Brendan O’Neill – Disability Hatred ?
Daily Telegraph Journalist Brendan O’Neill fails to balance his article…
Brendan O’Neill & The Daily Telegraph – Disabilty Hatred ?
Calum’s List has tried, very, very hard, to tone down any political reference on this website, and to keep it as best we can to be a memorial record of those who have died, where some culpability may attach to the DYSFUNCTIONAL welfare reforms. The point? To persuade politicians that welfare reform needs to be made fair. Not the current gerrymandered thing that is likely to result in Katy Clarke’s prophetic words from the official record of Hansard dated 23rd January 2012 coming true:-
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120123/debtext/120123-0001.htm
Column 22
If Brendan, or more likely a proper journalist connected two simple dates between the weblink above, and the testimony of HM Coroner, plus a qualified doctor and numerous family members, healthcare professionals, DWP witnesses, together with the weblink immediately below, they might just “get it”:-
http://www.gazetteherald.co.uk/news/10360733.Benefits_withdrawal_led_to_man___s_suicide/?ref=twtrec
The material date is 10th December 2012. Attach the events of that tragedy on THAT day, with the subsequent evidence based testimony of HM Coroner and witnesses - to the indelible PRIOR date of 23rd January 2012 – the exact date that Katy Clarke MP FOREWARNED Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling in the Chamber of the House of Commons, any self-respecting reporter would have a VERY important piece of journalism.
Ironically, if Brendan O’Neill but knew it, the people at Calum’s List are working to resolve the problems, not further inflame them.
However, Brendan O’Neill continues to fail and understand the concerns voiced by many many people commenting on this webpage and elsewhere – even on Brendan’s own Daily Telegraph web article.
In a FINAL attempt to persuade Mr O’Neill that he is NOT above the law, we politely refer Brendan to read and reflect upon what the undernoted gentleman has written:-
Keir Starmer QC, Director of Public Prosecutions
http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/articles/prosecuting_disability_hate_crime/
As of May 2013, Brendan O’Neill is again allegedly commiting acts that may be competent for investigation in terms of incitement to disability hatred, or public order law infraction. If this Calum’s List web page is removed, or substantially deleted, it will be for reasons of SUB JUDICE and the rights in law that Mr O’Neill has. It is also to ensure that any action as a result of a referral to the proper authorities of Mr O’Neill does not become prejudiced, and that proper justice is executed.
Free speech is very important. But Mr O’Neill has evidently demonstrated he does NOT understand the basic rights and responsibilities of free speech. To balance his journalism, and especially comprehend and diligently observe the journo-legal codification of the law. In case Brendan O’Neill decides to have another rant at disabled people, or even take issue at Calum’s List, we do not write this from any particular political camp. Calum’s List is compiled by people who are either directly affected by the loss of loved ones, or have a disabling illness.
Probably what should concern Brendan O’Neill personally is that the targets he thinks are weak and can get him an easy personal cheque made payable to himself for some inflammatory Daily Telegraph article, is that two of the subscribers to this website are former officers of the law. One a police officer with a proven track record compiling evidence for prosecuting authorities that has resulted in many jail sentences being handed down to miscreants.
For his own selfish reasons, Mr O’Neill would now be well advised to run any future press or media articles past his lawyers prior to publication.
The reasons? Brendan O’Neill is coming very very close to a specific type of knock at his house door. You know, the knock that other people who believe they are above the law have actually – indeed factually received - that strange word Brendan “fact”, you might think about checking what it means? The fact of the early morning knock that other legally privileged journalists thought they had protection from: Andy Coulson ARRESTED; Rebekah Brooks; ARRESTED; Fergus Shanahan ARRESTED; Stuart Kuttner ARRESTED; Greg Miskiw ARRESTED; Clive Goodman ARRESTED; Terenia Taras ARRESTED; Iain Edmondson ARRESTED; James Weatherup ARRESTED; Dan Evans ARRESTED; Neville Thurlbeck ARRESTED; Jamie Pyatt ARRESTED; Bethany Usher ARRESTED; Lucy Panton ARRESTED.
