Frances: This behaviour is callous and oppressive. It seems clear to me that the name of the game is to make it clear that none of the benefits which the government is obligated to offer, are deserved. They show on every occasion how lucky people are to receive anything, and how nothing but the bare minimum will be given, regardless of the pain, frustration and hardship this attitude causes. Brown and his idiot cabinet members say from time to time how proud they are of Labour's social services; but they dont behave at all as if they are proud. They behave resentful, cold, and gather together as much red tape as they can with a hardly disguised sense of relish. The goal is to create enough guilt and insecurity as they can to soften us up so that the services can be gradually outsourced as business opportunities for profit making enterprises. That is why Purnell and Mandelson hold their particular positions in the Cabinet. How low has Labour fallen !

It just keeps getting better

BUREAUCRATS’ HELLISH TRIP FOR DISABLED WOMAN
OFFICIALS acting on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions advised a 58-year-old disabled woman from Studley that the only way of her getting by public transport to a medical appointment they required her to attend in Coventry was by starting her journey more than 13 hours before she was due to be there.

The hellish journey would have involved her setting off the previous evening and arriving in Coventry shortly before midnight—nine hours before her appointment.

What makes the story so astonishing is that the officials sent the woman a detailed itinerary on a spreadsheet telling her which buses to catch, at what times and where to change.

The stages of the journey were Studley to Alcester, Alcester to Stratford, Stratford to Leamington and Leamington to Coventry using four different bus companies—Midland Red, Johnsons of Henley, Stagecoach and Travel Coventry.

The woman—who does not wish to be identified—was advised that her journey, initially on foot, would begin at 7.24pm and end in The Quadrant in Coventry at 11.46pm. Her appointment was at 8.45am the following day.

That's the way to do it. If you paid the employers like this to employ disabled people they might discover their giving side. Purnell is paying people to run about until the recession is over.


Charities can bid for cash from Future Jobs Fund
By Emily Twinch, Third Sector Online, 1 May 2009

DWP will provide £1bn to boost job prospects for long-term unemployed

The Government is urging voluntary sector organisations to bid for funding for new jobs as part of a £1bn fund created to boost the job prospects of the long-term unemployed.

The cash is provided by the Department for Work and Pensions' Future Jobs Fund, which was established to create 150,000 new posts in the UK.

Most of the jobs created will have to go to people aged between 18 and 24 and who are approaching 12 months on unemployment benefits. Funding is limited to £6,500 per job, but funding can be supplemented from other sources.

National sports organisations have already pledged to bid for at least 5,000 jobs for young people. These jobs are expected to help deliver the 2012 Olympics and offer five hours a week of physical education to every child.

James Purnell, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said: "We are confident this will be the first of many bids from public and third sector organisations for the £1bn fund that provides salaried jobs for at least six months.

"I am calling on sports bodies, local councils, third sector groups and others to bid for funding for new jobs and help us make sure that we do not waste the talents of a generation of Britain's young people."

'Frances: I meant to add this belief....most of the suffering mentally disabled people suffer (chronic depression may be a partial exception) comes not from the ailment but the sense of not fitting into society's norms, and the reaction of society to their condition. In principle, its no different to the experience of black people in a racist environment, gay people surrounded by homophobics, or liberals in most parts of America.'

I do agree. And even with schizophrenia there are great gifts. There is a quality of wondering what is real and searching for truth when medicated and absolute zany creativity when not.

What you are saying encapsulates my problems with Purnell. Schizophrenics want to be part of society. Because they have often experienced psychosis and perhaps paranoia they stand back unsure in wonderment wedded to logic and truth. To stay medicated they need to acknowledge their illness and know when they are stable and after that they want to be respected and join in when they can. I enjoy being with them. I really like them and feel it is a priviledge to get a glimpse in to their world. So I understand the experience you have had of Downs.

They all need to be gently understood and respected and helped in to mainstream activity and work in a way that is right for them.

This system of Purnell's could not be more wrong for them. Testing, judging, coercing. Instead of society adapting to include them Purnell demands the opposite. He demands that they shape up and give up having their illness and act like people who don't have the illness. No concessions given to having an illness.

And that sends them in to a tail spin of insecurity and guilt because they want to conform but they can't do that. And the psychiatrists are telling them the opposite - to acknowledge and respect their illness.

Thanks Lee. That's enabled me to express what is wrong with the Welfare Reform Bill. It's not about accommodation to the reality of illness. It's about going in to denial about illness and declaring every one well.

They need people in mainstream society to take up their cause and fight for them. The illness makes it very hard for them to do this for themselves.

Frances: I meant to add this belief....most of the suffering mentally disabled people suffer (chronic depression may be a partial exception) comes not from the ailment but the sense of not fitting into society's norms, and the reaction of society to their condition. In principle, its no different to the experience of black people in a racist environment, gay people surrounded by homophobics, or liberals in most parts of America.

My post below...sorry

Frances: Employers might see a return in a badge of honour but under our system they would be more likely to respond to real money. If you subsidised employers enough they would all end up with sizeable happy disabled sectors in their workforces. Employers do what makes them a return and if enough funds come with a disabled worker just watch that sector grow.
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That is exactly what I proposed: a scheduled reduction in capital gains tax is equivalent to a monetary transfer, but superior because its a reward after the event rather than an act of faith.

And if companies are successful at integrating disabled people and are supported because of the badge of honour, they will sell more and the Government will recoup its investments through taxes on profits.

This is an issue where there is a huge difference between being dumb (like Purnell) and being clever. I have done many things in my life, but my actual discipline is occupational psychology...the psychology of the work-place and the factors that affect performance and output. There is a road one can take which would be clever, but I dont imagine Newlabour or the Tories would ever consider it. I could imagine chatting to the SNP and the Lib-Dems about this...but not the two big beasts.

This is what I mean.

I have great skepticism about the conventional concepts of mental illness, just as I am deeply skeptical about the idea that humans are categorically different to animals. Mental illness is not an objective absolute concept. It is a definition reached by society in its views about deviation from the norm. So perfectly normal teens in America who are distracted by growing sexual drives and are premature in testing their power to resist adult authority, are declared ADHD and are medicated. There is no evidence that ADHD exists. It is a societal definition of a certain type of social deviance, and passed to psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical industry as a "business opportunity". Yes, in America, children are commodities.

