And we’re off! This week, of course, saw Rishi finally put his big boy pants on and call a general election – which conveniently buried a load of news about the DWP.
General election shambles
It was an utterly baffling decision for everyone. Not only are the Tories further behind in the polls than ever but the little snake gave everyone just a few hour’s notice. Even poor ole pig fucker David Cameron was getting some bizarre dictator-style welcome in Albania that he had to call off.
And now we’re seeing the absolute shambles that is Rishi’s campaign playing out. In the first few days of the campaign alone we’ve seen him:
- Ask Welsh people if they’re excited for the football they’re not in.
- Visit the Titanic’s birthplace.
- Make his own staff pose as working-class people to ask questions.
- Have a picture taken in front of an exit sign.
- Be confused by bread.
- Build a literal red wall.
And then just when you thought he couldn’t fail anymore, he announces he’s shipping your kids off to war.
Nothing to see here
Of course, we know what the Tories love doing more than anything else is burying news that makes them look bad, and this is especially true for anything DWP-or disability-related.
So whilst they’re shitting themselves in public and hoping we don’t go looking at the real issues, here I am to bring them to the front – not the front Rishi wants our teenagers on though.
Human rights watchdog investigating if the DWP are murderers
Way back on Wednesday morning – before Rishi stood in the pissing rain – it was announced that the EHRC would be launching an inquiry into DWP treatment of disabled benefits claimants. There would be a particular focus on DWP benefits deaths, which is interesting when the new policy would cause far more deaths.
It’s interesting this was rushed out on the same day that the will-he won’t-he tension reached a fever pitch. This meant any reporting on the watchdog holding the DWP to account was as drowned out as Rishi was by Steve Bray’s sound system.
Only fraudsters are the ones in the cabinet
While the government and especially the DWP have been fearmongering about benefit fraud and cracking down on disability benefits for months, their own figures found that there was almost no cases of disability benefit fraud last year.
That’s right, the government’s own data found that in the financial year ending in April 2024, there was 0% PIP fraud, while DLA stood at 0.1%. Universal Credit overpayments still stand at 10.9% – however, this is down from 11.4% last year.
When they made a massive stab-vested song and dance about DWP fraud decreasing in 2023, you have to wonder why they aren’t shouting from the rooftops that PIP fraud is now at 0%. The only conclusion to be reached is that low-or-no DWP benefit fraud doesn’t fit their narrative of how much disabled people are wasting taxpayers money. So nothing to see here.
DWP snooping thrown out of the Lords on a technicality
This last one is a bit of good news for disabled people. For the past few months the DWP and government have been trying to push through the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill.
The proposed bill would allow the DWP to snoop on the bank accounts of anyone in receipt of benefits and anyone connected to them. It would mean the government scrutinising what you spend your benefits on and using that to take them away.
The bill had already passed through the Commons, but thanks to the rules around general election season it has fallen foul to ‘wash up’ season and been binned off. Let’s hope it’s gone for good
They don’t want you to talk about it – so let’s shout instead
Whilst Rishi and his lot come up with the shittest ideas possible and Labour come back with even shitter banter, it’s important that DWP news like this doesn’t get forgotten.
One of my favourite things about disabled people is our sense of humour. When you’ve been in the gallows for as long as us there’s nothing else for it. But in amongst the laughing at terrible Tories and endless memes, we also need to keep informing people of theirs and the DWP’s incompetence and lies.
The Tories are trying to make disabled people the enemy of the electorate, but we’re louder and funnier than you fuckers.
Featured image via the Canary