Brendan O’Neill neither you, nor your sub-editor etc., etc., are immune from being reported to the police or other proper authorities. NOT for hacking, but for allegedly inciting your readers to kick a cripple, or as Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson put it, demonisation of the disabled is resulting in those people being spat on in the streets.
Brendan, as you seem impotent at researching your articles, and just following a political script of demonsing the disabled and allegedly inciting hate crimes against the disabled, here is some bedtime reading for you to be getting on with:-
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/contents
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/public_order_offences/
Brendan O’Neill, please consider this your final advisory from this obscure website. For your own rights, please run your future stories and articles by a specialist media lawyer before putting them in front of your friendly sub-editor.
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Below is the original text that appeared on this page. It is retained here for the sake of completeness and public record…
A rookie mistake a first year student journalist at university would avoid. Mr O’Neill FAILS in any objectivity, or in the most basic of journalistic ethics: to study the point-of-view of his subject. At NO point did Mr O’Neill contact anyone at Calum’s List, let alone understand the people who are contributing to this website, nor whom they are trying to remember.
In attacking Calums List Mr O’Neill neglects to understand this list is put together BY disabled people, and BY THOSE who are bereft. This list may prove irritating to Mr O’Neill’s agenda, and those who pay him a lot of money to write his hate filled attack, but it is the wish of the disabled people here, and the widows, widowers, bereaved parents and orphans trying to find a voice for their anguish in the absence of all but a few decent journalists and almost universal disinterest by many national media organisations that those who have died are remembered. We would thank the likes of The Void website for providing some balance to Mr O’Neill…
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/tag/calums-list/
What most of us here at Calum’s List want is to remove the bulk of this website, and for there to be NO MORE WELFARE REFORM DEATHS PLEASE.
Surely it is within the gift of politicians to make Welfare Reform Fair?
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“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”.
Where does Brendan O’Neill’s disability hate filled attack fit?
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Brendan O’Neill said Calum’s List ‘has no constituency’. No support. Calum may be burnt out and gone, but there are plenty here to take his place.
Answer this Brendan: How is it over 85% of the comments posted below YOUR near criminally offensive article ON THE TELEGRAPH WEBSITE were firmly AGAINST what your poison pen dripped….
Brendan O’Neill and the Daily Telegraph Hate The Disabled/
Calum’s List is written by the disabled, and by people who are bereft. Brendan O’Neill and his like just don’t get it. Instead he opts to stick his bully boy boot into a group of disabled people, widows, widowers, bereaved parents and orphans trying to find a voice for their anguish in the absence of mainstream media and all but a few politicians taking any interest in what is a subject that does concern most decent right minded people.
For example, just click onto what other, more balanced PROFESSIONAL journalists and commentators have to say…
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/welfare-reform-suicides-must-not-be-overlooked
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/tag/calums-list/
As for our ‘constituency’ – please read what the MAJORITY of people posted in reply to Brendan O’Neill and the Daily Telegraph below. These people, the decent ones, the 85% who restore faith in humanity write from the mainstream below. The voice of the silent majority given cause to write. The thoughts of decent people. This is what just a few of them say directly to the disability hate-inciting Brendan O’Neill …….
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Ethical Girl replied to Brendan O’Neill …
[Brendan O'Neill's] article is not just nonsense, it’s dangerous nonsense. The risk of increased suicides is very real. I know this because I lost a good job & my long term partner in the same month. Housing benefit reform meant my rent wasn’t covered yet I was tied into a contract plus there’s no housing within the LHA limit and no money for a deposit anyway. The fear of homelessness made me suicidal. I was not “psychologically disturbed”. I was terrified but thinking clearly enough to start “putting my affairs in order” & packing up my stuff for those left behind.
It was the kindness of another poor person – not the state – that enabled me to keep my home but not everyone will be that lucky. A few months later & I’m back in work paying taxes. I was totally job ready & lost mine through no fault of my own. What benefit is gained by making people in that situation so frightened & stressed out that can’t even focus on job hunting?
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Rippon replied to Brendan O’Neill …
Yet another moronic line of argument from O’Neill. By O’Neill’s logic, anyone who protests Iraq invasion-occupation because it causes death to many Iraqis is ‘exploiting those deceased for political purposes.’