I had a close friend who had a downs syndrome child. I was bewitched by the magic of this child and spent hours with him, exploring his mind and ideas. There is no doubt that this child has problems within a "non-down's syndrome" society, which imposes the label of "disabled". In fact, this child had remarkable gifts, and I dont say this in a sentimental and patronising way. And I wasnt a genius to discover them. Anyone who had the compassion and the patience to understand this child would have discovered what I discovered.

I spent hours imagining a context in which this wonderful child's gifts could be harnessed and acknowledged. But none of my ideas were practical in terms of the world around me. If I had enough money and partners, I could create that framework, and it would create wealth (ie pay for itself).

We have known for ages that autistic people often have remarkable artistic and mathematical talents. There is evidence that in the past, autistic people were often considered genuises, and that the nature of their genius was that they were withdrawn, reclusive, and didnt express themselves in public.

If I were young again, and had access to funds, I would devote my life to discover how what we define as mental illness has many hidden dimensions and possibilities. The study would identify these special qualities, and then work on the design of work contexts and enterprises could harness these special abilities, allow these people to express themselves in their special way, and acknowledge their contribution. I believe this need not be a charitable enterprise but will be economically viable. For Christ's Sake, if we can train elephants to work productively as lifters and movers, why cant we recognise and work with the special gifts of special people ? In many developing countries, these gifts are recognised and celebrated. But not in the degenerate, greedy west, where quick profit and wealth is the gauge for measuring "the good life".

Actually, this issue makes me angry. There is such a lack of imagination among policy makers in this field. Purnell and I dont belong even to the same galaxy. The lack of vision is criminal.

'I would offer organizations that design these kinds of jobs for the disabled a series of reductions in capital gains tax based on the number and complexities of these adjustments, together with the right to deduct the full cost of all special training such people from declared income for tax purposes. I would also issue such employers with a badge of pride which they can publicly display...rather as fair trade organisations are able to do'

That would be a kind, humane integrated approach. It would be true care in the community. But like all 'care in the community' - done well it would cost the government more money not less money and that isn't what they intend.

If you have a mental illness you tend to think the fault is with you. If you have a mental illness other people are quick to assume the fault is with you. In this case the fault is clearly with the government but no one is going to see that.

Employers might see a return in a badge of honour but under our system they would be more likely to respond to real money. If you subsidised employers enough they would all end up with sizeable happy disabled sectors in their workforces. Employers do what makes them a return and if enough funds come with a disabled worker just watch that sector grow.

This isn't how the government see disabled employment. They see it as saving them money on disabled benefits. They don't intend to spend one penny more. Look at how they are closing Remploy while demanding the disabled work. The only extra cost they envisage is on the Freud enforcers but they have insisted that this is to be payment on results - win win.

The cost to the employer will be real. My son is schizophrenic and works six hours a week for a small local firm. He doesn't show on bad days. Sometimes he doesn't speak to other people. No way will he do what the boss asks. Who is going to pay for all of that? In my son's case he works for £10 an hour when his skills are more like £100 an hour. So on a good day they get pure gold that they could never afford to buy in. The man who runs the firm has the imagination to make it work. The DWP on the other hand never stop trying to stop the benefits or stop the job. They don't get it at all.

If the government are so keen on disabled people working they should pick up the bill for the real costs willingly. It will be far more than the benefits. Not a snowball's chance.

As if life isn't confusing enough for a schizophrenic - they now have to try and respond to a non sensical system that demands they go out and fit in to competitive regimented working environments. Basically they are being asked to do the impossible and made to feel guilty for not being able to do it and then having their benefits removed because they can't do what they can't do.

Frances: The Government should change the law through the Equalities Bill to enable people with a mental health condition only to disclose their disability once they have been offered a job, as in America.
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Rethink is referring to Title One of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It does indeed say that a person with a disability is not compelled to disclose that disability at an interview, and an employer cannot test for a "specific suspected disability. However Title One states "Employers may hire, fire, and promote the most qualified individual, regardless of his/her disability." What Rethink doesnt realise is the purpose of this law and assumes that if an applicant conceals a disability that applicant is automatically protected afterwards. That is just not so.

Here is the advice given by the agency that administers this law:

"Only you can decide whether and how much to tell your employer about your psychiatric disability. Telling your employer about your diagnosis is the only way to protect your legal right to any accommodations you might need to get or keep a job. However, revealing your disability may subject you to discrimination which could limit your opportunities for employment and advancement."

So it is only as a protection against discrimination that an applicant may decide to conceal. However, if the applicant's condition prevents him/her meeting the requirements of the job, and that is reasonably known in advance, the concealment would be an act of bad faith. The employer is quite entitled to make the determination as to whether the concealment has resulted in a job placement in which a disability has a significant impact on performance. Of course, the applicant can go to court, but remember that in the US, legal costs are astronomical and firms employ their own high calibre lawyers and seldom lose.

Employers are under a poorly defined obligation to try to accommodate a an applicant with a disability if that is possible. Again the employer decides. So in fact, the applicant is much safer if they disclose the disability before the job is offered so that a job with the appropriate accommodation (unlikely to be the job as advertised) can be discussed.

What Rethink has done is to take a naive reading of the ADA, and have obviously not researched what happens in practice. As a result they make BS claims about protections that exist in the US as if they are absolute rights.

If a person is mildly schizophrenic, it may make no difference for certain types of jobs and remain undetectable. But what happens if the schizophrenia interferes with analysis, relationships with others in the work place etc, and the employer finds out about it ONLY afterwards ? If performance is significantly hampered, the concealer wont have much legal protection.

I think this is quite a trivial aspect, even if Rethink had understood its real meaning. Any policy based on cheating isnt going to work, and its incredibly stupid that they advised the government to legalise non-disclosure. I would much rather see organizations given incentives to design jobs that suit particular kinds of disabilities; and if this were to work it would be essential that full disclosure occur at the time of application. Rethink's approach would simply assure failure on the job. Its hard enough being a schizophrenic without also failing on the job and having an employer and other staff who hate you because they see you as having cheated your way into the job. I would offer organizations that design these kinds of jobs for the disabled a series of reductions in capital gains tax based on the number and complexities of these adjustments, together with the right to deduct the full cost of all special training such people from declared income for tax purposes. I would also issue such employers with a badge of pride which they can publicly display...rather as fair trade organisations are able to do. This would make much more sense to me. There is also the possibility of joint government-private sector partnerships to create organisations especially for disabled people who want to work (but with a mixture of abled and disabled staff). Considerably more can be done in the area of the arts or other work areas that encourage personal creative expression.

