I noticed the BBC have instantly gone on the attack as regards the plans announced by Iain Duncan Smith to reform the way in which the Disability system works.
To my mind, IDS is being very sensible, seeking to move the model away from an absolutist whether you can work or not to one that examines how much work some might be able to do. To listen to the BBC, and I’m thinking of William Crawley on BBC Talkback here in Northern Ireland, one could be forgiven for thinking that IDS is suggesting culling everyone who claims this benefit and killing the firstborn for extra cruelty. It seems that everybody claiming it is “the most vulnerable” and utterly deserving of a life on welfare. As IDS points out, there will be some seriously disabled people who cannot work and they will be protected – but there are others out there who could benefit from work and this system is about trying to encourage and help them to find it. The BBC hates IDS and that is as good a recommendation as he is going to get.
A month ago I was on a bus with a couple of women from the local ‘estate’ sitting behind me. They were discussing house repairs and the latest births in their families and the efforts that a young couple were making to set up their own home, with the added complication of their new child. Hard working families with aspirational children!
However it appeared that these were the exception, while the parents struggled to make do, both holding down two part-time jobs, the rest of their children didn’t see the point. What struck home to me was that both women had children who had decided that they didn’t feel like going to work, so they claimed £75 p.w. ESA. I nearly turned around to say “What! You too!”, two of my relatives being on the same scheme.
I understand this is just a self-selecting small example but, “Go get ’em IDS!” Oh, “and screw you BBC!”.
JimS you should be utterly ashamed of yourself falling for the spin, lies & manipulation! You too David.
No one on these estates gets £75 pw and in this is shown the total f*** up called Iain Duncan Smith. Most of the women on the estates are single mothers who claim a great deal more than £75 and have no pressure at all brought to work.
Then there are those who do want to work and through no fault of their own are unemployed. They are largely unemployed because as all good Tories know White British people don’t want to work and are lazy and workshy. Is this what you think Jim?
They have to be punished and made miserable to satiate the cruelty of IDS. So there’s the bedroom tax (and I make no apologies for calling it that), and the council tax to pay, and by the time the greedy Tories have finished deducting every amount they can think of, claimants are probably left with less than half what they were once entitled to – and were promised when they paid their National INSURANCE premiums.
No insurance will change their policy mid term, and if they offer less benefit, it’s reasonable to expect the premium to also fall – but not the case with IDS – you want to claim so you must suffer!
IDS himself admits JSA is insufficient to live on, and the UK gives asylum seekers far more in benefits in order to meet the UKs treaty obligations. Anyone who thinks this is fair is as mad as a Socialist !
This is the man whose idiotic attempts at finding people fit for work has found the dead are fit for work !
I just can’t imagine what all those dead people are expecting, lying around on their backs all day when they could be up and working! The lazy bastards!
What might appear reasonable when presented by IDS is anything but. As a disabled person able to work a few hours you would lose ALL your weeks benefits, regardless of whether you made a penny. This is the reality of this most sadistic Tory minister, who has no morality or care. Ebenezzer Scrooge looks a positive paragon compared to him. I suspect that somewhere in his childhood he had a terrible trauma which has affected him to this day.
As a disabled person able to work a few hours you would lose ALL your weeks benefits, regardless of whether you made a penny.
My disabled brother works one day a week in a supermarket.
He lives in a house with 2 other disabled people and has a very comfortable lifestyle from the benefits he receives, including at least one foreign and one GB holiday a year and a new car every 3 years (another of the 3 residents also gets a car – that’s 2 between 3). Evil Tories, eh?
As of today, but it isn’t going to stay that way! And those nice car benefits are also likely to be cut too.
Those nice car benefits (Motability) cost the taxpayer £2,000,000,000 per year and are abused left right and centre.
But interesting you couldn’t defend your argument.
My relatives both get £75 p.w. ESA and they aren’t single mothers.
I don’t know the marital status of my co-passengers but they were talking about their own workshy children so I presume they know what they are talking about.
Maybe my ‘some say’ population sample is as poor as the typical BBC examples but it isn’t my job to find the ‘truth’ and ‘balance’.
