THANKS for your article about the recent hustings meeting at St Mary’s Church in Marlborough. You correctly reported that Claire Perry responded to the challenge of 14,000 deaths within six weeks of being declared ‘fit for work’ by the work capability assessment as ‘inaccurate’ and ‘gutter politics’.
I would just like to clarify that these statistics were amalgamated from numbers published in various reports by the Department of Welfare and Pensions (DWP) and are available to anyone with internet access.
It is also worth remembering that Iain Duncan Smith fought tooth and nail to try and prevent these statistics being released, after a Freedom of Information request, with multiple appeals eventually being overturned.
I guess it’s gutter politics when the facts are inconvenient.
PHILIP BLUNT
Great Bedwyn
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