The Lesser Beings.

Death statistics reluctantly issued by the DWP after claiming they didn’t collect and collate them, after they tried their best to obfuscate bully and bluster their way (and in any way they could) to hiding the numbers and to deny public access even through the courts and the Freedom of Information Commissioners Office have been forced to reveal that since the Work Capability Assessment began in earnest we are fast approaching 100,000 deaths of sick and disabled people deemed ‘fit for work’ in a flawed ‘tick in a box’ system that is still being used. I wonder why it’s still being used? But that’s for another day.

Can you imagine (God forbid) if 100,000 body bags had already come home from our illegal war in Iraq since 2010? Just take a second to think about that.

If that had been the case this disgraceful Tory Government and its predecessor Coalition would have been out of office in days and the war ended within weeks. Maybe even the warmonger who sent those troops to war in the first place might have ended up where he should – at a War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. Wonder who that might be eh?

However, have you ever asked yourself why there is this seemingly huge difference in empathetic attitude and sympathetic approach to these two different subdivisions of society? Why would they be treated differently?

Could it be that one has been the never ending victim of the propaganda machine and government ‘double speak’ and the other not? After all, it’s only now that people in high places wring their hands and the very occasional article appears in the press regarding that Procrustean event called ‘The Chilcott Enquiry’ whereas the public has been told in no uncertain terms via a right wing demonising media and a certain Tory Minister almost daily that “75% of those on the sick are faking it”, or that everyone who is disabled is “more sick in the head than sick in the body”, or that everyone and anyone who is claiming unemployment benefits are doing so because “it is a lifestyle choice”. Pick up a newspaper today, you won’t have to look far or hard to see at least one of these stories.

We have Channel 5 programmes like ‘Benefit Street’ and ‘On Benefits and Proud’ and ‘Benefits Britain: Life on The Dole’. All portraying people unfortunate enough to have nothing or less as a disgusting and degraded sub-culture out to steal from the pockets of us ‘normal’ people so that they can live the high life on £7 a day. These are the scum of humanity; worth less than the shit you would wipe off your shoes. ‘They’ are the problem. ‘They’ are the cause of it all. ‘They’ are “skivers” and “benefit cheats”, they are the “feral and feckless”, breeding like flies all day and night behind drawn curtains, taking drugs and drinking cans of cheap lager as they watch porn all day. And, often unspoken but implied if only by the very fact that ‘they’ – the disabled - also receive benefits, everyone who is classed as incapacitated can also be included. Well, after all they claim too don’t they? Tar spreads well when brushed broadly.

“They’re all the same them lot on benefits.” “Disabled – yeah right, there’s nothing wrong with them” and “I don’t see anything wrong with him/her. They should get a job.” The outcomes? Disability hate crime on the increase. Understanding and compassion on the decrease. The philosophy of ‘the lesser being’ drummed into us at every opportunity by continuous inculcation promoting in turn a ‘Them and Us’ culture.

Once you identify and dehumanise through language any people anywhere at any time (like immigrants desperately fleeing for their lives and trying to enter Europe on rafts built of wooden pallets being described  as “cockroaches” by a certain bottle blonde narcissist) it is a precursor to being able to commit and/ or ignore atrocities since those people are no longer human. They become subhuman. That’s how it was for Jews in 1930’s Germany. That’s how it is for the sick; the disabled; and the unfortunate in Britain today.

And the worse thing is – the public believe it and there’s the difference. 

Managed Democracy

Politicians of all main parties dribble on continuously about "voter apathy"; about "engaging people"; and about how terribly regrettable it is that so many "can't be bothered to go out and vote". They wring their hands and slowly shake their heads in disbelief and disappointment. What utter nonsense! They don't want 'involvement'; they don't want 'engagement'; and nor do they want people to be 'enthused'. Or at least, only if those same people are 'involved'; 'engaged'; and 'enthused' with them and their cause. They don't want democracy - they want what Sheldon Wolin calls "Managed Democracy". 

Look only to Scotland and the sheer panic that the Establishment displayed when it looked as if they might not be able to manage the independence vote last September. Running around like headless chickens trying to convince people by fair means or foul to vote for the status quo. A status quo that favours only them and no others. A status quo that has, for generations, been maintained by "apathy", by "disengagement"; and by lack of "involvement". The supporters of independence may well have lost the vote but they showed the way.

