Neoliberalism – a terminal man-made disease

Over the past few years I have run a gamut of feelings about neoliberalism, anger, rage, despondency, futility, vengefulness, hatred, but lately all that has congealed and what I feel more than anything else is a virulent hatred for the appalling reality of the casual deaths neoliberalism not only takes for granted, but which is […]

I am losing my mind and no bloody wonder

Over the last many months I have been battling with losing the plot completely. Every day has become an unbelievable battle with constant panic attacks, heart pounding anxiety and barely contained, and almost impossible to restrain, livid fury. The most ridiculous banal things trigger an explosive rage that I have never previously experienced: the loo […]

Letter to the DWP about a fraudulent repayment claim on my pension

15 August 2018 Copies to Theresa May, Esther McVey, Jacob Rees-Mogg. Dear Sue Crook, On 25 April 2018 you wrote to inform me that I owed the nation £8,356.30 without any explanation of how this figure was dreamed up and that I would thus be paying back £11.10 a week for the next 14 years, […]

On this road lies danger

I find myself in an extraordinary situation. The Personal Independence Payment (PIP) forms have arrived and my head is full of the silent sound of synaptic klaxon’s going off, screaming, ‘Danger, danger!’ To achieve this monumental task requires throwing any semblance of independence out of the window and to be compliant to a system that […]

‘How shaming the poor became our new bloodsport’ – Barbara Ellen

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,506 Friday 29 July 2016. Dear Mrs May, In my letter of 26th July I wrote that we are ‘patronised and even despised for our modest lives’. Just writing that I knew it was a subject I needed to come back to. My life is a small […]

The war on the poor will end, it is a matter of when, not if

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,428 Monday 09 May 2016. Dear Mr Cameron, I hope that your relentless war on the poor haunts you for the rest of your days. I also hope that Iain Duncan Smith will be reviled and prosecuted for his obscene escalation of the sanctions regime, punishing the […]

We are not for one moment all in this together

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,379 Tuesday 22 March 2016. Dear Mr Cameron, I see you’re backing George (we are all in this together) Osborne. I can’t believe he’s still banging that drum, it is long past its sell by date. A millionaire heir to the Anglo-Irish baronetcy of Ballintaylor and Ballylemon […]

The lies that destroy lives

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,363 Sunday 06 March 2016. Dear Mr Cameron, Following on from yesterday, the absolute truth that Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms are entirely intended to be punitive is that nearly 14,000 disabled people have had their mobility vehicles taken away from them, depriving them of the jobs […]

The DWP’s evil regime of sickness, disability and benefit denial

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,317 Saturday 16 January 2016. Dear Mr Cameron, It is unforgivable that in 2016 Iain Duncan Smith is still running a tick box assessment system with the express aim of denying people help based on narrow and stringent criteria absent of any human or humane considerations what […]

DWP death squads strike again

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,309 Friday 08 January 2016. Dear Mr Cameron, The DWP death squads strike again. I don’t want to hear, as I did today, another person breaking their heart and saying, ‘I can’t take this any more!’ But – let – me – be – very – clear […]