Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh
Have you stopped beating your wife?
Yes/No answer only...  |
It's a perfectly valid question as everytime someone posts something on here about something terrible that's happened to someone, up to and including death, an attempt is made to justify it, whilst others are rightfully dismayed and shocked.
Whilst I wouldn't agree with it, some people do genuinely believe that the welfare state should be abolished and that people should be self reliant. From a personal point of view this would benefit me if it was used to cut taxes even further, but I believe that a civilised society should be judged upon how they treat their most vulnerable.
Much of social security law is left to decision makers to judge what is 'reasonable' or 'appropriate' in given circumstances as it was recognised that people have more complicated lives and circumstances. To help them do this, they use information from various sources, including case law and manuals on policy, procedure and guidance.
Since Cameron introduced his 'Stricter Benefits Regime", the ethos of the DWP being there to help and support those in difficulties and being flexible in their approach to reflect the wide variety of circumstances that people find themselves in has gone out of the window.
Targets to sanction claimants for the most spurious of reasons are now routinely deployed (often with staff under threat of disciplinary action if they don't) and are affecting decent people, many of whom honoured their side of the bargain by paying all taxes and National Insurance contributions when due.
The robotic approach by nomadking entirely reflects the new approach to decision making since 2010, which has resulted in cases like the army veteran being found dead due to malnutrition and the huge number of cases being successful after appealing as the Appeals Service tend to look at matters with compassion and reasonableness.
Sadly, because of the backlog of appeals, this is all too often too late as the people involved are already dead.
Thousands upon thousands of people have died due to this cruel administration; surely no right thinking person can agree with this.