On the day we publish Emergency Stop, a new report analysing the economic and social impact of the Personal Independence Payment regulations, we call on the Government to ‘go back to the drawing board’ on proposals to replace disability living allowance (DLA), after it buried last-minute changes to criteria which will see thousands more disabled people with mobility difficulties lose out than expected.
The unexpected changes, slipped out following a Ministerial statement last month (13 December 2012), mean the criteria for the enhanced mobility rate of the new Personal Independence Payment (PIP), has tightened. The qualification has changed from being able to walk 50 metres to being able to walk 20 metres.
This not only condemns thousands more disabled people to the worry of losing out under the new benefit and the isolation this will bring; it also highlights the lie that the Government’s reforms are targeted to support those in need.
Government protestations about consultation are a nonsense if it takes no notice of what disabled people and their organisations say. Of the 173 consultation responses from organisations on the new PIP, only one suggested the qualifying distance for those who have the most difficulty getting around should perhaps be changed.
And why has there been no parliamentary debate on such a significant policy change? Is it because government has already decided this is about saving money rather than meeting need?
We’re also calling on the Government to incorporate people’s ability to undertake tasks ‘reliably, repeatedly, safely and in a timely manner’ into the regulations for PIP, which will ensure both assessments and appeal hearings consistently take account of factors such as pain, fatigue, breathlessness and other symptoms generated by undertaking tasks.
The ‘Emergency Stop’ report analyses figures supplied by the DWP and Motability, the organisation that supplies lease cars and specialist converted vehicles to disabled people claiming the higher mobility rate of Disability Living Allowance.
The analysis estimates that, under PIP, 428,000 fewer working age disabled people will qualify for the higher PIP rate (which allows access to the Motability scheme) by 2018. This could lead to 160,000 fewer Motability cars on the road.
Oxford Economics’ report ‘Economic and social impact of the Motability Car Scheme’ (2010) identified the Motability scheme’s contribution to the economy through car sales, employment generation and tax receipts. The new report shows that welfare reform plans will lead to a domino effect including the loss of:
- 5,692 jobs (from 21,080 jobs to 15,388 jobs in Motability-related industries)
- £544 million contribution to GDP (from around £2 billion to £1.45 billion)
- £126 million in tax receipts
It also highlights that the cost to the public purse of enabling disabled people to get to medical appointments could alone amount to about £8 million.
It’s not just disabled people who will lose out under the Government’s welfare reform plans. Changing from DLA to PIP means fewer people qualifying for Motability cars to the tune of about 50,000 fewer vehicles a year. Less demand means fewer jobs in the motor industry, a lower contribution to GDP and the exchequer, and a knock on effect on the second hand market, which also contributes to the economy.
In the meantime, disabled people will be less independent, less likely to be able to get or keep a job, more likely to give up self-employment and less able to care for their children or support other family members.
Notes
- Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is a benefit that helps individuals meet the additional costs that come from living with a disability and is payable to people in work as well as out of work
- For more information of our concerns about the PIP proposals, see our earlier post at: PIP Emergency – Act Now!
- Details of the Government’s proposals for PIP are available here: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/pip-assessment-thresholds-and-consultation-response.pdf
- Projections of the number of people expected to be eligible for the enhanced mobility rate in May 2018, when migration will be complete, are available here: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/pip-reassessments-and-impacts.pdf (tables 7 & 8)
- Esther McVey’s statement on PIP is available here: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/newsroom/ministers-speeches/2012/13-12-12.shtml
- The Oxford Economics publication, ‘Economic and social impact of the Motability Car Scheme’ (2010), is available for download at http://www.oxfordeconomics.com/my-oxford/projects/129035
- The We are Spartacus campaign group is an internet-based group of disabled and sick people from around the UK which campaigns for welfare benefits and social care services that enable disabled and sick people to live independently and with dignity.
nobody voted these little rich boys into power, lets demand an election now!
i fear for all disabled people in this country and the carers who will have to pick up the pieces…….maria miller started this PIP madness and Esther McVey carries it on, they have no idea and sound like robots to me……..IDS is a failed leader who needs to prove his virilty by stamping on the vulnerable, SHAME on them all!!
I’m a person with multiple sclerosis who has worked in the field of web accessibility (making websites that can also be used by people with disabilities, eg blind people, those who can’t use a mouse).
I applaud your report, but wonder why it’s PDF rather than HTML (that is, normal web pages, as that’s the best way for disabled people to access the web).
And why is it copyrighted? That makes it harder for bloggers etc to quote from it or disseminate it.
I completely take your point. It is my intention to upload an accessible version as soon as possible; if you look at our other reports you will see that we have done so.
