Dear Mr Wilson.
I wish to say a few words before I get to the reason for this letter. The first is I am a good and true conservative. I joined the party at the tender age of thirteen and have never wavered from my steadfast and true support. Indeed I have suffered both physically and mentally for my support as during my younger years the party was devoutly disliked but I sir, I remained true.
I say this so you can understand my deep displeasure at the parties wilful attack on me and those of my kind, you see Sir I am dyslexic and Dyspraxia and I ask nothing Sir, nothing but a computer for my exam and to be left alone. I accepted a long time ago that despite my MA in political theory and BA in public policy that no public body would ever accept me due to the discriminatory English and maths test they alone see fit to impose and I have sought not to rectify this imbalance.
For I, sir, I am a conservative it tooth and claw. I am a fellow of Burke I will hear no nonsense speech of human right or acts which try and indivertibly fail to enshrine them. My view is that of the great man himself “the liberty of mischief and never of good order”. I was aghast to see the last government wasting hours institutionalising pseudo constitutional laws in a system not equip to processes them and t wasting further hours equalising the marriage laws (where a simple amendment would have served the equal purpose) whilst freely stripping those unprotected freedoms which are the foundation of any decent state.
So I am left stuck when are education secretary further discriminates, belittles and discriminates against dyslexic by further increasing the English and math standards required for teaching, alongside increasing the standards we are supposed to achieve. In doing so he has set standard I and my fellow disabled could never hope to reach.
Indeed this emphasis on English and maths though terribly popular amongst a people hardly renowned for it (i.e. the media) further stigmatises an already stigmatised class of people. I am sure you know who may of my fellows rot in prison – mostly due to their own fault but hardly helped by the almost total lack of positive role; models dyslexic teacher being akin to unicorns . Indeed beyond a few business people most dyslexics school life will be harsh extra English and ignorant teacher blaming us for are disability.
Then when we graduate, we are further belittled, we are refused to become teacher to help are fellows, we are prevented from joining the civil service (as there is a numerical and literal test) and thus can be of no aid there and we are excluded from the media and from other occupations.
I ask you how many dyslexics have failed to achieve their full potential because of the closed minded attitude which elevates spelling test above MA’s? How many other disabilities have to endure test which take no account of their disabilities, how many are asked to take lower wages, or excluded from the civil service due to a genetic mutation?
Therefore Sir I ask the party this one thing, outlaw this discrimination, rid are state of it, or we will be forced sir to seek justice in Europe and the ECHR. I ask the party to stand up for good decent people who only wish to see their children do well and wish not to treated like a social disorder. Indeed I ask nothing more than any minority for the government to waste a little time on us.
This letter and any further to it will be put on Twitter, for though, as no doubt you can tell, my grammar is awful. I have a considerable following and I would like them to see, despite some recent unfortunate comments the conservative party will always protect the weakest in are society and enforce the rights and liberties of those who have done nothing to forsake or be undeserving of them.
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Friday, 17 June 2011
Philip Davies
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmdebate/01.htm#d2e63
Philip Davies : I went to visit a charity called Mind in Bradford a few years ago. One of the great scandals that the Labour party would like to sweep under the carpet is that in this country only about 16%—I stand to be corrected on the figure—of people with learning difficulties and learning disabilities have a job. The others are unemployed, but why is that? I spoke to people at Mind who were using the service offered by that charity, and they were completely up front with me about things. They described what would happen when someone with mental health problems went for a job and other people without these problems had also applied. They asked me, “Who would you take on?” They accepted that it was inevitable that the employer would take on the person who had no mental health problems, as all would have to be paid the same rate. Given that some of those people with a learning disability cannot, by definition, be as productive in their work as someone who does not have a disability of that nature, and given that the employer would have to pay the two people the same, it was inevitable that the employer would take on the person who was going to be more productive and less of a risk. The situation was doing the people with learning difficulties a huge disservice.
