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Category: Disability

  • A decade of advocacy fighting for ME/CFS has left me angry and frustrated

    As part of the Canary and the Chronic Collaboration’s Amplify training programme, founder of ME Foggy Dog and Stripy Lightbulb CIC Sally Callow writes for us on her 10 years of advocacy and campaigning around myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).

    The year 2014 is memorable for a number of reasons. It was the year the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared, the Ebola epidemic became a global health crisis, Russia did a ‘land grab’ of Crimea, and two comedy powerhouses – Robin Williams and Joan Rivers – died. And at the same time, I became a campaigner for the myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) community. My lived experience of ME informs every aspect of my advocacy and campaign work.

    While the scientific community has made medical advances in diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS) and Parkinson’s disease, it hasn’t taken any significant steps forward with ME. In my decade of campaigning, I have witnessed this firsthand and felt varying degrees of frustration at the difference. 

    Steps in the right direction

    As part of the ME/CFS community, I am used to celebrating the reduction of harm rather than medical breakthroughs. We fight to have harmful ‘treatments’ withdrawn rather than rejoice over new drug discoveries. 

    The ME NICE guideline (2021) is the most well-known example. Graded exercise therapy (GET) and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) were acknowledged as potentially harmful for people living with ME. But this only came after people with the disease campaigned with minimal energy.

    We simply asked NICE to ‘follow the science’, rather than a flawed debunked research trial. Oh, how we celebrated the guideline publication. 

    The 2021 NICE guideline provides the basics on how to reduce the possibility of harm. It’s an imperfect compromise but an improvement on what went before.

    However, our joy was short-lived. To this day non-adherence is widespread within the NHS. Was this ‘progress’? People living with the disease are still having to fight not to be harmed by the medical profession. 

    This non-adherence was entirely predictable and is why I started my Shake It UP campaign in Autumn 2021.

    Shaking up ME/CFS

    I am campaigning for a system to report harms from non-pharmaceutical treatments. Patient communities, including ME/CFS, have nowhere to report harm from any ‘treatment’ that is not pharmaceutical or a device. 

    I knew anecdotally, through years of advocacy and thousands of conversations, that many patients had been harmed by GET/CBT and had reported the harm to the appropriate healthcare provider/organisation. Yet, during the NICE review, it was claimed there had never been any reports of harm.

    Complaints and reports of harm had been dealt with in-house by the NHS and were never collated or counted. Appropriate reporting systems are necessary, for ME and other illnesses, where cheap ‘cost-effective’ non-pharmaceutical ‘treatments’ are the NHS go-to.  

    No one seems to want to take responsibility for the harm caused to some patients by non-pharmaceutical ‘treatments’.

    The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) stated:

    these types of treatments fall outside the remit of the MHRA.

    The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has repeatedly told me that GET and CBT are no longer issues for the ME community because ‘NICE no longer recommends’ these as ‘treatments’ for ME. However, these ‘treatments’ are still suggested to this day in GP surgeries and ‘CFS clinics’ in England (and the rest of the UK).

    The pandemic and reduction of harms

    The past four years have been about reducing harm from the pandemic. I and many others did all we could to highlight the possibility that Covid-19 could cause an ME/CFS-like illness – and it doesn’t please me to know that we were correct.

    It is now known that around 50% of long Covid cases meet ME diagnostic criteria.

    Then came the fight for ‘vulnerable group’ status for people with our disease – something that was never achieved. This is unsurprising given many in medicine still think ME is psychosomatic.

    This false belief links to why ME was not included in The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) ‘at risk’/group six list for shielding and vaccine priority, even though it is scientifically known that we have issues with our immune systems.

    It also should be said that people living with ME are at risk of vaccine side effects and vaccine harms. Too many have either experienced a worsening of ME severity or have a range of new symptoms or conditions that were caused by vaccination.

    The JCVI did not factor in these implications. It did not consider ME patients to be at risk from external factors such as vaccinations or viruses. But in reality, we risk being harmed by both.

    Further to all of this, why haven’t scientists made breakthroughs for ME?

    Progress for comparable diseases

    Diseases that affect predominantly females are tarnished by medical sexism and misogyny. Both ME/CFS and MS have been known as ‘Female Hysteria’.

    Sometimes it feels like a daily fight to be believed, as we are often told the illness is ‘all in our heads‘ or we are hypochondriacs and malingerers. This is partly why it takes a long time for the condition to be acknowledged as valid, and for progress to be made in research. For ME, the label ‘female hysteria’ has been hard to shift. 

    MS has only been taken seriously in recent decades thanks to the MRI machine. It’s impossible to deny the existence of a physical biological disease when it is visible on a scan. MRIs were first used for MS in 1983. Thanks to this, MS shrugged off the label of ‘female hysteria’.

    So, the ME community now needs its own ‘MRI moment’. 

    In 2024, those living with MS have clinical trials platform Octopus. Scientists have designed Octopus to test multiple treatments at the same time, and analyse data throughout the course of the trial. This level of forward-thinking is not happening in the ME space. However, there are discussions of linking up with the Octopus platform shortly due to overlaps between the two conditions.

    Stem cell research advances in MS and Parkinson’s disease are exciting. It is wonderful to see just how far medicine has come in terms of previously heavily stigmatised and misunderstood diseases.

    These advances give me hope. Those living with MS and Parkinson’s disease still have a long way to go. However, there has been much to celebrate in a short space of time. I can only dream of the day that equivalent treatments for ME are considered a serious possibility.

    What of ME/CFS?

    Disease Modifying Therapies (DMTs) are being used in the treatment of MS. As Gal Bitan has explained:

    Acknowledging that no cure is available, neurologists prescribe “Disease-Modifying Therapy” (DMT) to reduce the frequency, severity, and residual disability of relapses… Of the various categories, relapsing-remitting MS is the most amenable to treatment.

    Given that ME/CFS is a fluctuating disease, I hope DMTs have a place in the future of ME.

    But it is not a stretch to say that people living with ME have nothing.

    It is difficult to get a clinical diagnosis of ME due to the poor knowledge base on the disease within the medical profession. Most people walk into their GP’s office with the false assumption that whatever is wrong is treatable and they will get better in time – or at least be able to manage symptoms with medication.

    That is not the case with ME. This is in part, due to the gross underfunding of ME research for decades. As Steve Topple wrote for the Canary in 2018:

    funding per patient, per year for MS was £82.20 versus an economic disease burden of £20,000. For people living with M.E, it was £4.40 versus £13,200 respectively.

    When compared to other illnesses and conditions such as chronic renal failure, lung/breast/colon cancers, stroke, and rheumatoid arthritis, research has found that people with ME have the lowest quality of life.

    I can dream

    ME is not an insignificant disease.

    As a patient and campaigner, I know the gains made in ME research are small.

    I find it angering and upsetting. Are we not worthy of a medical breakthrough?

    I feel frustration in every fibre of my being, every single day.

    Comparing progress made in ME with that of MS and Parkinson’s reinforces the sense of injustice. I am sure MS campaigners endured the same sense of injustice for decades before their big MRI breakthrough.

    But how many more decades will I be banging my head against the immovable brick wall that is government research funding allocation?

    How much longer will I be holding my head in my hands with the NHS’s seemingly immovable and rigid structure and processes?

    When will the medical profession move into the 21st century and tackle its misogyny and sexism in its own workforce?

    My campaigning continues, so that when I reach that next milestone, the government, the NHS, and clinicians will take ME seriously and treat it equitably at long last. 

    Featured image via Stripy Lightbulb CIC

    By Sally Callow

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • John McDonnell set to join disabled people at protest outside parliament

    Labour Party MP and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell is set to join chronically ill and disabled people at a protest on the first full day of the new parliament. It comes amid concerns over the Labour government’s position on disability rights – and campaigners want to send a clear message to MPs that they best listen to ‘disabled people’s demands’.

    Disabled People Demand…

    On Thursday 18 July at Parliament Square, a host of disability rights campaigns and allies will welcome the new Labour government into office by presenting a set of solutions to the multiple crises faced by disabled people across the UK; followed by a celebration of their culture through music, art, and poetry.

    Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Recovery In The Bin, Bromley and Croydon Unite Community, Disability and Migrant Network (DAMN), and the Trans Safety Network are just some of the organisations taking part in an event titled “Disabled People Demand” – a day that promises to be both a creative spectacle and a statement of intent towards the newly elected prime minister and his party.

    The narrative used by successive Labour, coalition and Tory governments to cut resources and services have seen disabled people unjustifiably being blamed for government spending. These cuts to public services were not forced upon the government by disabled people or migrants; they were a political choice.

    So, now is the time for a new chapter to be written.

    Labour won’t be coming to people’s rescue

    But DPAC and others aren’t expecting the new government to come to our rescue. They will present their solutions to these crises – solutions borne out of their shared experiences of years and of decades fighting back and challenge the new government to deliver them.

    DPAC said that:

    #DisabledPeopleDemand our voices are heard and we demand our rightful full participation in the rebuilding our society.

    The event will start at 12 noon at Parliament Square, with a series of speeches, including from:

    • John McDonnell MP.
    • Ben Sellers of People’s Assembly.
    • DPAC’s Paula Peters.

    This will be followed by a showcase of creativity, including exhibitions, music, entertainment, and poetry.

    There will also be events in Liverpool and Leeds on the same day, organised by local DPAC groups in those cities.

    More than protesting

    DPAC said in a statement:

    This is more than a protest.

    Closing the door on the past doesn’t just mean closing it on the policies of the past – but also on the negative and exclusionary practices of the past too. This day will celebrate our communities survival through austerity, benefit cuts, assessment torture, covid and cost of living crisis – and a reminder that too many of us didn’t survive them.

    We have a long history of devising our own solutions to whatever crisis we find ourselves in. That’s why we are taking this opportunity to present our solutions to political decision makers and to the rest of the people in the UK. We are putting what we believe are both possible and achievable out there.

    So, there’s no hiding place from them. Nobody can say they didn’t know.

    We will use them as a marker to measure the success or failure of the next government

    We have a list of demands that we will campaign for and hold the new government’s feet to the fire on – for the UNCRPD to be enshrined in UK Law, for social care charges to be scrapped, for social security to be re-designed and co-produced by us and many more.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Labour silent on Tories’ brutal ‘DWP vouchers for disabled people’ plan as consultation set to close

    When it comes to disability benefits, Labour’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is so far looking little changed from the office under its callous predecessor – especially over Personal Independence Payment (PIP). There’s just one week left before a consultation on controversial changes to the disability benefit closes. Infamously, the alarming proposals introduced by the previous Tory government include plans to replace PIP with a voucher or catalogue scheme.

    What’s more, the plans would likely push the burden of DWP PIP ‘cuts’ onto new claimants or those facing end of award reassessments. Despite all this, the new Labour government hasn’t ruled out implementing these reforms. Instead, it plans to review the consultation responses. Naturally, it’s leaving disabled people concerned at the possibility of the new Labour Party-led government following through with these reckless and harmful proposals.

    Disability benefit reforms – DWP PIP consultation closes soon

    On 22 July, a public consultation on potential reforms to PIP will close.

    Under the previous Conservative Party government, the DWP launched plans to overhaul the benefits system. When it came to PIP, the then Tory-led department put forward proposals to cut the number of claimants and implement new supposed cost-saving alternatives.

    Significantly, this included Sunak’s notorious plans to replace the disability benefit with a voucher scheme. The Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey explained in April why this is such a dangerous, and disgraceful idea. She wrote that:

    This is such a horrible idea I can’t even fully articulate how cruel it would be. For starters, it strips away the ‘independence’ part of PIP as it takes away our financial autonomy.

    Vouchers would limit where we spend our cash. Would they be accepted in all shops? How much would the vouchers be for? Will they just be things to help support us – like care and mobility aides – or will they also be for food and bills?

    Will taxis accept them? What about carers and people we hire to help us like cleaners? Can I pay my prescription charges exemption certificate in vouchers?

    Besides the voucher scheme proposal, the DWP put forward similarly ill-thought and punitively restrictive options. This included a catalogue or shop scheme, with approved items. As well as this, it suggested possible a receipt-based system.

    Again, as Charlton-Dailey highlighted, the DWP PIP ideas are hugely unworkable, with little understanding of disabled people’s needs or life circumstances. For instance, the receipt-based system relies on a functioning department, and also expects disabled people to be able to afford costs up-front. So, as she noted:

    What this plan will do is make disabled people take out loans and enter into buy now, pay later schemes. It’ll push us further into debt – and you can guarantee you won’t get reimbursed plus the interest.

    By proposing we send the government receipts to claim money back, they’re treating our everyday essentials and commodities as expenses.

    Labour on the ‘back to work’ bandwagon already

    Meanwhile, in June, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) analysed the impacts the DWP PIP reforms could have. Most notably, the IFS stated how benefit cuts through these proposals would mean:

    a lot of people losing significant sums.

    Specifically, it detailed how the burden of this would largely fall on new claimants and those up for reassessments. Therefore, where existing claimants are concerned, disabled and chronically ill people on fixed short-term awards would bear the brunt of these changes.

    A coalition of disability rights charities have therefore urged new Labour DWP boss Liz Kendall to scrap the reforms. Crucially, in an open letter, they set out to the new DWP secretary how the proposals would:

    condemn seriously ill and Disabled people to a life of poverty and the threat of sanctions.

    By contrast however, Kendall and Labour appear to be mulling the reforms regardless. As the Mirror reported on 8 July:

    Labour insiders have hinted they’ll review the public’s response to these proposals after the consultation wraps up on July 22, which falls three weeks post-election.

    In short, Labour has failed to reassure disabled people that it will ditch the Tories’ callous DWP PIP plans. What’s more, it was in the context of this ongoing consultation that Kendall made the new government’s “Back to Work Plan” announcement.

    On 11 July, Kendall visited Leeds and made a speech concerning so-called “economic inactivity”. In this, she articulated the government’s position that:

    rising levels of economic inactivity are unacceptable and that immediate action must be taken.

    In this, she highlighted the 2.8 million people unable to work owing to long-term sickness. What’s more, she expressed how:

    It’s not good enough that the UK is the only G7 country with employment not back to pre-pandemic levels.

    While Kendall suggested Labour would “tackle the root causes”, disabled and chronically ill people noted the hostile rhetoric, with Kendall’s declaration that:

    Economic inactivity is holding Britain back – it’s bad for people, it’s bad for businesses, and it’s bad for growth.

    Given Labour intends to pore over the consultation responses, it’s vital disabled and chronically ill claimants send a strong message that the new proposals must be binned. However, the new government has already begun its term demonising, and ignoring disabled people’s demands. Time will tell if it will actually take any of their concerns on board. So far, it hasn’t been a promising start.

    Feature image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The general election just BURIED news about the DWP’s Universal Credit roll out

    With all eyes trained on the final sprint to general election day, a local news site quietly dropped news on the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) so-called ‘managed migration’ process. Specifically, this is where the DWP is forcing old-style benefit claimants over to Universal Credit – like those on ESA.

    Crucially, the piece highlighted the department’s plans to start shifting Employment Support Allowance (ESA) claimants to the new-type benefit.

    However, as the Canary has highlighted before, this sudden move by the DWP runs counter to the former government’s previous promises. Unfortunately, it could leave lots of people without benefits, and many more worse off.

    Universal Credit roll-out: DWP ploughing ahead again

    On 1 July, CambridgeshireLive published an article detailing the DWP’s sudden managed migration plans. In particular, the outlet reported how:

    Important letters from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will drop through the letterboxes of thousands of homes in July with a warning that they must not be ignored. They will impact those who receive Employment Support Allowance (ESA).

    Essentially, the DWP is sending out “migration notices” to claimants. These will demand that ESA claimants start the process to shift over to Universal Credit. The DWP gives claimants three months in which to do this. In particular, this is part of the department’s work phasing out old-style benefits.

    It follows a recent roll-out in June for claimants in Wolverhampton and East Suffolk. However, as Disability News Service (DNS) noted at the time, this was despite the fact that former employment minister Jo Churchill had confirmed:

    in a written statement that this extension would not begin until September.

    Churchill, who is not standing for re-election as an MP, wrote on 21 May: “Our current planning assumption is that we would begin notifying this group in September 2024, with the aim of notifying everyone to make the move by December 2025.”

