WoW Petition

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A petition with a difference....

Holding politicians to account
& asking for a fairer deal....

Want to know more about the WOW petition?


The best way to find out more about the 'WOW' petition is to visit wowpetition.com and find out all about it. You can also join WOW on Twitter using @wowpetition or join via the on-line discussion on wowpetitionchat. There are also links to the petition on Facebook accessible here.


For those of you who just want to go straight to the petition and sign it, just click on the following link:

'Just click & sign here'

Why should I?


There are lots of reasons really but in the main it is about holding our politicians to account when it comes to the current reform of the welfare state. What thousands are calling out for is a debate on the following, it's simple, straightforward and not too much to ask:

"We call for a Cumulative Impact Assessment of Welfare Reform,
and a New Deal for sick & disabled people based
on their needs, abilities and ambitions"

Sounds fair enough to me.


Government's assessment of the true impact of its far reaching & radical welfare reform programme has shown little, if any, sign of being properly tested; the assessments to date have been mainly rubber stamping exercises or studies by think tanks which are too politically biased to be reliable. Extensive consultation has been carried out with little sign that government is really listening to the concerns of those who stand to be most affected - and remember the way our economy is going you could find yourself having to rely on the welfare state sooner than you dare think.


I therefore think the call for a cumulative impact assessment is a good one, it is important that any such assessment is properly evidence based and carried out impartially.


Isn't welfare reform necessary?


No one is saying it isn't, there have been many welfare reforms before the current coalition government came to power, however the current welfare reforms are very ambitious, untried and untested - it's dangerous territory that we just can't afford to get wrong. The cuts to welfare will hit the most vulnerable in society and therefore we need to be very cautious about how changes will impact upon the individuals affected, this includes children, those of working age, those forced in to unemployment, the most severely disabled in society and pensioner groups. With over 30 million people in the UK claiming at least one state benefit very few people are immune from the effects of welfare reform, the chances are that if you are not personally affected you will know someone that is.


But everyone I know is on the fiddle, why should I help them?


Don't believe all you read in the papers, there's any number of articles right here on Mylegal which gives you the real statistical breakdown, before making a judgement over those on welfare why not have a read and check out some of the information aimed at getting to the true facts. In real terms welfare expenditure increases in any country and needs to be properly evaluated against rises in population, increases in the mortality rate and better medical treatments. The actual fraud figures are a very low percentage of the overall claimant count and whilst you may see lots of newspaper headlines portraying the benefit claimant as a cheat you won't get to see the apologies government ministers have to make for pushing the media in to printing misleading information.


Do you seriously think this petition will make any difference?


Yes I do, but don't take my word for it.


Why not ask English stand-up comedienne, 2012 Olympic Ambassador and actress Francesca Martinez who has toured internationally, including sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Festival?

Francesca Martinez

Francesca has cerebral palsy and has put her name to the petition along with rapidly approaching 10,000 other people who have signed up since the petition went 'live' on the 18th December; it's a really impressive start but to get government to agree to debate the issues mentioned we need another 90,000 signatures before it closes in December 2013. We don't want to wait that long and believe we will reach our target well before then. However you can lessen the time by signing the petition today, it takes around two minutes and you don't need to answer lots of difficult questions, it really is very easy and most importantly it's very worthwhile.

What does WOW stand for?

Here's a clue:

Just click here to help end the War on Welfare

See the following posts for plenty of information links which
may be of interest to you

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The welfare reform obstacle course

Dismissive politicians who can't see where it's going wrong

'Just click & sign here'

Politicians who vote for what they know is wrong

'Just click & sign here'

Ignoring cancer is always wrong

'Just click & sign here'

Panorama exposes why it isn't working

'Just click & sign here'

Francesca tells you it isn't working

'Just click & sign here'

Campaign groups tell you it isn't working

'Just click & sign here'

Exploiting welfare isn't working

'Just click & sign here'

Starving people isn't working

'Just click & sign here'

Making people homeless won't work

'Just click & sign here'

Taking away vital help won't work

Do your bit to show why this won't work

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Some welfare facts

Watch them grow under #WOWpetitionfacts...

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• 130,000 ESA claims are subject to claim assessment by the DWP per month.
  
  
  
• 425,000 claimants await verification of their claims in the DWP's 'assessment bubble'
  
  
  
• benefit appeals have shot up by 40% on previous record years.
  
  
  
• Many claimants were advised to claim DLA by the DWP as shown in our article: Who's really cheating who?
  
  
  
• We illustrated how Universal Credit is far from the DWP's claimed 'single streamlined payment.
  
  
  
• Mylegal put the 'Work Capability Assessment' under the magnifying glass.
  
  
  
• Claiming sickness benefits is far from straightforward
  
  

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