As I said at the start of my remarks, the national minimum wage has been of great benefit to lots of low-paid people. However, if the Labour party is not even prepared to accept that the minimum wage is making it harder for some of those vulnerable people to get on the first rung of the jobs ladder, we will never get anywhere in trying to help these people into employment.
Philip Davies: I made my position clear in my earlier remarks but, given how uninteresting I am, I forgive the hon. Gentleman for perhaps nodding off during that section. I did make it clear at the outset that I did not agree with the national minimum wage in principle. I said I thought that what somebody was prepared to work for and what somebody was prepared to pay was a private matter between two people and it should not be interfered with by the Government. The big difference between him and me is that I would much prefer the person with the learning disability to be given the opportunity to get a job, do something worth while and contribute in a way that they want to, whereas he would prefer them to be sat at home, unable to get a job in the first place. He may think that he is taking the moral high ground by believing that it is far better for these people to be sat at home unemployed without any opportunity, but I do not
Philip Davies: I will tell the hon. Gentleman what is an outrage. It is an outage that in 1997, 47,000 people had been on incapacity benefit for five years or more, but by the time his party had ruined the country that figure had risen to 1.5 million. That is an outrage that he should be reflecting upon. He should think about the fact that so many people were either priced out of the jobs market or were just out of that market as a result of his Government’s policies. That happened either because of the national minimum wage or because the benefits system penalised people for going out to work. That is the real outrage, rather than what he is pointing out.
Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, it is very easy for everyone to try to sweep such matters under the carpet, but we would be doing this place a great disservice if we did. I am appalled that Labour Members, who supposedly—as they claim—represent the most vulnerable in society, are perfectly happy for those people never to be given the opportunity to get a job as a consequence of Labour’s policies either on this matter or on benefits.
Mr Leigh: My hon. Friend is making an important contribution and it is important that we have thi
Philip Davies: The point is that if an employer is considering two candidates, one who has disabilities and one who does not, and if they have to pay them both the same rate, which is the employer more likely to take on? Whether that is right or wrong and whether my hon. Friend would or would not do that, that is to me the real world in which we operate. The people who are penalised are those with disabilities who are desperate to make a contribution to society and who want to get on the employment ladder, but find time and again that the door is closed in their face. If they could prove themselves earlier and reassure the employer who took them on that they would not cause a problem in the way the employer might fear—I am sure that there are a lot of myths out there and that many of these people would be just as productive as those without a disability—they might well move up the pay rates much more quickly. At the moment, they are not getting any opportunities at all.
We all know that some employers break the law and pay below the national minimum wage, but it strikes me that the only way employers are likely to get away with that is if they employ illegal immigrants. If an employer is employing a British citizen or someone who is here legally and tries paying them below the minimum wage, legal action can be taken against them, they will face a huge fine and the employee can do something about it. If that employer is employing an illegal immigrant, the power rests with the employer, because they will judge that the illegal immigrant will not take up the case officially. If they do, their illegal status in this country will be exposed and they will be turfed out of the country.
One consequence of the national minimum wage is that it encourages illegal immigration into this country. Illegal immigrants know that they can get employment below the national minimum wage and are happy to do so because it is probably higher than the wage they would earn back in their country. They also know that they will have no problem getting a job because some employers will be crying out for someone whom they can pay less than the national minimum wage. I am not sure whether any research has been done on this, but I would be interested to know how much illegal immigration into this country has come about as a result of the introduction of a national minimum wage.
Whatever the effects on employment of a minimum wage are in general, its effects in a recession must be worse. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch may well have made this point before I entered the Chamber, as I was a few minutes late, but people will recall that at the start of the credit crunch, or recession, a couple of companies—my hon. Friend, who is more knowledgeable on this than I am, will correct me if I am wrong, but I am sure that those companies were JCB and Corus—told the people working there that the wage bill needed to be reduced by 20%, so either 20% of the staff could be made redundant or everyone could take a 20% pay cut. One way or another that wage bill had to be reduced. If I remember rightly, the workers in those places—JCB sticks in my mind in particular—got together and voted to take a 20% pay cut. They made that choice themselves. Rather than being made redundant, they chose to take a pay cut.
Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is right and reinforces my point. Those people decided they would prefer a 20% cut to risking a 20% chance of being made redundant.
Philip Davies : I went to visit a charity called Mind in Bradford a few years ago. One of the great scandals that the Labour party would like to sweep under the carpet is that in this country only about 16%—I stand to be corrected on the figure—of people with learning difficulties and learning disabilities have a job. The others are unemployed, but why is that? I spoke to people at Mind who were using the service offered by that charity, and they were completely up front with me about things. They described what would happen when someone with mental health problems went for a job and other people without these problems had also applied. They asked me, “Who would you take on?” They accepted that it was inevitable that the employer would take on the person who had no mental health problems, as all would have to be paid the same rate. Given that some of those people with a learning disability cannot, by definition, be as productive in their work as someone who does not have a disability of that nature, and given that the employer would have to pay the two people the same, it was inevitable that the employer would take on the person who was going to be more productive and less of a risk. The situation was doing the people with learning difficulties a huge disservice.
As I said at the start of my remarks, the national minimum wage has been of great benefit to lots of low-paid people. However, if the Labour party is not even prepared to accept that the minimum wage is making it harder for some of those vulnerable people to get on the first rung of the jobs ladder, we will never get anywhere in trying to help these people into employment.
Philip Davies: I made my position clear in my earlier remarks but, given how uninteresting I am, I forgive the hon. Gentleman for perhaps nodding off during that section. I did make it clear at the outset that I did not agree with the national minimum wage in principle. I said I thought that what somebody was prepared to work for and what somebody was prepared to pay was a private matter between two people and it should not be interfered with by the Government. The big difference between him and me is that I would much prefer the person with the learning disability to be given the opportunity to get a job, do something worth while and contribute in a way that they want to, whereas he would prefer them to be sat at home, unable to get a job in the first place. He may think that he is taking the moral high ground by believing that it is far better for these people to be sat at home unemployed without any opportunity, but I do not
Philip Davies: I will tell the hon. Gentleman what is an outrage. It is an outage that in 1997, 47,000 people had been on incapacity benefit for five years or more, but by the time his party had ruined the country that figure had risen to 1.5 million. That is an outrage that he should be reflecting upon. He should think about the fact that so many people were either priced out of the jobs market or were just out of that market as a result of his Government’s policies. That happened either because of the national minimum wage or because the benefits system penalised people for going out to work. That is the real outrage, rather than what he is pointing out.
Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, it is very easy for everyone to try to sweep such matters under the carpet, but we would be doing this place a great disservice if we did. I am appalled that Labour Members, who supposedly—as they claim—represent the most vulnerable in society, are perfectly happy for those people never to be given the opportunity to get a job as a consequence of Labour’s policies either on this matter or on benefits.
Mr Leigh: My hon. Friend is making an important contribution and it is important that we have thi
Philip Davies: The point is that if an employer is considering two candidates, one who has disabilities and one who does not, and if they have to pay them both the same rate, which is the employer more likely to take on? Whether that is right or wrong and whether my hon. Friend would or would not do that, that is to me the real world in which we operate. The people who are penalised are those with disabilities who are desperate to make a contribution to society and who want to get on the employment ladder, but find time and again that the door is closed in their face. If they could prove themselves earlier and reassure the employer who took them on that they would not cause a problem in the way the employer might fear—I am sure that there are a lot of myths out there and that many of these people would be just as productive as those without a disability—they might well move up the pay rates much more quickly. At the moment, they are not getting any opportunities at all.
