Attila the Stockbroker Performs the Levellers March and the Diggers Song

More radical songs for you to enjoy. This is another piece by left-wing pop musician Attila the Stockbroker, from dprkspacemarine’s channel on YouTube in a homage to two of the radical sects of the British Civil War. The Levellers were a radical group that demanded an extension of the franchise to the male heads of households, as well as state-supported schools, hospitals and almshouses. Naturally, they were far too radical for Oliver Cromwell and were duly suppressed after attempting an uprising in May 1649. However, their influence still remains in the Labour party as part of the continuing British radical tradition, though I can imagine Starmer, Reeves and the rest of them trying to play this part of British radical history down. Mustn’t frighten all those Thatcherites they want to appeal to. I gather from reading the comments that the Leveller’s March was originally composed and performed by Leon Rosselson, another radical folkie.

The Diggers were communists, who occupied the wasteland at St. George’s Hill in Surrey, declaring that it was now under their communal ownership and would now be cultivated by them, on 1st April 1649. They were harassed by Cromwell and the local landlords, but managed to last two years before finally fizzling out in 1651. They were supported by Gerard Winstanley, who wrote a number of pieces defending them. One is the song performed by Attila, while another was his pamphlet A New Yeere’s Gift. Attila goes from the Diggers’ Song itself to a modern song about the Digger movement, which explains who they were. This may give the impression that they were atheists, but I don’t think this was the case. Winstanley was a heretical Christian and the impression is that their socially radical views came from their religious beliefs, in which they felt that private property contravened the true spirit of Christ.

Nearly a year ago now I posted this video of myself trying to play the Digger’s Song. Unfortunately I hadn’t heard it performed at the time, and the music and the text of the song were printed separately. I thus just played the music without singing the lyrics, and then recited the lyrics afterwards. It’s not the best performance, but I hope you enjoy it.

Image of the Dystopian Future: A Chinese Rooftop Slum

I’ve been reading a number of books on SF art recently. One of these is Prentis Rollins’ How to Draw Sci-Fi Utopias and Dystopias (Monacelli Press 2016). Rollins is a British artist, who has worked on a number of comics for DC and Marvel, as well as various a couple of graphic novels. The book’s subitled’ Create the Futuristic Humans, Aliens, robots, Vehicles, and Cities of Your Dreams and Nightmares’.

The first section of the book gives some basic information on drawing – the face, proportion, anatomy, perspective and so on. But much of the book is his own pictures of various science fictional scenes, which can be roughly assembled into a future history. These show cities devastated by nuclear war, roving tower blocks on tank treads, humans exploring alien landscapes, and the aliens monuments they discover, spaceships, human and alien, and land vehicles, including the trucks of the future. One picture also shows a secret time machine hidden in a bunker in Surrey, alternative histories, like a noble British steampunk family, a war robot created to fight the Vietnam War, new Martians evolved from human colonists, but which don’t look remotely human, meeting the terran emperor. Finally there is a picture of Earth’s distant, utopian future, in which the landscape is dominated by a huge city unlike anything now built.

Each picture is accompanied by Rollins’ own description of how he completed them, taking you step by step through the process by which he transformed his pencil drawings into the superb finished art. He also shows still from some of the great SF movies and TV that have inspired him. This includes Star Trek and Star Wars, Metropolis, Georges Melies’ A Trip to the Moon, and the Alexander Korda’s 1936 film adaptation of H.G. Wells’ Things to Come.

One of the suggestions Rollins makes in the book is that as the global temperature continues to rise, humanity will move higher into the atmosphere to escape the heat. This will result in a network of Earth-girdling buildings strung out on miles’ high skyscrapers. But before that happens, there will be more familiar high-rise slums like this one he depicts for Shenzen in 2100. The Earth’s population has expanded massively, with people crammed into such high-rise cities. Water is desperately short, so it is used only for drinking. There is none to spare for putting out fires, which are left to burn themselves out.

It’s a chilling prediction, and one that is alas all too credible. Especially as Rollins shows the photos he took of contemporary Hong Kong which he used as reference. I’m putting this image up because I feel that it could come true despite international talking-shops on climate change and the environmental crisis like COP26. An event at which our own prime minister showed once again what I bumbling clown he is. David Attenborough, who had the misfortune to be seated next to him, and Greta Thunberg are right: we need solid action on climate change. But we aren’t going to get it from Boris.

Prentis Rollins’ book is a great collection of SF art from the imagination of one of the comics industry’s many great artists. Like many artists, Rollins also uses computers as well as pencil, pen and ink, and I think this may be a little beyond some aspiring SF artists. But the art is great, and should fire the imaginations of its readers and inspire them to create their own great SF works in their turn.

My Video on Gerard Winstanley’s ‘The Diggers’ Song of 1649

The Diggers were a radical 17th century Protestant sect during the time of the British Civil War. They believed that all land should be held in common, all men being created equal by the Almighty, and were firmly against both the Cavaliers, the gentry and the priesthood. They tried to set up a colony in St. George’s Hill, a piece of common land near Weybridge in Surrey, but their homes were pulled down and the movement squashed. One of their leaders, Gerard Winstanley, who advocated their political and theological doctrines in his A New Yeeres Gift, also wrote this song about them.

In this video I explain that before the rise of modern newspapers, people got their news through broadside ballads, popular songs written about the issues and news of the day. I got this from Roy Palmer’s excellent A Ballad History of England (London: B.T. Batsford 1979), which collects various ballads from 1588 to the late 20th century. Ballads were still being written in the 20th century, though the medium had changed to recordings rather sheet music. One of the last was about a dispute at British Steel in 1975.

I recite the lyrics and then play the tune given in the book. I regret I can’t sing and play the keyboard at once.