The American way is simply a path to endless litigation. Newlabour is particularly bad at working out incentive-based policies rather than sanction-based policies. Its not enough just to enforce rights if as a result you create resentment and negative attitudes. No one wants to work with bosses who feel they have cheated them.

"I've heard wonderful things about him. Every one really seems to rate him. What does he say about the bind schizophrenics are always in of trying to be well and consequently losing social support and then crashing."

Yes, Fuller is a wonderful human being...deeply compassionate and giving. He has spent a lot of his life, despite his age and shaky health working to build up psychological services in Ethiopia, where as you can imagine, there has been almost nothing. I dont know precisely how he would respond to your question. I could ask him the next time I am in the US. But I imagine that he would say that given social stigma and attitudes, it doesnt help to try to conceal because that will simply reinforce those attitudes and increase suspicion. Its impossible to reform society although some attempts can be made. Imagining the way his mind works, I wouldnt be surprised if he were to talk in terms of "social architecture"...meaning how can you create a social circle and context in which schizophrenics (and anyone else with severe mental disabilities) can thrive and feel safe and also be themselves. It has to go beyond institutions of course: it has to aim at creating communities of people with healthy attitudes and self-confidence within which such people are valued, not sentimentally but because of what they are able to achieve. Society at large is so cruel, self obsessed, selfish, insecure, angry, frightened, and suspicious, to imagine any large-scale conversion of social attitudes. I wouldnt be at all surprised if we would find answers in third world countries that have well developed community structures and extended family systems.

Apparently Baroness Uddin has just signed up as a speaker at the Compass conference. But will she be visible to the naked eye? Her neighbours seem to have some difficulty in seeing her.

This is from the Rethink evidence to the Welfare Reform consultation


• The Government should change the law through the Equalities Bill to enable people with a mental health condition only to disclose their disability once they have been offered a job, as in America.


'I also know Dr. E. Fuller Torrey of the Stanley Foundation who is one of the world authorities on schizophrenia'

I've heard wonderful things about him. Every one really seems to rate him. What does he say about the bind schizophrenics are always in of trying to be well and consequently losing social support and then crashing.

They have usually been in unrealistic places and mind sets in the past and lost everything and they really don't trust their own judgemnent about themselves. They find answering questionnaires like the current ESA CAN DO one torture. They don't know whether to talk themselves up and describe a good day or play sick and describe a bad day. It's worse than that because they want to answer this question in truth for themselves and they start feeling guilty and wondering if they could function normally if they tried and then the fear and paranoia kicks in.

I'm watching a lot of people being tortured here by a system that has no idea what it is doing to them.

Dugsie: I agree completely. If you dont already know him, I strongly recommend you google "Herman Daly", who is an ecological economist at University of Maryland. His analysis of economic prospects from an ecological point of view is really state-of-the-art. He does have some of his longer articles on the internet. Google "The Oil Drum: Herman Daly: Towards A Steady-State Economy"; and "STEADY-STATE ECONOMICS By Herman Daly". I was lucky enough to meet him. His economics are the most relevant to our world that I have read, and he is much respected among the anti-neoliberal economist anti-Chicago School circle (Stiglitz etc)

Frances: "Rethink say that in the US you are not allowed at a job interview to ask if someone has schizophrenia and they are not obliged to declare it. Then if they slip on to the payroll undetected you are not allowed to fire them because of the illness. So the cost is transferred to the employer for life."
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I was a consultant for six years to the Washington DC Department of Mental Health, and studied all the legislation and state policies regarding mental health and schizophrenia. I also know Dr. E. Fuller Torrey of the Stanley Foundation who is one of the world authorities on schizophrenia; so I do know this area. And I can assure you, without hesitation or even the slightest doubt, that this statement from Rethink is bullshit. All American employers ask for medical records and there is no regulation whatsoever which bans the diagnosis of schizophrenia on a medical record. It is absurd to think of an employer asking this question at a job interview...just think it through. Its rubbish. Employers in the US have no difficulty finding pretexts for firing people, and do so all the time because regulation is much weaker than it is in the UK and Europe generally. Someone at Rethink is either being disingenuous or he is extraordinarily ignorant.

'In response to Frances' concerns about what happens to poor and sick people in a neo-liberal state, there is a simple, standard neo-liberal response: "If the demand is there, the market will respond. If it doesnt, its a market failure. The state may have to create some incentives to stimulate supply." It gives the cash to the suppliers, not to those in need. Hence "supply-side" economics. Mandelson is our current high priest of that doctrine.

I should have added that when the supply-side stimulus is thought to be insufficient, the neo-liberals will place some bait on the demand side. It often takes the form of vouchers. When you hear "vouchers" you are firmly in neo-liberal territory. Vouchers are not social rights. They are temporary economic mechanisms to stimulate supply.'

If you take a person in their late teens who is learning disabled or diagnosed with schizophrenia and will perhaps work a little therapeutically but not economically over a life time they have no income and no way of generating income. That is why Brown finds them such a problem. They need care and support and they have no resources. They don't fit the supply/demand model whichever way you cut it because they have legitimate demands and no resources to pay. They are one big drain on government resources.

All sorts of private agencies spring up looking for any allocated government money including all the charities who get bought off and then fail in their duty to represent the claimants because they are too busy trying to please the government and get the government vouchers/benefits/money.

But the problem still remains. The government is the only source of funds and the government gets nothing back. Nothing they do will make the sick/disabled person a proper demand person because because they have no resources of their own and no way of getting any except as a gift from the government. One complete fiscal drag.

So now they have decided that it was all a mistake that these people couldn't work. They actually can work if you say they can. Problem solved.

They are herding them through the ESA medicals and ignoring the sick person's own psychiatrists advice and getting the government ESA doctors hired on targets (who must be breaking their Hippocratic Oaths unless they genuinely believe that work is the new penicillin plus anti psychotic)to pronounce them fit to work.

Rethink say (and are campaigning to get introduced here - and Rethink only ever do what the government wants) that in the US you are not allowed at a job interview to ask if someone has schizophrenia and they are not obliged to declare it. Then if they slip on to the payroll undetected you are not allowed to fire them because of the illness. So the cost is transferred to the employer for life. I think employer indefinite liability may be Plan B. I think this may work in the US because sometimes on mental health sites you get happy happy people with schizophrenia in the US saying how lucky they are to have such a nice employer who doesn't ask them to do anything like turn up at work. The British schizophrenics get very puzzled about this.

