Covid-19, the Climate Crisis and Lockdown – an opportunity to end the war with nature

Written by Vishwas Satgar and first published at the Daily Maverick

With the coronavirus, we are really trying to mitigate the revenge blow from nature. It’s a moment to be humble and realise our finitude in a wondrous and infinite natural order.

Covid-19 has pushed an already weak and crisis-ridden global economy over the edge. Massive value has been erased from crashing stock market prices. Many commentators are talking about the return of economic conditions similar to the great financial crash of 2007-2009. The most powerful countries in the world from China to the US have ground to a halt.

This pathogen, possibly from delicate creatures like a pangolin or a bat, has engendered the worst global pandemic since the Spanish flu (1918-1920), which killed 100-million people. Death rates are going up globally. Right-wing nationalists in Europe and the USA have been confused as this virus has jumped racist border regimes, and infected all populations. Citizens are no longer concerned about their racist messages, but rather about how to survive.

Governments all across the world are seized with the challenge of protecting their populations, at least that is what it seems like given the people-centred rhetoric. The geo-politics of Covid-19, engulfing the entire globalised world in its rapid spread, is also a shot across the bow of carbon capitalism. Elite consumption of exotic animals, at high prices, in Wuhan, China unleashed the swift and lethal revenge of nature.

This does not mean that this is a “Chinese virus” as the racist Donald Trump has suggested. We are all susceptible and are trying to live through the fear, paralysis and risks brought by this pandemic. Overnight, jobs have disappeared, paycheques have shrunk, loved ones are in critical health situations fighting for their lives and hunger is knocking on the door of many. Healthcare systems, weakened and commodified through decades of marketisation, have or will be overwhelmed.

Yet the very same elites that caused the problem are not carrying the burden of the consequences of their actions. For climate justice politics, these injustices are not new. Elite use and consumption of fossil fuels is linked directly to extreme weather shocks such as heatwaves, droughts, floods and cyclones, for instance, which impact those most vulnerable the hardest. Yet there is no consequence for those responsible and the fossil fuel industry, carbon-addicted states, and the wealthy carbon-based consumers continue as though climate science does not exist.

‘Black Swan’ event, or worsening systemic crisis

In the business world, Covid-19 tends to be reduced to a “black swan event”. A sudden or unforeseen happening, with great consequence and rationalised after the fact. The idea was initially popularised by Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s five volumes on uncertainty including the famous Black Swan, which has been described as one of the most famous books since World War II. While in his work, the concept has a richer philosophical grounding, it has become part of  everyday risk management discourse. Business risk analyses missed the likelihood of a Covid-19 pandemic and it certainly was not a concern. Its occurrence, however, cannot be explained as a black swan event.

From an ecological Marxist perspective, it has to do with the contradictory relationship between natural and social relations, has a historical genealogy within how eco-cidal capitalism works and can be causally attributed. Simply, for Covid 19, this means it’s a dangerous problem that is engendered by capitalism’s persistent domination of nature.

It spread from a “wet market” involving organised crime syndicates, linked to shadowy global poaching, and smuggling networks that steal wild creatures from their habitats and place them on elite menus. Avaricious Chinese capitalism, with its appetite for resources and capturing markets, like the West, understands nature as a site of extracting value; nature must serve the juggernaut of accumulation.

South Africans are now familiar with the appetites and reach of this capitalism due to the annihilation of our rhino population merely for their horns. Wet markets also exist in other parts of South and East Asia, and have not been restricted, leaving open the possibilities of new waves of pandemics.

For many years, epidemiologists and environmentalists have been concerned about the public health consequences of such markets, given that animal to human transmission of deadly viruses is a known fact and has been implicated in avian flu (from birds), MERS (from camels) and ebola (monkeys), for instance. These animals are also traumatised and kept in unsafe conditions.

In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro has unleashed land grabs in the Amazon – one of the most bio-diverse habitats on planet Earth. Industrial farming, mining, logging and wild animal poaching are ending the natural protective barriers between human society and ecosystems, heightening the risks of pathogens spreading, but in this case also contributing to climate change, given the role the Amazon plays in a planetary ecosystem to sequester carbon.

Climate scientists have already warned humanity that further warming of the Arctic, for instance, will not only release deadly greenhouse gases such as methane, but also pathogens that have been frozen into ice sheets. Like Covid-19, the worsening climate crisis and its global shocks, are not black swan events, but dangerous systemic crisis tendencies produced by a hard-wired logic based on the duality of capitalism versus nature. Science has provided us with understandings and warnings, and yet the global capitalist system persists in driving us towards harm and destruction.

Carbon capitalism and imposed collective suicide

A world led by those who place profit above human and non-human life, is placing us all in jeopardy. We are not given a choice as the eco-cidal logic of global capitalism destroys the conditions that sustain life. Our planetary commons – biosphere, oceans, forests, land and water sources – are all being commodified and destroyed to make a few wealthy.

On a planetary scale, we are living through an imposed collective suicide. As neoliberalism becomes authoritarian and mutates into the second coming of fascism to defend the wealth of the few, it is revealing a simple fact: It’s not learning lessons about the harm it is inflicting. Instead, it wants to defend at all costs a life-destroying system.

Karl Polanyi in the social science classic, the Great Transformation (1944), drew attention to such elite behaviour when the ship is sinking. In the late 19th century, based on marketisation through the gold standard, the world was driven into World War 1. Lessons were not learned and the world was again locked into gold standard marketisation in the 1920s, and this gave rise also to fascism and World War 2.

