I know that it's probably not a good idea to discuss politics with potential new friends, and for this reason I was going to say nothing after reading the thread about the general election. However, after sleeping on it I feel I must draw to your attention the fact that our government is currently waging war on the sick and the disabled, and nobody seems to care. The DWP's own figures show that 4,000 people DIED within 6 weeks of having their benefits stopped because they were assessed as being "fit for work". We are all only an accident or a serious illness away from needing state help. There may well be a few who manage to wangle this help when there is not much wrong with them, but the actual rate of fraud is 0.01% and this includes mistakes by the DWP. Unfortunately it is these cases of fraud which are highly publicised, and the notion of "scroungers" has resulted in a huge rise in hate crime against the disabled. Our government has put a psychopath, Iain Duncan Smith, in charge of so-called benefit "reforms" and the system of sanctions is causing untold mysery, with people having their money stopped for the most unfair of reasons, for example, a man who had a heart attack during an assessment who was put down as a no-show, and another who missed an appointment to attend his mother's funeral. We are presented with benefits claimants on TV as if they are all these grotesque characters who do not deserve any sympathy, but do we really want to live in a country where a woman with children whose husband leaves her becomes destitute and homeless, or where suicide becomes an attractive option for people who genuinely cannot work? I'm afraid that I agree with Nye Bevan, who called the Tories "lower than vermin". What a shame that their rich chums control the media and so the evil that they are doing is not widely known. Austerity is a complete smoke-screen for the ideologically-driven dismantling of the welfare state, and if this is what you really want, please continue to vote Tory.

My views on the PM and this government are probably unprintable.

However:

a) The DWP's own figures show that 4,000 people DIED within 6 weeks of having their benefits stopped because they were assessed as being "fit for work".

Assuming this figure is correct, is there a correlation? I am sure over the years lots of people have died within 6 weeks of playing the National Lottery

b) the actual rate of fraud is 0.01% and this includes mistakes by the DWP

Mistakes by the DWP would not be fraud, so that is a bit odd. Also, is this the rate at which fraud is discovered or the assumed rate it is at (which would be a complete guess). If the belief is that only 1 in 10,000 are economical with the actualité when claiming benefits, I would struggle to reconcile that with personal experience.

c) a huge rise in hate crime against the disabled.

In 2014 there was a drop in the number of people convicted for disability hate crimes.

An increase in convictions can be seen as a problem. A drop in convictions can be seen as a problem and there is then a drive to encourage reporting and prosecution. For example, when the local ne'er-do-well swiped some old bathroom furniture from our drive the police were obliged to explore whether it might have been a hate crime with me.

Either way - drop in convictions, increase in convictions - it can be used as a political football.

Author Ben Goldacre did a nice little series of tweets yesterday explaining how the DWP had managed to release exactly the data it was asked for in a way that made it meaningless.

Well worth a quick read...

https://storify.com/bengoldacre/how-dwp-has-confused-everyone-by-releasing-the-rig

Anyone would think the DWP had something to hide....

I must say I fear that there is a growing distasteful rhetoric towards the poorest in our society.

The rise in popularity of TV shows like Benefits Britain or How to Get a Council House are only fuelling it.

And it's the same with the absolutely abhorrent way in which the migrant 'crisis' is being reported by some media outlets.

Many people on social media are commenting that this is very similar to how the Nazis started getting the general population to feel negatively about the Jews.

Thanks, Annie, although to be fair I probably would have anyway

Taking that out of context helps reinforce the points above regarding selective statistics. Lovely to see all sides are in agreement on a topic like this.

GROUP HUG

The point is Emjay, that those 4,000 people could not possibly have been "fit for work" if they were only 6 weeks away from death!

Er, yes they could, unless we are saying it is not possible for those fit for work to die.

They did not die of accidents, these are people who had been claiming sickness benefits, so ... er ... sick people. Their sickness benefits were stopped after an ATOS assessment said they were "fit for work". Even someone in a COMA was sent a "you are fit for work" letter.

I don't think many people doubt that the system is broken, but it's impossible to draw any firm conclusions from the data the DWP released.

The department performs fortnightly checks to ensure that people in receipt of benefits are still alive (which I'm sure we'd all agree is sensible, nobody's arguing in favour of benefits for the dead) and the data released show the number of people were flagged as deceased within 6 weeks of being assessed fit for work.

However, a percentage of those people would have died within that time frame anyway, but without knowing how many assessments were carried out and how many were deemed fit for work it's impossible to determine if those assessed fit were more likely to die than those not, or than the general population as a whole.

The point is that if you pick any event - renewing your Sky subscription, buying a new car, taking up lion taming - then a certain number of people will die within 6 weeks of doing it, but that doesn't give you enough data for a post hoc presumption of a causal link.

The DWP have, I would suggest, carefully and cynically released exactly the information they were asked for in the knowledge that, despite the headline figures, it didn't prove anything.

The clue is in the word "politics". "poly" meaning "many" and "tics" meaning "blood sucking parasites"!

... except that they have something to hide.