The lyrics are

You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now,

You noble Diggers all, stand up now,

The wast land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by name

Your digging does maintain, and persons all defame,

Stand up now, stand up now.

Your houses they pull down, stand up now, stand up now,

Your houses they pull down, stand up now.

Your houses they pull down to fright your men in town,

But the gentry must come down, and the poor shall wear the crown.

Stand up now, Diggers all.

With spades and hoes and plowes, stand up now, stand up now,

With spades and hoes and plowes stand up now,

Your freedom to uphold, seeing Cavaliers are bold

To kill you if they could, and rights from you to hold,

Stand up now, Diggers all.

Theire self-will is theire law, stand up now, stand up now,

Theire self-will is their law, stand up now.

Since tyranny came in they count it now no sin

To make a gaole a gin, to sterve poor men therein.

Stand up now, Diggers all.

The gentrye are all round, stand up now, stand up now,

The gentrye are all round, stand up now.

The gentrye are all round, on each side they are found,

Theire wisdom’s so profound, to cheat us of our ground.

Stand up now, stand up now.

The lawyers they conjoin, stand up now, stand up now,

The lawyers they conjoyne, stand up now,

To arrest you they advise, such fury they devise,

The devill in them lies, and hath blinded both their eyes,

Stand up now, stand up now.

The clergy they come in, stand up now, stand up now,

The clergy they come in, stand up now.

The clergy they come in, and say it is a sin

That we should now begin, our freedom for to win.

Stand up now, Diggers all.

The tithe they yet will have, stand up now, stand up now,

The tithes they yet will have stand up now.

The tithes they yet will have, and lawyers their fees crave,

And this is they say is brave, to make the poor their slave.

Stand up now, Diggers all.

‘Gainst lawyers and gainst priests, stand up now, stand up now,

‘Gainst lawyers and gainst priests stand up now.

For tyrants they are both even flatt against their oath,

To grant us they are loath free meat and drink and cloth.

Stand up now, Diggers all.

The club is all their law, stand up now, stand up now,

The club is all their law, stand up now.

The club is all their law to keep men in awe,

Buth they no vision saw to maintain such a law.

Stand up now, Diggers all.

The Cavaleers are foes, stand up now, stand up now,

The Cavaleers are foes, stand up now;

The Cavaleers are foes, themselves they do disclose

By verses not in prose to please the singing boyes.

Stand up now, Diggers all.

To conquer them by love, come in now, come in now,

To conquer them by love, come in now;

To conquer them by love, as itt does you behove,

For hee is King above, now power is like to love,

Glory heere, Diggers all.

Similar to the Diggers were the Levellers, another radical Protestant sect which was extremely strong in the army. They believe in the extension of the franchise to the male heads of households, which was dangerously democratic for the 17th century, as well as state provided schools, hospitals and care homes for the elderly. They still exert a powerful influence in the Labour party.

Here’s the video.

Vox Political’s List of his ‘Inflammatory Rubbish’ Articles Documenting Tory Attacks on the Sick and Disabled

This is the amended version of an article I posted earlier, when I had yet to hear from Mike himself about what happened. This was because his blog was extremely difficult to log onto late last night, so I feared Mike had been personally libelled by Stevens – he hadn’t – and that the internet was censoring his replies. It probably wasn’t either, but it has in the past.

Yesterday, Chris Stevens, the Tory councillor for Horley in Surrey, went off on a rant denouncing the articles journos like Aditya Chakrabortty and bloggers, vloggers and disability activists like Mike had put up describing how Tory welfare policies are killing the sick and disabled as ‘inflammatory rubbish’.

So Mike yesterday put up a list of some of his own ‘inflammatory rubbish’ articles to prove exactly that that is precisely what they are not. He states in his brief introduction to the list that it isn’t exhaustive, but it makes his point.

It may not be exhaustive, but it is a long, long list. And as you can expect from Mike, the articles come from reputable sources.

I’ve had repeated difficulty getting on to the article, although that’s been easier than the article before it, where he denounced and refutes Stevens’ rant. This looks to me very, very much like net censorship.

Here’s the link to Mike’s list of articles about the Tories’ chequebook euthanasia of poor and disabled.

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/11/11/inflammatory-rubbish-heres-a-list-of-this-sites-articles-on-tory-brutality-to-the-sick-and-disabled/

As for Stevens, I put up an article last night attacking him for his vilification of journos and bloggers like Mike, comparing him to Chris Davies, the MP for Mike’s part of Wales, who libelled him as an anti-Semite. These were based on the gross smears made by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, whose name is a deliberate misnomer. They are in reality an Israel lobby group, who were founded to manipulate public opinion after they found out that severely normal Brits despised the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the murder of Palestinian civilians. Very many of the people they have libelled as anti-Semites, perhaps even the majority, are Jews – secular, Liberal, Torah-observant or ultra-Orthodox. It doesn’t matter. One word out of place, and decent people are presented as something monstrous, close to Nazis. Even when Jewish critics of Israel have themselves been victims of anti-Semitic abuse and violence, as some of those who supported Mike in his struggle against this libel have been.

‘Michelle’, one of the many great commenters on this blog, told me that on Question Time Stevens was so upset that he shouted at Chakrabortty. This uncomfortable reality was too much for the delicate soul to bear. It’s all very reminiscent of the old joke about the incompetent vicar, whose curate one Sunday finds in the vicar’s written for his sermon ‘Point weak here – so shout’.

I’m sick and tired of Tory shouting and vilification. I’m sick of it from Stevens, sick of it from Davies, sick of it from IDS, Damian Green and the other murderous apparatchiks in the DWP, and heartily sick of it from Theresa ‘Goody-Two Shoes’ May.

