Reply to Simon Stevens, author of "Atos Declares Coma Patients Fit' and Other Disability Related Welfare Urban Myths"

I wrote this to reply in the comments of the Huffington Post, but they limit the comments to 250 words, and well, I had a lot more than that to say, so here goes...

This is the article in question:

Atos Declares Coma Patients Fit' and Other Disability Related Welfare Urban Myths

And this below is my comment:


So much to debunk in this puff piece, where to start?

"I think we are being led to believe some health professional from ATOS has visited a person in a coma, took one look at them, and said yep, they are fit for work! I mean really?"

>> No-one has suggested that. But it is a fact, not an urban myth, that Atos have declared people fit for work because they didn't turn up for their assessment due to being in a coma or dead. Rather than ridiculing the reports, which are factually correct (no-one is being "led to believe" anything), you could accept that it points to a system which is so rigid, so computer-led, that it gives rise to ridiculous situations like these.

"Atos kills 40 people a week, or whatever it is currently." 

>> It doesn't do much for your credibility that you should be so dismissive of the numbers.
This isn't an urban myth either, although it would be if it were written the way you suggest. The reality is that many, too many people die within 6 weeks of being found fit for work by Atos. In this instance, I agree partly with you that *some* people have chosen to summarise it as you have, and this does do a disservice, IMO, to those who fight against this iniquitous system. However, yet again, it points to the implacability and rigidity of a system dealing with vulnerable humans which decides by clicking on this or that key whether someone is fit for work or not.

"It is clear to me it is not the Government nor the right wing media that ensures the language of benefit scroungers has been kept in the public minds but those who claim to be campaigning on behalf of disabled people, because it suits their agenda of victimhood and tries to close the debate of welfare reforms with emotive guilt tripping."

>> It may be clear to you, but you must live in a very sheltered and selective environment if that is the case. You will find that the scrounger rhetoric is in fact firmly embedded both in Hansard and the popular press, seldom a day passes without the Sun or the Mail (or both) telling the great British public at large that "75% of sick people are found fit for work", that "3 out of 4 disabled are faking" and so on. Please don't take my word for it, search the archives of these papers and see for yourself. These numbers aren't made up by the papers, they are passed to them by the DWP. The problem is that these statistics are false ones, based on manipulating the figures. (Please check the site FullFact for the correct ones, I'm not here to do the research you should have done in the first place before creating your piece of pro-Atos propaganda)

That this in turn should cause an increase in hate crime against disabled people is not something which can be categorically proven, of course. People don't get arrested for beating a guy in a wheelchair and say: "the Sun told me to", of course. However, it is a fact that it is rising, I see someone has already told you where to ask for further information, and it would be disingenuous to the extreme to suggest that there is no correlation between the increase in the attacks on the disabled in the papers and the attacks on the disabled in real life.

"The ILF closing and "The extremist groups would like the public to believe this will result in users ending up in residential care (where they are likely of course to be abused) without any evidence that this will be the case."

>> Your tone of derision towards disabled people shows badly in this paragraph, so let's break it down, shall we?

Which "extremist groups" do you refer to? I am not aware that Al-Qaeda has been bombing Atos buildings on behalf of disabled people. Have anti-Atos people in wheelchairs been setting Atos assessment centres on fire? Spread them with manure? Who are these extremist groups?

Do you perhaps mean groups which have been created out of the fear and despair following their Atos assessments? Groups of disabled people sharing the information to try and fight the system (legally!) when that system is already so skewed against them? Disabled people supporting one another when they get their few resources cut off at the whim of a faceless employee? Are these the extremist groups to which you refer? Yes, because nothing is more frightening than someone in a wheelchair or shuffling on 2 sticks, of course.

The users are likely to end up in residential care, that is a fact, and I fail to see how you can claim this as an urban myth. As the funds dry up and the local authorities have to find the money somehow, it is unavoidable that people will not be able to be supported individually in their homes and will instead be looked after collectively, which means residential care. I am at a loss how you can try to deny this.
Will they "of course be abused"? One hopes not, but your pitiful attempt at sarcasm fails in the evidence of the scandals which have emerged in the last few months. If you are not aware of them, I suggest you get out of your bubble and inform yourself. Or maybe you think Winterbourne is more of the "extremist groups" propaganda?

I wondered why anyone apart from IDS would want to try and dismiss the legitimate worries of vulnerable people, and then I read the comments, pointing out that you are in fact an Atos employee (dare I use the word "stooge"?) and at that point, it all becomes quite clear: This so-called article is in fact nothing more than yet another attempt to discredit disabled people at large, their carers, their support groups, and get them further marginalised and ignored.

I hope they pay you more than 30 pieces of silver for writing this. It will cost more than that to cleanse your soul, I fear.

Testing for Atos Miracles page...

Atos Miracles

Well, it seems to be working ok from here... 

I was just testing the link, but if you come across this post, you might as well go and visit them, they're a cracking page anyway! 

Another Facebook Horror Story? Are You Sure?

