Dear Claire,
Today, we’re going to
look at some last-minute bad news. A few things bubbling away on the back
burner which the Tory thought-control police are trying to hide.
Credit to Mike Sivier and his Vox Political blog, for providing some of today’s content.
Firstly, let’s talk
about our dear old friend, Irritable Duncan Syndrome. You may remember that the
Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) published figures for 2011, showing that 10,600
people died within 6 weeks of being declared fit for work by the ATOS Work
Capability Assessments (WCA) between January and November of that year. That’s
approximately 1,000 deaths per month.
It will come as no
surprise that Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for these figures for
subsequent years have been withheld by the DWP. Well, no one likes bad news do
they?
Ah, but bad news will be
coming very soon: The Information Commission has ordered the DWP to disclose the
number of Incapacity Benefit and ESA claimants that died between November 2011
and May 2014. That’s a 30 month period. Using the average figure from above,
that gives us an additional 30,000 deaths on top of the 10,600 from 2011. So, a
conservative (Ha! See what I did there?) estimate would be more than 40,000
deaths. Taking that average, and applying it to the period May 2014 to May
2015, gives another 12,000 deaths, a grand total of more than 50,000 deaths, directly
attributable to IDS’s welfare reforms in the DWP.
Now, the DWP have been
told they must release this information within 35 calendar days of April 30th
2015. The Information Commission had this notice ready to serve on the DWP in
February. Had they served this at the time, this data would already be in the
public domain. The Information Commission didn’t serve this notice until April.
No one seems to know why.
Might it just be that
the Coalition may not look too good by these figures appearing in the run-up to
the general election? Maybe it’s just me being cynical.
Anyway, our friend Gideon,
from no. 11, with the large profit (£450,000) made on his ‘second home’, (you
know, the one we all paid the mortgage interest on) doesn’t escape scrutiny
either.
Following growth in 2013 and early 2014 by a booming
housing market, city analysts were taken aback by the halving of growth in the
first three months of 2015. The feeling was that this was merely a blip in
continued growth. Instead, the PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) weakened
sharply. Manufacturing is growing – just about – but only because of demand for
consumer goods. Companies making investment goods or intermediate goods
(products used to make things by other manufacturers) are having a tough time.
What does this tell us? Firstly, the economy has come off
its sugar-rush high. Since the Bank of England reined in mortgage demand, the
pace of activity has slackened. This is despite more than six years of 0.5%
interest rates and the halving of oil prices in the second half of 2014.
Secondly, the economy remains dangerously unbalanced. There
has not been the shift to manufacturing, investment and exports promised by
George Osborne back in 2010. The strong pound is hitting sales of goods to
Europe and companies are not investing. Consumer demand remains the main source
of growth.
Finally, the government’s claim to have turned round the
economy in the past five years is rubbish. The Conservatives chose this week to
focus on the economy in the expectation they could point to signs of success.
Their timing could not have been worse.
First it was the halving of the growth rate. Now the news
is that the outlook for UK manufacturers is deteriorating fast. This has not
been a good week for the government’s claim to have turned round the economy.
So, allowing the Tories to ‘finish the
job’ (© Dave Snooty irritating soundbites) looks like it’ll allow them to raise
the 50,000 deaths to 100,000 due to DWP reforms, as well as lowering growth and
failing to turn the economy round.
A fine legacy indeed!
Kind regards
Polly
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