#UK benefit reforms

[sixseasonsofodestawithatardis]

Explaining PIP, the reforms and how YOU can help!

Recently, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Mel Stride announced measures to reform PIP (Personal Independence Payment). It's a benefit given to disabled people, whether they are employed or not, to help provide support for the extra costs incurred due to being disabled. PIP can be paid on anything you need, such as a carer, adaptions, your bills or a night out (yes, disabled people are entitled to a social life I'm NOT arguing with anyone about this!) On top of the changes to sick notes, the announced reforms are an assault on disabled people to desperately cling to power!

Below is an explanation of PIP and the reforms so people can answer the open consultations, call for evidence, and sign a petition. We need as many people in the UK as possible to answer both to try to stop these reforms from happening.

What is PIP?

The Tories are saying PIP is a one-size-fits-all benefit, which again is a lie as PIP is designed to look at how your disability affects your daily life and how difficult it makes it for you to participate in society, not whether you have this specific disability so it only affects you in these ways! It doesn't matter whether you're diagnosed or not, either. There are two categories they look at throughout, known as the 'Daily Living Component' and the 'Mobility component' The process involves 50 pages you have to fill out (link to Turn2US for proof https://www.turn2us.org.uk/get-support/information-for-your-situation/claiming-personal-independence-payment-pip/fill-in-the-personal-independence-payment-pip-form#:~:text=You%20usually%20get%20the%20paper,it%20is%2050%20pages%20long.)

With hundreds of letters from Doctors as proof of your condition! And then an assessment in which you will answer all sorts of demeaning questions, give in-depth answers that you don't feel comfortable sharing, and hope the assessor has understood how it affects your life and written it down properly and that you'll get the right amount of money at the end of this assessment or re-assessment.

To get the standard rate in both components, you need 8 points; to get the enhanced rate, you need 12 points.

They'll then give you two, three, five, or ten years (10 years is known as a fixed-term award and a light-touch review) to undergo the terror of the PIP assessment again.

The reforms proposed and why they're terrifying!

The reforms they've suggested so far are

One-off grants for aids and appliances

receipts to then be claimed back at a later date

the changing of eligibility for PIP or the category 'Long Term sickness'

Vouchers instead of cash payments

If you've read those four options and thought they were cruel, infantilising and impossible to make work, then you'd be right.

As a disabled person, bills don't magically disappear. You still have council tax and rent to pay or a carer. Will landlords and councils accept these vouchers? A one-off grant won't work here either. The vouchers also signal that we can't be trusted to pay for our own needs and aren't responsible—which is far from the truth!

Aids and treatments are already covered by the NHS, so this is redundant and will be futile, especially when you consider the long waiting lists for mental health treatment (and just generally) on the NHS—and even if they aren't, we do know that and will use PIP to save up for it, etc. It's easier and more economical to give us cash payments.

To have the receipts to claim back expenses, we need to have the money to spend on said expenses.

Changing the eligibility will (much like these other suggestions) put more disabled people at risk. If you want mental health to improve: Fix the NHS, wages, sort out the cost of living crisis and fund the research/support for Long Covid sufferers.

How you can help! - UK-based people, plz sign everyone else. Please reblog & signal boost!

If you live in the UK, there are currently two consultations open ( the sick note one closes on 8 July 2024, and the PIP one closes on 22 July 2024). Ideally, the responses will be used to decide whether these reforms go ahead.

Here are links to the two reforms for PIP and changes to the sick note process.

Please note that the PIP consultation ( the first link) is 6 pages long and must be completed in one go. It's also filled with typos, repeated questions, and very difficult wording in many places, so be on the lookout for that! People are rightfully complaining about its accessibility, so the link and end date may change. I will update this post if this happens. I also know answering stuff like this is overwhelming, so here is a thread by PeachyInWales on Twitter about how they approached the consultation. If I see any samples by any disability activists or organisations, I will post them here, too!

This second link is the second consultation or call to evidence. Which GPs are being stripped of the ability to sign sicknotes for people on benefits, which is again ridiculous!

And the last link is a petition from SCOPE to stop the government from demonising disabled people further.

Ultimately, we're trying to stop a benefit that is difficult to get and barely covers costs for many applicants from getting worse.

If I've missed anything then let me know! I'm sorry the post was so long, but it's a lot to go through! Again, UK-based people, please share your thoughts if you can and sign the petition! If you are not currently living in the UK, please share these links or the post so other UK-based users can see this and try to help.

Thank you!

[662607015]

i've been too busy to post about it lately but the current situation surrounding disability rights in the uk is horrifying in a way that most people have zero awareness of. i would appreciate it if more people could spread awareness of this, because the situation is dire to the point that the united nations have officially recognised it as a human rights violation, and there is still little to no discussion about this present online that i'm aware of.

on march 22 this year, the united nations published a follow-up report - found here - on its 2016 inquiry into the human rights of disabled people in the uk. the original inquiry found "grave and systemic violations" of the human rights of disabled people, and the follow-up concludes that no significant progress has been made concerning the situation. the report details "deep poverty" becoming increasingly common for disabled people; media rhetoric "aimed at raising hostility against welfare claimants, including disabled people"; increasing rates of institutionalisation of disabled people; concern about ai tools being used to automate fraud detection in social security with little oversight; and reports of "benefit deaths": the phenomenon of disabled people resorting to suicide after having their social security removed by the state, which has evidently become so common that they have a name for it.

on april 19, just 28 days after the un's official condemnation, the uk government published a new press release announcing a "moral mission" to "reform" our disability welfare system - meaning plans to even further reduce or entirely remove what little finanical support is available to disabled people, in addition to removing the ability of gps to issue sick notes and the introduction of a "fraud bill" which would enable warrants for seizes, searches and arrests in addition to increased digital surveillance of any welfare claimant suspected of fraud. again, this comes less than a month after the un announced that the uk has taken no action to address human rights abuses of disabled people - and the only action they're taking on this is to actively make the situation worse. i don't know how to end this post other than that it's legitimately terrifying to be a disabled person here at present, and this is made even worse by how little media attention the situation is getting - if you're able to speak out about this, please do. the human rights of disabled people are being violated and our government needs to be held accountable.

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

What do you need to know about lgbt+ history as a lgbt+ person? 

Well, if you ask like that: nothing, actually. You do not disqualify from being lgbt+ if you know nothing about history whatsoever. There’s no exam to pass. 