    Notably, this is part of the former government’s revised timetable for its mass roll-out. The Canary stated in May that:

    Previously, the DWP planned to complete this by 2028. Now, it has brought this forward in a bid to cut costs. In particular, it intends to notify all old-style benefit claimants by December 2025.

    Of course, the new timetable raises serious concerns that many claimants could lose out. This is because, to date, the department’s own statistics show it has already been callously denying Universal Credit to tens of thousands of legacy benefit claimants.

    Now, it appears the DWP is pushing ahead with this further – just as the UK elects a new Labour government.

    Bogus assurances over ESA

    In June, a spokesperson for the DWP told DNS that the 500 claimants in Wolverhampton and East Suffolk were part of its activity to:

    gather more learning to inform our planning for migrating these cohorts at scale in due course, with one of the key learnings we are keen to understand being what proportion of households will require support through the enhanced support journey.

    In short, it was using these claimants as guinea-pigs ahead of its full roll-out.

    It’s unclear whether this new roll-out is also part of this testing phase. It could just as easily be that the DWP is now launching the full-scale of its operation.

    What is clear, is that the DWP is rushing ahead with little attention to the consequences. Incongruously, the CambridgeshireLive piece said that:

    Claimants have been assured they won’t lose any money as a result of the switch to UC. It continues the long-running process of moving people on ‘legacy’ benefits over to the new system.

    However, the assurances have so far proved bogus. To date, the mass migration process has left over 180,000 former claimants without any benefits. The large majority of these – over 99% – have been Tax Credit claimants.

    DWP: more Universal Credit chaos on the cards?

    For the other type of benefits the DWP is forcing over to Universal Credit – including ESA – the Canary previously estimated its migration process could leave approximately 68,000 more claimants without benefits. This was based on calculations using the government’s own figures. In particular, it used the department’s own conservative estimate that 4% of non-Tax Credit claimants could lose out.

    What’s more, a report by the Resolution Foundation in April found disabled claimants are much worse off on Universal Credit. In particular, it estimated that that the DWP was diddling disabled claimants transferred to Universal Credit out of £2,800 a year.

    As recently as 3 July, the DNS carried a new story detailing how claimants on two other former disability benefits have been losing out. Specifically, law firm Leigh Day has investigated the migration of over 100 people on severe disability payment (SDP), and enhanced disability premium (EDP). For all of these, support under Universal Credit was lower than on the legacy type benefits. Over 200 disabled claimants are taking group legal action against the DWP, with the firm.

    Needless to say, this rushed new roll-out is another callous, calculated move from a DWP – and a benefit – that’s not fit for purpose.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Disabled campaigner is launching legal action for defamation and discrimination against Tory MP candidate

    A disabled campaigner is launching legal action against a former Tory MP for defamation and discrimination.

    On 4 July, former Conservative MP Dr Luke Evans is standing for re-election in the constituency seat of Hinckley and Bosworth, in Leicestershire. However, now, disabled activist Helen Timson is filing a claim against the candidate MP in the High Court.

    Specifically, Timson will be lodging this for purported libel, discrimination, personal injury, and breaches of her data protection rights.

    Seeking support from a Tory MP against the DWP

    Disabled campaigner Helen Timson previously took the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to court over third party deductions to benefits. In particular, she challenged the DWP authorising water and energy companies taking money from people’s benefit payments. Reporting on the judicial review at the time, the Canary’s Steve Topple explained how Timson’s water company was making deductions to her benefits without her consent. So, as Topple detailed:

    Timson took the department to court over the policy. She said she took on the DWP because:

    I found it outrageous that the DWP did not check if we could afford to pay the amount taken, if other debt options were better for us or if the debt was even owed. We certainly weren’t asked if we consented. With a keyboard click a random… employee was allowed to decide what was in our ‘best interests’ without even contacting us.

    The Guardian noted that in court, Timson:

    argued it was unlawful and immoral that the DWP enabled water and energy firms to draw down up to 25% of a claimant’s monthly benefit income at source without undertaking any form of check with the claimant.

    Ultimately Timson won the judicial review against then secretary of state Mel Stride and the DWP. However, the government launched an appeal against the ruling.

    It was during this time that she reached out to local MPs for their support against Stride’s decision to appeal the judgement. Specifically, Timson called for their aid in petitioning Stride to drop it.

    Firstly, Timson’s constituency MP Edward Argar refused his help. She claims that she repeatedly tried to make an appointment with him, with no success. Eventually, Argar told Timson that his role as government minister prevented him from raising her case in parliament.

    As a result, on 20 April 2023, Timson contacted nearby Conservative MP and GP Dr Luke Evans. Timson initially spoke to a staff member in Evans’ constituency office over the phone. It was from this point that Timson claims the problems started.

    Disabled campaigner labelled a “security concern”

    Following her conversation with Evans’ staff, on 27 April Evans himself sent her an email. Timson described the communication as “threatening”. Specifically, her claim will detail that Evans chastised her conduct over the phone with his member of staff.

    In particular, this referred to her raised tone of voice. Timson suffers from a range of mental and physical health conditions. Her disabilities – including complex PTSD and post-surgery problems with her right hand – means she might speak at a raised volume over the phone. This is because Timson’s hands-free technology, as well as stress and anxiety, can unintentionally lead her to raise the volume of her voice.

    Moreover, in Evans’ email, Timson says he threatened to escalate matters further.

    Timson’s claim will express the enormous stress and anxiety this all caused her. Notably, she feels this implied he might report her to the police. Given his perceived threat, she submitted a Subject Access Request (SAR) to obtain all correspondence he and his staff had exchanged about her.

    This was when she found that the staff member she’d spoken to over the phone had labelled her a “security concern”. The staff member had made this aspersion over a series of WhatsApp messages the day she’d contacted his office. What’s more, the SAR revealed that Evans’ staff had circulated this among the offices of fellow Leicestershire MPs.

    She sent her pre-action letter detailing these grievances, and requesting a series of remediations. However, Evans did not respond.

    Tory MP to go to trial for purported defamation and discrimination

    As a result of these interactions, Timson has now submitted her claims against Evans to the High Court.

    Dr Luke Evans denies any wrongdoing.

    However, Timson’s case will allege that the WhatsApp message characterisation of her as a “security concern” is defamatory.

    Alongside this, she will argue that Evans’ office breached her rights under the Equality Act 2010. Specifically, she will say that his staff failed to accommodate her disabilities. Timson is therefore planning to assert that this constitutes direct disability discrimination, and a failure to make reasonable adjustments.

    On top of these, Timson will allege that Evans’ office broke the law under the Data Protection Act 2018. In this instance, she will highlight the office’s failure to disclose full WhatsApp message chains in her SAR. As well as this, she will underscore the finding that Evans’ staff shared her personal information to the offices of other MPs, without her consent. She is also looking to claim personal injury on account of the impact the ordeal had on her mental health.

    Timson is seeking a formal apology for these alleged harms. She wants to obtain the full information Evans’ office purportedly denied in her SAR. What’s more, she will ask the court to rule that his office rectify what she considers the defamatory statements against her.

    Her claim will also ask for a £25,000 donation to charities of her choice.

    Feature image via Nature & People – Youtube

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Shadow DWP minister REFUSED to say Labour will make UNCRPD law

    Labour’s shadow minister for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) Alison McGovern has thrown the spotlight on another galling Labour U-turn. This one concerned the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

    Channel 4 News reporter Ruben Reuter took the Labour minister to task. All it took, was a simple question on whether the party would commit to make the UNCRPD law, for the Starmerite lackey to come undone – and the party’s supposed commitments to disabled people along with her.

    Labour’s DWP minister leaving out disabled people – again

    On 2 July, Channel 4 News published a video report on the main political parties’ positions on disabled people’s rights.

    Disabled reporter Ruben Reuter traveled the country to interview ministers. Reuter first spoke to Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper. For the Tories’ part, the party did not provide a single spokesperson for Reuter to interrogate:

    However, while Labour did field shadow DWP minister Alison McGovern to talk to him, she quickly showed Labour up too. The video clip shows Reuter putting a straightforward question to McGovern:

    I just want to ask you a question, and it’s a simple one. It is a yes or a no. Would your party commit to incorporating the UN convention of the Rights of Disabled People into UK law?

    Predictably, McGovern responded like a true-blue Tory-esque politician – by largely avoiding the question altogether. Politician playbook front and centre, she first evaded Reuter’s question:

    I know that the UN has reported on the state of disabled people’s rights in the UK, and we want to learn all of the lessons of that. And we’re not in those terms, at the moment.

    Then, in a masterful display of deflection, she crooned about the party’s manifesto:

    But I just wanted to read, if I may, the line in Labour’s manifesto on this very point.

    Specifically, McGovern read out the line in it which reads:

    Labour is committed to championing the rights of disabled people and to the principle of working with them, so that their views and voices will be at the heart of all we do.

    One thing disabled people will invariably tell them? Enshrine the UNCRPD in law – because disabled communities have quite literally been calling for this for years. Here’s the highlights from the latest example of which, from the Disabled Peoples Organisations (DPOs) manifesto in February.

    Palpably exasperated as much as the rest of us, Reuter wasn’t about to let McGovern weasel out of it. He retorted back:

    Is that a yes or a no?

    To which, she shamelessly claimed:

    Our commitment is to work with disabled people. When it comes to the law, we want to make sure that the Equality Act is there for disabled people.

    So in other words, McGovern bleated out a very politician’s round-the-houses way of saying, essentially, “not fucking likely.”

    UNCRPD: successive government human rights violations

    What McGovern referred to as UN’s assessment on the “state of disabled people’s rights” was a report the international body published in March.

    In March, the UN hauled the UK government in front of the UNCRPD. Essentially, the committee was investigating the UK government and DWP’s treatment of disabled people. Predictably, as the Canary’s Steve Topple detailed, the UK government spent the 90-minute hearing displaying:

    contempt for chronically ill and disabled people – lying, gaslighting, and misrepresenting

    And as Topple also reported, this wasn’t the first time the UNCRPD had pulled up the UK government for questioning either. It followed a previous assessment in 2016, which found that:

    successive UK governments had committed “grave” and “systematic” violations of disabled people’s human rights.

    After this, the UNCRPD followed this up with another report:

    accusing the government of creating a “human catastrophe” for disabled people.

    Fast-forward, and the situation has little changed. In March, the UNCRPD issued its report from the session. Once more, the UNCRPD found that:

    The Committee finds that the State party has failed to take all appropriate measures to address grave and systematic violations of the human rights of persons with disabilities and has failed to eliminate the root causes of inequality and discrimination.

    Sound familiar? There’s those “grave” and “systematic” violations again.

    Broadly, it listed a damning rap-sheet of the government’s failures on multiple protections under the convention. The Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey has explored a number of these here. In summary, these included the unconscionable scale of benefit-related deaths, the institutionalisation of disabled people, and lack of support for independent living. It also lambasted everything from indefensibly low benefits, to the Tory government’s callous Work Capability Assessment reforms, and its plans to snoop on disabled people’s bank accounts with AI.

    Given the outright scandal of the Tories’ time in government, you’d think Labour would want to set itself apart from all this. Not so: it’s already falling at the first hurdle on disabled people’s rights.

    Labour ditches UNCRPD in another U-turn

    Ultimately, McGovern’s response practically confirmed that Labour isn’t planning to incorporate the UNCRPD into law. This means that the protections the UNCRPD offers still won’t be enshrined in UK legislation. It’s yet another 2020 leadership promise consigned to the dustbin of wasteman Starmer’s self-serving ambitions.

    You read that right, in the party leader’s bid for Labour premiership, Starmer originally pledged to implement this. In fact, as Disability News Service previously reported, until July 2023, Labour’s ministers had made a song and dance about this very commitment. It wrote that:

    Labour leader Keir Starmer backed the policy during his leadership campaign in February 2020, telling Disability News Service (DNS): “Before I was elected as an MP, I was a human rights lawyer and I spent a career championing human rights and the work of organisations, including the United Nations.”

    And the pledge has been repeated more recently by the party’s shadow minister for disabled people, Vicky Foxcroft.

    On last December’s international day of disabled people, she tweeted: “We promise to incorporate the UNCRPD into UK law to tackle discrimination and ensure better support and protection for the most vulnerable.”

    And in July, in an email to a disabled campaigner, Foxcroft said: “Regarding your questions on policy, Labour is fully committed to incorporating the UNCRPD into law and working in co-production with disabled people in our entire approach to policy.”

    However, the outlet highlighted that by September 2023, the party’s had visibly watered this down. In particular, its National Policy Forum (NPF) document – which the party uses to formulate its manifesto policies – had dropped it.

    But then, it’s hardly surprising from the man who’s made more sudden U-turns than a malfunctioning Roomba. And in reality, the ham-faced ‘handout’ hypocrite couldn’t give a crap about disabled people. With more red flags than we care to count, the Labour leader cemented this fact in a recent DWP puff-piece for the Telegraph. As Charlton-Dailey pointed out, Starmer harped on about handouts and dignity, but the implication was obvious:

    This was a clear dog whistle to the most hateful in society. Coincidentally I’m sure, the hateful wet wipe in charge of the DWP (but not for long) Mel Stride also regularly writes for them.

    The piece was a classic appeal to Tory voters, signposting economic growth, tax burdens, our country is going backwards, etc

    Of course, Charlton-Dailey was on the money; Labour has been courting the Tory vote alright. The Canary has repeatedly shown the Labour Party’s clear contempt for disabled people – playing into the Tories’ favourite DWP demonising narratives. From failing to publish an accessible manifesto, to largely ignoring them in it anyway, while barking out its back to work bullshit agenda.

    Now, the fact the party has abandoned its promise to make the UNCRPD law shows this isn’t about to change anytime soon.

    Feature image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • It’s 2024, and yet there’s still no general election for ‘ME’

    It doesn’t really matter who gets elected during this years general election for the 1.9 million people living with long Covid or the hundreds of thousands living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) in the UK.

    Why…?

    Well, imagine having pretty good health, then suddenly becoming unwell.

    You go to your doctors and they do some tests.

    The tests come back and nothing is found to be the cause.

    So your doctor tells you that either your not eating properly or you must have poor mental health and you are simply just overdoing it.

    You then change your diet and even try to exercise more. But it actually makes you feel worse.

    You again go back to your doctor who not only dismisses you as they have done their tests already, but is now starting to question your sanity.

    You are then left with treatments of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET) that have been proven to be harmful, almost like the use of alchemy for medical treatments in medieval times.

    Yep, seriously, and this is 2024’s reality for people living with ME or long Covid.

    This reality, regardless of who is in power, doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Because not one party has mentioned ME or long Covid during this election, ignoring over two million chronically ill and disabled people.

    So, what are ME and long Covid?

    Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) as the Canary has repeatedly reported is often a post-viral illness that can be defined by the hallmark symptom of post-exertional malaise (PEM). Around 50% of people living with long Covid also meeting the criteria for ME.

    With an increase of global pandemics and a decrease in post viral research funding, this figure is growing along with the charities bank balances that proclaim to support these patients. Although stated as “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” by the NHS with no known cause or cure, many world-renowned doctors such as Dr Sarah Myhill and Dr William Weir have spent their careers trying to prove its existence only to be repeatedly shut down by a psych lobby that has profited from these claims.

    Some would even argue that their theories and approaches to this condition has allowed themselves to make money while at the same time saving the NHS, DWP, and insurance companies billions.

    So why are politicians ignoring ME and long Covid?

    With millions affected globally, in its severest form ME can leave patients in conditions that are worse than some cancers and yet it is still being ignored. It’s the same for long Covid.

    Yet neither are even in anyone’s general election manifestos.

    But unfortunately this isn’t new, and that the history of medical neglect towards people living with post-viral illnesses goes a lot further back than the global pandemic that saw us all in lockdown. It has been rife throughout my entire life time, and I’m not that young.

    Do you remember the outbreak of “Yuppie Flu” in the 80’s…? Thatcher’s government along with the mainstream media dismissing huge amounts of city workers that became unwell, many after catching Glandular fever or the EBV virus?

    Or maybe you remember the famous, part-funded by the DWP, PACE trial in the noughties, that is now commonly used among scientists as an example of how not to conduct a randomised clinical trial, as it blatantly botches results in favour of the desired outcome.

    It would be laughable if the results stating that GET and CBT helped people with ME wasn’t then implemented as NICE guidelines for the next decade-or-so, causing serious harm to patients. Or even if after the guidelines were finally changed in the 2021 there wouldn’t only be 30% of NHS hospitals choosing to follow them.

