Texas Governor Greg Abbott Blames Joe Biden For Migrant Children Being Starved And Sexually Abused

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that Joe Biden should shoulder responsibility amid allegations of child abuse and neglect at an overpopulated San Antonio migrant facility.

Greg Abbott announced this at a press conference, following tips to authorities about the alleged abuse happening inside the Freeman Expo Centre. The facility is currently holding 1,370 migrant children.

And Greg Abbott declared that this facility was a health and safety nightmare, and he said that the Joe Biden administration was now presiding over the abuse of children, and to stop this injustice, the Biden administration must immediately close down the facility.

In addition to the allegations of child sex abuse and neglect, Greg Abbott also alleged that there were reports of understaffing, children not eating and the failure to separate children with or without COVID 19.

The Governor said that while they were waiting on the Biden administration to act, he was directing DPS and Texas Rangers to immediately begin investigating the allegations. However, Greg Abbott didn’t say how many children had reportedly been abused, but he did say that the allegations appeared to be reliable.

And in recent days, the amount of underage children being held at the Freeman Expo Centre has risen from 500 to 1,370, but President Joe Biden has declined to call the surge in illegal border crossing a crisis, but has tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to take charge of the situation.

But Kamala Harris has been blasted for failing to travel to the southern border. Instead, Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas will head to the area.

Alejandro Mayorkas will engage with local law enforcement and Homeland Security employees as the number of migrants arriving in the country continues to grow.

Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) reports that 500 boys from the ages of 13-17 were transported to the facility on March 25, but it’s not known if they’ve been held separately from transients of younger ages.

The Expo Centre reportedly has an internal possible capacity of 2,100 beds, and officials are struggling to make them available.

Joe Biden has come under attack for dismantling harsh Donald Trump immigration policies, which has prompted a wave of migrants at the southern border, and since taking office, Joe Biden has lifted the Trump policy that forced migrants to remain in Mexico while going through the legal process to enter the US, narrowed ICE’s criteria for arrests and expulsions, and stopped the construction of Trump’s border wall.

But this has been going on for years, now all Joe Biden has to do is think out how to rethink the system so that it does work, and if you believe that Kamala Harris is going to take the plunge and journey to the border to fix the immigration problem, then you’re wrong.

Joe Biden is a weak man, in the fact that he does have some morals and some compassion, and he will open the border and welcome everyone to the US, and the chances are that these children were being abused way before they got to the US.

This is a humanitarian issue and the Government have to work together to solve the problem – forget the left and right drivel.

Generation Of Home-Schooled Children Lack Discipline And Order

Gavin Williamson said that the COVID generation of homeschooled children lacked discipline and order while stuck at home during the lockdown.

The Education Secretary has backed a mobile phones embargo in schools, saying it’s now time to put the screens away as the return to classrooms rendered remote learning, which relied on internet-accessible devices.

He said homeschooling while schools were closed would have impacted on pupils, adding that out of control behaviour by some youngsters could risk destroying education for others, and that he will support any action by headteachers to control sub-par behaviour, including detentions, suspensions and expulsions, and said wanting disciplined classrooms was nothing Dickensian.

A consultation by the Department for Education will be carried out this year to help school leaders put phone embargoes in place and decide on strategies for bad behaviour.

Gavin Williamson said that this longed-for return to the classroom will give them the structure and order they urgently need, where they will feel safe and ready to learn, and that even though remote learning was a huge achievement in terms of enabling children to carry on with their education from home, the lack of proper structure and discipline will have unavoidably have had an impact on their behaviour.

The Education Secretary said that while tablets and laptops can be used in a controlled way in the classrooms, mobile phones should not be tolerated, adding that outside the classroom, the use of mobile phones distracts from healthy activity and good old fashioned play.

And he said that worse, it serves as a breeding ground for cyberbullying, and the improper use of social media sites, such as anonymous Instagram accounts, where students are ranked on their appearance and can heighten insecurities, damage mental health and encourage harassment.

The Department for Education (DfE) is set to launch a £10 million behaviour hub in time for the summer term, which will see 22 lead schools advise others on how to control pupil’s behaviour and create discipline.

