Anti-Austerity
Austerity is a policy that aims to transfer resources away from the most disadvantaged and undermine social justice.
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Crippled by Austerity
Simon Duffy reviews Frances Ryan's important book which describes the devastating impact of the UK Government's attack on disabled people since 2010.
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Shameful Attack on Disabled People
Brian Collinge explains how the government's failure to update the Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG) for people entitled to social care acts as another form of theft.
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Austerity's Victims
One million adults with a learning disability in the UK who have suffered because of government measures since 2010.
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Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA)
A statement from the Centre for the #WOWdebate on the Government's reasons for refusing to carry out a Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA).
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The Injustice of Benefit Sanctions
The welfare system has become punitive, even more bureaucratic and humiliating. It delivers pain instead of support and disregards people's basic needs.
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US Corporate Influence on UK Welfare Reforms
Mo Stewart has been researching the damage caused by welfare reform and the malign influence of US private insurance companies.
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Mental Health and Tentacled Snowballs
An anonymous article describing how medical and bureaucratic approaches to mental health undermine flexible and person-centred solutions - and make you a little crazy.
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GaN Canny 2018
Over 168 voluntary and community organisations from Gateshead and Newcastle responded to a survey by Newcastle CVS on austerity and the voluntary sector.
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Extreme Poverty in a Time of Austerity
This summary of the harm caused by the UK Government's austerity policies was submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights.
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Does Money Make You Mean?
In this TEDx film, Paul Piff shares his research into how people behave when they feel wealthy.
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What is the alternative to neoliberalism?
Simon Duffy reflects on the intellectual and practical challenge facing thinkers opposed to the current neoliberal consensus.
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Why Northamptonshire Went Bust
Simon Duffy explains why Northamptonshire went bust and what kind of thinking is required to return local government to its proper role.
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A Constitution for Disability Rights
Claudia Gilberg, Geoff Jones and Gavin Barker explain why disability rights activists have every reason to support the campaign for constitutional reform.
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How to Fund the NHS and Public Services
Gavin Barker summarises the arguments for Modern Monetary Theory and explains why government does not need to be bound by the limitations of tax.
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Letters to the DWP
Correspondence between Mo Stewart, the independent disability researcher, and officials at the DWP, reveals the difficulty of holding a bureaucracy to account.
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Workers' Rights Versus the Right to Care
Alain Catzeflis describes how UK social policy has created a severe, but unnecessary conflict between the rights of workers and disabled people.
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Behind Relative Poverty
The stories in Relative Poverty address the imbalance of power; Les Monaghan describes the thinking behind his photographs.
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A Grounded Theory Study of Disability Benefit Changes
Jessica Saffer carried out doctoral research into the psychological impact of Government changes to the disability benefit system - welfare reform.
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Government Cuts are Slowly Killing Me
Lorraine Howard describes how the closure of the ILF and cuts in social care in Coventry are slowly killing her.
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Deleted BBC News Item on Unum
In 2007 the BBC reported on the influence that a US insurance company was having on UK policy, in 2010 this item was deleted from BBC archives.
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Don't Crowd Out People with Learning Disabilities
Alain Catzeflis argues that people with disabilities are being harmed by bad Government policy and people with learning disabilities are doubly excluded.
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Social Rights Are Human Rights
Paul Hunt explains that social rights are fundamental human rights, but that in the UK these rights are not taken seriously in the political and legal system.
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Reclaiming the Common Good
A review of Reclaiming the Common Good: How Christians can help re-build a broken world, a collection of essays edited by Virginia Moffatt.
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Back to Bedlam
This report describes how and why support of people with a learning disability is heading backwards in the UK because of austerity and the complicity of civil society.
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National Debt v Right to Social Security
International researcher Alison Graham shares her PhD thesis exploring the targeting of cuts on disabled people, people on low incomes and other groups lacking effective…
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The Politics of Poverty
Dr Simon Duffy explores ONS data on inequality and poverty and tries to get behind the myths and lies used to exploit the poorest in the UK.
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Collapse of Social Care (2009-2016)
Austerity has seen a radical reduction in the number of people supported by adult social care, with a 40% drop in 6 years.
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Public Expenditure & GDP (1976-2019)
Data on public spending in the UK suggests that public spending has oscillated around 40% and seems utterly sustainable.
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How Incomes Changed (percent) (1977-2014)
Between 1977 and 2014 tax and benefit policy has been designed primarily to life the incomes of middle-income families
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How Incomes Changed (1977-2014)
Between 1977 and 2014 tax and benefit policy in the UK has been designed primarily to lift the incomes of middle-income families
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Changing Post-Tax-Benefit Incomes (1977-2014)
Government policy, from 1977 to 2014 has primarily focused on lifting the incomes of middle-income groups while avoiding raising taxes for the richest.