Given the size of the ‘benefit’ population in the UK there must be some who are hard done by and equally some who are ‘working the system’. I rather think that the women ‘from the estate’ have a better perception of the situation than £100k p.a. Guardian class warriors.
There are undoubtedly those people on benefits who are indeed workshy, however they are in a tiny minority.
By far the biggest category of claimants are pensioners, and they haven’t been made to suffer at all.
Dragging in ever increasing numbers of immigrants to either take jobs and force down pay & conditions, or claim benefits, and then to blame the indigenous population is unconscionable.
Then there’s the benefit sanctions – ever see a Halal food bank ? Or wondered why you haven’t ?
I think we’ve all seen enough of ATOS to know what they were up to, and based on that I think it’s a pretty safe bet to see behind the spin to the truth.
If two of your relatives are receiving the £75pw then they must have worked, paid in and are therefore entitled to the money. If they weren’t actively looking for work then their benefits would be suspended.
I expect there are also deductions they aren’t telling you about.
Time the government started to levy the bedroom tax on the pensioners, then we’d see some tunes changing!
What a bile sodden and ignorant post. You’ve surpassed yourself. As others have pointed out (below) you don’t seem to know what you’re talking about
‘As a disabled person able to work a few hours you would lose ALL your weeks benefits, regardless of whether you made a penny. This is the reality of this most sadistic Tory minister’
This supposed sadistic Tory minister might beg to differ and respectfully direct you to the ‘Permitted Work Scheme’. From the DWP:
‘What is permitted work?
If you are getting Employment and Support Allowance and other benefits because of an illness or disability you may be able to do some types of work within certain limits. This is called ‘permitted work’.
The idea of permitted work is that it allows you to test your own capacity for doing some work and perhaps gain new skills. To help make this possible earnings under permitted work are ignored in the benefit calculation, up to a limit of £104 a week.’
Not so thoughtful, Thoughtful.
I’ll say it again because the first time obviously didn’t register.
That’s how it is now, but it’s very unlikely it will stay like that. Also which work is permitted might be broadened or narrowed to suit.
All those disabled people deemed capable of work – including those who were dead, and many others who no one in their right mind would consider capable of work, had their benefits cut and were pressured to look for work. This also applied to people with terminal cancer who were either outside a six week life expectancy, or those who failed to die to the doctors forecast!
Forgive me for writing a “bile sodden and ignorant post,” but I do have that odd belief that facts are quite important, and that in this case they are in fact quite a good guide to future policies.
You say facts are quite important yet you give no facts. Twice in response to others, one who pointed out your claim of earn 1p and all your benefits are lost is absolutely incorrect, you answer with that’s how it is now.
What facts do you have regarding any forthcoming changes? And your personal view of it’s very unlikely to stay like that is not a fact. It sounds more like a chant at a Unison march.
Thanks Henry, you beat me to it.
Utterly bizarre.
Mr T , Jezza Corbyn is your man , he will give out loads of free dosh, from our taxes. After 4 or 5 weeks ,we will be bankrupt . He may try printing money , but in most peoples eyes , the days of the “free” lunch are over , if you want a better life style “work” for it .
Behind that moron Osborne, and Camoron himself, IDS comes a close third, in a traitorous No10 full of self serving, arrogant crooks, he s right up there.
What he lacks in intellect, and ability, he more than makes up for in spite, and bitterness against the most vulnerable,
This prize Tory prick must be smarting over his time on the public teat, or RTU in the army, or his academic history,
“In the speech, which members of the media were not allowed to attend,” which kind of says it all really, doesn’t it!?
Then again accountability is not a term that Smith’s familiar with as he’s been sheltered from failure for most of his pitiful existence
So Smith is cutting 10s of 1000s of disabled loose from ESA into a workplace that is ill prepared to take them
IDS will NEVER provide the support, or workplace legislation required for disabled people. Its a scam
its simply more Tory slash and burn , and surprise, surprise … lies .. .
