, from the moribund nature of these programmes and BBC ‘debate’ in general, that the BBC isn’t interested in any real progression of ideas and simply serves as an echo chamber for ‘controversial’ discussion – more often than not at the expense of the proles. It is an elitist organisation where media snobs use ‘robuist’ contributors as cattleprods to wind up the poor. It is a real shame that public money is wasted in this way as a tiny minority of their output is worthwhile; they ought to stick to the science and nature stuff. But even that is marketed to the chattering classes.

If you give ‘Gaunty’ (because adding a y to the end of your surname makes you one of the lads!) enough rope, metaphorically speaking, he enthusiastically hangs himself. He gets lost in his own bluster and ends up in hypocrisy or even, as he found out during this infamous interview, breaks the rules. It seems that freedom of speech comes with responsibilities; who knew eh Gaunty!

Despite losing his job there, he ended up hitting what might be described as the motherlode. As if TalkSport wasn’t bad enough, the Sun itself briefly had a radio station. God knows what kind of cesspit that must have been if the movitation to create it was that TalkSport wasn’t ‘working class’ enough. Hilariously it was broadcast to the expat community in Spain! You can imagine the tick like old wrinklies decrying the state of Britain while living in their eggs and bacon enclaves afraid to integrate and moaning about the heat. Sun Talk indeed.

I used to listen to TalkSport, even after Talk Radio, the original station, was rebranded by Kelvin MacKenzie, turning it into the arse end of the daily redtops. Even then I was ignorant and kept listening as the actual current affairs (ie non sport) discussions were marginalised in favour of almost wall to wall football banter. I kept listening to daily outrages over predictable right wing hot button 'stories'; somewhere a British Legion hospital was to be demolished in favour of a statute called Mohammed depicting a black lesbian giving birth to a puppy. The usual garbled nonsense were expats, retired curtain twitchers and people too angry or insane for 5 Live would be welcome to comment. In the end I woke up.

Best of all though, Gaunty’s not done yet: he’s just joined UKiP to stand, I gather, as a major candidate in the West Midlands. I guess that's democracy in Farage Farage Land: where all it takes is some media notoriety and instantly, upon joining the party, you get a well paid top job. What does that represent Jon? Is that how things work in your view of the 'working class'? I wonder how long it will be before he and they come to blows; both entities have a track record for bluster and tactless broadcasting. I bet there's only room for one Godfrey Bloom level bigot (or perhaps he regenerated like the Doctor into Guanty - "ooh teeth, no, FUCK I'M FAT!"). The irony of a UKip member calling someone a nazi pig. He's only joined because he got his arse handed to him by the high courts (the very courts he's complained about constantly) when he whined to them about being sacked.

Somewhere a dark circle has been made complete… I can smell the sulphur now. Talking to Gaunt is, I imagine, like having a conversation with the sweatiest, hairiest, skankiest builder’s arse crack going. Enjoy that stench of weak tea and shit wafting on a breeze of bigotry and working class scandal.

Unemployment and the Work Ethic

A few weeks ago BBC Bristol reported the latest regional unemployment figures. Just under 18,000 people were recorded as claiming JSA with a drop of just under 400 people. The difference in the two figures is quite staggering and clearly shows that, despite the propaganda, unemployment is still massive.

If 16,000 people in the Bristol area are still out of work what chance does any one of them have – and that’s only the people registered as claiming JSA. The figures went no further into detail: no breakdown of what those 400 people are now doing, or even if they are in sustained work. They could be on some training scheme (workfare, for example), they could be signed off altogether, they could be sick/claiming ESA, they could well be in work – but that too raises questions. What type of work? Is it zero hours? Are they underemployed? Are they even still there?

Yet this is hailed, predictably and lamentably, as good news. The complete lack of any real explanation or evidence of the numbers is ignored entirely. It is assumed these people are all legitimately occupied elsewhere. It is not queried as to whether they will remain or return to claiming JSA, which itself assumes they have moved into adequate self sufficiency.

How are we meant to take any of this seriously? This will be used as further evidence of the efficacy of current policy. The Work Programme will, for example, be lauded as key to this miserly drop in the number claiming. Ironically, given the sanction regime, that might be true – though for the wrong reasons of course.

