Catalogue Number
NMLH.2024.46.3
Object Name
badge
Title
'I.D.S. Murders. The truth is out there'
Place
UK
People
Conservative Party, Ian Duncan Smith, Department of Work and Pensions, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC)
Events
Austerity (2010s)
Description
A black badge with black writing which is highlighted in white and green, in the X-Files font 'I.D.S. Murders. The truth is out there'.
The badge is referring to Ian Duncan Smith, who is often referred to by his initials IDS. Duncan Smith, at the time of the badge's creation, was the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. He is viewed as the architect of the Universal Credit system, the Work Programme which required long term unemployed people with disabilities to work or lose their benefits, and a dramatic increase in disability benefit reassessment which leaked documents made clear was intentionally attempting to make it harder for sick and disabled people to claim benefits". Universal Credit also resulted in real terms cuts in benefit rates, plunging more disabled benefit claimants into poverty. During the austerity era there were many high profile cases of disabled people being stripped of their benefits and dying either through suicide or in some cases starvation.
The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities found austerity measures to cause gross and systemic violations of Disabled peopleâs human rights. A study published by the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that during the austerity era there had been 334,327 excess deaths from 2012-2019 (more deaths than were predictable based on previous years data).
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