It follows the news that face coverings in secondary school classrooms could remain in place until the end of the year after the Government came under pressure not to rush into removing the mask mandate from five major unions.

Officials at the Department for Education said secondary students in England should wear masks when they return to school for the summer term, in both lessons and hallways, as a precautionary measure.

However, the British government has managed to create a new kind of state-dependent citizens, and this must be one of the most demeaning experiences one can go through, particularly for a student who is strong-willed and independent by nature, and numerous people are feeling a sense of weakness and mortification which is taking a deep toll on their mental health.

And instead of vilifying these children, why doesn’t the government provide them with extra support for improving their emotional well being? Because it’s not their fault that for a year now their life has been turned upside down, and they haven’t seen anyone aside from the people they live with, and now they’re being penalised for it.

After all, it was the Government that mandated school closure, not the students! And what’s going to happen concerning GCSE and A level assessments because we’re still not clear how our schools are going to undertake these, due to Gavin Williamson’s holding back on an announcement, and then simply putting the problem back into the school’s hands with no prior warning or direction.

And just as schools were preparing for students return, and lateral flow testing, Gavin Williamson is surrendering to the demands of the unions once again. Making children wear masks during the scorching summer term because this man is a clueless nincompoop and is really out of his depth here.

Downing Street Announces London Mayor Sadiq Khan Is Wasting His Time

Downing Street said that Sadiq Khan was wasting his time by promising to launch a review into the possibility of decriminalising cannabis if he’s re-elected as Mayor of London on May 6.

Sadiq Khan has pledged to establish a new commission to examine the use of drugs in the metropolis if he wins the contest next month, but Number 10 said that policy on controlled drugs is a matter for UK Government and Boris Johnson has no intention of legalising cannabis which is a dangerous substance.

In the meantime, one of Sadiq Khan’s political opponents in the race for City Hall, Tory candidate Shaun Bailey, said legalising cannabis is nowhere in the remit of the Mayor of London and his counterpart should concentrate on his actual job.

The Labour incumbent has promised to start the group of independent experts for fresh ideas if he wins a new mandate in the May 6 election, and experts from areas including criminal justice, community relations and public health, will examine evidence on the harms of drugs, support services and prevention, the effectiveness of prevailing laws as well as tackling the root causes of crime.

It would be expected to report to the Mayor with policy proposals including for City Hall, the police, health services and central Government, and a newspaper outlet reported that according to a source close to the mayor, Sadiq Khan would be prepared to consider supporting reforms to the legal status of cannabis if that was the view of the commission.

The Prime Minister’s Press Secretary Allegra Stratton said of the proposed review that policy on controlled drugs was a matter for UK Government and there were no plans to devolve that responsibility and that the Prime Minister had talked about this on numerous occasions.

And it was said that illegal drugs damage lives and that the Prime Minister had no intention of sanctioning cannabis which is a dangerous substance.

Asked if the Prime Minister would back Sadiq Khan’s review, Allegra Stratton said that he would not and that his approach would not be changing.

Asked if she thought Sadiq Khan was therefore wasting his time by promising a review, Allegra Stratton said this was correct, and that Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London would know that the policy of controlled drugs is a matter for the UK Government and that it was not a matter for his office.

Sadly, it will be people’s money that will be wasted and that this is for his election, there’s no other reason why he would say that he will review it, and it’s entirely outside of his powers to act on this.

And to be fair you’d need to be on something a lot stronger than Cannabis to consider voting Tory any time soon, and Sadiq Khan is an expensive ineffectual mayor.

But then should Cannabis be decriminalised, regulated and taxed? Because there appears to have been zero deaths from Cannabis, but you can legally overdose and enjoy your highly addictive alcohol – chin chin everyone!

Doctors Have Reported An Extremely Extraordinary Case Of A Person Who Urinates Alcohol

A woman in Pittsburgh has become the first documented case in a living person of an unusual medical condition where alcohol naturally ferments in the bladder from the fermentation of yeast.