It also doesn’t make you a bad person or a disgrace to the community or an embarrassment if you haven’t heard about a specific chapter of lgbt+ history yet - saying so would be really unfair! Maybe you live in a situation in which you don’t feel safe to do a lot of research on lgbt+ related stuff. Maybe you are a young person growing up in hard times and you’re busy just surviving. Maybe your brain works in a way that makes it harder for you to learn or retain new information than for others. Or hey, maybe you already know lots - but your learning simply focused on a different chapter than the one that hypothetical exam would be on!

Of course there are many benefits to learning about lgbt+ history. You get the general benefits of learning new things (such as training your critical thinking skills, which will help you in your everyday life, and even supporting your brain health!) but there’s also specific benefits to learning about this specific subject.

History isn’t all “learning boring stuff about dead people” - learning about past events and their consequences also helps you understand present events and gauge their potential consequences for your future. This will for example empower you in your voting decisions (or help you understand how politics influence everyday life at all, if that’s your starting point!). 

Knowledge about lgbt+ history also helps you to notice misinformation more easily and enables you to counteract homophobic myths with facts. 

It may even help you on a more personal level: reading up on all the people who came before you can foster a sense of identity and belonging. It might make you feel more confident to know that people like you have been around forever and have achieved so many things! 

So, rather than “what do I need to know”, I think the much better question is “where do I want to start?”. 

Nobody knows everything about lgbt+ history (or about any given topic, really!) and unrealistic expectations will only set you up for disappointment. It’s best to let your curiosity lead you! You’re much more likely to actually read up on something you are genuinely excited to learn about than something you’ve only been told to read. 

With that in mind: it can feel overwhelming to pick a topic to start with! Especially if you’re pretty new to lgbt+ history, you may not even know where to start. So I do want to make some suggestions here. Not as a “you need to research all these today or else I’m revoking your license to gay”, just to spark your curiosity! I will not add explanations right here in the post, I just want to give you some terms you can easily put in the search bar. (Important: these are in random order, not ranked by importance or anything like that!) 

US-Centric lgbt+ History

1. Stonewall Riots

2. Harvey Milk

3. Marsha P. Johnson

4. Sylvia Rivera

5. The Lavender Scare

6. Obergefell v. Hodges

7. Don't Ask, Don't Tell

8. The Mattachine Society

9. The Daughters of Bilitis

11. The AIDS crisis

12. Bayard Rustin

13. Lawrence v. Texas

14. The Gay Liberation Front

15. The Human Rights Campaign

European lgbt+ History

1. Section 28 (UK)

2. Oscar Wilde

3. Alan Turing

4. Magnus Hirschfeld

5. Paragraph 175 (Germany)

6. The Homomonument (Netherlands)

7. EuroPride

8. James Barry

9. The decriminalization of homosexuality in the UK (1967)

10. ILGA-Europe

11. Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 (New Zealand, part of the Commonwealth)

12. The Equality Act 2010 (UK)

13. Transgender Europe (TGEU)

14. The first same-sex marriage in the Netherlands (2001)

15. Dora Richter

Have fun learning! 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

P.S: You may wonder “But what about places other than the USA or Europe?” (or those of you who already know a lot about lgbt+ history, “but what about (topic I haven’t mentioned here)”) - and that’s actually a really great point! It highlights what we talked about above: nobody knows everything + lgbt+ history is way too rich of a topic to put it all into one short list! This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list of everything important, just some potential starting points that hopefully lead you to topics beyond ones mentioned on this list.

[cassolotl]

UK government planning to scrap a major disability benefit

I'm only just scraping by and the government are proposing to take away PIP (a disability benefit), which would be HALF of my income wiped out.

"Reforms to personal independence payments (PIP) could include stopping regular cash payments, and instead offering claimants one-off grants for things like home adaptations." -- "Disabled people face end to monthly benefits cash", BBC News, 29 April 2024

And:

"The plans, which will be consulted on over the coming months, also include proposals to “move away from a fixed cash benefit system”, meaning people with some conditions will no longer receive regular payments, but instead access to treatment if their condition does not involve extra costs." -- "People with depression or anxiety could lose sickness benefits, says UK minister", Guardian, 29 April 2024

That's what the NHS is supposed to be doing...

Genuinely absolutely terrifying.

Can anyone living in the UK join in with an (hopefully!) overwhelming cascade of unique emails to their MP opposing this? WriteToThem.com makes it very quick and easy.

They're proposing to replace it with one-off grants that the individual can apply for, which is absurd and horrifying, so feel free to point out how that won't work as well!

Here's what I'm writing, and do not just copy-paste my letter/email, because that makes it less legit. Do your own thing, even just one sentence telling your MP that you're opposed is enough if that's all you can manage. Whatever you want to say is what your MP needs to hear.

Dear [MP's name], Today I learned that the government plan to scrap PIP, and maybe replace it with something like a one-off grant application process, before the next election. ("Disabled people face end to monthly benefits cash", BBC News, 29 April 2024: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0ry09d50wo) PIP is about half of my income (about 44%). I don't spend it on occasional large purchases, I spend it on countless things that are more expensive for me than they are for other people. PIP is in place to acknowledge, as it says in the above article, that disabled people's lives are more expensive than non-disabled people's lives by hundreds of pounds per week. ("Previous research from Scope suggests households with at least one disabled adult or child face an estimated average extra cost of £975 a month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households." That's £225 per week, and the maximum amount of PIP you can get is £184.) So firstly, it could be argued that PIP doesn't even cover the additional expenses of the average disabled household. And next, the cost of implementing an alternative system would be worse for disabled people, totally unsuited to its purpose, and more expensive to run. Worse for disabled people: Currently PIP acknowledges that being disabled takes a lot more work to maintain a comparable standard of living, and as it's an amount of work that the claimant cannot sustainably do, they are given money so that they can pay someone else to do it. These costs are distributed across all living expenses, in addition to occasional one-off purchases of e.g. mobility aids. Having to apply for one-off payments for expenses would be more work on top of that, so if the disabled person isn't able to do it (which is very likely) they will either have to work less in their day jobs in order to spend more time applying for one-off grants, or they will have to also apply for one-off payments to pay someone to apply for more one-off payments. This is self-evidently a waste of energy and time, and totally impractical, as well as being counter to the entire point of disability benefits. It would also be extremely undignified for the disabled people, and arguably against human rights (right to private life and dignity), to have to justify each purchase to the government. Totally unsuited to its purpose: One off-grants are not suited to ongoing higher expenses such as having to buy more prepared food (e.g. carrot batons are more expensive than raw carrots and go off much more quickly). Does this policy assume that disabled people's PIP is only for things like wheelchairs and walking sticks? More expensive to run: The system for PIP applications is already fairly backlogged, in that my last application took over 6 months to complete. I was awarded PIP for 10 years. If every application for a one-off grant had to be accompanied by an application of a similar scale that wouldn't be workable, so presumably an initial PIP application like the current system's would still be required to qualify for the system in the first place, and then following that, numerous smaller applications for money (e.g. for taxis, pre-chopped veg, painkillers, specialist clothing, etc.) would be carried out per person per month. The disability benefits system would have to be scaled up significantly, and it would be much more expensive. It is far cheaper to give people a set amount of money based on their needs; it's the same money that you would be giving them in grants anyway, but without having to process each purchase/one-off application. I implore you to oppose this proposal. It is blatantly unworkable to the level of absurdity, but more importantly it is inhumane. I look forward to your reply detailing your stance. Many thanks in advance. Yours sincerely, [My name]