Anyone who wants to convey the horror of the Jewish holocaust, by focusing attention on the deaths, is ‘exploiting those dead people because they’re incapable of engaging with the living.’
Ultimately, all government policy is premised on the motive (the professed motive, at least) of eliminating people’s suffering. O’Neill is advocating that no minister should ever use any victim of bad policy to illustrate the badness of that policy – because, according to O’Neill, that would be ‘exploiting the victims.’
By O’Neill’s cretinous logic, if any women’s group points to rape victims as evidence that a certain area should have better street lighting, that would be cynical of them because they would be exploiting those victims.
It is galling that someone of such low intellectual calibre is given a platform on a paper that aspires to the ‘quality’ category.
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Samuel Miller replied to Brendan O’Neill …
For Brendan O’Neil
See: UK Parliament (Early day motion 295)
That this House deplores that thousands of sick and disabled
constituents are experiencing immense hardship after being deprived of
benefits following a work capability assessment carried out by Atos
Healthcare under a 100 million a year contract; notes that 40 per cent
of appeals are successful but people wait up to six months for them to
be heard; deplores that last year 1,100 claimants died while under
compulsory work-related activity for benefit and that a number of those
found fit for work and left without income have committed or attempted
suicide; condemns the International Paralympic Committee’s promotion of
Atos as its top sponsor and the sponsorship of the Olympics by Dow
Chemical and other corporations responsible for causing death and
disability; welcomes the actions taken by disabled people, carers,
bereaved relatives and organisations to end this brutality and uphold
entitlement to benefits; and applauds the British Medical Association
call for the work capability assessment to end immediately and to be
replaced with a system that does not cause harm to some of the most
vulnerable people in society.
Seems to me, Brendan, that Parliament has refuted your vile hatchet piece.
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Jill Jervis replied to Brendan O’Neill …
wish these so called journalists would do their research before coming out with a load of crap. Deaths are into the 300 since July last year & they are not all suicides either. People are having to go through these Atos tests over & over again which is just one long stressful process. As soon as you win your appeal you’re back in for another Atosser to give you nil points. It’s killing people! I’m not left wing but I’m certainly not a Conservative anymore. I’m still waiting for the gas chambers so all the right wing can deny they exist just like Hitler’s solution has been denied ever happened by some. Are you one of them Mr. ‘so called journalist’?
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Jane Young replied to Brendan O’Neill …
What an appalling article [written by you Brendan]. Campaigners use the reality of what happens to people to draw attention to problems in the system. Sometimes these problems will include death, sometimes other consequences such as worse physical or mental health. To take just one example, what’s wrong with people with significant walking difficulties explaining they may well have to stop working if they lose eligibility for the money that enables them to get a car, as they can’t use public transport due to their impairment? Equally, what’s wrong with explaining the risk that people with mental health difficulties might choose death rather than suffer the stress of repeated assessments or the prospect of being homeless or hungry due to lack of money? The difference is that once someone has died, it is too late to decide to improve their situation – that’s a good reason why we don’t want people to choose death rather than hardship, although some consider choosing death as a logical alternative – including some with no mental health difficulties. Since when has drawing attention to the possible results of new policies been unacceptable?
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Penny replied to Brendan O’Neill …
How dare you print such rubbish. People have and are committing suicide because they’ve received a letter telling them they are not going to recieve any more benefits and they’re not entitled to jobseekers allowance as they’re too ill to work. Get your facts right first and don’t write any more garbage.
Camoron is doing what Hitler did – social cleansing and it should not be allowed.
Why has he not stopped tax evasion? Why has he made Philip Green, one of the biggest evaders, a lord?
If the rich fat cats, who avoid paying tax, like caMORON’s father did, were made to pay – this country wouldn’t have to make any cut backs.
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Bilo replied to Brendan O’Neill …
This vile chancer (Brendan O’Neill) slanders disabled people from the smug corner he and the rest of the Hoorays inhabit in a closeted privilege that rots their brains and deprives them of any desires except their own dim self interest.
