Some sort of charity
Scottish Labour mouthpiece the Daily Record is currently running a long series of horror stories about Atos “Healthcare” and their appalling persecution of the sick and disabled. We heartily and sincerely commend the Record for doing so, even if it usually fails to note that Atos were unleashed on the poor and vulnerable by a Labour government, and occasionally just outright lies about it.
You might expect, then, that the valid concerns of the Record and its readers would be earnestly reflected by the nation’s Labour MSPs when the Scottish Parliament debated the issue of Atos’ conduct of Work Capability Assessments yesterday.
You’d be wrong, of course.
The SNP desks in the chamber were fairly well populated for a member’s-business session, with MSPs attending in double figures and numerous speakers.
Over on the Tory/Lib Dem benches, Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone was perhaps understandably alone, with nobody else from the Scottish branches of the UK’s ruling parties wishing to be associated with defending the indefensible.
And for Labour? One.
We don’t just mean Jackie Baillie was the only Labour MSP to speak in the debate. Although not present at the beginning, she was the only one who bothered to show up at all, and she stood surrounded by empty seats as her party colleagues instead ran around defending Johann Lamont’s plans to subject Scotland’s poor and disabled and elderly to means-testing in order to keep receiving personal care and prescriptions.
We were about to be shocked and disgusted, until we remembered the words of Scottish Labour MP Tom Harris a little under a year ago, as approvingly quoted by the Telegraph’s arch-Tory columnist Alan Cochrane:
We’re feeling a little bit sick ourselves now, readers, but please don’t tell anyone about it. Because we don’t want Atos “Healthcare” coming after us next.
goews to show , the SNP and pro independence parties are the only ones to care aboput the Disabled in Scotland ,more now than never do we need independence
Gobsmacked! (You’d think I’d have learned by now, but Labour’s callous disregard of their core electorate continues to amaze me.)
Of course Labour were running about trying to defuse the Lamont bomb. It’s really really important to ensure a No vote in the referendum and to ensure the C listers keep their places at the Holyhood trough. After all, if it’s Yes, then some of the “A” listers might not get parachuted into rUK seats and be forced into Holyhood and were would that leave the C listers.
Anyone would think Labour was set up for the working classes and the defenceless and to help those who need help. Oh right.
Vermin.
Elsewhere yesterday, Westminster Labour are promising a review on the WCA. We’ll see.
Though Labour’s attitude to date has been a wonderful comparison to make on the benefits of deciding these things for ourselves
There are not enough sweary words in the dictionary to describe Labour leadership’s actions of the past few days.
They soooooo deserve what comes next at the ballot.
Really I have no words to describe how I feel about Lamont and her cronies.I only am certain of this without independence all that was fought for by previous generations will be lost.
Be aa breath of fresh air come independence to concentrate on tackling the many ills that afflict our society instead of wasting all our energies on the laughingly called Labour party. When you have the tory loving hootsman singing a so called Labour leaders praises, the writing is well and truly on the wall. I hope its a quick 2 years til we vote YES.
Its maybe worth noting they chose this particular week and the absence of the FM to drop these bombshells. Maybe they thought Nicola would be easier to handle at FMQs.
Some hope. 😉
Nicola is FM material, that’s for sure.
Dear Undecided Voter –
Vote Yes in 2014 to protect Scotland from the ravages of the neoliberal consensus.
I would like to say nothing labour does surprises me anymore, but after tuesday’s speech, I can’t.
I also watched FM’s question time today and watched Nicola skin the arse off both Lamont and Davidson with the greatest of ease, though I would have like to have seen the camera’s pointing at the labour seats when Ruth Davidson thanked labour for their support for their policys, (resulting in fast toilet break). We have a worthy Deputy Leader for Scotland.
Nice to see the Tories, of either colour, were in FULL support of the Health debate.
Boy I bet their supporters were WELL impressed with their attendance…..NOT!
If we DON’T have a YES win in 20124 then, in my view, we could be looking at this happening a few years later.
I know I DON’T want this!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19729973
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/26/nhs-finance-directors-standard-care-worsen
@MajorBloodnock
I get the feeling it won’t be that far in the future either.
I’m sure that many of the sick and disabled are capable of some sort of work if supported properly. Many of them would probably appreciate the opportunity to participate more fully in society. But this is not the way to go about it.
I’ve a friend who has excellent IT skills and is logical, intelligent and imaginative – for six months of the year. The other six – not so much (I actually did lol there). I always find it a shame that no one has found a way to use his talents when he is capable. He’d like to work and have colleagues and office parties with kissing in the copy room.
No doubt ATOS will find him fit for work and he will then be presented with ludicrous opportunities.
@cuphook what kind of work could they do? The real issue is not what work it prevents them from doing, thats usually self evident. It’s finding that *opportunity” werr their disability would not be an issue. But it doesn’t begin and end there. There is the how he gets to work…is transport a problem, will access be a problem. Is the actual workspace safe for this person. Adequate facilities present on site? Will the employer even want to hire said disabled person – bearing insurance costs and liabilities. Are they able to do a full day or half a day, can they be left on their own or will they need assistance or a minder to keep an eye on them.
The problem is that ATOS doesn’t support disabled people into work – it simply kicks them off the support system and throws them into the unknown. They don’t give a shit at this point. If its your friend they will find him capable and when he fails to find employment and reapplies for assistance, ATOS get to do it to him again – kaching! – another cash bonus for them.
I am relativley lucky – I have crohns disease which is in remission so I can work. But when it was doing its absolute worst to end me, I was effectively unemployable for about a year. I am employed by the government and so had generous sick leave, without which i would have found myself out of work while still desperately ill. I count my lucky stars that I fell ill when I did. When the tories were not in government, and New labour were not the vile sh*ts that that they are today.
If you can genuinely help a disabled person into some sort of work – thats fine and dandy but you have to be honest and compassionate enough to accept that perhaps, you simply can’t help this person. What you don’t do is harass them, hound them, attack them in the press, and generally behave like a vile tory shit towards them.
If ATOS had appeared when the tories took over, I would not have been surprised, but it was labour who enabled these nasty vile ratfucks to prey upon the most vulnerable in our society. The tories must have been sick from laughing at the opportunity this contract gave them to do what they do best…be complete and utter bastards
It’s got to the point where part of me feels that if Scotland and the Scottish people aren’t sensible enough to vote YES on 2014 that they frankly deserve the likely dystopian nightmare that will follow from it. It’s just a shame that me and mine will also be dragged into that nightmare, so I can’t simply give into fate or despair. The effort’s still on to avoid that possibility!
If Scotland’s voters vote NO in 2014 they deserve everything that’s coming to them, and I won’t be sticking around to witness it. I’ll find a proper independent democracy to live in.
Cuphook
I believe you have said similar things before and been corrected
The current system takes someone who is weak from Chemo to combat their cancer, tells them they are fit to work and tells them if they do not work shelf stacking for a rich company in exchange for that benefit they will lose it,
Unlike earlier schemes there is no help towards transport costs or a top up to the benefit.
It is not a mere matter of presentation, about a fair system unfairly vilified, it really is a fucking horror with the “Health Professionals”, e.g. a physio nurse, being pressured to find folk fit to work who should be inpatients at hospitals
Atos and its kind represent the kind of world we used to look down upon in the world or back on in dark histories from sadder times. I’ve yet to meet anyone who things these things are good, so how have they been getting away with pushing it all so far?