Any thing, any thing, rather than the government pay out and support sick people.

And I love Naomi Klein.

Very useful and enlightening contributions from you Lee. We should all appreciate it, I would like to suggest a partial rehabilitation of your father, with an emphasis on tendentialism rather than determinism and an opposition to neoliberalism based on a dynamic form of proactive social democracy, rather than the bland eclecticism which is so much in evidence at the moment.The Green Left have the best argument for opposing capitalism, namely that if left to its own devices it will make the world unfit for human habitation.

Anybody who talks about supporting the Tories and Lib Dems in this situation, has no understanding of the nature of the crisis.

I should have added that when the supply-side stimulus is thought to be insufficient, the neo-liberals will place some bait on the demand side. It often takes the form of vouchers. When you hear "vouchers" you are firmly in neo-liberal territory. Vouchers are not social rights. They are temporary economic mechanisms to stimulate supply.

Dugsie and Frances:

I strongly recommend, if you havent read it, "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein. It is one of the most important political commentaries in a decade, fantastically well documented, and profound in explaining how our world has landed up where it is.

As the son of a cantankerous Marxist, I shouldnt believe that individuals and incidents can change the course of history; but I sort of do. On June 27, 1970, commenting on the victory of Salvador Allende in a democratic election, Henry Kissinger said :

“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people.”

That was a chilling moment which became, I believe, a turning point. It confirmed and made respectable the fact that America is NOT interested in defending democracy, despite what it claims. It is interested ONLY in whether a government will accept American imperial hegemony.

The overthrow and assassination of Allende ushered in an opportunity for the embryo neo-liberals to experiment in a live laboratory under the Pinochet regime. Milton Friedman was unleashed, the World Bank was harnessed to help nurture the experiment, and it was watched with enormous interest by the Reagan and Thatcher regimes. Ultimately Chile became the crucible (sorry Gordon) of neo-liberalism.

One of the essential differences between social democracy (which is a fairly mild compromise) and neo-liberalism is the state's responsibility for the welfare of the citizen. Social democratic governments/nations have a social contract with their populations which ensure state-funded social benefits and protections. These are not regarded as some kind of "favour" but a corner stone of a society, ensuring social justice and decency given that all societies are unequal. Neo-liberalism dismissed the idea of state responsibility and the social contract, but accepted that to ensure order and maintain the market, it was necessary that these social services continue. They were declared a "business opportunity" and the goal was for the state to divest its responsibility at a pace and in a way that did not result in instability and revolt from the citizenry. An equally important goal for neo-liberalism is reduction of taxes and the role of the state generally in providing services so that the state could focus on building corporate strength, exports, and the military. Social democracies are high tax economies. Neo-liberalism launched a direct attack on that, its economists from the Chicago school, the IMF and World Bank creating what were regarded as "acceptable" proportions of social expenditure as a ratio of GDP. It was pure voodoo, but it was dressed up with the usual economic panache.

The World Bank was sent out to accomplish that in developing countries. America unleashed the neo-liberal attack in Europe and tried to do so as well in Japan.

I dont think that many people realise how profound the Blairite revolution has been. Normally in Europe, societies have a stable underpinning in terms of social contract. That hardly changes when new governments come to power. That is why Christian Democrats in Europe are NOT all equal. Germany is a modified social democracy blended with many neo-liberal features, but Merkel would never dream of dismantling Germany's social protections. The Netherlands and Sweden have had right-wing governments, but their social democratic foundation endures. Political parties in Europe also have a strong degree of stability. They change their emphases and details of their agendas as circumstances warrant, but left wing parties dont suddenly become right wing parties. As far as I know, Britain is the only country in Europe where that has happened. The Labour Party under Blair ceased to be social democrat or token socialist, adopted Thatcherism, and moved from left of center to right of center. Britain has ended up like America with the narrowest political spectrum in the OECD, where the left has been almost eliminated and where the two main parties are both right of center and almost identical. That is unprecedented and unique in Europe. (Hence the urgency of Scottish and Welsh independence where the left can be preserved).

American driven neo-liberalism has created the global economy and almost nowhere is untouched. But we have many different blends. Newly emerging nations (like Slovenia, which I know well) decided on the degree of social contract they would make their bedrock. Despite pressure from the neo-liberals, Slovenia, Estonia etc have insisted on that bedrock...claiming that it provides the essential decency and social justice for their societies. Others like Poland are all over the map.

America under Reagan had much less of a welfare system to dismantle than Britain. Ever since the depature of Roosevelt various presidents rolled it back. They didnt need neo-liberalism to see the demonic spectre of communism lurking in social programmes. But even in America it has been done by stealth in tiny chunks. Clinton's was the most dramatic. Thatcher tried and largely failed to do the same. It was left to Thatcher's heir, Tony Blair, to begin the serious attack on the welfare state, and Newlabour was created as the instrument of purpose. The Labour Party, like an insect, sheds its shell from time to time, but when the new shell emerges, its recognisable. With Blair, Labour woke up one morning to find its shell Thatcher Neo-liberal Blue. A brilliant electoral strategist, Blair got the nation to prefer that blue to pure Tory blue and the rest is history.

In response to Frances' concerns about what happens to poor and sick people in a neo-liberal state, there is a simple, standard neo-liberal response: "If the demand is there, the market will respond. If it doesnt, its a market failure. The state may have to create some incentives to stimulate supply." It gives the cash to the suppliers, not to those in need. Hence "supply-side" economics. Mandelson is our current high priest of that doctrine.

I didn't believe the situation of carers here, particularly elderly carers, until I became one myself and I have been politically active for a very long time. Moreover,carers save the government massive amounts of money. Can you believe it ?

Everybody seems to assume that the USA is in relative decline and that its days as a superpower are numbered. However, as long as it is the major military power, that ain't necessarily so. Get me ?

I almost beleive you Lee because I have an American friend who stays here and she tells me the same. But it's very hard to get my head round the idea of a sick person with no health care or income.

The British welfare state is/was very different and I can't understand why no one here seems to value it and helps us fight to keep it.

Most people I speak to think the fight is about fraud and assume genuine cases will still get protection. Like they all think that carers get support. I think it is so hard to take in the idea that they won't that people don't believe it can happen here. All you need to do is undermine the concept of sickness preventing people working and genuine cases disappear by definition.

