*TW: This episode contains discussions of suicide which some listeners may find distressing*
On Tothill Street, in the heart of London’s Whitehall, sits Caxton House, home to the Department for Work and Pensions. The DWP administers the UK’s welfare system, a key infrastructure of everyday life. For many, the DWP determines if they have enough money to eat, stay warm, power medical equipment - to live. For many, it has also become synonymous with suicide. In collaboration with activists and scholars Stella Dadzie, Imogen Day, John Pring, and Rick Burgess, in this episode, China Mills (from Healing Justice London) describes the grinding bureaucratic crimes committed as the DWP has sought to force disabled people into work. This painful story is also one of power. We’ll hear how disabled people and people of colour have fought tirelessly to expose the true scale of this crime - and get justice.*
*This episode first aired in 2024.
**This episode was executively produced by Maia Holtermann Entwistle and Sharri Plonski. Surviving Society Productions co-produced, hosted and recorded episodes. Sound mixing and design by Surviving Society creative director George “Adders” Ofori-Addo. Interview with Surviving Society’s executive producer and host, Chantelle Lewis. Voiceovers by Claire Lauterbach and Chris Alger.**
Useful Links:
*Caring for ourselves and each other when the state tells us that we don’t matter is a radical act. We hope you find these resources useful.*
Deaths by Welfare Project podcast (including BSL interpretation and captions): www.healingjusticeldn.org
Disability News Service: www.disabilitynewsservice.com
DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts): www.dpac.uk.net
Welfare State violence: a feature, not a bug with Stella Dadzie, Tumu Johnson, Derica Shields & China Mills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nJNJzm53pg&t=1564s
Grief toolkit (by Camille Barton) www.global-diversity.org/grief-toolkit
Further Reading:
Ellen Clifford. The War on Disabled People: Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe (London: Bloomsbury, 2022).
Deaths by Welfare Project timeline of evidence www.deathsbywelfare.org.
China Mills and John Pring. “Weaponising Time in the War on Welfare: Slow Violence and Deaths of Disabled People within the UK's Social Security System,” Critical Social Policy 44:1 (2024), pp. 129-149.
John Pring. The Department How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence. (London: Pluto Press, 2024).
This episode was supported by the Leverhulme Trust and Queen Mary University of London.
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