They should all do the decent thing and resign. Immediately.

Get these b***ards out before they kill again.

Have the Internet Giants Censored Mike due to Tory Lies Spouted by Chris Stevens

I’m amending this piece, as I wrote it in haste late last night because I couldn’t get on Mike’s site to read his article responding to Chris Stevens’ denouncement of the journalists showing how the Tories are murdering benefits claimants as ‘inflammatory rubbish’. I’ve talked to Mike since then, and he’s managed to correct me on a few points.

Mike put his article up, which can be found at http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/11/11/tory-tv-plant-peddles-ugly-lie-to-hide-the-uglier-truth-about-dwp-deaths/ after last Thursday’s edition of Question Time, in which Chris Stevens, a Tory councillor from Horley in Surrey, was planted in the audience as an ‘ordinary man’. Picked out by the man Private Eye describes as ‘Dimblebore’, Stevens responded to Aditya Chakrabortty’s remarks on the deaths caused by the Tories’ policies to the disabled and long term sick as ‘inflammatory rubbish’. Chakrobortty is a Guardian columnist. Real journalists, as opposed to the hacks writing for the Scum, the Heil and the Torygraph, have to check their facts.

I thought that this was a personal attack on Mike, as I couldn’t get through to Mike’s blog. It seemed that the internet providers had taken Mike off the air. I got on to his website and read the long, long list of articles he put up refuting Stevens’ bilge about his documentation of the Tory crimes against the disabled being ‘inflammatory nonsense’.

Then I tried to get through to the previous article, describing Stevens’ smears against the many journalists and disability rights activists documenting this issue.

I failed to get through to it. And despite repeated attempts I couldn’t get through to his later post or his website. This was with Internet Explorer. I tried with Google, and had no more success with that. I was told that my computer was configured correctly, but the website could not be found.

So it appeared that Mike’s been censored.

Talking to Mike today, it appears that he probably wasn’t. He said that afterwards he had been inundated by people asking for his response to the show. Hence the long list of articles he put up, which, by no means exhaustive, extensively documents just how this government and its predecessor are killing the disabled.

All to give the rich 25 per cent a whopping tax break. And create a cowed workforce, which will accept any starvation wages.

It reminded me very much of how Mike was smeared by another Tory, Chris Davies, the Tory MP in Mike’s part of the principality. He smeared Mike as an anti-Semite based on the entirely false accusations and sheer lies of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, a pro-Israel lobby group that was founded in 2014 when the Zionist lobby got worried that severely normal Brits, Jews, Gentiles, whatever, were turning away from supporting Israel due to the Israeli state’s bombardment of Gaza. They have been responsible for smearing anyone, who raises difficult questions about the Zionists long and bloody history of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians, and their willingness, over and over again, to make deals with real anti-Semites and outright Nazis, ending in the persecution of diaspora Jews, in order to provide more prospective colonists for Israel. Very many of the people smeared by the CAA are Jews, ranging from secular liberals, to the Torah-observant and devoutly ultra-orthodox. So many, in fact, that Alexei Sayle, himself the son of Jewish communists, observed that it was strange that the majority of those smeared were Jews.

Mike was smeared because he dared to speak up for those smeared as anti-Semites. People like Ken Livingstone, who was notorious for his opposition to racism, whether against the Irish, Blacks or anti-Semitism. And Jackie Walker, a Jewish woman of colour, who aroused their ire because she criticised their attempts to conflate anti-Semitism with opposition to Israel, or at least its policy of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

The press took up the story about the smears against Mike, and asked Stevens what he thought of it. So, showing his utter ignorance, Davies opened his mouth and declared Mike to be a disgusting anti-Semite with no place in politics. Stevens knew nothing of the background to the story. He had not asked Mike for his views, or whether the accusations were genuine.

He didn’t even have the decency to ask the people Mike was at College with, who asked him to perform in a theatrical work they staged to commemorate those murdered by the Nazis in the Shoah.

And he didn’t ask Mike, or other members of his family, like myself, about our uncle Bill. Uncle Bill’s surname was Hyman. It used to be Goldberg-Hyman, which is, you reverse the order, an almost stereotypical Ashkenazi surname. But we and Mike just called him ‘Uncle Bill’. As you do.

And now we have another bilious ignoramus, who appeared on TV to claim that articles attacking the government’s merciless persecution of the disabled are ‘inflammatory rubbish’.

They are not. They are sourced, reasoned descriptions of an objective truth, which Mike himself has sought to publicise over and over again.

And Mike speaks from personal experience. He cares for Mrs. Mike, who has fibromyalgia, which has left her in terrible pain. Our uncle, Bill, suffered from Parkinson’s Disease, a terrible, paralysing illness that struck down Michael J. Fox, the star of movies such as TeenWolf and The Frighteners, and the TV series Spin City. Our grandmother was also severely disabled with Alzheimers in the last few years of her life, when our mother gave up her career as a teacher to look after her.

But Mike has suffered from censorship in the past. He has reblogged several of his articles, after he found that they had mysteriously disappeared from Facebook.

Just like the other left-wing bloggers and vloggers, who are finding their sites demonetised or flagged down as ‘controversial’.

This is how the Tories handle criticism, as does that section of the Zionist establishment that is totally behind the massacre, brutalisation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, and the contemptible vilification of decent, genuinely liberal anti-racist women and men. Simply because they include Israeli racism amongst the other forms, including anti-Semitism, that they have fought and, in very many case, of which they have been a victim.

I have nothing, absolutely nothing, but contempt for this censorship.

As for Chris Stevens, he has shown himself to be totally unfit to stand as an MP. In a party now notorious for its utter mendacity, he has shown himself one of the most mendacious.