This time, we are all dealing with the failure of capitalism’s conquest of nature through treating it as capital through financialisation. The science on biodiversity loss, climate and water, for instance, are all unequivocal that we are breaching limits and surpassing boundaries that endanger everything. At the same time, the raw and infinite power of nature is gathering pace. The present generation of young people understand the dangers of this very well. One of my former students, an extremely intelligent and sensitive young person, placed this public post on his  Facebook page in the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak:

Tonight, for the first time in a long time, I cried. I felt everything inside of me: the depth and immensity of my pain, my sorrow, my grief, my lament, my worry, my confusion, my longing, my despair – I felt it all and wept, wept for the sadness I’ve kept hidden so long, wept for the loved ones I miss so dearly, wept for the suffering and uncertainty of the world, wept for reasons I don’t even understand.

Many of us weep for the collective suicide we are living through. This is not about victimhood, but about understanding the depth of crisis and the urgency to overcome this universal challenge of our extinction. It is a conscious knowing rooted in deep wells of pain, anxiety and existential suffering growing in prevalence among the young because of the collective suicide being imposed by financialised carbon capitalism.

Greta Thunberg and many of the young climate activists in South Africa such as Raeesah Noor Mohamed, Nosintu Mcimeli, William Shoki, Awande Buthelezi, Jane Cherry and Courtney Morgan, to name a few,  understand this. They carry their pain, their understanding of injustice as they protest.

But is the present resistance enough? The cry of 1 degree Celsius movements – Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion, #FridaysForFuture and the Climate Justice Charter process in South Africa – are all coming up against power structures and ruling classes not willing to break with the imposed collective suicide of financialised eco-cidal carbon capitalism. Yet in the context of Covid-19, not only are global populations shocked, but it has rocked, assailed and unhinged the very same power structure standing in the way of addressing the climate crisis. Covid-19 is forcing, even reluctantly, ruling classes to try to act with concern for life.

Lockdown and the ANC’s epidemiological neoliberalism

Covid-19 has thrown us into a state of exception. From a climate justice perspective, this is a dress rehearsal for a world that breaches 2 and 3 degrees Celsius in which climate shocks on a global scale imperil life-supporting socio-ecological systems such as food, water and  health systems through unbearable temperatures. Waking up then is too late.

This is the underlying premise of climate justice activism, given that climate science is telling us what is arriving with business as usual or low mitigation trajectories. With the Covid-19 crisis, our governments seem to be suddenly realising markets and corporations are not more important than human life. Is this the case?

The disaster capitalism of Covid-19, as Naomi Klein reminds us, brings forth profit-making opportunities even from the suffering of the people. Trump is leading the way. His first crucial move was to build up fossil fuel reserves thus keeping oil prices bolstered, then he unleashed the privatised healthcare system and is now keeping pharmaceutical companies “free” to manipulate the prices of essential medical equipment instead of repurposing production through the Defense Production Act. However, this is not the end of the story and struggles inside US society will certainly determine if Trump’s epidemiological neoliberalism will triumph or not.

In South Africa, we have been witness to a sea change from kleptocratic state and neoliberal austerity policies (including cutting billions of rands from health spending), announced by Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni, to cross-subsidise corrupted and failing parastatals, to the war on Covid-19.

The country is going into this government-declared war with a dualistic healthcare system, with the vast majority dependent on a public healthcare system gutted by corruption, mismanagement and austerity. This healthcare system, with these specific features, is what is going to be overwhelmed not just by Covid-19, but by over two decades of ANC misrule. The lockdown of South Africa has to be understood in this context.

Put more sharply, the warped rationalities of commodified healthcare for a few and failing healthcare for the many is clearly the frontline the government is trying to avoid in the country’s Covid-19 response. For most South Africans, in a state of shock and panic, this lockdown crash-landing of the economy on the wretched lives of a precarious working class and poor seems like the best response.

Of course, this shock therapy has been administered repeatedly since neoliberal strictures informed the first democratic budget in 1994 and the macro-economic shift of 1996, kleptocratic neoliberalism of the Jacob Zuma project and now the new epidemiological neoliberalism of the ANC. In this context, the so-called China success story of shutting down Wuhan peppers government-speak.

But the other epidemiological success story of South Korea is not referenced. South Korea did not lock down its economy, but put the emphasis on: (1) intervening fast through test kits produced (100,000 a day), on a mass scale domestically; (2) test early, often and safely (it has conducted over 300,000 tests), such that detection happens quickly; (3) contact tracing, isolation and surveillance, which has used smart apps, mass messaging and has prevented an overload on the healthcare system; and (4) enlist the public’s help. While not perfect and easily replicable, it’s nonetheless an important alternative to lockdown.

South Africa’s lockdown has not been preceded by mass testing despite the two-month lead time the South African government had since the outbreak in China. Even as the country goes into lockdown, the costs of tests are prohibitive, there has been no clear communication about international partnerships to get testing going on a mass scale, there is no clear messaging on testing details and grassroots civil society has not been mobilised, despite its enthusiasm to rise to the challenge.

Instead, the lockdown has shifted the focus to managing economic chaos, mitigation measures and privatised charity through a “solidarity fund”. Deep anxiety, fear and insecurity is running through society. South Africa is going into the lockdown as one of the most unequal countries in the world.

The crisis of socio-ecological reproduction is deep as expressed through high levels of structural unemployment, intra-African income inequality, hunger and water inequalities (54% of South African households do not have access to clean water through a tap in their homes).

Lockdown means South Africa’s precarious working class and poor are now responsible for solving the Covid-19 problem because they carry the burden. Lockdown is meant to save their lives while worsening their already wretched life worlds. Hence the ANC government is off the hook with this cunning move of epidemiological neoliberalism while taking Covid-19 disaster capitalism to a new level.