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Changing Income Distribution (1977-2014)
Between 1977 and 2014 the most dramatic changes incomes were of the richest, whose incomes increased radically, and for middle-income groups where incomes fell
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The Different Kinds of UK Benefits
Benefit expenditure is primarily focused on pensions, housing costs and the collapse in middle-income salaries.
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Real Poverty
Poverty is not just lack of money, its also isolation, disadvantage and exclusion
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How Benefits are Distributed
Graphic:
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Growth v Equality
Since 1949 income inequality has got progressively worse, however this has no positive economic effect on growth.
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Doughnut Economics
Conventional economics is broken. Here is the radical alternative we need to shape a better future which works for people and planet, David Towell reviews Doughnut Economics.
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Industrialised Humanity
David Zigmond reviews the film I, Daniel Blake and argues that it reveals, not only the cost of austerity, but also the industrialisation and automation of our relationships.
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Relative Poverty
Materials developed by Les Monaghan as part of his project to show the reality of poverty in modern Britain.
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Unfair Burden of Cuts
Since 2010 the UK Government has announced a series of severe cuts to benefits and to local government and social care.
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Unfair Targeting of Cuts
Since 2010 the UK Government has carried out a series of cuts or 'welfare reforms' reducing the incomes of disabled people and people in poverty.
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Government Cuts
Since 2010 the UK Government has increased funding in some areas, protected funding in other areas and severely targeted funding in others.
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Benefit Fraud is Tiny
Benefit fraud is minuscule; in statistical terms it is insignificant. Tax fraud and tax avoidance are the real problems.
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Poor Pay Different Taxes
The poor pay a higher rate of tax than the rich. Essentially the poor are paying higher taxes, because they are paying different taxes to the rich.
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Inequality and Poverty
In 2016 the poorest 6.5 million individuals in the UK lived on an average of £51 per week after tax, that's about £7 per day.
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The Poor Pay the Most Tax
The very high levels of indirect taxes mean that the poorest 10% of the population pay about 11% more in tax than the rest of the population.
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Real Cost of Benefits
Spending on benefits and pensions is often exaggerated by politicians by only referring to the gross cost, before people pay taxes.
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Inequality Growth
The UK is one of the most unequal developed countries in the world. Inequality effectively doubled in the 1980s &1990s and has continued at these extreme levels ever since.
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Disabled People Hit by Multiple Cuts
Part of the report Counting the Cuts in 2014, which calculated the cumulative impact of the UK's austerity policies on disabled people and people in poverty.
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Cuts Target Disabled People
Dr Simon Duffy explains to Anton French Films how Government policy has targeted cuts on disabled people.
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State Crime by Proxy
In this paper Mo Stewart continues her research into the links between the DWP, Atos Healthcare & Unum Insurance.
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Abolishing the NHS Market
In this powerful essay David Zigmond eviscerates the Internal Market which is choking the NHS to death.
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Time to Stand Up and Be Counted
Don Derrett urges us as individuals to stand up and stand against this new wave of intolerance and brutality, wherever we live.
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Derbyshire Unemployed Workers' Centres
Part of a larger network of TUC Unemployed Workers' Centres, this is Derbyshire's Annual Report for 2016.
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Blowin' in the Wind
Steve Griffiths rewords a Bob Dylan classic - a reflection on our crazy times where injustice and hatred seem to fuel political careers.
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The Welfare State and Community
Cormac Russell argues that welfare reform in isolation of the enlargement of the commons is naive and counterproductive.
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Legal Literacy in Adult Social Care
Belinda Schwehr, a leading expert in social care law, explores the declining standards in legal literacy which are undermining good practice in adult social care in England.
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Data on Social Care in England
Simon Duffy pulls together some of the key data relevant to the Centre's submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry on adult social in England.
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A Career in Adult Social Care
Virginia Moffatt reviews her 30 year career in adult social care in England and the journey from institutional services, to community care and the impact of austerity.
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Devon County Council Supported Living Service Review
An anonymous account of how one service provider saw services for people they support cut after a new round of 'supported living' reviews.
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Care Cuts: Indignity & Uprootedness
An anonymous account of the reality of social care for one man with complex disabilities in the United Kingdom.
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The Psychological Impact of Austerity
This report from Psychologists Against Austerity shares well-established psychological research that directly links cuts to public services with mental health problems.
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The Politics of Poverty
In this presentation for an Anti-Poverty Conference organised by Bolsover CVP, Simon Duffy explores some of the myths about inequality and poverty in the UK.
