Dear Claire,
Another fairly short letter today, as I’ve only just got back from London.
For today, I thought we’d have a bit of fun, and run through the definition of ‘Orwellian’ from a few days ago. What we can do then, is match every separate bit of this definition with something IDS has done.
I took the definition in my letter of the 21st from Wikipedia: "Orwellian" is an adjective describing the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. It denotes an attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past.
“Destructive to the welfare of a free and open society”
Well where do we begin?
Exhibit A: The Tories want to withdraw from the European Convention of Human Rights and to repeal the UK’s Human Rights Act.
Exhibit B: The Tories want to ban anyone working for a government organisation from talking to the media without ministerial permission.
“An attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by propaganda”
From a Job-Centre worker: “The [DWP] reforms have been designed to hide the numbers of unemployed. So many have been sanctioned and are not counted in the official figures. Many are desperate and will take these Mickey Mouse zero-hour contracts to escape the fortnightly gauntlet.”
“An attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by surveillance”
From a Job-Centre worker: “In your team meetings or one-to-one, it will be mentioned, and staff will be asked why they haven’t got as many [sanctions]. Some staff are getting scared that they aren’t doing enough and they will be marked in the ‘must improve’ category. Enough warnings and you could be out of a job. DWP will say there are no targets and if any manager is still using the term target they will get a reprimand. However, I have seen the District tables which clearly show the direction an office is travelling in with regards to sanctions and referrals. Offices which are lower than the highest performing office will be told they must aim towards similar numbers or else. They are too crafty to put anything in an email, or at least most of them are.”
“An attitude and a brutal policy of
draconian control by misinformation”
“Wage Incentives. This scheme is an
absolute disgrace. Employ an 18 – 24 yr old for 6 months and the taxpayer
will give you £2.5k. Vacancies that were full paid jobs are now changing
to Wage Incentive vacancies as Job-centre staff convince employers to accept
money for nothing. This is seriously affecting the jobs market and it is
all down to Coalition pressure to increase Wage Incentive targets. They
can then claim falsely that the scheme has created 1000’s of vacancies, when in
truth it hasn’t. One example of many.
“An attitude and a brutal policy of
draconian control by denial of truth”
Iain Duncan Smith’s refusal to
acknowledge that increased use of Trussell Trust’s Food Banks might be linked
to his disastrous policies. 31% of people using Foodbanks do so because of
delays to their receiving benefits. 17% do so because of changes to their
benefits. Thus, a staggering 48% of Foodbank customers do so as a direct result
of Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms. IDS will not acknowledge that increased
Food Bank useage is, in any way, linked to his many failed reforms. Again, one
example of many.
“An attitude and a brutal policy of
draconian control by manipulation of the past”
So IBS’s “mandatory unpaid labour or
destitution” rules being declared unlawful because they’re impossible to
understand begs the question of how it might have been possible for people to
understand the new emergency rules that hadn’t even been written yet? Applying
the law retrospectively, because the original rules were unintelligible, alters
the judgement of the Court of Appeal, which means people can be punished for
failing to comply with rules that hadn’t even been written at the time!
The imposition of
retrospective law is a fascist concept because it grants the state new powers
to criminalise law abiding citizens for engaging in activities that were not
criminal offences at the time.
Conclusion
The nightmare of this government is, hopefully, coming to an end very
soon. Otherwise Animal Farm and 1984 might become a bit more than just a couple
of literary classics. That one cabinet member is able to visit this misery and
indeed death on so many, and get away with it, as well as deny it, speaks volumes
for the ‘guidance’ coming down from the top and other cabinet colleagues.
Kind regards
Polly
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