Ending the war with nature

Covid-19 is an expression of contradictory natural relations. On the one hand, it is devouring the most vulnerable in our society and, on the other hand, it is prompting humanity to slow down collective climate suicide. Carbon emission data is certainly going to register deep drops since the onset of Covid-19, with airlines, shipping, cars and other carbon-emitting technologies brought to a halt.

Covid-19 has achieved what almost three decades of UN multilateral negotiations have failed to achieve. If governments can take the Covid-19 emergency seriously, they can take the climate crisis seriously. The UN climate meeting in Glasgow this year has to open with lessons learned from Covid-19 to address the global climate emergency. In this context, South Africa will have to tell its story to the global public. However, there is a lot the South African government should consider as this pandemic unfolds, including its war-on-Covid-19 approach.

South Africa’s government declared Covid-19 a disaster in terms of the Disaster Management Act. It has unleashed an important coordination capacity in the state, preventative regulations, is disseminating information, has imposed a 21-day lockdown and introduced economic mitigation measures. The command structure is led by the president. The Disaster Management Act was not kicked into gear during the worst drought in South Africa’s history (2014-till now), which ravaged numerous communities, collapsed part of the globalised food system and pushed up food prices. Many communities still have acute water needs and are being challenged to maintain basic hygiene.

As Covid-19 transmission spreads, water-stressed communities are going to be hotspots as these are poor communities and very likely to also have many with compromised immune systems. If the drought was handled properly by the ANC government, water issues would not have been a problem now.

Moreover, if the ANC government did not get caught up in the tides of populism around the land question and listened to the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign, including taking seriously their Peoples Food Sovereignty Act handed over to Parliament, we would be sitting in the midst of Covid 19 with more communities, villages, towns and cities having localised agro-ecological food sovereignty pathways to cope with the current situation. Instead, we are living the drama of a war-centred crisis management approach.

The war approach to Covid-19 is limited in three respects and holds out dangers for how leadership is practiced now and what capacities we build in this defining moment. First, war works with a simple logic. There’s an enemy, militarise (build war-making capabilities), mobilise your society in the effort and deploy this to destroy the enemy. It is a reductionist way of thinking; it is not a systems view of the world.

Covid-19 is manifesting in our midst together with other systemic crises, such as economic crises and climate crises. Financialised capitalism has produced an unstable global economy and grotesque inequalities. It has not worked. The climate crisis is worsening with a lack of will to phase out fossil fuels and decarbonise.

We are facing a 1.5 degree celsius increase in planetary temperature most likely in the next five years, accompanied by intensifying climate shocks. These crises are interconnected, cascade into each other and push our socio-ecological orders towards collapse. A war mentality does not appreciate the interconnectedness of all of this.

Put differently, even if Covid-19 is addressed with war-like precision and the epidemiological curve flattens globally and in South Africa, we are not returning to a new normal. We are returning to a world in permanent crisis; a new abnormal. Hence, how we address Covid-19 and reconstruction after it, must lock in democratic systemic reforms that cushion us from more crises.

South Africa will need an eco-justice stimulus package to tackle the impacts of Covid-19, the economic crisis and worsening climate crisis. South Africa’s climate justice charter is a crucial point of departure in this regard.

Second, a war approach to Covid-19 is based on dangerous philosophical foundations. It continues the anthropocentric conquest of nature, central to capitalist thinking. Killing Covid-19 in this frame is about us being the dominant species. We demonstrate to the forces of nature our superiority. This is really a conceit which fails to understand that nature has been and will always be more powerful than us.

Moreover, we are extremely dependent on nature as a species to ensure our reproduction. With Covid-19, we are really trying to mitigate the revenge blow from nature. It’s a moment to be humble and realise our finitude in a wondrous and infinite natural order. We are just one little part of a vast and delicate web of life. Ending Covid-19 should be about ending the war with nature. This includes ending wet markets for exotic animals, ending globalised industrial agriculture and rapidly phasing out fossil fuels. 

Third, the war on Covid-19 keeps us bound up in an ethical knot and derives from deeply oppressive ways of thinking. Violence whether colonial, imperial, patriarchal, racist or eco-cidal is not what the world needs. Modern industrial scale violence that is calculated, instrumental in its reason and deadly is breeding a fast violence from nature. A violence we cannot match. Everyday violence of poverty and structural inequality has to be addressed as we come out of this pandemic moment.

Complex and holistic systems thinking, grounded in an ethics of care rather than war has to prevail. Put differently, if Covid 19 helps jettison the Thatcherite neoliberal subject – competitive, greedy and possessive individual – for a more humane state of being and solidarity-based society, it would have produced our strongest defense against a crisis-ridden world. It would have also affirmed an ethics of care for our natural relations that nurture us, feed us and enable us to have life.

Dr. Vishwas Satgar is an Associate Professor of International Relations, Wits. He edits the Democratic Marxism series, is the principal investigator for Emancipatory Futures Studies and has been an activist for four decades. He is the co-founder of the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign and the Climate Justice Charter process.

I, Daniel Blake – Reflections of a Former Jobcentre Adviser

I watched Ken Loach’s latest film, I, Daniel Blake, over the weekend. I have seen many if not all of Loach’s films, and very good they are too. I, Daniel Blake is no exception to this, and is like many of Loach’s films, Kes and Cathy Come Home spring to mind, a social commentary.

The plot is about a man in his fifties (Daniel Blake) living in the north east of England, who has suffered a heart attack. In the opening scene he is passed fit for work, at a Work Capability Assessment by an American health care company, employed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and so is taken off Employment Support Allowance (ESA), and put onto Jobseekers Allowance (JA). ESA is for people who are too sick, or disabled to be expected to work. Blake’s own doctor has told him that he is too ill to go back to work and would risk another heart attack. Blake submits an appeal against the decision, but has to wait months for a tribunal hearing.

