The Austerity Illusion

 

There are now just hours to go until the public will be taking to the polling stations and casting their votes for the general election. Tensions are running high and I swear to God if I hear Theresa May come out with a pathetic sound bite one more time I’m going to lose my shit and run through a field of wheat with a covfefe on my head.

The reason that these sound bites are so frustrating is because they hold about as much irony as when she said that the UK hasn’t done enough to tackle terrorism, when that has literally been her job for seven years.

Coalition of Chaos

We have heard countless times, members of the conservative party referring to a Coalition of Chaos, supposedly headed up by Jeremy Corbyn. How unthinkable – parties with opposing views joining together to run the country as an unelected Government! The fact is that we have already seen a coalition of chaos. 2010 brought us the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition, providing with us with David Cameron, our very own unelected Prime minister (they seem to have a habit of doing this). During their five years in power, the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition embarked crippling austerity, causing the start of unimaginable chaos to our public services. The parties introduced the following austerity measures;

The bedroom tax; aimed at low income/unemployed families - according to the TUC, this affected a total of 31% of all working age families in the social rented sector. They also slashed Legal Aid, the top rate of tax was cut from 50p to 45p, we saw Sure Start centres from across the country being shut down (612 in just four years) [site 4children], the Sure Start Maternity grant was also abolished - costing low income mothers £500 and hitting the poorest the hardest, education maintenance allowance for 16-18 year olds was snatched from the hands of the poorest students attending further education, the armed forces were cut - creating a loss of thousands of soldiers, as well as the RAF losing hundreds of helicopters and planes, Child Trust Funds were totally abolished, we have also seen huge numbers of changes to benefits. Child benefit was frozen for a total of three years, inciting a cumulative loss of £1,000 to families with two children, families receiving working tax credits saw a rise in the number of hours they had to work from 16 to 24…the list goes on, including cuts to GP surgeries, Remploy, Youth Centres, local council funding, local parks, police, buses, education, income support, youth employment and support allowance, prisons, public sector pay, mental health.

Basically the coalition government slashed everything they could get their paws on, if I were to list it all in detail it would take up the full blog post, however you can find all the information here.

Strong Economy

Two years on, now with a Conservative government in power and we are still seeing violent austerity across the country. We are being told that we must live within our means and that these measures will create a ‘strong economy’ (you know, that thing they have been promising us for seven years but we are yet to see).

Wrong.

The conservative government displays public spending in the same way as managing a household income. When you are tight on money you make savings through cutting out luxuries; you stop shopping at Sainsbury’s and go to somewhere like Aldi, you decide not to take that holiday that you’ve been planning, you cancel your gym membership – because who are you kidding? You never go anyway.

Cutting back on luxuries works well as a way to survive when you are low on money. The fact is that this logic is not transferrable to government spending and austerity is not about cutting down on luxuries – it is about cutting vital public services that help the majority of people living in this country to thrive.

By cutting funding to education, the poorest children are unable to gain the knowledge and skills that they so desperately need for the future. By cutting spending on mental health services we see individual’s health deteriorate, often resulting in a loss of employment, then housing and sometimes a loss of their own lives. By cutting benefits we see more people pushed into poverty and therefore further from the jobs market, more reliant on our underfunded NHS, more reliant on our underfunded social care services and more reliant on underfunded local authorities.

Do you see a pattern here yet? Circa 100,000 children fell into relative poverty in 2015-16, showing a year on year increase of one percentage point. Not only that but people with disabilities have had to withstand the worst of our government cuts, many of whom have literally had their human rights violated as a result of austerity. Between 1st April 2016 and 31st March 2017, The Trussell Trust’s Foodbank Network provided 1,182,954 three day emergency food supplies to people who literally could not afford to eat. Of this number, 436,938 went to children.

