Thanks to one of my contacts for drawing my attention to one of the nastier bits of the current governments disability legislation - see Guardian article
They seem to be giving themselves the power to insist on disabled people being forced to take work at no pay while on benefits for an unlimited time. Now god forbid I'd want to suggest they wouldn't be sympathetic in implementing this, and I'm sure they'd not actually insist on really disabled people taking up jobs that would damage them, or terminally ill people having to work until they're given less than 6 months to live, or making disabled people work for less than the minimum wage straight away. But if they really are that humane - why do they need the powers to do all these things? The defence that 'we wouldn't actually use these powers that way' just isn't good enough. If they're not going to do it, they shouldn't make it legal.
There are a number of powers in the current governments health and 'welfare' legislation agenda that smack horribly of a desire to return to the
workhouse or worse. There are also even more sinister overtones which seem to want to brand disabled people as a 'problem'. We have seen this before - in the eugenics movement. Pastor Martin Neimoller famously warned of this.
Unfortunately he was wrong - First they came for the disabled. (Ultimately resulting in Aktion T4).
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Yes, it's true...and something the We are Spartacus folks are lobbying heavily against.
ReplyDeletewearespartacus.org.uk if you're interested. Trying to raise a bunch of noise about this "indefinite work" issue, and so far about ten of the companies and charities that signed up are now deciding to drop off the programme. More are following so it's looking like workfare will start to crumble but still need to keep pushing.
It's getting a lot of press, but I am still staggered that this government would even suggest going through such measures and trying to sell it.
Will look at We are Spartacus and help where I can. Thanks.
ReplyDeletePetition signed already but will ask around for others. Best wishes - Spartacus rings a lot of bells for me. Need to think what I can do.
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