Moral compass

MANY people, including myself, have been campaigning over the past year to have Atos dropped as a sponsor for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Atos will spend more than £1 million to get access to a potential Commonwealth Games audience of 1.2 billion people.

Atos, which is a principal tier 2 sponsor of the Games, has taken tens of thousands of sick and disabled people off social security benefits, driving them into greater penury and extremes of poverty. In addition, more than 2,200 people have died before the end of the Atos-administered assessment process.

Atos also failed to pay a penny in corporation tax last year and was recently branded in a parliamentary debate a “monster” by Labour MP Dennis Skinner over the death of a constituent. It is shameful that the SNP-led Scottish Government, Labour-led Glasgow City Council and the organising committee of the 2014 Games continue to associate this prestigious event with what I consider to be a toxic brand.

Atos is, in my view, involved in an immoral process – driving people off benefits, which is completely at odds with Scottish social democratic values of caring for the poor and vulnerable.

It is time that all decent people in Scotland called “time” on Atos being a Games sponsor, as we must serve as the moral compass when our politicians have failed us.

Sean Clerkin

Glasgow Against Atos

Aurs Road

Barrhead, Glasgow