And so the same is happening all over again with Jeremy Corbyn. As soon as there was even a sniff of a chance he would be elected Leader the Labour Party Establishment big guns came out and started lobbing shells at him and his ideas. The falling Labour Party membership, so long bemoaned and whinged about by Labour Party members and Labour Party Parliamentary politicians alike has increased by (just about) three fold. But rather than being excited and happy about this they see it as a curse from the gods. In fact it seems all those recently joined are "entryists" (whatever the hell that means) and/or "Trotskyists" and/or subversive "hard left extremists" when actually it's all about not being able to control this new democratic upsurge and turn it to their advantage. They want the status quo to remain. They are Emperors ruling an Empire they infiltrated and eventually took over some twenty five years ago. It is they that are the "entryists" not those that want the Labour Party back or those who are joining because Jeremy Corbyn offers hope. A commodity in very short supply for many a year as far as being on offer from the Labour Party. 

Democracy can be very inconvenient but it is still democracy. The irony is that it was the right wing of the Labour Party that instigated this new 'democratic system' in the first place. "Be careful of what you ask for because you may get it." They wanted it - they got it - they don't want it. And they don't want it because they can't control it.

The Last Chance for Labour?

• It’s no surprise to me that almost all Labour MPs do not oppose the Tory cuts in the Westminster parliament. Don’t forget it was the Labour Party when last in government who started privatising the NHS, who doubled the tax rate on the poorest paid, and who spent billions bailing out the London bankers.

  
  

  That's because they're not the Labour Party. The Labour Party was high-jacked NOT by 'Militant Tendency', or by 'Trotsky entryists'; or by 'Morons on the left', but by right wing Tory mimics who think Margaret Thatcher was a goddess and who accept without question the neo-liberal agenda that is doing so much damage to ordinary people everywhere. Look only to Greece. It's coming here soon.

  
  

  What a message the Labour Party has been putting out lately when they say; "without power then we can do nothing". (No shit Sherlock?!) The underlying message of course is that "we will do anything, say anything, promise anything, and become 'shape changers' in any way you want us to in order to gain power and then do what we want when in power." Brilliant innit? Nothing like an attempt to deceive voiced out loud eh?

  
  

  It is this 'gain the centre ground' (which is continuously moving to the right) madness that they seem hell bent on trying to capture. But unfortunately for Mandleson and Blair et al they can't because, as Harry Truman said; "Give the people a straight choice between a Republican and an imitation Republican and they will choose the true Republican every time." For 'Republican' read 'Tory' of course. 

  
  

  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and the Labour Party needs to recognise that that is what they are about. They flatter the Tories daily if it is only by abstaining on proposals aimed at sucking the poor dry for the benefit of the rich. Trying to outdo a Tory on their own ground is like trying to dive deeper than a whale without oxygen. Problem is they simply don't see it let alone recognise the futility of the exercise.

  
  

  It's about time they realised that it's not their core supporters that have moved away from them but the complete opposite - they have moved away from their core supporters. No-one abandoned is at their happiest and there's always a backlash. People want their Labour Party back from those that stole it away from them. Look only to the number of CLP's supporting Jeremy Corbyn and the incredible and increasing support he's getting everywhere he goes. That the other Leadership Candidates should get the same eh? But nowhere near. 
• 
  
• A sparkling example is that he has just reached £100,000 from crowd funding alone. Thus when 5 of the big (read that as "rich") donators to the Labour Party say they will stop giving money if he wins then so what? The Labour Party was funded totally by public subscription and Trades Union contributions generations before these people came along. It did ok then did it not?
• 
  

  If there was one single thing that the Labour Party of old offered it was 'hope'. Jeremy Corbyn for right or wrong offers that in abundance. That's all they have to do is look to the SNP and their incredible victory in the recent General Election. The SNP Manifesto (and I've read it) could have been written by Michael Foot in 1983. The people may not have been ready for it then but they are now. 

  
  

  Unfortunately, if Corbyn doesn't win on first ballot then it's over. The second ballot will be rigged against him in any way they can. (In fact, let's face it, they are already trying to rig the first ballot.) And I wouldn't mind betting that the CLP's who have given him their initial support will have already been 'briefed' on what they 'should do' if it goes to a second. Believe me, after 16/17 years a Labour Party member (resigned 1999) I know how the system works. 

