So this isn't really news, but who cares. I'm struggling to keep up with it all.
For reasons best known only to Brexit, failed Wirral MP and 'bootrstrap' mentality peddler, Esther McVey, has been given the reigns of power at the DWP. Even through the lens of Brexit, which really is the ideology pulling the Tories' strings right now, this is a baffling position. One might be forgiven for assuming they want some hardnut at the helm.
I wouldn't call her that, though her rhetoric is certainly just as ignorant, and she is certainly just as selfish. I mentioned bootstrap mentality; that's where she comes from. She's another of these 'self made' types; the nouveau capitalist that thinks they got where they are off the back of a little light Milton Friedmanomics and a 'can do' attitude. Just the same way Trump thinks his own effort made him the man he is, not the millions he got from his dad (including illegal casino chips). She's the sort that thinks reading something like the business equivalent of Paul McKenna and doing some 'cosmic ordering' will bring success your way. And if it doesn't, well it's because you're lazy. In short, she's ignorant.
Ignorant of the lived experience of the poor, the disabled. Ignorant of the mechanisms of a profit driven economy that produces this bootstrap mentality - necessary for the few to keep chasing inexorably falling rates of profit. Capitalism is unsustainable. Of course she has no idea about this and those few, the people 'at the top' - the so-called strivers - are the only people she sees with her Tory tunnel vision fear goggles.
I have no idea what changes she will wring at the DWP. I suspect not many. She will have been ideologically melded to the dark horse of Universal Credit. That's where she will pin her flag, because she will have no choice. Her ignorance of economy and society will inform nothing more than a paucity of ideology and all she will say is that "the evidence supports this" because that's all she can say. In the age of compliant client media (the BBC), with its fawning adulants, this will not be questioned and is the go to response for everything. A good example is how the DWP has been allowed to get away with statements as outrageous and pernicious as "people are grateful for sanctions". Utter fucking eyewash.
However more insidious was the revelation - admitted freely by the Samaritans - that one of the members of their advisory board is the very same Esther McVey! How can this be parsed in any way other than to say the Samaritans are compromised. They are partisan. The tragedy of this is that they have a lot of good people (I'm sure) volunteering and there, on the frontline, such people are betrayed by those at the top of yet another filthy hierarchy. The Samaritans are meant to help people, but they are run like any other corporate entity - and with advice from the very people that are putting the poorest in society to the pyre. This is the most egregious conflict of interest.
As I write this it seems McVey has stood down. I suspect this was a mutual decision - the kind that should have been made openly and horizontally - with members of the community of mental health sufferers and carers and experts. But of course that would never have happened - isn't that telling?
The tragedy of this outcome is that it tells me the Samaritans didn't really want her to go, but the bad press (to which I hope I contributed in some small way) on social media forced their hand. That's a pretty pathetic position for them to be in. It doesn't inspire confidence to think that they didn't wake up to themselves of their own volition, but that instead she left herself. They should never have had her in that position to begin with given her history.
This is the reality of mental health support within a capitalist context in a nutshell. Support can only properly come from a community, a shared experience that is horizontal - equal - in nature. Not led by dodgy politics and imposed top down by those with an agenda.
I cannot in good conscience advise people away from the Samaritans. Again it is not the fault of their regular staff that they are run by scumbags. In fact this time last year I was in one of their offices, I was a service user. The people I poured my heart out too were very nice: they listened. Bit what could they do? What power do they have? And that is the problem. Of course it doesn't really help when their offices are not located discreetly, but instead opposite to and surrounded by busy pubs and bars with a frontage emblazoned with Samaritans logo. I'm stood outside trying to get their attention (they don't answer the door while they are busy with other service users) and everyone around can see and know exactly why I'm there.
Drowning and waving.
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