The Tories boast that they have created record numbers of jobs, yet fail to mention the record rise of in work poverty under their leadership; the Nuffield Foundation found that the risk of poverty for adults living in working households rose by more than a quarter (26.5%), from 12.4% to 15.7%, during the ten year period 2004/5 to 2014/15.

The fact is that there is nothing strong about one of the richest countries in the world having literally hundreds of thousands of citizens who can’t afford to feed themselves.

Magic Money Tree, Magic Money Tree, Magic Money Tree

On the BBC Election Debate, the night that our Prime Minister Theresa May went missing, we heard Amber Rudd squealing about Labours ‘magic money tree’. Throughout the campaign we have seen this phrase banded about – probably a tactic used to avoid the fact that the Labour manifesto is fully costed and has the backing of 120 economists from across the globe, while the only figures that appear to be in the Conservative manifesto (in the words of John MacDonnell) are the page numbers.

“There is no magic money tree!” we hear them scream, “We can’t just find this money from nowhere! We have to build a strong economy to afford such luxuries as money that allows people with disabilities to live independently and…you know…eat.”

Funny that, because it seems that there is quite a large sum of money floating around.

In March, the conservatives managed to implement their inheritance tax cut, meaning that couples who pass on homes worth up to £750,000 pay no inheritance duty. Not only this, but by 2020 even homes up to £1million will be exempt from the tax. According to figures from the House of Commons library, this measure will cost the taxpayers £1billion over the next three years, while only benefitting 26,000 of the country’s richest households – and I can guarantee those are not the ‘just about managing’ that Theresa May loves to speak about.

We have also seen a huge tax cut for high earners by pushing up the threshold for paying the 40p rate of income tax, we have seen a reduction in corporation tax and cuts to capital gains. They implemented the new ‘lifetime ISA’ which means that wealthy parents are now able to open tax free savings accounts for their children, deposit up to £4,000 a year and gain £1,000 of tax payer money as a bonus. On top of this they have allowed people with spare rooms, houses or flats to get a tax break on the first £1,000 a year they make renting them out online, not only benefitting people with extra properties but encouraging them to let them out on a short term basis rather than long term.

The fact is that austerity does not work. The method has been widely discredited by economists. Back in 2012, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, said that although his organisation never bought into the notion that austerity would actually boost economic growth, the IMF now believes that it massively understated the damage that spending cuts inflict on a weak economy.

But why would our Conservative government continue down the path of austerity if it is doing nothing but pushing thousands of people into poverty and taking away any hopes for decent employment? It’s not like they are too stupid to realise what is happening. They aren’t doing it just because they hate poor people, people with disabilities, mental health needs, single mothers and everyone else who is losing out. Nor is this an accident. This is a very well planned out dismantling of our welfare state and it is happening because it widens the gap between the rich and the poor, it strips the pockets of the most vulnerable and in return, lines the pockets of the most wealthy.

I was going to go into a more detailed answer to this question but I think from today’s events and the headlines printed across our right wing mainstream media, it is very clear. The priority of the Conservative party is to enhance the interests of the ruling classes. The majority of our main stream media which happens to be owned by billionaires will continue to push austerian messages to keep this government in power, meaning that they can keep getting those juicy tax breaks.

Austerity is not just about cutting spending, it is also very much about privatisation of publically owned services. Conservative values mean that they are ideologically opposed to having a public sector. By privatising and selling off our public services, capitalism prospers, shifting the priorities of these services from serving the public to generating profits. Cue: zero hours contracts, low pay and restricted worker’s rights.

Is it any surprise that in 2015, the Conservatives signed their biggest private deal on our NHS - £780million to be exact – to private firms, half of which have ties to the party.

For the Many

Whatever the result tomorrow, we can take a glimmer of hope from this election. Not only has Theresa May’s car-crash of a campaign been highly entertaining to follow; starting by basing all promotional materials around May herself, rather than the Conservatives as a whole, presenting herself as a ‘strong and stable’ leader, followed by her refusing TV debates, avoiding the general public at all costs and basically imploding during questions given by TV audiences.