    But with millions affected with ME globally, this really is no laughing matter and seeing the exact same things happen to people with long Covid, I want to know why is this never on anyone’s agenda?

    The greatest medical scandal of the 21st century

    You would think that once something has been stated in parliament as one of the “biggest medical scandals of the 21st century“, that it would at least be on someone’s manifesto in the general election. With millions also affected globally, the potential cost to the NHS, DWP, and insurance companies, it’s almost as if there is a collective interest in keeping this post-viral condition labeled as a psychomatic.

    I mean, if this really was just a mental health condition then it wouldn’t effect things like giving blood, would it?

    OK, so why can’t people with ME or long Covid give blood if this is just “fatigue”?

    Maybe because this is a post viral condition, not a mental health disorder. And given the fact that poor mental health is rising under 14 years of austerity and a cost of living crisis you would think that medical funding for mental health should be used for actual mental health issues, not for proven post-viral conditions that are still being psychologised in the 21st century.

    It’s almost like the medical equivalent of the Post Office scandal, but instead of going to prison you are sectioned, and instead of losing your job you lose your children, yet no one is doing anything to highlight, stop, or change this in this years general election.

    Not on word in one manifesto.

    Nothing on ME and long Covid.

    Nothing.

    Featured image via Envato Elements and the Canary

    By Nicola Jeffery

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Week in Ableist Bullsh*t: the Wet Wipe Farewell Tour

    Well, we’re on the home stretch of the general election, the Tories are almost definitely going to lose spectacularly, and many many evil cunts will be crying in sports halls come 3am Friday morning.

    While most Tories have all but admitted the government is a sinking ship and rightly fled, one dirty little rat is clinging on. 

    While most Tories don’t even want to be seen supporting Rishi in private, ever-faithful Mel Stride was once again on the media trail this week.

    This is the sixth time ol’ Wet Wipe has been the media face of the Tories since the election was announced just over five weeks ago. The only person as keen to be pimped out is James Cleverly who seemingly will talk to a camera whether or not it’s recording.

    So last week saw the wet wipe-in-chief shaming himself even further than before, all presumably in an attempt to carve out a media career.

    Mel Stride: does Strictly beckon?

    The MP-on-TV Strictly-to-presenter pipeline must seem tempting. After all, it worked for Ed Balls, but then people actually liked Ed Balls.

    Or maybe this is him going out with a bang, the Wet Wipe Farewell Tour before he disappears into obscurity. Either way, he certainly put his all into it.

    On Wednesday 26 June morning alone, he cropped up on deep breath:

    Times Radio, GB News, Sky News and BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio 4, LBC and GMB… Heyyyy Macarena

    Among his many many gaff dumps along the way, Stridey boy said he didn’t see a problem with Tories betting on the election and called the billion-pound PPE write-off “inevitable”. 

    Which is exactly what you’d expect from a man who wants to kill disabled people by forcing them into work and never had to struggle a day in his life. 

    And then we come onto the car crash GMB interview, truly a beautiful example of how to really cut down a smug over-privileged cunt. 

    I. Am. Stride.

    It came off the back of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) saying that both Labour and the Conservatives were circling a black hole in public finances. He was asked by Martin Lewis what his party are going to do about it. Wet Wipe attempted to pull out his usual “well Labour” routine:

    We have the fastest growing economy in the G7.. We will reduce people’s taxes.. Labour will increase taxes to the highest tax burden…

    Martin Lewis chimed back:

    We already have the highest tax burden in the history of the country and it comes after the Tories have been in the government for 14 years.

    The talking in circles and blaming Labour got so bad that even Susanna Reid who spends most interviews looking like she’s fantasising about torturing Piers Morgan called out his bullshit:

    We’re talking to you, not Labour.. 40% of our viewers think they will be better off under Labour.. Only 28% under the Conservatives.. Whatever your message is, it’s not getting through”

    Wet Wipe continued:

    Working families will pay £3,000 more in tax under Labour.

    It continued and he was dragged and pulled to absolute shreds, Reid pointing out the figure was disputed, Mel Stride saying the future is more important, Lewis continuing to push that he won’t answer the question again and again until Stridey looked like he needed a wet wipe himself – and a new pair of trousers.

    And then we got the best comedy I’ve seen in years:

    And with perfect timing, Lewis finished off by saying:

    Well Martin Lewis will be here to save you some money on council tax in a moment.

    The interview was so bad that the same afternoon the Tories attempted to put a hit out on Martin Lewis.

    The Wet Wipe Farewell Tour may not be over yet

    In a now-deleted video with the caption “they’re not telling the truth’ the Tories attempted to smear Lewis by claiming he’s working for Labour, who they say want to raise taxes:

    You know your party is absolutely fucked when you decide to attempt to turn the public against a national treasure because they bad-mouthed a member of the cabinet. 

    Imagine thinking the British public would choose a man who wants to kill disabled people over someone who is the reason many of us can still afford our gas bill. 

    But if I had a nickel for every time the Tories tried to turn the British public against a national treasure last week I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice. 

    I’ve a feeling this definitely won’t be the last we see of Wet Wipe in the coming weeks, but lets hope it’s more a farewell tour and less a cha-cha into Strictly for the fucker.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Shameless corporate media spouts DWP propaganda on PIP benefit fraud from TEN YEARS AGO

    Corporate media outlets are no strangers to spinning bile on DWP benefit fraud, but one site has recently ramped this up to disgusting new heights over PIP. In a vitriolic assault on disabled people, BirminghamLive has penned a piece outing a sweep of benefit fraudsters.

    Specifically, it centres round people that have purportedly claimed the disability benefit Personal Independence Payment (PIP) on false pretences.

    However, the article is both massively misleading, and packed full of ableist dog-whistles masquerading as facts.

    DWP benefit fraud bluster from the gutter press

    On 17 June, BirminghamLive published an article sensationally titled:

    The shameless DWP benefit cheats whose PIP application lies were busted on camera

    In it, the news site detailed how a handful of supposed fraudsters:

    managed to swindle thousands of pounds from the system with their lies. Some used the money to fund a life of luxury and pay for expensive holidays, while others took it upon themselves to pocket the cash.

    But each and everyone was caught out, whether they were captured on CCTV stealing from supermarket giant Asda or seen in holiday snaps.

    Presumably, its aim was to illustrate the scale of PIP benefit fraud. Only, it doesn’t really do this. It gives over the rest of the article to describing snapshots of just five separate cases of this fraudulent activity.

    Given the scathing tone of the article, you might assume assume PIP benefit fraud is rife. There’s just one problem: it’s precisely the opposite. For the financial year ending 2024, the DWP considered PIP benefit fraud so negligible, it classified it at 0%.

    So where exactly has the outlet dredged up these examples from? Funnily enough, just two of these cases of purported PIP benefit fraud were from the last financial year. On top of that, the majority of these aren’t even recent cases at all.

    BirminghamLive’s examples came from 2022, 2020, 2018, and one far back as over a decade ago.

    The obvious implication is that disabled people can’t or shouldn’t participate in society the way non-disabled people do. According to Birminghamlive, disabled folks shouldn’t lift boxes, shop, exercise, work, or go on holiday.

    News flash: disabled people have fulfilling lives of their own, and damn well live them. Naturally, that doesn’t matter to the corporate media hell-bent on punching down on marginalised communities. In a double whammy of this, the BirminghamLive piece managed to be both factually misleading, and full of ableist rhetoric.

    It’s not an out of work DWP benefit

    Predictably then, the BirminghamLive article forgot to mention that, on PIP, people CAN both work and go on holiday the same as everyone else.

    Firstly, though DWP ministers and corporate media cronies like to ignore this fact on the regular, PIP is NOT an out of work benefit. PIP is a disability benefit, ergo, many claiming it actually do work.

    It’s simply that Tory policymakers want most people to forget that fact, because it doesn’t fit into their demonising narrative. Specifically, if PIP claimants are in fact, taxpayers themselves, then they’re not exactly stealing from the taxpayer, as the Tories like to cast it.

    But in a galling example of how disabled people just can’t win, BirminghamLive laid into PIP claimants for doing precisely that. Because according to the shitrag, disabled people are STILL penny-pinching from the public purse. This time, it’s because they work and get benefits. Nevermind that PIP is there to make life a bit more equitable for disabled folks in a society set up for non-disabled people.

    Of course, in theory, the amount of PIP a claimant gets does indeed depend on a person’s level of disability. Although, there are numerous problems with this in reality. For instance, the shoddy assessment itself for one, as well as subjective, unqualified, and sometimes downright cruel assessors who invariably don’t always get this right. In fact, by and large, they don’t, as the huge number of PIP claimants receiving benefits and uprating at appeal, or tribunal consistently demonstrates.

    MS: a case in point

    However, that aside, the fact also remains that disabled people’s health can and does change over time. These are known as ‘fluctuating’ conditions where a person’s disabling illness can vary in intensity and frequency.

    Take Annette Bond, the lady who claimed PIP for multiple sclerosis that the outlet shamed for “going for 5km runs in her neighbourhood”. Now, it might well be the case that she lied about her condition entirely. However, MS is also one such fluctuating condition. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society states that:

    The symptoms of multiple sclerosis are variable and unpredictable. No two people have exactly the same symptoms, and symptoms can change or fluctuate over time.

    Moreover, there are treatments like disease modifying therapy (DMT) that can reduce the number of relapses a person with MS experiences. In other words, like with other fluctuating conditions, it’s possible to have better days and bad days, and treatments exist to improve this.

    Not disabled enough

    What the article also fails to acknowledge is that in some conditions too, a person can engage in physical activity, but:

    • Be in pain while doing so – in other words, pushing themselves.
    • Have a relapse after doing so. For example, this is the case for people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), with its hallmark feature – post-exertional malaise (PEM). This entails a disproportionate flare in multiple symptoms involving dysfunctions across many of the body systems.

    With the first point, it’s also salient to note that many disabled people don’t have full-time carers, or support. For one, PIP certainly isn’t enough to cover it. But crucially, this means that yes, disabled people with reduced mobility sometimes have to do essential tasks, despite the toll it can take on their condition in the short and long-term. Of course, not everyone disabled can ‘push’. The DWP has designed PIP typically to this narrow experience.

    Moreover, PIP is not enough to get by, particularly with the spiralling cost-of-living. And that’s even taking into account out of work/ low-income benefits like Universal Credit as accompanying support. That is, if you can get it, which many can’t owing to their partner’s income and work status.

    The government hasn’t increased any of these in line with inflation either. As a result, claimants are actually largely worse off in real-terms than before the pandemic. In short, everyday essentials have gone up in price, but benefits have not kept pace to match.

    In other words then, the outlet is playing into the ableist trope on not being “disabled enough” to deserve disability welfare.

    Disabled and poor people can’t have nice things

    In its vitriolic tirade, the gutter outlet also couldn’t possibly entertain that disabled folks might get to do nice things. It spouted that:

    A benefit fraudster who said he was too sick to work was seen riding an elephant in India. Lying Stephen Worton, 55, was caught out by his holiday albums which showed him in Amsterdam, Turkey and riding a camel and an off-road buggy in Egypt while claiming £85,000 of public cash.

    So, in ten years of claiming benefits, Worton went on a handful of holidays with his family. However, under government rules on disability benefits, there’s nothing wrong with this. With PIP for instance, claimants can go on holidays, and need only inform the DWP if they plan to go abroad for more than four weeks.

    The article noted that Worton was also claiming income support, housing benefit, and council tax help. However, again, why should this preclude someone from getting to participate in some of life’s joys?

    Poor people can’t have nice things either, like holidays, apparently. Of course, those benefits exist to subsidise employers paying poverty wages and landlords charging extortionate rents.

    Fluctuating conditions

    Worton was prosecuted, but not specifically for a little jet-setting. Instead, the DWP found him guilty largely owing to his two businesses and savings, which made him ineligible for out of work benefits. Partly, it was also due to the fact he hadn’t notified the DWP of a change to his health. In other words, it wasn’t necessarily the case he’d lied about his disability, just that he’d failed to update the DWP that it had improved.

    Far from exposing systemic abuse of the benefits system then, the BirminghamLive article actually tapped into the glaring issues with PIP itself. Because there again, the piece inadvertently highlighted another shortcoming.

    The problem with this is that fluctuating conditions are unpredictable. Specifically, they can literally change from day to day, hour to hour. Setting aside the incredible impracticalities of constantly updating the DWP on these changes, there’s also a risk in doing so. A person’s condition could improve temporarily, but can just as quickly worsen. In these circumstances, the DWP could put claimants through another gruelling reassessment, where they could risk losing their benefits altogether.

    Blue or red ties, it’s all the same

    The timing of the article is likely no accident either. Sunak and his ministers have been out on the campaign trail dusting off the disabled benefit scrounger rhetoric. As the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey reported on 10 June, Sunak unveiled his plans to:

    slash welfare by £12bn a year and get Brits back to work

    Then, on 16 June, the Tories’ Welsh secretary David TC Davies built on this back to work bluster. In a TV debate, he said that the majority of people on sickness benefits were capable of work. Of course, as Charlton-Dailey also pointed out, it’s the government who decides who can and cannot work. And given the DWP’s record on killing claimants it has deemed well enough to do so, they aren’t exactly compassionate or reliable arbitrators on this.

    What’s more, it follows a series of recent articles on the DWP uncovering the Bulgarian benefit fraudster ring.

    Given all this, a well-timed press release from the DWP could bolster the party’s message in the heat of the election campaign. Of course, there’s no way to be sure, but it wouldn’t be implausible that one from the DWP instigated the BirminghamLive article.

    The DWP categorised PIP benefit fraud as essentially a non-issue, yet the corporate media still spews out these vile attacks on disabled people anyway. Scraping together a handful of examples from as long as a decade ago doesn’t prove a systemic problem. Far from it. However, that isn’t the point of these hit pieces.

    General election: no safe hands for disabled people

    The Tory-led (for now) DWP, with the aid of its dutiful lapdogs in the corporate media, is trying to dupe people into thinking that it is regardless. Or more to the point, pitch disabled people as the enemy of the hard-working taxpayer. This is even despite the fact that disabled claimants actually often work themselves. And it’s doing all this to manufacture consent for stripping back the welfare state.

    Maybe the DWP did find the minuscule minority abusing the benefit system. However, this should not justify the mass surveillance and control of disabled people’s lives that the Tories seek to implement. Unfortunately, error-riddled as the article is, it’s just the sort of discourse that sets up for this.

    While it’s likely the final desperate gasps of a government on its way out, as the Canary has been reporting, disabled people won’t likely find a safe pair of hands in Labour either. Ultimately, articles like this feed into the blue-Tory, red-Tory campaign to force sick and disabled people into work, no matter the cost to their health.

    Feature image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Starmer needs to stop courting the hateful Tory vote with benefit claimants comments

    As we hurtle into our last full week of campaigning before the general election next Thursday, the leaders’ true colours are showing more and more. On Sunday, I wrote about how the prospective PMs all seem to be shouting over each other to prove who hates disabled people most and not one to miss out on a trend, Keir Starmer stepped up.

    Starmer and the Torygraph: new bedfellows

    Writing in the Telegraph, Starmer wrote about how handouts lack the dignity that wages bring. The first red flag here is that he wrote an op-ed for the most right-leaning paper in the country; one which regularly demonises anyone who isn’t rich, non-disabled, white, straight or cis.

    This was a clear dog whistle to the most hateful in society. Coincidentally I’m sure, the hateful wet wipe in charge of the DWP (but not for long) Mel Stride also regularly writes for them.

    The piece was a classic appeal to Tory voters, signposting economic growth, tax burdens, our country is going backwards, etc:

    Serving the interests of working people means understanding they want success more than state support…

    He said, as only someone who has never needed state support could.

    He spoke about who Labour would apparently benefit: young families, taxpayers, and entrepreneurs – and then attempted to sneak this in about welfare:

    The Labour mission was built on the pride of working people earning a decent living for themselves.

    We will never turn our backs on people who are struggling. But handouts from the state do not nurture the same sense of self-reliant dignity as a fair wage.

    ‘Yes that’s right, why do all you scroungers think you deserve any sort of support when you should be working? Have some respect!’ – he might as well have said.

    Oh, the indignity!

    This language is very deliberate – calling benefits handouts instead of support to live and using words like dignity – because it implies those who don’t or can’t work are lacking in dignity or self-respect.