But, again, if you can't manage anything long or complicated like that, your best is good enough. Even if they're not all perfectly written and detailed, we want to bowl them over with sheer quantity of emails.

[mesetacadre]

hi, love your blog! have you heard of "maga communism"? i personally find it pretty silly, but it does open up some questions and conversations about reactionary/conservative beliefs within communist movements and individual communists (can you call a reactionary a communist?). most "maga communist" and similar tendencies i have seen were pretty exclusively on twitter so far, for example individual self-described communists being homophobic (talking about "bourgeois decadence" and all that, you know the story), but its also rather concerning considering the recent transphobic course of the CPGB, or the homophobic statements of the KKE. how to deal with such tendencies in the movement? are such tendencies compatible with communist thought? (i personally dont think so, but how do you change such tendencies?) would love to hear your thoughts on that!

MAGA communism is a US-specific subset of "patriotic socialism", patsoc for short. MAGA communism in particular peddles republican and other reactionary positions via pseudo-communist rhetoric. This isn't something new, almost if not all factions of the bourgeois political establishment use workerist rhetoric to some degree, such is their function to mislead the working class. The only thing that stands out to me from this sect is the outright self-labelling of being communists. Take even a shallow step into their positions however, and you'll find run-of-the-mill reactionarism and nationalism.

This is a very different phenomenon from actual communists taking some reactionary positions but who are otherwise quite "normal", and from actual socialist countries fostering some kind of patriotism.

Regarding the latter, the example I'm most familiar with is Cuba. Following their triumph in both national liberation from colonialism and the socialist revolution, one aspect of Cuba's strategy for security and that also was a natural rationalization of their victory was the proliferation of pride in the Cuban revolution. Critically, this form of pride is not like the usual (bourgeois, as in, the emergence of nationalism within the rise of capitalism) nationalism, but the expression of international solidarity with all peoples and honor in being one of the groups of workers who achieved self liberation. It's a pride of the Cuban revolution, not the Cuban nation in itself. There are no traces of superiority over other peoples in this kind of patriotism. This is categorically very different from what the patsoc types express.

"Normal" communists taking reactionary positions comes from a vestige of the capitalist culture that is hammered into every single one of us emerging because of an unfinished education in marxist philosophy. The solution to this is very simple, that is to continue the development of our mistaken comrade, and adequate punishment if those beliefs resulted in harm.

I also want to make dedicated points about the CPGB and the KKE. The CPGB, like most other historical Communist Parties in Western Europe, folded themselves into reformism within liberal democracy following the eurocommunist current that arose in the second half of the 20th century. The fact that the CPGB has adopted reactionary positions is a consequence of having embedded itself into parliamentarism, as the political consensus amongst bourgeois parties in the UK right now is that of transphobia and racism, they are following the same general shift that Labour has.

The KKE is a different story. I have talked to a (trans) militant of the KKE about this, as well as with another (cishet) militant. They say that the KKE's opposition to the introduction of homosexual marriage in the Greek parliament (which was thankfully passed) comes from a non-homophobic critique that was, however, badly communicated. The KKE has repeatedly proposed separating marriage itself from the legal and financial benefits that it carries. For example, instead of only being allowed to visit someone in a hospital if you're family or married, the KKE proposes that people should be able to authorize anyone to have these sorts of benefits without also having to marry them.

The voting against homosexual marriage was done on the grounds that the institution of marriage involves unnecessary state involvement in interpersonal relationships and abuse, since these benefits also sometimes lead to couples who can't afford to divorce. Was voting against gay marriage the best course of action? No, and the militants I've talked to agree. But it was never about the KKE believing that homosexuality is "bourgeois decadence", like some media outlets have twisted it, just like most ML Party positions are twisted in some way or another.

It also does not help that translations from Greek aren't that simple, and that can also lead to misinterpretation in subjects where nuanced language is very important, such as trans people. There are no separate words in Greek for "sex" and "gender", even though in English they are complicated terms with a lot of drawbacks, it is immensely useful to have separate words. So discussion in Greek about this, and more importantly translation, can very easily be misinterpreted or deliberately misconstrued.

I am not saying that the KKE is free from reactionary tendencies and that it's a paragon of absolute social progress, but just like it isn't that, it is also not comparable with crypto-fascists or glorified socdems playing into transphobic or racist tendencies. This leads me to a broader point about general reactionary thought in the past.

There is no doubt that people like Stalin or Lenin, or more appropriately the vast majority of ML parties in the past were homophobic (I'm using this term to also include transphobia and similar discriminations) and that they instituted policies that specifically hurt queer people. No serious communist today abides by those positions and those actions. And just like we can understand that an individual communist today may be insufficiently educated and express reactionary views and hurt people because of this, I think the analogy can be made that these past communist people and parties hadn't yet been sufficiently educated by practice and theoretical discussions. We can't ignore the harm that they did, but we can recognize that it was in no way necessary, and that it was counterproductive, so we can acknowledge those mistakes, carefully separate those elements from the rest of their achievements, and learn about them.

