by afew
Wed Jan 23rd, 2013 at 04:36:58 AM EST
[The Daily Hoist: featuring an item or items from the day's Newsroom]
Strident noise from the neoliberal onslaught on the welfare state by stigmatisation of the recipients of social transfers:
The Conservative local council of Cornwall in England is using lie detectors to track down fraudsters (Newsroom item):
Conservative council leader quits over 'lie detector' tests on benefit claimants | Society | guardian.co.uk
Private outsourcing company Capita says on its website that VRA is "capable of identifying stress and emotion in a caller's voice pattern". The contract will cost the taxpayer about £50,000 but is intended to save many times that amount in preventing false claims, according to Cornwall council which states that research carried out in other areas of the country suggests 4% of single person benefit discounts could be false claims.
Further, according to Tory leader Jim Currie:
Conservative council leader quits over 'lie detector' tests on benefit claimants | Society | guardian.co.uk
"This will not affect people making genuine claims but we estimate that identifying and removing inappropriate claims could save the council at least £1m."
They're asking 30,000 people who are granted 25% relief on council taxes to give details of their current circumstances. 4% of 30,000 is 1,200. They're going to get back more than £1m? Or is this just a PR operation to stigmatise and criminalise benefit claimants?
Below the fold, Newsroom item 2, Exhibit B from the other side of the world.
The Japanese Finance Minister, Taro Aso (not to be confused with asshole), had these sentiments to offer to the elderly citizens of his country:
Let elderly people 'hurry up and die', says Japanese minister | World news | guardian.co.uk
"Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die. I would wake up feeling increasingly bad knowing that [treatment] was all being paid for by the government," he said during a meeting of the national council on social security reforms. "The problem won't be solved unless you let them hurry up and die."
Now this may be camouflaged as a euthanasia question, but in a country with a suicide culture (not just for the samurai or the officer class), it's an open invitation. You are old, jump off a cliff and get out of the way.
Nothing new? Just a glimpse of how openly violent political statements are increasingly allowed to be, without a corresponding backlash.