The amount of benefit money paid by both of these allowances is exactly the same, but anyone receiving JA only receives payments if they are ‘actively seeking work.’ Claimants have to prove this, by keeping a record of job applications and job searches, as well as attend any events that their Jobcentre Adviser directs them to do. Attending Jobcentre appointments, on time, is part of the job seeker’s ‘contract.’ Failure to comply, with proof of job seeking or a direction, or being late for an appointment, leads to a sanction, which means that benefit is withdrawn from the claimant, for as much three years in extremis.

Blake befriends single mother Katie and her two children, who have been forced to move from London, three hundred miles away, to find social housing, and who is sanctioned because she briefly got lost on the way to the Jobcentre, and was late for an appointment.

As is usual with Loach’s work, the film displays a positive, affectionate view of the working class. 

The rallying around to help each other in desperate times, a social solidarity and generosity to each other among people who are being ground down by the bureaucratic establishment, but still manage to share what little they have with each other.  

Visits to a local foodbank become a daily occurrence, with long queues of people in the same boat. Katie, after a failed attempt to shop lift a packet of tampons, turns to prostitution to get money to feed her children. Blake eventually refuses a Jobcentre direction and is sanctioned, and is then arrested for spraying graffiti on the outside walls of the Jobcentre.

I spent some time working as a Jobcentre adviser, a few years ago, and the scenes from the Jobcentre are very accurate, and all too familiar to me. The period that I worked as an adviser straddled the end of the Labour government and the beginning of the Coalition government. During Labour’s tenure, many people were forced off ESA and onto JA, but advisers were given discretion as to if they sanctioned claimants. Life is not straightforward, people are fallible, things go wrong, so it is sensible to let advisers, who know their clients, decide not to refer them for sanction. This freedom was progressively removed from advisers under the Coalition government.

I didn’t see my job as making people even poorer, I was trying to help them get back on their feet, and I had a fair bit success of getting people into work. This became increasingly unimportant to the management though, once the Coalition government was elected. Sanctions were the only game in town.

I was as fair as I could be with people, and only sanctioned one person in my time as an adviser, I didn’t like doing it, but it was unavoidable, some other advisers were much more hawkish. This point is made in the film, one hard-line advisor, and one sympathetic (who gets in trouble for this with her manager). The actual decision on sanctions is taken by some remote official, and communicated by post. This diffuses the situation a little at the Jobcentre, but advisors know what the result will be, usually a sanction.

There is pressure on the lower level managers from more senior management, and this can lead to bullying of the staff, but senior managers quickly wash their hands of it. In the same way, the politicians lean on the top civil servants, and the message then goes all the way down the line. That is why the Tory government can claim that it does not set targets for sanctioning claimants. Strictly speaking they don’t set targets.

How it works is that Ministers will make it clear to senior officials that ‘they want the sanctions rules enforced’ or such like. The sanction rules haven’t changed from the Labour government days, although the sanctions themselves have increased. This is then fed down the management chain and ‘local’ targets for sanctions are set. It happened when I was there, doubled overnight. I hear it is much worse now.

Blake eventually gets his appeal date, but whilst waiting for the case to be heard, he has another, fatal heart attack. The statement he was to give at the tribunal, is read out by Katie at his funeral. It is very moving.

At the film’s ending, a burst of spontaneous applause broke out in the cinema, and when the lights went up, I could see people with tears in their eyes. How can all of this be going on in Britain in the twenty first century?

See the film, it has strong acting performances and it is an excellent counter-point to the Benefits Street image that is often conjured in the media.  

Now DWP Bullying Disabled Staff as well as Claimants

Another day, another critical story appears in the media about the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). Hundreds of millions of pounds wasted on the new Universal Credit benefit scheme and its associated IT system, claimants refused sickness benefits just before they die, claimant suicides soaring, caught out releasing dodgy statistics, ruled as acting illegally in thousands of cases of benefit withdrawal and its Secretary of State, Iain Duncan Smith, staring at Miss Essex’s breasts for twenty minutes.    

On top of it all, now The Independent reports that the department’s own staff survey finds that over 1,400 disabled civil servants have suffered discrimination, harassment and bullying at work. This represents a 23% increase in last twelve months.

The DWP appears unperturbed by these findings and in a twist of the truth claims, that the result reflects their efforts to get civil servants to report these incidents, so really they should be congratulated. You really couldn’t make it up.

I spent some time working as a Jobcentre adviser, which is where the vast majority of DWP staff work, a few years ago. I do have a small disability too, a hearing impairment, but I have to say that I didn’t experience, well hardly any, bullying personally.

But this wasn’t the case for most of the Jobcentre staff, I can tell you. In twenty years working at BT, before this, I hadn’t seen union reps worked so hard as they were at the Jobcentre. Not a single day would pass without the union reps attending some kind of disciplinary meeting with their members. One worker there successfully brought a claim to an Industrial Tribunal, for disability discrimination, and won damages from the DWP.

It wasn’t just disabled people who were bullied and harassed though, probably more than half the people who worked at the Jobcentre that I worked in, had one story or another of management harassment to tell. Bullying of the staff was rife in my time there.

How staff are treated does vary from Jobcentre to Jobcentre, I heard that X was better than where I worked, but Z was worse, so it was probably a pretty middling example. What appears to happen is the Jobcentre manager runs the place like a personal fiefdom, and some are more benign than others.

There is pressure on these managers from more senior management, and this can lead to bullying of the staff, but senior managers quickly wash their hands of it. In the same way, the politicians lean on the top civil servants, and the message then goes all the way down the line. That is why the Tory government can claim that it does not set targets for sanctioning claimants. Strictly speaking they don’t set targets.