    The only reason we lose our dignity in the first place is by having to jump through hoops and lay all the worst parts of our illnesses out to unqualified strangers in order to get benefits. 

    It’s in the fact the PIP form asks you to detail your toilet habits and that the government and media spew out so much bile that we’re scared to go shopping. 

    Though he never directly mentions those on disability-related benefits, the insinuation is there: work is good for you, laying on your arses faking disability isn’t. It also couples with the fact that all proposed changes that activists are already fighting are to disability benefits. 

    He, like every other Labour and Tory politician, is focusing a lot on work and taxpayers, but the fact is many disabled people do work and are taxpayers – it’s just the fact that life costs so much more for us and benefits aren’t enough. 

    Starmer then has the audacity to appeal to regional voters by talking about levelling up and how unfair it has been to any regions outside of London and the South East:

    If it all comes from London and the South East, no matter because we can “level up”.

    Now, nobody could walk around our country and deny how urgently we need to tackle regional inequality.

    Which of course is true and something that does urgently need fixing, but I’m from Sunderland, one of the most deprived areas in the UK and one of the safest red areas. 

    Levelling what up?

    The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that in 2021/22, 31% of disabled people lived in poverty – with this jumping to 38% of people with long-term mental health conditions. In the North East, 25% of the population lived in poverty.

    So basically you’re more likely to be poor if you’re disabled and from the North East, which a good portion of Mackems and Geordies otherwise are.

    ONS data found that 21.2% of people in the North East are disabled – the highest in the UK. Also, 7.8% of households in the North East have two or more disabled people in them, compared with 5.1% in London. 

    So it’s all well and good Starmer promising more for the regions – something which happens so often during the elections that I’m surprised they haven’t all visited the Tyne Docks or Nissan yet – but those are empty promises when you’re going to harm so many of us with other policies, or lack thereof.

    There have also been some interesting stats out today from the TUC about child poverty. 

    69% of all children in poverty live in a working household. and there are 900,000 more children in working households in poverty since 2010, bringing the total to three million. So despite Starmer and Sunak running with taglines that work pays, it clearly doesn’t.

    Not to mention how hypocritical it is of him to be criticising those claiming benefits for sponging off taxpayers when, as my Canary colleague James Wright pointed out, when he’s spent vast amounts of public money in expenses and handouts himself.

    Starmer: the lowest common denominator ftw

    What Starmer is doing in his Telegraph op-ed is clear – he’s courting the Tory vote. 

    Those who hate what Sunak has done to the country and still think too many people are pretending they have poor mental health or ADHD so they don’t have to work. They probably don’t even believe those things are real and what people really need to is get a job. 

    With the lack of opposition to the proposed welfare cuts this last year we’re already mostly feeling conflicted and only voting Labour because we have to. How are we supposed to trust it’ll be any different?

    It’s the same thing he’s doing with trans rights, his team saw how badly the “Tories know what a woman is” bullshit paid off for him with the evil wizard lady and her minions so they’re attempting to claw it back.

    But by appealing to the lowest in society Labour are alienating those on the left who would’ve voted for them because they desperately want rid of the Tories. Disabled and LGBTQ+ campaigners feel they can’t vote for them now.

    Labour needs to spend less time begging for the hate vote and give more attention to those who want to fight for real change – or they’ll split the left vote like they did in 2019 and the Tories – this time with Nigel Farage’s Reform in tow – will win again. 

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • DWP algorithm wrongly forces over 200,000 people through benefit fraud investigations

    The Canary has previously reported how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) reliance on AI and algorithmic technology for benefit fraud detection could put disabled and chronically ill claimants at risk. Now, new data obtained by a campaign group has shown how the DWP is already discriminating against claimants – specifically, housing benefit ones.

    It revolved around a secretive algorithm that the department uses to determine which claims warrant investigation for potential fraud. Of course, as it turned out, the majority of cases were legitimate claimants. As a result, the DWP wrongly forced over 200,000 housing benefit claimants through unjustified fraud investigations.

    Benefit fraud: flawed algorithm wrongly flags claimants

    As the Guardian reported:

    More than 200,000 people have wrongly faced investigation for housing benefit fraud and error after the performance of a government algorithm fell far short of expectations, the Guardian can reveal.

    Two-thirds of claims flagged as potentially high risk by a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) automated system over the last three years were in fact legitimate, official figures released under freedom of information laws show.

    It means thousands of UK households every month have had their housing benefit claims unnecessarily investigated based on the faulty judgment of an algorithm that wrongly identified their claims as high risk.

    It also means about £4.4m has been spent on officials carrying out checks that did not save any money.

    UK civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch acquired the data via a series of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

    The group has previously highlighted the DWP’s alarming use of automated algorithms. For instance, the department utilises a ‘Risk Based Verification’ (RBV) system to decide the level of verification the DWP requires for each claim.

    Moreover, in 2021, Big Brother Watch revealed how councils have used an automated tool to assign “risk scores” to housing benefit claimants. This is supposed to determine the likelihood of claimants committing benefit fraud. Notably, its investigation found that:

    540,000 benefits applicants are secretly assigned fraud risk scores by councils’ algorithms before they can access housing benefit or council tax support

    The group expressed how this “mass profiling” and “citizen scoring” process is:

    secretive, unevidenced, incredibly invasive and likely discriminatory

    Similarly, the DWP’s own algorithm technology:

    weighs claimants’ personal characteristics including age, gender, number of children and the kind of tenancy agreement they have.

    Predictably, Big Brother Watch found that this mass profiling tool had flagged many claimants wrongly.

    As the Guardian reported, the tool was only around half as effective as the DWP had estimated. Specifically, cases of fraud and error made up just a third of those the algorithm singled out for investigation between 2020 and 2023. This compared to the 64% fraud and error the department’s pilot of the algorithm identified.

    Benefit fraud is a favourite Tory fairytale

    In April, the DWP boasted about its big benefit fraud-busting breakthrough when it sentenced three actual benefit fraudsters. However, as the Canary pointed out, this is an exception to the rule, not the norm.

    So, after celebrating this, it turns out the department has been wrongly investigating hundreds of thousands of claimants for benefit fraud.

    Of course, this is not surprising. Because the DWP has been overzealously inflating its benefit fraud statistics anyway. For one, as the Canary’s Steve Topple has underscored, the department lumps in DWP and claimant error in its fraud data. On top of this, he detailed how much of its so-called fraud is non-evidence based. As such, Topple concluded that:

    much of the £8.3bn the DWP promotes as fraud (and that the media dutifully laps up) is just based on assumptions and guesswork.

    In other words, most of the department’s so-called fraud estimations are, in fact, bogus. Despite this, the Tory government has repeatedly used its fraud statistics to pursue its anti-Welfare agenda.

    Now, the results of this are coming home to roost – and predictably, it’s marginalised claimants who the department’s failures have impacted once again.

    Algorithms already discriminating against claimants

    None of this is to even mention that this isn’t the first time a DWP benefit fraud algorithm has been found wanting. Notably, previous reports have highlighted that the DWP may be discriminating against marginalised groups with algorithms it uses to select claimants for fraud investigations.

    First, in 2021, the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP) launched legal action against the DWP for another such instance of potential bias. As the Disability News Service (DNS) reported, the campaigners raised concerns that a secret algorithm could be:

    over-picking disabled people for investigations of fraud

    Then, in 2023, the public spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) identified that there was an:

    inherent risk that the algorithms are biased towards selecting claims for review from certain vulnerable people or groups with protected characteristics.

    Or, as Victoria Derbyshire summarised, the NAO’s report suggested that the DWP’s algorithms could be “sexist, ageist, or racist”.

    Aside from benefit fraud detection, DWP algorithms have also fallen foul elsewhere. For instance, in 2020, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report highlighted how the algorithm the department used to calculate benefits was also “flawed”. Significantly, its means-tested benefit system was “overestimating” earnings, and impacting those with irregular or low-paid jobs. As a result, it was pushing these people into deeper poverty.

    Despite these repeated issues, the Tories had lined up plans to expand its use of algorithms, alongside AI technology for benefit fraud detection. The government was aiming to ramp this up with its Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. Through this, the Tories intended to implement a mass algorithmic surveillance of claimants’ bank accounts. However, due to a technicality around the general election, the bill was thrown out in May.

    A scandal with “shades of Horizon”

    In January, the House of Commons work and pensions committee grilled DWP senior civil servant Peter Schofield on the department’s annual report.

    As the DNS reported, at one point, the committee honed in on the DWP’s AI algorithm technology. Conservative MP Desmond Swayne quizzed Schofield whether there were “shades of Horizon” about the DWP’s use of this.

    Schofield replied:

    I really hope not.

    However, clearly this is already unfolding. Big Brother Watch’s latest findings, alongside the DWP’s previous admissions of discriminatory algorithms, shows that the DWP is once again screwing over more marginalised people in the name of its benefit fraud “crackdown” crusade. And of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

    This year alone:

    • The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) found the DWP had committed “grave and systematic” violations of disabled people’s human rights.
    • The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has launched an inquiry into benefit deaths. Previously, the Canary’s Steve Topple has shown that the DWP’s callous policies have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people since 2011. However, as we’ve also highlighted, this inquiry is likely to fall short of holding key DWP bosses and the department at large to account.
    • The Canary has also identified that the DWP has stripped over 180,000 people of their benefits.

    Now, putting over 200,000 housing benefit claimants through unwarranted benefit fraud investigations adds to this growing list of harms. In other words, the DWP’s ‘Horizon scandal’ is already here – and it has been brewing for a long time.

    Feature image via UK Care Guide – Youtube

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Week in Ableist Bullsh*t: general election candidates try to prove who hates disabled people the most

    It’s hard to believe that we’re on week 756 of general election season.

    That’s because we’re not – it’s only week four. But fuck me doesn’t it feel like it?

    Voting for the Red Tories at the general election

    Maybe it’s because we had the build-up and the will-he, won’t-he like we were watching the shittest romcom in the world, but god this month has been the longest of my life.

    But one way or another, in less than two weeks time we will get these scumbags out, we will have seen many many Tories cry in sports halls, and while the UK has its biggest sleep ever (hungover or bored to death from Starmer already) the new PM will be sworn in.

    But for many, there’s still the question of who they’re going to vote for – because we’ve not exactly got a bumper crop of options. Quite a few of us have resigned ourselves to the fact that in order to keep the Tories out we’re going to have to vote for Tories in red and hope they can be held accountable.

    PM candidates all Elevenerifing each other to show who hates disabled people more

    So surely you’d think that the people who are all running for PM would be going out of their way to get disabled people on their side and win their votes? Lol of course not, that would mean they would have to actually think about us.

    Instead, its been a clown car of who can be the most hateful – like Farage hearing Sunak went to Tenerife so he went to Elevenerife – and they’re making even less sense than all the Mandys, Karens, and Sandras in the Jay Slater Facebook groups.

    Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve finally had all the manifestos out. For disabled people who’d felt invisible so far in the cycle, it meant we got to see what the major parties were pledging to do to ‘help’ us – though we of course knew many of their feelings about us already, either through the Tory’s actions over the last few years or Labour’s silence.

    My brilliant Canary colleague Nicola already recapped what was in them for disabled people and what bullshit was being promised so I won’t dwell on them too much.

    Suffice to say it’s the same bullshit hatred we’ve had spewed at us from the Tories for months and nowhere near enough reassurance from the Labour Party that it’ll be any different.

    Can’t trust the Lib Dems are far as Ed Davey can get on a paddling board without falling off

    The ones with the best policies are unfortunately the Lib Dems. There’s a plan to completely rehaul the welfare system and even enshrine the UNCRDP in law. It’s just a shame that you can’t trust the Lib Dems as far as you can throw them after getting into bed with the Tories last time. Though Ed Davey would probs volunteer to be yeeted if it meant another publicity stunt.

    Despite everything they say, many of my generation will never trust them not to throw us under the bus again for another taste of power, exactly as they did in 2010.

    For all Davey is projecting himself as this care-free uncle having the time of his life on teacup rides and taking the water slide five times, his refusal to take responsibility for the Lib Dems past is very troubling.

    Admitting your party is responsible for disabled deaths wouldn’t go down well on a teacup ride

    The Lib Dem leader was asked SIX times by Sky News whether he thought austerity was a mistake – and he refused to answer every time. He also specifically denied that the ConDem austerity policies were to blame for the NHS crisis, instead saying the problems only started in 2015 when we got a full Tory government (though they didn’t really have anyone stopping them before then).

    Instead, he spaffed on about renewable power, whilst looking in so much pain that he’d need the NHS nurses the coalition cut very soon.

    When you can’t take responsibility for your past actions which killed untold amounts of disabled people, how are we supposed to trust you now?

    Breaking: Nigel Farage is still a cunt and Greens are still irrelevant

    Reform unsurprisingly are an absolute shower of hateful shit when it comes to disability rights. John Pring at DNS reported that their general election manifesto not only suggests huge benefit cuts but would also risk the safety of benefits claimants. But we didn’t expect much from a party that panders to the lowest scum of humanity, Nigel Farage.

    Maybe if we doused all disabled people in milkshake Reform would care?

    Whilst the Greens are mostly irrelevant, there was one piece of ableist bullshit that caught my eye. The West of England Centre for Inclusive Living (WECIL) are holding a deaf and disabled people hustings for Bristol candidates. Unsurprisingly many candidates aren’t bothering to show up, and that includes leader of the Green Party Carla Denyer. 

    Considering the Greens are the only party pledging to increase benefits, you’d think she’d want to put her money where her mouth is.

    Cesspit media sucking off the DWP again

    Outside of the general election trail, we see how the disgusting rhetoric so many politicians peddle trickles down into the cesspit media and is then fed to the public.

    Birmingham Live, a paper so vile I’ve blocked them on Twitter for stealing my stories twice now, this week published one of the most violently ableist pieces I’ve seen in a while. I won’t link because they don’t deserve the views quite frankly:

    The shameless DWP benefit cheats whose PIP application lies were busted on camera

    Some were caught shopping in Aldi or running a 5K – while others were spotted travelling the world

    Cried the bastards, a dog whistle to the worst possible people in humanity who think disabled people should wear sackcloth and never leave the house. The accusatory tone of a disabled person having the audacity to shop in Aldi is so outrage mining its ridiculous – because how dare someone on benefits shop at the cheapest supermarket in the land?

    Fuck me next they’ll be inspecting our shopping bags to make sure we’re not buying any treats – but then that’s exactly want the plan to make PIP paid in vouchers would do.

    The DWP know what they’re doing… well, about spreading disabled hate at least

    The fact the DWP has released this when their own figures show there was literally 0% PIP fraud last year shows just how desperate they are to claw back voters by appealing to those who think we spend all our money on fags and booze, are all secret window cleaners, and run marathons of a weekend.

    Make absolutely no mistake, headlines like the above are a deliberate and violent attack on disabled people by the media and the DWP. It’s only going to get worse as the general election and next government cycle rolls on.

    So we need to be there to fight.

    And some good news – I’m writing a new book!

    I haven’t shared any disabled joy here in a while and it’s high bloody time isn’t it? I’m thrilled to be able to tell you all that I’m writing a book all about the history of UK disability rights activism and what we’re still fighting for.

    As you all know by now, disability rights is a huge part of my life. However, due to being a fresh-faced beauty I wasn’t there for a lot of it and I’m by no means the ultimate expert – luckily for me I know people who are and were. The date is yet to be set in stone but it’ll be coming sometime in July 2025, published by Hurst.

    The as-yet-untitled book will take you all with me while I learn more and help us all remember why we fight. A cover reveal will be coming soon and I’ll be updating you all on Twitter first.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • A week later, and Labour has SHAMEFULLY still not bothered with accessible manifestos

    The Labour Party launched its manifesto on 14 June. A week later on 20 June, and it still had not bothered to consider millions of people – leaving them unable to scrutinise its policies just two weeks before the general election. This is because Labour’s accessible manifesto was not… well… ‘accessible’.

    Labour: excluding millions of people from its manifesto

    As Inclusion London put on X:

    That’s right.

    The Labour Party has, a week after launch and as of 8pm on Thursday 20 May, not released its manifesto in:

    • Easy Read, often used by learning disabled people.
    • Easy Read Colours, often used by learning disabled people and potentially autistic and neurodivergent people.
    • Audio, for blind and visually impaired people.
    • British Sign Language (BSL), for deaf people and those living with hearing loss.
    • Screen Reading format, for deaf people and those living with hearing loss.