This was preceded by a ‘discussion’ about young people (representing the ‘spectre’ of unemployment) and the work ethic. That is: do they have a ‘work ethic’. Let’s get this out of the way: the work ethic is a social construct born of religion, in particular Christianity (as we live in a society rooted in it); the idea of ‘work hard now and ye will be rewarded in the lord’s kingdom later’. This underpins all discussion of work and what work should be; shutting down any other alternative or approach. Ironically those that champion this also lambaste socialism and yet there is something quite ‘socialist’ (in that Stalinist sense capitalists and libertarians view socialism) about the idea of the work ethic: a great social leveller.

It’s a license for division. For people who have jobs, and thus believe they have a work ethic (just because they have jobs), it’s an excuse to chip away at those lower on the social ladder than they, particularly those out of work. This is rubbish of course. Plenty of people in work are lazy or lacking in integrity, look at Duncan Smith! While plenty of people who aren’t paid work because they believe in the value of what they do beyond mere prostitution: the act of selling oneself in the capitalist labour market. I, for one, pursue my interests because they matter to me. I get no money from them, though I’d like to (only because we need money, I should add). Does that not suggest I have a better work ethic? Of course not, it’s about control, not about strength of character.

People are motivated to do things because they enjoy doing them, and/or because they see the value in doing so. I wash the dishes because I see the value in eating of clean plates. I certainly don’t enjoy it and it’s not a job I do for money. Isn’t that how it should be in society? If you have to bully me into work then something has gone wrong, that you most likely want to pay me as little as you are legally allowed tells me that you don’t really share the ‘work ethic’.

The problem is the working environment is being controlled by the likes of the CBI who can moan about kids leaving school unqualified as a means to foist the responsibility of training onto the education sector. So instead of having a rounded education inspiring a thirst for knowledge, for it’s own sake, we have Tesco running schools teaching McGCSE’s while moaning about how they’ve been dumbed down. This is the recipe for a brain drain.

Then they complain about CV’s – kids need experience, they say, something to put on the CV. But again that’s only required because these people say so. This experience means nothing, especially when your contemporaries are in the same position and thus have the same experience. It’s self defeating – though not for big business who gets cheap and free labour.

What is happening, under the guise of the work ethic and this nonsense about work experience, is exploitation. How much experience do people need to interact with people? These are not candidates for highly specialised, technical or expert roles. They are at best entry level positions, the sort given over by cheapskate gangmaster bosses to people from abroad. Why else is Poundland staffed by eastern European girls?

 

Edinburgh City Council vs The Poor

I read in the ‘I’ newspaper, yesterday, that Edinburgh City Council plans not to allow discretionary housing payments on the grounds of lifestyle choice. Essentially people who, on their application, say they smoke/drink or watch Sky TV (all the usual red flags) will be refused. DHP’s are the government’s sop to people adversely affected by the bedroom tax.  

Now quite why people would choose to admit to these things (though they aren’t illegal so why shouldn’t they, you might think) is another matter. Let us assume that somehow the council have the means to find out and that the forms you have to fill in warn that withholding information or lying is a crime (the usual thought police bollocks).

Obviously this is a ridiculous standard to set, particularly coming from a Labour council. They see fit to whine they have no choice and play the card Labour has been playing for the last year or two; when faced with tough choices they come down on the side of the policy and then claim their hands were tied. This is obscene scapegoating from people that should know better. We expect this of the Tories, not of the Labour party – or at least we didn’t used to.

However the real issue here is that these are lifestyle choices being judged in the present in a situation upon which they have no bearing. For example, someone could have paid for a Sky contract while in work, then been made redundant, and then hit with the bedroom tax. Do they deserve to be judged as living a feckless lifestyle? Upon what grounds; they paid for their Sky TV. They won’t get it refunded!

What about someone that smokes? You’ll note this approach, so typical of the moment, goes no way toward helping people give up smoking. Instead it just decides they should be punished for a lifestyle that they may well have been able to afford (bedroom tax victims aren’t all unemployed) that isn’t illegal. Instead they are told, when faced with an impossible situation (many people who wind up in arrears through the bedroom tax will not be able to move anyway because they are in arrears), to make do.

Why are we punishing people like this? What are they meant to do? Starve? Live on the streets? For the sake of a few quid to help them live in the wake of a ludicrous impossible policy they are being judged arbitrarily – probably by people that smoke, drink, or watch Sky TV and paid for out of the public purse.

The CAB, You Seek the CAB!

Yesterday (all my troubles…) was my appointment with a specialist at the local CAB to get help appealing my ESA claim. She was very helpful and, if other advisers are like this, I recommend everyone in this situation get themselves down to the CAB. This is a real eye opener into the bullshit involved in this entire process.