He has to go.
Like his fellow Tory Chris Davies.

By siding with the CAA, Davies has shown how willing he is to adopt the postures of real racists, whose own language against Jewish critics of Zionism recalls some of the worst tropes of anti-Semitic rhetoric.

And Stevens has shown himself completely at ease with the Tories’ murderous policies towards the disabled, which have seen hundreds of thousands, if not millions thrown off the benefits that support them, and which has led to the deaths of 700 plus people.

If they has any decency, they should recant and resign. As indeed, should his entire vile government.

Vote for Corbyn to Stop the Work Capability Tests

This is the text of another of my table-top pamphlets, this time against the notorious Work Capability Tests. These were also introduced by New Labour at the behest of Unum and other private healthcare providers.

These are not objective tests to assess who is well enough to support themselves. They are simply a callous, bureaucratic mechanism for throwing people with disability off the benefits they need to support themselves. These have included severely disabled people, including terminal cancer patients in comas!

This iniquitous system has been retained and expanded by the Tories – David Cameron and his Lib Dem lackey, Nick Clegg, and now Theresa May.

It is killing people. As I’ve mentioned far too many times before, about 600 + people have died in misery and despair after having their benefit withdrawn due to these tests. Stilloaks, Johnny Void, Mike at Vox Political and DPAC have put together lists and videos putting names to faces, to show the human reality of these statistics – whose mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters were killed thanks to the Thatcherite insistence of cutting down on welfare.

The number of people, who have died after having been assessed as ‘fit for work’ is well above ten thousand, though the true figure may never be known. Mike and the other disability activists, who tried to get the figures were blocked by IDS and the DWP at every turn when they tried to get them.

Jeremy Corbyn has also promised to end workfare.

So vote for him. Don’t let the Tories kill more disabled people under the pretence of saving money.

Stop the Work Capability Test –
Before More People Die

by David Sivier

One of the very worst policies introduced by various governments as part of their campaigns to dismantle the welfare state over the past decade has been the Work Capability Test. This was introduced by New Labour in October 2008 along with a new benefit for the disabled and long-term sick, the Employment Support Allowance, which replaced Incapacity Benefit. The Work Capability Test is intended to show if the person claiming benefit really cannot work. It consists of questionnaire, in which boxes are to be ticked in answer to particular questions about the claimant’s health and disability. 2Ten of these tests were on the claimant’s physical health, and another ten are on their ‘mental, cognitive and intellectual’ fitness. There may also be a brief physical examination. The tests are performed by medical doctors working on behalf of a government outsourcing company. This was given to the French company, Atos, but the company was forced to terminate its contract a year early in 2014 following public anger at the system’s incompetence and maladministration. The contract was then given to an American company, Maximus. The tests may be repeated as often as the JobCentre Plus decides. If the disabled person scores low in the tests, they are judged fit for work. They lose their ESA and are told to apply for Jobseeker’s Allowance.

The tests are based on a monograph, The Scientific and Conceptual Basis of Incapacity Beneft, by Gordon Waddell and Mansel Aylward, of 2005 and a succeeding work, Is Work Good for Your Health and Wellbeing? By Gordon Waddell and Kim Burton. They were also strongly influenced by a 2001 New Labour conference, in which Aylward was a contributor, Malingering and Illness Deception. These led in turn to the publication of a Green Paper in 2006, A New Deal for Welfare: empowering people to work – an independent assessment of the arguments for the proposed Incapacity Benefit reform. Both Waddell and Aylward were professors at the Unum Provident Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research at Cardiff University, which was funded by the American insurance giant from 2004-9. The Work Capability Test uses a form of Bio-Psychosocial model of assessment, developed in America by Unum Provident. This model of assessment is considered to have been devised by George Engel in 1977. In 2006 a paper produced by Professor Christopher Butler and his colleagues attacked the model as ‘wanting’ and inadequate. Waddell and Aylward’s 2006 paper has also been attacked and discredited by Emeritus Professor Alison Ravetz.

Unum, and pseudo-medical testing actually became part of the disability benefits system twelve years or so prior to the Waddell and Aylward’s paper, in 1993, when the-then Conservative Health Secretary, Peter Lilley, introduced tougher testing designed to evaluate whether claimants were totally incapable of work. They had previously been awarded benefit if they were unable to do their job. Lilley considered that this approach was to open to sentimental interference by doctors, and so set up an ‘Incapacity benefit medical valuation group’, whose members included Dr John Le Cascio, the second vice-president of Unum Corporation. Lo Cascio had recently been seconded to its British branch, Unum Ltd, based in Dorking in Surrey. In 1994 Lo Cascio was appointed to train the British doctors charged with carrying out the tests by the Benefits Agency Medical Services. New Labour claimed that the purpose of the Work Capability Tests has been ‘to get people back into work’. This was always a misleading claim. New Labour had a ten-year plan to remove one million people from the 2.8 million receiving disability benefits. Their Secretary of State for Health declared ‘We know that being in work can be good for your wellbeing’, echoing the title of the paper by Waddell and Burton. 13 Years before that, Lilley introduced the tests with the aim of cutting £2 billion from the benefits bill.

And Unum itself regarded the benefit cuts as a great commercial opportunity. In their report in 1994, Chairman Ward E. Graffam was enthusiastic about ‘exciting developments in Britain’, saying ‘the impending changes to the State ill-health benefits system heralded in the November 1993 Budget will create unique sales opportunities across the entire disability market and we will be launching a concerted effort to harness the potential in these.’

