A cross party peer has proposed forced labour for pensioners after warning that elderly people are a burden on society.
Baron Bichard, who used to run the Benefits Agency, is a member of a committee investigating demographic changes and their impact on public services.
According to the BBC, the former public sector boss turned toff, admitted it would be difficult for politicians to sell to the public, but pointed out: “So were tuition fees.”
Baron Bichard was close to David Blunkett whilst the seeds of today’s brutal welfare reforms were being planned. As the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education and Employment the then Sir Michael Bichard even attempted to help David Blunkett cover up for his long standing affair with a civil servant. Bichard was well rewarded for his loyalty, being made a life peer in 2010.
Whilst Bichard has little influence in the current administration, his statement, which appears to be justified by current workfare schemes, is revealing:
“We are now prepared to say to people who are not looking for work, if you don’t look for work you don’t get benefits, so if you are old and you are not contributing in some way or another maybe there is some penalty attached to that.”
Whilst these plans are unlikely to see the light of day any time soon it is telling that a policy to work the elderly to death is even considered by an influential peer. If a man who used to have significant responsibility for the benefits system is happy to make these vile opinions known in public, then what is being discussed behind the scenes must be truly chilling.
the void 
How right you are when you describe it “chilling”, that is now what we need to do. Think the unthinkable when it comes down to these barstewards because they really, really do not care if we die on our feet as long as it advantages them in some way. When these people have so much already yet still want us to spill our blood because enough is not enough. We must not put up with this any longer they all have to go and be gone for good this time so that there is never any possibility of them rising from beneath the sewers ever again. This whole Country and the West in general needs turning inside out, upside down and democracy strengthened beyond their ability to disrupt it again.
Hi , i am joanna,s friend, and i see where this is going. It happened not so long ago in the 1930s in Germany.
I read about this last night and had to check the date….April 1st?
Nope.
Just another Nazi.
This country is a fascist place…long recognised for it. Now they’re openly taking the piss because they can.
So now comes the move to scapegoat and demonise “burdensome” old people, just as has happened to the sick and disabled. I’m incandescent with rage about this, that it can even be proposed. And the way things are going in this benighted country, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it become official ConDem policy, and soon. They clearly want to eradicate anyone who isn’t healthy, relatively young, and wealthy.
This will never get off the ground, as pensioners VOTE and more often than not they also vote Tory, and Cameron will want to keep pampering them to assure himself of their Vote come the next election. Piss them off with crap like this, and the Tories will have no voters left expect the wealthy middle aged.
People had the chance to tell the Government what they thought last weekend, but as far as I was concerned it was a big flop, getting hardly any coverage, and there were no riots or anything else significant. All praise to those who managed to get to London to support the other causes like Boycott Workfare, but the Tories couldnt give a stuff about peaceful protests. The day was wasted on the TUC march, and after learning that the TUC support workfare and want more of it, I wouldnt give them or their march the time of day. Direct action is needed and SOON. A winter of discontent is the order of the day.
IDS is sniggering and laughing at us all – “Arbeit Macht Frei” – From the cradle to the grave.
It’s unlikely that they will force current pensioners to work for their pensions, but I think what they are planning, is to put in place a system of mandatory workfare for future pensioners. This idea has been put out there by the state propaganda broadcaster the BBC, to prepare the ground for its future implementation.
They will probably implement workfare for pensioners last since they tend to vote Tory, after they have finished destroying the rest of the welfare state. To achieve their prized objective of completely eliminating the welfare state consigning millions to abject poverty and an early grave, I believe the Tories are willing to spend a long time out of power. For them that would be a price worth paying.
Too right it will go through what is called in DWP-speak a “transitional phase”, but coming it is. As you say, Auntie Beeb always lays the groundwork first; why do you think they are always broaching such topics as euthanasia: “Wouldn’t it be kinder to put the poor, sick and disabled out of their misery? Micky Berk and a panel of “experts” discuss the issues surrounding compulsory euthanasia in this week’s Amoral Cuntuntdrum”.
Interesting what you say about the TUC supporting workfare. I regularly go onto their Touchstone blog, and I couldn’t understand why there was absolutely no articles concerning workfare on there; I felt really angry about that. They must be really stupid, because workfare is already affecting working peoples’ jobs.
Ah well, work all your life, then work until you die. No one escapes.
Yeah, fuck the workfare-loving treacherous TUC and their delaying tactic, blowing-off-steam, time-wasting, bullshit fucking marches.