A good example of this evolution is Cuba. In the times of Che and Fidel, queer people were discriminated against and sometimes sentenced to forced labor, nobody denies this. But this was 50 years ago, and not only did Fidel recognize this mistake in this lifetime, he began the process of improving the party line on this which has resulted in one of, if not the most progressive laws regarding homosexuality in the world, in the form of 2022's family code, which you can read here in Spanish. I have copied part of article 4 below, which regulates the rights of people within a family, along with my own translation just below:

Artículo 4. Derechos de las personas en el ámbito familiar. a) Constituir una familia; b) la vida familiar; c) la igualdad plena en materia filiatoria; d) que se respete el libre desarrollo de la personalidad, la intimidad y el proyecto de vida personal y familiar; e) que las niñas, los niños y adolescentes crezcan en un entorno familiar de felicidad, amor y comprensión; f) la igualdad plena entre mujeres y hombres, a la distribución equitativa del tiempo destinado al trabajo doméstico y de cuidado entre todos los miembros de la familia, sin sobrecargas para ninguno de ellos, y a que se respete el derecho de las parejas a decidir si desean tener descendencia y el número y el momento para hacerlo, preservando, en todo caso, el derecho de las mujeres a decidir sobre sus cuerpos; g) el desarrollo pleno de los derechos sexuales y reproductivos en el entorno familiar, independientemente de su sexo, género, orientación sexual e identidad de género, situación de discapacidad o cualquier otra circunstancia personal; incluido el derecho a la información científica sobre la sexualidad, la salud sexual y la planificación familiar, en todo caso, apropiados para su edad; h) la protección a la maternidad y la paternidad y la promoción de su desarrollo responsable; i) una vida familiar libre de discriminación y violencia en cualesquiera de sus manifestaciones; j) una armónica y estrecha comunicación familiar entre las abuelas, abuelos, otros parientes, personas afectivamente cercanas y las niñas, los niños y adolescentes; k) la autodeterminación, voluntades, deseos, preferencias, independencia y la igualdad de oportunidades en la vida familiar de las personas adultas mayores y aquellas en situación de discapacidad; y l) al cuidado familiar desde el afecto.

And the translation (OC)

Article 4: A person's rights in the context of the family a) To build a family; b) to family life; c) to full equality in filial matters; d) for the free development of personality, intimacy, and the personal and familiar life project to be respected; e) for the boys and girls and adolescents to mature in a familiar environment of happiness, love, and compassion; f) the full equality between men and women, the egalitarian distribution of domestic work and care between all members of the family, without overburden to any of them, and for a couple's right to decide if they want descendants and the number and time to do so to be respected, preserving, in every case, the right for a woman to decide over her own body; g) the full development of sexual and reproductive rights in the familiar environment, independently of their sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity, disability, or any other personal circumstance; including the right to scientific information about sexuality, sexual health, and family planning, in every case, suitably for their age; h) the protection of maternity and paternity and the promotion of its responsible progress; i) a familiar life free of discrimination and violence in whichever of their manifestations; j) a harmonious and close communication between grandmothers, grandfathers, other relatives, people who are affectionately close, and the girls, boys, and adolescents; k) the self-determination, wills, desires, preferences, independence and equality of opportunity in the familiar life of adult people and those in a situation of disability; and l) to affectionate familiar care.

[coochiequeens]

‘100% feminist’: how Eleanor Rathbone invented child benefit – and changed women’s lives for ever

She was an MP and author with a formidable reputation, fighting for the rights of women and refugees, and opposing the appeasement of Hitler. Why isn’t she better known today?

Ladies please reblog to give her the recognition she deserves

By Susanna Rustin Thu 4 Jul 2024

My used copy of the first edition of The Disinherited Family arrives in the post from a secondhand bookseller in Lancashire. A dark blue hardback inscribed with the name of its first owner, Miss M Marshall, and the year of publication, 1924, it cost just £12.99. I am not a collector of old tomes but am thrilled to have this one. It has a case to be considered among the most important feminist economics books ever written.

Its centenary has so far received little, if any, attention. Yet the arguments it sets out are the reason nearly all mothers in the UK receive child benefit from the government. Its author, Eleanor Rathbone, was one of the most influential women in politics in the first half of the 20th century. She led the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (Nusec, the main suffragist organisation, also formerly known as the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies) from 1919, when Millicent Fawcett stood down, until the roughly five million women who were not enfranchised in 1918 gained the vote 10 years later. In 1929, aged 57, she became an MP, and remained in parliament until her death in 1946. While there, she built up a formidable reputation based on her advocacy for women’s rights, welfare reform and the rights of refugees, and her opposition to the appeasement of Hitler.

It would not be true to say that Eleanor Rathbone has been forgotten. Her portrait by James Gunn hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. Twenty years ago she was the subject of a fine biography and she is remembered at Somerville college, Oxford – where she studied in the 1890s and ran a society called the Associated Prigs. (While the name was a joke, Rathbone did have a priggish side – as well as being an original thinker, tremendous campaigner, and stubborn, sensitive personality.) She also features in Rachel Reeves’s book The Women Who Made Modern Economics, although Reeves – who hopes shortly to become the UK’s first female chancellor – pays more attention to her contemporary, Beatrice Webb.

A thrilling tome … The Disinherited Family by Eleanor Rathbone. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

But Rathbone, who came from a wealthy dynasty of nonconformist merchants, does not have anything like the name-recognition of the Pankhursts or Millicent Fawcett, or of pioneering politicians including Nancy Astor and Ellen Wilkinson. Nor does she enjoy the cachet of writers such as Virginia Woolf, whose polemic about women’s opportunities, A Room of One’s Own, was published five years after Rathbone’s magnum opus.

There are many reasons for Rathbone’s relative obscurity. One is that she was the first woman elected to parliament as an independent (and one of a handful of men at the time). Thus there is no political party with an interest in turning her into an icon. Having spent the past three years writing a book about the British women’s movement, I am embarrassed to admit that when I started, I didn’t know who she was.

Rathbone was not the first person to propose state benefits paid to mothers. The endowment of motherhood or family allowances, as the policy was known, was written about by the Swedish feminist Ellen Key, and tried out as a project of the Fabian Women’s Group, who published their findings in a pamphlet in 1912. But Rathbone pushed the idea to the forefront. A first attempt to get Nusec to adopt it was knocked back in 1921, and she then spent three years conducting research. The title she gave the book she produced, The Disinherited Family, reflected her view that women and children were being deprived of their rightful share of the country’s wealth.

The problem, as she saw it, was one of distribution. While the wage system in industrialised countries treated all workers on a given pay grade the same, some households needed more money than others. While unions argued for higher wages across the board, Rathbone believed the state should supplement the incomes of larger families. She opened the book with an archly phrased rhetorical question: “Whether there is any subject in the world of equal importance that has received so little consideration as the economic status of the family?” She went on to accuse economists of behaving as if they were “self-propagating bachelors” – so little did the lives of mothers appear to interest them.