The real hope that we can take from this campaign is the excessive support that Jeremy Corbyn has harnessed from previously disillusioned voters. People from all walks of life coming out and backing him. The most vulnerable in society finally finding a voice in politics. The anti-austerity message that has finally been brought to the table.

Even if we lose tomorrow, this campaign has touched so many people and it won’t be forgotten by them. They will continue to vote and they will continue to hold our government to account. During Corbyn’s time as leader he has forced the Conservatives to make huge U-turns on policies that would have had a detrimental effect to the poorest in our country, with the backing of new voters, he or whoever takes his place, can and must continue to do this.

Social mobility on this level has never been easy and if Corbyn were to win it would be the most monumental change in political history dating back to the war. We must take his campaign as a victory and we must make a promise to ourselves and each other that we will continue to fight, for the many, not the few.

 

My call on you to oppose the cuts to ESA

This week will see Chancellor Phillip Hammond’s first Autumn Statement, on behalf of Theresa May’s government. The Chancellor has promised a move away from ‘Osbornomics’ – stating that he will borrow and invest while distancing Tory policy from austerity. Despite this supposed empathic facelift, delivered to the post-Brexit Tory party by its new leader, when the Chancellor sat on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday, he showed no indication of halting his plans to cut Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

On November 17 Parliament debated a motion to call on the Chancellor to stop the proposed cuts. The cuts would involve a £29 per week reduction in people’s ESA payments who are in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) – individuals who are not in employment due to an illness or disability, however they have been judged fit to return to work at some point in the future by the DWP. Although the motion – backed by many Tory MP’s – was passed by 127 votes to 0, it is only advisory; leaving the final decision in the hands of Chancellor.

There are many reasons why this cut would be an atrocious decision, not least because it was only two weeks ago that a UN Human Rights Committee report condemned the UK government for human rights abuses over their treatment of people with disabilities.

It is true that the government’s welfare reforms have disproportionately hit people with disabilities the hardest. Not only this but the report shows that the government had successfully shifted public opinion on people with disabilities – stereotyping them as ‘lazy’ and ‘frauds’ and increasing the hardships already weighing on the shoulders of innocent, vulnerable people. Through the introduction of reforms such as the bedroom tax, we have seen further negative impacts on people with disabilities; people who may need an extra room for a live in carer, medical equipment or many other reasons that come with having a disability or a long-term illness have suffered grately. The idea that someone could get charged extra, when they are already struggling to keep their head above water, for something such as needing a room for dialysis equipment in their home, is an injustice that should be both recognised and challenged. The report concluded that measures introduced by the government were discriminatory and have directly abused over half a million people’s human rights.

Despite these points being listed – literally in black and white - in front of the Chancellor’s nose, he was still unable to confirm that the cuts would be halted when challenged on Sunday. Despite knowing that families are suffering (in fact, those hit hardest by past cuts are actually families that have a child with a disability) he was still unable to reassure us that future innocent and vulnerable people who are out of work through no fault of their own, will be able to receive the full support offered now. Instead we are warned that belts must be tight and we cannot possibly afford to stop people from living in poverty, we cannot possibly afford to help people who may fall ill with cancer or a heart attack, or who may be unable to work due to their disability.

Some Ministers point out that these cuts will not happen to people currently claiming ESA but will only begin after April to new claimants…as if that makes it better. By continuing the rate of pay for current claimants it is clear that this money is needed. It is not an incentive for individuals to stay out of work and scam the system as many would like to have us believe. In fact, if we are going highlight the length of time people are in the WRAG category – instead of blaming this on benefit fraud and people choosing not to find employment, we must instead look at the governments Work Capability Assessments which has seen thousands of people deemed fit for work even after their Doctor has told them that they are not. We must also explore the issue that it has been proven harder for people with a disability to find employment than those without.