  
  

  The irony is of course is that this 'new' system of leadership election was formulated and imposed by the Blairites and the right wing of the Labour Party (shouldn't that be an oxymoron? - "right wing of the Labour Party"?) but because the threatened outcome doesn't suit them they are suddenly running around calling "foul". The smouldering hypocrisy is choking me if no-one else. Hoisted on their own petard comes to mind.

  
  

  Go go Corbyn.

Let's not get carried away here.

The Baroness Warsi.

I applaud her courage and display of integrity. Her principled stance is commendable and has sparked some useful debate within the government and Tory Party - indeed within the country. Her stand on the Gaza massacres marks her out as a Tory with a heart. An extremely rare animal indeed. She has done far more than many others who are wringing their hands and making muted protest or shedding crocodile tears such as that great champion of human rites, Nick Clegg. Well done girl! It was the right thing to do, but.....................

Is this the very same Baroness Warsi that I have seen on Question Time defending the austerity measures imposed by a government of millionaires? Is this the same Tory Party member and life Peer who has defended and spoken in favour of; The Bedroom Tax?; sanctioning benefit claimants?; whipping the unemployed into zero hour contracts?; workfare?; cuts to this and cuts to that? (Only for the poor, the disadvantaged, and the vulnerable of course!) Is this the same Baroness Warsi?

I started this blog by raising her sleeves and patting her on the back for her reaction to Cameron's inaction. However, where was she when the DWP confirmed that in 2011 no less than 10,600 people on Disability Benefits died, and many by their own hand, when their legitimately claimed benefits were reduced and/or removed completely? Maybe not as many dead as due to the pogrom being pursued by the Israeli's in Gaza but a significant number of people none the less, and all living under her government's cruel regime. Where was she when the Work Capability Assessment carried out by a darling of the Tory Party machine - Atos, was finding people who were terminally ill 'fit for work'? Not just once or twice but multiple times. People that died within weeks if not days of that lunatic decision?

I could go on and on and on and on, but you'd get bored and you know exactly what I'm getting at anyway. 

Honesty; integrity; empathy; sympathy; and indeed just about every positive human emotion is usually for sale with a Tory. Remember 'Cash for Questions'? or 'Peerages for Sale' (which is still happening); or 'Expenses Scandals'?; or Maria Miller MP?; and so many more shady if not downright criminal behaviours? I look around the government benches and wonder how many of them have portraits up in their attics.

So let's not go overboard eh? What she has done is good and right, but please keep in mind she is a Tory with all the negative connotations that implies and that are displayed daily by people that are still her party friends and close colleagues. Leopards simply don't change their spots.

The Government-vs-The Depressed. A Panacea? Maybe not.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is;

"a psychotherapeutic approach that addresses dysfunctional emotions, maladaptive behaviours and cognitive processes and contents through a number of goal-oriented, explicit systematic procedures." Wikipedia.

So CBT addresses and overcomes the dysfunctional through reasoning and reality checks and if the practitioner is properly trained and qualified, skillful, and experienced it's good therapy that can work very well believe me. It is said to be time limited in as much as it is often claimed it can work to relieve and/or cure a problem of the psyche in a set number of sessions. It is therefore cost calculable. If each session is charged at £100 and it is estimated that the problem can be overcome in 10 sessions then the total cost is £1,000. Simple. Or so it seems. Read on.

Now from here I would like you to keep in mind that anyone can set themselves up as a Psychotherapist. They do not need any academic or practical qualifications 'proper'; if trained at all many are churned out by quack-factories that rely on gullibility and lack of regulation; there is no official state licensing; there is no meaningful regulation other than voluntary regulation; 'training and accreditation bodies' they may join could well have been set up simply as a way to add street cred to their claim of being qualified; - or they simply may read a book, take an on-line course lasting a couple of weeks, or just merely have business cards printed and get on with their version of the job. Again, simple.

But let’s say that you’ve sourced a properly trained, properly qualified CBT practitioner who is a member of a well respected exemplary and unimpeachable organisation. Good stuff to come no doubt. And if you form an efficient working partnership with the therapist, commonly known as the ‘therapeutic alliance’ then good things may very well come. However, there is a potential down side.