I had already been contacted by the DWP about the initial stage of the appeal, which, predictably, I failed. This was last week, and it sent me into a spin – how do I proceed? Is my money stopped? I’ve been told that isn’t the case (we shall find out tomorrow) and simply the appeal then gets automatically sent to the tribunal department for the final hearing. You can choose not to have them decide your case in person, though doing so is a mistake since you are all but guaranteed to fail.

The adviser commented that it was extremely unusual for this first stage of the appeal to have been resolved so quickly. What is happening, I’m told, is that because the office is so swamped they are sending caseloads elsewhere; Lowestoft in this case. What then happens is they rush through the cases, give them a cursory read through and make a decision. Instead of cases taking months, mine took weeks. There are people, I'm told, that have waited six months just to get past the first appeal stage and yet they rushed through mine in six weeks – not enough time to even get an appointment with the CAB and gather evidence.

I suppose the DWP would argue that one should have all the evidence needed immediately. If not then, well, tough shit for you. Already the cracks start to appear. I very much doubt you could appeal for more time with them. I can’t decide whether it’s best to resolve all this sooner or later; the notion of attending a tribunal does not inspire me with confidence – which, ironically, may well be something in my favour.

So the offices dealing with claims and processing appeals are overwhelmed, if local experience is any indication. All they have achieved, in palming people off to be fast tracked elsewhere, is increasing the strain on the tribunal department. I’m told they are using another, more local (ironically) venue to hear these. How long (or not) that will take is anyone’s guess. I posted the tribunal paperwork off yesterday after the CAB adviser ticked the right boxes so I could hear next week, next month or next year. Their letter to me said 8-12 weeks before you hear a date, which is then meant to be a couple of weeks on from that. This whole thing is a mess and isn’t conducive to a calm state of mental repose.

The process of getting help with an appeal is very enlightening. It consists of the CAB presenting you with the full list of descriptors and what they specifically ask in order to score the points listed. This information won't be in the assessment report. In fact the adviser for my ESA appeal at the CAB conducted more of an actual assessment than ATOS. She went through the descriptors – the proper and full descriptors – with me; assessing which were appropriate. Not the bullshit you get as a report card from the DWP when you are told about your inevitable failure. In comparison to the CAB thoroughly going over these factors you begin to see just how poorly ATOS conducts this test, which itself, as I have said before, is not a medical assessment. Not even close.

What conditions you have are irrelevant; all that matters is whether or not you can fulfil the requirements for the relevant descriptors. Not only that but anyone reading this facing this process that has yet to fill in their ESA50 – go to the CAB and get them to help fill this in for the same reason as above: they have the descriptors. In fact:

Anyone reading this facing this process that has yet to fill in their ESA50 – go to the CAB and get them to help fill this in for the same reason as above: they have the descriptors.

You will only pass if you score 15 points from those descriptors. Whatever health issues you have must:

a)     Conform to the descriptors in terms of what they require to pass (i.e. can you do this thing? Can you not do that task?)

b)     Be recorded on the ESA50. If you don’t put it in this form it won’t exist. Though I suppose if you contract something nasty, for example, in the meantime, with your doctor’s support there might be extenuating circumstances.

I mentioned my hypoglycaemia/metabolic problem (I don’t know what the fuck it is, but that’s a whole other thread) to the adviser but because it wasn’t covered in the ESA50, even though I’m sure I mentioned it, it wasn’t going to be taken seriously. Conversely my tired eye problems, which were mentioned (I even brought the optician’s prescription to the WCA), weren’t worth mentioning because recent changes to the descriptors don’t cover this unless you are registered blind. Even then the descriptors don’t cover sight specifically; instead they refer to it by way of being able to communicate or get around; not simply ‘can you see?’

When I got home I started thinking about the health issues and diagnoses I’ve received; for example my GP, when I first mentioned this years ago, said I had ‘derealisation’. Mentioning that to ATOS means nothing – it’s how it affects you.

So the adviser goes through, and, based on your explanation, that this affects you – exactly as the descriptor is laid out. So if the descriptor is something like “can’t walk 20m”, that’s what you write. That’s how it works. The underlying condition is not the issue.

Now comes the hard part: getting my GP to agree with the CAB assessment. If not, the appeal fizzles. That is how ESA works. I immediately contacted the surgery to book an appointment and the earliest I can be seen, at a different venue (because my surgery is run by an idiot), is 2 and a half weeks. For all I know the tribunal people could contact me between then. No matter how unlikely, I cannot confirm that won’t happen.

