... on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Plans to spy on Disabled people’s bank accounts show Labour isn’t for change

Original article by Mikey Erhardt republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

The prime minister may have changed, but the welfare policies are the same | Anthony Devlin/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Disabled people are once again living under a government pursuing ever more surveillance of our lives

The Labour government is barely 100 days into office and even its supporters have been reduced to half-hearted attempts at optimism. But this ‘it’s not all doom and gloom’ narrative rings hollow to many Disabled people.

Yet again, we are living under a government pursuing ever more surveillance of our lives. Another prime minister is happy to subject us to increased benefit sanctions and reduced rights.

So much for the party of change. Keir Starmer used his first Labour Party Conference in power last month to make clear that when it comes to Disabled people, his government’s priorities are the same as its predecessors – namely “getting the welfare bill down”.

To this end, the prime minister will continue plans set out by the previous Conservative government to monitor the bank accounts of the 6.3 million people claiming disability benefits without their knowledge. The proposals are expected to be included in the Fraud, Error and Debt Bill, which was announced by the government last month.

Kieran Lewis, rights and migration policy officer at National Survivor User Network (NSUN), told openDemocracy that he is “disappointed at Keir Starmer’s repackaging of invasive bank-spying powers that we and so many other groups pushed back against under the last government”.

The NSUN – which works with people who have lived experience of mental ill-health, distress, and trauma – was a core part of the coalition opposing these powers when the Tory government proposed them mere months ago.

Lewis continued: “Surveillance of this kind is a threat to everyone, and those of us who live with mental ill-health, distress and trauma will feel its effects particularly sharply.

“The harsh rhetoric espoused by Keir Starmer, a continuation of previous governments’ negative messaging, has had considerable impact on Disabled people and other groups of marginalised people.”

Starmer’s conference pledge to “legislate to stop benefit fraud” may be a familiar rhetoric – but it’s one built on shaky foundations. Some 75% of Universal Credit overpayments recorded by the Department for Work and Pension’s debt manager system in 2021 were due to an ‘official error’ – meaning the government miscalculated the amount to be paid – according to new research from the Public Law Project.

The research also found that the subsequent deductions that the DWP inflicts following such ‘overpayments’ led 26% of people to report resorting to food banks. Almost one in ten said they had slept rough due to a deduction.

Elsewhere in his conference speech, Starmer vowed to be “a great reforming government”. Disabled people have already lost an average of £1,200 a year thanks to the ‘reforms’ of the past 15 years, including the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance, the Work Capability Assessment, Personal Independence Payment, the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, the two-child limit, and Universal Credit.

All of these measures have combined to leave the UK with one of Western Europe’s least generous welfare systems. Staff at the Greater Manchester Disabled People’s Panel, which runs regular peer-support group sessions for those navigating the social security system, told openDemocracy there is a serious risk that Starmer’s plans will lead to welfare payments for Disabled and working-class people being wrongfully suspended, forcing them to deal with burdensome appeals processes.

It is important to recognise that ‘benefits fraud’, which the Labour Party appears likely to dedicate so much time to, is a non-issue. The fraud rate for disability benefits is 0.2%. That’s far lower than the percentage of Labour ministers who took free Taylor Swift concert tickets this summer. When will there be a crackdown on that?

Ironically, Starmer closed his conference speech by saying that “every community” should have “the breathing space, the calm, the control to focus on the little things they love in life, not the anxiety and insecurity we have now.”

This is at odds with the experiences of the Greater Manchester Coalition, whose staff told openDemocracy: “We see Disabled people struggling to obtain much-needed benefits, and if obtained, struggling to keep those benefits.

“Having to already prove and then re-prove they’re not fraudsters, being assessed, reassessed and reviewed is a relentless often degrading, soul-destroying experience that leads many to abandon the process.”

This dire situation will only be worsened by the Fraud, Error and Debt Bill, which will massively increase financial surveillance and create yet another punitive, disabling barrier for Disabled people to contend with.

It will put many of us under tremendous stress and, as the Greater Manchester Coalition noted, could leave even more of us “isolated and particularly vulnerable. For some, especially those in mental health crisis, this places them in great harm.”