How it works is that Ministers will make it clear to senior officials that ‘they want the sanctions rules enforced’ or such like. The sanction rules haven’t changed from the Labour government days, although the sanctions themselves have increased. This is then fed down the management chain and ‘local’ targets for sanctions are set. It happened when I was there, doubled overnight.

There was some discretion given to advisers in my day, because things are often not clear cut, and you have treat each case on its merits. Raising targets effectively removes this discretion from advisers, or they will not meet their local targets.

I didn’t see it in my day, but I have heard stories of advisers even setting up claimants for sanctions as the pressure to hit increased targets rises.

Unfortunately, the whole demonisation of benefit claimants by the government has been very popular with a largely ignorant public, who seem all too willing to believe that all claimants are work-shy layabouts. What a disgraceful state of affairs.  

Dying is no Excuse for Worklessness - DWP

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was forced by a Freedom of Information request into releasing statistics that show between 2011 and 2014 2,380 people who were declared ‘fit for work’ subsequently died within 14 days of the assessment.

The Work Capability Assessments (WCA) were conducted by the private health company Atos (now replaced by another private health firm, Maximus) for the DWP. The DWP fought tooth and nail to stop the release of this information and are now claiming that there is “no causal effect between the WCA and the deaths” because the figures do not record the cause of death.

Which begs the question why was this information not recorded by the DWP? Presumably, they think it is unimportant that these assessments were clearly wrong, because as far as I can see there are no plans to record this information in the future either.

If the DWP could be bothered they could even find this data now, as the cause of death is recorded officially when death certificates are issued for all deaths in the UK. They have no interest though.

The DWP under the leadership of Ian Duncan Smith has gone out of its way to obscure, massage or straight forward fiddle all kinds of statistics on welfare benefits from not counting Universal Credit claimants in jobless figures to not including claimants who have been sanctioned in the jobless total. 

Basically, any figures put out by the DWP should be treated with extreme caution, as they are likely to be a pack of lies.

Even so, I’m going to help the DWP out. Below is a list compiled by the Scotland based Black Triangle Campaign which campaigns for disabled people’s rights. This list is only up until October 2014 and only a sample.

Ian Duncan Smith and the DWP should be thoroughly ashamed, but experience suggests they will carry on in the same dishonest and callous fashion as we have come to expect.

Terry McGarvey, 48. Dangerously ill from polycytheamia, Terry asked for an ambulance to be called during his Work Capability Assessment. He knew that he wasn’t well enough to attend his WCA but feared that his benefits would be stopped if he did not. He died the following day.

Elaine Lowe, 53. Suffering from COPD and fearful of losing her benefits. In desperation, Elaine chose to commit suicide.

Mark Wood, 44. Found fit for work by Atos, against his Doctors advice and assertions that he had complex mental health problems. Starved to death after benefits stopped, weighing only 5st 8lb when he died.

Paul Reekie, 48, the Leith based Poet and Author. Suffered from severe depression. Committed suicide after DWP stopped his benefits due to an Atos ‘fit for work’ decision.

Leanne Chambers, 30. Suffered depression for many years which took a turn for the worst when she was called in for a WCA. Leanne committed suicide soon after.

Karen Sherlock, 44. Multiple health issues. Found fit for work by Atos and denied benefits. Fought a long battle to get placed into the support group of ESA. Karen died the following month of a heart attack.

Carl Payne, 42.   Fears of losing his lifeline benefits due to welfare reform led this Father of two to take his own life.

Tim Salter, 53. Blind and suffering from Agoraphobia. Tim hanged himself after Atos found him fit for work and stopped his benefits.

Edward Jacques, 47 years old and suffering from HIV and Hepatitis C. Edward had a history of severe depression and self-harm. He took a fatal overdose after Atos found him fit for work and stopped his benefits.

Linda Wootton, 49 years old. A double heart and lung transplant patient. Died just nine days after the government found her fit for work, their refusal letter arriving as she lay desperately ill in her hospital bed.

Steven Cawthra, 55. His benefits stopped by the DWP and with rising debts, he saw suicide as the only way out of a desperate situation.

Elenore Tatton, 39 years old. Died just weeks after the government found her fit for work.

John Walker, 57, saddled with debt because of the bedroom tax, John took his own life.

Brian McArdle, 57 years old. Suffered a fatal heart attack the day after his disability benefits were stopped.

Stephen Hill, 53. Died of a heart attack one month after being found fit for work, even though he was waiting for major heart surgery.

Jacqueline Harris, 53. A former Nurse who could hardly walk was found fit for work by Atos and her benefits withdrawn. In desperation, she took her own life.

David Barr, 28. Suffering from severe mental difficulties. Threw himself from a bridge after being found fit for work by Atos and failing his appeal.

David Groves, 56. Died of a heart attack the night before taking his work capability assessment. His widow claimed that it was the stress that killed him.

Nicholas Peter Barker, 51. Shot himself after being told his benefits were being stopped. He was unable to work after a brain haemorrhage left him paralysed down one side.

Mark and Helen Mullins, 48 and 59 years old. Forced to live on £57.50 a week and make 12 mile trips each week to get free vegetables to make soup. Mark and Helen both committed suicide.

Richard Sanderson, 44. Unable to find a job and with his housing benefit cut forcing him to move, but with nowhere to go. Richard committed suicide.

Martin Rust, 36 years old. A schizophrenic man who killed himself two months after the government found him fit to work.

Craig Monk, 43. A vulnerable gentleman and a partial amputee who slipped so far into poverty that he hanged himself.

Colin Traynor, 29, and suffering from epilepsy was stripped of his benefits. He appealed. Five weeks after his death his family found he had won his appeal.