I can’t pretend to be confident about this; it’s already proven to be a struggle just explaining this system. For learned folk in a compassionate role GP’s can be remarkably reactionary and ignorant. I can but hope the GP will agree – I’m not sure why she wouldn’t since these conditions are real. Refusing to help would, in my opinion, betray prejudice. Even then it will likely be seen as private work, which could come at a potentially hefty price.

As you can see everything in this process is not what it seems. You cannot take anything for granted: not the support of a GP, not the diagnoses of experts, and certainly not the advice and assessment of the DWP and its cronies. If this long winded post achieves anything, it’s that anyone else going through this gets help. If not from the CAB then anyone else similarly experienced. You WILL need it.

Today on Dr Phil…Peverley

One of the major problems for mental illness sufferers today is how GP’s simply don’t understand the benefit process. Unfortunately there are some that are not just ignorant, but wilfully so. Dr Phil Peverley is one such person.

It appears the good doctor finds it a bit of a hassle to deal with what he calls the ‘unworking well’, a rather clumsy and deeply inaccurate statement. His issue seems to be that processing such people through the benefit system via ill health is too much work. But that isn’t our fault, Dr Phil; it’s the fault of the government. We didn’t ask for the Work Capability Assessment and we certainly didn’t call for it to be administered by untrained incompetent and ignorant profiteers like ATOS. In fact the BMA has joined the chorus of common sense calling for an end to this. Perhaps you should consider some solidarity, Dr Phil.

He doesn’t strike me as the sort though. Sadly I’m catching a whiff of the libertarian here. He is the sort that believes wellness is achieved by eschewing and withdrawing support mechanism. He, in a clumsy moment of bizarre humour (I assume), quips that he considered putting a picture of Stephen Hawking up with the slogan “this bloke is not on the sick”. That’s how exasperated having to deal with all of this has made the poor dear. Perhaps he might like to consider just how exasperated the people that this directly affects (hint: it’s not well paid GP’s) feel. Professor Hawking, though profoundly disabled, is not indicative of anyone else – that’s why he’s so successful. If we were all that smart, he’d be out of a job. It’s a ridiculous example.

One of the most glaring errors that Peverley makes is summed up by his clumsy phrase ‘unworking well’. The WCA is not a clinical test; it’s intended to discern what a person can do – and it doesn’t even succeed at this. So it is entirely fallacious to label people thus. They are not ‘well’; they have problems. I pity anyone that calls him their doctor given this attitude. If he is ignoring the genuine issues suffered by people that are trying to claim ESA he is not doing his job properly. These problems are not diminished by virtue of working, though he subscribes to the ‘arbeit macht frei’ ideology it seems. Work will cure you of all your ills. That’s a hell of an assumption: do zero hour contracts ease people’s stress? Does working a 12 hours shift all week for the minimum wage help? I don’t think so.  

Assuming that people are well because they fail the test or because you think they don’t deserve support shows an irresponsible and fundamental misunderstanding of ESA. As I have described it isn’t even an out of work benefit. Unfortunately Dr Phil isn’t alone; the government don’t understand it either (or don’t understand what they’ve put on the ESA webpage). This is a rather toxic mix: ignorant doctors and ignorant politicians. However by doing his part and colluding with this ignorance he is fundamentally letting his patients down. ESA is intended not just for those that cannot work (though he clearly believes no such people exist); it is intended as a means to help those that have problems. Unfortunately his denial simply leaves people in dire straits. That he doesn’t care should be enough to have this incompetent lazy fool struck off.

He makes the mistake of subscribing to the ‘just world’ fallacy which is compounded by the ignorant belief that it’s the sole duty of the DWP to find work for the ‘unworking well’. It doesn’t occur to him that the genuinely well that aren’t in work number in the millions and that, by not supporting people, he is just sending them to the back of a very very long queue. This doesn’t take into account issues of underemployment either. None of these concern him because it’s not his job. He doesn’t care and as such I contend he is utterly unsuited to the job he doesn’t seem to enjoy. It’s about compassion sir, something you clearly lack if you are taking out your frustrations about your job on the poor and the sick that are not responsible.

This is the fragmentation of our society though; the compartmentalisation of support. Suddenly it isn’t the job of actual doctors to help people when it comes to certain areas of life, like employment. Conveniently for him he can dismiss anyone with a problem it seems by arguing that they can do ‘something’. But we’ve been through this before: that is an entirely disingenuous attitude. Sure I could do something, but that’s not how life works nor is it how the world of employment works. Given that neither the support nor the will are there to help build a career and a sustainable future as an independent taxpaying citizen, all Peverley is doing is compounding someone’s misery. It’s simply not my problem, guv.