In short, Disabled people know this bill is not the way forward. If only our community had more music festivals and football games to invite ministers to – imagine how our social security system could look then.

Original article by Mikey Erhardt republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Keir Starmer confirms that he is continuing Tory policies and that he's proud to be a red Tory. — Keir Starmer confirms that he is continuing Tory policies and that he’s proud to be a red Tory.

Post author:dizzy
Post published:12 October 2024
Post category:benefits crap pretend Labour Keir Starmer Labour Party Rachel Reeves
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Post author:dizzy
Post published:12 October 2024
Post category:Uncategorized
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George Monbiot: Labour’s carbon-capture scheme will be Starmer’s white elephant: a terrible mistake costing billions

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/11/labour-carbon-capture-climate-breakdown

Illustration: Eleanor Shakespeare/The Guardian

This will be Keir Starmer’s HS2: a hugely expensive scheme that will either be abandoned, scaled back or require massive extra funding to continue, after many billions have been spent. The government’s plan for carbon capture and storage (CCS) – catching carbon dioxide from major industry and pumping it into rocks under the North Sea – is a fossil fuel-driven boondoggle that will accelerate climate breakdown. Its ticket price of £21.7bn is just the beginning of a phenomenal fiscal nightmare.

…

An analysis by Oxford University’s Smith School shows that a heavy reliance on CCS massively increases the costs of cutting emissions. By contrast to other technologies such as solar, wind and batteries, its costs have not fallen at all in 40 years. When I asked the government what guarantee it could provide that construction costs would be capped at £21.7bn, it gave me a woolly answer about “value for money”, but no such reassurance.

And this is just the start of it. Buried in an obscure ancillary document is a government commitment to pay a “premium” for the hydrogen component of the CCS programme for 15 years. How much will the total cost of this be? Again, no clear answer. Cutting cost-effective measures in favour of an open-ended, staggeringly expensive programme is the very definition of fiscal irresponsibility.

…

Starmer campaigned on a platform of “change”. But there has been no change from this demented Tory policy, no change in the influence of the fossil fuel industry, no change in the perverse justifications. And, I suspect, there will be no change from £50bn for this profligate CCS scheme.

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, talks of a fiscal “black hole” of £21.9bn. But this is a real black hole: a long tunnel into the rocks, down which £21.7bn and more will be poured. A more reliable and cost-effective means of sequestering carbon would be to bundle up the money (roughly 1,100 tonnes in £20 notes) and shove it down the pipe.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/11/labour-carbon-capture-climate-breakdown

Post author:dizzy
Post published:12 October 2024
Post category:Climate Crisis Climate Emergency Keir Starmer Neo-liberalism Rachel Reeves
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One year of Israel’s war on Gaza’s health system

Original article by Ana Vračar republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Al Shifa Hospital after a two-week Israeli siege, April 2024.

After a year of unrelenting Israeli attacks, Gaza’s healthcare system lies in ruins. Yet, health workers continue their steadfast efforts to provide care

After a year of relentless bombardment, Gaza’s healthcare system lies in ruins, and the warnings Palestinians have issued for decades are being confirmed: hospitals, clinics, and health workers are deliberate targets of Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). What was once a systematic campaign against healthcare has escalated into an all-out assault, resulting in the decimation of most of the infrastructure. As the one-year anniversary of this ongoing genocide approached, Israeli forces continued their siege on northern Gaza, intensifying their attacks on health facilities.

Three hospitals still barely functioning in the area — including Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan — were just issued so-called “evacuation orders,” which, as pointed out by Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), are nothing short of forced removal orders. Kamal Adwan’s director, Hussam Abu Safiya, stressed the impossible position the hospital faced soon after the orders were issued. With critically injured children in their care, no means to safely evacuate them, and no other facility able to accept them, health staff are faced with the excruciating decision of either abandoning their patients or staying at the risk of their own lives.

“In between the constant bombardment occurring on the hospital and the surrounding buildings, the healthcare staff have become terrorized to a point where they are struggling to do their jobs,” Abu Safiya stated. Their situation is similar to that faced in other health facilities. Around the same time Abu Safiya recorded his statement, medics in Al-Awda were also issued forced removal orders—for the third time in a year—says Matilde De Cooman from Viva Salud, a Belgian organization partnering with the hospital.