Elaine Christian, 57 years old. Worried about her work capability assessment, she was subsequently found at Holderness drain, drowned and with ten self inflicted wrist wounds.

Christelle and Kayjah Pardoe, 32 years and 5 month old. Pregnant, her benefits stopped, Christelle, clutching her baby son jumped from a third floor balcony.

Mark Scott, 46. His DLA and housing benefit stopped and sinking into deep depression, Mark died six weeks later.

Cecilia Burns, 51. Found fit for work while undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She died just a few weeks after she won her appeal against the Atos decision.

Chris Cann, 57 years old. Found dead in his home just months after being told he had to undergo a medical assessment to prove he could not work.

Peter Hodgson, 49. Called to JCP to see if he was suitable for volunteer work. Peter had suffered a stroke, a brain haemorrhage and had a fused leg. His appointment letter arrived a few days after he took his own life.

Paul Willcoxsin, 33 years old. Suffered with mental health problems and worried about government cuts. Paul committed suicide by hanging himself.

Stephanie Bottrill, 53. After paying £80 a month for bedroom tax, Stephanie could not afford heating in the winter, and lived on tinned custard. In desperation, she chose to walk in front of a lorry.

Larry Newman suffered from a degenerative lung condition, his weight dropping from 10 to 7 stone. Atos awarded him zero points, he died just three months after submitting his appeal.

Paul Turner, 52 years old. After suffering a heart attack, he was ordered to find a job in February. In April Paul died from ischaemic heart disease.

Christopher Charles Harkness, 39. After finding out that the funding for his care home was being withdrawn, this man who suffered with mental health issues, took his own life.

Sandra Louise Moon, 57. Suffering from a degenerative back condition, depression and increasingly worried about losing her incapacity benefit. Sandra committed suicide by taking an overdose.

Lee Robinson, 39 years old. Took his own life after his housing benefit and council tax were taken away from him.

David Coupe, 57. A Cancer sufferer found fit for work by Atos in 2012. David lost his sight, then his hearing, then his mobility, and then his life.

Michael McNicholas, 34. Severely depressed and a recovering alcoholic. Michael committed suicide after being called in for a Work Capability Assessment by Atos.

Victor Cuff, 59 and suffering from severe depression. Victor hanged himself after the DWP stopped his benefits.

Charles Barden, 74. Charles committed suicide by hanging due to fears that the Bedroom Tax would leave him destitute and unable to cope.

Ian Caress, 43. Suffered multiple health issues and deteriorating eyesight. Ian was found fit for work by Atos, he died ten months later having lost so much weight that his family said that he resembled a concentration camp victim.

Iain Hodge, 30. Suffered from the life threatening illness, Hughes Syndrome. Found fit for work by Atos and benefits stopped, Iain took his own life.

Wayne Grew, 37. Severely depressed due to government cuts and the fear of losing his job, Wayne committed suicide by hanging.

Kevin Bennett, 40. Kevin a sufferer of schizophrenia and mental illness became so depressed after his JSA was stopped that he became a virtual recluse. Kevin was found dead in his flat several months later.

David Elwyn Hughs Harries, 48. A disabled man who could no longer cope after his parents died, could find no help from the government via benefits. David took an overdose as a way out of his solitude.

Denis Jones, 58. A disabled man crushed by the pressures of government cuts, in particular the Bedroom Tax, and unable to survive by himself. Denis was found dead in his flat.

Shaun Pilkington, 58. Unable to cope any more, Shaun shot himself dead after receiving a letter from the DWP informing him that his ESA was being stopped.

Paul ?, 51. Died in a freezing cold flat after his ESA was stopped. Paul appealed the decision and won on the day that he lost his battle to live.

Chris MaGuire, 61. Deeply depressed and incapable of work, Chris was summonsed by Atos for a Work Capability Assessment and deemed fit for work. On appeal, a judge overturned the Atos decision and ordered them to leave him alone for at least a year, which they did not do. In desperation, Chris took his own life, unable to cope anymore.

Peter Duut, a Dutch national with terminal cancer living in the UK for many years found that he was not entitled to benefits unless he was active in the labour market. Peter died leaving his wife destitute, and unable to pay for his funeral.

George Scollen, age unknown. Took his own life after the government closed the Remploy factory he had worked in for 40 years.

Julian Little, 47. Wheelchair bound and suffering from kidney failure, Julian faced the harsh restrictions of the Bedroom Tax and the loss of his essential dialysis room. He died shortly after being ordered to downgrade.

Miss DE, Early 50’s. Suffering from mental illness, this lady committed suicide less than a month after an Atos assessor gave her zero points and declared her fit for work.

Robert Barlow, 47. Suffering from a brain tumour, a heart defect and awaiting a transplant, Robert was deemed fit for work by Atos and his benefits were withdrawn. He died penniless less than two years later.

Carl Joseph Foster-Brown, 58. As a direct consequence of the wholly unjustifiable actions of the Job centre and DWP, this man took his own life.

Martin Hadfield, 20 years old. Disillusioned with the lack of jobs available in this country but too proud to claim benefits. Utterly demoralised, Martin took his own life by hanging himself.

Annette Francis, 30. A mum-of-one suffering from severe mental illness, found dead after her disability benefits were ceased.

Ian Jordan, 60. His benefits slashed after Atos and the DWP declared Ian, a sufferer of Barratt’s Oesophagus, fit for work, caused him to run up massive debts in order to survive. Ian was found dead in his flat after taking an overdose.

Janet McCall, 53. Terminally ill with pulmonary fibrosis and declared ‘Fit for Work’ by Atos and the DWP, this lady died 5 months after her benefits were stopped.