Frances: Lee - you are saying that the state isn't providing back up health care and people just aren't getting health care.

And if you have a condition like schizophrenia and don't get medication then you will be permanently psychotic with no outside possiblity of you working. Presumably many more conditions are worse if not treated. Diabetes for one. So you have untreated sick people.

But then there is also the question of how would you feed yourself and pay rent if you were a long term sick person with no ability to work? Would you just be called unemployed or do they recognise long term sick people who can't work.
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You have to get used to the idea that social support in the US is NOT an entitlement. It is primarily a commodity purchased on the commercial market, or it is a charitable or community or family responsibility. Roosevelt set up some limited state social welfare programmes, and the moment Roosevelt was out of office, every regime, including Kennedy's, did their bit to roll back Roosevelt's programmes, which have always been attacked as examples of communism. Now very little remains. Clinton took a very major bite out of what was left, and Obama has publicly applauded that. It inspired Blair too because it was in the best Thatcher tradition: if you want social services, buy them. If you dont have the money, tough tittie.

Some liberal cities have mental health programmes, like Washington DC and Madison. Others have nothing outside of charity and the private sector. Some regard mental health as part of their crime prevention programmes. In many states, the schizophrenics are in prison, and in Texas they execute them even if they are only 16, as long as they are black.
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Dugie: Why does the USA spend such vast sums of money on its military ? Because it believes that military power can be translated into economic power ?

The American political system is corporatist. It doesnt represent the people, it represents the corporations, based on their financial contributions to election campaigns. Obama served the insurance and financial sectors because they funded his election: therefore he will (a) give banks money and not even ask to see their books even when it is clear that they are guilty of criminal fraud; (b) he will oppose a national health system and preserve the insurance industry's monopoly over administration of private sector health care on which almost 90% of Americans depend.

Ever since the Philippino wars in the late 19th early 20th century, American wars have always had a commercial purpose. America fights to get access to vital raw materials, markets, monopolies, access for corporations, acquisition of foreign companies, and government preferences. The US military is a mercenary force which is sent out to fight for corporation goals: oil rights, pipelines, uranium, banana plantations, cocaine, heroine, weapons sales, construction projects for US corporations, and war profiteering. The US intervenes ONLY where there are valuable raw materials, enterprise opportunities, and markets which the US seeks to dominate. US forces go in in the same way as the Conquistadors did in central and south America, declaring that they are bringing civilization (today its called "freedumb" and democracy) and Jesus to the pagans. They slaughter anyone who resists declaring them to be evil/soldiers of the devil/insurgents/terrorists, and they set up their own puppet administration, leaving occupying troops behind to protect the puppet, and giving the puppet dollars to spend. The corporations follow having been "given" monopoly access by the puppet, and they mine and remove the valuable raw materials, take over the markets, set up enterprises using virtual slave labour, establish tax havens etc etc. the pattern is virtually unchanged between Cortez and Pisarro, and Bush/Blair. Its state piracy and the takings more than pay for the cost...except now they dont any longer, But the US Government has effectively privatised the state. It represents corporate elite, uses state assets (tax, army etc) to help the corporations cream the winnings, and leaves the bill to the tax payers. Obama is no different in these essentials.

Why does the USA spend such vast sums of money on its military ? Because it believes that military power can be translated into economic power ?

Lee - you are saying that the state isn't providing back up health care and people just aren't getting health care.

And if you have a condition like schizophrenia and don't get medication then you will be permanently psychotic with no outside possiblity of you working. Presumably many more conditions are worse if not treated. Diabetes for one. So you have untreated sick people.

But then there is also the question of how would you feed yourself and pay rent if you were a long term sick person with no ability to work? Would you just be called unemployed or do they recognise long term sick people who can't work.

Frances: I should add that many Americans go to Mexico for health care not simply because its affordable, but the quality and level of personal care including compassion are superior than that found on the other side of the border. In recent times, even wealthy Americans are choosing to fly to India again for quality reasons,m and because some really cutting edge expertise has been developed in India leaving the US behind. Of course wealthy Brits are beginning to do the same. The Indians have some hospitals that are run as luxury hotels, have the world's best medical experts, and there is already a shortage of beds because the demand is so high.

Frances: But what happens in the US about the long term sick. You can't time limit their support - or can you?
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The Medicare system is the only government provided medical support. It isnt free and it has caps. It has both age and income barriers, and you have to have almost no assets or family support. So its limited, and funding for medicare has been progressively cut back since Reagan, by both parties. As this happen, the co-pay (personal costs go up). Because of its caps, and given the cost of hospital care (after I was in a car accident, my insurance paid in part by my employer, had to pay £ 9,000 for a 24 hour hospital stay which included an Xray, blood tests, and pain killers). Even Medicare wont cover long-term hospital treatment because of these incredible costs and the caps.

The vast majority of Americans do not qualify for Medicare, except members of Congress who have a medicare with almost no limits, caps, and co-pay. For 86% of Americans, health care is a private sector commodity sold at a profit. The state has no obligations. The system is run by private insurance companies who cream off a gigantic profit simply for administering the system. This makes American health care costs so expensive they are many times more expensive per capita than the next moist expensive country on the list. The premiums for a private citizen buying insurance on his/her own are astronomic: if you have a pre-existing condition when you apply, not only will you not be covered for that condition, but you may have to pay as much as £15,000 a year or higher, and there are draconian caps, co-pay (maybe as high as 50%), deductibles etc. The result is that unless you are very wealthy, you have to rely on your employer for your health insurance...the employer donates between 20% and 50%, and you the rest. The employer gets bulk insurance rates, so insurance through employers costs on average £8,000 a year or higher. The same deductibles, caps, and co-pay apply. Premiums are soaring year by year at rates many times higher than inflation and there is no regulation.

Insurance companies spend a great deal of their money on lawyers. Their approach is to deny claims whenever possible, and compel you to take them to court. Because of high court costs (£ 50,000 for such a challenge if you lose) the Insurance companies basically can refuse to pay at will. There is no effective regulation.