They are completely eliminating the welfare state. They are dismantling it piece by piece. Work until you drop and if you can’t work or we don’t need your labour then go die in the gutter.
The final objective seems to be to turn Britain into a third world country – A 1% elite ruling 99% serfs, with the middle class abolished. For the majority – shanty towns, hunger, malnutrition, rags, cold, fear, pressure, sweatshops, pain, suffering, sickness, despair, violence, squalor, hopelessness and death, for the ruling elite – obscene luxury, hapinesss, comfort, security and frivolity.
And i say to myself what a wonderful world… Not
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can you believe the comment retirees should WORK,what is work
sat on your ass all your life recomending what other people should do.
where did you find people like this its unbeleavible that they can come up with this shitte most of us have worked over 40yrs or more and now they want us to do more ,even done forces for a few yrs so done a bit but have these people done any manual work as most who come up with this have never done any only sat on boards getting thousands for it not nowing whot a decent days work is and having payed into a pension pot only to have the govement pinch the surpluss of billions now who said put money into a pension only for those to plunder um i wonder if the yound will do this for their goverment to plunder in the future be warned pension pots for those in power jeff3
I already have to wait an extra six years for my pension, now this man wants me to work for it, surely that isn’t retirement. I wonder how decrepit he envisages that you would have to be to not have to work for your benefits/pension.
I would expect that pensioners would be forced to attend ATOS assessments to see if they are fit for work every few months, and as long as they are still breathing and can speak, then they will be found fit for work, and forced to do mandatory Workfare for their state pensions. Can imagine it, a 97 year old granny in a wheelchair who lives in a care home being wheeled into an ATOS assessment centre, to determine if she is still fit for work, and if they find she is, Its Workfare for you Granny Groggins, or you will lose your care home place via a benefit sanction for failure to comply with Workfare directives and orders. I can see IDS there with his nasty little brain cogs squeeking as they contemplate this move. Vile vile Tory filth.
Presumably it doesn’t apply to rich white old Tories?
Quite a few people are only trained in one thing, which was their job until they were forced to take (often years before other jobs and the state pension age, makes you retire) early retirement. So you can’t go back to a job you did all your life, being over the maximum age for it. But apart from people not hiring older workers (except B&Q, but how many people can really stand up all day?), you probably don’t have enough money to heat your house or eat, let alone money/time/energy to retrain. Apprenticeships are only for young people and training schemes can have a cut-off age. So can a lot of vocational courses. And nobody has mentioned the humiliation of, if you then have to go to ‘training’ for some non-skilled McJob, being ‘trained’ for it by a spotty disaffected youth with an attitude and half a GCSE. Or the job ads that say they want somebody ‘energetic’, ‘dynamic’, ‘flexible’… i.e. YOUNG. And of course in perfect health and ablebodied, with no responsibilities or ‘baggage’ – such as a person you care for, a fixed home you don’t want to leave, doctors’ appointments… Or the stupid corporate ‘bonding/teamwork’ things companies (DWP included) make their staff go on. These are aimed at fit, sporty, alcohol-drinking, ablebodied YOUNG people. Like a sort of compulsory Club 18-35 holiday, or even Club 18-24. Or when your job is meant to be Monday to Friday, your company orders you to spend your weekend at some crappy training thing. (If you’re like, ‘HELLO,? I have a LIFE…!’, they can then say you are ‘not a team player’, ‘too individualistic’, ‘asocial’, and so on.)
A couple of nights ago I was in a group discussion about forcing people to work till they are 68. I said, “What if you’re a pole dancer???” I just thought now, if sex work becomes legal, the government could find themselves in the curious position of having to tell a sex worker (under the ‘reforms’ for Universal Credit and so on) to ‘increase your hours of work’. Or even ‘Please find another pimp and work for him too.’ (Your original pimp will be DELIGHTED…) Or ‘Please ask your pimp for longer hours and more pay’.
Since sex workers get paid extra for NOT using a condom, if you then get HIV from doing so, could you sue the government? And/or would they prosecute you for (in order to ‘continue working’ and ‘not make yourself intentionally unemployed’, therefore disqualifying yourself from benefits and getting sanctioned) knowingly transmitting HIV? If there are no other jobs around, will the government start ordering the ‘prettier’ women (and more ‘handsome’ men???) in their 60s/70s, to start being sex workers?
Interesting there is an analogy here, something like: forced (not 100% willing, i.e, rape) sex work, and in particular working for a pimp; compared with working in a ‘job’ for a ‘boss’. Companies and workfare could be like ‘pimps’.