    So, currently, the Labour Party has NOT produced any copies of its manifesto for learning disabled, autistic, neurodivergent, blind, and visually impaired people. That means it is ignoring the accessibility needs of potentially millions of people.

    As Inclusion London said on X:

    Parties must publish accessible manifestoes at the same time as standard format so Deaf and Disabled people can participate equally in our democracy.

    ‘Equally’ is the key word, here. Because as a minimum the Labour Party is breaching Electoral Commission guidance. It clearly states:

    Political parties must… publish accessible versions of manifestos at the same time as other versions.

    This sadly is not enforceable. However, It may well be the case that the Labour Party is breaching the Equality Act 2010.

    Labour accessible manifesto: breaching the Equality Act?

    As the Disability Justice Project wrote:

    The Equality Act says it is reasonable to expect organisations to take steps to provide information in alternative formats. It requires organisations to think ahead about the difficulties Disabled people experience accessing information, rather than waiting until a Disabled person attempts to use their service.

    A week-long wait for Labour’s accessible manifesto in various formats in a time-constrained situation – that is, the general election – surely would be applicable.

    Not that we should be surprised by the Labour Party’s conduct. The Canary’s Nicola Jeffery previously wrote on its policies for chronically ill and disabled people; fortunately she has no accessibility needs when it comes to the manifesto – otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to write the article.

    Jeffery said, compared to the Tories:

    Labour’s manifesto Change wasn’t much of an improvement either. It promises to “review” Universal Credit – even though its been failing disabled and chronically ill people for over ten years. There was talk about social care, SEND, and making disabled and chronically ill people work. But there was little else for us. Come on Labour, seriously you need to get your act together. You proclaim to be a voice of the people, so please stop discriminating against the chronically ill and disabled ones. That’s 16 million votes, by the way…

    So, just to compound the idea the Labour Party doesn’t care about chronically ill, deaf, and disabled people – it can’t even be bothered to make its manifesto accessible to millions of them.

    Maybe don’t vote for a party that can’t be bothered with you?

    If you are a learning disabled, autistic, neurodivergent, blind, or visually impaired person – or anyone who cares about equality – maybe you should think before putting your cross in the box next to Labour on 4 July. The way things are going, many of you won’t have a clue what the party’s policies are, anyway – thanks to its disregard for already marginalised people.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Reform’s DWP plans are absolute nonsense. Here’s why they’ll fail.

    The Nigel Farage-led Reform Party has unveiled its plans for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and benefits. In short, they won’t work:

    Reform DWP shake up: the numbers are off

    Reform’s plans for the DWP include making sure all assessments are face-to-face. It also says in its manifesto:

    Enforce a 2-Strike Rule for Job Offers

    All job seekers and those fit to work must find employment within 4 months or accept a job after 2 offers. Otherwise, benefits are withdrawn.

    Deputy leader Dr David Bull claimed on Sky News there ‘nine million economically inactive people’ who this could apply to. Of the nine million economically inactive people:

    • 2.3 million are in full-time education or students.
    • 1.1 million have retired.
    • 1.6 million are carers.

    Right there are five million people who Bull can’t make go to work. That leaves chronically ill, disabled, and non-working people who may fall under the DWP regime. Of that:

    • 2.6 million are sick or disabled.
    • 1.6 million are unemployed.
    • 687,000 do not work and don’t want to. They may well be financially in a position where they don’t need to.

    So, Bull thinking there are nine million people available to work is demonstrably not true.

    The Reform manifesto actually says it will get up to two million people back to work. This presumably is where the DWP ‘two strikes and you’re out’ policy will hit. Of course, there is no evidence this kind of approach even works.

    Sanctions don’t work

    Back in 2018, the Canary’s Steve Topple reported on a study by the Economic and Social Research Council. They funded a five year study on sanctions, by six universities. Sanctions are where the DWP stops people’s benefits if they don’t do certain things – like, accept a job. The study found that benefits sanctions invariably did “very little”, were “largely ineffective” or had mixed outcomes.

    This was the case for disabled and homeless people, lone parents, jobseekers and anyone on Universal Credit. The report also noted that the DWP’s threat of sanctions was not necessary to get people back to work.

    So, Reform thinking that stopping people’s DWP benefits will get them into work is mistaken – as it’s been repeatedly tried, and it’s repeatedly failed.

    Claimant deaths

    Meanwhile, disabled people are already dying because of DWP policies. Earlier this year the Canary documented how the UN:

    found that successive UK governments had committed “grave” and “systematic” violations of disabled people’s human rights.

    Back in 2021, the Canary covered the ‘fit for work’ scandal. The DWP assessed disabled and sick people and told them they were fit enough for work. As a result of this from 2014-2017, 10 people died every day after the DWP wrongly put them in the Work-Related Activity Group (WRAG) of Employment and Support Allowance:

    According to Sky News, there are around one million unfulfilled jobs currently in the UK:

    Yet Reform want to get up to two million people back to work. It is unclear where the extra jobs are coming from.

    Alarmingly, a 2019 study found 24% of employers wouldn’t hire a disabled person – even though it’s illegal. More recently, 25% of disabled people reported that employers had discriminated against them during the job interview process. This further highlights that the problems are far more systemic than people not wanting to work, if and when they are even able to.

    Of course, none of this matters to Reform – whose DWP policies are nothing short of nonsense.

    Feature image via Ben Claimant/Youtube

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Are disabled and chronically ill people now politically homeless in the general election?

    After years of Conservative and Labour Party policies, and general election manifestos where it’s now difficult to tell the difference between the two – are chronically ill and disabled people politically homeless?

    Chronically ill and disabled? Good luck.

    Being chronically ill and disabled, I have spent years struggling with an ongoing decimated NHS to get a correct diagnosis for the conditions I live with.

    Due to years of both Tory and Labour policies I have also struggled with continued issues regarding firstly receiving the entitlements I was due, then secondly being able to keep these entitlements whilst navigating a benefits system that quite frankly a barrister would struggle with.

    Not dissimilar to the recent Child Benefit disaster, I was also left with nothing but Child Benefit for just under two years as a chronically ill single mother. God only knows what this has done to my National Insurance contributions – and therefore my state pension. Honestly, if it wasn’t for meeting my now partner and full-time career who helped me raise the funds to go private, I would never have received the correct diagnoses and disability status.

    And yes, this all sounds ridiculous that in 2024 that any disabled or chronically ill person should have to experience any of this living in the UK. But this unfortunately is pretty standard for many of us.

    The controlled ableism this has caused

    These politically-motivated polices that have come from both political sides have not only caused years of poverty for disabled and chronically ill people that have led to deaths and suicides, it has also left many of us now feeling politically homeless.

    One of the most recent policies affecting chronically ill and disabled people was the introduction of Universal Credit. Whilst this was supposed to help sort out the benefits system, it has made it very much worst.

    Many people, like myself, were firstly forced onto Universal Credit, to only then lose their disability benefits and carers allowance due to their partners work status – leaving them only with Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

    If you are on Universal Credit, it also means that your payments are only paid into one account.

    So not only does that mean disabled or chronically ill people have to rely on hand outs from their partners – stopping their independence – it is also open to many people being abused by this policy. This is away from the fact that there is the obvious potential for domestic violence and abuse. This is all creating a form of controlled ableism.

    Along with the loss of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), social care support, and NHS services, many disabled and chronically ill people are struggling to see any real change or support from the main political parties.

    Our current status in politics

    So where does this leave us as disabled and chronically voters in this years general election? Are we really even considered in any of the political parties plans or manifestos…? To be fair, we don’t seem to ever really be on anyone’s agenda.

    What the Tories are saying…

    Hmm, so after reading the Tories’ Clear plan bold action, secure future manifesto I struggled to find any direct policies for disabled or chronically ill people. Taking a further look, I discovered that it was all stuff they’d already announced, or extensions of existing policies. In reality, all the Tories are promising is to cut disabled and chronically ill people’s benefits even more. There’s a promise of more SEND school places, but there’s not a lot on social care. I didn’t expect anything less from the Tories, anyway.

    What Labour is saying…

    Labour’s manifesto Change wasn’t much of an improvement either. It promises to “review” Universal Credit – even though its been failing disabled and chronically ill people for over ten years. There was talk about social care, SEND, and making disabled and chronically ill people work. But there was little else for us. Come on Labour, seriously you need to get your act together. You proclaim to be a voice of the people, so please stop discriminating against the chronically ill and disabled ones. That’s 16 million votes, by the way…

    What the Lib Dems are saying…

    The Lib Dems For a fair deal is better than Labour and the Tories. It promises to make the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) law – unlike Labour and the Tories. Everyone has seen the Lib Dems free adult personal care pledge. They will scrap the hated bedroom tax, make some ‘reforms’ to other benefits, and focus on independent living. But the Lib Dems are not doing anything about Universal Credit and the £100bn of cuts to benefits since 2013. For all Ed Davey’s bravado, the Lib Dems are not doing a lot.

    What the Green Party is saying…

    The Green Party manifesto Real hope, real change is better but still leaves chronically ill and disabled people short. They have a ‘game changing investment plan to nurse the NHS back to health’ which, yep, you guessed it, has absolutely no mention of chronically ill and disabled people. They’re the only party that’s pledged to increase benefits, but as the Canary pointed out it still won’t be enough. The Greens have done a Lib Dems and offered free social care, but both also commit to assisted dying. For the party that is now supposed to be the most radical, the manifesto isn’t radical enough.

    Not all disabilities are invisible, but clearly disabled people are in the general election

    So, after reading all of these current plans, not only are my chronic illnesses and disabilities invisible, clearly I along with all the country’s chronically ill and disabled people are also often invisible to most of the mainstream political parties, their manifestos, plans, pledges, or whatever they want to call them – because none of them go far enough.

    As someone who lives with multiple chronic illnesses, none of the parties have said anything about improving healthcare for people like me, either.

    Also, the lateness in which they’ve released them completely disregards the time left in firstly applying for a postal vote, which many disabled and chronically ill people depend on, and secondly the time given to consider their vote and post them to be included in the general election.

    For anyone still wanting to do this the deadline for a postal vote is 18 June. You can apply here.

    But alternately, whoever you vote for they have currently left me and around 16 million other disabled and chronically ill people completely politically homeless – without a key pledge, decent promise, or plan for us if you’re the Tories or Labour, or not going far enough if you’re the Lib Dems or Greens.

    We are the most underrepresented and disproportionately neglected group of people living in the UK. This is just not good enough.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Nicola Jeffery

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • ITV Debate failed to address the £100bn elephant in the general election room

    Another day, another general election debate – this time, the ITV Debate on Thursday 13 June. Once more, there was posturing, outrage, but not a lot of anything other than hot air from the politicians present. However, what there was was a gaping hole where millions of people should have been – and £100bn of money, too. Because during the debate – like every one before it – no one even mentioned Universal Credit.

    ITV Debate: the most tuneless septet on the planet

    Much of the debate was a near-carbon copy of what the party representatives said on the BBC one on Friday 7 June – with the same lines being trotted out on every issue, with the same personal anecdotes also being regurgitated:

    The Tories’ Penny Mordaunt and Labour’s Angela Rayner were once again at each others throats:

    Like the Keir Starmer/Rishi Sunak Sky News Debate, the audience found something to laugh at, at some point, during each politicians’ bluster. This was far-right Nigel Farage’s moment:

    But ultimately, the ITV Debate was a pointless exercise in shouting and grandstanding:

    However, none of the panelists nor the audience mentioned the ongoing chaos surrounding Universal Credit.

    Universal Credit: the £100bn elephant in the ITV Debate room

    People reliant on DWP social security have faced systemic discrimination, inequality, and cuts since the coalition government introduced Universal Credit in 2013/14. The Tory architects of the system claimed it would simplify the benefits process and make claimants better off in work. Yet, this was all lies.

    The most recent report on Universal Credit in April by think tank the Resolution Foundation found that:

    Seven-in-ten (71%) of the 9.8 million families who are eligible for either Universal Credit or legacy benefits are worse off in real terms on Universal Credit in 2024-25 than they would have been under the legacy system in 2013-14, with an average difference among all eligible families of minus £1,400 per year.

    However, the Resolution Foundation makes clear this is due to successive Tory cuts – not the design of Universal Credit itself. These cuts about to a 6.7% fall in the real-terms value of benefits in April 2024 versus April 2013.

    ITV Debate: what about the cuts?

    What the think tank does make clear (and what the ITV Debate also avoided) is that many people have lost out under the benefit. Specifically:

    • Some single parents are £1,700 a year worse off.
    • Some single disabled people are £2,800 a year worse off.
    • Families previously entitled to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) are £2,100 a year worse off.
    • Families were no-one works because of ill-health are £1,600 a year worse off.
    • Nearly half a million families with disabled people, previously entitled to ESA, have been thrown into the poorest 20% of society.

    As the Resolution Foundation alludes to, Universal Credit has effectively made working people better off, and chronically ill and disabled people poorer. It also sanctions people more than legacy benefits. And, it has done nothing to shift working people off benefits. The Resolution Foundation notes 5.3 million working people are entitled to Universal Credit. Work really does not pay.

    The forgotten millions

    But let’s be clear, as the Resolution Foundation is, but as the ITV Debate was not: everyone is ultimately worse off overall under Universal Credit. The 6.7% real-terms cuts to benefits plus the design of Universal Credit has meant overall, £100 billion has been cut from the welfare state since 2013/14.

    Yet none of the parties are doing anything remotely realistic to address this disaster. The now most-progressive lot, the Green Party, is only offering a £40-a-week uplift. This would not make up for the losses hundreds of thousands of chronically ill, disabled, and single people have faced.

    The likely next government, the Labour Party, is only saying it will “review” Universal Credit. Given it has gone out of its way to paint itself as the party of ‘working people’, Labour is unlikely to change the benefit either.

    So, as the ITV Debate showed, child-and working-age benefit claimants – all roughly nine million of them – are not even on the general election agenda.

    Featured image via ITV – screengrab

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Week In Ableist Bullsh*t: the Tories try to win back old bigots by threatening to kill disabled people, again

    It’s been a busy week for Rishi Sunak, who somehow managed to make himself look even worse and alienate his core voters – that’s right, old bigots who bang on about the war all day.

    With the Tories so far behind in the general election polls, you’d think someone on team Sunak would’ve realised what a home run turning up at D-Day and pretending to care about tanks could’ve been. But for that to happen there needs to still be anyone on team Sunak I guess.

    After fucking off home early and then having to spend the next few days in hiding amidst rumours of ousting, he knew what he had to do. And so Rishi unveiled his plan for welfare.

    Well, unveiled is a strong word. He wrote a column in the Sun. 

    Sunak: spouting welfare propaganda in the Sun

    I’ve written previously about how the British media allows the government’s lies about disabled people to flourish, but this takes the piss. A big problem with the media is that constant staff cuts mean analysis suffers and Tory bullshit is reported as fact. 

    But this isn’t even reporting. It’s straight up letting one of the most powerful men in the world spout his propaganda.

    There’s also the fact that we’re expecting the main party manifestos next week, which will obviously dominate the front pages. An old trick the government likes to do with welfare cuts is soft launch them a few days before the “meatier’ things, so they’ll be swept aside for sexier policies like funding for the NHS or tax breaks. 

    We saw Hunt and Stride pull this with last year’s autumn statement where the WCA reforms were the pre-drinks for the full-blown tory hate fest.

    Anyway onto the welfare plans.

    Writing in the Sun (vom), Sunak says he’ll ‘slash welfare by £12bn a year and get Brits back to work’. He states pretty early on that:

    ‘We Conservatives are compassionate [lol] and believe that those who really can’t work should be supported.’

    But there’s no elaboration on this – and crucially we need to remember that who ‘can’t work’ is decided by them.

    That imaginary benefit fraud again

    He goes on to say it’s his ‘moral mission’ to get as many people back to work as possible – though of course there’s no plans to shorten the waiting time for Access to Work or actually support disabled people into work. 

    Sunak reminds us all that the amount spent on sick and disabled benefits has increased by two-thirds since 2020. It’s almost like his government let a deadly pandemic rip through the country and created a whole new wave of disabled people. 

    Finally, after over 500 words, he tells us the Tories plan… and it’s the same one they already announced. 