As much as CBT is heralded and touted as being a ‘one-size-fits-all’ form of intervention it simply does not suit some. Not all people react in a positive manner towards CBT and come out at the other end ‘cured’ or even feeling that they have improved in any way. In fact, if it fails after them being told by all and sundry and especially by those that should know better that it is the only way forward and that the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach works universally then it can well add to their feelings of negative self-worth and actually deepen the problem – “I’ve failed again. I fail at everything.” I’m afraid the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is not much good then, indeed potentially counter-productive. People are individuals and react to CBT (indeed all forms of therapy) in different ways. Sorry, but that’s just a matter of fact. Being a CBT practitioner myself I would love to tell you otherwise, but that would be a lie.

However, one of the reasons CBT is latched on to as ‘super therapy’ by those with an eye more on money than anything else and who would like to convince themselves but more importantly the general public that it is the magic bullet of therapeutic interventions is that a cost per head can be calculated in advance and a spending limit can be put on it. 

As an example let’s just take what has been called “the common cold of the psyche” – Depression. (By the way I would describe it in far more serious terms but this is just a working definition ok?) Thus, if it can be said by the CBT therapist that he/she can raise someone out of their depression in 10 sessions at £100 per session then the spend will be £1,000 and to get that back from taxes and NI contributions when they then return to work post treatment will make that treatment ‘cost neutral’ within months. Once again – simple eh?

Now please don’t get the wrong end of the stick at this point. I am not criticising CBT. It can be one of the most effective and efficient therapeutic intervention strategies on the face of the planet. All I am saying is that it is not efficient and effective with everyone that walks through the therapist’s door. Now and again it just doesn't work and if that’s the case it should be substituted for a more appropriate patient orientated, tailor made therapeutic approach that suits the individual seeking help. It's the patient and their needs that should be at the centre of any therapy. Not trying to force fit them into a rigid therapeutic straight-jacket (excuse the pun) that isn't fit for purpose.

The problems that I see at the moment are rooted firstly in the idea that this government are looking to make therapeutic intervention mandatory (a bad idea in itself) for people unable to work due to mental health issues (let’s stick with depression) and the idea that, if after a short course of CBT, their depression has not lifted then they will be stripped of all and any state benefits on the then ‘proof’ that they are/were faking it. And that because, based on recent experience, it seems to me that this is the kind of flimsy ‘evidence’ this government would be looking for in order to justify to Joe Public that ‘these people’ are ‘scroungers’ and ‘benefit cheats’ and that really there’s nothing wrong with them and they should ‘get out and get a job’. More hate, more division, more grist for the propaganda mill.

Secondly that, in the spirit of the neo-liberal god of ‘competition’ this will be offered out to the private sector where firms like Atos will be able to apply for contracts to deliver this ‘service’ to those that are suffering mental health problems and, again keeping in mind recent experiences, in concert with the fact (above) that anyone can set themselves up to be a Psychotherapist the temptation would be to employ the badly (if at all) trained therapist at say £40 per session (the unqualified work cheap), cut the session numbers to the bone, and make huge profit not only from the surplus charged to government but at the very same time shovelling people out in to the workplace declared as ‘fit for work’ on the word of a quack not properly qualified to pass judgement after delivering a therapeutic intervention they were not qualified to administer in the first place.

Perhaps though I am being too cautious, even maybe suspicious, but sorry as I may be about that it sounds so plausible to me as a way forward for this government to justify even more cruelty that I am leaning more and more towards this as the minutes pass.

Is it me?

Look out - the people are coming!

The 'system' is beginning to crumble. Not just here in the UK but it seems to me world-wide. 

With easy access to alternatives and to reality via the internet rather than the propaganda that they've force fed people for centuries then I think it's time has just about come. I sincerely hope so anyway.


Social media is packed full of anger, frustration, and daily justified rants from credible, even unimpeachable sources about rising inequality and the oppression of the poor world-wide. Easy access to increasingly hungry mass markets for people like Robert Reich and his video 'Inequality for All'; or Woody Harrelson's documentary on youtube, 'Ethos' and many more are beginning to stir even the sleepiest. It's a growing hunger for truth and alternatives that the people in power do not want but can't really stop. The Genie is out of the bottle as it's said.