Rathbone’s twin aims were to end wives’ dependence on husbands and reward their domestic labour. Family allowances paid directly to them could either be spent on housekeeping or childcare, enabling them to go out to work. Ellen Wilkinson, the radical Labour MP for Middlesbrough (and future minister for education), was among early supporters. William Beveridge read the book when he was director of the London School of Economics, declared himself a convert and introduced one of the first schemes of family-linked payments for his staff.

But others were strongly opposed. Conservative objections to such a radical expansion of the state were predictable. But they were echoed by liberal feminists including Millicent Fawcett, who called the plan “a step in the direction of practical socialism”. Trade unions preferred to push for a living wage, while some male MPs thought the policy undermined the role of men as breadwinners. Labour and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) finally swung behind family allowances in 1942. As the war drew to a close, Rathbone led a backbench rebellion against ministers who wanted to pay the benefit to fathers instead.

Rathbone celebrates the Silver Jubilee of the Women’s Vote in London, 20 February 1943. Photograph: Picture Post/Getty Images

It is for this signature policy that she is most often remembered today. At a time when hundreds of thousands of children have been pushed into poverty by the two-child limit on benefit payments, Rathbone’s advocacy on behalf of larger families could hardly be more relevant. The limit, devised by George Osborne, applies to universal and child tax credits – and not child benefit itself. But Rishi Sunak’s government announced changes to the latter in this year’s budget. From 2026, eligibility will be assessed on a household rather than individual basis. This is intended to limit payments to better-off, dual-income families. But the UK Women’s Budget Group and others have objected on grounds that child benefit should retain its original purpose of directly remunerating primary carers (the vast majority of them mothers) for the work of rearing children. It remains to be seen whether this plan will be carried through by the next government.

Rathbone once told the House of Commons she was “100% feminist”, and few MPs have been as single-minded in their commitment to women’s causes. As president of Nusec (the law-abiding wing of the suffrage campaign), she played a vital role in finishing the job of winning votes for women.

The last few years have seen a resurgence of interest in women’s suffrage, partly due to the centenary of the first women’s suffrage act. Thanks to a brilliant campaign by Caroline Criado Perez, a statue of Millicent Fawcett, the nonmilitant suffragist leader, now stands in Westminster, a few minutes walk from the bronze memorial of Emmeline Pankhurst erected in 1930. Suffragette direct action has long been a source of fascination. What is less well known is that militants played little part in the movement after 1918. It was law-abiding constitutionalists – suffragists rather than suffragettes – who pushed through the 1920s to win votes for the younger and poorer women who did not yet have them. Rathbone helped lead this final phase of the campaign, along with Conservative MP Nancy Astor and others.

Rathbone was highly critical of the militants, and once claimed that they “came within an inch of wrecking the suffrage movement, perhaps for a generation”. Today, with climate groups including Just Stop Oil copying the suffragette tactic of vandalising paintings, it is worth remembering that many women’s suffrage campaigners opposed such methods.

Schismatic though it was, the suffrage movement at least had a shared goal. An even greater challenge for feminists in the 1920s was agreeing on future priorities. Equal pay, parental rights and an end to the sexual double standard were among demands that had broad support. After the arrival in the House of Commons of the first female MPs, legislative successes included the removal of the bar on women’s entry to the professions, new rights for mothers and widows’ pensions. But there were also fierce disagreements.

Tensions between class and sexual politics were longstanding, with some on the left regarding feminism as a distraction. The Labour MP Marion Phillips, for example, thought membership of single-sex groups placed women “in danger of getting their political opinions muddled”. There was also renewed conflict over protective legislation – the name given to employment laws that differentiated between men and women. While such measures included maternity leave and safety rules for pregnant women, many feminists believed their true purpose was to keep jobs for men – and prevent female workers from competing.

Underlying such arguments was the question of whether women, once enfranchised, should strive for equal treatment, or push for measures designed to address their specific needs. As the debate grew more heated, partisans on either side gave themselves the labels of “old” and “new” feminists. While the former, also called equalitarians, wanted to focus on the obstacles that prevented women from participating in public life on the same terms as men, the new feminists led by Rathbone sought to pioneer an innovative, woman-centred politics. Since this brought to the fore issues such as reproductive health and mothers’ poverty, it is known as “maternalist feminism”.

Rathbone and other Liverpool suffragettes campaigning in 1910. Photograph: Shawshots/Alamy

The faultline extended beyond Britain. But Rathbone and her foes had some of the angriest clashes. At one international convention, Lady Rhondda, a wealthy former suffragette, used a speech to deride rivals who chose to “putter away” at welfare work, instead of the issues she considered important.

The specific policy points at issue have, of course, changed over the past century. But arguments about how much emphasis feminists should place on biological differences between men and women carry on.

Eleanor Rathbone did not live long enough to see the welfare state, including child benefit paid to mothers, take root in postwar Britain. Her election to parliament coincided with the Depression, and the lengthening shadows of fascism and nazism meant that she, like her colleagues, became preoccupied with foreign affairs. In the general election of 1935, the number of female MPs fell from 15 to nine, meaning Rathbone’s was one of just a handful of women’s voices. She used hers to oppose the policy of appeasement, and support the rights of refugees, including those escaping Franco’s Spain. During the war she helped run an extra-parliamentary “woman-power committee”, which advocated for female workers.

She also became a supporter of Indian women’s rights, though her liberal imperialism led to tensions with Indian feminists. During the war she angered India’s most eminent writer, Rabindranath Tagore, and its future prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, when she attacked the Congress party’s policy of noncooperation with Britain’s war effort. Tagore criticised what he called the “sheer insolent self-complacency” of her demand that the anti-colonial struggle should be set aside while Britain fought Germany.

Rathbone turned down a damehood. After their first shared house in Westminster was bombed, she and her life partner, the Scottish social worker Elizabeth Macadam, moved around the corner to a flat on Tufton Street (Macadam destroyed their letters, meaning that Rathbone’s intimate life remains obscure, but historians believe the relationship was platonic). From there they moved to a larger, quieter house in Highgate. On 2 January 1946, Rathbone suddenly died.

Rathbone’s blue plaque at Tufton Court. Photograph: PjrPlaques/Alamy

A blue plaque on Tufton Street commemorates her as the “pioneer of family allowances” – providing an alternative claim on posterity for an address more commonly associated with the Brexit campaign, since a house a few doors down became its headquarters. She is remembered, too, in Liverpool, where her experience of dispersing welfare to desperately poor soldiers’ wives in the first world war changed the course of her life, and where one of her former homes is being restored by the university.