Atos immediately decided that three-quarters of those in receipt of benefit were fit for work.16 Between the introduction of the tests in October 2008 and February 2012, the Department for Work and Pensions made over 1.36 million decisions on whether to award ESA following the administration of the tests on claimants. It declared 794,000 sick and disabled people ‘fit for work’. From the very beginning, the tests were criticised as being vastly inaccurate, and the treatment of claimants under it as cruel and degrading. ‘We Are
Spartacus’, a network of disability researchers and campaigners, denounced the way claimants were ‘wrongly assessed, humiliated and badly treated’. In response to repeated requests by disability campaigners, the DWP finally released the figures for the number of people dying over 11 months in 2011 while in receipt of ESA. 10,600 people in total had died. Of these, 1,300 had died after being taken off benefit following the decision that they were ‘fit to work’. Some of the people, who have died, committed suicide in despair at having their income terminated. One of these was a 47 year old man, who took a drug overdose. Others experienced a deterioration in their mental health due to the stress of assessment. Between 2008 and 2014, there were 600,000 appeals. This constitutes a third of all assessments, and in 2012-13 there were 465,000 appeals, with a success rate of 39 per cent. In some areas, lawyers had a success rate of over 80 per cent overturning decision by Atos against the claimant receiving benefits. 60 per cent of those, who had successfully appealed had scored zero. That is, Atos had declared them entirely fit for work. In 2013, however, the Conservative government took the decision to end legal aid for claims for welfare payment, which meant that fewer people would be able to afford to take the government to court.

In America, Unum Provident was fined $31.7 million in a class action lawsuit in California in 2003 for running ‘disability denial factories’. Two years later in 2005, John Garamendi, the California Department Insurance Commissioner, fined the company $15 million, declaring ‘Unum Provident is an outlaw company. It is a company that has operated in an illegal fashion for years’. The insurance commissioners of 48 American states had made a settlement with the company by 2006 that required it to review 200,000 claims and pay a $15 million fine. In 2008 the American Association of Justice declared that the company was the second most discredited insurance provider in America.

Despite public anger at Atos’ conduct of the Work Capability Test for ESA, the government in 2012 awarded the company another contract, worth over £400 million, for assessing whether disabled people were suitable for the Personal Independence Payment that was scheduled to replace the Disability Living Allowance in 2013. The Disability Living Allowance provided the handicapped with up to £130 per week to help them look after themselves. This was mostly awarded to help people cook, wash, and assist those with mobility problems. In the three years from April 2013 to 2016, this is to be phased out and replaced with the PIP, which is designed to get people back into work. The government was determined to cut spending on the PIP by twenty per cent during these three years, after the number claiming DLA rose by 30 per cent to 3.2 million people between 2002 and 2011. This was expected to throw 500,000 people off disability benefit.

As with their administration of the ESA fitness to work tests, Atos has proved to be less than efficient in its administration of the PIP. Those applying for the benefit may have to wait months before being notified that they are entitled. The cancer charity, MacMillan Cancer Support, stated that there were serious delays in the approval of payments. As well as leaving the terminally ill without this benefit, it also meant that they were unable to claim other vital benefits with which PIP was linked. As a result, some were forced in their desperation to take out loans from payday loan companies, which have a truly exorbitant interest rate. The number of problems with ESA dealt with by Citizens Advice rose by 54 per cent from 2011 to 2012, when the bureaux dealt with 450,000 of them.

Paul Farmer, the head of the mental health charity, Mind, criticised the tests for failing to consider the effects of mental health on people’s ability to work. In an interview with the Guardian in 2012, he said

The system is based on assumptions that claimants need to be forced back to work, rather than supported on their own terms, and that those not well enough to go back to work are somehow perceived as scroungers. These attitudes only serve to further damage individuals’ mental health and increase the time until they may be ready to return to work.

Richard Hawkes, the chief executive of Scope, another disability charity, stated that the tests ‘should be more than an exercise in getting people of benefits. It should make sure disabled people get the specialist, tailored and flexible support they need to find and keep a job.’ The House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee condemned the tests, stating that the system was so flawed it needed to be completely overhauled.

Guy Standing in his A Precariat Charter states that governments have been able to cut benefits for the disabled far more than for other groups, because they are a minority and so there is likely to be fewer objections to their treatment and lost votes. He also recommends that any firm hired by the government to provide services for the disabled should be bound by three commitments. The first should be to the disabled themselves; the second should be to the government; and the third should be to the whole of society, as the rest of us could be next. The employment contract awarded to such outsourcing firms should include penalty clauses requiring them to compensate the disabled claimant directly when they do not award them the correct benefits. This compensation should be much more than the benefits the disabled person did not receive. They should also be penalised for their mistakes. This would be a start, but it is not enough. The problem lies not with the companies administering the tests, but with the whole system of tests itself. The cause of the problem is attitude of successive governments, from John Major’s Conservatives, through Blair and Brown’s New Labour and then the Conservative-led governments of David Cameron, that the disabled should automatically have their benefits reduced, regardless of the poverty and hardship involved. The goal should be to provide benefits to support the poor and disabled, rather than cuts intended to reduce the tax burden for the rich. The Work Capability Test and the poverty and stress it inflicts should be stopped. Now.

Private Eye from 1995 on Unum and Peter Lilley in the Tory Government

As the left-wing blogs have repeatedly pointed out, the Tories’ welfare reforms, in which the disabled are assessed and routinely denied benefit for being supposedly ‘fit for work’, are based on the quack pseudoscience of the American insurance giant, Unum. It’s pet doctors dreamed up the profitable idea that any and every kind of work was useful in helping the sick and disabled to recover. This was enthusiastically taken over by the Tories and New Labour, as it justified throwing hundreds of thousands off disability benefit on the spurious grounds that they could work.

