Bullying from the Cradle to the Grave: The Digital Divide in Britain!
By Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad
Reaching for the World, as our lives do,
As all lives do, reaching that we may give
The best of what we are and hold as true:
Always it is by bridges that we live.
-- Philip Larkin
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"Our lives have now turned into a complete and utter nightmare because of 'Universal Credit.' {i.e. an all-encompassing Department of Work and Pensions benefit system the poor and disadvantaged can apply for to attain alleviation from financial problems}.
Personally, I do not understand this system. And I think that is what the Conservative government wanted, to completely dehumanize people!
They are now saying my brother John has to find a job and he cannot even function on a daily basis. He has no energy! Do they expect him to go out digging on the roads etc??? The sick and disabled are treated like dirt in this country. I'm fed up with a lot of things. Especially the way this country {U.K.} treats the long-term sick and disabled.
Why are things so difficult?" lamented an exasperated Mary Hamilton, who is a carer who takes care of her brother John and whom she is currently aiding to apply for state benefits in Scotland. She receives a meager 280 pounds a month for taking care of her brother. She states "I get 2 pounds an hour and I think the minimum wage is 10.42 pounds an hour." Mary Hamilton has to 'prove' that her brother John, who suffers from schizophrenia and poor kidney function can't work. She must bring letters from nurses, doctors and social workers explaining why he can't work in a job. Mary has been assigned a 'work coach' who is to phone her every week for the next two months to 'assist' her brother find work.
During the 'First Commitment Interview' Mary had to explain how her brother has nightmares, talks to himself, and hears voices. She doubts that officials can grasp the nature of mental illness.
In regard to applying for state benefits this is no longer as straightforward as on previous occasions. Now the state only accepts digital applications or a telephone interview. The problem is that some people in Britain can't afford a computer and many older people are not versed in the five basic digital skills. Mary complains "Surely, the Department of Work and Pensions' and the government cannot expect everyone in the U K to have access to the internet? Not everyone is computer literate.
Technology is especially frightening for people with schizophrenia. I know I have to restrict the things I do on the internet due to paranoia. My friend David feels the same….
… I do as little on the internet as I can! That is why I never subscribe to anything and I never give out my e mail address unless I really truly trust someone! The world is a very frightening place for schizophrenics. We are quite vulnerable and people will take advantage! We live in a cruel world!"
Unless John, who is classified as disabled, qualifies for Universal Credit he won't be able to pay for his tenancy. Mary finds applying for Universal Credit very hard to navigate and to access. She describes applying for benefits not only confusing, and daunting but humiliating. It is as if officials presume the disabled are not genuine and aim to defraud the welfare system. She feels the system is designed to dehumanize and therefore deter people from applying.
The grim times are mirrored in local humor. In her local town some people with a dark sense of humor joke "I am glad I 'm on my way out "{i.e will soon be dead} and "Thank God I never brought any children into this World." An old saying in Russia claims, “There is a shade of truth in every joke.”
The problems which Mary Hamilton confronts are hardly new!
In 2018, a United Nations report on poverty by the rapporteur Philip Alston revealed some interesting results indeed. Alston was shocked by the extreme poverty he encountered on his special assignment. He declared that the extreme poverty “was not only a disgrace but a social calamity and an economic disaster.’ This, in a country which has the world's fifth largest economy. At that time Alston reported 14 million or one fifth of the population living in poverty and 1.5 million destitute. He came across hungry school children and cruel sanctions used against people who break the rules and people forced to take unsuitable low paid jobs. He stated, "I was surprised by the talk of suicide by the people I had met."
Alston found many people like Mary who had difficulty claiming benefits because they lacked digital skills, did not know English or were daunted by the complexity of the system. An estimated 21% of the British people don't have the 5 basic digital skills, and 16% can't fill in digital on-line application forms…
Alston succinctly summed up the predicament of many with the words "We are witnessing the gradual disappearance of the post war British welfare state behind a web page and an algorithm. A digital system discriminates and denigrates the worst off of citizens." Alston's report fell on deaf ears.
Since 2018, the situation has worsened drastically—with the mushrooming of charity food banks, warming banks and even shortages of vegetables in the shops.
According to a survey of the Food Foundation Think Tank, 1 in 5 of households reported skipping meals, going hungry, or not eating for a whole day in January 2023.
A recent survey by the teachers union--the N.E.U.—found 34% of school teachers skipped meals and 1 in 3 young teachers aged 29 and less had to take a second job to survive, due to low wages.
The current British government is seen as at best, being remote and out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people. At the worst, they are viewed as callous, cruel and insensitive. For instance, the British prime minister once stopped to ask a homeless person whether he would like to take up a career in finance or buying and selling. In reaction to the shortages of vegetables in supermarkets the British Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs suggested people eat turnips!
It sounded so much like Marie Antoinette's alleged suggestion to the French peasants "Let them eat cake." {Historians now know that this comment by Marie Antoinette was really invented by a journalist. She stated no such thing!"}
The callous attitude of the state to desperate refugees has been demonstrated by the passing of an illegal migration bill which denies refugees due process of their cases. As soon as they arrive in Britain, they will be deported to Rwanda and 500 are to be held in barges off Dorset. This is not just a hostile environment for illegal migrants or refugees but even British citizens themselves.
People born and bred in Britain have been deported back to Africa or other countries. The Home Office illegally deported such citizens because they could not find their documents on time in what has been called the ‘Windscale Crisis.’
What we have is not a state that protects people from the cradle to the grave. On the contrary you have a system which bullies people into the grave. You have the bullying of people applying for universal credit, the bullying of civil servants…
…and the bullying of refugees and school teachers. You have the pointless bullying by Ofsted school inspectors who drove a teacher Ruth Perry to suicide in January after her school was downgraded.
As the teacher Paul Arnold stated, "32 years of passion for the profession destroyed in a single word."
Old English proverbs and phrases, such as “Never hit a man who is down,” or “Never hit a man below the belt,” or “sense of fair play” or “compassion for the underdog” no longer resonate in Britain. Instead, those in power harry (Amer. “harass”), humiliate and insult the poor. Poverty is not seen as arising from low pay, high rents and soaring prices rooted in an unjust capitalist system. Instead, the state claims people make “a free choice to be poor or homeless.”
The people in Britain deserve much more.
A resolute government could take steps to at least simplify the application for welfare benefits. A resolute government could also stop imposing harsh sanctions on poor people which deprive them of benefits and invest much more resources in creating a more improved and caring society.
Britain has the resources but lacks a government with the will and resolution to allocate those resources. If every person made a promise never to bully people this act would at least represent a first step for humanity.