This is the latest one doing the rounds:

With the new 'FB timeline' on its way over the next week for EVERYONE...please do both of us a favour: Hover over my name above. In a few seconds you'll see a box that says "Subscribed." Hover over that, then go to "Comments and Likes" and unclick it. That will stop my posts and yours to me from showing up on the side bar for everyone to see, but MOST IMPORTANTLY it LIMITS HACKERS from invading our profiles. If you re-post this I will do the same for you. You'll know I've acknowledged you because if you tell me that you've done it I'll 'like' it. Thanks

Really? REALLY? HOW? Well, the answer is: No, of course not. As usual with this kind of alarmist stuff, it's complete and utter pap. For a proper explanation, please see snopes.com here.

But that's what gets me: every week or so, there is a new "caution" "beware" "hack, phish, virus" alert on any form of social network, not to mention the e-mails warning about strangers asking you to sniff something in car parks (yeah, because you need someone to warn you about that, right?), about a friend request that will wipe your hard drive, steal your cat and run off with your favourite mug if you even glance at it.

Come ON. I could understand when the Internet and PCs were shiny new toys and scary technology. I get that for most people (including myself!), it STILL is a mystery in many aspects. But look here, YOU don't have to know the technology, YOU don't have to understand anything about malicious scripts or .exe files and what not.

All you need to do is stop your frantic fingers hitting the forward button for 5 mns. Open a new browser window, and go to Snopes, or Hoaxbusters, or That's nonsense. Too complicated? Copy and paste a small portion of the suspect message into Google (or any other search engine of your choice) and see what comes up. Hint: It will be Snopes, of Hoaxbusters, etc...

Then READ what it says. Oh look at that, it's another rumour! Another chain letter, nonsense, hoax, call it what you will. Then DON'T send it on, or copy and paste on your status. Instead, copy and paste the link to Snopes, Hoaxbusters etc... and send that to the friend who passed on the fake info in the 1st place, and ask them to pass it on backwards.

I admit, the ones that get me the most are those who then reply: "Well, I did it just in case. Because you never know". Listen: there are more than enough real things to worry about in this world, do you really think you're doing anyone a favour by adding fake scares to it? If you have a technophobe pal who's just finding their way round the Internet, are you really helping them by scaring the crap out of them every time they log on? No, I didn't think so.

Hoaxers thrive by playing on your fears, your gullibility and your willingness to suspend disbelief when you read their messages of doom.

So, to plagiarise the Green Code: Read. Stop. Think. Check. Delete. Don't worry, if one of them were to be true, it would be all over the news, not just on e-mail and social networks.

Useful Links:
http://www.snopes.com/
http://www.hoaxbusters.org/
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/
http://www.thatsnonsense.com/

Bankruptcy, big bad wolf or fairy godmother?

So I hear on the news today that more people than ever, especially youngsters, are considering bankruptcy:

 BBC News Link.

Can't say it comes as a great deal of surprise. After all, when whole countries are defaulting on their debts, you know things are really, really bad.

What spurred this particular rant however, was the way it was portrayed on TV, with presenters and guests alike putting on sad faces, nodding gravely, tutting at how awful this whole situation was and urging people to seek advice before taking this drastic step, how it would ruin their credit ratings and therefore lives for at least 6 years etc...

But is it, and will it? Let's turn this thing around for a moment.

What is credit rating? Quite simply, it allows lenders to decide whether you are a credit risk or not, whether they should lend you money or not. That's it. It's a tool by lenders, for lenders.

Can you live with a credit rating that has been trashed? Simple answer is yes.
Should you live with a credit rating that has been trashed? Why not? It is, after all, just a few steps up from hiding or cutting up your credit cards. If you don't trust yourself not to fall for the next bargain you can't afford, then I assure you that not being able to get it on credit soon puts perspective on whether you really need it.

So, onto bankruptcy, the surest way to ruin your credit rating for the next 6 years...

First of all, forget the moral argument. I have had a bellyful of unscrupulous, dishonest companies telling me that *I* have a moral obligation to pay up when they are not prepared to treat me with the same amount of morality, adding charges at the slightest mishap, using dubious methods to collect and what not.

So, with this in mind, I am going to argue that (for example) for a student who nowadays is expected to get into £20+ K of debt before they even start earning, bankruptcy is THE solution: You finish your studies, collect your final  diploma, vacate your digs and walk into the nearest bankruptcy office, and get rid of that big burden of debt. Fresh start, from scratch, that iniquitous burden off your shoulders. Yes, you won't be able to get a car on HP, or a loan, or a credit card, or a store card... and that's supposed to be a bad thing? How exactly? Seems to me that, if anything, it will teach you to live within your means. Either you can pay for it and you buy it, or you can't and you don't.

Yes, I am aware of the flaw in my reasoning, that is my example student has had to borrow in the 1st place if he wants to be able to study and that goes counter to the "don't buy if you can't afford it" argument, but as far as I am concerned, learning should be free, so if you have to go through the student loan loop to get on the ladder, then it's fair game to borrow and default. You want to force people into paying for something that should be free, don't come crying when they use the system to get out of that burden.

We live in a society where the concept of being well-off has become perverted; it's not how much money you actually have, but how much credit you can get, and the sooner we learn to correct this vicious thinking, the better off we will be, as a nation and as people.