Compassion: dead but not buried
When you’re at the bottom of the pile, things are stripped away from you in a steady processions of confiscations. Dignity is one of the first things to go. Some manage to get by without it, some don’t. Arbitrary and incompetent systems introduce a degree of uncertainty so severe, so unsettling, you take nobody in authority’s word for anything - you can’t afford to. It’ll be different advice next week. A benefit letter could arrive at any moment telling you you’ve been overpaid.
When the Citizens Advice Bureau tells you that your creditors regard newspapers as a luxury you realise your very participation in society, your ability to stay informed about the world around you, can be taken away from you so very easily. Even a rudimentary quality of life can be forfeit.
And then, even at the end, your unloved, unmourned carcass will lie around for weeks…
Bodies are going unburied for up to two months because the Government is dragging its feet over paying benefits, it has been claimed.
It’s a lasting national shame that back, in the 70s when the country was in the so-called grip of the trade unions, the dead notoriously went unburied. It’s a stick that’s used to beat the Left and those in favour of workers’ rights to this day. People still talk of the national disgrace. And in the present day when it’s the lowly victims of the ideology that put paid to the unions that are suffering? Not so much. The outcry now is somewhat more muted. Not even compassion gets a decent funeral. Throw it in a ditch. Let it rot.
Anyway, a tune for a Sunday morning…
Posted on October 12th, 2008 at 9:53 am
| See also • Iraq: something new everyday • ‘Leading’ banks and dole ’scroungers’: economies of scale • Duncan Goodhew gets his priorities straight |
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The other day I was talking to Milena about one of the composers in her upcoming concert. “He’s dead.” she said, adding that this most surely made him more famous. It seems we are all decomposing composers now.
The crucial words here are the Daily Mail’s “It has been claimed”.
Anything you read in the Mail with those four words attached to them should immediately be considered to be total bollox and dumped the the baa baa white sheep bin.
So you’re saying it’s bollocks, Bob? Has John Weir, of the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors been misquoted or is he lying then? I notice the DWP spokesman quoted here doesn’t deny any of it.
Hmm.
The wording used in the article would be consistent with this having happened twice, with one case being the one raised by Daniel Kawczynski. That would be rubbish for all concerned, but hardly a matter of national concern (”government department occasionally messes up, with upsetting but nonfatal consequences”).
If it’s happening on a regular basis and/or as a matter of deliberate policy, then it’s something to worry about, but the Mail piece gives no evidence either way about whether that’s the case, and the DWP quote suggests that it isn’t.
Point taken. But then there’s John Weir, of the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors, who talks about ‘hundreds of people in this situation’.
[...] The current problems stem from delays to payouts from the Department for Work and Pensions’ Social Fund, which helps needy families with burial costs. They qualify if they can prove they are receiving benefits, were closely related to the deceased and do not have sufficient savings to meet the funeral costs. (ht2 Chicken Yoghurt) [...]
Your wasting your breath on the likes of Bob Piper Justin as he just does not do critical thinking.
He’s more a four legs good, two legs bad kind of creature.
He’d rather sit there polishing a turd then admit his ‘gang’ was anything less than perfect at all times.
Save your time and effort - he’s an irrelevance.
Sorry Dave, I don’t agree. If I thought Bob was just a New labour gobshite I’d think twice about engaging with him. He’s not uncritical of New Labour - he’s against 42 days, scathing of gimmicks and ‘eye-catching initiatives’, and pro party democracy…