Driven to suicide by the Tories deadly ‘bedroom Tax’ blundering

‘In many ways this is the most difficult article I’ve attempted to write on the Another Angry Voice blog. The subject is so ghastly that I have little inclination to dwell upon it, but it stands as such a damning indictment of government policy towards the most vulnerable in society that it must be addressed.

I am talking of course about the case of Grandmother and Myasthenia Gravis sufferer Stephanie Bottrill, who was driven by the stress of “Bedroom Tax” to commit suicide by stepping in front of a lorry on the M6 at 6:15 am one morning in May 2013. She left a note to her family saying “Don’t blame yourself for me ending my life. The only people to blame are the Government”.

It’s hard to pick fault with her assertion, especially given the revelation in January 2014 that the “Bedroom Tax” legislation was so clumsily drafted and administered that she wasn’t even liable to pay it, yet the money was taken from her anyway, leaving her in desperate poverty and suffering terrible stress.

The people in similar situations who have survived their “Bedroom Tax” impoverishment without having killed themselves under the stress of it should surely be entitled to compensation. But judging by goings on last year, this isn’t entirely certain. In March 2013 the Labour leadership were fully complicit in allowing Iain Duncan Smith to rush through an absurd piece of retroactive legislation, which had the duel purpose of keeping the £130 million he stole from the unemployed via his unlawful benefits sanctions regime and sticking two fingers up at the courts that had declared his botched Workfare legislation unlawful.’

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