We cannot ignore the fact that there are currently 1.3 million people with a disability in the UK who are available for and want to work while only half of the population with a disability are in employment. It is a fact that people with long-term disabilities are consistently less likely to be employed than an ‘able bodied’ person. According to an annual population survey, conducted by poverty.co.uk, one in four adults with a work-limiting disability are not working but want to, this compares with one in 15 of those with no work-limiting disability.

To brand these individuals as ‘lazy’ and ‘frauds’ is beyond comprehension. People who have a disability are often the most enthusiastic individuals when it comes to finding work as they are able to reap such valuable benefits from employment and social inclusion. Employment is key to building confidence and self-worth and it acts as a core element of social inclusion – something that can have a direct impact on a person’s health and wellbeing. The fact is that there are many people with disabilities who are desperate to work but find the process challenging and disheartening.

Theresa May promises a government of unity, one that is there for the masses. In her first speech as Prime Minister, May spoke about the meaning of the word Unionist to her party: “It means we believe in a union not just between the nations of the United Kingdom, but between all of our citizens, every one of us, whoever we are and wherever we are from.” Following on from this, May spoke directly to the working class people of Britain, telling them that the government she will lead “will be driven, not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours. We will do everything we can to give you more control over your lives.”

Everything they can? Is slashing the incomes of struggling, innocent, ill and disabled people really the best they’ve got? Is that the best the Tory government can deliver on? Pushing sick mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters into poverty? Into debt that will ultimately have a negative impact on their overall recovery?

The word ‘unity’ has been thrown around a lot in politics lately, not just in May’s speech but during the lead up to Brexit we heard Remainers speak about the importance of Unity with our European brothers and sisters and Leavers speak about the importance of Unity as a Nation. It sounds like a lovely concept, doesn’t it? Everyone wants to feel that they are a part of something bigger, that they won’t be left behind, but if the Chancellor forces through these destructive cuts then he will be taking us on a path far from unity, where innocent people will be left behind.

If we are talking ‘unity’ then we must remember that this really does affect every single one of us. Any one of us could fall ill with a work debilitating illness, any one of us could find ourselves with a disability. Many of us could have children that suffer from a condition that prevents them from finding employment, or a family member or friend. I know that if I found myself in that situation I would want there to be the support necessary to help me live a fair and just life, that I wouldn’t be faced with stigma and labelled as lazy and a fraud. This is why it is important to make your voice heard and oppose the cut to ESA, do it for yourself or your family member, friend, colleague or neighbour, do it to show Theresa May and her band of crooks and liars what the real meaning of unity is.

Sign the petition here!

Mental Health and the Media

One in four people will be affected by mental illness in their lifetime. Yet over 50% of people would not to tell anyone if they were going through this themselves.

These statistics may initially be shocking to some, however, it is not surprising that people have these feelings towards mental illness and the media needs to accept its part in this. Contributing factors to the negative and distorted image of mental illness are shown on our TV screens on a frequent basis. None so much as the one that displayed itself, unashamedly, in such an obvious manner on my own TV a few weeks ago.

Dinner date is one of many reality TV shows that are screened on ITVBe on a regular basis. One episode – first aired in 2010 and replayed a total of 26 times since – showed a blind date between a man named Al and a women named Danielle who claimed to have an alter-ego called 'Bad Dani'. A conversation around Danielle’s alter ego prompted the presenter to make a comment, labelling her as a ‘crazy women’, before questioning if she heard ‘voices in her head’ in a humorous tone. This comment hit me like a tonne of bricks. Was this presenter honestly making a joke out of the symptoms of schizophrenia? It definitely came across that way.

This is a problem. Hearing voices is a very well known symptom of schizophrenia and no matter what caused the presenter to say it – weather it was due to Danielle being drunk and babbling to herself – there is no getting away from its direct reference to mental illness.