The results have been horrendous. Severely mentally ill people have been driven to the point of suicide by the threat of losing their benefits. Doctors and psychiatrists have seen increased numbers coming to them suffering from stress due to assessments. Critically ill people, including those dying of cancer, have been told that their benefits have been stopped, as they are well enough to work.

In his ‘Footnotes’ column in Private Eye’s issue for Friday, 16th June 1995, Paul Foot published this article on Unum, which had been brought into John Major’s Tory government by Peter Lilley. Here it is:

Doctor On Call

To help him in his bid to save £2 billion a year by slashing the benefits of disabled people, Peter Lilley, social services secretary, has hired the vice-president of a big multinational private insurance company which is using the benefit cuts to boost its sales.

Overcoming the xenophobia to which he so often gives voice at Tory party conferences, Mr Lilley has appointed an American.

Founded in Portland, Maine, in 1848, the Unum Corporation describes itself as “the world’s leading light in disability insurance”. Unum Ltd, its British arm, is based in Dorking, Surrey. It issued its annual report last September, when chairman Ward E. Graffam enthused about “exciting developments” in Britain.

He explained: “The impending changes to the State ill-health benefits system heralded in the November 1993 Budget will create unique sales opportunities across the entire disability market and we will be launching a concerted effort to harness the potential in these.” In January, the full extent of Lilley’s plans to replace invalidity benefit with incapacity benefit revealed to the Commons. Estimated “savings” for the year 1996-97 were £410 million; for 1996-97 £1.2 billion; and for 1997-98 an astonishing £1.7 billion.

Obviously, with so much less government money going to sick and disabled people, the opportunities for private disability insurance were enormous. No longer could people rely on benefit income if they became ill or disabled. They would have to fend for themselves. Accordingly, UNUM Ltd, as its chairman had promised, “launched a concerted effort to harness the potential”. In April this year, a glamorous and expensive advertising campaign coincided with the new rules for incapacity benefit.

One UNUM ad warned: “April 13, unlucky for some. Because tomorrow the new rules on state incapacity benefit announced in the 1993 autumn budget come into effect. Which means that if you fall ill and have to rely on state incapacity benefit, you could be in serious trouble”. Lurid tables estimating weekly outgoings for an average family at £276, and benefit under the new rules at £100, urged people to “protect yourself with a Long Term Disability policy from UNUM”.

Crucial to the new rules were tougher medical tests to find out if people really are incapacitated. The Benefits Agency Medical Services (BAMS) recruited a new corps of doctors to carry out new “all-work tests”. The basic change in the tests was simple. In the past, disabled or sick people were entitled to benefit if they could no longer do their job. From now on, people are entitled to benefit only if they can do no work at all.

The new medical tests were fundamental to the “savings” Lilley hoped for. If the tests were too lax – if doctors were allowed to slide into sentimental slackness in assessing peoples’ ability to do any work at all – the whole purpose of the tests would be thwarted. So Lilley’s department set up an “incapacity benefit medical valuation group” to “monitor and validate the quality standards for the doctors involved in the all-work assessments”.

The most famous member of the group is Dr John Le Cascio, second vice-p0resident of the Unum Corporation, who has recently be seconded to the company’s British arm. Dr Le Cascio was also invited last year by Lilley’s department to help in the extensive training of doctors in the new techniques of testing. The DSS stresses that “the doctors don’t decide the incapacity benefit – that is done by an adjudication officer”. No doubt; but the officer makes a decision on the expert medical information provided the tests.

No press release was issued about Dr Le Cascio’s appointment. No one told taxpayers that the DSS is shelling out £40,000 to Unum Ltd for Dr Le Cascio’s services in the year from October 1994 to September this year. A DSS spokeswoman explained: “This comes down basically to a daily rate of £440 a day. That’s cheap for a consultancy, actually”.

The Eye asked Dr Le Cascio if he agreed there was an absolutely obvious conflict of interest in his position as validator and monitor of tests for a benefit, the cutting of which was being exploited to the full by the advertisements for his company. He replied:

“Well, I don’t feel that way of course, and if I did I wouldn’t have accepted the job. I was brought in for a specific reason, and that is to teach some of the medical principles which are contained in the design of the new test – that’s what I do, that’s my area of expertise. I’m a technical person and I can do that. To me, there is no sort of conflict as long as I do that job. I feel comfortable doing it, and I assume that those in the department feel comfortable with my contribution. The reason they’ve turned to me is because the commercial insurers have been working with this sort of valuation system for a long time and that’s where the knowledge lies.’

It was thus Peter Lilley and the Tories, who introduced Unum and the wretched work capability assessment. New Labour retained and expanded them, but the ultimately responsibility lie with the Tories. And the results have been horrendous. Mike estimated that about 52,000 people a year have been killed through benefit sanctions.

All so Lilley could persecute the poor and sick, and his friends in private insurance could make a quick buck.

Press TV: Two More MPs in Child Sex Abuse Allegations

Press TV has reported that according to Sunday’s Daily Mail, John Mann, the campaigner demanding the prosecution of leading British politicians and lawmakers for child abuse, has been given the names of a further two MPs by an alleged former victim. According to Mann, the assaults took place in the 1980s. One of the alleged abusers is a member of the House of Lords. Mann has also said that there are a number of special branch detectives, now retired, who witnessed the abuse and whose testimony would be ‘absolutely critical’ in securing convictions. The detectives have, however, been silenced by the Official Secrets Act. Under its provisions, the detectives could face 14 years in jail and the possible loss of their pensions if they reveal sensitive information. Mann has requested Theresa May to waive the Act’s restrictions in their case to allow them to testify.

The story is 2 more UK MPs accused in sex abuse scandal , and it’s at http://presstv.com/detail/2014/12/29/392275/2-more-uk-mps-accused-in-abuse-scandal/.