Return of the Work Psychologist

A couple of weeks ago I had written back to the Work Psychology department to see if they could help me in cementing my claim for the ESA WRAG now that I have to appeal. In all fairness, probably something I should have done ages ago (like many things), but what’s done is done. Yesterday the psychologist I spoke to before got back in touch with me.

The Work Psychology department exists to help people with ‘psychology’ issues in dealing with unemployment, particularly (and fortunately) with the Jobcentre. In my case, and hopefully others though I suspect it depends entirely on who you see, the Psychologist is able to make or at least recommend adjustments to the frontline staff to make life easier for people dealing with JC+. I don’t know how much authority they have over frontline staff and JC+ personnel – i.e. managers – but as they are colleagues it should count for something. I’m not taking this as gospel; that is I’m not relying on it. I don’t think anyone should, but it’s helpful to know.

Curiously this doesn’t include dealing with things like the Work Programme. She told me their remit extends only to Jobcentre/DWP services (don’t quote me on that!). You might think, as I did, this would include the Work Programme. However because the WP has, and she said it herself, the supposed ‘black box’ approach, it is its own thing. In this case she can only advise; nothing she says has the authority it apparently does to direct JC services. I relayed my experience of this so called black box approach and went into detail explaining how I’ve been treated by the WP. I suppose it would be unreasonable to expect her to be shocked and immediately rush out to complain to her managers, but maybe there’s a chance that, if enough of our anecdotes are passed on, they might sense a pattern. That’s all I can reasonably expect.

She has agreed to write an updated version of her initial report, which, having re read it, is as good as it’s going to get from the DWP. It’s not a clinical diagnosis, but it’s not far removed – and, for what it’s worth, it comes from DWP colleagues. Whether this will help convince a tribunal I don’t know. I fear they will likely see me as ATOS did; as someone that can walk and talk and think and not ‘be mental in the head’.

Amusingly (in that ever so bitter way) she said that I ‘sound much better’. I take this as more a note of encouragement on her part. I don’t really feel much better, certainly no dfiffeent than when she last saw me given that I’ve had no help. Of course it could be the benefit of being on ESA, of not having to attend the JC fortnightly and deal with all their ‘robust’ (as she called it, noting they are becoming more ruthless) bullshit. What was truly sad though is – and not wishing to blow my own trumpet – how she commented that she felt I’m ‘very gifted and bright’. Of course it’s always nice to hear such things, which, again, may be the point. However, and as I pointed out and why I bring it up here, that’s almost a curse, not a complement: what good is being bright and gifted in a system that doesn’t care. What good will knowing that do me when the best I can hope for is workfare for the £lands of the world? That’s the saddest thing about all this austerity: the waste of talent and potential.

Stop Helping Me, Iain

He’s proud of his welfare reforms because they are helping people.

He’s proud of his policies because previous government(s) left the sick and the feeble to fester and rot.

He’s Iain Duncan Smith, and he’s changing all that.

So he says; I don’t feel terribly helped.

I attended his Work Programme, but not solely through choice. There was choice, to be sure – the choice between that, Work Choices (the same thing but only for 6 months and then onto the Work Programme, or…) or a sanction. So I chose his scheme but the choice of provider and the availability of different provisions, perhaps specialising in particular issues needs or aspects, was not mine to make. There were two providers, both carbon copies of the same model; different names, different faces, same service – or lack thereof. At no point was I offered any kind of prospectus, and at no point was I offered any say in how my future was to be built. I was not consulted and my best interests were not, and are not being discussed.

I was bullied by Work Programme advisers who not only, according to their own head office, went against their procedures, but ignored my needs. Again my will, wishes and wants are ignored. Mr Smith exhorts his Work Programme on the basis that, as Tory propaganda claims for all their policies, it empowers the individual. No more will they languish and idle, instead they are at the heart of their own development. But there is no development and there is no choice. A so called ‘black box’ approach is talked about wherever the WP is mentioned, but it doesn’t exist. Instead there are rules – compliance – and lots of it. Only they do not tell you this and you find not only are your expectations shattered – you don’t have any say in building your own future – but that if you do not do as you are told you will be sanctioned. This transcends cognitive dissonance; it is downright abuse. It most certainly is not help.