When you arrive vomiting blood or having convulsions, at the hospital, the first thing you are asked for is your medical insurance card AND your credit card (because all medical insurance in the US involves heavy co-pay). You may get triage if you are dirtying the floor, but sooner or later, continued care will depend on you producing your medical insurance card and your credit card. If you have neither, and you are obviously in danger of dying, the hospital is obliged to treat you, but that depends very much on whether you appear to be literate and reasonably intelligent. Those who are not are turned away...its treated as a scandal but it happens every day. Its obviously far worse in Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma etc than its likely to be in Vermont or Oregon.

If you have entered care without a credit card and medical insurance card, you will simply be billed. If you do not have the money, the hospital will seek to have your property impounded, your house foreclosed etc. their legal and administrative costs can be as much as the medical costs. If all your possessions are not sufficient, you will remain a debtor to the hospital and doctors and they can continue to attach a proportion of any money you earn. Bush, with Obama's support, closed the entitlement for private individuals in this situation to get bankruptcy protection. More than half of the house foreclosures in the US in recent times have been the result of medical and hospital bills.

So people do just die...its as simple as that.

Some communities in America have sought to protect themselves by opting out entirely and setting up their own community clinics. The best organised are Latinos in cities with large Latino populations. Latino doctors and nurses donate their services free, Latino communities with contributions from Latino businesses build health centers, and such communities manage to survive through their own efforts. Some other large immigrant groups, like Ethiopians, have done the same; and there are some African American community health centers as well.

In really poor urban centers, where the social indicators can be as low as Bangladesh, there are also charities that try their best to respond to those who have fallen through the cracks.

The most recent World Health Organisation Comparative Survey of National Health Systems, ranked America as the most expensive by far, and the most socially unequal of all western or OECD countries. In terms of a set of cumulative indicators, such as quality of health care, proportion of iatrogenic deaths (caused by hospitals or doctors rather than illness), social equality, value for money etc, America ranked 37th in the world behind a number of developing countries. France ranked first. I cant recall the other rankings but the UK was down in the early teens I believe, and Italy, Germany, Singapore, Netherlands, and Scandinavian countries, Canada were all in the single digit range.

If you are interested in more details, its a fascinating report, and you can find it on the WHO website. Gavin wont let me publish a link.

help for the aged, disabled etc is almost no existent outside of charities ad the private sector. Some states have psychological help and limited home schooling for mentally disabled children through their state education programmes, but this varies hugely from one state to another. In a few cases, liberal and compassionate cities, like Madison or Minneapolis, may also have programmes but they are voluntary and not mandated. There are state lunatic asylums, who in some parts of the country still forcibly sterilise inmates...remember, America is the center of the eugenics movement. Hope you are suitably horrified. I wouldnt emigrate if I were you.

But what happens in the US about the long term sick. You can't time limit their support - or can you?

Frances: Lee - so that's the single mothers and the long term unemployed dealt with.

What about long term sick or disabled people like schizophrenics or learning disabled, head injuries, strokes etc. etc. etc.
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I imagine, as we write, Purnell is seeking guidance from the dark forces for some appropriate response to these social burdens. Extraordinary rendition perhaps ?

Lee - so that's the single mothers and the long term unemployed dealt with.

What about long term sick or disabled people like schizophrenics or learning disabled, head injuries, strokes etc. etc. etc.

Post below is mine

Frances: "What was the Clinton welfare reform about? Something could easily be a step forward for US welfare which is a step back for British welfare."

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It went futher than Purnell's but if Newlabour were returned to power they (or the Tories) would take it in the same direction. Essentially it was to cut off welfare to people not working. The welfare in the US is of course miniscule compared to the UK's (even although Britain's is no great shake), but there are food stamps and some unemployment payments.

The Clinton act ended welfare as an entitlement program; required recipients to begin working after two years of receiving benefits; imposed a welfare payments limit of no more than 2 consecutive years and no more than 5 years over a lifetime; greatly limited welfare to unmarried parents under 18; and restricted any funding to immigrants, whether legal or illegal.

Clinton called it the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996

Obama ran an advertisement saying how proud he was that welfare reform has “slashed the (welfare) rolls by 80 percent.”

Lee
A lot of the American influence on the policies of New Labour has its basis in the adoption of the same ideas in sociological theory.Try googling 'American influence on the policies of New Labour'. Of course, you also need to look at what is going on in the economies of the so-called 'Anglo-Saxon'countries. This is relevant also to the postings of Frances on New Labour's 'welfare reform programme' both here and on carers'groups.

This is what the Edinburgh Disabilty Advisors say about ESA -

The MS (new ESA examiner - nation wide network of MS centres now set up) Doctor system was set up to save the government money by cutting the numbers of people getting disability benefits. It is based on disregarding the judgement of the claimant and their own doctor - and instead giving the decision-making power to government doctors who have a remit to stop people getting benefits.

The mistreatment of claimants at MS examinations is happening in the context of the attacks on disability and single parents benefits in the new Welfare Reform Act, and the general drive through the Welfare Reform Act, the New Deal etc. to move closer to a US-type workfare system where claimants are forced to either take any low paid job available or work for an employer in order to receive benefits. This in turn is part of the move to "increase labour market flexibility" - in other words cutting wage costs and increasing company profits


Think of all the learning disabled, mental health service users, stroke victims, head injury cases being subjected to this regime.

Lee - you are right about the provenance of the Welfare Reform Bill. Blair had it on his original agenda and that is why Purnell expended so much energy on getting it through because he is trying to become the heir apparent to Blairism. This is a leadership bid on his part. He knows nothing of disability and cares less.

Harriet is highly complicit. She presents her self as the champion of all the equalities but the legislation she brings in is not 'equality' but 'sameness' in being out there working. It's all about working.

The first time round the electorate found the welfare reform alien. What was the Clinton welfare reform about? Something could easily be a step forward for US welfare which is a step back for British welfare.

The Welfare State was a proud development but unlike the NHS it seems it can't survive. Universality is being strained by immigration, aging population and the change in wealth profiles. So much is now means tested that it's gone back to being Poor Law.
A report on the future of Social Care has been delayed until after the Euro Elections but is expected to push the costs on to the claimant and their housing equity.

Blair singled out education and the NHS for cash while attempting privatisation by stealth but earmarked the welfare state and the care (not the medical) side of sickness for the bin.

