I believe it is important, when government makes big decisions, to examine the motives behind the decision. When the coalition came to power, they were two political parties thrown together, who had each made numerous promises. Between the two, some of those policies were contradictory. Some, such as Cameron`s promise that the NHS would be safe in his hands, were blatantly opposite to the ideology of his party.
They were looking for a means whereby promises could be abandoned in favour of pursuing their true agenda, and settled upon the tried and true method of their past: Blame the last government for ills, real and manufactured, then enact the ideology as if there were no other choice.
I left school in 1970, and the seventies was a decade where you could walk out of one job and into another with ease. Vacancies were plentiful, it was an open market. Unemployment was so low, the budget was not of great significance. It has of course risen dramatically since Thatcher’s wholesale destruction of Industry. She created mass unemployment wholesale, thinking it a price worth paying to disarm the unions. The Government today, ignoring their beloved icon’s creation of such expense, now blame the “workshy” for its existence. Of course, they could not just wipe benefits out in one fell swoop, but they needed to do away with it in a way that appealed to voters and not alienate them. The concept of “helping the disabled back to work” was already in their manifesto, and ATOS already engaged by the previous government. Their findings needed to be tweaked though. The coalition still need to get their story straight on this one. We are told variously that the welfare burden needs to be reduced ( a handy word, burden, it implies uselessness and the unwanted, part of stigmatising people), that they want to help the poor and disabled (much as a criminal is helped into prison, or a scammer helps relieve a patsy of their cash), that no disabled will be worse off, that they are getting resources to those who need it most, that there are no targets, and that the benefits bill will be reduced. Quite a contradictory mixture, I think you will agree. The impetus for all this is undoubtably the identification of money not going in to their pockets, and how to guide it safely to said pockets.
Despite the Department of Work and Pension`s own figures depicting a minimal amount of benefit fraud, Ian Duncan Smith dutifully begins a tirade about misuse and fraud, and George Osborne lectures us all on the subject of “deserving and undeserving poor”. All the better to deprive us of our due. Ably assisted by Darth Murdoch and the dark side of the press, the population is scoured in order to find people who can scapegoat the principle. No lies are too big in the pursuit of giving benefits recipients of all kinds a bad name.
People are being sent back to work and deprived of subsistence despite conditions completely inappropriate to satisfy working conditions. Too many people, some with learning disabilities, with cerebral palsy, who are on haemodialysis, or have an inability to walk or talk are told they are fit to work. I have racked my brain in wonderment at what these poor people could possibly do to earn their keep. At the risk of sounding abusive, all I can think of is for them to become a paperweight, a draft excluder or a Tory MP. Surely nobody deserves that.
When Government says they need to save money, and look in your direction, beware. They see whatever little you have as being theirs. The real problem here is the exact same reason Thatcher managed to stay Prime Minister through three unpopular terms of office, a lack of real opposition. The Labour party of the day were riddled with divisions, and not seen as competent competition. I still remember the happiness of people having ousted a long spell of corrupt Tory Government in favour of what turned out to be Tony Blair. New Labour was Blue Labour, and what a disappointment they were to lifetime supporters of Labour.
Real people are left unrepresented politically. The big three parties have little to choose between them, who really trusts Ed Milliband with this country? The most we can say is that he is a less damaging alternative to Cameron, or at least, we hope so. The nearest contender beyond the big three parties is UKIP, or just more of the same. The voters need choice, real choice, not parties cloning each other.
Labour should be the party of the people, but it has lost touch with them. The BBC report that people have moved on and there are seven classes now, a denial of real people`s interests. Labour still have some faithful whose voices we need to hear. shout the blue down and return to the people who need you Labour, We are a democracy in name only if so many people can become scapegoats without anyone to represent their interests.
Gina Ravens. Human Needs 