The condition, which researchers propose to call either bladder fermentation syndrome or urinary auto-brewery syndrome, is similar to another amazingly rare condition, auto-brewery syndrome, where just ingesting carbohydrates can be enough to make you intoxicated, even without consuming any alcohol through conventional means.

In the case, doctors became aware of what appeared to be a similar syndrome, after attending upon a 61-year-old patient who presented with liver damage and poorly controlled diabetes.

The woman visited the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre Presbyterian Hospital for placement on a liver transplant waitlist, with doctors having previously suspected her problems derived from alcohol dependence, due to repeated urine tests for alcohol showing constantly positive.

Her doctors explained in a case report published in February last year that initially, their encounters were similar, leading their clinicians to think that she was covering an alcohol use disorder.

However, they noted that plasma test results for ethanol and urine test results for ethyl glucuronide and ethyl sulfate, which are the metabolites of ethanol, were negative, whereas urine test results for ethanol were positive.

Furthermore, in addition to consistently denying having consumed alcohol, the patient didn’t seem to display symptoms of inebriation during visits to the clinic, even though her urine revealed high levels of ethanol content.

Another mystery was the presence of large amounts of glucose in her urine, a condition described as hyperglyosuria, with abundant levels of budding yeast seen in urine specimens, and the researchers recorded that those findings led them to examine whether yeast colonising in the bladder could ferment sugar to produce ethanol.

Running tests on her urine, the team confirmed very high levels of ethanol production, suggesting her novel results were due to yeast fermenting sugar in the bladder.

The yeast in question was identified as Candida glabrata, a natural yeast seen in the body and related to brewer’s yeast, but not commonly seen in such abundance.

Unfortunately, efforts to eliminate the yeast with antifungal treatments failed, perhaps due to the patient’s poorly controlled diabetes.

In light of the woman’s seemingly unique predicament, the doctors note that she was reconsidered for liver transplantation, although their report doesn’t make clear what eventually became of the patient.

Satellite Photographs Show Putin Is Amassing And Testing An Enormous Military Arsenal In The Arctic

Satellite pictures appearing to show Russia beefing up its military presence in the Arctic have emerged just days after three of Moscow’s nuclear ballistic missile submarines crashed through the polar region in a show of strength.

The photographs show the Russian military has been rebuilding and expanding many facilities across the Arctic in recent years.

From revamping runways to deploying additional surveillance and air defence assets, the satellite photographs show a constant endeavour to expand Moscow’s capabilities in the polar region.

Underground storage facilities have also been pictured and experts worry they’ll be used for the Poseidon 2M39 torpedo, a nuclear powered underwater drone that can be launched from a submarine and carry nuclear warheads.

Satellite photographs provided to CNN by space technology firm Maxar also reveal military jets and bombers as well as new radar systems near Alaska.

It comes only days after three of the Russian Navy’s nuclear ballistic missile submarines crashing through the Arctic ice within feet of each other in a clear display of strength.

Navy chief Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin the exercise featured three nuclear submarines concurrently breaking through the Arctic ice and warplanes flying over the North Pole.

The exercises were conducted around Alexandra Land, an island that’s part of the Franz Josef Land archipelago where the military has recently built a base.

Moscow has prioritised beefing up its military presence in the Arctic region, which is supposed to hold up to a quarter of the Earth’s undiscovered oil and gas.

Vladimir Putin has in the past cited estimates that put the value of Arctic mineral wealth at £22 trillion.

Russia, the US, Canada, Denmark and Norway have all been seeking to assert jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic, as shrinking polar ice opens new opportunities for tapping resources and opening new shipping lanes.

The new satellite photographs show Russia has been making improvements to their old Cold War bases as well as building new facilities on the Kola Peninsula near the city of Murmansk.

And a senior US State Department official informed CNN that there’s clearly a military challenge from the Russians in the Arctic. That has implications for the United States and its allies, not least because it generates the potential to project power up to the North Atlantic.

It appears that the Russians have reactivated old Soviet arctic bases, and they’re upgrading military equipment to operate there.

