The Spartacus Phenomenon
January 18, 2012
It may still only be January, but 2012 has already proven to be a ground breaking year. A treble of defeats inflicted on the welfare reform bill in the House of Lords was, in itself, a headline grabber, but the underlying story of how grassroots disability activists influenced the agenda is undeniably more telling.
Without the might of expensive PR firms, big name prime contractors, think tanks, or peak bodies, the Spartacus Report has influenced the heart of the welfare reform debate. The principle claim of Spartacus (or “Responsible Reform: A Report on the Proposed Changes to the Disability Living Allowance” to give it its official title) is that the Government’s response to its consultation on DLA presented a “highly misleading” view of responses. It challenges the view that the current design of DLA perpetuates benefits dependency and stops sick and disabled people from working, and asserts that the result of the DLA consultation does in fact show widespread opposition to proposals to introduce new assessment based Personal Independence Payments.
Spartacus was notably funded, researched, and written by disabled people. Its rapid rise to prominence was achieved through social media, finding unlikely advocates in such people as Stephen Fry, John Prescott, and Alistair Campbell, who all tweeted their backing, adding to a snowball effect of both coverage and support. Indeed, even DWP’s own press office felt compelled to join the Twitter debate last week, adopting the #spartacusreport hash-tag.
The instantaneous success of the report has catapulted its unsung authors into the spotlight, with Sue Marsh, one of the authors, taking on Employment Minister Chris Grayling in debate on BBC’s Newsnight on the day of the Lord’s defeats. Reflecting on her blog (the ironically titled “Diary of a Benefit Scrounger”) Marsh said: “When I took on the Spartacus Report, I hoped that in some small way it might put pressure on the Government. That somehow, it might make people think. I never in a million years thought it would result in real changes to the plans for PIP. It did, and every last one of us should sit back in amazement and really take in what we did.”
Whether Spartacus has inflicted a killer blow on the Government’s welfare reform plans, or instead necessitated an inconvenient but not insurmountable detour, is yet to be seen. The Government has already asserted that it will seek to reverse the Lord’s defeats. Whatever comes next, the legacy of Spartacus will recount the emergence of social media as tool for effective activism, and the recognition that benefits recipients still have a powerful voice.