I don’t believe in ghosts. But walking in Westminster recently, I imagined her hastening across St James’s Park to one of her meetings at Nancy Astor’s house near the London Library. Today, suffragettes are celebrated for their innovative direct action. But Rathbone blazed a trail, too, with her dedication as a campaigner, writer, lobbyist and “100% feminist” parliamentarian.

 Sexed: A History of British Feminism by Susanna Rustin is published by Polity Press (£20). To support the Guardian order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

[workingclasshistory]

On this day 75 years ago, 5 July 1948, the UK National Health Service (NHS) was founded, on the principle that medical treatment should be provided according to need rather than the ability to pay. During World War II, to motivate millions of people to sacrifice and dedicate themselves to the war effort, the government promised reforms to benefit working class people after the war was over. Conservative MP Quentin Hogg had warned Parliament that 'if you do not give the people social reform, they are going to give you social revolution.' Sure enough, after the war ended, servicemen returning home, and others, began demanding better conditions, backing it up with direct action, like a huge wave of squatting. The NHS was part of a package of reforms introduced following the conflict to ensure social peace. But almost right away, it came under attack. Legislation to bring in prescription charges was introduced by the Labour Party in 1949. Then fees for dental treatments were introduced, and ever since the free, socialised service has been under attack from successive governments who have gradually introduced more charges, marketisation and privatisation. And it's up to us, the working class, to defend it. More information and sources: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10531/foundation-of-the-nhs https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=656335616539657&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[averixus]

Help prevent the UK government from screwing over disabled people

The UK government have quietly put out a consultation suggesting a bunch of terrible reforms to PIP (disability benefits). It's just an online form with a lot of questions asking what you think about their ideas.

Any person anywhere in the world can respond to the consultation, and every response will help. If you're not sure what to say, I just wrote up my own response so anyone can use it for inspiration. Feel free to share.

My response: https://medium.com/@averixus/responding-to-the-uk-governments-pip-consultation-9cf97ea9a5aa

The form itself: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=6fbxllcQF0GsKIDN_ob4wy4AdhV04YtOnxNXoi82ciFUN00yS0lJSTgzOVNaUzI1TVpYRkZGN1RUQSQlQCN0PWcu

[gatheringbones]

[“New Zealand’s approach to sex work stokes fears among anti-prostitution feminists. They often worry that if prostitution were decriminalised, job seekers would be forced into prostitution by job centres or at high-school careers fairs. In reality, no such thing happens. New Zealand job centres do not display sex industry–related job ads, and forcing sex workers to start or stay in sex work – including under the threat of losing out on unemployment benefits – is banned. The Prostitution Reform Act states that ‘A person’s benefit, or entitlement to a benefit, under the Social Security Act 1964 may not be cancelled or affected in any other way by his or her refusal to work, or to continue to work, as a sex worker.’ This is not an unfamiliar system; in the UK, working in a strip club or on a webcam is completely legal, yet jobs in strip clubs or on webcams are not foisted onto job seekers or high-school students. The current legal status of porn and peep-shows does not result in office-job candidates being obliged to provide a lap-dance or naked selfies in a job interview.

Decriminalised prostitution, it is argued, would mean no sex workers could ever be protected from sexism and abuse in the workplace. The national director for the Nordic Model Australia Commission asks, ‘What can police do if sexual harassment is part of your working conditions? You can report rape, but it’s already a form of rape.’ Recognising something as a job in some contexts and sexual harassment in others is something we, as feminists, collectively manage to do all the time. For example, it is already part of some people’s jobs to give massages, but if you do an office job and your boss asks you for a massage, that is harassment. Such an occurrence is not a legitimate argument against allowing people to sell massages. It is striking and painful that these concerns about sexual harassment are so back-to-front. Far from failing to grant such protections to sex workers, decriminalisation is the only measure that can start to make these workplaces protections possible. Far from making the concept legally meaningless, decriminalisation extends protections against workplace sexual harassment to sex workers.

In some ways, the repeated construction of ‘all sex work is rape’ is reminiscent of sexist teenage boys ‘joking’ about whether the sexual assault of a prostitute constitutes rape or ‘theft’: both rely on the idea that, because you sell sex, it is intrinsically absurd to imagine that society might recognise harm to you as a real violation. In fact, in 2014 a sex worker in a brothel in New Zealand took her manager to an employment tribunal for sexual harassment and won her case. Such a ruling would be unimaginable anywhere that sex workers’ workplaces are criminalised. There is no labour law in a criminalised workplace. The tribunal ruling in the case commented, ‘Sex workers are as much entitled to protection from sexual harassment as those working in other occupations … Sex workers have the same human rights as other workers.’”]

molly smith, juno mac, from revolting prostitutes: the fight for sex workers’ rights, 2018

[mythologeekwriter]

I'm just going to present all of these articles without commentary. Because I think this speaks for itself actually.

[date: 21st April 2024]

[date: 19th April 2024]

[date: 19th April 2024]

[date: 14th April 2024]

[date: 22nd March 2024]

[date: 10th February 2024]

[date: 1st October 2022]

[eightyonekilograms]

The vote totals of the UK elections aren’t exactly heartening. Like it’s great that Labour finally got to be the one benefiting from FPTP (since historically it was almost always to the Tory’s advantage), but the turnout was dismal and Reform got two-fifths of the Tory vote. It feels like they’re one bad inflation report away from just repeating France.

[nancy-xx]

Nancy Spungen and Johnny Rotten

Photo Nancy Spungen and Johnny Rotten at Ivanhoe, Manchester Road, Huddersfield, 1977.

photo history:

It was 1977, I had just finished filming Derek Jarman’s ‘Jubilee’ when I decided to visit an old friend of mine – Rae Spencer-Cullen – in New York. In addition to acting I also used to write articles for the glossy punk magazine “Delux” edited by Willy Daly and Duncan Fallowell. Upon mentioning I was off to New York, Duncan exclaimed, “Why don’t you try and get an interview with Andy Warhol for the magazine?”

I arrived in New York and rang ‘The Factory’. I was immediately invited down to meet Warhol as he was very interested to find out about Jubilee and the Punk movement in England. During the course of our meeting, he asked me if I knew the Sex Pistols, and if so, whether I could get an interview with them for his magazine ‘Interview’.

Arriving back in England a few weeks later, I contacted Malcolm McClaren asking if it would be possible to interview the Band. He said it was fine, but I had better get a move on as they were off on tour to America in a few days and were about to play their last gig in the UK at Ivanhoe’s in Huddersfield. They were playing a matinee and evening show as part of a benefit for families of striking firemen, the gig was to take place on Christmas Day 1977. At this time the location of any gigs the Pistols played were kept secret until the very last minute, in order to avoid trouble and cancellation.