We all know that some employers break the law and pay below the national minimum wage, but it strikes me that the only way employers are likely to get away with that is if they employ illegal immigrants. If an employer is employing a British citizen or someone who is here legally and tries paying them below the minimum wage, legal action can be taken against them, they will face a huge fine and the employee can do something about it. If that employer is employing an illegal immigrant, the power rests with the employer, because they will judge that the illegal immigrant will not take up the case officially. If they do, their illegal status in this country will be exposed and they will be turfed out of the country.
One consequence of the national minimum wage is that it encourages illegal immigration into this country. Illegal immigrants know that they can get employment below the national minimum wage and are happy to do so because it is probably higher than the wage they would earn back in their country. They also know that they will have no problem getting a job because some employers will be crying out for someone whom they can pay less than the national minimum wage. I am not sure whether any research has been done on this, but I would be interested to know how much illegal immigration into this country has come about as a result of the introduction of a national minimum wage.
Whatever the effects on employment of a minimum wage are in general, its effects in a recession must be worse. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch may well have made this point before I entered the Chamber, as I was a few minutes late, but people will recall that at the start of the credit crunch, or recession, a couple of companies—my hon. Friend, who is more knowledgeable on this than I am, will correct me if I am wrong, but I am sure that those companies were JCB and Corus—told the people working there that the wage bill needed to be reduced by 20%, so either 20% of the staff could be made redundant or everyone could take a 20% pay cut. One way or another that wage bill had to be reduced. If I remember rightly, the workers in those places—JCB sticks in my mind in particular—got together and voted to take a 20% pay cut. They made that choice themselves. Rather than being made redundant, they chose to take a pay cut.
Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is right and reinforces my point. Those people decided they would prefer a 20% cut to risking a 20% chance of being made redundant.
Saturday, 4 June 2011
Blue NHS
I have been asked to write a position piece on the NHS, I believe the position is the position of the conservative party, if only I knew what that position is. There are those within the party who want shot of it all, some like myself who care for its founding principle; “Free at the point of us” and others who support the current centralised model (I’ve never met anyone who dose but someone must).
So let us start from the start with Beverage. One of the five giants Beverage sought to slay was sickness and lameness contributing to enforced slough. In order to do this Beverage nationalised a swath of local hospitals and instigated the construction of more. He poured gold down the throats of the consultants and general practitioners to bring them into the service and united all of health providers under the one giant organisation. All of this paid for and funded via taxation and American loans
We were not alone in building a united health service, indeed all the continental powers followed are example but with one key difference. Instead of forcing all health providers under one roof, they simply provided a system where health providers could be paid and regulated via the state. This model was not as monotheistic as the NHS and yes it provided a role for the private sector to profit from health care but it did ensure a system of insurance based public private provision which is the most common in the world.
Indeed one must ask themselves an important question why dose no other nation of earth have the NHS and yet preserves the all-important ability to provided health free at the point of use well logic concludes that it is because a nationalised health service is not required. If you agree with me then you must conclude that though Beverage’s principle of health care free at the point of use is still key in the 21st century the method of its delivery should not be held in such regard.
So let us start from the start with Beverage. One of the five giants Beverage sought to slay was sickness and lameness contributing to enforced slough. In order to do this Beverage nationalised a swath of local hospitals and instigated the construction of more. He poured gold down the throats of the consultants and general practitioners to bring them into the service and united all of health providers under the one giant organisation. All of this paid for and funded via taxation and American loans
We were not alone in building a united health service, indeed all the continental powers followed are example but with one key difference. Instead of forcing all health providers under one roof, they simply provided a system where health providers could be paid and regulated via the state. This model was not as monotheistic as the NHS and yes it provided a role for the private sector to profit from health care but it did ensure a system of insurance based public private provision which is the most common in the world.
Indeed one must ask themselves an important question why dose no other nation of earth have the NHS and yet preserves the all-important ability to provided health free at the point of use well logic concludes that it is because a nationalised health service is not required. If you agree with me then you must conclude that though Beverage’s principle of health care free at the point of use is still key in the 21st century the method of its delivery should not be held in such regard.
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