FAKE DWP ‘test’ reveals sinister govt ‘psy-war’

Please read and share this widely – I think it might just be massive.

I wrote yesterday about the psychological bullying being inflicted on unemployed people by Jobcentre Plus on behalf of the Department of Work and Pensions, as huge, intimidating tasks are inflicted on people with minimal literacy, confidence and computer skills – backed by the threat of benefit ‘sanctions’ if they are not completed by a very short deadline.

But it gets even worse. One part of the series of tasks being imposed is an online ‘My strengths test’, consisting of a series of 48 multiple-choice answers to questions about your personality.

I can reveal that this ‘test’ is a completely bogus scam designed to manipulate unemployed people into performing a completely random, week-long exercise of incorporating supposed ‘characteristics’ into their daily behaviour.

How do I know this? Because the ‘test’ is fake – it allocates you a ‘personality’ even if you don’t answer the questions.

Try it for yourself here (at least until the government finds out it’s been rumbled and changes or removes the test). I clicked ‘next’ on each of the 48 questions until I reached the end. This is what came up after the last question page:

The page goes on to list 5 ‘strengths’ and to instruct respondents to enter their email address so they can discuss the ‘results’ with their Jobcentre Plus advisor. Not only this, but the covering letter that comes with the instruction to complete the ‘test’ tells the recipient that he or she must

use each of your strengths in a new way everyday (sic) for at least a week.

Untold numbers of people running around trying to use ‘strengths’ that actually have nothing to do with their actual personality – all under the threat of losing their income if they fail to comply.

A quick search of the root directory of the site reveals that, even though this site is called ‘Behaviour Library’, there are no other tests on the site. The title of the site is selected to give the impression that there is a scientific basis for the test and that it is conducted by some kind of specialist organisation competent to conduct psychometric testing – but there is not even any information to identify who devised the questions.

What there is, however, is a couple of Tory white papers – and a very revealing Powerpoint presentation. While the information in the presentation is clearly designed to provide prompts for someone to speak over, it is clearly about a particularly dark version of the government’s ‘nudge’ theory to influence behaviour.

This PowerPoint file contains some very sinister images about the kind of psychological impact the government is aiming for:

There is no doubt at all that the point of this ‘test’ – and the process of which it is part – is to terrify unemployed people into compliance and to set many up to fail so that they can be ‘sanctioned’ and have their benefits stopped.

Could there be any clearer demonstration that this government has no concern at all for the unemployed and the unfortunate? The Tories don’t even want everyone to be in work because they fear it would push up wages from the pathetic levels we see in many jobs – and it’s on the official record that this is the case.

But it goes beyond that. Chillingly, this Tory-led government has taken a cynical decision to terrify disadvantaged people into jumping through hoops to manipulate them into taking even the most insecure, unsuitable and low-paying jobs – or else be cast onto the ‘sanctioned’ heap and cut off from support anyway.

And this is not the only way they do it, as you’ll find out if you ask any disabled person about their experiences with the DWP – while they demonise them to turn so-called ‘strivers’ against them. Divide and conquer.

This ‘test’ is a tool for abuse and psychological torture and a ruse to fool the electorate into thinking the Tories are interested in getting people back to work. They’re interested in cutting them off from their benefits, but that’s a different matter altogether.

If you’re not worried about this, you should be. This is a government that wants the right to access all our emails and the right to try us in secret. If this is how they behave in one area, can they be trusted in any other?

This sinister government ploy needs to be exposed as the ‘Big Brother’ mind-control torture that it is – and its perpetrators must be held to account. Including David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith.