Healthcare may cure us, but Atos make us sick!

Probably one of the worst measures being pushed forward by the Con Dems, is attacking people on disability benefits and forcing them to look for work. In typical privateering style, one nasty piece of work (ie the Con Dems) have got the DWP to contract out this nasty piece of work to a private company called Atos. So far, Atos' claim to fame has been to force people with conditions such as multiple sclerosis, terminal cancer and heart failure to look for work :/ (Perhaps it's just as well Atos weren't around in 1666, or the entire population of Eyam would have been deemed 'fit for work'! And none of this staying within the town to stop the plague from spreading, they would have to travel to look for work!)

In and of itself, this is a cold-blooded act by an evil Tory government hell bent on trampling on basic human rights, let alone workers' rights. But the repercussions of this move go further still. Such measures paint a false picture of disabled people as being lazy, unproductive 'drains on society' - a lie backed up by endless media brainwash designed to prop up this capitalist atrocity, with newspaper reports stating that only 6% of Incapacity Benefit claimants are 'genuine'. What they really mean is that very few people who need the benefits they deserve, are actually entitled to them under this regime :(

No wonder, then, people with disabilities, including those who are looking for work (not easy at the moment!), are suffering increasing amounts of prejudice and discrimination. This means that people who have been forced off (the already meagre) Incapacity Benefit are far less likely to actually find work, and far more likely to end up staying on the (even more stingy) Jobseekers Allowance.

A heavy dose of hypocrisy also applies. There have been cases of people laid off from work due to ill health, only to be told by Atos that they are "perfectly fit for work". This has additional repercussions when it comes to claiming for necessary adaptations, mobility payments, and non-state related benefits like payment protection insurance. (Unemployment payment protection insurance is so ridden with loopholes that you can lose it for taking temporary work, for sucks fake :/ ). No wonder there is a campaign to have Atos sacked - such as the Sack Atos online petition, which I urge readers to sign!

Atos Healthcare (sic) is a division of Atos Origin, an IT company. So it's hardly surprising their staff are mostly number-crunchers, making assessments on a 'points system' based on questions. Following a policy which seems to be created by mad social-scientists, who seem hell-bent on pushing sick people into work and seeing who survives. Well, since they love medical tests so much, maybe the Con Dems and the bosses of Atos should volunteer as guinea pigs for Huntingdon Life Science, and take the place of a few poor animals, in having medical experiments carried out on them :P

Certainly, you can't call these people doctors. The real role of doctors is to rid us of the parasites, such as viruses and (unfriendly) bacteria which make us ill.

Meanwhile, the role of socialists is to rid us of parasites (such as the Con Dems and the Atos bosses) who make us sick !!!

Lies, damn lies and benefit claim statistics

I see the Department of Work and Pensions are to use lie detectors, to determine whether or not claimants are eligible for benefits (BBC News article: Benefit staff to use lie detector).

What's more, unlike most traditional "lie detectors" which measure a whole range of factors (such as heartbeat, skin resistance, brain electrical activity), the "lie detectors" used by the DWP will base their decision entirely on one factor along - the claimant's voice!

So, some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in society are to have their livelihood determined by technology which is still considered suspect. What's more, what about people (like yours truly) who have speech disabilities?

Even traditional "lie detectors" which base their decision on a range of physical readings of a person's metabolism, are deemed of suspect accuracy - "evidence" based on "lie detector" tests is not deemed admissable in court, for example.

But there is one place where lie detectors have been uses successfully - on The Jeremy Kyle Show. Now that's a point, if the government think lie detectors are so infallible, maybe John Hutton should invite Tony Blair (not to mention his namesake, Lord Hutton, who thinks Tony Blair's so sweet and innocent) to appear on the Jeremy Kyle Show. The episode title - "The electorate don't trust me after my 45 minute affair with WMD's"!