The Politics Thread

[thebish]

figures finally released, in the summer, while MPs are still away on their long hols...

“between December 2011 and February 2014, 2,380 people died after their Work Capability Assessment told them they should start looking for work.”

[Prufrock]

The work assesment criteria are clearly f*cked (as shown by the very pertinent fact that over a third of people win their appeal against being assessed as fit for work) but that DWP^ figure is meaningless without a proper denominator.

[thebish]

The work assesment criteria are clearly f*cked (as shown by the very pertinent fact that over a third of people win their appeal against being assessed as fit for work) but that DWP^ figure is meaningless without a proper denominator.

what kind of denominator are you after?

[Prufrock]

That number comes from an FOI request. Unfortunately in the years since Tony Blair realised how difficult FOI was politially they've got very clever at answering the question asked.

That number is the number of people who "died after being certified fit for work", but it's over a 3 year period without any info as to how long after being certified they died. They didn't ask "how many died within X months of the assessment" but simply "how many died". Through Osbourne the Tories have been very good at leaking numbers that make them sound far worse than they are, and then defending the fictional position (after which everyone forgets the position they're actually defending is pretty shady). So in two weeks, after the idea that 2,000 died we'll get the true number, which will be less (and so seem like vindication for the Tories despite being a number no-one would have accepted before hand). Osbourne is brilliant at that sort of chicanery.

[CAPSLOCK]

figures finally released, in the summer, while MPs are still away on their long hols...

“between December 2011 and February 2014, 2,380 people died after their Work Capability Assessment told them they should start looking for work.”

Did they die cos they started looking for work?

[thebish]

figures finally released, in the summer, while MPs are still away on their long hols...

“between December 2011 and February 2014, 2,380 people died after their Work Capability Assessment told them they should start looking for work.”

Did they die cos they started looking for work?

probably in many/most cases cos they were very sick and close to death - and thus unfit for work... (despite what the assessment said.)

[thebish]

That number comes from an FOI request. Unfortunately in the years since Tony Blair realised how difficult FOI was politially they've got very clever at answering the question asked.

That number is the number of people who "died after being certified fit for work", but it's over a 3 year period without any info as to how long after being certified they died. They didn't ask "how many died within X months of the assessment" but simply "how many died".

well - by definition - it will have been within three years of the assessment.

some might have been accidentally hit by a bus with no connection at all to the sickness that initially led to the assessment. But you'd have to be fairly credulous to believe that deaths related to factors other than the sickness (or suicide leading from the assessment) were a very significant proportion of that figure.

yes - it's just a number - but it is fairly indicative (I think, anyway) of the deficiencies of the assessment procedure and criteria used...

[CAPSLOCK]

figures finally released, in the summer, while MPs are still away on their long hols...

“between December 2011 and February 2014, 2,380 people died after their Work Capability Assessment told them they should start looking for work.”

Did they die cos they started looking for work?

probably in many/most cases cos they were very sick and close to death - and thus unfit for work... (despite what the assessment said.)

If we're gonna throw in groundless speculation, I'll suggest its cos they overdosed, burst or got hit by a bus

I fail to see how looking for work causes you to die

Maybe if we knew how many died due to the job they took I'd have more to go on

[thebish]

I fail to see how looking for work causes you to die

Gladly for all of us, nobody is claiming that.

[Hoboh]

figures finally released, in the summer, while MPs are still away on their long hols...

“between December 2011 and February 2014, 2,380 people died after their Work Capability Assessment told them they should start looking for work.”

Did they die cos they started looking for work?

probably in many/most cases cos they were very sick and close to death - and thus unfit for work... (despite what the assessment said.)

If we're gonna throw in groundless speculation, I'll suggest its cos they overdosed, burst or got hit by a bus

I fail to see how looking for work causes you to die

Maybe if we knew how many died due to the job they took I'd have more to go on

It's fcuk all to do with 'looking for work', it's some arsehole working for a French company whilst chasing targets set by the DWP (and by default that odious toad IDS) deciding they are capable of work.
The WRAG is a total joke, what work related activity do they provide? It's hard enough for able bodied, fit, well people to get jobs (if they have English sounding names these days), Where the hell are jobs going to pop up from for the sick and infirm?
Would you employ someone who may be sick on a regular basis or need day's off, or even months off here and there for appointments, treatment etc.?
Is every building, office block and factory/building site geared up to handle the needs of the disabled?
The assault on the sick by a failed ex leader, ex junior officer and CV con man is sick in its self, IDS is a bitter man with an imagined point to prove although I doubt pox ridden tosser was what he is aiming for!

