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The Department for Work and Pensions has defended the latest figures which have shown 90 people a month die after being declared ‘fit for work’, insisting this would only be a problem if the assessments were carried out by Jeremy Kyle.
As health professionals have explained, the death of vulnerable people is only a newsworthy problem if someone like Jeremy Kyle is behind it. When it’s a faceless bureaucracy that could be causing many times more deaths, this isn’t newsworthy at all.
DWP spokesperson Simon Williams was quick to defend his organisation against the accusation that they’re just a behind-closed-doors version of the Jeremy Kyle vulnerable person eliminator.
He explained, “I mean, a fit for work assessment isn’t exactly like a Jeremy Kyle interview, but it certainly contains some of the key elements, especially of being shamed and your word not being believed. I guess if we added a camera and a couple of bouncers it would be pretty close. But close isn’t the same.
“Yes, Jeremy Kyle can ask you to take a polygraph, but we can just pull your private medical records and determine if you’re lying from that. So that’s another way in which we are very different.
“And Jeremy Kyle will insult you and shout in your face in front of thousands gripped of television viewers, whereas we’ll pretend to be your friend right up until the point where we take away all your money. That’s probably the biggest difference of all between us.
“Well, that and we kill hundreds more people than he does. Obviously.