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Life in Bolsover Today
Inequality in the UK has doubled in a generation and the consequences are felt most harshly in places like Bolsover as the Community Voluntary Partners' report shows.
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Exploring the Meaning of Poverty
Poverty isolates and divides us. It leaves us thinking we are not good enough and we are too poor to spend time with friends or family writes Simon Duffy.
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A Troubling Truth
Dr Claudia Gillberg reflects on her own experience of living with the chronic illness, myalgic encephalomyelitis or ME, describing the multiple challenges she and others face.
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Totally Wrong List
An overview of all the Government policies which harm or disadvantage people with learning disabilities in England.
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In the Expectation of Recovery
George Faulkner's report outlines how misleading medical research has been used to support disability cuts and other changes to the welfare state.
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Farewell to Welfare
Simon Duffy gave this talk on the demise of the welfare state under the leadership of the UK's Conservative Party at the University of Vasaa in May 2014.
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Open Letter to Stephen Crabb
Ekklesia and the Centre for Welfare Reform have published a letter to Stephen Crabb calling for an end to policies attacking disabled people signed by leading Christians.
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The Problem with Mandatory Reconsideration
Eri Mountbatten outlines the worrying results from a recent survey of it's members by the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers (NAWRA).
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What Went Wrong with the Welfare State?
Simon Duffy gave this talk at a Bishop's Breakfast in Bolton setting out why the welfare state is essential to justice, but exploring some of the flaws within its current design.
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The Search for Suitable Housing
The hurdles Jane Gregory, her family and her daughter had to overcome in order to get a home to live in despite official policies of personalisation and deinstitutionalisation.
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What's Wrong with Welfare Reform
A presentation given to bishops' spouses about Women Centred Solutions and what went wrong with welfare reform.
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Marking the Political Parties
The Results of Learning Disability Alliance England's Citizen Jury held before the General Election in May 2015.
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Spartacus ESA Mythbuster
Members of Spartacus Network bust the dangerous myths and misinformation that has grown up around ESA.
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Quality Checking Government
A survey by the Learning Disability Alliance England on the impact of the UK Government on people with learning disabilities.
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Who Benefits?
Kofi Sampaney, Marvin Blair, Alexander James, Tyrone Paul and Mark Williams made this short documentary to describe the negative impact of welfare reform in the UK.
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What Went Wrong with Welfare Reform?
Simon Duffy explores the reality of welfare reform in the UK.
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The Impact of Welfare Reform
Simon Duffy is interviewed by Russia Today (RT) on welfare reform and what it really means for people living in the UK.
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The Fox Report: From the North East
The Fox Report from the North East provides powerful insight into how 'austerity' is being experienced by people in the North East.
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Assessing the Assessors
Independent research by disabled people on the assessment process which many are forced to undergo - the Work Capability Assessment.
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Fulfilling Potential?
In this significant report Catherine Hale explores the experience of a key group of disabled people who have been slotted into the 'Work Related Activity Group'.
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Austerity Bites
Mary O'Hara's book describes the many dimensions of 'austerity' and how it is affecting the lives of ordinary people in the UK.
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The Impact of Cuts in Haringey
A report from Haringey Learning Disabilities Partnership Board following a survey on the impact of cuts in Haringey to services for adults with Learning Disabilities.
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Next Steps on a Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA)
Simon Duffy explores the possibility of developing an even more rigorous assessment of how cuts have targeted disabled people.
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Poverty and Welfare Reform
A presentation given at the Hallam Justice and Peace Commission in Sheffield on 1st March 2014 by Dr Simon Duffy.
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Spartacus Network
Spartacus is a network of sick & disabled people who use social media to highlight the impact of the UK Government's 'reforms' and cuts.
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How Norms Become Targets
Kaliya Franklin analyses the way in which the use of norms in the management of disability assessment (WCA) undermines integrity.
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Welfare Reform: True or False?
What is really going on when politicians talk about welfare reform? Test yourself in this welfare reform quiz.
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The Impact of Welfare Reforms
This report examines the impact of recent welfare reforms on mental health service users in the North East of England.
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Means Testing in ESA
Steve Griffiths explains how the introduction of more means testing in the ESA further damages the lives and families of disabled people.
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All In This Together
This film by Dole Animators captures some of the real experiences people are facing today in the light of recent changes to the welfare system in the UK.
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Christianity and Social Justice: Exploring the Meaning of Welfare Reform
This presentation was given to the Archbishop of York and Bishops from the North East of England and Yorkshire.
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The Hidden Housing Subsidy
Simon Duffy explains how the artificially low interest rate in the UK acts as an enormous subsidy to the better-off.
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Ten Attacks on Disabled People's Rights
Simon Duffy provides an overview of the main strategies being used to undermine the human rights of disabled people in the UK.