Stuart Holley, 23. A man driven to suicide by the DWP’s incessant pressure and threat of sanctions for not being able to find a job.

Graham Shawcross, 63. A sufferer of the debilitating disease, Addison’s. Died of a heart attack due to the stress of an Atos ‘Fit for Work’ decision.

David Clapson, 59 years old. A diabetic ex-soldier deprived of the means to survive by the DWP and the governments harsh welfare reforms, David died all but penniless, starving and alone, his electricity run out.

Chris Smith, 59. Declared ‘Fit for Work’ by Atos as he lay dying of Cancer in his hospital bed.

Nathan Hartwell, 36, died of heart failure after an 18-month battle with the ­Department for Works and Pensions.

Michael Connolly, 60. A Father of one, increasingly worried about finances after his benefits were cut. Committed suicide by taking 13 times the fatal dose of prescription medicine on the 30th October – His Birthday.

Jan Mandeville, 52, A lady suffering from Fibromyalgia, driven to the point of mental and physical breakdown by this governments welfare reforms. Jan was found dead in her home after battling the DWP for ESA and DLA.

Trevor Drakard, 50 years old. A shy and reserved, severe epileptic who suffered regular and terrifying fits almost his entire life, hounded to suicide by the DWP who threatened to stop his life-line benefits.

Death of a severely disabled Dorset resident, unnamed, who took her own life while battling the bedroom tax.

Greens Should Join the National Anti-Austerity Protest in London – Saturday 20 June

The People’s Assembly has organised what promises to be a big demonstration on Saturday 20 June start time 12.00 noon at the Bank of England and finishing at Parliament Square at 2.30pm. Nearly 65,000 people have pledged to attend on Facebook. The exact route of the march can be found here.

The newly elected majority Tory government has only partially so far, set out its intentions to continue, even accelerate the austerity agenda as pursued under the Tory/Lib Dem coalition over the last five years. What we do know, is that the following measures are intended to be ruthlessly enforced:

Slash a further £12 billion from the welfare bill – with in work and disability benefits likely to be targeted

Carry on with the expansion of zero hours contracts for workers and encourage other forms of insecure employment

Around half a million public sector jobs to be axed

Introduce more hoops for unions to jump through to call legal industrial action, making it easier for employers to get court injunctions to stop action

The further sell off of social housing which is already in short supply. These sell offs tend to find their way to private landlords eventually and are then let at far higher rents to tenants

Further privatisation of public services and new international trade rules to make it easier for corporations to bully (and even sue in secret courts) democratic governments into allowing free access to profiting from these services     

Talk of raising student tuition fees and taking more schools out of local authority control by turning them into Academies and Free Schools

Whipping up an environment of blaming immigrants for all of our economic problems

I know there is quite a bit of cynicism about the value of these ‘A to B’ marches for being ignored by the government, and I don’t expect that however big the protest is it will change the government’s mind on all of there policies, or even any.

This is typical of this attitude from Class War:

“CLASS WAR will be assembling at the bank of England but we’ll be staying there – in the belly of the beast. As thousand of marchers collapse from torpor and ennui and boredom – and that’s before they move off – CW will offer a clear alternative of radical action. At last you can chose between same old A- B boredom or be part of the largest angry brigade ever. Tough call.”

So, they plan to cause some trouble (non violent I hope) presumably at the Bank of England by the looks of it.

Meanwhile, according to the Telegraph, animal rights campaigners are planning to target the headquarters of Sainsbury’s, over dairy produce from the south west of England where a badger cull is being carried out.

I do hope that any of the more direct action type protests surrounding the main event do not descend into running battles with the police, which inevitably gets the media headlines. Violence is almost always counter productive. Do not forget as well, that the police are suffering huge cuts their budgets too, and some may well feel sympathy with the overall anti-cuts message.

There will be various blocs on the march, including a Green bloc, and I think it is important that Greens have a very visible presence on the protest, to cement our hard won image for being an anti-austerity party, not just an environmental one. Although there will be a presence from environmental and peace campaigners more traditionally associated with Greens, in further blocs.  

The broader aim of the event is to try and draw together the various protest groups, like anti-fracking and ant-war groups into the anti-austerity movement. Indeed, the huge waste of money that is the Trident nuclear facility could be put to more effective use with so many vital public services being cut, which is just one example of a shared agenda.

It should be enough to get people to this demo that this Tory government wants to pare back what is left of the welfare state and take us back to the 1930s.  

The weather forecast is good for Saturday, sunny spells and no rain, so do your best to attend this protest, which should be good fun as well as being in a noble cause.     

Why I, as a disabled person in a mainstream world, am voting Green

'Sazzy Activist' blogs LINK on the theme 'It's my life: Life as a disabled person in a mainsteam world'

As a relatively new member of the Green Party I have continued to educate myself on what the party I have chosen to affiliate to stands for, although I have known the importance of understanding politics and the active participation in debate for many years this is the first political party that I have affiliated to. As part of my participation in the local Green Party (Luton and Bedfordshire) I will also be standing for a council seat in my area (Clapham, Bedfordshire).

So why is this? Quite simply I agree with their policies and the general ethos of the party. You may have heard the phrase ‘for the common good’ being used when discussing the Green Party. This is what all Green Party policies are based on, and simply means for the common good of everyone and everything.

Hopefully you realise that all Green Party supporters aren't vegan, hippies that belong to a ‘Environmental Party’ and that actually there is much more involved in the Green Party. The environment does require looking after and I do believe that we should do more to protect it for our children, but this is only one aspect that has encouraged me to support the Green Party and become an activist within it.