The risks health workers face are all too real. Israeli forces have systematically besieged and destroyed healthcare infrastructure over the past 12 months, including Gaza’s largest hospitals, such as Al-Shifa. Under the pretext of searching for resistance fighters, the IOF raided operating rooms, destroyed medical equipment, and abducted patients and medical staff. In the aftermath of the attacks, civil defense teams discovered seven mass graves containing 520 bodies on hospital grounds.

‘The Insurance Industry Is the Fossil Fuel Industry’:

Original article by Janine Jackson republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

CounterSpin interview with Derek Seidman on insurance and climate

Janine Jackson interviewed writer/researcher Derek Seidman about insurance and climate for the October 4, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Janine Jackson: As we watch images of devastation from Hurricane Helene, it’s hard not to hold—alongside sadness at the obvious loss—anger at the knowledge that things didn’t have to be this way. Steps could have been, still could be taken, to mitigate the impact of climate change, and making weather events more extreme, and steps could be taken that help people recover from the disastrous effects of the choices made.

As our guest explains, another key player in the slow-motion trainwreck that is US climate policy—along with fossil fuel companies and the politicians that abet them—is the insurance industry, whose role is not often talked about.

Derek Seidman is a writer, researcher and historian. He contributes regularly to Truthout and to LittleSis. He joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Derek Seidman.

Derek Seidman: Hey, thank you. Great to be here.

JJ: In your super helpful piece for Truthout, you cite a Washington Post story from last September. Here’s the headline and subhead:

Home Insurers Cut Natural Disasters From Policies as Climate Risks Grow:
Some of the largest US insurance companies say extreme weather has led them to end certain coverages, exclude natural disaster protections and raise premiums.

I think that drops us right into the heart of the problem you outline in that piece. What’s going on, and why do you call it the insurance industry’s “self-induced crisis”?

DS: Thank you. Well, certainly there is a growing crisis. The insurance industry is pulling back from certain markets and regions and states, because the costs of insuring homes and other properties are becoming too expensive to remain profitable, with the rise of extreme weather. And so we’ve seen a lot of coverage in the past few months over this growing crisis in the insurance industry.

*Derek Seidman: “The insurance industry itself is a main actor in driving the rise of extreme weather, through its very close relationship to the fossil fuel industry.”*

But one of the critical things that’s left out of this is that the insurance industry itself is a main actor in driving the rise of extreme weather, through its very close relationship to the fossil fuel industry. And in this narrative in the corporate media, the insurance industry on the one hand and extreme weather on the other hand, are often treated like they’re completely separate things, and they’re just sort of coming together, and this “crisis” is being created, and it’s a real problem that the connections aren’t being made there.

So I guess a couple things that should be said, first, are that the insurance industry is the fossil fuel industry, and its operations could not exist without the insurance industry.

We can look at that relationship in two ways. So first, of course, is through insurance. The insurance giants, AIG, Liberty Mutual and so on and so on, they collectively rake in billions of dollars every year in insuring fossil fuel industry infrastructure, whether that’s pipelines or offshore oil rigs or liquified natural gas export terminals. This fossil fuel infrastructure and its continued expansion, this simply could not exist without underwriting by the insurance industry. It would not get its permit approvals, it would just not be able to operate, it couldn’t attract investors and so on. So that’s one way.

Another way is that, and this is something a lot of people might not be aware of, but the insurance industry is an enormous investor in the fossil fuel industry. Basically, one of the ways the insurance industry makes money is it takes the premiums, and it pools a chunk of it and invests those. So it’s a major investor. And the insurance industry, across the board, has tens of billions of dollars invested in the fossil fuel industry.

And this is actually stuff that anybody can go and look up, because some of it’s public. So, for example, the insurance giant AIG, because it’s a big investor, it has to disclose its investments with the SEC. And earlier this year, AIG disclosed that, for example, it had $117 million invested in ExxonMobil, $83 million invested in Chevron, $46 million in Conoco Phillips, and so on and so on.