Three things are apparent from this. The first is that occasionally something approaching decent journalism does get into the Daily Mail, though that hardly exonerates the newspaper for the rest of the rubbish it runs demonising the poor, the unemployed, the sick, the disabled, the working class, and just about everybody who doesn’t have an income under £50,000, and isn’t in the buy-to-let business.

The second, and much more important point, is how the Official Secrets Act has been used to suppress the news of these horrific crimes and preserve the careers of these extremely well-placed perpetrators. It adds further support for the claim of the Surrey newspaper that when they wanted to run a story on the establishment paedophile ring, they were told not to by the MOD, who slapped a ‘D’ notice on them.

The third is that this story is being run by Press TV, the official news agency of Iran. The Islamic Republic is very far from anyone’s idea of democracy. It’s corrupt and oppressive. Nevertheless, it is providing news that we should also be getting from our own establishment news organisations, like the BBC. This has just confirmed my opinion that the BBC’s boast that it provides censored news stories to countries around the world, where the media is strictly controlled and politically awkward stories suppressed, has now been reversed. Under the Tories, the BBC is now censoring domestic news, and British citizens are having to turn to foreign news agencies, such as Press TV and Russia Today, for British news that the domestic establishment is trying to suppress.

I can also remember being told by Iranian friends in the 1990s, when stories of child abuse by Christian clergy emerged, that they considered Iran to be better than Britain in this respect. One of the mullahs – the Muslim clergy in Iran – had been executed after being convicted of child abuse. The Iranian theocracy is still extremely corrupt, but these allegations show that they have no monopoly on corruption, and at least in that case were capable of prosecuting and punishing highly placed perpetrators.

Radical Balladry and Tunes for Toilers: The Diggers’ Christmas Carol

Not only has Jess provided the words to tune of the Diggers’ Song, which I posted this morning and which I’ve put up in my last post, but she also sent the lyrics for another Digger Song, The Diggers’ Christmas Carol. This expresses the Diggers’ hatred for the forces they felt were oppressing society and preventing humanity from enjoying true fraternal love, in which the Earth and its fruits and bounty would be held in common. These were priests, and the tithes which supported them, lawyers, the manorial lords and the monarchy itself. Lawyers were resented because it was felt that they were venal and exploitative, prolonging and exacerbating disputes in order to fleece their clients. Lastly, the people were oppressed by the feudal lords and the monarchy, who owed their position in society only to their descent from the Normans, who conquered England in 1066. This followed the standard 17th century liberal view that feudalism was a result of the Norman Conquest. It’s not actually true. Anglo-Saxon England was also a feudal state, though rather less developed. Nevertheless, this view of the origins of the feudal aristocracy continued as part of the Liberal view of history into the 19th century. The Diggers rejected the aristocracy and feudal rule, not just because of the injustice of elite, oligarchical rule, but also because the aristocracy’s tile to the land was based on warfare and violence, something the Diggers themselves profoundly detested.

Here are the lyrics, as Jess has given them. She also mentions the work of Christopher Hill and Andrew Hopton and his Aporia Press, who have published editions of Gerrard Winstanley and other Digger writings.

This, though, is not usually included in ‘Digger Collections

“The Diggers Christmass-Caroll.

This for a Christmasse-Caroll was invented,
Which here unto your view is now presented;
‘Twas writ at that time which you Christmasse call
And had come forth then; but this is all
The reason why it came not forth before,
Because we thought for to have added more.
Accept of this therefore with all thy heart,
Thou maist hereafter see a Second part.

To the Tune of the Spanish Gypsie.

