Posts Tagged ‘claimants’

Hardest Hit March Against Cuts – 2011

Thursday, May 11th, 2023

Hardest Hit March Against Cuts: On Wednesday 11th March 2011 around 10,000 people, many in wheelchairs came to march in London calling for an end to harassment and benefit cuts for the disabled.

Hardest Hit March Against Cuts - 2011

The Hardest Hit march was supported by a huge range of charities and organisations representing and supporting the physically and mentally disabled, including major unions such as PCS, UCU and Unite.

Hardest Hit March Against Cuts - 2011

The protest came a year after the formation of the coalition government led by David Cameron with Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg as his deputy, with real power staying with the Tory majority and is now widely seen as a disaster for the Lib-Dems. Under Chancellor George Osborne the coalition plunged the country into the start of ten years of austerity, with particularly swingeing cuts to local government services as well as a drastic attack on all those claiming benefits.

Hardest Hit March Against Cuts - 2011

The cuts disproportionately affected the poor and the disabled while the wealthiest in our society were hardly if at all affected. In 2018 the UN special rapporter on extreme poverty concluded his visit to the UK by reminding us that ‘Poverty is a political choice‘ and that ‘Austerity could easily have spared the poor, if the political will had existed to do so’.

Hardest Hit March Against Cuts - 2011

For the disabled and those on benefits there were cuts and freezes and the situation was made worse by the ignorance and incompetence of Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2010 to 2016.

It was under Labour in October 2008 that Work Capability Assessments were introduced but the numbers made before 2010 were relatively small and they were used for new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants and a small number of ESA reassessments. It was only in Spring 2011 under the coalition government that a programme began to move those on existing benefits onto ESA using the WCA tests administered by Atos began.

Already by 2011 there had been serious criticisms both of the unsatisfactory nature of the tests and of the failures by Atos to administer them correctly, and this protest march called both for an end to the cuts in benefits for the disabled and “and in particular for an end to the discredited and iniquitous testing regime administered by Atos Healthcare, which has replaced proper medical tests by a computer-based system that often ignores the actual needs of those being assessed, and has as unacceptably high error rate, with a majority of appeals against its assessments succeeding.

The Braille spells out SHAFTED

Despite the huge body of evidence and the many deaths the system caused, only minor changes were made and it was not until 2014 that the contract with Atos was ended, only for them to be replaced by Maximus who carried on the same way. Atos, now renamed IAS, remains now a part of the assessment system for ESA, Universal Credit and PIP along with Maximus and Capita.

Both New Labour and the Coalition made cuts in many positive projects and organisations set up to help the disabled. One of these was Remploy, whose last state-run sheltered factory set up to employ disabled labour closed in 2013 with the loss of over 1700 jobs. It is now a part of Maximus.

This protest got more media attention than most, largely because of the presence among those leading the march of Sally Bercow, the wife of the then Speaker of the Commons, and actress and activist Jane Asher, president of three of the organisations involved, Arthritis Care, National Autistic Society and Parkinson’s UK. It was followed by a mass lobby of MPs.

Since then there have been many more protests against the unfair treatment of the disabled as various benefits have been scrapped and Universal Credit has led to further problems, but nothing on this scale. Disabled people have not only suffered most they have also become some of the more active protesters, particularly led by groups that were on this march including Disable People Against Cuts (DPAC), Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN), Winvisible, Black Triangle and others.

This ‘Hardest Hit’ march came during a ‘National Week of Action Against Atos Origin‘ organised by disability activists, claimant groups and anti-cuts campaigners and two days earlier they had protested outside the offices of Atos Healthcare in London. You can see more on My London Diary in Disabled Protest Calls Atos Killers.

More at Hardest Hit March Against Cuts.


Guantanamo, Firefighters, Advocacy, RMT & Lambeth Cuts

Friday, February 25th, 2022

Guantanamo, Firefighters, Advocacy, RMT & Lambeth Cuts. Wednesday 25th February 2015 was a busy day for protests in London, and I photographed five events.


Free Shaker Aamer at Parliament

The Free Shaker Aamer campaign protested for 4 hours at Parliament calling for the urgent release of London resident Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo, where he had been held for over 13 years and regularly tortured. Of course I didn’t stay with them that long – there aren’t really that many ways to photograph a fairly small group in orange jumpsuits – but it meant they were still there when I arrived over three hours after their protest began.

Usually their protests are at lunchtime, but because they had stayed longer I was able to photograph their weekly protest at around 3.30pm on my way to an event outside Downing St. They continued these protests while parliament was sitting until Shaker was released towards the end of 2015.


Striking Firefighters block traffic

Firefighters came out of their rally in Central Hall and blocked the road in front of Parliament. I don’t think the police tried to move their fellow public servants, who had a large black balloon with the message ‘FBU – WE RESCUE PEOPLE, NOT BANKS! STOP THE CUTS’ as well as several banners.

After around ten minutes they marched down to Downing St, blocking much of Whitehall. In front of the gates to Downing St there was a very noisy protest, and police did come and talk with In front of the gates to Downing St there was a very noisy protest, and police did come and talk with FBU leader Matt Wrack and promised to try to get someone to come out and talk with them.

They were still waiting when I left – and I think they would still be waiting now before anyone representing our Tory government came.


Welfare Advocacy not a Crime

A short walk away in Caxton Street people were protesting outside the Dept of Work & Pensions in a nationwide day of action over the arrest of welfare rights activist Tony Cox.

Although by law welfare claimants are allowed to have an adviser present with them at job centre interviews, when a claimant arrived together with Cox his interview was cancelled. And later that day police arrived at Cox’s home, arresting him and charging him with threatening behaviour.

When his case came to court in October the prosecution had to drop the main charges. A month after the first hearing Cox was found guilty of refusing to supply person details to the police and fined £200 and admonished on the charge of hindering the officers.


RMT protest Underground Job Cuts

Despite earlier promises, Transport for London were planning to go ahead with a 50% cut in station staffing, closing ticket offices such as the well-used one at the busy Edgware Road station on the Bakerloo Line.

Things threatened to get nasty with some angry exchanges when police tried to move RMT members handing out leaflets to the public, but the RMT members insisted on their right to do so on the pavement outside the station entrance.


Lambeth against £90m cuts

Another tube journey changing at Oxford Circus from the Bakerloo to the Victoria Line took me south of the river to Brixton where a short distance from the station a lively rally was taking place on the street corner outside Lambeth Town Hall.

Around a hundred trade unionists, pensioners, library and other council staff, social housing tenants and other residents were there to tell councillors arriving for a council meeting to reject library closures and other £90 millon cuts.

It was now around 6pm, and in late February the sun sets around 5.30, so it was getting rather dark. Although I had both flash and LED lighting, neither is much use for lighting larger groups of people, and even on the corner of two major roads the streetlighting a few yards back was pretty poor. Thankfully digital cameras are considerably better than film under such conditions and I was able to get good results at ISO 3200.


More on all these on My London Diary:

Lambeth against £90m cuts
RMT protest Underground Job Cuts
Welfare Advocacy not a Crime
Striking Firefighters block traffic
Free Shaker Aamer at Parliament