I drove up to Huddersfield on Christmas morning and witnessed an electrifying concert. I spent a lot of time backstage where several of these pictures were taken. The band were incorrigible, Nancy Spungen stood behind me trying to set light to my hair – it was Johnny Rotten who finally stopped her. Sid Vicious was completely out of it, along with the other members of the band, excluding Rotten. The band poured beer in my tape recorder, which virtually stopped it from working and referred to Andy Warhol the whole way through as ‘Andy Arsehole’. Remarkably, I did manage to complete the interview but, unsurprisingly perhaps, Warhol decided not to use it. I sold it to Heathcote Williams for his magazine ‘It’.

Huddersfield was the last concert that the Sex Pistols played in England. In February 1978 Rotten left the band and within a year both Nancy Spungen and Sid Vicious were dead.

In 2008 the remaining Sex Pistols reformed and played a concert at the Brixton Academy.

Photographs taken by Jenny at the Concert were shown at the Rock Shutter Exhibition – ‘Best 500 Rock and Roll Photographs’ in Las Vegas, USA and prints of these are now highly collectable.

[werewolfetone]

2nd try—

did the british have a big role regarding tensions between the catholics and protestants in Ireland (as in making them) as opposed to taking advantage/exacerbating them? the speech im reading uses Ireland as a similar situation to caste in india (hence the ‘ireland jumpscare’ lmao) . a common argument used to dismiss/ignore the latter is that it is an imperialist import (so we don’t really do anything bad, we don’t really have any privilege/advantage cause of it, etc etc)

does the same hold true for ireland? said speech (annihilation of caste, dr ambedkar) was written in 1930s iirc, so maybe late 19th cen-20th cen? (i am very ill versed in irish history, school had one page for the whole uk)

Ok so short answer, the way I look at it is that while we do have a responsibility to try and lessen protestant/catholic tensions and break down barriers for the benefit of everyone &c &c today, yes, Britain did play a role in creating protestant/catholic tensions in Ireland. Longer answer:

It's important to remember in discussions of Britain + Ireland + sectarianism, that, to quote the book Scripture Politics by Ian McBride, "there was nothing peculiarly Irish about the eighteenth century obsession with popery." Nor was there with the seventeenth century, or the sixteenth century, or the any century since the Reformation -- since the categories of protestant and catholic have existed, with the possible exception of the 21st century,* Britain and British people have been fighting for one and against the other, often as violently if not more violently than Irish people have. The reasons for this were complex -- questions of freedom, religious doctrine, and national identity too complicated for this post and which I need to do more reading on before I can speak at length about. What matters is that any actions involving Britain and sectarianism must be put into the context of Britain being a very sectarian state itself for as long as that was possible, rather than a state which just exacerbated sectarianism elsewhere. Admittedly most of what I know about caste in India comes from my Indian friends irl talking about it, so this comparison is almost certainly not perfect, but imo it's a little less like the British exacerbating caste in India and a little more like if the British had been butchering one another over caste independently and then come over to India, realised that the same caste system existed there, and immediately decided to bring the conflict over with them. Essentially it can't really be said to have been something Britain just "exacerbated" because, well, Britain was playing an active role in it.

Secondly, & perhaps more crucially, it's important when it comes to Irish history that "protestant" and "catholic" don't just mean what church one attends. In a similar way to how the Israeli occupation of Palestine is not "Jews VS Muslims" but a case of settler colonialism, "catholic" in the context of Irish history usually means one considers oneself Irish, while "protestant" usually indicates a connection to Britishness. There are many exceptions, of course! There are lots of protestant republicans and catholic loyalists, especially historically, but if, like, someone from Derry were talking about "prods" in the modern day they would almost certainly be referring to ethnoreligious conflict between people who are considered Irish and people who are considered British, rather than genuine disapproval over doctrinal disputes (there are exceptions to this, too, though. some of the stuff my mother says...). Both of these labels also often denote a whole other set of cultural behaviours apart from religion (pronunciation of certain letters, what school one attends, so on and so forth). Mentioning this mostly just because I think it's interesting, but wrt this issue I often think about how when modern sectarian violence in the north of Ireland really emerged in 1780s Co. Armagh, rather than "catholic" "anglican" and "presbyterian," those involved would distinguish the three groups by referring to them as "Irish," "English," and "Scotch**," respectively, indicating that the understanding that sectarian violence has been just as much about questions of identity and nationalism as religion for a really, really long time.

So. Do I think that, had British colonisation not happened, Ireland would never have gotten involved in any religious conflict? No. Getting into religious wars was really just what European powers did for a very long time, so a hypothetical free Kingdom of Ireland or whatever in an alternate 17th century probably would have been just as eager to butcher the protestant dogs as other catholic countries like France or Spain were. However, as real history stands, the fact that Britain's crusade against Irish catholics in the real life 17th century was part of Britain's own protestant/catholic religious war, and the fact that 'protestant/catholic conflict' in Irish history is nearly always just settler-colonial violence (perpetrated by Britain) with fancy dressing, mean that yes, I would say that Britain must take at least some responsibility for the existence of protestant/catholic tensions in modern day Ireland.

*personally I wouldn't include the 20th century in this due to the continuation of sectarian tensions in scotland

**historical term for "scottish" I am using as I am quoting historical documents where it was used. if u start discourse over the use of this word on this post I will block u

Sources under the cut

Farrell, Sean. Rituals and Riots: Sectarian Violence and Political Culture in Ulster, 1784-1886. University Press of Kentucky, 2000.

McBride, Ian. Scripture politics : Ulster Presbyterians and Irish radicalism in the late eighteenth century. Clarendon Press, 1998.

Cone, Carl. The English Jacobins: Reformers in Late 18th Century England. Taylor & Francis Group, 1968.

Coward, Barry. Oliver Cromwell. Longman, 2000.

Rees, John. The Leveller Revolution: Radical Political Organisation in England, 1640-1650. Verso Books, 2017.

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

The BBC is already not being impartial during the UK election 2024

I shouldn't even be surprised but here we are. So much for any kind of journalistic standard.

Those of you who were around for the last election campaign may remember at that point a far-right party member's claim, which was repeated uncritically and as if it were factual by many media outlets, that he was 'assaulted' by 'a youth on a bicycle' throwing a yogurt at him while he innocently campaigned for his party, which was an example of political violence against his beliefs.