They have the largest armada of nuclear icebreakers in the world and their troops are completely acclimatised to sub-zero temperatures, so there’s not much the US could do even if they wanted to, and it seems that the poisoned dwarf is playing with his toys again.

Plenty Of (Cat)Fish! Divorcée Who Was Deceived By 25 Men She Met On The Dating App

A mother who was catfished 25 times in one year through an online dating app has spoken of her unfavourable dating experiences in a new book.

Samantha Thorne, 42, from Dartford, Kent, joined Plenty of Fish after her second divorce but soon realised that many of her matches weren’t who they appeared to be on their profiles.

The beautician went for a drink with a guy whose photos were so massively altered she didn’t realise she’d previously dated him in the past and stumbled across one profile using a male model’s images.

After a year of online disasters, the mother of two met her current partner David Tyson, 55, during the lockdown, and turned her old dating diary into a book about internet dating.

Speaking of joining the app, Samantha Thorne said that she decided she’d give it a go because she was looking at seriously finding someone to settle down with.

She said that when she initially started, she presumed everyone would be who they said they were, but the more people she chatted to, the more she discovered people were not always who they said they were.

She continued that it was a strange time in her life, and it was enjoyable at times, but that you definitely needed a thick skin, but she’s got her happy ending now with her new man, so she won’t be using dating websites again.

The bizarre year of internet dating started after Samantha Thorne’s second marriage came to an end in 2017, with the mother eager to find a new partner online.

Samantha, who has a son Owen, 17, and daughter Daisy, 15, was immediately overwhelmed with messages, but quickly realised many people weren’t who they seemed to be online.

She said one of her most memorable truth-bending experiences was meeting up with an undercover swinger, and after a surprisingly great first date for drinks in a local pub, where he seemed normal, kind and interesting, she was charged for their second date.

But things took a bizarre turn when he proposed they visited a sex club for swingers to swap partners with other members, and Samantha said that when he said there was somewhere he wanted to take her, she envisioned a nice restaurant but he told her he wanted to get other people involved.

Sadly, online dating has both the youngest and oldest looking thirty-five-year olds I’ve ever seen, whether it’s men using images of themselves from 2008 when they still had their hair and six-pack, or men in their fifties pretending to be younger so they can circumvent the age filters.

And it’s not only dating sites, there’s loads of false everything – push up bras et cetera, and that’s just the boys, so what’s changed? And the women are just as bad as the men with their false hair, false lashes, false eyebrows, false cheeks, false boobs, false tummies and false bums et cetera, and then they dare to complain they can’t get a genuine guy, but then this is Plenty of Fish we’re talking about, the most sham site there is.

America’s Oldest Shopping Mall Has Been Transformed Into Stunning Micro-Apartments — Take A Look Inside

Province, Rhode Island has a sizzling new development in a beautiful old building.

When it was constructed 188 years ago, the Arcade Providence was America’s first shopping mall, hosting boutiques on all three floors. Now those shops have been converted into 48 small apartments and a mix of businesses, including restaurants, a coffee shop, and a new hair salon.

Redesigned by Northeast Collaborative Architects, the three-floor building boasts classic Greek architecture, pillars, stone walls, and a large central atrium illuminated by skylights.

The restoration transformed the top two floors of stores into micro-apartments, ranging from 225 to 775 square feet, and priced from $800 to $1,800 a month. Most measure 300 square feet or smaller. For example, a standard one-car garage is approximately 200 square feet.

And NCA Principal Michael Abbot tells Business Insider that their tenants only need to show up with two suitcases, and they’re good to go.

Micro apartments have increased in popularity to accommodate the increasing amount of single people moving to cities, and the amount of Americans who live alone has grown steadily since the 1920s.

In the past 90 years, single-person households have gone from 5 per cent to 27 per cent of the US total.

At the Providence Arcade, each fully furnished micro space includes an elevated bed over a four-drawer dresser, a small kitchen table, a sofa, a 50-inch flatscreen TV, and a full bathroom. More spacious apartments don’t come with a built-in bed.