1.
You people which be wise,
Will Freedom highly prise;
For experience you have
What ’tis to be a slave:
This have you been all your life long,
But chiefly since the Wars begun.
2.
When great Men disagree
About Supremacy,
Then doe they warn poor men
To aid and assist them
In setting up their self-will power,
And thus they doe the poor devour.
3.
Yet they cunningly pretend
They have no other end
But to set the poor Free
From all their slavery:
And thus they do the poor deceive,
In making them such things believe.
4.
Their blinde Guides will not spare,
These things for to declare;
Ye they aloud will cry,
Stand for your liberty;
The Gospel that lyes at the stake;
Rise therefore ’tis time to awake.
5.
The Priests very sensible be,
If the poor their Liberty see;
Their Tythe-plundring trade will fall,
And then farewell Tythes all.
Then would they not be finely fed,
But they must work for their own bread.
6.
The King an Army did gain,
His power for to maintain;
That Army did pretend
For to be England’s friend,
In saving of their Libertie
Which lay at stake and like to die.
7.
Another Army then
Was raised by mighty Men,
That Army to oppose,
Looking on them as Foes:
Likewise these powers did agree
To make the English Nation free.
8.
A Covenant they did take,
And promises they did make
All burthens to remove,
And to unite in love;
Yet we cannot see that good hour,
The taking down of Kingly power.
9.
The Nation willingly
Did maintain this Army,
Their Freedom for to gain;
But as yet all in vain:
For still a Kingly power doth stand
In many persons of this Land.
10.
A Kingly power I say
Doth in most men bare sway,
But chiefly in Lords of Mannors,
And in the Priests and Lawyers:
This Kingly power is their Self-will,
Which in this manner they do fulfill.
11.
The Priests they tyrannize,
By taking of the Tythes;
The poor they much oppresse
By their pride and idlenesse:
No Scripture warrant they can show,
Why any of these things they do.
12.
Therefore I pray consider,
And lay your heads together;
For you will never thrive,
Whilst Priests do gain the Tythe.
But let them work as well as you,
For Reason bids them so to do.
13.
They neither plow nor sow,
Nor do they reap or mow,
Nor any seed do finde,
But Priests the people grinde:
The tenth of all things they do crave;
And thus each man is made a slave.
14.
The Lawyers they are next,
By whom the poor are vext;
Their practice is most base,
For they will plead mens Case,
According to the length o’th’ Purse,
And so the Lawyers prove a Curse.
15.
Another trick they have,
The Nation to inslave;
Mens quarrels they’ll maintain,
Their Moneys for to gain:
Therefore if Lawyers you uphold,
They’l cheat you of your silver & gold.
16.
Therefore my brethren dear,
The Lawyers quite Cashiere;
Go not to them for Law,
For they your sides will claw;
They’l tell you that your case is good,
When they doe mean to suck your blood.
17.
Therefore be rul’d by me,
And do not Lawyers Fee,
But end your suits at home,
Lest you be overthrown;
For if Lawyers gain your estate,
You may repent when ’tis too late.
18.
Besides the Priests and Lawyers,
There be the Lords of Mannors,
Who lay claim to waste Land,
Which by blood-shed was gain’d;
For Duke William the Norman King,
By much bloodshed this land did win.
19.
When he this Land had gain’d,
He presently Ordain’d,
That his chief Souldiers should
This Land by parcels hold,
Owning him to be the Supream,
In paying tribute unto him.
20.
From hence came Lords of Mannors,
VVith Fines, quit-Rents and Heriots,
And all such cursed things,
Which are payed to these Kings:
And thus the people be broughtdown
By Lords of Mannors who wear the Crown.
21.
The Lords of Mannors, I say,
Do bear a mighty sway;
The Common Lands they hold,
Herein they are too bold:
They will not suffer men to till
The comon Lands, by their good wil.
22.
But Lords of Mannors must know,
Their title to Commons is low;
For why their title came in
By WILLIAM the Norman King.
But now the Norman successor is dead,
Their Royalty to th’ Commons is fled.
23.
Therefore let me advise
All those which Freedom prise,
To Till each Heath and Plain,
For this will Freedom gain:
Heriots and Fines this will expell,
A bondage great men know full well.
24.
For we do plainly see,
The Sword will not set’s free,
But bondage is increased,
Because our wealth is wasted
By paying Taxes and Free-quarter,
Expecting Freedom would com after.
25.
But Freedom is not wonn,
Neither by Sword nor Gunn:
Though we have eight years stay’d,
And have our Moneys pay’d:
Then Clubs and Diamonds cast away,
For Harts & Spades must win the day. ”

Robert Coster; “The Diggers mirth or, certain verses composed and fitted to tunes, for the delight and recreation of all those who dig, or own that work, in the Commonwealth of England. Wherein is shewed how the kingly power doth still reign in severall sorts of men. With a hint of that freedom which shall come, when the father shall reign alone in his Son. Set forth by those who were the original of that so righteous a work, and continue still successful therein at Cobham in Surrey. ”

Christopher Hill edited a selection of Winstanley’s work “The |Law of Freedom”, 1973. But mention should also be made of Andrew Hopton’s “Selected Writings of Gerard Winstanley, 1989.

Hopton’s publishing venture, Aporia Press, reprinted many scarce and otherwise unobtainable tracts from the Thomason Collection.
http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/prbooks/thomason/thomasoncivilwar.html

One of the bizarre works of 17th century mysticism from the British Civil War, A Fiery Flying Roll, published by Aporia, was for a long time one of the items listed in the Counterproductions’ catalogue. Counterproductions were a radical London bookshop, specialising in Anarchist and radical artistic literature – Decadent, Dada and Surrealist, as well as contemporary fringe literature and general high weirdness. Another of Aporia’s items which was also included in their catalogue was a radical appeal to stop people enlisting in the army for Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland. That’s important, and it’s a pity more people didn’t take heed of it, as then the atrocities Cromwell committed against the Irish people would never have occurred, and relations between Britain and the Emerald Isle would have been just that bit better.

Radical Balladry and Tunes for Toilers: Diggers’ Song

This is another tune from Roy Palmer’s A Ballad History of England. Like the others I’ve posted up, I don’t the words for it. Its place amongst the other ballads, which I copied from Roy’s book, suggests that it comes from the seventeenth century. So, I wonder if it’s about the Diggers, the Civil War Communist movement, that attempted to set up an ideal community on common land at St. George’s Hill in Surrey in 1649. They were inspired by Gerrard Winstanley, a cloth trader and farm labourer, whose Communist ideas were based on his radical mysticism, in which he hailed Christ as ‘the head Leveller’. The Digger movement was eventually suppressed by the local landlords, who destroyed the colony’s crops.

They and the Levellers still exert a certain influence on British Socialism and radicalism today. There was a drama documentary about them made by one of the radical British directors in the 1970s. This is still available on DVD from the British Film Institute, I believe. I have seen copies around in various record and DVD stores, so it’s definitely still around, if you’re interested. More recently, the British film, A Field in England, was released the other year. Set in the Civil War, it was about the debates over society, politics and religion of the period through the perspective of the local characters debating what they should do over a particular field. Possibly not one of the most exciting ideas for a film, it was nevertheless praised by the critics for its ability to create drama and tension through skilful direction and camera work. I’ve also got a feeling that amongst the great British thesps starring in the movie was Sean Bean, best known as ‘Sharpe’ from the series of books and TV series set in the Napoleonic Wars.

An excerpt from Winstanley’s A New-Yeers Gift for the Parliament and Armie of 1650 is included in the collection of 17th century political texts, Divine Right and Democracy: An Anthology of Political Writing in Stuart England, ed. by David Wootton, (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1986) 317-332.

On the other hand, the tune could simply be about people who have to dig for their living, rather than the radical political movement. In which case, it’s still interesting as another document on working class life from that period.