Except it turned out that there was CCTV in the area and no 'youth on a bicycle carrying yogurt' was seen.

What was in fact seen, was the man in question had brought a packed lunch with him for his day out, which contained... a yogurt. Which he either accidentally or deliberately spilled on himself while campaigning, and then took the opportunity to report to his party leadership and the media as an assault, which was then spread around as if factual and it definitely happened, inciting sympathy for the poor innocent far-right people.

Well folks. They're at it again this year.

Here's a fun uncritical headline from the BBC that dropped today:

"Reform election candidate 'attacked' in Cornwall"

What evidence is given for this attack, I hear you ask, given that the BBC has reported it as a factual event in the title?

Well, the chairman of Reform, the party in question, has claimed that it happened, and has made a social media video stating that it happened. Three days ago.

Here's how the article describes it:

"A statement from Reform UK said Mr Rubidge, 51, was handing out election leaflets in Event Square when he was verbally abused by a man believed to be in his 20s. The party said that, as Mr Rubidge tried to leave the scene after two other men turned up, he had a bag he was carrying grabbed off him by the first man.

He was eventually able to "wrestle the bag" back off the man, but he was punched and kicked multiple times, leaving him with injuries to his ligaments, Reform added. The incident left Mr Rubidge shaken and shocked, the party's statement said.

In his social media video, Mr Tice said he was "appalled" after hearing about the alleged incident. He said: "This is no way of having a democratic debate and discussion. "We can disagree, but we don't fight each other. That's not what our democracy is about."

He added Mr Rubidge did go back on the campaign trail for a further four hours on Saturday."

Nowhere in the article (archived ver. June 18th 2024) does the BBC make clear that this is not an impartial account of what has been determined to have actually happened, but rather, a biased account from a political party representative that has likely been crafted in conjunction with a PR specialist in order to stretch the truth as far as possible in order to present the campaigner as innocent, a victim, and suffering due to his innocent political beliefs that are UNDER ASSAULT by vicious strangers who are JUST INTOLERANT for no reason.

The article, of course, comes complete with a smiling image of the campaigner in question, looking as innocent as possible. The article is careful not to mention any of the content of the leaflets that the campaigner was handing out which may have caused some backlash if, perhaps, the camapigner was also shouting about some of the content of the leaflets while handing them out in a city center at midday on a Saturday: for context, Reform UK as a political party want to ban ALL immigration to the country, to deport international students even if they have already paid for their education in the UK, to remove all unemployment benefits from citizens who are struggling, to stop investing in any kind of renewable energy sources, to get rid of all diversity and inclusion practices, and to ban 'transgender ideology' including the admittance that trans people even exist from all schools and educational institutions. They also believe that 'the majority of mothers want to stay at home' instead of working.

Going back to the article, apparently the poor campaigner in question who was definitely ASSAULTED HORRIBLY and completely UNPROVOKED ended up with 'injuries to his ligaments'. This is a serious injury and would be quite debilitating to deal with and would require immediate treatment and some bed rest and gentle exercise for days therafter to aid recovery.

Interesting then, isn't it, that the campaigner in question was then able to then keep campaigning for a further four hours with such a horrendous injury?

The BBC and other media outlets need to realise that this isn't a fun RPG or game of who can present something the most quickly to 'win', accuracy be damned, or a situation where it's fine to save time doing your own research by just repeating a political organisation's press release about an incident as factual, verbatim.

This is a real election, the only election that will happen between now and 2029. The BBC is supposed to be impartial. Reporting an alleged assault as if it were factual and exactly as described by somebody with an interest in making it out to be as bad as possible, and trusting that all readers will be able to read between the lines of what is said and understand that your write-up of the event is actually just reporting what someone else SAID about the event rather than an unbiased record is at this point in time EXTREMELY irresponsible.

Journalists, your job, especially now, is to report what's happening to inform the public. You can report what someone THINKS is happening, but only if you make very clear that you are doing so, and ideally only report that within a larger piece that discusses just the facts of the situation. It's okay if details are unknown - it's better to note that than to put anything in, no matter if it's been fact-checked or not. The BBC is publicly funded, it and its staff don't need to be the first on the scene to react or comment on any given situation, it's not like anyone's going to get more funding or any reward for doing that.

You can't claim to be impartial on the one hand and on the other, uncritically report something that a political party has a vested interest to lie about as if it were definitely and wholly factual. And the BBC keeps doing this, as if there's no way anyone could ever lie about a situation in order to advantage themselves.

Wake up, BBC.

[chronicallyuniconic]

The UK government continues to hate the vulnerable & disabled

"The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has refused to say if the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, was wrong to suggest that disability benefits were being misused and exploited, after new official figures showed the level of fraud has fallen to zero."

You read that right.

FRAUD HAS DROPPED TO 0%

The year before it was at 0.2%

A month earlier, the shithouse of a PM was planning to cut the spending on PIP (aswell as other reforms), but stated that PIP was being used "incorrectly" or "misused" and that he wanted to make it an even harder process to 'exploit'

Going through PIP, as it is now, is horrific. I sent years of medical evidence, to be refused 3 times and later won at tribunal. It took years. Everyone I know has had a horrible time with the DWP scheme, it is not easy, or quick to trick, or a misuse of benefits when it has a direct impact on health, cannot be exploited when you can't get it in the first place!

The government are lying bag of shit & I hope they all drown in their own filth. The sewers are gleaming in comparison to the sludging dregs of Westminster. So many words. But the damage the PM has caused, is already done. We're stuck now with "abusing the system" type labels, even with this report.

[beeseverywhen]

"The UK is currently the only signatory to be found in breach of the UN treaty."

"The UK signed the disabilities convention in 2009, but it has still not been incorporated into British law.

In 2016, an inquiry by the UN's Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) found that the UK was in breach of three of the Convention's articles

The same inquiry found that welfare reforms introduced since 2010 had "adversely" affected disabled people. The Committee issued a number of recommendations to rectify the situation."

"The delegation's appearance in Geneva this week had been scheduled for August last year, but British officials failed to attend.

At this week's session, a second UN Special Rapporteur, Rosemary Kayess, told the hearing that "reforms within social welfare benefits are premised on a notion that disabled people are undeserving, and are skiving off and defrauding the system"."

"Speaking from Geneva, Rensa Gaunt, communications manager for Inclusion London - which campaigns for equality for deaf and disabled people - told Access All: "You would think the government would listen to the UN, or would at least be embarrassed to be in breach of the convention it signed up to, but it isn't.""