David Cameron
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA
24 February 2013
Dear Mr Cameron,
Progress report on your time in number 10 so far.
Lord Freud, DWP and Atos, work capability assessment:
10,000 deaths before, during or after testing with nearly half of all appeals being upheld for the claimants. Cost of appeals: £25 million in the first half of 2012. Verdict: not fit for purpose. Failure.
Iain Duncan Smith, DWP and back-to-work-pogroms:
Court finds the regulations of enforced labour illegal. Providers, such as A4E, REED and Ingeus, actually reduced the number of ESA claimants finding work by 80%, and the number of 18-24 year of JSA claimants finding work by 74%. Cost: £5 billion. Verdict: Worse than useless. Failure.
Poverty in the UK:
The Trussell Trust, which now operates more than 300 food banks in the UK. In 2011/12, 128,697 emergency food parcels were handed out – up from just 26,000 in 2008/9. Verdict: Poverty and hunger are increasing. Failure.
The NHS:
You promised to protect the NHS. Section 75 of the Health & Social Care Act 2012 dramatically extends competition and forces ‘compulsory competitive markets’ on the NHS. Verdict: You have broken every promise you made about the NHS. Nationwide the NHS is falling apart. Failure.
Emergency services:
Fire, Police and Ambulance services are being quietly sold off. In the West Midlands alone, 1,000 staff have already been lost to the cuts, more than 2,500 jobs – a third of them police officers, two thirds essential frontline staff – could be lost as part of an exercise that has already cost the taxpayer £3million. Companies like G4S cannot offer the same skills as those losing their jobs to cuts. Verdict: Failure.
Education:
Michael Gove forced to abandon English Baccalaureate. Gove selling off school playing fields, but lies about the numbers. Leaked documents of the minutes of a meeting of top Department for Education officials reveal all academies and free schools in England, which are the Education Secretary’s personal obsession, would be free to become profit-making for the first time, and be entirely decoupled from Whitehall control. Verdict: Betrayal and failure.
Bedroom tax:
Westminster expects 5,000 families to be evicted by housing benefit cuts – and it’s happening almost everywhere. Councils have no choice as they frantically search for cheap housing, often hundreds of miles away. In Hull the bedroom tax hits 4,700 families with a spare room, and only 73 small properties free. 660,000 households expected to be evicted. Verdict: Vicious attack on the poorest people in Britain. Verdict: Failure.
Work:
You are stripping away workers rights and what you call bureaucratic red tape and promoting a fire at will policy. High street companies are failing at epic proportions. Verdict: Failure.
The economy:
George Osborne: With the loss of Britain’s AAA status, the economy is showing no signs of recovery. Osborne is presiding over the worst recovery in history. Verdict: Epic failure.
As the worst government in British history all that remains is that you are removed from office and your government thrown out on its ear as soon as possible.
Reference Material:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/371465/Deaths-warning-as-MPs-blast-Atos
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/379841/Rise-in-Atos-rulings-overturned-by-appeals
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/126555
https://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/17/iain-duncan-smith-shelf-stacking
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/129383
https://www.boycottworkfare.org/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/un-official-alarmed-by-rise-of-food-banks-in-uk-8498791.html
https://www.unitetheunion.org/news/cameronsbignhslie/
https://www.unitetheunion.org/how-we-help/list-of-sectors/healthsector/healthsectorcampaigns/unite4ournhs/
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/privatisation-of-our-frontline-services-how-police-1385838
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/michael-gove-forced-into-humiliating-uturn-over-ebacc-8484074.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2189637/Gove-admits-selling-school-playing-fields-previously-disclosed.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/secret-memo-shows-michael-goves-plan-for-privatisation-of-academies-8488552.html
https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/18/housing-crisis-bedroom-tax-failure-to-build
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/employment-law-reforms-are-attack-on-workers-unions-claim-8139430.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2064250/Radical-business-deregulation-major-reform-employment-laws-essential-economy-massive-boost-Cameron-argues.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9532950/Firing-people-will-be-made-easier-new-business-minister-says.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13977255
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/02/britain-looses-its-aaa-rating/
Keith Lindsay-Cameron