No one, as far as I know, has done a thorough study of how many Blair and Blairite policies have been a direct importation from America. Now that I have had a chance to study the evolution of this policy (which was shameful ignorance on my part) it is stunning how closely it resembles the bill passed by Clinton. Blair was truly intoxicated by the US, and I believe it is the prevailing right-wing nature of US political policy (under both Republicans and Democrats) that he found especially seductive. As the heir to Thatcher, he needed a model that was not simply borrowed from the Tory right wing because he needed to give Newlabour a separate identity. But despite his fancy footwork and repartee gifts, Blair is no intellectual. In fact if you READ rather than listen to his pronouncements, he's a pretty shallow chap.

So Project Newlabour has been to a large extent an effort to reproduce in the UK the policies being acted out in the US. For a while commentators believed that this was due to Clinton's personal charisma and Blair's adoration of Bill. People were somewhat stunned and surprised when Blair transferred his sycophantic worship to George Bush without even a blip, and without any concern for the fact that Bush quickly became the pariah of the world. Blair didnt care about being Bush's sole supporter.

And so we will remember Newlabour as The Poodle Years, the period in which Blair (and just as much Brown) looked to Washington DC for their inspiration rather than objective policy analysis or the needs and views of the British people.

I am too old and tired now to do it myself; but hopefully someone will analyse the major policy initiatives under Newlabour and show how they have been almost carbon copies of similar measures enacted across the Atlantic. It was fashionable to declare that Brown was a great chancellor albeit a rotten prime minister; and yet Brown did nothing original in his period as Chancellor...he did little more than parrot the policy positions and behaviour of the US Treasury.

Therefore it is no surprise that Newlabour went to war in George Bush's back pocket, that Trident 2 is a response to American demands and its use of Britain as its military outpost, that the British and American financial melt-down were so similar, and that Brown and Obama have chosen the same spectacularly wasteful and unsuccessful remedies.

It really is time to reclaim our country.

Lee - the real explanation is very strange. If you google on the stages of the passage of this Welfare Reform Bill 2009 looking for information you find almost no press coverage from 2009. Everyone is looking the other way in shame.

But you get lots of press coverage under the same headings for 1999. You get Darling instead of Purnell but this was NewLabour policy from the beginning. They tried it then in almost exactly the same form and failed to get it through. Harriet went straight in and tried to get single mothers back to work but she lost her job over it and took the fall because the public wouldn't stand for it and the backbenchers stood up to Blair. Happy days and a life time ago - it went through very quietly this time round. It was their first throw and their last throw - it was always their plan to save money - the change in public and Parliamentary attitude over the ten years is their epitaph which sums up what they did to Britain in their ten year reign. They took the heart out of Labour.

Quite aside from the explicit immorality and unimplementability of this policy, it is also stupid. You get people to change behaviour through incentives, not through threat and punishment. The latter results in evasion, not compliance. I thought everyone knew that by now. Of course, no one has ever described Purnell as a giant intellect.

No one who can work and wants more income will act against their own best interests if the incentive to supplement their benefits are offered. This should be treated as a tax and incentive issue, not a witch-hunt and punishment driven system. But I think you are right, Frances...a lot of this is driven by hatred and attitude, not rigorous analysis and research. This policy smells like Thatcher's milk-snatcher policy. Its mean, stupid, alienating, dysfunctional, and ultimately impossible to implement. If this was simply Purnell's personal aberration, it wouldnt be that surprising. But the fact that a Labour cabinet went along with it is truly stunning...perhaps the most stunning of all policy positions with the single exception of backing a lunatic's decision to invade Iraq.

Basically this is not about fraud.

It is about changing the culture so that people now claiming benefits work more and claim less. The financial equation was that the saving on benefits would easily outweigh the extra costs of the new coercive regimes. The coercion is to be written in to the new tighter regulations and contracted out to people who get paid by results so sensitivity and help and protection for the vulnerable is likely to be lost. Extra costs of people breaking down and getting worse / children getting less care and attention will fall on other budgets.

This is a win win situation financially. And the spin is that all these people will be Stockholm grateful because working is good for their souls and makes them happy. Harriet and Hazel are very happy people. Not so sure about Purnell and how he gets his kicks.

This is the discussion that we should be having. Should pensioners freely/compulsorarily work until older ages.

Should mothers of young/not so young children work more

Should long term unemployed with no reading/other skills drug/drink problems clustered in sink estates/high unemployment areas work more

Should mildly sick/middling sick/very sick people work more

Should all of this be voluntary or through pressure.
Should this be done with carrots or sticks.

None of this has been discussed widely and intelligently. Certainly since the recession arrived and the possiblities of employment declined the equation between costs of coercion versus jobs found will have changed.

A lot of people (come on admit it) have a pet hate in that list that they would like to see harassed. They hang their image of Welfare Reform on that. But it is being overlooked that amongst all these groups of people are all kinds of vulnerable people and like all purges the discriminators are blunt. I think it's known a collateral damage. Sad but there you go!

I campaign for the very sick and very vulnerable and I want them protected from these purges. As far as I can see the bullying starts at the DWP medical and the fear engendered is supposed to translate in to job seeking effort by the sick person. The cases I have seen have produced a mentally ill person being terrorised and getting worse and all possiblity of employment receding.

Unfortunately the only groups of sick people they could find who they considered spurious were 'bad backs' and 'anxiety and depression'

So 'anxiety and depression' are their targets. We have cases of people who can't go out alone and can't be in a room with people they don't know being passed as fit to work and taken off ESA and put on to JSA which means attending at the Job Centre every two weeks so it will be kill or cure. That is because not being able to go out is called 'anxiety'.

People with schizophrenia are all being passed as 'fit to work in six months' so we expect a miracle cure shortly. Purnell really should share this medical breakthrough with us.

Benefit fraud prosecutions by DWP broken down by benefit 2006-07
Benefit Number of cases
Disability Living Allowance
229

Carers Allowance
36
Incapacity Benefit
509
Income Support
3,345
Contributory Jobseeker’s Allowance
31
Income Based Jobseeker’s Allowance
718
Pension Credit
56
Retirement Pension
7
Training Allowances
4
Bereavement Benefits
7
Council Tax Benefit
824
Housing Benefit
821
Others
51


Given the number of claimants is in the millions, then this is about 0.1% which is the figure usually used.

I don't think with sickness benefit the issue is about well people claiming fraudulently - it is about the sick not working which isn't fraud as such. They want to change attitudes as they have with mothers of small children and tell them that not working is not socially acceptable behaviour.

This is an extract from Alice Mahon MP's resignation letter from the Labour Party.


