In December last year, David Cameron announced that it was: “simply a waste to have a health service like the NHS and not use the data it generated. Let me be clear, this does not threaten privacy”, he reassured us, “it doesn’t mean anyone can look at your health records, but it does mean using anonymous data to make new medical breakthroughs”.
Cameron often inadvertently signposts the coming of a diabolical lie with the phrase “let me be clear”, as we know. We also know that so-called anonymisation of data offers no protection at all to identities and personal details. Campaigners described the plan as “unprecedented threat” to confidentiality, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says, rather worryingly, that it will be a boon to research.
It’s common knowledge that many Coalition MPs and Peers are heavily financially invested in pharmaceutical and health care companies. Over 200 parliamentarians have recent past or present financial links with, and vested interests in companies involved in healthcare and all were allowed to vote on the Health and Social Care Bill. The Tories have normalised corruption and made it almost entirely legal. Our democracy and civic life are now profoundly compromised as a result of corporate and financial power colonising the State, and vice versa.
So we must ponder just how coincidental it is that Jobseekers are now being coerced into experimental drug trials, or risk benefit sanctions, as the trials are being dressed up as “job opportunities”.
People claiming Jobseekers Allowance while searching for new employment are being forced to accept ever worsening working conditions or join exploitative Government work programmes in desperate attempts to survive, as our civilised social safety nets and lifeline benefits are being torn away by a draconian and authoritarian Government.
The rising number of unemployed and underemployed citizens of the UK are having their desperation to survive exploited, enticed into zero hour contracts, workfare and now, clinical trials. My revulsion at this Government is at an all time absolute. It is surely time for the UK public to say enough is enough.
Jobseekers using the Government’s new job website – the Universal JobMatch – have been receiving multiple messages from the service inviting them to apply for jobs, only to find that these “employment opportunities” are actually clinical trials.
Mr Chris Morgan wrote to Scriptonite Daily, he was the first to flag up this concern. He said:
“I was dumbfounded, shocked and so angry that my government would send me on clinical trials…I didn’t think I’d be put out to pasture this early in my life, to go and become a lab rat”.
Chris lives with his partner and two children aged 9 and 11, and has been seeking work since losing his role in Health and Safety for retail giant Marks and Spencer’s in November 2012. He had been with the company for five years before being dismissed. He has subscribed to Universal JobMatch in the hopes of finding employment.
He logged on this morning to find five jobs recommended to him by the Government’s online job service. He said that he has been left feeling “sick to my stomach” after realising the Government considers participation in a clinical trial for £100 a day as his best current option of “employment”.
Chris is now concerned that by declining this recommendation he would be considered as turning down an “employment opportunity” and therefore stand to lose his eligibility to claim social security.”
Here, we are seeing the development a distinctly anti-welfare system which vigorously and absolutely exploits the most vulnerable citizens, and treats anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves unemployed, or inadequately employed, or disabled with utter contempt, stripping them of dignity. People are now expected to work for free, move out of their home if their children have a bedroom, each, rely on charities for food handouts, whilst Government ministers such as Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith claim with an utter poverty of moral responsibility that it’s all their own fault.
Tory “facts” are seen through a lens of pre-conceptions and ideology. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation choose to study poverty. Cynical Iain Duncan Smith simply changes the definition of it. What kind of society is this where poor people risk prosecution if they scavenge in bins for scraps, and now, where they are being forced into trialling experimental drugs, under the threat of sanctions and subsequent starvation and destitution if they refuse.
I had some dialogue earlier with the International Human Rights Commission about this matter of serious concern, because of implications for the Human Rights of jobseekers.
Sir-Kurt Alleyne, International Human Rights Commission Ambassador for the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland stated:
“I am greatly concerned that the Coalition Government have felt it’s justified to place Clinical Trial “Test Subjects” among persons Universal JobMatch (Job Searches). These are highly contentious and are in fact at times openly a direct risk to health and have been known to lead to irreversible negative health implications. As many are highly aware, refusing work will cause the DWP to Sanction a persons Claim. To offer any such positions to persons indicates that the government ministers responsible for authorizing this have felt that those desperate to find employment will place themselves in harms way to satisfy quotas required that enable a person to receive benefits such as Job Seekers Allowance ( JSA )”.
Sir Kurt Alleyne has called upon His Excellency World Chairman Amb Dr-Shahid Amin Khan, Ihrc Hq and the High Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Countries Ambassador, John G Raciti, and asked that support be given in these matters as a matter of duty in protecting Commonwealth Citizens, due to the:
“further serious implications being levied against Benefit Claimants. This furthers the already unacceptable manner in which persons are being treated and is unacceptable. This is forcing people to become test subjects if they cannot find suitable other employment on grounds DWP will in fact be able to Sanction a Claim for ‘Refusing Employment’”.
Sir-Kurt Alleyne further stated:
“At this time I fully believe that use should be made of the request from UN Special Rapporteur Ms. Rolnik. Whilst undertaking her recent Fact Finding Mission relating to Bedroom Tax which she is reportedly going to recommend its immediate removal, she has provided contact detail so matters relating to ESA, WCA, IC, SDA and other similar matters can be sent too her. I believe this should be fully utilized”.
An initial contact memorandum is to be written this morning. John H Ractiti said that the problem needs assessing [in terms of the full context] and solutions offered to help ease the pressure on millions of people, and tens of thousands of families within the Commonwealth.
At this point in time discussion about these concerns and strategic planning for support networks also to be sourced and introduce is taking place. This morning I will write to the shadow Cabinet to inform them of these very serious and extremely worrying developments.
Our Human Rights are a precious and valuable safeguard against the horrors of exploitation and persecution. They arose in response to the atrocities committed during the War and the Holocaust. The International Community sought to define the rights and freedoms necessary to secure the dignity and worth of each individual. Ratified by the United Kingdom, one of the first countries to do so, in 1951, those Human Rights originally established in the Universal Declaration have been steadily eroded since the Coalition gained Office. There’s a clear link between high levels of inequality and failure of Government’s to recognise Human Rights, and to implement them in policies.
Authoritarians view the rights of the individual, (including those considered to be human rights by the international community), as subject to the needs of the Government. Of course in democracies, Government’s are elected to represent and serve the needs of the population. Democracy is not only about elections. It is also about distributive and social justice. The quality of the democratic process, including transparent and accountable Government and equality before the law, is critical. Façade democracy occurs when liberalisation measures are kept under tight rein by elites who fail to generate political inclusion. See Corporate power has turned Britain into a corrupt state and also Huge gap between rich and poor in Britain is the same as Nigeria and worse than Ethiopia, UN report reveals.
In the UK, democracy is clearly being deliberately disassembled. It is unacceptable that vulnerable groups are being subjected to such ruthless exploitation at the hands of the Government and their corporate bedfellows. It’s time to be very, very worried. We must fight this unravelling of our civilisation and regression of our hard-earned social development. We really must.
I am suddenly and horribly reminded of Josef Mengele, infamous for performing human experiments on Nazi concentration camp inmates, including children, for which he was called the “Angel of Death”. He was also one of the SS physicians who supervised the selection of arriving transports of prisoners, determining who was to be killed and who was to become a forced laborer.
Godwin’s law has now been suspended. The UK Coalition have severely restricted its credible and legitimate scope for application. We are certainly climbing Allport’s Ladder.
kittysjones.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/job...s-job-opportunities/
