To ask you to all sign this petition asking the government to investigate 9,580 benefits-related deaths?

[BowieFan]

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/170364

The excellent Jack Monroe has started a campaign on twitter and has been collating stories of awful experiences with the DWP, Atos, Capita and Maximus. Some of the stories are heartbreaking.

Please, please sign this petition - at the very least, the families of people who died because of the DWP deserve some closure.

Take David Clapson - former soldier who died of hunger and insulin-related shock. He had been sanctioned for being late for an appointment, and couldn't afford to pay for electricity for his fridge to keep his insulin cold. The coroner said his stomach had had no food in it for upwards of three days. Nobody should be dying like that in 2016.

I recommend you check out Jack's twitter (@MxJackMonroe) and read some of the stories using the #HungerHurts hashtag. It's heartbreaking, but we need to confront this.

You used to volunteer for the Job centre, Dawn. .

No, I don't have a council house, and no I volunteered with people who had learning difficulties and were having problems with the job centre.

I wondered how you volunteer at the job centre too

Would you be eligible for one?

I offered to volunteer at the job centre, writing cv's etc. Was told no

There is no humanity there Pissed and that's true in so many situations.

It is just a job, agency workers like capita/atos/g4s don't give a shit, they just want to get through a shift without being wrung out by the manager or balled out by customers.
These guys aren't there to help any more.

On the plus side you now apparently have JM fighting your corner so I used that's alright then

*guess not used

Dawndonnaagain you are another i have read on this thread that has been lied about.

LiviaDrusillaAugusta i agree that not all people at the jobcenter are bad and there are dodgy ones everywhere.
However on this thread 3 of us have sAid that we have been lied about on forms and assessments.
These peope are supposed too help us and instead make things harder.
I took mine further and thankfully i proved that they were the ones lying however i had been surviving on £73 a week for over a year whilst they kept trying to get me to give up.
I had a jb advisor sending me to jobs that i was unable to do and for jobs that i wasn't qualified for
Thankfully i was signed off sick.
I'm working now but i could not go through this stress again.

"Why should they fight the system?"

Err, because it's an inhumane system.

"So following orders at work is bad?"

Yes, if those orders are harmful. I'm a teacher - I will fight back against something that will make my pupils suffer. This is what Jobcentre staff should be doing. Yes, it's risky, but if all the staff fought back, they'd certainly think about changing their policies.

Dawndonnaagain you are another i have read on this thread that has been lied about.
I'm sorry kali, I don't understand.

Yeah you throw eggs at politicians Bowie. We get how cool and tuff you are.

Yeah you throw eggs at politicians Bowie. We get how cool and tuff you are.

This ⬆️⬆️

I'm still curious about how job centre staff 'railing against the system' and losing their jobs is going to help the rest of the benefit claimants. They kick off, get sacked and are replaced by someone else.

What does that achieve? They aren't exactly going to run out of willing job candidates.

And if you genuinely believe that people care about total strangers then you are somewhat naive. People don't inconvenience themselves to help others (well not outside of MN anyway). I'm sure it would be lovely if we all lived in a world where people did, but it's not going to happen so expecting other people to give a shit is unrealistic.

And if you genuinely believe that people care about total strangers then you are somewhat naive. People don't inconvenience themselves to help others

Blimey, speak for yourself Livia.

In my real world people care about strangers and inconvenience themselves for others all the time. We're not all self-centred so-n-sos.

You can maintain boundaries and decide how much to give, while still giving a shit about other people.

Dawndonnaagain sorry i meant you, me and fairy were lied about on forms and on assessments.

But I can understand if someone IS purely selfish, they need to pretend to themselves that everyone else is just the same.

Well that's lovely if you live in that kind of environment. But I still maintain that most people will only inconvenience themselves for their family and friends, not for total strangers.

Thank you kali.

livia you truly are living up to the ideals of your namesake*.

LiviaDrusillaAugusta i care about people i don't know. Doesn't matter if they're strangers. I've inconvienced myself at work to help people them too.

Pausing Are you saying I'm selfish? Okay I am but I haven't ever experienced this generosity towards strangers that a lot of you speak about.

No Liv you're wrong.

People do care, they may not act but they care.
Not everyone and not always for altruistic reasons.
People are scared, that's OK.
They don't have to be hero's or fall on their swords.
They aren't powerless though and hopefully we won't be having an expensive enquiry in 20 years time.

Maybe I have just never seen this altruism that people claim exists. I genuinely can't get my head round it.

Last week a lovely mumsnetter messaged me. She had seen that I'm struggling with money and noted that I like to crochet. She is at some point, really rather wonderfully sending me some of her wool stash.
A couple of years ago a mumsnetter sent me an Amazon gift card. I still have no idea how I had helped them, but apparently I had.
Not everyone is selfish, most folk are actually really kind and caring. It's a shame you haven't experienced it livia.

I'm a smug Yorkshire so I pity the big smoke folk

It is different in lots of places, but that's the problem. We need to take a breath and think.