GET A GRIP Profile picture
Mar 22 10 tweets 3 min read
The young woman with mental health problems asked by an assessor: “Why haven’t you killed yourself yet?”

The grandfather with social anxiety who starved to death after missing his assessment and having his benefits stopped.

#ToryBritain

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
This is systemic cruelty. Against a backdrop of “scrounger” rhetoric from politicians and press so toxic that charities warned it was fuelling hate crime against disabled people, the WCA has morphed into one of the greatest social policy failures in modern times.
Hundreds of £millions of public money filled the coffers of private companies that ran the assessments, as disabled people incorrectly rejected for benefits were forced to turn to food banks. Thousands of disabled & severely ill people have died after being found “fit for work”.
Reducing the number of tests that sick claimants must endure is a good idea on paper but is outright dangerous if that test is unreliable: as it stands, 70% of those denied Pip have the decision overturned on appeal.

#ToryBritain

theguardian.com/society/2022/o…
Currently, the most severely disabled and sick claimants are protected from having to look for work and their benefits being docked. Under the new plan, this will be at the discretion of DWP “work coaches”.
Research shows disabled people are already disproportionately sanctioned compared to non-disabled claimants.

A Govt that boasts it will more “rigorously” sanction the money healthy people need in order to live will soon enough have no qualms about doing it to cancer patients.
It is not as though ministers have tried to hide their true motivation for scrapping the WCA: they’re it’s not doing it to end the hardship the assessment causes, but because there are “too many” long-term sick people on benefits. “Work is a virtue,” Jeremy Hunt told the Commons.
Hunt's language wouldn’t be out of place in a 19th-century workhouse.

For all the promises of helping disabled people back into employment, the crux of this “welfare reform” is simple: those who contribute to the economy have value, and those who can’t are simply worth less.
Ministers could go down a different path; to create a safety net for times of ill health that is humane & fair, while addressing the structural barriers to fulfilling, well-paid jobs.

The truth is, they simply choose not to.
Magnificent work, as ever, by @DrFrancesRyan 🙏

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More from @docrussjackson

Mar 23
#THREAD
The @BBC should let viewers know Matt Goodwin is a lobbyist for the Koch-funded free-market Legatum Institute, founded by Legatum Foundation, the "philanthropic" arm of Dubai-based investment firm Legatum Group, which funds GB "News".
#PoliticsLive
bylinetimes.com/2021/02/15/gb-… ImageImageImageImage
Last year, GB "News" appointed as its Chairman Alan McCormick who has tweeted articles questioning climate science & chairs a foundation that has received funding from fossil fuel interests, & was bought out by existing backers Legatum Ventures Ltd.

desmog.com/2022/05/12/gb-…
GB "News" regularly hosts guests who cast doubt on climate science & oppose green polices, including the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of @Conservatives MPs. Nigel Farage launched a call for a “Net Zero Referendum” on the UK’s climate targets, modelled on his #Brexit campaign.
Read 16 tweets
Mar 23
"To me the danger is that we’ll use our technology to become mutually unintelligible or to become insane if you like, in a way that we aren’t acting with enough understanding and self-interest to survive, and we die through insanity, essentially.”

theguardian.com/technology/202…
Lanier says the more sophisticated technology becomes, the more damage we can do with it, and the more we have a “responsibility to sanity”.

In other words, a responsibility to act morally and humanely.

Pic credit: @coldwarsteve Image
We suspected that inevitably, the internet would screw us over. We wanted stuff for free (information, friendships, music), but capitalism doesn’t work like that. So we became the product – our data sold to third parties to sell us more things we don’t need.
Read 9 tweets
Mar 22
With MANY others, I tweeted about #30pLee being photographed with members of 'Skegby Scooter Club', including 'Martin Dudley', aka 'Martin Fluke'. My tweets have gone! Searching on @Twitter, Anderson Skegby or #30pLee Skegby returns just ONE tweet for 2023!

Please do a search!rh ImageImage
Even in 'advanced search', using multiple varying keywords eg Fluke, Skegby etc I know that I used in several tweets about #30pLee being photographed with far-right supporters, none of my original tweets can be found.

I've never known anything like this before. Any ideas?
Read 4 tweets
Mar 22
#THREAD

The MET is STILL institutionally racist. In February a UN working group wrote to the UK Govt to express “very extreme concern” about its failure to address “structural, institutional & systemic racism” against people of African descent in Britain.
theguardian.com/world/2023/jan…
The UN working group of experts on people of African descent called for an immediate & unconditional moratorium on the use of joint enterprise, warning it was leading to the disproportionate imprisonment of black adolescents.

#ToryBritain

ohchr.org/en/press-relea…
In the damning interim findings that concluded a 10-day fact-finding mission, the experts also called for an immediate moratorium on the use of strip searches during stop & searches by police.

Read 20 tweets
Mar 22
While the Govt & press focus almost exclusively on asylum seekers, UK inflation has unexpectedly jumped to 10.4%.

Food & non-alcoholic drink inflation jumped to a 45-year high of 18.2% in the year to February 2023, up from 16.8% in January.

#CostOfLivingCrisis #SunlitUplands💩
More than 2M people have been contacted by bailiffs during the #CostOfLivingCrisis. The majority who came into contact with a debt collector reported feeling harassed or intimidated.

Bailiffs added £250M in fees to people’s debts in the past 18 months.

theguardian.com/business/2023/…
The cost of detaining & accommodating people under the UK Govt’s barbaric immigration plans could amount to more than £9bn in the first three years.

More than 250K people, including up to 45K children, could have their asylum claims deemed inadmissible.

theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/m…
Read 4 tweets
Mar 21
That Mark Rowley is STILL refusing to accept the prefix 'institutional' means he is unfit to lead the MET Police - it's insulting to police officers' intelligence to suggest the prefix 'institutional' may be interpreted by them (or anyone) to mean ALL police officers are bigots. Image
Institutional racism is that which, covertly or overtly, resides in the policies, procedures, operations & culture of public or private institutions – reinforcing any individual prejudices that may exist at a conscious or un/subconscious level.
Why do we need to distinguish institutional racism from individual racism?

One significant problem is that individual racial attitudes & stereotyping have often been over-emphasised to the point where the institutional level of racism is ignored.
Read 8 tweets

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