A case in point: the privatisation of welfare

This recent article on Tory welfare policy by Rowan Davies on Liberal Conspiracy highlights exactly why i am confused and disillusioned by modern politics and the lack of clear difference between the two main parties.

Not only do the Tories propose a tough new “back-to-work test” that will remove incapacity benefit, or Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), for 500,000 people, but they want the responsibility for these tests put in the private sector.  Rowan rightly points out the inherent danger in having ill-qualified and badly-trained “experts” to do this, and asks the pertinent question over whether or not there will be targets set and quotas to fill.

But i’d also like to know how the Tories (or anyone for that matter) know that there is about 500,000 people who are fit to work and currently claiming ESA?

However, I’m most incredulous about the fact that this isn’t even an original tory proposal, and it was the Labour government that intiated this idea in the first place!  Now the architect of this policy, David Freud, has gone over to work for the Tories, with what sounds like a souped-up version of his original plan.

Freud is quoted as saying it’s “ludicrous” that the IB/ESA disability tests are done by your GP because of a conflict of interest, but what about the conflict for the private sector?  Motivated purely by profit surely they will go the other way – after all, the more people who are classified “fit to work”, the larger the source of revenue for the companies involved.