If the only job you are/were good at, is/was very physical, are you expected to go on doing that until you die, or to do something you are not trained in or interested in? What about caring for a spouse? Or if you have cancer, dementia, a broken hip, or some other major obstacle to doing work? If you would not have the energy to clean your home if you were forced to work? Plenty are busy looking after grandkids, often so that their children (unable to afford professional childcare) can go to the jobs, McJobs, or Workfare that the government keeps demanding people must do. (And somebody in a job or workfare at a creche could also be totally unable to afford childcare for their OWN kids – so who provides the childcare for the childcarers’ kids?)
Some people are ‘old’ in their 50s so cannot do ‘a job’. Like it might take 10 minutes with a walking frame to get 20 metres, constantly out of breath. (Saw one 50s lady and one 30s lady in this situation today)
Some people are old and caring for equally infirm elderly parents. If we start to regularly live to 120 as certain scientists have suggested, there could be a person of 120 being cared for by their child aged 90, who is cared for by the grandchild aged 60, who is cared for by a great-grandchild aged 30, who might have a daughter of 15 who then gets pregnant. And all the above (and the single mum on turning 16 and being branded a NEET) could be ordered to go on Workfare. There aren’t so many jobs around, and even less if the population gets much bigger or lives to that age. So a major thing that needs doing (but no budget to do it), is fixing the holes in the roads. We could call them autostradas in honour of that great hero of compassion and patriotism, Benito Mussolini. We could feed each person from ages 16-120 half a small cup of cold gruel (that the guards have spat in) once every three days. If they need the toilet they have to do it where they stand. If they want sleep they can have 5 hours a night under armed guard, on the bare earth with a thin piece of rag as a blanket. If anyone is commie enough to collapse and die under this caring treatment, their body will be incorporated into the road and their fellow slaves/family will be forced to tarmac over them. If the government wants to hire particularly sadistic guards with gerontophilia, the guards will be allowed to rape and sexually abuse elderly slaves as much as they like. Of course ‘normal’ guards will be encouraged to do it to younger people too. (this already happens in asylum detention centres anyway!) Once a month the slaves will be stripped and then communally washed by a water cannon. Any slaves who are not building the road fast enough will be whipped. If you protest, strike, or try to escape you will be shot.
Oh dear. Just gave that lot a whole pile of ideas….
You know the new ad for Reed, where this space captain guy suddenly picks random jobs for people, as a total career change? It’s just like the way the government views you as a blank slate, interchangeable and ‘able to do any job we send you to do’. So has nobody pointed out there are not very many jobs as a Beefeater; that to be a brain surgeon it takes years of training at medical school; that you need certain amounts of strength/talent/ability/health for many jobs? It makes no sense (I know a doctor and she was forced to be a shelf stacker instead!).
So let’s sack a waitress and make her be (with no training) a brain surgeon. The Brain surgeon can clean the toilets at Tesco. The toilet cleaner can be a children’s entertainer. The children’s entertainer can be a gravedigger. The gravedigger can become a ballerina. The ballerina can work on a construction site. The builder can be a waitress.
At the moment the Workfare placements are matching up the LEAST suited and LEAST willing people, to the LEAST appropriate jobs.
Under the new regime most of the above (irony/farce/satire/sarcasm) will be Banned. Oh,,, so will telling the truth, like pointing out that ‘Workfare sucks’.
The Americans didn’t come up with the phrase ‘Dead Peasants’ for nothing.
I wrote a satirical passage in a book I’ve written about old people being next – because I never believed they would even think about it. But nothing is beyond these fascists. But as someone said above – they can’t afford to try it because they’ll wipe out the Tory vote sooner than expected. The grey vote is what they rely on.
This as well as the LCP( Liverpool Care Plan) and requesting GP ‘s to register how many patients they think will qualify to die and be assisted to do so each year and save the cost of occupying a hospital bed !!! They are truly evil beings !!!
When do we get armed?
This is wacky, unlikely, implausible, and deeply worrying. Because this is how it always happens. An individual minister or MP or Peer makes a suggestion just for the “sake of argument”. Then after the sniggering has died down other people start talking about it. Newspaper columnists start saying “let’s just throw it out there”, then newspaper editorials. Then the hairy-a*sed brigade start on the phone ins, and Outraged of Orpington starts writing to the Daily Heil. Now we have a “clamour for change”, all of which has been crefully cultivated by media and politicians.
