Wednesday 13 May 2015

Day 6 - In which the snake pit takes shape

13/05/15

Dear Claire,

What a week it’s been!

A smug Dave Snooty has been getting his photo plastered all over the press and TV news bulletins, his Cabinet being announced, junior ministerial positions being filled. Good to see you are still junior trains monitor. Let’s hope this session of parliament sees you actually delivering on some of the things you told everyone you had, allegedly, achieved before the election.
 

It seems that with each subsequent appointment, Cameron seems to have turned over a new rock, from underneath which something slimy this way slithers.

There was a predictable inevitability to Doctor Death (IDS) retaining his position at the DWP. Perhaps he can now get on with the ongoing inquiry into the 60 suicides that have been prompted by his benefit reforms – something he refused to confirm when he appeared on Andrew Neill’s debate on Tuesday 5th, alongside health representatives from other parties.

Dr Death was one of five politicians taking part in a social security debate on the BBC’s The Daily Politics, alongside Labour, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Greens, just two days before the general election. Dr Death lost his cool after being criticised by the Greens’ Jonathan Bartley, who accused him of a “huge compassion deficit”. Bartley, work and pensions spokesman for the Green party, pointed to secret reviews carried out by Dr Death’s department into benefit-related deaths, and asked him why he was refusing to publish them.

DWP has also admitted to the Disability News Service (DNS) that 40 of the 49 reviews were carried out following the suicide or apparent suicide of a benefit claimant. The information watchdog is currently investigating DWP’s refusal to publish the 49 reviews, after a complaint was lodged by DNS. But despite that investigation, and the DWP responses admitting that the reviews had taken place, Duncan Smith told Bartley there had been no reviews, and accused him of making “scurrilous” allegations!

Is Dr Death in denial? It seems he probably is. I can now identify exactly when Dr Death is lying. You need to watch his face very carefully. Watch for any movement of his lips. If they are moving, even only very slightly, he is lying.

Sorry – getting side-tracked with Dr Death again. It is such an easy thing to do: there is so much material.

So, onto other apointments.

Priti Patel has replaced Esther McVey as IDS’s sidekick following the much-celebrated ousting of the very lovely McVie from her Wirral constituency. There wasn’t much good news on Thursday and Friday last week, but that was something that fair had us cheering in the small hours of the morning. So, on to Ms. Patel: A lady with compassion ideally suited to a ministerial position at the DWP. She is very enthusiastic about the death penalty, something which may not sit comfortably with those reliant on benefits for whatever reason. We have already experienced four years of Doctor Death’s genocidal policies in charge of the DWP. We await the statistics for those that have died within six weeks of being assessed as fit for work for 2012, 2013 and 2014, to add to the 10,600 deaths we know about from 2011.

Locally, the North Swindon MP, Justin Tomlinson, has been appointed as Minister for the Disabled. Let’s have a quick look at some of Justin’s finest hours at the lobbies:
 
1.      Disabled children: He voted against protecting their benefits.

2.      Cancer patients: He voted against protecting their benefits.

3.      Long term sick and disabled: He voted against those who have been ill or disabled since their youth receiving Employment and Support allowance on the same basis as if they had made sufficient NI contributions to qualify for a contributions-based allowance.

4.      Bedroom Tax: He voted against any exclusions being made for those whose benefits have been cut because they have been deemed as having too many bedrooms.

Clearly ideally suited to the job!

Then we find Caroline Dinenage has been appointed Equalities Minister, though she voted against same-sex marriage saying the state had ‘no right to redefine marriage’.

And then the deluded poison dwarf himself, Michael Gove, appointed as Justice Minister, advocates a return to the death penalty!

You couldn’t make it up could you Claire? It’s as if Cameron has decided to appoint those with the least compassion and suitability to each post.

Another ray of sunshine in an otherwise fairly bleak outlook is the demotion of the loathsome Grant Shapps as Selfservative Party Chairman. I would have loved to have seen his usual smirk wiped off his face as he realised that his chances of further advancement in the party have hit a brick wall.

In the next letter, we’ll start to look at the widely feared 100 days’ of carnage that the Tories are starting to unleash in a frenzy of poorly-researched cost-cutting and benefit claimant culling.

We’ll be keeping a body count.

Polly

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