I haven’t heard from the Work Programme since just before my WCA. It is clear they have nothing to offer, but of course that cannot be seen as their failing. The individual is always to blame: that’s what is meant by the black box approach. You are responsible for your own future. After all if Tory millionaires can succeed to the highest offices in the land, why can’t people with nothing? Why can’t people at the frayed fringes of society that don’t have all the advantages commensurate with being part of the aristocracy or the elite?

I attended my WCA but again not through choice, even though the mere act of doing so precludes me from being eligible for ESA, the whole point of the test. The assessment, as discussed, has nothing to do with health. You may provide genuine clinical evidence, from real qualified people, and it will have no bearing per se on the outcome. Instead you are to tick a series of boxes whose accumulated value must total the arbitrary sum of 15. Anything less and your ‘limited capability for work’ (the title of the assessment) is deemed not limited enough – not matter what the conditions or evidence may say otherwise. None of this is informed by or has any relation to the conditions in the labour market at the time. The test will be the same next year as it was previously even though the labour market is not. If you can tie your own shoes and write your own name and understand the question you are being asked, you can not only function in that labour market, but you can do so competitively. To reinforce the point your income is instantly stopped; you are not even transferred over to the Jobseeker’s Allowance you will now need (unless you brought a winning lotto ticket with your last ESA payment). That is what Duncan Smith calls help. That is the support that lies behind the bellicose bullshit pumped out from government.

You can appeal – but wait, what’s that chill in the air? It’s the Ghost of Sanctions Future; the sound of disapproving Tory ministers who’d rather you took their medicine and stopped scrounging – no matter the consequence. So you are fragile, you are fraught and insecure. They don’t want you to appeal. The process itself is mysterious and vague, with no definition. It is amorphous: you are to provide further evidence but you are not told how, or by when. No one contacts you. This is one of the system’s major failings: there is simply no communication at all; not between you, the DWP, the decision makers, and the doctors or clinicians. I cannot, for example, ask them to perhaps wait until I can be seen by the NHS for the diagnosis I hope I can get. I think we can imagine what the answer will be, if I were to do so. It is compartmentalised and serviced by equally small minded jobsworths: the rules are the rules. Instead I have to go through a laborious process like a blindfolded rat in a maze in order to at least try and find some means to move forward. This must be costing the government money, is there no better way? No! This is helping me! It’s stopping me from rotting and festering, remember? Where help and advice are needed the DWP tell you to speak to the CAB – isn’t that incredible: they themselves offer no help to you with their processes when you deal with them. Meanwhile they continue. I wait for my appointment with the CAB while the DWP make a decision before an appointment is even available. This system is a series of cogs, all different sizes all moving at different speeds, all failing to integrate. You are being driven by that machine as it slowly falters and fails. That is your life as helped by Iain Duncan Smith and his irresponsible, ignorant, greedy cohorts.

Sooner or later that machine will not only crash, it will explode. People are already dying. They are already being sucked into the cogs and crushed by the weight of bureaucratic insanity and cold corporate indifference, all informed by unelected ministers with too much power and too much privilege, or the fruits of selfish Tory middle Englanders whose prejudices and fear are amplified by the media the Tories use to reinforce those prejudices and fears. In short, I don’t see any kind of future at all. We are done. We are undone.

ESA Appeal Stage Two

Big letter today, in the post (and not the second hand DVD I ordered either). That’s right it’s the appeal. They have decided, while I wait until I can see the CAB benefit appeal specialist (that’s next Wednesday), that the original decision still stands: in lieu of evidence that might cause them to change their mind (if such evidence exists) the original decision still stands. Naturally I am shocked at this unexpected turn of events.

Apparently this now goes to the tribunal stage. The information is passed to them as the next stage of this inscrutable and frankly nonsensical process. In a panic I range the CAB to tell them I had received this letter and that I’m still waiting for my appointment with them – should I change my trousers? Not yet, at least. It seems – at least according to them – my benefit won’t get stopped at this point.

I say apparnelty because at no point, in this entire process, is anything actually explained to you. At best you have to ask people, you have to ring up those that claim to be the experts, including the DWP. None of the people making this appeal have of course contacted me. I am expected to provide them with evidence, having not done so they have made this initial decision. That’s what got me into a flap – should I have sent what evidence I have (such as it is)? Will not doing so count against me? Am I following the rules? I had a GP appointment this morning to set the ball rolling for another go at an Asperger’s/ADD diagnosis; god knows how long I’ll have to wait for that to come around. Will the DWP wait? Can I ask them to work with me in all of this?