So, on the one hand, you have this hypocritical cycle where the insurance industry is saying to ordinary homeowners, who are quite desperate, we need to jack up the price on your premiums, or we need to pull away altogether, we can’t insure you anymore—while, on the other hand, it’s driving and enabling and profiting from the very operations, fossil fuel operations, that are causing this extreme weather in the first place, that the insurance industry is then using to justify pulling back from insuring just regular homeowners.

JJ: This is a structural problem, clearly, that you’re pointing to, and you don’t want to be too conspiratorial about it. But these folks do literally have dinner with one another, these insurance executives and the fossil fuel companies. And then I want to add, you complicate it even further by talking about knock-on effects, that include making homes uninsurable. When that happens, well, then, that contributes to this thing where banks and hedge funds buy up homes. So it’s part of an even bigger cycle that folks probably have heard about.

DS: Yeah, absolutely. This whole scenario, it’s horrible, because it impacts homeowners and renters. If you talk to landlords, they say that the rising costs of insurance are their biggest expense, and they are, in part, taking that out on tenants by raising rents, right?

But it also really threatens this global financial stability. I mean, with the rise of extreme weather, and homes becoming more expensive to insure, or even uninsurable, home values can really collapse. And when they collapse, aside from the horrific human drama of all that, banks are reacquiring foreclosed homes that, in turn, are unsellable because of extreme weather, and they can’t be insured.

The big picture of all this is that it leads to banks acquiring a growing amount of risky properties, and it can create a lot of financial instability. And we saw what happened after 2008, as you mentioned, with private equity coming in and scooping up homes. And so, yeah, it creates a lot of systemic financial instability, opens the door for financial predators like private equity and hedge funds to come in.

JJ: And it seems to require an encompassing response, a response that acknowledges the various moving pieces of this. I wonder, finally, is there responsive law or policy, either on the table now or just maybe in our imagination, that would address these concerns?

DS: There are organizers that are definitely starting to do something about it, and there are some members of Congress that are also starting to do something about it.

For this story, I interviewed some really fantastic groups. One of them is Insure Our Future, and this is sort of a broader campaign that is working with different groups around the country, and really demanding that insurers stop insuring new fossil fuel build-out, that they phase out their insurance coverage for existing fossil fuels, for all the reasons that we’ve been talking about today.

At the state level, there’s groups that are doing really important and interesting things. So one of the groups that I interviewed was called Connecticut Citizen Action Group, and they’ve been working hard, in coalition with other groups in Connecticut, to introduce and pass a state bill that would create a climate fund to support residents that are impacted by extreme weather. (Connecticut has seen its fair share of extreme weather.) And this fund would be financed by taxing insurance policies in the state that are connected to fossil fuel projects. So it’s also a disincentive to invest in fossil fuels.

In New York, a coalition of groups and lawmakers just introduced something called the Insure Our Communities bill. And this would ban insurers from underwriting new fossil fuel projects, and it would set up new protections for homeowners that are facing extreme weather disasters.

I spoke to organizers in Freeport, Texas, with a group called Better Brazoria, and these are people that are on the Gulf Coast, really on the front lines. And Better Brazoria is just one of a number of frontline groups along the Gulf Coast that are organizing around the insurance industry, and they’re trying to meet with insurance giants, and say to them, “Look, what you’re doing is, we’re losing our homeowner insurance while you’re insuring these risky LNG plants that are getting hit by hurricanes, and fires are starting,” and trying to make the case to them that this is just not even good business for them.

And then, more recently, you’ve seen Bernie Sanders and others start to hold the insurance industry’s feet to the fire a little more, opening up investigations into their connection to the fossil fuel industry, and how this is creating financial instability.

So I think this is becoming more and more of an issue that people are seeing is a real problem for the financial system, and it’s something that we should absolutely think about when we think about the climate crisis, and the broader infrastructure that’s enabling the fossil fuel industry to exist, and continue its polluting operations that are causing the climate crisis and extreme weather. So I think we’re going to see only more of this going forward.

JJ: All right, then, we’ll end it there for now.

We’ve been speaking with Derek Seidman. You can find his article, “As Florida Floods, Insurance Industry Reaps What It Sowed Backing Fossil Fuels,” on Truthout.org. Thank you so much, Derek Seidman, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

DS: Thank you.

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