Providence Arcade developer Evan Granoff told Fair Companies that the studio size apartments feature an open plan, with no full wall between the bedroom and kitchen. A door for the bedroom would violate Providence’s housing code because it would create a sleeping space that the city considers too small.

The kitchens are equipped with a mini-fridge, sink, dishwasher, and microwave — but no ovens or stovetops.

In a recent tour video by Fair Companie’s Kirsten Dirksen, a new tenant said that she didn’t mind not having an oven. Since she’s doing a fellowship in international emergency medicine, so she doesn’t spend much time in her apartment, and she eats a lot of Lean Cuisines and canned soups.

The complex lies in the centre of downtown Providence, so tenants theoretically could simply eat out for meals they can’t zap in the microwave. The architects also preserved the central atrium as a space for shops, bars and restaurants.

And Abbott said that not only does it (the central atrium) give filtered light to the units, but it becomes the public street connecting neighbours.

On the first floor, there’s a common room with a TV, seating and laundry room, and on the second floor, there’s storage space to store bikes or keep other belongings that don’t fit in the apartments.

The building had numerous lives before the micro-apartments.

Approximately 250 of the original windows were covered with cement over the years, but NCA restored all of them.

The mall, once called the Westminster Arcade, was built in 1828 and was the first indoor shopping mall in the US. Operating only two hours a day from 11 am to 1 pm, it featured a food court and boutiques by local merchants who hoped to sell to a growing suburban population, but in 1976, it was declared a National Historic Landmark.

Mandatory COVID Jabs

The UK government has always said there will be no mandatory COVID vaccination but appears to be apprehensively dipping its toe in the waters of the vaccine passport issue, which could have implications for those who don’t have one.

However, some employers seem prepared to dive straight in, with ‘No jab, no job’ said Charlie Mullins, who runs Pimlico Plumbers because he wants to be able to tell his customers they have nothing to fear from a visit to fix their leaking pipes.

Care homes are naturally thinking hard about it too. They have vulnerable people to protect and the families on the outside will be more than anxious to know that an elderly mum or dad is being looked after by somebody who is fully vaccinated.

Barchester Healthcare, the second biggest care home provider in the United Kingdom, has spelt out to its 17,000 staff that if they don’t get vaccinated even though they’re eligible, there will be no more shifts for them from the end of April.

It might seem a no-brainer if we assume that the vaccines stop or at least lessen the chance of people giving COVID 19 to others, and of all the people you would expect to be fully vaccinated to protect the vulnerable from infections, care staff and NHS workers would certainly be at the top of the list, even if plumbers are some way down.

But it’s not so simple. Vaccination isn’t compulsory in the United Kingdom, and unlike France and Italy, we didn’t respond to the measles outbreak across Europe by requiring MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccination for children as a condition of going to school, and the UK uptake was ultimately better.

Vaccination has been advised but not enforced even for healthcare workers, and for years, meaningful amounts of NHS workers have refused vaccination against flu, even though they could pass it to someone at risk of dying from it.

And over the 2019-20 winter, 73 per cent of frontline healthcare workers had a flu jab, which was an improvement on the past two years following a significant push to promote better take up, but it still meant a quarter remained unvaccinated.

This winter, because of the pandemic, the flu vaccination figures were expected to be better, but it was known that a significant amount of healthcare workers and care staff would not have either the flu vaccination or the new COVID vaccines, although some amongst them would have medical grounds for not having it done, others religious or philosophical beliefs, or just uncertain.

As it is at the moment, the law preserves our rights to say no, and the government has powers to dispense with the current pandemic under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, but that doesn’t extend to enforcing medical treatment or vaccination on a person who doesn’t want it, and where the government can’t go, unless the law is altered, employers would have difficulty going as well.

However, ethical bodies say there’s a balance to be struck between the freedom and self-determination of a person and the gains to be made in public health, and that it’s not a straightforward equation.

And complications include the fact that these vaccines have emergency authorisation and not full approval from regulatory bodies, although they’re looking amazingly safe and effective, information is still being collected on how well they work, and compelling people to be vaccinated, whether directly or for fear of becoming unemployed, could mean they’ve not given genuine approval.

