3. Forced onto the Work Programme, Sheila became ill and died without regaining consciousness.
5. Karen was assessed as 'fit for work'. Notified she had won her appeal 10 days before her death
4. A rare terminal cancer left David blind, but DWP still classed him as 'fit for work'
6. Multiple transplant patient Linda scored 0 pts in WCA & was declared 'fit for work'. She died 9 days later
7. Robert was too sick to appeal a 'fit for work' decision. He died penniless.
8. Brian was found 'fit for work'. He died of a heart attack the day after his benefits were stopped
9. Cecilia was declared 'fit for work'. Her benefits were only restored a few weeks before her death
10. A physio assessed Tim's mental health & declared him fit for work. He hanged himself
11. Stephen Smith was declared 'fit for work' by the DWP despite being terminally ill and weighing 5 stone. He died while appealing his stopped benefits from his hospital bed. The DWP apologised to his family.
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Thread: 1/10 Who is to blame for the loss of safe Labour seats in the North? Tony Blair & New Labour. Through all the social and economic devastation of the 80s & 90s those seats kept faith with Labour, hoping that the eventual election of a Labour govt
2/10 would rectify matters. What we got instead was more of the same Thatcherite policies with the North left to rot while Blair, Campbell & Co courted their new friends in the South. Labour become associated exclusively with minority causes & identity politics.
3/10 It's not that those things aren't important, it's that Labour allowed itself to be painted as sympathetic to every cause on the planet but that of the white working class. If you think that sounds like a racist assessment, congratulations, you're part of the problem,