The problem here is there are several systems in play that are not in sync: you need to get information for the appeal, but they do not tell you how long you have to get that info or even how to present it to them (I gather you just post it off). They don’t adequately explain – as pertains to the status of your income – what happens and there’s no real clue as to when. You have no opportunity to sit down with any of these people, never mind with your GP or specialist until at least the tribunal. Of course GP’s aren’t going to be accompanying people; they don’t like any aspect of this. They don’t understand it and would prefer people got a job and stopped bothering them. In fact one thing that I have noticed is that most of the agencies you talk to have a tone of weariness to them: they’ve heard all the complaints, they know all the problems and they can’t help. This translates into frustration which of course is passed, perhaps not deliberately, onto the claimant – the poor sod who has to live with the consequences.

We all know the answer to that. I asked the CAB person I just spoke to (who wasn’t the benefit specialist) what my chances were given that I’m not claiming to be 100% unfit for work. I tried to explain that I need to be in the WRAG; that’s my goal. She explained that the benefit specialist, when handling these kinds of appeals, is essentially looking to apply as many of the descriptors to score at least 15 points. Here’s the problem: if she can’t do that, by hook or by crook, then there isn't going to be much point appealing. At least that’s the message, implicitly, that I got.

I’ve already talked about the descriptors; that for mental health there are 7 and two of them at least are vague ‘how long is a piece of string’ type questions.  Most of them require you to be in such a mental fugue in order to score them. You have to be completely psychotic and totally incapable of functioning in the world in order to get 15 points that I don’t stand a snowball in hell’s chance of passing. This whole system is a complete mess; it is inscrutable, impenetrable, obscure and mysterious. It requires that you fit into very specific profiles with no room for flexibility and, seemingly, no room for discussion. I can only hope that last part isn’t true, but I doubt it. I think even the CAB acknowledge there is a limbo status that exists within the benefit system but there is nothing they can do about it. I can’t cope with the JC+ environment. I certainly can’t cope with the Work Programme in JSA mode if past experience is any indication, and given how JSA is increasingly making ridiculous demands of people, I am going to struggle coping with that – I just know I’ll get into an argument the minute they ask me to concede access to my UJ account (which of course I don’t want to create as the website is still complete shit). I can only hope the CAB has some answers for this, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

In All Fairness...

In response to IDS's free propaganda piece in the Guardian of all places. At the heart of his warped philosophy is a supposed notion of fairness.

"There is no doubt that changes to the welfare state are desperately needed."

 By whom? It is entirely a fabrication of the right that social security is some monster, growing in size and threatening inevitably to one day stomp down the nation; a public funded Gojiro set to consume the lives of the British in their own homes. This is totally spurious; not only is it evident that we can afford welfare - as a whole (which, by the way, includes pensions) - but we can also happily waste money on things we don't need as well, apparently. Things like Trident, foreign misadventures, or high speed rail networks through the back gardens of less important Tories.

"Our reforms will put an end to people being left on sickness benefits year after year; they will eradicate the trap that has left so many better off on benefits than in work; and they will ensure the benefits bill is sustainable over the longer term."

 This is one of the more disgusting things in this maniac's ideological arsenal: that people with prohibitive health conditions are 'being left on benefits'. This has all sorts of nasty implications. That these people should be doing something, that leaving them alone to live their lives and supporting them financially (and sufficiently) is a dereliction of public duty. Instead they must be prodded, poked, assessed and of course reassessed because who knows what miracle cures NICE will have endorsed between one visit to ATOS and the next. These are people that cannot work and yet according them the dignity IDS assumes for himself at £40 a bow of cornflakes or a dinner at the expense of Paul Dacre is idling and malingering. We're already within Godwin territory.

There is no benefits trap either. This error is forever made by pundits and politicians. There is a capitalist trap. This is the trap created by not giving people enough to sustain themselves; either to become self sufficient or to support themselves period by period. The trap exists to people in work and out of work because those at the lower end of the income scale, whether through a conventional wage or in receipt of social security, don't have enough to live on while those that set the prices (through fiscal reckleness or planned market manipulation) receive insane amounts relative to the poor.

This rise in a minimum standard applies to all areas of society and is, like high speed camera footage, noticeably increasing day by day. As stress levels and tension in society increases it even applies to support systems, such as mental health: people need to show an increasing level of difficulty in order to trigger any level of assistance whatsoever. People are expected to cope with more and more otherwise, and they can't - why would we assume they could?