    Expanding mental health treatment, reform the benefit system to ‘halt the unsustainable rise in claims’ whilst supporting those who need it most, and reform benefit assessments.

    The Telegraph meanwhile went with this headline and subheading:

    Rishi Sunak has promised to save the taxpayer £12 billion a year by clamping down on benefit fraudsters and reforming the welfare system.

    Major focus of Tory package will be cutting long-term sickness and ensuring more working age people are in employment

    Considering a few weeks ago it was revealed that disability benefit fraud is at almost zero, I’m not sure how much more it could be brought down? 

    But this is exactly what I was talking about when I said those figures, which they should’ve been really proud of, no longer fitting their narrative. 

    Wet Wipe meets Kuenssberg

    Never one to miss the disabled people hating, our favourite DWP wet wipe Mel Stride was on Laura Kuennsberg’s Sunday morning show. He had the prime spot of coming directly after Nigel Farage being racist as fuck, meaning he appeared almost rational.

    Whilst Sunak is having an absolute mare of a fortnight, Stride seems to have been media-coached to within an inch of his life. He spoke to Laura K in a low volume, ‘not angry just disappointed’ concerned tone that reminded me of a deputy headteacher who’s sick of residents complaining about kids being noisy walking home from school. 

    The way he was able to twist reform concerns and never directly talk about the people it’ll affect was masterful. He instead focused on how much it would save the poor innocent taxpayer in welfare. This is deliberate, as it means people are easily able to detach from those suffering and the people he’s planning to kill. It’s giving only those who make money humanity.

    He was weirdly proud of expanding Talking Therapies, as if he truly believed a huge waiting list and then six-eight sessions could cure the mental health crisis. It feels very insipid that the focus is on mental health. The Tories know that their vile core voters don’t take this as seriously, so wouldn’t object in the way they would a cancer survivor being forced back to work.

    In a truly chilling performance, he attempted to make 440,000 disabled people losing their benefits due to WCA changes sound like a good thing. There was no mention of supporting them and truly assessing if they really could work, just how much it would save the taxpayer. This man is truly a monster. 

    Sunak: none of this is serious but it forces Starmer to be viler

    This isn’t a new tactic, and it means they’ve been able to blur the line between Universal Credit and PIP by focusing on how much us workshy shirkers are stealing from the poor hardworking taxpayer. 

    It’s betting on the ignorance of non-disabled people to not know that PIP isn’t an unemployment benefit and that many disabled people claim it because our lives are so much more expensive. It’s also ignoring the fact you can be employed and claim Universal Credit, because even those who work can’t afford to live in a country that the Tories have destroyed.

    This means that the majority of disabled people, who you claim are tax dodgers, are in fact tax payers. But that doesn’t help their narrative. 

    As I’ve said before, none of these are serious plans – they’re using disabled people as bait to appeal to the vilest in humanity, those who think we truly are all scroungers. This time there’s also the clear use of us as a political football. 

    At every turn voters are reminded by the Tories that Labour doesn’t have a plan, almost daring Starmer to be even viler. Which is why we need to vote them out and then hold the next lot to account.

    On that note the deadline to apply for a postal vote is coming up this week, please make sure you sign up if you think you might need one.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • EHRC inquiry into DWP benefit deaths will EXCLUDE relatives of deceased claimants

    The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is investigating the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)’s inhumane treatment of disabled people claiming benefits. However, there’s one big, glaring problem with this DWP benefit deaths inquiry. The EHRC has now confirmed that it will exclude disabled people and relatives of those who the DWP’s callous policies have killed.

    DWP benefit deaths inquiry

    As the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey reported in May:

    The inquiry will focus on benefits assessments and how health decisions are made to award or deny disabled people benefits such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP) as well as the Work Capability Assessment that are used to force disabled unemployed people into work – or worse deny them benefits that allow them to live.

    Ostensibly then, a key role of this inquiry will be to review the DWP’s treatment of disabled benefit claimants under UK equality law. Significantly, it launched the probe in response to concerns that disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) have repeatedly raised on benefit deaths.

    This would of course be the tens of thousands of people who have died at the hands of the DWP. As the Canary’s Steve Topple previously detailed, between 2011 and 2021, this amounted to nearly 35,000 people who:

    died either waiting for the DWP to sort their claims or after it said they were well enough to work or start moving towards work.

    However, the EHRC’s inquiry is set to exclude both disabled individuals and people who lost their loved ones to the DWP’s cruel policies and systemic failures.

    Disability News Service (DNS) broke the story that the EHRC had confirmed this as the case. DNS reported that the EHRC:

    confirmed this week that it would not seek evidence from individuals because it did not consider this to be “proportionate”.

    Instead, disabled people who claim benefits, and relatives of claimants who have died, will be expected to contact a “relevant organisation or representative such as an MP to provide their story”.

    In other words, the inquiry will not take testimonies from individual members of the public directly. Instead, it intends to lump these together under DPOs’ responses.

    There’s another catch

    Moreover, as Charlton-Dailey also highlighted, the EHRC is conducting the inquiry over tight, seemingly arbitrary timeframes. As she wrote:

    Whilst past and current ministers and senior officials will be called to explain themselves, there’s of course a catch. The scope of the inquiry is only from 2021 to now.

    What this means, as she also explained, is that some ministers who presided over these unconscionable, avoidable deaths, will be let off the hook entirely. This includes a large portions of Therese Coffey’s time as DWP boss. Gallingly, it also means that Iain Duncan Smith – arguable architect-in-chief who set the DWP’s brutal wheels in motion – will avoid scrutiny.

    To make matters worse, the timeframe also means that the EHRC will likely exclude the deaths before this date. Charlton-Dailey pointed out this includes some of the better-publicly-known cases of disabled benefit claimant deaths such as:

    Errol Graham who starved to death in 2018 after his payments were stopped or Michael O’Sullivan who died by suicide after being declared fit for work.

    The EHRC’s response to DNS shed more light on this, but offered little reassurance. DNS wrote that:

    But when asked this week about the earlier cases, the spokesperson pointed to the inquiry’s terms of reference, which state that the investigation will look at earlier periods “if relevant, necessary and proportionate”.

    He said: “This allows investigators to consider evidence from earlier than 2021 if appropriate and relevant.”

    Unsurprisingly, the spokesperson did not elaborate on exactly what would constitute “appropriate and relevant” in this instance.

    A pointless tick-box investigation?

    All this might understandably have people scratching their heads wondering: what exactly is the point of this inquiry then? Unfortunately, it appears to be another tepid tick-box investigation, which will make no meaningful real-world difference for disabled people.

    Of course, the EHRC’s independence from the toxic Tory government has been questionable at the best of times. Multiple former staff members at the EHRC have previously called out its purported collusion in toeing the Conservative’s political line. Notably, the government appointed the commission’s current chair Kishwer Falkner. She has headed the EHRC’s transphobic positions through its inquiries.

    The EHRC’s decision now to exclude disabled people and relatives of deceased claimants calls its impartiality into question again.

    And incidentally, a UN independent expert even called the commission out on some of its decisions with regards to trans people’s rights. The parallel here of course, is that UN’s top body on disability rights has just this April slammed the DWP’s treatment of disabled people too. In fact, in its scathing report, it lambasted the “systematic violations” of disabled people’s human rights. By contrast however, its inquiry did include testimony from disabled folks and the loved ones of deceased claimants.

    At the end of the day then, this DWP benefit deaths inquiry will be another exercise in letting the Tories off the hook. Will the next incoming government heed its findings? With the two major parties willfully neglecting disabled people or otherwise fixated on punishing them for even daring to exist, it’s doubtful. When it comes down to it, it’s not as if either party is in the habit of listening to inquiries anyway.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • A council is promoting a junk science exercise programme for long Covid patients

    A council in Northamptonshire has launched a recovery scheme for people living with long Covid. However, the 12-week long Covid exercise programme is centred round incremental exercise. Of course, this looks alarmingly like a harmful treatment that psychologising scientific hacks have forced on patients living with a similar post-viral chronic illness for decades.

    North Northamptonshire’s long Covid exercise programme

    On 30 May, North Northamptonshire council announced a new programme to help residents living with long Covid.

    As the BBC reported:

    People who are struggling with symptoms of long Covid can get help from a council-funded exercise scheme.

    The 12-week long Covid recovery programme is open to resident from North Northamptonshire with sessions held at Lodge Park Sports Centre in Corby.

    Anyone who is suffering from persistent symptoms caused by the virus can self-refer onto the programme or be referred by a medical professional.

    Ostensibly, the ‘recovery’ scheme includes use of smart fitness tech for a purportedly “tailored fitness programmes”. In particular, the programme utilises German fitness tech company EGYM’s equipment and software.

    According to North Northants’s webpage, the exercise sessions revolve around EGYM’s so-called ‘Immunity Boost’ programme. Notably, EGYM’s website states that in this:

    Each workout contains a warmup, a muscle strengthening part and a light cardio cool down.

    During the warm up which includes stretching exercises for an increased lymph flow and improved breathing capacity, you activate your immune system and get prepared for the following strength training.

    The muscle strengthening part is designed in a way that your muscles release as many myokines as possible without being too strenuous. In the cardio cool down your body accelerates the regeneration and reduces the open window effect.

    Crucially, it advocates for “progression controlled exercises” – or in other words, week-on-week increases in different activities. In a nutshell then, it’s promoting a physical therapy intervention known as graded exercise therapy (GET).

    Effectively, GET entails incremental increases in exercise, over a period of time. It rests on the premise that a patients’ reduced capacity is due to deconditioning. However, this is hugely problematic.

    GET: a junk science treatment

    GET has been the favoured treatment of a prominent lobby who have psychologised a similar post-viral illness in what an MP described as the:

    biggest medical scandal of the 21st century.

    The Canary has consistently reported on the powerful, vested psychiatric lobby who have hijacked the science and care for people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). Notably, a fraudulent, junk science and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) part-funded study known as the PACE trial pushed GET and other psychologising treatments. You can read more on the PACE trial and its controversial history here.

    Crucially, many patients have reported that GET has made their condition worse. This is due to the disease’s hallmark feature – post exertional malaise (PEM). PEM causes a disproportionate worsening of multiple debilitating symptoms after physical, mental, social, or emotional exertion.

    However, in 2021, key health body the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) removed GET as a treatment recommendation for ME. Unfortunately, as the Canary’s Steve Topple reported, these guidelines didn’t go far enough. Specifically, they left the door open to so-called “personalised” and “flexible” exercise programmes – which on the whole, operate as GET-lite.

    Predictably, the psych lobby has already weaponised this to devastating effect. Members of this prominent psych lobby still try to push this treatment on people living with ME. Often, its ardent clinical devotees attempt to spin a new version of GET as novel and safe approaches to ME care. Part of this backlash, as Topple also pointed out – is that it’s now rolling out GET to long Covid patients.

    North Northamptonshire’s long Covid exercise programme is a prime example of this.

    A money-making scheme for the council?

    What’s concerning here is that long Covid has pathological overlaps with ME. On top of this, studies have already shown that over 50% of people living with long Covid meet the diagnostic criteria for ME. Ergo, the treatment is inappropriate – in fact, even potentially dangerous – for many patients with the condition.

    So why exactly is North Northamptonshire Council funding a GET-based programme for people with long Covid?

    Northamptonshire itself has no specialist services for people living with ME. As such, as far as the Canary could see, it doesn’t have local psych lobby proponents influencing the direction of these services. Instead, it points to a dearth of knowledge on ME as a whole in the area.

    Exemplar of this, while there are no existing ME clinics, local NHS services do have form on psychologising the chronic illness:

    Now, this seems to be feeding through to its approach on long Covid too – with this long Covid exercise programme.

    What’s more, EGYM appears to be part of the council’s broader plans for generating income from its leisure services. North Northamptonshire is promoting the long Covid programme with a discounted referral offer of £24.50 a month to EGYM and the leisure centre’s facilities.

    Notably, in a recent council performance report from February, it lists “Introduce an E-Gym offer” as one of its income generation proposals. In other words, this this new long Covid service is little more than a souped-up money-making scheme for the council. Of course, it will come at the expense of many long Covid patients.

    Evidently however, the programme is little more than glorified GET, dressed up in new fitness tech. So once again, this vestige of a junk science treatment is set to devastate the lives of more people living with devastating chronic illness.

    Feature image via EGYM – Youtube

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Week in Ableist Bullsh*t: HELLO! Is this thing on? Can you hear me?

    Hello hello, testing testing. Is this thing on? Can everyone hear me? Can you all see me?

    Oh good, it’s just the Conservatives and Labour who apparently have forgotten disabled people exist, again – right during a general election. 

    No general election ableist bullshit – which isn’t a good thing…

    After months of making disabled people the enemies of the public who are stealing the taxpayer’s money, we appear to have turned invisible to the two major parties. 

    I was about to start writing this column earlier in the week when I realised I had nothing to write about. There has been no massive amounts of ableism this week, because they’ve just… stopped talking about us.

    It’s like we’re in some weird twilight zone where they’re all just letting us get on with our lives without suggesting we shouldn’t be able to go on holiday or that we’re all lazy feckers who sit in front of the TV all day. I’m writing this whilst watching I Kissed A Girl and this is a safe space to say that now.

    Disability is often condescendingly called a superpower, but is this what they meant? Have we all become invisible?

    Has anyone checked on Mel Stride? He hasn’t been seen ranting about unemployed disabled people in TWELVE days. Is the wet wipe okay?

    Has he been spotted wandering around Devon yet ranting incoherently asking random wildlife if they claim benefits, trying to convince them about “the benefits of work”?

    It should be a comfort that they’re seemingly leaving us alone but after months of threatening to make our lives harder and years of actions that have led to our deaths. The silence is just as scary.

    General election: a scary silence

    While the prime minister, opposition leader, and candidates have been up and down the country and touted out across media for the general election, not one has mentioned anything to do with disability.

    There’s been nothing to do with PIP reforms, the threats to the Work Capability Assessments, and any changes they would make to the DWP (for better or worse). Absolutely not a peep on how they’ll support us in the cost of living crisis.

    It makes sense, almost for the Tories to be silent about us. After years of demanding us they no longer have to – the propaganda has already gotten to people. They also know that so many are turning away from them and I suspect they don’t want to give media pundits even more reason to hate them.

    However, it makes zero sense for Labour to ignore us. Things like the fact both the EHRC and the UN have found them to be actively endangering disabled people’s lives would be great fuel for the Tory-hating fire.

    Why aren’t they constantly pointing out that their policies have and will continue to kill disabled people? That their rhetoric has led to us being seen as lazy, workshy scroungers who want to leech off taxpayers.

    At a time when the DWP are attacking neurodivergent people and those with mental health conditions, it’d be an absolute home run for any of the Labour lot to speak out about how abhorrent they’re being.

    They must, therefore, be staying quiet for a reason.

    Labour: letting a good thing go to waste?

    This could be that they know how good a number the scrounger narrative has done on disabled people and they don’t want to lose the “hardworking” voters who might worry they’re going to give people who need it support at the expense of their taxes.

    The most worrying conclusion is this: Labour hasn’t spoken up about disabled people because they share the same ideals as the Tories.

    The only thing we’ve heard from the Labour election campaign so far is a line straight from the Tory playbook “Those that can work will”. There was also a vague idea yesterday that local government will support more disabled people in to work.

    But this sounds a lot like Wet Wipe’s WorkWell and there was no talk of funding for local authorities who are already stretched enough.

    As always, any focus on disabled people has been put on our ability to work, because humans are apparently only useful if they can make money and if they can’t well into the mixer with you.

    With a bit of luck, we’ll be well shot of the Tories in a few weeks time, but there’s no doubt in my mind we’ve got a fight on our hands with Labour.

    The Lib Dems a glimmer of hope? Yes, you heard that correctly

    One glimmer of hope is that the Tories are set to be wiped out so hard that the Lib Dems could become the official opposition. Ed Davey shared yesterday that he’s the father of a disabled child, so hopefully once he’s stopped having a lovely little adventure holiday he’ll get to work holding them to account.

