The morning after the night before

[rich_jacko]

Wow. Astonishing results.

So, the UK voted in 2011 to keep FPTP and the night has shown comprehensively why FPTP doesn't work.

Scotland voted last year to stay in the UK but the Union now looks to be in more trouble than ever.

Everyone thought coalition governments would become the new norm, but the Lib Dems' fate makes it unlikely any smaller party will want to go into coalition ever again.

The big story of the campaign was the rise of those smaller parties, but we're ending up with a very blue / red / yellow (albeit a different shade of yellow) House of Commons.

Not a good outcome for so many reasons. Where do we go from here?

Comments

[mr-s-face.livejournal.com]

part 2


But what are the chances of ending up like that? Well, it depends on whether the assessments become mandatory, whether universal credit becomes mandatory, and whether the assessments keep up their disturbingly high rate of saying people are fit for work. However, given the seriousness of the outcomes here.

The best-case scenario while the system remains is my current state - there is no hint of an assessment. So I am stressed, all of the time, waiting for the moment when I get a letter that might lead to my death.

I am not a big fan of the labour party, or the conservative party, or the liberal democrats. All three of those parties had a hand in making this system. Of them, I should say the conservatives are worse, since they introduced the JSA sanctions and schemes that will make a switch from ESA to JSA unsustainable.

I am unhappy about the election results, because there was a chance for this to change. If we had had a labour government that was reliant on the SNP and maybe the lib dems, we might have seen an easing off. Maybe not, but it might have been. Instead we see a tightening of the screws. For me, the next five years will be a time of constant increasing tension, waiting for the day when my life becomes unliveable.

It didn't have to be like this. It shouldn't be like this. Please help make it stop.

[rich-jacko.livejournal.com]

I don't know enough about how this system works, but I'd hope there were safeguards built in to prevent this type of worst case scenario from happening. If you weren't able to make it to appointments or weren't able to do a work placement, that ought to at least trigger a re-assessment of your ability to work. If it doesn't, it certainly should.

[mr-s-face.livejournal.com]

I would also hope there are safeguards, but I know this has already happened to some people. So if there are any safeguards, they don't work.

People have been sanctioned for not showing up to appointments they didn't know they had because the DWP had fucked up their address. People have been declared fit for work despite being terminally ill. One man was told to quit his cancer treatments because they were interfering with his ability to look for work/do workfare.

Basically, the system has ceased to be either fair or functional. And people are already dying.

[little_frank]

These safeguards are not in place. There are documented deaths. The noose is about to be tightened further. This has nothing to do with preventing fraud, and everything to do with considering support of sick and disabled people to be an unnecessary extravagance - a Victorian mindset.

I'm in a similar position to mr_s_face (actually better off because I own a house), and the system already nearly killed me. I suffered badly from the impact of 'back to work' bullying in the wrong ESA group before being saved by the skin of my teeth by an extraordinary GP who did what most refuse to do (because of the huge workload burden), wrote to them supporting my case, and declared me too unwell for in-person WCAs (which, by the way, one can be immediately re-subjected to should one win an appeal, and they can demand WCAs as often as they like as a deterrent measure against qualifying people continuing to claim). I could receive a letter about re-assessment any day, and with it the likelihood of some, most, or all my income being removed, even though neither cure nor return to work are possible for me. I don't have the strength to fight through appeals, re-assessments, re-applications.

For us, and many like us, this election result really is a disaster.