Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

the same can be said of pretty much any statistics - especially if the result does not suit your own pre-formed (mis)conception or prejudice
however, i see no reason why figures from BCC should be suspect; for what purpose?

Exactly and Hays is the biggest culprit here.

Look what he said after the IDS interview, but then we get the full facts and we realise hes been lying through his teeth.

Innocent people would have taken his words as fact.

Shame on that minister shame on this rotten government.

You could say that about any of the turds floating around Westminster.


Remember no more boom and bust...who uttered that tripe?

Churchill firstly back in 1945.

He then lost the election like Brown.

But what you also have to remember Max people are taking their own lives because of government welfare policy.

How many have committed suicide because of the welfare reforms?

The polls show that the welfare reforms are hugely popular. The split is around 70% for 30% against. I am afraid you are stuck with them.

A considerable amount of people but because IDS didnt want these figures being exposed to the public he stopped counting them back in 2012, although I believe the working party on welfare have called for them to be placed back in the statistics again.

Suicide is not a rational response to economic hardship; it is not a rational response to having your benefits cut. It is the act of someone in an unstable state of mind. People commit suicide all the time. People in these vulnerable categories probably have a higher incidence of suicide. It seems likely that there have not been a greater number of suicides due to benefits reform than there was before. I know it makes good press to suggest that there is cause and effect operating. You would need to compare the suicide rates before and after the benefit changes amongst the specific groups. Otherwise it is just anecdotal nonsense.

Heres just an example of those that have comited suicide..........

Testimony for UN hears of food banks and suicides (members only)
Created on Monday, 02 December 2013 08:41
Category: Latest news

Disabled people have travelled from across the country to have their testimony about the impact of government cuts recorded so that it can be passed to a UN human rights expert.

They spoke of friends who had killed themselves in despair after losing their benefits, of disabled people forced to use food banks, and of being unfairly found fit for work through the government's work capability assessment (WCA) system.

Many also spoke of the importance of the Independent Living Fund - which the government wants to close - in maintaining choice and control in their lives.

A recording of the session will be sent to Shuaib Chalklen, the UN's special rapporteur on disability, whose job is to monitor progress around the world towards equal opportunities.

He had been due to visit London to attend the meeting, and the launch of a human rights report the following day, but had to postpone the trip at short notice.

Jimmy Telesford, from south London, who previously worked at Brent Association of Disabled People (BADP) before it collapsed earlier this year, told the session: "At Brent for the first time I had disabled people come to me saying they had got no money and they had no-one to help them."

He described how one woman with learning difficulties was sanctioned by Jobcentre Plus because she didn't realise she had to look for a job.

Telesford, who is now trying to build up BADP again, said: "You are not talking about people who don't have enough, you are talking about people who have no money.

"We are supposed to be the seventh richest country in the world and I have to say to people that they have to go to this food bank.

"So whether somebody eats is down to a group of volunteers, and I think there is something fundamentally wrong about that."

The writer and performer Sophie Partridge said: "I have been receiving funding from the ILF for almost my entire adult life and that has enabled me to live independently and do the things I do.

"I work, I am involved with my community, my family, my friends, because I am able to employ my own PAs to provide pretty much a full-time care package which is pretty much all day every day.

"I am really, really concerned that the ILF is reopened and reopened to new users so every disabled person with high access needs can have the same quality of life as I do."

Another activist, Robert Punton, said: "I am a disabled person living in a disabling society. Like everybody else in this room I have one major occupation and that is to ensure I continue to live independently in society and continue to do the things that I do."

He said the support workers he employed "provides valuable pounds to the economy".

He added: "We are not scroungers, we are not people sitting around, we are people doing jobs to ensure that everybody in society continues to live."

He said that for every disabled person giving testimony there were "thousands and thousands of disabled people living in prisons in their own homes, isolated, who cannot be here today to make their points. Those are the people the UN should be aware of as well."

Angela, from Brent, another disabled person who was providing testimony, said: "There is not enough support for people like me. At the moment I am relying on my brother to help and he has mental health problems. If he gets ill, I really will be on my own."

She added: "I am glad disabled people are not sitting quiet. We need to expose this injustice."

Anne Pridmore, one of the five disabled people who successfully took a court case against the government over its decision to close the Independent Living Fund (ILF), described how ILF had transformed her life.

She said she only had 20 minutes of care in the morning and another 20 in the evening when she was first "thrown in the hands of social services" in 1984. Now, thanks to ILF, she receives 24-hour care.

Pridmore, director of Being the Boss, a user-led organisation which supports disabled people who employ personal assistants, said: "If ILF finishes, my life is over. They could put me into an old people's home.

"ILF has enabled me to travel all over Europe fighting for human rights; I have run some major organisations in this country.

"It has been an absolute godsend for me. Without it, I just don't want to go on living."

Maria Nash, who took an unsuccessful but high-profile court case against Barnet council over the outsourcing of local services. and is a director of Barnet Centre for Independent Living, said: "The government needs to take action and stop threatening us with the loss of benefits. It is creating huge problems, we are losing the will to live.

