One hundred monkeys
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The ‘Still Face’ Paradigm and the Department for Work and Pensions
In 2017, I wrote an article about the Still Face Paradigm, and the decline of empathy in Neoliberal societies. It was about Edward Tronick’s Still Face experiment, in part. Tronick is an American developmental psychologist at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His studies illuminate the importance of trusting, communicative relationships and consistent human responses in ensuring the…
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Nudge: the expedient alibi of Conservative neoliberalism
Nudge: the expedient alibi of Conservative neoliberalism
Government policies are expressed political intentions regarding how our society is organised and governed. They have calculated social and economic aims and consequences. In democratic societies, citizens’ accounts of the impacts of policies ought to matter. But we are systematically excluded from policy decisions, which are not ‘for us’: Instead, policies ‘act upon us’, and contain instructions…
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NHS is being ‘protected’ from those who need protecting most by rationing treatment based on eugenic 'guidelines’
The National Health Service (NHS) was born on 5 July 1948. It was the first time anywhere in the world that completely free healthcare provision was made available on the basis of citizenship rather than the payment of fees or insurance.
The NHS was founded on the principle of universal healthcare. It upheld the most fundamental principles of human rights: that each life has equal worth, and…
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I have SLE, so stake my claim on hydroxychloroquine
I can’t manage without my medication for systemic lupus erythematosus (otherwise known as SLE or lupus). Not being able to access my essential treatment places me at a significantly high risk of serious infections more generally, and specifically to covid-19 or a relapse, with severe complications such as severe pneumonia and sepsis.
I was prescribed hydroxychloroquine in 2017 by my…
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Opposition parties call for emergency legislation to protect Universal Credit claimants from impacts of Covid-19
Both Labour and the SNP have called on the Prime Minister to provide emergency legislation to protect workers’ rights and ensure people receiving Universal Credit do not face sanctions if they are unable to make an appointment due to the coronavirus outbreak.
In Prime Minister’s Questions, Ian Blackford MP asked that while the Governor of the Bank of England suggested a ‘financial bridge’…
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Price hikes of sanitizing gel throws perverse incentives of neoliberalism into sharp relief
Price hikes of sanitizing gel throws perverse incentives of neoliberalism into sharp relief
Demand for hand sanitizer is surging around the globe as the new coronavirus spreads, prompting retailers to ration supplies and online vendors, despicably, to hike prices. Many high street shops and pharmacies have no stocks left at all.
There are also price hikes on antibacterial hand wash.
The surge in demand has prompted some third-party sellers to inflate their prices on platforms including…
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COVID-19 reveals the unacceptably indifferent political attitude towards 20% of the population
COVID-19 reveals the unacceptably indifferent political attitude towards 20% of the population
Thirteen new patients were diagnosed with the coronavirus on yesterday.
The latest cases included 12 more in England and the first patient in Scotland, meaning the virus has now reached all four parts of the UK. A health worker at an NHS cancer centre in Middlesex is also among the new cases. Another is a staff member at Wimbledon College in south-west London, which has closed for deep…
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DWP destroyed reports linking benefit sanctions and cuts with suicide
DWP destroyed reports linking benefit sanctions and cuts with suicide
Errol Graham, who starved to death in 2018, following his social security support being cancelled by the Department for Work and Pensions. He left a heartbreaking letter which described his circumstances leading up to his death. His family found the letter after he died, weighing less than five stone.
Department for Work and pensions (DWP) officials have admitted that up to 50 reviews into…
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Eugenicist adviser leaves eugenicist government of ‘misfits and weirdos’
Eugenicist adviser leaves eugenicist government of ‘misfits and weirdos’
In 2016, I wrote a critique of a very controversial book called The Welfare Trait: How State Benefits Affect Personality, by Adam Perkins, a lecturer in neurobiology. He claimed that generous welfare states create an “employment–resistant personality profile”, and that social security is “warping the personality profile of the population”. This, he argued, is because children of claimants…
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The impact of government policy on free speech in universities: Once you hear the jackboots it’s too late
Freedom of speech is generally considered an integral part of a functioning democracy. In 2014, I wrote about how the process of dismantling democracy started in earnest from May 2010 here in the UK, and has been advancing by almost inscrutable degrees ever since, because of pervasive government secrecy and a partly complicit, dominant right wing media.
In order to “protect democracy”…