The misnamed Welfare Reform Bill now going through parliament is something the Poor Law Guardians would have been proud of. This Labour Government should hang its head in shame for inflicting this on the British public just as we face the most severe recession any of us have experienced in a lifetime.

This assault on the poor and disabled is taking place at a time when former Labour Ministers still drawing an MPs salary, line up on an unprecedented scale to take up lucrative consultancies with private companies, that as ministers they previously had dealings with.

I have written to Gordon Brown about this, he simply passed me on to a civil servant. This personal greed and possible conflict of interest did not appear to concern him.

Frances: your explanation was somewhat of a punch in the stomach, and I am ashamed that this has been such a point of ignorance for me. I often point out other people's gullibility, but on this matter I have been the gullible one. I genuinely believed that the Purnell strategy was anchored in some data that demonstrated that a significant percentage of those not working were cheating and lying. That does not seem to be the case.

When a minister plans an assault on presumed benefits, he is obliged to show that it is "worth it", namely that the proportion of those receiving benefits by deception is so large that it warrants distrusting all benefit recipients. That is the essence of acceptable policy analysis. If you have no empirical evidence of what that proportion is, and are basing the policy on assumptions and attitudes, that is plain sloppy and incompetent. It means that your policy is driven not by need and facts, but by beliefs and biases.

I use this kind of analysis not because I am unconcerned with human suffering and am concerned only about efficiency and return on investment; but these are legitimate indicators of governmental effectiveness. So, if for example, you are distrusting and pressurising 90% of welfare claimants, who are genuine, to find 10 percent who are cheats, then you deserve to be fired and your policy flushed. If you dont even have empirical indicators of what the ratio is, then you deserve something worse than simply being fired. That goes beyond incompetence into malice.

How has Purnell got away with this ? Does he have full backing of the cabinet ? Has no one asked to see the "data" ?

Hounding the sick is a rather strange priority for a Labour government, the founders of the Welfare State. I'm sure that there must be somebody getting away with it out there, but aren't they more likely to be bankers, speculators, tax evaders and cheating politicians ? The rich, however they got their money, are likely to be more powerful in many ways than the sick and disabled, who are defined but their absence of power. Then there are their carers, not ersatz Labour politicians, but those who really look after them, many of whom subsist on a pittance.Elderly carers have no retirement date.They are often condemned to a lifetime of jail with hard labour, until they or their loved one die. Shame on New Labour.

Congratulations Lee. You are the first person who has ever attempted to look at this in a fair minded way. Unfortunately there is no fair minded debate and discussion to call on to answer you.

Everybody 'knows' that there are millions of benefit cheats. Every one 'knows' someone who knows someone who knows one. Statistically reasearch can't discover them and very few are ever caught. They don't exist in research terms. But we have to assume there must be some.

Are we saying that the cheats are not ill? The real cheats are presumably people who are not ill but pretend to be ill and fool doctors so they can get £60 a week sick benefit.
I don't know how you find those people. I don't know how you get diagnosed with an illness you haven't got. But if you are clever enough to do this no doubt you will skillfully avoid detection. You might find the fit cheats if they exist by spending the money on dedicated fraud detection.

But we aren't really talking about fit cheats with ESA. The new system isn't really designed to catch non sick people. It seems to be designed to get genuinely sick people working which is an entirely different idea. It isn't about detecting cheats - it's about telling sick people they should be working. It's part of dismantling the welfare state.

90% of long term sick people are being are assessed under ESA as capable of doing something. They aren't being told they are not sick, just that they could work even though they are sick. They are then processed through Pathways to Work and 'helped' to find employment. If they fail to comply they are thrown off benfits.

Encouragement is fine. 100% fine. Three yes's from me. I have no objection to support and encouragement to sick people to work and I haven't met a sick person who objected to that. Bring it on. But why the sanctions?

Because this system is designed to pressurise people in to activity or hit them with sanctions. Pressurising sick people in to work is not fraud detection. It is a sort of therapeutic occupational therapy being conducted by DWP officials under the command of Purnell.

Consider a sick person who can't explain themselves very well to themselves or any one else. Someone with a mental illness, a learning disability, head injury, a stroke. Someone who is confused about themselves and how their future will be with compromised health. Imagine how they feel about themselves and then add being judged as workshy or cheats by the community.

They could be someone who is ill and doesn't feel capable of finding and holding a job.
Someone who is ill but who feels capable but never seems to get a job.
Someone who is ill but who gets a job and then gets stressed and relapses.

These are the people who will be harassed.

Currently all this system is going to do is to harass all the genuinely sick with an assumption that they can be urged/cajoled/harassed in to slightly more activity by a pervasive assumption of laziness and guilt. Let's make all sick people feel even worse about being ill. That's not fraud detection. It's an inhumane attitude to the sick.

I am thoroughly opposed to Purnell, and the Thatcherite nature of the welfare legislation. Clinton, by the way, did something very similar in America. I am interested however in knowing what should be done about individuals who are genuinely welfare cheats, the Andy Pipkins (Little Britain). I have no idea what proportion they constitute, or even how important it would be to deal with them. I need to be educated on this point, and who better than Dugsie and Frances to be my mentors

I don't think that you can accuse Purnell of being a mean man. He's been very generous with benefits to himself.

Harriet Harman thinks work is the answer to all problems. Perhaps being born in to the aristocracy gave her a romanticised version of work. She's busy bringing in the Equalities Bill so the sick/single mothers/carers can't be discriminated against at work.
Coincidentally just the groups currently being driven off welfare before welfare is closed down.

It would be fine if the choice about working was a free choice. I'm all for opening up choices. But it dovetails a little too nicely with Purnell's cruel harassment of the sick and his drive to make their benefits conditional on them turning up week after week and striving officiously to get back to work. With many illnesses this requirement is not possible and is a nightmare. And it dovetails sweetly with and Brown's desire to stop paying out benefits and dismantle the welfare state.

With friends like that helping you who needs enemies.

Personally, I would prefer a conference on the impact of the recession on the vulnerable. I am a life long feminist but I must say there is a level of irrelevance about this approach. Vulnerability is not a female monopoly. There are many men who are the essential breadwinners for their families and who have lost their jobs or whose wages have been held down. There are many dimensions of vulnerability. I am not denying that gender is one, but age, disability, isolation, chronic illness, deserve just as much attention. There are many men who are carers, many men who are single parents. And there are many women who are doing OK at this time, some even prospering. It just feels very dated and out of touch with reality.