"Every day we are hearing that people are losing benefits and people are committing suicide."

Several of those giving testimony found it hard to restrain their emotions.

Paula Peters described how her friend, who had bipolar disorder, had been found fit for work and told her doctor that she wanted to die, before jumping to her death at a train station in 2010.

Peters attempted to take her own life in January 2011. She said the stress of dealing with the WCA system was "horrendous" and although the "relief was massive" when she was found not fit for work, her fear soon returned. Her mental health has never stabilised.

She said: "This process is inhuman and so torturous. It has killed 18 of my friends through the stress and worry of it.

"I only want to ask why. There are thousands of people who have died due to the WCA and I just want this to stop."

Another emotion-charged moment came after Martin Tolley, from Ipswich, described the constant pain he was in due to a chronic medical condition.

He said his health "took one heck of a nose dive" when he was going through the WCA process. He said DWP had failed to take his circumstances into consideration, and that when he told his physiotherapist he had been placed in the work-related activity group - for those expected to move towards employment - she "hit the roof".

He cried as he finished his testimony by launching an attack on the government, who he said were "guilty of murder".

He said later that he had eventually been placed in the support group - for those not expected to carry out any work-related activity - after his case had been reconsidered.

Anthony Jefferson, a trustee of the National Association of Deafened People, said it was well-know that during a recession "deaf people are the first to go and the last to be employed".

He said: "They don't understand how difficult it is to get jobs out there. I am talking for all deaf people and everybody with invisible disabilities. It is about lack of patience and lack of awareness and lack of training."

Paul, another of those who presented testimony to the meeting, described how being put through the WCA system had made him seriously ill. "It has been 11 months I have been going through it, getting worse and worse.

"The advice from doctors is I have to stop thinking about it and put it out of my mind, but nobody understands the pressure we are put under when we are being assessed."

Phillip Rackham added: "They want disabled people to work, but how can we work if there are not jobs for disabled people?"

The mother of a young woman with learning difficulties and a visual impairment described how her daughter was being denied a mainstream education, with the only place offered a residential special college 90 miles away.

She said: "Our family have been left isolated, [my daughter] isn't receiving any social care support and education.

"If they have their own way she will be in residential accommodation, which is 90 miles away."

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

I am afraid that stories individuals committing suicide have little relevance. They were clearly unbalanced and may have topped themselves anyway.

If thats the case Hays why as IDS STOPPED COMPILING THE SUICIDE STATS........he stopped counting them in late 2012.

What does he have to hide/fear?????????

I don't even know if he did stop compiling the figures. It makes no difference. The people were clearly unbalanced to start with.

Heres a stat for you..........

#3 bluesky 2013-12-05 20:39
Lets not forget the 10'600 sick/disabled who lost/took their lives in 2011 due to the harsh regime that is the work capability assessment administered by ATOS/DWP.. We will remember them..

gf
You really are so gullible and trot out false figures. The TOTAL suicides in the UK in 2011 was around 6,000. Your figure is supposedly a sub group of that figure.

You need to be more discriminating about what you read and believe.

Hays making it up as he goes along as usual.

Another ESA-related death but the DWP wants us to believe there’s no connection

The latest person to die while facing a change to his sickness benefit is Neil Groves, who was hit by a train at Surbiton station on his 46th birthday.

Mr Groves died just after 7.30pm on February 13. His father Ronald, 78, told local paper the Kingston Guardian a potential change to his son’s Employment and Support Allowance “must have” weighed on him.

He said: “He has obviously had it in his mind. They basically told him that his assessment was coming up again.

“He knew it probably would be the end of his sickness and disability and he would go back on to [Jobseekers' Allowance].

“He said he would not be able to manage on that wage a week. It is all part and parcel of it.”

Mr Groves had received Incapacity Benefit for some years, his father said, which was stopped after an assessment, and he was not moved on to ESA.

He later won an appeal against the decision.

He had recently been diagnosed with chronic depression.

You can read the story on the newspaper’s website.

The DWP, in an email to the Information Commissioner that was copied to yr obdt srvt as part of the disclosure process for the forthcoming tribunal on claimant mortality statistics, has stated: “There is no evidence of a link between the death of an individual and their receipt of a social security benefit.”

Do you think that’s accurate?

Economy 'to hit 2008 peak by summer'
The size of the UK's overall economy will surpass its pre-recession peak by this summer, says the British Chambers of Commerce.

The DWP, in an email to the Information Commissioner that was copied to yr obdt srvt as part of the disclosure process for the forthcoming tribunal on claimant mortality statistics, has stated: “There is no evidence of a link between the death of an individual and their receipt of a social security benefit.

Absolute tosh and propaganda being spread by IDS and his miserable department.

I feel like committing suicide sometimes when I read this thread.:-)

Yep thats correct alders but what you have to remember is we are next to last in the race to get to the 2008 figure.

Just Italy behind us and FRANCE in front of us.!!!!!!!!!!

USA miles out in front.

SKY NEWS put the chart up this lunch time. And the analyst wasnt over bubbling with confidence.

Just goes to show Ed Balls was right all along.