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Call for a Cumulative Impact Assessment
Catherine Hale shares the text of a letter to her MP calling for her support for the Cumulative Impact Assessment.
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Briefing for Opposition Day Debate
An overview of the cumulative impact of UK government policies on disabled people. Prepared as a briefing for MPs for a debate in the House of Commons on 10th July 2013.
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The Special People - A Fable
This fable is taken from Simon Duffy's book The Unmaking of Man and explores what happens when some people are treated as special.
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From the British Welfare State to Just Another American State
Mo Stewart argues that the current reforms of the welfare state were inspired by bogus research and the vested interests of US insurance firms.
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Northern Social Justice
Perhaps the future of the welfare state does not lie in the hands of Southern think tanks but of Northern social innovators.
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The Meaning of Welfare Reform
A presentation on the real meaning of welfare reform.
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The Big Society Fails the Hardest Hit
Catherine Hale's article explains how a range of UK government policies target disabled people.
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Is It Immoral to Cut Welfare?
Dr Simon Duffy tells of his experience on television, the messages he hoped to communicate and the lessons he learned.
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A Fair Society?
This short 3 minute film explains how the UK Government's current programme of cuts ends up targeting disabled people.
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Welfare Reform Impact on Mental Health
The UK government's cuts to welfare - known as 'welfare reforms' - will increase levels of mental illness, increase costs, inefficiency, inequality and injustice.
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Personalisation and Cuts
Polly Sweeney of Irwin Mitchell has kindly shared some slides on combating the misuse of personalisation in social care.
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Tall Tales About Welfare Reform
Ben Baumberg, Kate Bell and Declan Gaffney tackle some of the most common welfare myths.
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Why Inequality Matters
Written by members of My Fair London this paper presents further essential information about income inequality and its consequences in a brief and accessible format.
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The UK is Very Unequal
The UK is the third most unequal developed country - and this inequality is bad for all of us - it causes many social problems.
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Poor Commit the Least Fraud
A lot of fuss is made about benefit cheats - but few people realise it is the poor who commit the least fraud - it is taxpayers and government itself who defraud the poor.
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Cuts Target Disabled and Poor
This short film shows how the UK government's spending decisions have targeted disabled people and the poor for cuts.
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The Poor Are Very Poor
The popular myth is that there is no real poverty in the UK - however the reality is that the poor are very poor - living on impossibly low incomes.
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Poor Pay the Most Tax
This short film explains the surprising fact that in the UK it is the 10% of poorest families who actually pay the most tax - 47%.
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Manifesto for a Fair Society
A short film setting out the principles behind and the main ideas within the Campaign for a Fair Society's Manifesto for a Fair Society 2012.
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Is the UK a Fair Society?
This movie introduces the Campaign for a Fair Society - which is organised to campaign against the injustice of a system which seems biased against the poor and disabled people.
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A Fair Society in Northern Ireland
A presentation given at the first meeting of the Campaign for a Fair Society in Northern Ireland in June 2012.
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Central Taxes Local
Central government taxes local government so that even deprived communities find that they lose a huge fraction of funding to Whitehall.
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Fraud in Context
Government's exaggerate the level of benefit fraud for political reasons.
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Welfare Reform is Not Welfare Reform
A short 4 minute film explaining why current Welfare Reform plans are not real reforms and exploding some key myths.
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The Reality of Disability Benefits
One man's experience of disability benefits.
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Campaigning for a Fair Society
Simon Duffy gave one of the talks at the launch of the Manifesto for a Fair Society at the House of Lords on the 12th March.
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Citizenship & the Fair Society
Simon Duffy introduces the objectives of the Campaign for a Fair Society and the case for radical reforms of the current social care and welfare systems.
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Disability & the Cuts
Presentation given in Sheffield at joint event with Sheffield CIL and Church Action on Poverty.
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Launch of Scottish Campaign
Simon Duffy speaks at the launch of the Scottish Campaign for a Fair Society about how personalisation is being used as a cover for cuts and why the cuts are so unfair.
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The Spirit Level: why equality is better for everyone
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett demonstrate that inequalities damage the wellbeing of everyone in society - not just the poor. This important book undermines the myth that…
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A Fair Society - Tizard Annual Lecture
Simon Duffy gave the Annual Tizard Lecture on the 4th March at the University of Kent.
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Changes to Housing Funding
Housing Options explains how current changes to the funding of housing will reduce housing mobility, home ownership and undermine supported living.
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The Rise of the Meritocracy
Michael Young's classic attack on the arrogance and thoughtlessness of our meritocracy and failure to understand the breadth and diversity of human values.