It’s apparent that there are numerous people out there that don’t want to have the vaccine done, but then there are tones of people queuing up to have it done, which is way past some people’s understanding.

But the point is here, is that even with evidence and truth in your face, even with things not sounding or feeling right, even with nothing making any sense, most people like the hysteria, they like the trauma, so they want to believe, and they love that hating on others, that feeling of supremacy and they listen to the experts who have absolutely no reason to be untrue or do they?

And it does trouble me, and it does appear quite sinister to me, and are we being experimented on?

And it still baffles me why anyone would say that they’re proud to have had the vaccine. Many of us take regular medication, but that doesn’t make us feel proud that we’re taking it.

It should all be about choice, you either want to have the vaccine or you don’t, but you certainly shouldn’t be pressured into it.

We all can see as well as hear, and if something doesn’t sound right or make sense, then it’s clearly not right.

So far COVID has been a real killer – it’s killed the flu, cancer, heart disease. It’s killed the capacity to think, logic and common sense. It’s killed the economy, the working class and millions of jobs. It’s killed millions of businesses, human relationships, love and kindness.

Of course, the vaccine doesn’t have cyanide in it, so apparently, we’re not going to drop dead, so it must be okay to have the vaccine, but we have no concept of how this vaccination will affect us in the future, but then I guess nothing including life comes with a 100 per cent guarantee, so perhaps it’s okay to believe that the vaccine is going to be okay.

Everyone is entitled to their view on this without getting shouted down, but sadly when you do air your opinion, many are accused of having no intelligence, yet we’re supposed to believe every health professional that’s part of this pandemic.

I guess it was probably the same when polio, tetanus, chickenpox, German measles, yellow fever and malaria vaccines came out, everyone had their misgivings. However, to develop these vaccines it took many many years – the COVID jab took weeks, and many vaccines have a minimum of four years of testing on animals, this vaccine had none.

All had a licence to be called a vaccine, as they all went through the six stages it needs to become a vaccine and to be approved and get licenced. The COVID jab went through one stage and is the first-ever so-called vaccine to be used both without a licence, and if anything goes awry, can’t be prosecuted.

COVID Jobs Bloodbath

According to new figures, nearly 190,000 jobs have been lost and more than 15,000 stores were forced to close in the retail bloodbath since the first national lockdown a year ago.

The Centre for Retail Research has unveiled that 188,685 retail jobs in the United Kingdom disappeared between the start of the first lockdown on March 23 2020 and March 31 this year in exclusive data for the PA news agency.

The figures come less than two weeks before non-essential shops reopen their doors to customers in England after the long third lockdown.

However, customers will find high streets and town centres have been hit hard by the pandemic, with thousands of stores closing their doors for good.

The numbers unveiled that 83,725 jobs lost in the period were due to administrations, including major collapses by Debenhams and Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group.

Meanwhile, about 11,986 jobs were cut during Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) restructuring processes.

Another 92,974 jobs were axed through rationalisation programmes, which included supermarkets Sainsbury’s and Asda cutting thousands of positions.

The figures also unveiled that the overwhelming impact of the pandemic resulted in 15,153 store closures in shopping destinations across the United Kingdom, and according to real estate adviser Altus Group, up to 401,690 stores are currently shuttered around the country and could reopen in the next step of the Prime Minister’s road map out of lockdown.

Retail bosses have raised concerns that the high street will still be extremely challenging for retailers despite the easing of restrictions, as business rates payments return for many.

Robert Hayton, UK president of property tax at Altus, warned that the current business rates regime could cause further destruction, and he said that come July 1, large retailers in England will effectively be returned to full business rates liabilities, calculated by reference to rents being paid six years ago, with the basic right to appeal to seek valuation adjustments being retrospectively withdrawn.

A Government spokeswoman said that they’ve continued to help the retail sector during the pandemic, including their new £5 billion Restart Grant scheme, extending the furlough scheme and the VAT cut, providing 750,000 businesses in retail and other areas with business rates relief and a £350 billion package to support jobs and livelihoods.