This time his victims are the disabled
T is right, IDS himself admits JSA is insufficient to even live on, and meanwhile he lives for free in a £2million Tudor farmhouse on his father-in-law’s ancestral estate in Buckinghamshire. He has three acres of land, a tennis court, swimming pool and some orchards, which is not bad for a life in the pay of the state.
Thoughtful’s post is a longer version and more polite version of the comments I was reading on the Daily Mail website. There are those who would like to work and there are those who see work as impossible and therefore want to claim everything possible. My daughter was working for a charity who lost its contract to advise disabled people to the CAB. The CAB in that area think advice can be delivered by a page on a website. So what have they done? Well the very first thing they did was lay off the staff including a young woman with cerebral palsy. A young woman who in spite of her disability wanted to work. The second thing the CAB did was take on the senior member of staff’s daughter on a very good salary. Now I know this isn’t BBC bias but, like Mr Yentoub’s Kids Club, the whole thing stinks. The BBC could investigate but they find it far more interesting to attack anything the government may try to do to get the benefits culture under control. All those people getting benefits because they are too fat to move! Even they could do some sort of work, maybe in a call centre for example. We know benefits were given out too easily under Labour and it has to stop because as a country we cannot afford to keep borrowing.
Sorry if this post turned into a rant but I am afraid I take an opposite view to Thoughtful.
I have a relative who is disabled to the extent that they will never work again. Their annual forms for the DWP are supported by medical evidence from the health professionals who care and assist. In these circumstances an assessment is not required and they will not be required to look for work.
I believe that it is those who have some ability to work who will be assessed, it does not mean that they will definitely have to find work and or subsequently lose benefits.
To misquote Blackadder, if they claimant ‘Weighs 15 stones and is built like a brick privy and occasionally goes phew my leg hurts’ then they will be the ones who may have to look for work if it is available.
I too read the online Mail this morning and rarely have I seen such vitriol, the hatred was palpable. Of course those screaming the loudest and shouting the most abuse offered no argument or alternative.
The crux of the matter is what is disabled? Who is deemed to be so disabled they cannot work at all. The term disabled has become quite widespread and to cover many conditions.Maybe the BBC could have a serious impartial look at this question .
Don’t hold with the feckless at all, but what annoys me most is the fact that its always the easy targets that get it first as far as benefits are concerned. Until we stop giving homes, handouts and healthcare to those that fell off the back of a lorry, never will we be able to see the wood for the trees as far as benefits go.
The indigenous should be at the bottom of the list and rightly targeted but only when those who’s families have conrbuted diddely squat have been sorted.
Exactly, why is Ian Drunken Smith going after people in wheel chairs, when there’s millions of invaders in the country on benefit who should be DEPORTED. I suppose it’s an easy target, the other is a thorny nettle that the Cuckservatives are terrified to grasp, due to hooman rights and the fear of being labeled waaycist.
I along with neighbours have watched a small development of luxury homes being built. Then the developer went bust and a housing association took over. We were all assured that half the homes would be sold, the remainder kept for social housing, which would be mixed ethnicity.
Then it became clear we had been lied to. The grade II listing on parts of the site was removed, as were the tree preservation orders. None of the houses were offered for sale, and out of 13 homes 12 went to Pakistani Muslims, the only one of diversity was a black & white couple. Ever since they moved in the Pakis have been trying to get them out including on one occasion a break in and arson. Both their cars have been vandalised.
The white people by comparison are housed in the oldest most run down housing which is only repaired when the provider absolutely has to, and not before.
I have stood in queues at cashpoints where a Pakistani in front has inserted card after card each with a different name dropping the money into a shopping bag each time without even trying to count or separate it. Note this has happened more than once.
I see the names of those convicted of benefit fraud in the paper they are nearly all English names. I’ve never heard of a Halal foodbank for Muslims who have their benefits suspended.
I see the amounts given to asylum seekers, far and away more than the amount given to British people.
I see single pensioners living in three or four bedroomed homes not expected to move to smaller accommodation like their younger counterparts.
And who does the government choose to target as its next money saving operation – yep the disabled !
