The prime minister has announced that the new minister for disabled people is Justin Tomlinson, Conservative MP for North Swindon. Tomlinson has a strong anti-benefits and anti-human rights background.
Tomlinson has replaced Mark Harper, who is now the Conservative chief whip.
Tomlinson is a former national chairman of Conservative Future, the youth wing of the Conservative party and has been an MP since 2010.
He is a party loyalist, with a strong record of voting against the interests of sick and disabled claimants.
According to They work For You, Tomlinson:
- Voted strongly for of the bedroom tax
- Voted very strongly against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices
- Voted very strongly against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability
- Voted very strongly for making local councils responsible for helping those in financial need afford their council tax and reducing the amount spent on such support
- Voted very strongly for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits
- Voted very strongly against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who have spent a long time unemployed.
Tomlinson also voted in favour of repealing the Human Rights Act.
His responsibilities a minister for disabled people include:
- cross-government disability issues and strategy
- Employment and Support Allowance, Work Capability Assessment and Incapacity Benefit Reassessment Programme
- disability benefits (Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payment and Attendance Allowance)
- carers
- appeals reform
- fraud and error (including debt management)
Tomlinson has some interest in health issues, but does not seem to have shown any great interest in disability issues during his time as an MP.
Comments
Having to deal with ATOS who still fail to read the forms first, I have complained about 4 other instances on mine and another disabled person, they still do it, god help me, when will they actually listen!
I received a letter this week saying that if I want to record for my home visit I would have to pay for the equipment, I called them back and pointed out that Mike Penning said in a parliamentary committee that recording by the claimant is a right, if ATOS want a copy they can record their own, I will use my own equipment whether they like it or NOT. Having had a previous assessment where the assessor blatantly lied on the report has made me always demand a recording so that can't happen again.
You need to stand up for your rights and I would advise anyone that is having an assessment has it recorded or take their own pocket recorder, they are not allowed to refuse. My last assessment didn't even have a report, I was in very severe pain and had insisted on a recording, I still have the copy tape, as it was never submitted to the subsequent tribunal.
I am determined to go down fighting and the smug politicians, business bosses and council bureaucrats can take credit for achieving their am of killing me.
Stupid call centres, with robot answering systems, keeping you on hold listening to high blood pressure music, while you spend a fortune on the phone call, before another robot finally answers, people that don't READ what is sent to them and then carry on regardless make me so very angry, no wonder I had a stroke.
They could save the £12 billion if those people actually did their jobs properly. The repetition on forms that serve no purpose because they don't bother to read them and make decisions using the back of a fag packet principle deserve no respect from me, I never behaved in the manner they do, if I had I would have been fired instead of being praised.
I get so frustrated with all this nonsense and they wonder why I end up getting very angry when I ask a question and get a totally unrelated answer, because that is what it says on the script.
see part 2 posted next.
"Winning the vote" is how democratic governments are supposed to get into power. And a longing for "strong leadership" is how you end up with a totalitarian government who will impose through strength whatever prejudices his populace will support - or tolerate. The Russians wanted a strong leader and elected Putin. Now he is closing down political dissent, all religious authority except the Russian Orthodox Church and passing increasingly draconian anti-gay laws.
A "strong" leader here would look like an intelligent version of IDS. Because that's what enough of the electorate want - they like the thought that "all those people" who are "the so-called disabled", but are, they are sure, really idle or on the fiddle, that they are being made to work or allowed to starve.
That's what they voted for - or at any rate that's what they failed to vote against. Welfare Reform was hardly as issue in the election because, in England at any rate, all the major parties were quite happy to get tough on welfare payments.
Unless we can persuade the popular press or the main TV channels that the sick and the disabled are being shamefully treated, this is going to keep happening. People will vote for lower taxes and a refusal to believe that disability, unemployment or climate change are real issues which affect society as a whole.
You are all so very right - Cameron and his crew, (now that they have been so shamefully voted back into power (by the 20%) and because of 'apathy' by so very many and others voting for UKIP, etc, etc and of course, by the use of the FPTP system) now think that they can walk on water and also turn water into wine (but definitely NOT feed the 30,000 with just one fish - this lot would try to feed them with no fish whatsoever!)
They will take some stopping I think, but, as with Thatcher, given the right 'conditions' they could be and most probably, will be, given time - they may indeed 'hang themselves' in time - let's hope so!
I agree - the 'Human Rights Act and associated legislation is the only real thing that can be used against them - but, who is going to try and do it? They would probably need very deep pockets to be able to afford it at the very least.
Surely though, it would stand up to proper scrutiny what with all of the benefit cuts, the sanctions, the unpaid workfare programmes and the general unfairness of the system, both by the likes of ATOS, Maximus, Capita & the DWP itself - not to mention that arch-enemy of all the sick, poor, disabled and the unemployed of Britain - IDS himself!!
Meanwhile, does'nt this new 'Minister for the Disabled' look almost like a politician entering into an 'American' election!!
All he would need is the 'stars and stripes' flag behind him instead!!
Lets thank God that we are not in there situation, if my DLA ESA are cut so be it, I will still thank God for the little I get.
Hi Carruthers.
Ethnicity is self defining, this is pretty much an accepted view among social scientists, I am not a social scientist, however, I have studied the subject of combined social science and politics, so I feel fairly well qualified in suggesting that the poor, who it can be said are predominantly working-class, are proportionately by far, the largest affected group of people and therefore are overwhelmingly the main victims of forced displacement as a direct result of the overall Benefit Cap.
I regard my own ethnicity as Working-Class. I am not talking about race, so, please don't confuse race with ethnicity, this is a common mistake many people make, in my opinion.
Of course I am more than happy to stand corrected on this.
Buster
Buster, I have to call you on this. I don't think that "the poor" form an ethnic group and I'm sure that, with the exception of a few Russian oligarchs, the rich in London come from the same mix of ethnic groups as you will find elsewhere in the UK. And I am very clear that the Tories are not, whatever the more extreme radicals will say, a different race from the rest of us.
In contrast Liz Kendall also said she supports the introduction of a lower benefit cap - which the Tories are about to implement; it is common knowledge that the benefit cap will only affect a relatively small number of households, furthermore, due to extra admin costs etc - it will not really save any significant amounts of money.
In conclusion, already, I don't like the sound of what Kendall is saying; she's already supporting plunging more vulnerable children born in to large families, in to relative poverty, through no fault of their own.
In addition, it's reasonable to assume, in my opinion, Kendall also seemingly has little regard for the families that will be forced to relocate due to unsustainable cuts to Housing Benefit as part of the overall cap - commonly known as social engineering - a more extreme view would be to call it social or even ethnic cleansing - driving the poor out of our cities.
Kendall's early mutterings don't inspire me with confidence at all, although it has to be said Labour are in a very tricky situation at present; whether Labour move more to the Right remains to be seen - I just hope they don't make any knee-jerk reactions, thinking that reheated blairism is the answer - this could end with further alienation of traditional working-class Labour supporters - likely to spell the end for Labour. I hope this isn't allowed to happen.
Buster