DWP Resorts To Magic.

In keeping with the Tory party's belief in "voodoo economics" the DWP has resorted to magic in order to stop the unemployed from claiming benefits. Bewildered claimants have been told to complete a 48-question "psychoemtric" test introduced by the DWP "Nudge Unit" and, if they fail to do so, they are told that they will have their benefits witheld. The test, which has been rejected in the United States for being unvalidated mumbo-jumbo, contains such statements as "I never go out of my way to visit museums," and "I have not created anything of beauty in the last year". These, the DWP claim, have been "scientifically shown to find people's strengths" and to "help rebuild self-confidence and identify character strength". The Division of Occupational Psychologists, however, said it was unable to find "any concrete evidence relating to proper development and psychometric qualities of the tool" and described the tests as "a sham." This is hardly surprising since this government's entire approach to welfare can best be described in similar terms. In fact such tests have long been considered to be rather dubious and their use by the DWP demonstrates quite clearly that their only goal is to cheat as many genuine claiments out of benefit payments as is humanly possible. Essentially the government is ambushing claiments with irrelevent nonsense, forcing them to jump through humiliating hoops and then threatening them if they protest. In that regard this particular piece of utter rubbish is on a par with all their other policies.