    Until then we’ll have to do it ourselves, as always.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Disabled Voters Face Extra Obstacles to the Ballot Box

    When Kenia Flores was studying for her bachelor’s degree at Furman University in South Carolina and wanted to vote in her hometown election in North Carolina, she needed an absentee ballot. However, she soon discovered North Carolina did not offer accessible absentee ballots for blind or print-disabled individuals. This left Flores, a blind voter, in the position of either sitting out the election…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • DWP staff ADMIT that despite thousands of dead disabled people they STILL don’t follow safeguarding rules

    Staff at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have admitted that there isn’t time to worry about safeguarding, nor do staff follow the rules around it all the time anyway. Those are a few of the result from a survey of DWP staff, which found the problems with safeguarding appear to be systemic. Not that this will be news to anyone who follows what the department does; not least the UN – who already accused it and the government of being responsible for the deaths of countless disabled people.

    DWP: nothing to see here

    The Work and Pensions Select Committee ran a survey of DWP staff over safeguarding. Disability News Service broke the story. As it noted, the:

    DWP has continued to insist that it takes safeguarding seriously

    And:

    Mims Davies, the minister for disabled people, insisted to the committee in March that the “narrative around DWP’s treatment of vulnerable people has been incredibly unhelpful” and was “not roundly correct”.

    Of course, none of this is true. Now, the staff survey backs up what campaigners have long thought.

    Staggering disregard for safeguarding

    80% of staff surveyed had “direct contact” with claimants. For those who did, some of the results were staggering. 76% said that they often interact with claimants whose circumstance give rise to safeguarding concerns. Yet:

    • 67% (the majority) said they did not have enough time in their day to deal with safeguarding concerns carefully, correctly and in a timely manner.
    • 51% (the majority) said there was not sufficient support from management to help ensure that effective safeguards are in place for vulnerable claimants.
    • 48% (the majority) did not think safeguarding procedures were followed properly by all staff in every incidence.
    • 44% (the majority) said safeguarding guidance for frontline staff was NOT clear, comprehensive and easily accessed.
    • 42% (the majority) had not received adequate safeguarding training to enable them to deal with safeguarding issues appropriately at regular intervals since they started in their role.

    Countless deaths on the DWP’s watch

    DWP staff admitting they don’t have the time, management support, proper guidance, or adequate training to deal with claimant safeguarding properly is a huge red flag – as is the majority of staff also admitting their colleagues do not carry out safeguarding procedures properly.

    Not least in this is because just weeks ago the UN slammed the UK government and DWP over the deaths of chronically ill and disabled people. As the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey wrote:

    The UNCRPD also expressed that they were “appalled” by the scale of benefits deaths, saying

    “the evidence received revealed a disturbingly consistent theme: disabled people resorting to suicide following the denial of an adequate standard of living and social protection, starkly contradicting the foundational principles enshrined in the Convention”.

    Moreover, for around 13 years chronically ill and disabled people have been dying in their thousands on the DWP’s watch.

    As the Canary documented in 2021, between December 2011 and April 2018, nearly 35,000 people died on the DWP’s watch – either waiting for the DWP to sort their claims or after it said they were well enough to work or start moving towards work. This doesn’t include claimants who have killed themselves as a direct or indirect result of the DWP.

    Not fit for purpose – and neither are the DWP’s own staff

    The Work and Pensions Select Committee noted that:

    The survey was distributed via the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) to DWP staff who were PCS members. Therefore, we accept that we were only able to reach a limited pool of DWP staff and expect that the majority of responses have come from staff who were members of PCS

    However, this is irrelevant.

    The survey sample is likely representative of the DWP workforce more broadly. Anyone who has interacted with DWP staff knows that many of them either a) do not care about claimants, or b) actively consider them somehow inferior to themselves.

    It is little wonder, then, that the DWP and its staff take safeguarding so lightly. The department is systemically prejudiced, discriminative, and negligent towards claimants. It has wilfully covered up it and its staffs’ involvement in the deaths of claimants for years.

    And now, DWP workers have all but admitted that their own conduct surrounding the most vulnerable claimants is negligent. Ironically, there was a question in the survey that asked:

    My managers recognise the impact of dealing with safeguarding concerns on my mental health and offer me appropriate support.

    The majority of DWP workers disagreed with this statement. Maybe if they didn’t willingly work for an organisation that commits “grave” and “systematic” violations of disabled people’s human rights their own mental health might be a bit better.

    Featured image via YouTube

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • SHOCK as DWP finds some real benefit fraudsters instead of just making ones up

    For once, the waste-of-space fraud unit at Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has actually caught some real-life fraudsters leeching British taxpayers out of a tidy £53.9m. So naturally, the right-wing corporate media had a field day crowing about Mel Stride’s wet wipe army’s sudden DWP benefit fraud breakthrough. Of course, there’s nothing curious about the timing at all – it’s not as if there’s an election on the horizon or anything – oh, wait.

    DWP benefit fraud: a media field day

    Surprise, surprise, GB News was all over this case of DWP benefit fraud. It reported how:

    A Bulgarian gang which fraudulently claimed over £50million in Universal Credit “poked fun at the naivety” of the Department for Work and Pensions, a court has heard.

    Cue the corporate media smears – with an (un)healthy dose of rancid racism thrown in for good measure. Right-wing shill Matthew Lynn was laying it on thick with the anti-migrant, benefit scrounger rhetoric. And that’s not to forget his anti-woke ‘work from home’ culture war prattle too. He wrote that:

    the civil servants who are meant to monitor claims are all working from home, or attending compulsory “unconscious bias” courses, and are too terrified of accusations of xenophobia to start checking whether all the claims from Bulgarian sounding names might mean there is something fishy going on.

    Naturally, the DWP press goon managed to shoehorn in the whole benefits are “too generous” steaming pile of shit to boot. Clearly he missed the memo about a key UN committee finding the UK’s benefit system is rife with “grave” and “systemic” rights violations, for the second time. Or the one about it callously cutting thousands from people’s benefits through its bullshit Universal Credit ‘mass migration’ process.

    Fast-and-loose with the truth on fraud

    Here’s the thing though, as the Canary has consistently reported, benefit fraud is largely non-existent – and this Bulgarian benefit fraud racket is the anomaly. For instance, the Canary’s Steve Topple has previously underscored how a sizeable proportion of the DWP’s fraud estimates are not in fact from actual claimants at all. Instead, Topple has detailed how:

    much of the £8.3bn the DWP promotes as fraud (and that the media dutifully laps up) is just based on assumptions and guesswork.

    Then, take Personal Independence Payment (PIP). The Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey recently pointed out that the government’s own data found that cases of PIP fraud were next-to-nothing at just 0.1%. Funnily enough, as Charlton-Dailey also highlighted, the DWP were a little quiet on this:

    When they made a massive stab-vested song and dance about DWP fraud decreasing in 2023, you have to wonder why they aren’t shouting from the rooftops that PIP fraud is now at 0%. The only conclusion to be reached is that low-or-no DWP benefit fraud doesn’t fit their narrative of how much disabled people are wasting taxpayers money. So nothing to see here.

    Unfortunately then, it never actually matters that the proportion of fraud in the benefits system is infinitesimally small. What matters isn’t fact or fiction – it’s the cherry-picked, fast-and-loose with the truth that feeds their foul agenda.

    But of course, there’s a more serious side to all this too. That’s because, the stream of articles from the Tories devoted media lapdogs played up its usual toxic line. Specifically, it feeds into its narrative that benefit claimants are laughing all the way to the bank. In reality, the UK’s benefit system is screwing over poor and disabled people as regularly as Tory corruption scandals brew.

    The DWP are the real fraudsters

    So after a two-year investigation, the DWP has “cracked down” on a four-person benefit-laundering gang. It has exposed them for fraudulent claims of £53.9m.

    Meanwhile, the average salary for an employee in the DWP’s so-called ‘Targeted Case Review’ is around £30,000 a year. With plans in the works for 2,000 more ‘external agents’, the DWP has said this will swell its ranks to 6,000 employees working in fraud detection.

    So chasing after the big bucks, the department will pay its benefit snoops, wait for it: £1.8bn a year. In other words, the DWP is throwing billions at recovering millions – slow-clap, long eye-roll.

    At the end of the day, that’s where the money is: because it’s the DWP that’s defrauding the British taxpayer, with its ceaseless “crack down” crock of shit.

    Feature image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • DWP is being forced to defend its decision to cut YOUR Universal Credit benefits

    Before voters head to the polls in the general election, another likely-to-be damning indictment of the Tories callous cuts to benefits will come to light. Specifically, the government must publish documents detailing the impacts of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) scrapping the Universal Credit uplift that it had introduced during the pandemic.

    DWP Universal Credit uplift

    In April 2020, the government increased the rate of Universal Credit by £20 a week. However, by October 2021, the Tories ditched the so-called DWP Universal Credit “uplift”.

    Naturally, as the Canary consistently reported at the time, scrapping this would hit multiple marginalised groups the hardest. This included numerous warnings that it would further impoverish:

    • Almost 3.5 million children in households claiming the benefit.
    • Over a fifth of working-age families with children across the country on average. Moreover, in some constituencies, the cut would hit more than three-quarters of working-age families.
    • More than 660,000 low-paid keyworkers.

    Predictably, despite these warnings from thinktanks, organisations, and campaigners alike, including footballer Marcus Rashford, the Tories ploughed ahead anyway. Moreover, as the Canary had also detailed, the DWP Universal Credit £20 uplift itself was already woefully inadequate.

    Notably, a survey of claimants found the paltry increase to the already pitifully low benefit made little difference to social security claimants. In reality then, it didn’t actually do much to lift many claimants out of poverty.

    Now, transparency laws will force the government to finally reveal the real-world impact that dropping its DWP Universal Credit uplift had.

    ICO orders DWP to reveal report

    Notably, the Tory government had previously produced an analysis assessing the impact of its decision to stop the uplift. In particular, this examined the impacts of extending the benefit increase – which would implicitly also reveal the impact of not doing so.

    However, it originally refused to disclose this information via the Freedom of Information Act to the Mirror in 2023. As a result, the Mirror pursued this with the Information Commissioner’s Officer (ICO). As the outlet reported:

    The government has refused to release an analysis examining the impact of not extending the support. But in a victory for the Mirror, the Information Commissioners’ Office (ICO) has now ordered the Treasury to disclose the details.

    Of course, evading transparency laws has been a consistent past-time of successive Tory administrations. For instance, in November 2023, the Disability News Service finally won a protracted freedom of information battle over DWP Universal Credit. This was over another secret report the department had buried for four years on flaws in the DWP Universal Credit system harming vulnerable claimants.

    Significantly, the Mirror reported that the ICO issued its decision notice just hours before Sunak called the election. In other words, this was another announcement the Tories could conveniently sweep under the rug of the sudden surge in election coverage.

    DWP Universal Credit – a broken system

    Given the numerous warnings on the cut’s impact, it’s not likely the report will show anything new. However, the information should always have been in the public domain. With the election incoming, revealing the after-effects of another callous Tory policy is vital now more than ever.

    Despite this, neither major party who will ultimately run the country post-election has so far shown a shred of interest in supporting disabled people and those living in poverty.

    As the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey recently pointed out, Labour has launched its campaign and it was tumbleweed on policies for disabled people. Currently, as she highlighted, it hasn’t issued any indication of improving the benefit system. Instead, its focus on “working people” plays into the continuity-Tory back to work blitz.

    Moreover, as the Canary also underscored in March, Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall has been all over this too.

    Ultimately, the impact of the Tory’s cut should be known to the public.

    However, while neither party appears to give a shit for disabled people and others its policies push into poverty, it’s a moot point.

    Right now, it seems unlikely either will do away with the punitive, wholly inadequate DWP Universal Credit system as a whole – without which, there’ll be no meaningful change for the people its broken social security system has screwed over for years.

    Feature image via ODN – DailyMotion

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Week In Ableist Bullshit: three things the DWP don’t want you to talk about

    And we’re off! This week, of course, saw Rishi finally put his big boy pants on and call a general election – which conveniently buried a load of news about the DWP.

    General election shambles

    It was an utterly baffling decision for everyone. Not only are the Tories further behind in the polls than ever but the little snake gave everyone just a few hour’s notice. Even poor ole pig fucker David Cameron was getting some bizarre dictator-style welcome in Albania that he had to call off.

    And now we’re seeing the absolute shambles that is Rishi’s campaign playing out. In the first few days of the campaign alone we’ve seen him:

    And then just when you thought he couldn’t fail anymore, he announces he’s shipping your kids off to war.

    Nothing to see here

    Of course, we know what the Tories love doing more than anything else is burying news that makes them look bad, and this is especially true for anything DWP-or disability-related. 

    So whilst they’re shitting themselves in public and hoping we don’t go looking at the real issues, here I am to bring them to the front – not the front Rishi wants our teenagers on though.

    Human rights watchdog investigating if the DWP are murderers

    Way back on Wednesday morning – before Rishi stood in the pissing rain – it was announced that the EHRC would be launching an inquiry into DWP treatment of disabled benefits claimants. There would be a particular focus on DWP benefits deaths, which is interesting when the new policy would cause far more deaths. 

    It’s interesting this was rushed out on the same day that the will-he won’t-he tension reached a fever pitch. This meant any reporting on the watchdog holding the DWP to account was as drowned out as Rishi was by Steve Bray’s sound system. 

    Only fraudsters are the ones in the cabinet

    While the government and especially the DWP have been fearmongering about benefit fraud and cracking down on disability benefits for months, their own figures found that there was almost no cases of disability benefit fraud last year. 

    That’s right, the government’s own data found that in the financial year ending in April 2024, there was 0% PIP fraud, while DLA stood at 0.1%. Universal Credit overpayments still stand at 10.9% – however, this is down from 11.4% last year. 

    When they made a massive stab-vested song and dance about DWP fraud decreasing in 2023, you have to wonder why they aren’t shouting from the rooftops that PIP fraud is now at 0%. The only conclusion to be reached is that low-or-no DWP benefit fraud doesn’t fit their narrative of how much disabled people are wasting taxpayers money. So nothing to see here.

    DWP snooping thrown out of the Lords on a technicality

    This last one is a bit of good news for disabled people. For the past few months the DWP and government have been trying to push through the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. 

    The proposed bill would allow the DWP to snoop on the bank accounts of anyone in receipt of benefits and anyone connected to them. It would mean the government scrutinising what you spend your benefits on and using that to take them away.

    The bill had already passed through the Commons, but thanks to the rules around general election season it has fallen foul to ‘wash up’ season and been binned off. Let’s hope it’s gone for good

    They don’t want you to talk about it – so let’s shout instead

    Whilst Rishi and his lot come up with the shittest ideas possible and Labour come back with even shitter banter, it’s important that DWP news like this doesn’t get forgotten. 

    One of my favourite things about disabled people is our sense of humour. When you’ve been in the gallows for as long as us there’s nothing else for it. But in amongst the laughing at terrible Tories and endless memes, we also need to keep informing people of theirs and the DWP’s incompetence and lies.

    The Tories are trying to make disabled people the enemy of the electorate, but we’re louder and funnier than you fuckers.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Quack science the ‘Lightning Process’ strikes the chronic illness community again – this time, long Covid

    The BBC has exposed how an insidious group of predatory charlatans have been gaslighting long Covid patients. It revolves around a pseudoscientific treatment known as the ‘Lightning Process’.

    It would be shocking, were it not for the experience of those with another post-viral disease. This is because it isn’t the first time these quack practitioners have scammed vulnerable patients. The reality is, they’ve been grifting off of the devastation myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) has caused to the lives of the millions who live with it for years.

    The Lightning Process strikes long Covid patients

    The ‘Lightning Process’ commercialises a raft of psychological treatments. Primarily it taps into the realms of ‘neurolinguistic programming (NLP)’ – essentially, brain training that purportedly teaches away negative thoughts. Crucially, its proponents promote that it can cure chronic illnesses. In fact, the programme is so-named precisely over the claim that in its three short days of training, patients can be cured.

    So, think: affirmation culture meets dubious science in a perfect storm of ableist gaslighting. In other words, this dazzling purported panacea peddles the pseudoscientific and palpably trash idea that patients can think themselves better.

    Now, a BBC expose has found its adherents have been offering the so-called training to people living with long Covid.

    In an undercover investigation, health and misinformation reporter Rachel Schraer revealed how Lightning Process coaches told patients that:

    almost anyone can recover from long Covid by changing their thoughts, language and actions.

    Schraer’s podcast included a series of secret recordings from training sessions she participated in over Zoom. As the accompanying BBC News article explained:

    Over three days on Zoom, the course taught the ritual that forms the basis of the programme. Every time you experience a symptom or negative thought, you say the word “stop”, make a choice to avoid these symptoms and then do a positive visualisation of a time you felt well.