If we strive to live by the ethos of ‘for the common good’ we come to realise that all aspects of life, be it human or other, are important to the survival of our world. We need to ensure that we build a society based on care, love and respect for all, so that future generations have a world they can enjoy and be proud of, not one of destruction and despair. If we don’t take care now it is the future generations that will suffer from our recklessness.

When undertaking research for this article I visited the website www.reasonstovotegreen.org.uk, this site asks you to select your top 3 reasons that as a voter, I support the Green Party. I began to realise how challenging it was was to choose just 3 policies, how can you choose when there are so many important issues that I hold as equal?

So why do I feel that the Green Party speaks for me?

As a women living with a disability, I continually experience inequality in all areas of my life. These inequalities have often been exacerbated  by successive governments making decisions made due to greed, putting profit over people. The Green Party looks to address these issues, rebalancing the emphasis back to people rather than profit.

As a women living with a disability I have continuously been disadvantaged in employment with low pay and very few career opportunities being given to me. This is sadly the norm in many cases, with people who live with a disability feeling unable to aspire to be more due to the limited opportunities available.

There are several ways in which the Green Party look to tackle inequality of individuals like myself and I aim within this article to acknowledge these further.

The Green Party identifies that the current minimum wage is not a living wage and they are committed in going further than any other main political party by ensuring that the minimum wage is increased to no less than £10 an hour by 2020. They are committed to raising the current minimum wage to £8.10 an hour immediately, to ensure an increased standard of living and equal opportunities.

This will ensure that all people in our society no matter what your current social standing is and whether a person identifies as having a disability, as LGBT or whether they belong to a minority ethnic group can be given equal opportunities. In a fair society equal opportunities are a necessity, without the support from all in society whether in power or people on the street equality cannot and will not be achieved.

As the www.reasonstovotegreen.org.uk website shows “the Green Party affirms that all human rights and fundamental freedoms apply to everyone and cannot be divided. Disabled people should be guaranteed the full enjoyment of rights and freedoms without discrimination. The Green Party is committed to the maxim adopted by the Disability Movement ‘nothing about us without us’”.

To ensure the rights of all people living with disabilities are met there needs to be a system in place that seeks to assist the most vulnerable in a way that ensures their support needs are being met effectively. As Gandhi quite famously said “The True Measure of Any Society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members”.

This is why the Green Party supports an NHS that is publicly owned and run for the people rather than for profit of businesses. This is especially important for all people living with a disability as they are identified as some of the poorest in society and through no fault of their own have the highest health needs and so they require a system that they can rely on when they are in their hour of need, rather than a system that they lack confidence in and is likely to fail them.

The Green Party are also committed to ensuring that they promote gender equality and safeguard women's rights through equal pay audits, shared maternity and paternity leave and to make sure there is better support for those women in greatest need. It is clear to me that the Green Party are taking the issue of Equality seriously and that as a result of this it is clear that the policies on disability, women’s rights and general equality issues can bring about real change for minority groups. The Green Party has led me to feel that as a women with a disability I have a potential to shape the world to be a better place and that my input is equally valuable.

The Green Party recognises that it needs to ensure the rights of all are protected and so this is why they are the only party actively against TTIP. It is believed that if this trade deal goes through then it will weaken protection for workers, consumers, citizens and the environment in the EU as well as member states and trading partners. The Green Party feels that Health, workers rights, agriculture, food, cultural rights and biotech should be protected by our trade deals, not sold off to private businesses that only interest is in making a profit. The Green Party strongly believe some areas including Health, pre 18 education and water should be protected entirely from involvement in any trade negotiations to ensure continued high standards.

Another key concern with the current proposals surrounding TTIP is ISDS which stands for ‘investor-state dispute settlement’ this allows businesses to take legal action against governments if they feel that the government has acted in such a way that infringes the trade agreement. There are cases already reported where businesses have taken governments in other countries who are already in financial difficulties to court and the government has been found liable for billions of pounds worth of compensation, putting profit over society requirements with businesses gaining more power. 

The Green Party is the only main party in England who are truly against austerity. They agree that extensive investment is required to repair damaged natural environment, restore infrastructure and develop re-skilling and retraining in socially and environmentally friendly production and services. Cuts to vital services are proving that austerity does not work with the number of people in poverty at a record high. The poorest in society are unable to afford the most basic provisions and so are becoming reliant on food banks, living in substandard conditions and unable to see a way out of the current situation that they have found themselves in. How can austerity be working when our most vulnerable, poorest people are being pushed into living in standards that we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy?

I may not have convinced you to vote Green in the next election just by giving you an explanation as to why I will be, but I urge you to do your research to ensure you to make the right choice. All policies are transparent on their website unlike any other party. Their policies are voted on by party members and not just decided by a few who sit on a central committee. If you want to be part of a progressive party that wants to bring about real change then please vote with your heart and not just use a tactical vote that will give you much the same as a what we have already.

There will be lots of people who try and argue that a vote for anything other than Labour is a vote for the Tories, this plays on the misconception that everyone's vote is equal. The truth is that the election is decided in a handful of marginal seats. If you are lucky to be one of those areas as a voter you are in a powerful position. 60% of seats are deemed as ‘safe seats’ this is not a reason to not vote Green, it is more of a reason to challenge candidates and campaign for change.

There is never a better time to vote Green, people are sick of the same old politics that comes from the two main parties and are looking to the Green Party because they like what they see. Are you going to vote with your heart and for something that you believe can bring about real change or are you going to continue to play the 2 party politics that has found us in this mess in the first place? Without people challenging this system nothing will change and you will continue to be disappointed and disadvantage by a system that just doesn't care.

If you still need to be convinced to vote Green please take a look at their policies so that you can make an informed decision about yours and your children's future.

https://www.greenparty.org.uk/

I hope you make the right decision for you.