And it was said that as they build back better from coronavirus they want to see the high streets flourish, and that they’ve put in place an accelerated £1 billion Future High Streets Fund, a £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund and are working with local leaders through the High Street Taskforce, all to support town centres, high street regeneration and drive growth across the United Kingdom.

Sadly, the world has changed, and the High Streets have become a particularly expensive place to trade, with greedy landlords and business rates that have added another 60 per cent of the rental value on top, and it’s far too late to address the expense.

And the High Street will now have to evolve, offering more modest boutique type premises, leisure and socialising establishments to become relevant once again. This may even mean changing some premises to residential, while specialist larger stores will still flourish on the edge of town retail centres and online, and we may have to accept this and deal with it.

Or do they just want everyone to stay indoors, with no town centre recovery, and with killjoy councils and dog robbing landlords that will see to this. Turning towns into flats for immigrants and migrants, or perhaps posh ones for middle-class people. With the common people becoming too poor for lattes, fine dining and clubbing.

Or is this all part of the Great Reset Plan? With no plan to replace these jobs, turning high streets into blocks of flat with takeaways at street level.

DWP Staff Admit Inflicting Psychological Harm On Claimants

A shocking new testimony has shown that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) staff and managers intentionally inflicted psychological harm on benefit claimants, engaged in unofficial sanctioning targets, and pushed disabled people into work, despite the risk to their well-being.

The evidence comes from new interviews with 10 civil servants who worked for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and its contractors under the coalition government between 2010 and 2015.

They spoke, on the condition of strict anonymity, to academics from Sheffield Hallam University, who have now revealed how the introduction of a more disciplinary social security system, with more rigid benefit sanctions and conditionality, inflicted years of institutional brutality on claimants between 2010 and 2015.

The authors, Dr Jamie Redman and Professor Del Roy Fletcher think it’s the first time that research has demonstrated how DWP workers have been able to commit such brutal acts on benefit claimants in vulnerable and precarious situations.

The two academics built on the work of the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, who explained how modern bureaucracies can produce psychosocial factors that empower ordinary people to carry out destructive practices.

And they illustrate how a shift in DWP policy through the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government elected in May 2010 pressured DWP staff to refer more claimants to have their benefits sanctioned.

The policy reforms also saw the performance of jobcentre staff measured by off benefit flows, the number of claimants who stopped getting an out of work benefit, even if those people hadn’t secured a job.

This helped lead to an enormous rise in sanctioning rates between 2010 and 2013, reaching more than one million sanctions in 2013 and rising about 345 per cent above their 2001-08 average level.

For their research, Redman and Fletcher interviewed a JobcentrePlus (JCP) manager, three JCP front line staff members, one Work Programme front line worker who had previously worked for JCP, one DWP decision-maker, and four Work Programme front line staff.

They were told how top-down pressure on staff, through sanctioning tables and off flow targets that were legitimised by the government, acting as a moral anaesthetic which made invisible the needs and interests of the claimants they were sanctioning.

This enabled workers to view their caseloads with what Bauman called ethical indifferences, and one JCP worker explained how staff would usually treat claimants with disrespect and use psychological abuse as a technique to decrease the number of people claiming benefits, pushing them until they either just cleared off because they couldn’t take the pressure or they got sanctioned.

The thing is, we were raised by our parents to question authority and follow our inherent curiosity about the world.

Top-down management destroys curiosity and ownership, it’s antiquated, and most importantly, it doesn’t work, and this management culture doesn’t just put an unimaginable amount of stress and pressure on people, it also smothers individual capability and interest and then people don’t feel like they want to do anything at all.

And because I said so isn’t an effective way to stimulate and align people, and people despise being told what to do, or think without understanding the logic behind it, and we all know how unsatisfying it feels to have our ‘why’ questions ignored, and be told, ‘because I said so.’

Sadly, this ‘because I said so’ management technique is common in top-down. It shuts down interest, and limits people from utilising their knowledge and experience to improving the status quo, and instead of increasing employment, the ‘. I said so’ method, lowers the employment rate because people then just don’t see the point of working.

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