There is a real issue with how mental illness is perceived by the general public and people suffering with illnesses such as schizophrenia can find it extremely hard to disclose their situation due to these perceptions. In fact, studies by rethink show that 70% of people affected by mental illness have experienced discrimination because of it.

The media has a responsibility to help break down these barriers – not to build them up. By airing a show that makes flippant remarks about symptoms of a serious mental illness, ITV is actually contributing to a much wider problem that society is facing today. Making a joke about direct symptoms of schizophrenia is completely wrong. Underlining this with the use of the phase ‘crazy women’ just makes it even worse.

I immediately contacted the ITV complaints department and shared my distress with them – asking them to make a public apology. They took the time to review my complaint and located the correct episode. After a few emails back and forth, this was their response:

Dear Becky,

Thank you for your email to ITV dated June 20th. 

We were very sorry to hear that you felt shocked and upset after watching Al's Dinner Date with Danielle on ITVBe recently. This episode was filmed and first broadcast in 2010. It has been transmitted 26 times and we have never previously had a complaint about the programme.

We have referred back to the programme as broadcast and the post-production script after receiving your email. 

We would like to assure you that the narrator does not refer to Danielle as 'a mental person' at any point. There is a line of commentary that refers to Danielle as 'a crazy woman' in a humorous tone of voice. This was intended as a nod to Danielle's unique, funny and 'out there' behaviour towards her date. It was not a reference to mental illness.

Admitting to having an 'alter-ego' is not the same as a diagnosis of schizophrenia or struggling with multiple personalities. The term 'alter-ego' is common parlance and had no medical subtext at all when used in the programme by Danielle. The voiceover did ask at one point if she 'hears voices in her head', but only to highlight the fact that Danielle was rather inebriated and babbling at this stage and should perhaps 'stop talking'.

ITV and Hat Trick both have well-respected and long-established diversity policies which have been in place at every level of their business for many years. 

Thank you again for contacting us here at ITV.

Kind regards,

ITV

To me, this response was unacceptable. There is a clear correlation between a joke about someone hearing voices in their head and schizophrenia. The fact that ITV have aired this show 26 times and I am the first to make a formal complaint does not mean that they should not publically aplogise. It does not mean that this ‘joke’ hasn’t hurt or damaged anyone’s confidence those 26 times. People suffering with ill mental health are usually likely to suffer in silence, they are not likely to write to a TV broadcaster and share their upset.

The fact that they have repeatedly aired this and have had no formal complaints also highlights the issue that we are dealing with here – ITV are setting a precedent that making jokes that poke fun at mental illness is something that is normal and should not be aplogised for, when of course it should be.

Let me put this into context – we wouldn’t stand by and accept a TV show making fun of someone’s race or sex. Nor would we stand by while they made distasteful jokes about physical disabilities. It does not matter that the people on the screen were not suffering with this sort of illness (nor did I ever imply this in my original email – there was obviously huge misunderstanding and I am fully aware of what an alter ego is and the differences between that and multiple personalities). The joke was still made.

This sort of remark, when viewed by an individual suffering from mental illness, can not only do immense damage to their self esteem and their perception of how the general public view them, but it also adds to a much wider issue of how mental health is put forward in the media and gives the impression that it is okay to make little jokes about the symptoms. The fact that these remarks were made in a “humerous tone of voice” - as ITV stated in their email - does not make it okay.

As I said, people battling ill mental health, often suffer in silence. It is up to the rest of us to stand up for them when we see situations like this one.

One in four people will be affected by mental illness in their lifetime. This could be your mother, your father, your best friend. Or it could be you. The only way that we can help to break down the stigma is to call people or media out on their actions that directly contribute to the problem.

There is nothing funny about mental illness.

If you would like to help me encourage ITV to make a public apology for this, please email them at: viewerservices@itv.com and show your solidarity to all those silently fighting their battles with mental illness. 

(Image source: https://cdailytroubles.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/introduction-into-autism-and-autistic-spectrum-disorder-asd/)