[Hoboh]

Hello, I genuinely fled a war in Syria and made it to Kos. I think it is disgusting that we were not given a hotel to stay in and it took 48hrs for our papers to be processed. My family and I did not leave the refugee camp in Turkey to come to the West and be treated like this, we demand to be allowed to cross whatever country we wish to either settle or go to Germany/UK.

hmmm...

an alternative view...

this is Kirsty McNeill - Campaigns Director at Save the Children... she spent some time on HMS Bulwark, the Royal Navy ship deployed as Britain’s emergency contribution to Mediterranean search and rescue missions, and wrote about what she saw in a column in the New Statesman...

It is worth remembering that these children and pregnant women are not the visa over-stayers or illegal workers of tabloid nightmares. Instead they are people who have taken terrifying journeys in what the crew described as little more than “lilos with sides”. What kind of parent lets their child get in something like that? Only one who fears what’s behind more than what’s in front.

here's one such woman, trying to hold her baby above the water, after the boat they were on sank in the Mediterranean...



somehow I'm struggling to imagine Hobo's imagined words on her lips...

Finally the guardian got round to printing the previously unprintable!

“Life is about trying,” said Paul Ohioyah, a 31-year-old plumber and part-time pastor from Nigeria. “We can’t stop trying. We shouldn’t stop taking risks.”
Ohioyah said there was no conflict in his part of Nigeria, but that the extreme poverty there was a valid reason for him to seek work in Europe by any means necessary

Go figure!

[CAPSLOCK]

How shit must his life be if he wants to live anywhere near you

[Hoboh]

How shit must his life be if he wants to live anywhere near you

You do!

[CrazyHorse]

Has someone used Microsoft Paint to colour in her hair in white? wtf?

[Bruce Rioja]

figures finally released, in the summer, while MPs are still away on their long hols...

“between December 2011 and February 2014, 2,380 people died after their Work Capability Assessment told them they should start looking for work.”

The total for figure for people being told that they should start looking for work being? And how does this figure of 2,380 people then stand as a percentage against the national death rate?

[Bruce Rioja]

This photo shows a Syrian mother trying to hold her baby above the water, after the boat that they were on sank in the Mediterranean.

It's images like this that remind me why only total pricks would ever post/share anything associated with vile nice people like Britain First. You are the scum of the fecking earth.

[thebish]

figures finally released, in the summer, while MPs are still away on their long hols...

“between December 2011 and February 2014, 2,380 people died after their Work Capability Assessment told them they should start looking for work.”

The total for figure for people being told that they should start looking for work being? And how does this figure of 2,380 people then stand as a percentage against the national death rate?

dunno - I'd have to go and look it up... (or you could!)

the national death rate is 100%

[Bruce Rioja]

figures finally released, in the summer, while MPs are still away on their long hols...

“between December 2011 and February 2014, 2,380 people died after their Work Capability Assessment told them they should start looking for work.”

The total for figure for people being told that they should start looking for work being? And how does this figure of 2,380 people then stand as a percentage against the national death rate?

dunno - I'd have to go and look it up... (or you could!)

the national death rate is 100%

For the same period when compared as a percentage. It's you making a point that clearly stands little scrutiny/

[thebish]

the only point I am making by quoting the published figures is that in a just a couple of years 2,380 people who were assessed as fit for work actually died very shortly after that assessment.

I would imagine that most people would not class someone fairly imminently and terminally ill as "fit for work". But, yet, these people did all die.

we could imagine that most of them died of summat entirely unrelated to the sickness that they first presented with - the reason they had the fitness-for-work test in the first place - hit by a bus - and as we have no access to individuals to match deaths and assessments - then we cannot conclusively prove this isn't the case..

but I think that it is at least reasonable - more than reasonable I would suggest - to suppose that it is more likely that the test was not very good.

a corroborating piece of evidence would be the fact that nearly 40% of these "fit-for-work" assessments were overturned on appeal - suggesting that the assessments were, actually, pretty crap - and that they were assessing people as fit-for-work - who were NOT fit for work - in fact, in many cases - they were actually close to death... and subsequently, many did die very shortly after being passed fit-for-work.

I think that govt-sponsored (very expensive) testing scheme assessing people to go back to work that gets their decisions wrong nearly 40% of the time resulting in much-needed benefits being withdrawn is not a price worth paying.

yeah - they'd have died anyway - but adding to their end-of-life misery by witdrawing benefits and insisting they are work-shy is not a price worth paying.

in short - I agree with Hoboh! huzzah!

[Prufrock]

We don't it's within a short time. 3 years is a long time in terms of developing health problems.

We don't know the number of people who were assessed that way, so we don't know the percentage. We also don't know the comparable death rates in the general population.

We don't know the demographic. If many were middle-aged MeV then a big killer is heart attacks, and being at a high risk for that doesn't make you "unfit for with".

I'm sure the disability assessments are f*cked, but that number doesn't show it.