Is this the Britain you want?

By Lucette Davies

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has now buckled under the public pressure and admitted defeat in its effort to hide the statistics detailing just how many people have died while claiming incapacity benefit in the last few years.  They have used the expected ‘get out of jail card’ and given a statement saying: “Any casual effect between benefits and mortality cannot be assumed from these statistics.”  Nobody can deny that they are to some extent right in this.  So rather than look at these figures I want to in this post look at things from a different angle.

Is Matt Hancock needing a boot camp for compassion?

By Lucette Davies

Our society has developed quite an unpleasant attitude towards claimants of welfare.  The media and government have joined forces in a propaganda campaign that has been remarkably successful.  We have all heard about the neighbours who won’t open their bedroom curtains until midday, or the man with the walking stick who throws it into the back of his car and goes jogging every morning. Many people will talk about how dreadful it is that so many people are ‘welfare dependent’ or ‘just want something for nothing’. But the reality is somewhat different and people who eye welfare claimants with an air of disdain have seriously got their head in the clouds.  Many people are paying a high price for this fantasy of greedy, lazy, deceitful claimants living in every British town and city.

What sort of recovery are we having in the UK?

By Lucette Davies

All around me I am seeing and hearing about levels of injustice and social inequality that I find horrifying.  As we are hearing more and more about the economic recovery in the UK I thought I would look to see if I could find any signs of it myself.