We all know that those poor sods who have made it past the insane ATOS assessments genuinely are unable to work, this will be a mopping up exercise to find the remaining few capable of some work and to slash their benefits.
If the disabled are capable of some limited work and want to do it, then the humane thing to do would be to let them and help in the job search.
But of course that isn’t what is being proposed.
Another money saving policy on the most vulnerable – yet again.
Another brilliant idea from the Cuckservatives was the bedroom tax, people who’ve lived in their houses for 20 or 30 years, given over to people with larger families, now I wonder who they could be…..
A bit of cut and paste from a disability website, not sure what to make of it to be honest.
What is disability?
When we think of disability we so often think of wheelchairs (understandable when you consider the disability symbol that is used absolutely everywhere), yet only 5% of disabled people actually use a wheelchair.
So what exactly is disability?
Under the Equality Act 2010, a person is considered to be disabled if they have
“a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to perform
normal day-to-day activities”
Lets break this down into simple terms:
Physical impairments
Well, this could include anything from a loss of a limb to a dexterity or sensory impairment, such as visual or hearing.
It would also include health conditions with fluctuating effects such as Diabetes, Cancer, Osteoporosis, MS, ME, Fybromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Arthritis.
Also included would be progressive conditions such as Muscular Dystrophy and Motor Neurone Disease, and respiratory conditions such as Asthma, and Cardiovascular diseases, including Thrombosis, Stroke and Heart Disease.
In fact, people with HIV, Cancer or Multiple Sclerosis, and people who are certified blind or partially sighted are protected by the Act from the point of diagnosis (they do not need to demonstrate that their condition has a long term, adverse effect on their daily life).
Severe Disfigurement is also covered by the act (again no need to demonstrate adverse effects).
Mental impairments
Well, this would include learning disabilities such as Downs Syndrome. It would also include developmental disorders such as Autism, Aspergers, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia.
Also covered under mental impairments are mental health issues – this could include anything from severe Depression, Nervous Breakdown, OCD, Eating Disorders, Dementia, Bi-polar Disorder, Schizophrenia, as well as some personality disorders and self harming behaviour.
In the past, a mental health condition had to be clinically recognised in order for it to be regarded as a mental impairment for the purposes of the Act. However, this requirement was removed in 2005.
Substantial
Quite simply this means it must be more than minor or trivial
Long-term
This is where the effect of the impairment has lasted or is likely to last for at least twelve months. There are
also special rules for recurring or fluctuating conditions.
Normal day-to-day activities
Well, this would include everyday things that everyone does – like cooking a meal, having a bath or wash, or walking to the shop.
Past disabilities
Any person who has had a disability in the past (that meets the above definition) is also protected by the Act.
What does disability not include?
Definitely not included in the definition are conditions such as hay fever, alcoholism, addiction, exhibitionism,
voyeurism or a tendency to steal, abuse or set fires.
Some good advice….
You should avoid getting bogged down by whether someones condition does or does not fall within the Act’s definition
– there is no exhaustive checklist which defines disability. What’s most important is the impact and effect of the
condition on someones day to day activities.
It is also important that you dont make judgements about how an impairment is caused – for example, liver disease
caused by alcoholism would still be considered a disability, although alcoholism itself would not.
The most important thing is to never make assumptions – someone with a disability can be physically very fit and strong, highly intelligent and articulate.
Just take a look at some inspirational famous disabled people.
Interestingly only 52% of people covered by the Act actually consider themselves disabled!
You can get more guidance on disability by visiting the Directgov website. Also specific guidance on the definition of disability can be found by clicking here.
You may also wish to visit our Disability – Useful Information page
.
This relates to disability discrimination under the equalities act. Britain has been found to have “no effective discrimination legislation” by the EU and this is demonstrated by the vanishingly small number of cases which succeed at the tribunals, somewhere in the region of 2%. Cases winning are so unusual they often make the news giving the impression more claimants succeed than is the case.
Compensation figures are pitifully low in most cases with a month or twos salary being the norm. Not a lot when you’ve lost your job because of a condition you can’t do anything about.