DWP Terror as Labour takes Tory cruelty to new extremes!

Right, so when we heard Keir Starmer talk about change, we didn’t expect that change to actually be worse than the Tories we just got rid of in any way, but an actual change it still is, so I suppose Starmer did at least promise us this, it’s just very unfortunate for a lot of people that this is the change he’s actually going to stick to it seems, or at least the changes planned by the truly awful Blairite Liz Kendall at the DWP, because she wants to get those costs down, never mind what that expenditure is actually for and whilst she’s going to have the banks spying on benefit claimants bank accounts, she’s now looking at a policy so appalling, that is causing such fear as you can well imagine, because not only is she now specifically turning her attention to those with mental health issues, those who will be least able to cope with the pressures she’s specifically going to be applying to them, but she’s going to target the most ill mental health sufferers, those who have been hospitalised with their mental issues, because she’s now going to do something that’d probably make Iain Duncan Smith pause for thought, and that is send job coaches into mental health hospital wards to look at getting those who’s priority at that time should very much just be focused on getting better and their road to recovery, back into work instead. If you aren’t economically productive, your life is worthless to this growth obsessed Labour government, who think more cuts and even more cruelty are the way to achieve it.
Right, so my opinion of Liz Kendall has always been a dim one, an ardent Blairite, rejected by all but 4% of her party’s membership going into the 2015 Labour leadership election and whilst you might think this is just another old Tory policy that Labour are breathing new life into, it isn’t. Even the Tories didn’t consider trying to get mental health hospital in-patients back to work to the point they’d send job coaches into those hospitals so that even if the DWP itself under the Tories might have been part of what gave these people mental health issues to begin with, Labour are going to chase them down to their hospital ned now. No escape.
I point to the DWP quite deliberately as a driver of mental health problems in this country. They are the root cause of my own mental health issues, 20mg Citalopram every day as I take and it’s years of dealing with them, not as the claimant myself, but as the carer, that has taken that toll. Assessments knowing that if you haven’t done enough to fill out the forms right, haven’t included vast swathes of medical evidences, which the DWP never ask for, but won’t seek your doctor out most of the time to access either, but without which you haven’t a prayer, the system is littered with pitfalls to catch people out even if they legitimately need the help and when you’ve paid in, you expect to be supported and not assaulted by your own government. That has not happened for years under the Tories and now it’s getting worse.
But for as much as I can use myself as a cursory example of the harm the DWP can cause, and of course there are many and varied stories of how the DWP have driven many people to take their lives such has been the appalling way people have been treated under that system run by the Tories, it is set to become so much worse under Keir Starmer’s Labour and as much as I can point to myself and appreciate the issues I’ve had myself, I’ve never been hospitalised, so really, in light of this policy move that has been dreamt up by Kendall herself, we do need to look at why people get hospitalised for mental health issues and for that I’ve turned to the charity MIND and what they have to say on such matters:
‘If you're experiencing a mental health crisis, staying in hospital might be the best way to keep you safe and provide you with the level of treatment you need. This might be because:
• you need to be admitted for a short period for further assessment
• there's a risk to your safety if you don't stay in hospital, for example, if you are severely self-harming or at risk of acting on suicidal thoughts
• there is a risk you could harm someone else
• there isn't a safe way to treat you at home
• you need more intensive support than can be given to you elsewhere.’
So these are people who have either already been found to be, or fear they may be at risk of harming themselves or others, such is the degree of their illness and it is an illness and should be taken seriously, Labour clearly are not doing that here.
The advantages of being in that hospital setting are the access daily to range of therapies, people to talk to and medication if that is what is deemed the right option for you.
The staff are trained to deal with the extremes that mental illness can present itself as, the thoughts of taking your own life, or self harming, they are trained to help you with that.
Your day is structured, there is routine, which helps people get back to a feeling of normality, it also gets you away from the problems you have outside that setting, which may be why a hospital setting to begin with was the best option for you. As you can appreciate, if Liz Kendall can follow you into that setting, or send job coaches into that setting, that is not going to help the patients whatsoever.
I’m also minded to consider if there are any limitations on where these job coaches can go? We don’t know yet, does it include the locked psychiatric units too, where people are kept within a restricted for their own safety and the safety of others? Where people who have been sectioned go – will job coaches go here too? It might seem ludicrous, but isn’t it ludicrous full stop to begin with to send job coaches into a mental health hospital at all?
Certainly other people involved in the work of helping people with mental health think so as this excerpt from the BBC’s coverage implies:
‘Job coaches could visit mental health patients when they are in hospital to help them get back to work, the government has said.
Trials of employment advisers giving CV and interview advice in hospitals produced "dramatic results", Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall told the BBC.
She said a wider roll out would form part of her drive to shrink the UK's annual disability and incapacity benefits bill.
But disability rights campaigners expressed concerns about the proposals, saying they have the potential to worsen someone's mental health.
"It is ridiculous to try and turn a hospital, a place of care and support into a business setting," said Mikey Erhardt, campaigner at Disability Rights UK.
James Taylor, executive director of strategy at disability equality charity Scope, added: “We need to see evidence that work coaches being sent to visit seriously ill people works, and doesn’t cause distress."’
I’d be distressed too. The last thing I want to see is a work coach coming in to see me. I’d be afraid if I didn’t go, I’d be sanctioned even if I didn’t feel well enough and that is assuming I’ve the mental health capacity to rationalise and make such a decision anyway. Can the people working on these hospital wards veto a visit? I doubt it. Kendall wants this to work, she won’t want restrictions on that, especially when the restrictions that would be appropriate here would be to stop the DWP at the front door quite frankly.
The BBC coverage I found disturbing though and perhaps it was just the order they broached the story in, perhaps not, but after that paragraph the story turned to cover what appears to be the DWPs justification for this move and of course the excuse comes down to predicted rises in the UK benefit bill rising by a third over the next 5 years according to the IFS and just like the Tories, because there really is no difference in terms of the mentality between them and Starmer’s Labour, it’s all about removing benefits from people who may well need them to get that bill down. The reason the bill is rising is due to the failure of addressing the underlying causes of the bill rising. Low wages for one, people struggling to get by as a result of that for another, pensions are also too low and if you don’t have a work or private pension scheme to supplement the state pension, you need to claim pension credit. But isn’t it notable it isn’t those shortfalls in general income being targeted, but those who need a bit more help, like the long term sick, mentally ill as they may be in this instance, or the disabled? People that a fair and just society should support and not attack for daring to have additional needs?
The Tories were slammed by the United Nations over their treatment of the disabled, they’ve overseen the delivery of one of the stingiest social security systems in Europe despite being a rich country – we know where all the wealth is by now of course don’t we? But instead of fixing that and taxing the rich to raise the necessary cash, Starmer’s Labour carry on in the same mentality of Tory shrink the state thinking and are now prepared to take that to such an extreme, job caches could be going into mental health wards very soon and that will obviously do the complete opposite of helping these people get well and returning to being productive members of society. No matter who you are, where you live, or what your problems are, your value to Starmer’s Labour is measured only in your economic activity and if you aren’t active, it seems they’re going to come looking for you no matter where you are and that is going to terrify a lot of people, those with mental health issues, most of all.
Meanwhile if you don’t think even Blairites like Liz Kendall can truly be as bas as the Tories, here’s a video recommendation from back in July to clear such matters up for you where Tony Blair himself, in another of his far too common rare interventions has referred to the long term sick and disabled as unsustainable. That’s nice isn’t it? Recommended viewing if still in doubt right here as your suggested next watch and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.