Instead they are now beginning to go down the 1984 route predicted by Orwell. I always thought it was a warning of possible horrors to come but (especially) this government and the American political elite seem to see it as a service manual. 


Snooping on the citizenry; water cannons at the ready in London purely to suppress the civil unrest to come; police brutality; CCTV on every corner watching your every moment and movement outside your home; location information on your mobile; and so much more designed to keep us in line and on message. The fabrication of 'terrorists' and 'threats to our national security' all around us to worry us continuously and constantly be at war with. People living in fear and under the gaze of security services are far easier to control. Why not a war on poverty and inequality eh? Or on individual and corporate tax dodgers or famine or disease? 


But people are beginning to ask "why not?" and the thinly veiled synthetic replies and excuses that have worked so well in the past are not working as well any more. The ruling elite and their plutocratic governments are slowly losing ground and I firmly believe that's why there is such a huge rush on their part to transfer as much from the poor to the rich as possible before it crumbles and dies. I just hope to live long enough to attend the funeral but I doubt it.

The Deception.

Y'know people on their blogs, on FB, Twitter and everywhere 'social media' keep posting that this government, and especially George Osborne are stupid, or blind, or that they just cannot see the folly of their ways as far as austerity is concerned. This seems always to be based on the premis that austerity doesn't work. Hmmmm!

Well actually - it does! And it works very well, but when the excuses above are applied it can be made to look as if it's all just a bit of an unfortunate mistake, a bit of an error, a slip of the pen, and can therefore be put down to incompetence and/or ignorance. It isn't! This government is one of the most competent and determined in many a generation. Stick with me.

In just four short years, they have managed to shift enormous amounts of money (£Billions actually) from the pockets of the poor to the pockets of the rich. They have, and are, daily it seems, forcing poor people in to abject poverty; beggary; indigence; and even to deaths' door. At the same time the UK has seen an increase in riches for the top 10% in the £Billions, and it's multiplying. We now have more Millionaires and Billionaires per square mile than ever before in our history. More Ferraris are imported to the richest parts of the UK now than any other country world-wide and Rolls Royce has just announced an increase of 33% in orders for the UK market alone. Multi-Million pound homes in London have queues out through the doors to buy them and yacht sales at the upper end of the market (£2 million+) have never been so good, as it is with private aircraft in the form of luxury small jets. Incompetent?! Mistaken?! Stupid?! Misguided?! Please let's think again eh?

Whilst more than a million people are forced to use Food Banks daily; when 300,000 children live in absolute poverty and even more in comparative poverty; when 10,600 disabled people died within six weeks of having their benefits stopped in 2010/11; when every year older people die (around 30,000 per year) in their own homes from a combination of malnutrition and the inability to heat that home; when benefit sanctioning numbers are going stratospheric and people are left with absolutely nothing to live on; when children are setting up Food Banks in their own schools to feed their mates coming to school (and going home) hungry; when homelessness has seen an increase unknown since records began; all through this the rich sit on golden thrones raking it in and living a life of luxury. Don't believe me? Check it all out - the information is freely available, and it's not even hard to find.

So what to do? OK, first things first, let's get rid of the ConDems. But please nobody fool themselves by thinking the Labour Party 2014 is anything like the Labour Party 1944. They are most definitely not and have been following and voting in favour of the Tory agenda ever since they lost the last election. They are becoming a brighter shade of blue every day. They were once the political party of hope. It's hope that they buried along with their founding principles many years ago. Now they just look the best of the worst.

In my opinion this UK of ours is in dire and absolute need of a new political agenda - and it looks as if that means a new political party. One that actually addresses the needs and wants of the public in the majority instead of slavishly following the neo-liberal lunacy of 'trickle down economics' (if you give the rich enough they'll give some back - yeah right!), which has been a 30 year plus Reagonomic experiment that has proven itself to be a total failure for everyone except the rich.

Anyway, let's please dispel this myth that this ConDem government is "incompetent" or "misguided" or "stupid" or indeed anything that excuses their deliberate, and very successful attempts to asset-strip the poor for the benefit of the rich.

Graeme.