He mentions that suicide is not a rational response to the deprivation of livelihood. Exactly, this government has embarked on a vicious program of slander, propaganda and plain lies to bully those with the mental conditions which predispose them to suicide.
What else did they expect. This over paid attack dog of the privileged class does have the wit to know better but has decided to crawl after his own interests and toady to his masters. What a disgusting sight
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Merryengland replied to Brendan O’Neill …
I would confidently wager that the ESA “reforms” are the most unfair and immoral changes to welfare in this country since LLoyd George started to set the sytem up over a 100 years ago.
I work with the mentally ill and it is obvious that many many people must have attempted or succeeded at suicide because of this outrageous system. And many tens of thousands of other quality of life is currently being made unbearable by the stress of being put through such an iniquitous system.
Most of the assessors who conduct the medicals are woefully unqualified to be making such decisions about peoples eligibility for the ESA. They are particularly useless when it comes to the mentally ill. People whose lives are already nightmarish in many cases without the sudden withdrawal of their benefit on the whim of someone who knows no more about their condition than the man in the street.
I’ve supported people at these medicals suffering from full blown treatment resistant schizophrenia who have scored near to zero points and have been ajudged fit to work. If it wasn’t so tragic the whole system would be downright laughable in its ridiculousness.
Atos Origin the greedy, scurrilous organisation under whose control the government has placed this system are paid vast amounts of money to run a system which as well as attacking the defenceless is haemoraging money at a rate scarcely believable. A system which they realise is so loathsome that they attempt to shut down any disability groups who try to bring its cruel system to the public eye.
A very high proportion of claimants appeal their decisions and around 60% of those appealing win their cases at tribunal. In many areas the system is completely clogged with these appeals at each of whicha panel of neutral doctors and legal professionals are paid to preside. And I think we all know that won’t come cheap.
And all to enable government to try to con the country with headlines telling stories of “x amount of people ajudged fit for work” when the reality is very few indeed proportionately are fit for work of any kind at all.
However before the Guardian and its liberal-leftie acolytes gets itself into a rage at the Tories for the ESA outrages shouldn’t it consider that it was the Labour Government who introduced the evil system in the first place
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Bunfever replied to Brendan O’Neill …
VILE VILE VILE
[Brendan O'Neill] you really don’t have a clue…I suppose all of the people in the 1980′s who died of AIDS without any benefits to support them the last time we had the Tories in power, and those others who were diagnosed unworthy of benefits and who died in penury, many with only months to live were mental too?
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Jamie Taylor replied to Brendan O’Neill …
Well, it’s not hard to tell that you’ve never had a day’s hardship in your well-paid little life matey!
But I’d be careful if I were you – old adages like “…be careful what you wish for…” and “…hoist on his own petard…” always fit beautifully with arrogant, opinionated, judgemental hacks, bankers and rich Tories.
Hard times hit us all at some time or another; I wonder who’ll be rescuing your arse when its your turn?
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Bob Castle replied to Brendan O’Neill …
The issue of committing suicide over not having work is not a new one this goes back years and years to before anyone commenting was born and it will go on you will not and can not change this to some people having a job means everything.
We are in an age of social media being an everyday thing and people can debate political issues more easy and not everyone will agree on everything but Cameron’s welfare reforms are evil. How many people commenting have met someone from Atos or talked with one of them on the phone the people just don’t care its a job to them but its someones life they have the say over and Mr Cameron should employ people who can deal with this is a more human way.
The issue of people on benefits who commit suicide is not new but its on the rise as these reforms are not correctly planned out and the support is not in place at the right time and this have been proved time and time again.
I would like you to look into the issue in more detail and then post another article on what you find who knows you might just change the opinion you have.
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Andy Edwards replied to Brendan O’Neill …
The publishing of ignorant bigoted nonsense by Brendan O’Neill is a new low for the Telegraph(which apparently is a newspaper).The best part was”lack any serious arguments against welfare reform”do you mean welfare reform or the insane cruel attack on the sick and vulnerable by a bunch of millionaires?.