    You do this while walking around a piece of paper printed with symbols – a ritual the BBC was told to do as many as 50 times a day.

    However, Schraer scrutinised the controversial scheme – platforming the experience of ex-Olympic rower Oonagh Cousins. Notably, the Lightning Process had approached her to offer a free place on the course. She told the BBC that during the programme:

    They were trying to suggest that I could think my way out of the symptoms, basically. And I disputed that entirely…

    I had a very clearly physical illness. And I felt that they were blaming my negative thought processes for why I was ill. They tried to point out that I had depression or anxiety. And I said ‘I’m not, I’m just very sick’.

    Shocking history of abuse in ME

    Ostensibly, the Lightning Process appeared to be banking on bagging another celebrity poster-child for its contentious training.

    Already, it boasts endorsements from public figures like actress Martine McCutcheon and right-wing corporate journalist Esther Rantzen, among others.

    However, its star-studded list of shills conceals an insidious history of patient gaslighting – just as Cousins and Schraer found. Specifically, the Lightning Process has been abusing people living with ME for many years.

    During the podcast, Dr Binita Kane told the BBC that:

    There are decades of evidence in ME to show that there is pathological reasons why there is energy limitation, that there is an underlying problem in the energy-making factory of the body”

    Alongside this, Schraer acknowledged that there is an overlap between ME and long Covid.

    Largely however, the brief nod to ME skipped over the turbulent and torrid history of the Lightning Process for the chronic illness. Yet, as Lightning Process acolytes crawl out of the woodwork to flog it to the latest generation of post-viral patients, its past is more important than ever.

    Snake-oil salesman

    The mastermind behind the Lightning Process is osteopath, tarot card and aura-reader Phil Parker. Parker founded the approach in the 1990s and has promoted it for people with ME for decades. Since then, its influence has spread across the globe, with various practitioners picking up the programme for patients with ME.

    And, in the spirit of its affirmation wellness guff – it thrives on confirmation bias through selectively curated patient testimony. It has plastered its website with platitudes to its own success from patients that purportedly recovered from chronic illnesses after the course.

    However, there is no real evidence base for its claims. Moreover, there are numerous anecdotal patient accounts of harm. This includes a 2012 survey in Norway where by a large majority, ME patients reported that the programme had either not helped, or actively made their condition worse.

    Despite this, junk science studies have painted a veneer of reputability for the medically unproven approach. Unsurprisingly, it has ‘scientific’ support from the echelons of the ME psych lobby. That is, notorious PACE trial supporter, and all-round endorser of bunk psychosomatic interventions for ME – Esther Crawley – has propped up this dubious training programme.

    You can read more on the PACE trial here.

    Notably, Crawley led another contentious study known as the SMILE trial. This assessed the impacts of the Lightning Process on 56 children with ME between the ages of 12 and 18

    Of course, the study compared a cohort of young ME patients on ‘conventional’ treatments – which then involved other harmful psychologising interventions like graded exercise therapy (GET) and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). The Canary has covered extensively why they’re problematic – you can read more on this here.

    Notwithstanding this, unsurprisingly, the study was flawed in a number of other ways too. As such, scientists and patients have slammed the study. An open letter to the medical journal that published the study led to a lengthy editorial correction.

    Long-term ME journalist and advocate David Tuller who coordinated the letter said it best:

    it was a dung-heap of methodological and ethical violations. It has now been slapped with a correction that seems almost as long as War and Peace.

    In truth, when I downloaded the correction into a Word doc, it came out to 2,849 words. That was accompanied by a 983-word “editor’s note” that offered tortured logic to explain why this disastrous study only required “clarifications” rather than retraction. Since the study would never have been published in the first place had the investigators been honest about the conduct of the study, it is disturbing that Archives of Disease in Childhood has allowed them to republish their original and obviously biased findings.

    Lightning Process in clinics?

    Stopping short of retracting the study? It’s the same old story – as with the flawed PACE trial – and forms another damning branch of the ever-growing medical scandal around ME.

    However, there is some tentative good news. That is, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) came out against the Lightning Process in its 2021 ME guidelines.

    Nor is there a hint of the Lightning Process in the latest British Association of Clinicians in ME/CFS (BACME) guidance that clinics use. As the Canary has previously detailed, Crawley originally founded this organisation. Currently, multiple clinics across the country utilise their documents – in some cases to devastating effect for patients.

    However, in a 2019 survey it conducted on ME services, some reported that they used NLP – which the Lightning Process often falls under. Its latest 2023 survey dropped any reference to this. Even so, it seemingly did not survey for this, instead ambiguously referring to “other” approaches.

    Yet while BACME doesn’t appear to openly endorse the approach, a number of its board members are trained in NLP. This includes occupational therapists Charlie Adler and Marina Townend. Notably, both work at NHS ME clinics. Worse still, in 2019, BACME chair Anna Gregorowski led a review of treatments for young people with ME, which concluded that:

    The Lightning Process has been shown to be effective when added to medical care.

    And, as the BBC reported, the new NICE guidelines also haven’t stopped ME and long Covid services in Scotland from pushing the Lightning Process either. This is because NICE guidelines do not automatically apply there. However, it is supposedly updating its equivalent guidelines to be in step with NICE.

    Preying on people living with ME

    So, what’s in it for Parker and his adoring apostles? It’s an easy way to make a quick buck of course – all at the expense of the chronically ill community.

    Moreover, people who’ve participated in its cultish programme have gone on to become coaches. In other words, it’s a glorified health fad-turned-pyramid scheme – as some patients have been pointing out for years.

    Naturally, Parker himself has also been turning a tidy profit from his exploitative scam. He operates a number of companies tied to his Lightning Process approach. Collectively, these had net assets of nearly half a million pounds in 2023.

    Essentially then, he’s preying on sick people largely unable to work, scraping by on paltry state benefits to make a fortune.

    Chronically ill people as the cash cow: long Covid is next

    All this goes to show, snake oil salesmen preying on desperately sick people is nothing new. Lightning Process con-artists continue to make a killing off of chronically ill people without shame nor consequence.

    Yet the alarming reality is, that’s not just a metaphor either. The widespread psychologisation of people living with ME has killed people – and is killing patients now. Moreover, patient-blaming abuse from Lightning Process itself has pushed some patients to attempted suicide.

    That long Covid patients are the new cash cow for this crooked cult of charlatans peddling vacuous crap is no surprise. Where poorly researched and stigmatised health conditions tread, the psych lobby and its capitalist vultures follow, to pick off those society has shunted to the margins. Evidently, gaslighting psychologising treatments can strike twice – but no shockers there.

    Feature image via Matti Blume/Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 1200 by 900, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Tories and Labour both start the general election as the mean to go on: sh*tting on disabled people

    On Wednesday 22 May, Rishi Sunak made his moist announcement about the upcoming general election on 4 July. However, there was no British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter anywhere to be seen. The Tories are starting as they mean to go on – somewhat delulu – and by making it very clear they don’t give a crap about disabled people.

    A general election already NOT for disabled people

    As the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) pointed out:

    Unfortunately for anyone who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention, this comes as no surprise. The Tories have made their stance on disabled people very obvious over the last 14 years – that wasn’t going to change because they want re-electing:

    Obviously, the Tories weren’t thinking about anyone other than themselves and bankrolling their corrupt pals:

    The conservatives are well known for their hatred of disabled people, from slashing disabled people’s benefits and completely screwing them over – to literally causing deaths. The lack of shits they give could not be clearer:

    Complete ineptitude

    Some people presumed the Tories might have learnt lessons from the pandemic – unfortunately for them, it seems their complete ineptitude has no bounds.

    We have already established that Keir Starmer is a Tory in a red tie. So of course, X users were quick to point out that whilst he launched his campaign on dry ground, he also didn’t have enough brain cells to include a BSL interpreter:

    Only last week, the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey covered Starmer’s 10/10 effort in leaving disabled people out of pre-election pledges. As she pointed out, Sunak and his ‘wet wipe army’ see disabled people as their biggest public enemy. Whereas for Labour – clearly ignorance is bliss:

    Moreover, the Tory government introduced the BSL Act in 2022 for precisely these situations. Although, a fish might have a better chance of remembering that:

    We effectively have two power hungry shitbags battling it out in a general election to lead a country even further into disaster. Whilst not giving a shit how many disabled people they leave behind, or kill:

    Clearly, neither party can be arsed to do the bare minimum for disabled people. So, why should anyone bother to turn out for them on election day? Hopefully one day, we will have a government we can expect more from. 

    Feature image via NBC News and Guardian News/YouTube

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Human Rights Watchdog announces inquiry into DWP killing disabled people

    Today in “that bump under the rug? Oh it’s just important disabled news don’t look at that”, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has announced they are launching an inquiry on the DWP.

    The failing department is being investigated due to its the inhumane ways they treat disabled people who claim benefits. This will include the link between vulnerable people losing benefits and their deaths.

    The EHRC will examine whether DWP ministers and the policies they were responsible for not only failed to protect disabled people including those with learning disabilities and mental illnesses – but actively harmed them and contributed to their deaths. 

    Strongest possible action against the DWP?

    The inquiry will focus on benefits assessments and how health decisions are made to award or deny disabled people benefits such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP) as well as the Work Capability Assessment that are used to force disabled unemployed people into work – or worse deny them benefits that allow them to live.

    The chair of the EHRC, Kishwer Faulkner said:

    We are extremely worried about the treatment of some disabled benefits claimants by the DWP. We suspect the department may have broken equality law. We have decided we need to take the strongest possible action and that’s why we’ve launched this investigation.

    Whilst past and current ministers and senior officials will be called to explain themselves, there’s of course a catch. The scope of the inquiry is only from 2021 to now. 

    Biggest offenders let off the hook

    This means that although Mel Stride will have to answer for his crimes, Therese Coffey’s inhumanity will be limited to just the last year of her stint. This means she still won’t have to reveal the true scale of benefits deaths that she refused to disclose under the loophole of it being the previous minister Amber Rudd’s investigation.

    Chloe Smith who was in the role for just seven weeks during the Liz Truss fever dream of 2022 will have to report to the inquiry. Yet Iain Duncan Smith who was responsible for the cruellest policies from 2010-2016 will get off scot-free.

    The investigation won’t include the deaths of claimants such as Errol Graham who starved to death in 2018 after his payments were stopped or Michael O’Sullivan who died by suicide after being declared fit for work.

    DWP want to add more disabled deaths to the list

    And while all this happens the DWP are pushing on with their plans to “reform welfare” which will, you’ve guessed it, kill more disabled people. 

    Following on from announcing that we can no longer trust doctors to give out fit notes and the ludicrous idea to give disabled people vouchers instead of benefits, wet wipe Mel Stride was at a Jobcentre this week.

    Unfortunately, he wasn’t signing on.

    Instead he was there to announce that businesses should employ unemployed people. Yes really. He announced that the DWP will be utilising AI to deny benefit claimants instead of just people. That people will be sent to work “Bootcamps” to force people back into work.

    He laughably claimed that the plan will show “Fairness for those who can’t work and are in the most need of the state’s help.” 

    However, he forgets to include that the DWP, who are already responsible for until deaths, will be the ones deciding who can and can’t work. It’s understandable then that the government are trying to downplay this damning inquiry, and what’s the best way to distract attention

    Today? Finally???

    It’s a funny old game being a political journalist.

    You’re usually always acutely aware that time is of the essence, but today there’s an impending sense that my story is going to become irrelevant as soon as I’ve written it. The reason? Well social media is abuzz with rumours that the general election may finally be called today.

    When I last checked we’d reached fever pitch as someone had spotted Rishi’s usually buttons illiterate chief of staff Liam Booth-Smith wearing a tie – this MUST mean he’s preparing to solemnly stand in front of cameras!! Commentators speculated.

    No such thing as chance

    It feels like no coincidence that the prime minister may finally be giving the people what they’re crying out for on the same day that an inquiry is launched into the treatment of the very people his government have spent decades demonising and killing.

    If the announcement does come this week we must do everything we can to hold the Tories – and the next government – to account. We can’t let this DWP inquiry and the treatment of disabled people be brushed under the rug.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • I write about DWP failures for a living – and now its the reason I’m losing my vital benefit

    I’m supposed to be writing about something completely different right now, but as I was working on that I got some news that made my blood curdle. The DWP has stopped my PIP (Personal Independence Payment).

    An expected DWP PIP review

    On 5 April, I received a text from the DWP saying the review into my PIP claim had opened. Even though the review period is four years and it’d only been two since my last review, I had been expecting this. They said the forms would be with me in two weeks. 

    As a disabled person who has spent the last 20 years in the DWP system, this news filled me with dread. Once again I would have to dredge up the worst and most traumatic parts of my life, for someone who doesn’t know me or my conditions to decide if I was worthy of support. 

    On 20 April I attempted to contact the PIP helpline because the form hadn’t turned up, but I was cut off after 45 minutes. I’d spent the day before across the media analysing the prime minister’s speech in which he declared unemployed disabled people the enemy.

    Finally, on 25 April the forms turned up, with the deadline of 4 May. Allowing postage time that gave me just five days to complete the form – which was 40 pages long and required such information as whether I was incontinent. The day before this, a UN report on the government found them to have dangerously failed disabled people.

    I sent the forms back on 30 April and heard nothing.

    Writing on DWP chaos is my job

    Whilst I waited the Tories unveiled their plans to “reform” the very benefit I was applying for.

    They said that the financial assistance I and so many rely on (because life is so much more damn expensive as a disabled person) wasn’t practical. Instead, they proposed a system where people are given vouchers. This would work alongside disabled people being required to invoice their expenses to the DWP and have them paid back.

    And I gladly ripped their plans to shreds. How are we supposed to wait for something to be paid back when we don’t have the money in the first place? Will our energy suppliers or housing take vouchers? All the while I pushed the nervous thoughts to the back of my mind about the fact that I could lose the benefit that enables me to live my life.

    My own terrifying chaos

    Then finally on Tuesday 21 May I received word. My PIP was being taken away, because apparently, I hadn’t returned the form in time.

    I rang the helpline and waited over half an hour whilst trying not to cry. When I finally got through I tried to explain the situation to the advisor.

    “Do you have proof of postage?”

    “No, it was a free post envelope, your envelope”.

    I was put on hold again, and when she came back she informed me a case manager would call me back. A little while later he did, and informed me my form hadn’t been received until 17 May – almost three weeks after I sent it. He told me that because the case had already been closed they’d have to submit a “mandatory consideration”, an appeal of sorts for them to reopen the case. 

    To be clear this isn’t to decide whether they should award me the benefit. No, it’s to decide whether they’ll even look at the forms. The actual assessment could take over a year, as the current wait time is 59 weeks.

    My DWP PIP entitlement, lost – and countless other people’s too

    There’s no way of knowing whether this was the fault of the failing postal service or that the DWP simply hadn’t read it. I suspect a combination of both. Either way due to government error, I now will be without a vital benefit for around two months.

    And I’m not the only one this has happened to.

    When I shared my frustrations on Twitter I received dozens of replies and DMs from people all having the same or worse experiences. Forms being sent out past the deadline to return them, returned forms lost, benefits stopped because the DWP sent the forms to the wrong address, the list goes on and disabled people suffer because of the government’s incompetence. 

    You have to laugh then (if I don’t I’ll cry) at the fact that the DWP is proposing an elaborate system where they reckon they’ll process thousands of expenses claims a month when they can’t even open the post they already get.

    I see every day the cruelty that the DWP and this government subject disabled people to. However, I was truly lost for words that they so casually would just cut my benefits off, all because of their own error. 

    The Tories are doing everything they can to blame disabled people for the state of public services, but you only have to look at the state of the DWP to see who’s really harming this country. 

    14 years of a revolving door of ministers, slashed budgets, and carving off services to their mates has left the DWP on its knees. And disabled people are paying the price.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Inquiry to begin into DWP’s treatment of ill and disabled people on benefits

    Some eligibility decisions have been linked to deaths of vulnerable claimants, and EHRC will examine if ministers acted unlawfully

    The treatment of chronically ill and disabled people by welfare officials, including benefits decisions subsequently linked to the deaths of vulnerable claimants, is to be formally investigated by Britain’s human rights watchdog.

    The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said it would examine whether ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had acted unlawfully by failing to protect claimants with learning disabilities or severe mental illness.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.