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War on the disabled

The most vulnerable people in the country are left struggling to feed themselves

Britain's disabled people left waiting for six months and more without an income because of private-sector incompetence is a human tragedy of colossal proportions.

The most vulnerable people in the country are left struggling to feed themselves while awaiting biased assessments on whether they are "fit to work" from firms such as Atos, which have a track record of getting things wrong.

The work and pensions select committee's simultaneous finding that the ministry responsible has misused statistics to smear disabled people is not news - Iain Duncan Smith has been rebuked by the UK Statistics Authority for his deceitful use of the figures before.

But it is further evidence of this government's vicious war on the disabled, who have been bullied and demonised by an amoral coalition in order to whip up public support for tearing up social security and the human bonds which bind our communities together into the bargain.

This is clearly linked to the shocking rise in hate crimes against disabled people, which have risen under the coalition to the highest levels ever recorded.

That Atos and Capita Business Services cannot even conduct their fundamentally flawed assessments on time tells us volumes about the shortcomings of privatising public services.

We've seen it more than once in other fields - on the railways with firms walking away from contracts without being penalised, in security with G4S's Olympic shambles.

Private companies fall over themselves to win contracts which are all too often, as Virgin tycoon Richard Branson once said of the West Coast Main Line franchise, "a licence to print money."

Since their priority is to cash in and not to provide a service for those who need it, consideration of whether they can successfully run the services they snap up is secondary and cost-cutting is rife.

Defeating this vile government and its politics of hate is an urgent priority for the left.

So is electing a replacement that will understand essential services must be delivered based on need, not greed - and end private provision of public services.

 

 

Rank hypocrisy

The hypocrisy of Western governments howling that the referendum that took place in Crimea is illegal is pathetic.

It is the US-led Nato alliance that has form in ripping up national boundaries without reference to national or international laws - the 2008 secession of Kosovo from Serbia is a case in point.

And raging about the inviolable sovereignty of Ukraine and breaches of its constitution ring hollow from a Kiev regime which deposed the country's constitutional and elected government by force.

Kiev's moves since, drafting fascist armed gangs into a new National Guard and making attacks on Russian speakers, are responsible for the desperation of many in Crimea to secede or join Russia.

The history of the region is complex and the collapse of the Soviet Union certainly enshrined some borders of dubious validity in former member states.

But as the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) has pointed out the current climate of fear and chaos is hardly one in which these questions can be properly resolved.

Putin's Russia is no friend to either the Russian or Ukrainian left. It has its own interests in mind when it intervenes in other countries.

The CPU has called for real federalism in Ukraine to avoid the country being torn apart. Overtures from Russia yesterday suggest it is still open to this potential solution.

Kiev and the West should consider it too.

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