"But these doubts ignore my department's proven track record of delivering change and show a lack of ambition from the people raising them."

Except that it's unproven, and when the evidence is put to him IDS cries foul, spits out his dummy and insists, quite seriously, that his believing whatever he likes is hard proof of its veracity. He is a dangerous Walter Mitty with his finger on the social self destruct button - only in his mind that button is marked 'KINDESS'.

He hasn't even really delivered change. Instead systems have become more complex, with added conditionality, or given over to the predictable greed of the private sector, as is the case with the Work Programme. The changes to the ESA appeal system are not a proven track record; neither is the Bedroom Tax. They are instead unproven and demonstrably catastrophic. Instead of acknowledging this however, we instead get the typical IDS ad hominem.

And the less said about the Universal Credit debacle the better, as it slowly morphs from national rollout to feeble deflated effort. He argues that delivering on time (if indeed that part is true) is a sign of his competence. PIP came into being on time, therefore the DWP is on track, never mind that it will leave disabled people much less independent and, in many cases, back on the dole. People are using Universal JObmatch, but there's no discussion of just how utterly useless and user unfriendly it is. There is no comment as to the quality of adverts, because any job (whether or not the advert is even valid) advertised is indicative of his competence in turning around the lives of the unemployed, much like the dreadful shambolic Work Programme that limps on like a decrepit hound.

His only argument seems to be that his ideas must be great and will work because Labour do nothing but oppose them. This is a dreadful and feeble minded tactic: attack the opposition for the failings of this government. But above all is this laughable and erroneous notion of fairness.

What does he even mean by fair? Fair to whom? Unum? Atlantic Bridge? The Republican Party? It's certainly not fair to those most relevant to the issue: those on benefits. Instead the taxpayer has become the central figure in all this. The taxpayer represents the seething mass of largely gullible slobs happy to be manipulated because they're too stupid to see how they themselves are being treated. The taxpayer thinks this, we want that for the taxpayer: fairness to the taxpayer. We are restoring 'fairness'. But that's hollow when wages are being driven down, credit replaces the pay packet, and the private sector gets free reign to chow down on everything we own.

So we must have fairness to the taxpayer in respect of imagined benefit largess but not in terms of actual wages to those people paying tax. This means people are hugely dependent on the same things as the unemployed: NI credits and benefits such as HB or WTC.

The Tories argue that they are about independence, but like to tell other people how to spend their money or how much they can have. This isn't your money, Mr IDS, it isn't your friend Gideon's either. It's OUR money. This country is rich enough to take care of its own, but you have made an issue out of that and turned compassion into a burden and a curse. For that reason alone, you deserve all the ire you receive and will ever receive, and I hope you choke on it.

IDS seems to think that he presides over a pot of money that is his to dole out, or not, and that he should only do so begrudgingly as a last resort – if that. Faiorness to the taxpayer means fairness to everyone since we are all taxpayers. If you are so interested in what taxpayers think, why not ask them; all 60 million of them. That includes people in receipt of welfare, since spending that money goes back into the economy. It isn’t, for example, hoarded offshore or in trust funds, or given as land subsidies. Stop using this straw man construct that you call the taxpayer.

Money has to be given begrudgingly otherwise you will create a cultuyre of ‘welfarism’; the new word for the new age. What he believes is that people become dependent on benefits alone. They are not; they are dependent on income because in this economy we are dependent on money. The Tories want to keep us that way, which is why we should resist. We need to move beyond this kind of economy. That will happen inevitably due to technology.

IDS thinks people on the dole have been abandoned, but oversees schemes that really have abandoned people – and at greater public cost. He says the sick have been ‘allowed’ to languish on benefits. This says it all: these are people that cannot work, objectively speaking (though not in his mind of course), and so need to be supported to live. This means they are not seen, in the Tory mind, as providing them with profit; they aren’t working for them in the dark satanic mills and so they are a burden.

To any right minded individual this is disgusting. To the 21^st century Brit, this is the norm. Saddest of all is that this has become the new standard by which people’s lives are measured. Instead of supporting people, instead of assessing them as individuals and treating them positively, we look for ways to disregard them; we abide by callous rules with reckless objectivity and dismiss them for even the most minor transgressions of said rules no matter whether the rules were met in spirit. So that a person who applies for 20 out of 10 jobs on his ‘Claimant Commitment’ will be sanctioned if he forgets to look, one time, in the local paper. Thus everything else is thrown in the bin. This whole attitude is not being challenged.

"I make no apology for it."

Indeed.