Workfare for Pensioners (specifically those who rely on their state pensions) is coming.
Old age will be banned too! The way things are going we will be looking Forward to Soylent Green…
It’ll be kids signing on for child benefit next. Who the fuck are these people?
I agree with much of what has been said about the current Tory government but feel compelled to point out that Bichard is a Labour peer and good mate of David Blunkett.
Reminds me of poor old Boxer in ‘Animal Farm’, but they will only target poorer pensioners if at all.
It’s only a matter of time before the general population realise, all three UK main political parties are fascist lap dogs to the 1%.
Baron Bichard is bleeding filth. Now… where did I put me bleeding teef.
Just been reading about the methods the Nazi state used to expoit slave labour. Everyone and anyone considered to be inferior for whatever reason was subjected to compulsary forced labour. The evil bastards who implimented such inhumanity dressed up their atocities in governmental double-speak by describing it as “Elimination through labour”.
According to Wikipedia, Nazi crimes on working human beings to death was defined as :
” the willful or accepted killing of forced labouers through excessive heavy labour, malnutrition, or inadequate care”.
Of course our very own modern day Nazis (the ones in Westminster) will want to distance themselves from their contemporary version of state sponsored ruthlessness and cruelty. So we can expect heartfelt, copper-bottomed from gurantees from DWP and Tory mouthpieces that under newly enacted work for your pension schemes, elderly people will be granted massive favours from the schemes by being exempt from performing heavy labour. The elderly will still be required to work for their pensions , mind, but not on building sites or digging ditches. Now that will be such a relief to all of us concerened citizens.
Prior to the introduction of these schemes those employed in the propaganda sector will be doing sizable amounts of overtime.
What with disguising comfortably off Tory voters posing as ordinary grannies and grandads who are bursting with pride and joy at the idea of collecting trolleys and stacking shelves at supermaket chains; to interviewing pretty middle class mums who will espouse patronising lines like ” bless them, I hope I’ll have the chance to be as useful to society when I’m their age”.
It wasn’t that ago since most normal people thought the idea of forcing claimants to work for their benefits was too outrageous to be taken seriously. But today we have forced sick and disable people to join the unemployed on schemes that produce no value to the claimants themselves but do produce massive profits to the providers and employers involved in these schemes.
A boss I worked for used to say he would retire at 60. When I asked why, he said : “Dray horses are worked until they drop, they always die in service, and I’m no drayhorse.”
Makes “1984” seem quite a pleasant way to live. Orwell must be spinning in his grave.
I was 56 years old when my benefits were once again sanctioned and I fell into rent arrears, our takeover housing association who wanted their rent money, took it upon themselves to have me sectioned under the mental health act for being in arrears. I called in the police on my mobile phone who refused to do anything about this so called hospital illegally drugging me nor about the fact that I was also threatened and attacked by other inmates who were clearly mentally ill. The psychiatrists and nursing staff are all corrupt colluders of government policy that is taking away your liberty even if you are not a criminal via the mental health act and false diagnosis. The upshot of all of this was that I was entitled to housing benefit on a nil income basis so the housing association should not have been threatening me with baliffs or eviction in the first place and this was the message I tried in vain to get across to the fascist housing association.
Now they are penalizing me for underoccupancy next year of 2 bedrooms the cost of which is on a percentage of rent basis so will increase with the planned rent increases, Council tax reductions will also see those on benefits forking out more yet again and if I get moved before I store up arrears in all of these areas and have my benefits sanctioned again based on pure lies, i.e. I was not doing enough to find work – WHAT WORK THERE IS VERY LITTLE WHERE I LIVE – i run the risk of the fascist housing associations taking responsibility for my own welfare out of my hands and forcing me onto the sick via the mental health act which would most certainly prevent me from gaining any meaningful employment other than being forced into charity work in the future. No wonder the French used the guillotine on the aristocratic ruling class.
I forgot to mention in my last posting if I am turned out of my 3 bedroom house I also lose my 60% discount off the buying price should I want to buy it in future years if my parents leave me money in their will. I had never agreed with buying council housing believing that if you wanted to buy you should buy in the private sector not steal council housing going cheap, but since these fascist housing associations have taken over council housing I no longer want to be under their tenancy agreements if at all possible and would like to leave something for my children should they ever need somewhere to live, so am livid that they are financially forcing me and people like me out of their homes offering me a at 58 a one bedroom cramped bungalow while pensioners are allowed to stay in their houses.
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