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Atosmiracles replied to Brendan O’Neill …
chefdave: the facts are verywhere. The man in a coma dying from MS receiving a letter stating he was fit for work. The fmaily who received a letter stating their loved one was fit for work ON THE DAY OF HIS FUNERAL. Perhaps the families telling these tales are exploiting their loved ones or perhaps they care about others and want to make sure no one else suffers? In a dod eat dog world it’s good some will speak up for those with no voice. Look up the rise in the use of foodbanks and the predicted need and talk about a ‘couple of hardship cases’.
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Kirsty Buchanan replied to Brendan O’Neill …
chefdave5 oh yeah lets attack the poor they are easier to target than the big banks that had to be bailed out. So lets all let the ill and the people who can get employment die. Probably makes you happy they are killing themselves one less person for you to pay for huh How about paycuts for the government and the queen to lighten the load
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1earthmother2 replied to Brendan O’Neill …
Martin Rust 36 died after back to work fears. Have a look at this
Norwich_Man_Killed_Himself_Over_Back_To_Work_Fears
Martin Rust-died because of back to work fears. He had treatment resistant schizophrenia.
Why is this Coalition persecuting the mentally ill?
Is it just the pure sadism I suspect?
Every death is blood on their hands.
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Spoonydoc replied to Brendan O’Neill …
You know an article is going to be bad when the author starts off by calling the people he disagrees with names.
“reform allergic”, “anti-reformists”. No. I happen to disagree with the specific reforms currently being made. That doesn’t mean I think no reforms are necessary. One does not follow from the other and to think so is a pretty big logic failure.
In fact if you had read the research (yes, research) done by myself and other campaigners, we found that most disability groups agree that some reform is necessary and would in fact be welcomed [INCLUDING CALUM'S LIST ]. This is often exploited by the government as support for their own reforms. Again, this is just as untrue and a big logic failure.
“circumvent democracy and public debate by pleading with the House of Lords”.
Like it or not there is a democratic process in this country which includes proposed legislation being debated in the House of Lords before being made law. Taking part in that debate is hardly “circumventing democracy” but quite the opposite. Nor by definition is it circumventing public debate. Furthermore with all debates being televised, the general public was able to see exactly what the issues were.
The author of this piece may not have liked the results, but they were obtained by due process.
The peers are seasoned debaters and are hardly likely to be swayed by emotional arguments. The case was presented with good arguments and research, which can easily be looked up. Thus campaigners were hardly “pleading”. The claim further down the piece that campaigners “lack any serious arguments against welfare reform” is also wrong.
Since the Lords debate further information has come to light, culminating in no less than the BMA calling for an immediate end to the Work Capability Assessment which tests people for ESA, the benefit for people too ill to work. They say it is unfit for purpose and detrimental to people’s health. Again, these are seasoned professional people who have never before taken an action remotely similar to this.
This is the broken system we have put in place. And this is the system we must fight and repair.
By all means reform what is wrong with the system. But let’s get it right. At the moment we are not. And people are going to suffer as a result.
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Sue Marsh replied to Brendan O’Neill …
My friend broke his spine officer training at Sandhurst.
His family are respectable and colonial.
This Gov have abolished the Independent Living Fund that topped up his care and support to enable him to continue to lie in his own home.
For 30 years, he has lived with a little dignity, he was chief exec of a major spinal research charity, he wrote articles for the Economist and the Telegraph.
For the first time, his future is uncertain and unstable.
He said an “awful chap came to his home and made him feel in some way a disgrace. ” These are your “assessments”
He’s quadriplegic for goodness sake. There is not a pill you can take. It’s not going away.
He says he will never vote Conservative again. So does his mother, in her nineties, sitting straight backed like a reminder of Empire-past.
Why? Because a great man like that, who has changed the future of spinal injury treatment was made to feel unworthy and despised.
Nice job Brendan.
As for our NOT having a constituency Brendan, just read what people yave written on YOUR website in reply to YOUR words.
THAT is our constituency.
THAT is the voice of decent people.
As for Calum’s List?
We are NOT against Welfare Reform as you assume.
We are FOR making it …
SAFE AND FIT FOR PURPOSE.
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Last word on Brendan O’Neill from the “Comments” section at The Void …
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2012/07/04/brendan-oneill-is-a-knob/#comments