We need to get some things in perspective when it comes to politics, economic policies, and in particular how our Government decides to use its money and save its money. There will always be debate, discussion, disagreement and at times downright ideological collision when it comes to state funded welfare, the NHS, national infrastructure and much else that contributes to the spagghetti plate intertwining and complexity of contemporary national and international finances. And I'm no expert on any of these. Even if I were, it would still be extrememly unlikely I could untangle the particular strands of spaghetti that belonged to my area of pretended omniscience.
So I'm happy to scale down my goal to something I, and most people reading this, know something about. Truth, honesty, trust, integrity, insofar as these are required in one who holds public office and who runs a Government Department which is entrusted, (mark that word which I use advisedly and intentionally), entrusted with overseeing the state's provision for a particular group of people. Such people as the elderly who rely on a state pension, the funds of which have been paid for an entire working life; unemployed people, the large majority of whom would work if they could, and if the could afford to live on what they are paid - hence tax credits and other allowances to support them in work; those who are ill and unable to work, whether short term or long term, and their right to be able to live with dignity, access to care and medical resources and attention; those who care for others to their own cost in life energy, time, money and loss of work, and whose care for and support for others it is in the interests of the state to support. The list could be longer but these will do.
Which brings me yet again to the vexed question of benefit cuts, austerity programmes and that recent euphemism of the uncaring powerful, benefit sanctions. Why not use the word punishment, chastisement, confiscation? Why use a word that is used politically for rogue nations which need to be made to suffer to make them comply with the will of those who inflict such loss and consequence on others because they can? The attacks on this unjust and arbitrary system of sanctions, differing from locality to locality, are answered with remorseless and monotonous mantras - it is to help people back to work, it is to reduce the deficit, it is within the austerity programme to which the electorate gave its democratic approval, it is to help those who do the right thing.....stop there, right there!
"Those who do the right thing...." The DWP admits now that it used fake identities and photographs, and fictional testimonials in its publicity about how sanctions have been praised as beneficial (conferring benefit, ironically) and just what was needed to get some people back to work. Iain Duncan Smith is in charge of the Department which has lied to the public, defended a controversial policy with made up propaganda, refused repeatedly to respond to a freedom of Information request for figures relating to benefit sanctions and suicide, and over the weekend played down reports of training of front line staff in dealing with suicide threats from distressed people being refused benefits. And he is still in office. Now I am not surprised at this; I am shocked and disappointed that I live in a country where such a scandal does not raise the question of a person's fitness for office.
Which brings us back to the words truth, honesty, integrity, and trust, and what it means for a Cabinet Minister, responsible for many of the most vulnerable people in society to be entrusted with such a portfolio. At the very least, it means he shouldn't preside over a Department that defends his policies with fake photos, made up stories and a Government department constructing the identities of people who don't exist - and using them as evidence that their policy works. And when found out, then makes no excuses, offers no apology but raises its eyebrows in surprise that we should ever have had a problem with such things because they are merely illustrative, not intended to deceive, they were produced to show people how the system works well.
There is something genuinely, and chillingly Orwellian in all this. The person on beneift is being patronised and persuaded by Government propapagnda. The truth is being illustrated with lies; policy makers' ideology and mythology is being confirmed by made up personal testimonies of people who don't exist; these actions of deceit are no such things, silly person, they are our Government helping us understand their good intentions. And far from them apologise and acknowledge this is wrong, just wrong, we are made to feel we are children in an adults' world who need to understand the realities of a Government that knows what is good for us. And will tell us so, with made up stories. And no answer yet to the link between benefit sanctions and the incidence of suicide amongst those so sanctioned.
So just be absolutely clear (I love that prefix, so beloved by Margaret Thatcher, signalling what is about to be said will communicate my superior viewpoint over your mere partial grasp of things) - just to be absolutely clear; a leaflet put out in the name of a Government Department, for the purpose of promoting their policy, providing evidence and answering critics, is required to be accurate.
Essay Question: What ethical considerations would you suggest could be presented as a defense for producing a publicity leaflet purported to be an accurate account of the facts, and which contained fictional testimony, false names and borrowed photographs?
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