These welfare changes must surely incorrect along some way in regards to legilation as it now removes the fact that Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is a benefit that helps individuals meet the additional costs that come from living with a disability and is payable to people in work as well as out of work.This benefit helps towards the cost of disability aids we now have to purchase as we no longer gat them free from the gp/ot etc, it helps towards heating bills,(many are not eligable for the £200 annum heating allowance – age) food, preprepared foods as we cannot chop/prepare food etc,transport costs as unable to use a bus/train etc, the list goes on. DLA to PIP removes this aspect and condems all on these benefits thar are slowly being eroded away under so called reform to living in abject poverty and tied to the house.
It is said the govt/us do not have the money any longer to pay for these basic benefits which are fundamentally ploughed back into the system in the way of taxes etc, any way as most of these benefits are spent in the UK, however there always seems to be enough finances found for war.
To me it seems our fundamental right as a human being to patrtake in a social economic democratic state of affairs has/is being removed.
Surely there is a human rights issue over this very policy.
It is about time some of these organisations meshed together pooled finances and took the govt to task via a legal aspect to this very sorry state of affairs.
If this Gov’t wants to increase it’s income it simply has to close the loopholes that big businesses like Starbucks, Amazon etc use. It is not acceptable to make such cuts to vulnerable people and say there is no other way to balance the books. I believe there is also a tax cut for those earning more than £150,000 per annum scheduled for april this year.
The Tories won’t though, they believe if they support big industry (their pals) industry will grow & the uk will be more prosperous & poor people will have to work for them for a pittance.
You only have to read Charles Dickens to see what the outcome will be.
As far as I remember, when they consulted back in June/July, when I spoke to DWP officials they said that the distance “had not been decided yet”. That is what I was told. We discussed the 50m but were told the same thing, ie it was not set yet in regulations. It would seem that they could have discussed this further before committing it to tablets of stone. Has George Iain Duncan-Smith commented on this yet?
Admin
I started tidying up the HTML that is vomited out by the PDF “export” option, if you want me to email it to you.
Would have been easier if I’d sent you the Word version!! I will do that now…
As usual the tory rich boys are targeting the wrong people!!! I did not ask to be born with cerebral Palsy!!, i did not ask for a lifetime of pain!!! I worked hard for 22 years and because of this it made my CP worse and I had to retire earlier than i wanted to. Now im classed as a benefit cheat by the tories, atos and the BBC!!!! The public (able bodied people) are getting the wrong side of the story and for this disabled people are getting verbally abused in the street and in some cases assulted by people who see what the BBC show on the news!!!
@ me Says
This is not about balancing the books – it never was. It’s a pogrom.
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Very sneaky to bury the important changes in the detail – dirty trick.
I’ve emailed my MP but is there anything else I can do?
Do you think it might be legally challenged under human rights or something similar?
The biggest problem for me is losing qualification for motability. If they coud extend it to lower rate DLA and allow people to top up the difference it might lessen the impact.
Is there any point in all this? – THEY DON’T LISTEN they never will, they just carry on in their own little way, just as long as they don’t annoy their chums in the City. They all have the brains of a plankton, and they are about as much use to the UK as a marzipan dildo !!!
the only way you can get rid of these wankers is by having a poll tax like riot. They will manipulate the press and the media in 2015 so they win the next General Election. They are beyond reason.
It only goes to prove it when you see a thick, turd brained parasite like IDS left in charge of welfare. Its like putting a rat in charge of the cheese larder.
words fail me my story is 4 years of pure hell iam hoping a national newspaper will oneday print my story at what exsists and what we go through
Thank you very much to all of you who have expended valuable energy on compiling this report, and generally keeping your beady eyes on the shenanigans of this cruel bunch of toffs who purport to be a government. That they snuck out this 20 metre qualifier just around Christmas, and completely under the radar of “consultation”, is incredibly unfair – just yet another hammer-blow into the rights of chronically ill and disabled people to any sort of half-decent life.
In November, I had a WCA. I had it recorded, and had 3 supportive medical letters. It went OK and I got put in the Support group. But I can honestly say that the whole process leading up to it, including the 2 or so years of nagging anxiety and horror at ConDem welfare “Reform”, have taken a real toll on me and I am iller and weaker than I was before. I know very many people will have found the same. And now, yet more govenment-inflicted stress and exhaustion because of this new and totally ludicrous 20 meter rule.
But a big thanks to those who are battling on. Can’t type any more, arms tot. packed up. xxx
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So they’re no longer going to account for reliably, safely, and repeatedly? I thought these were written into policy.
They say they are going to but it will be in guidance rather than regulations. Most organisations responding said they thought it should be in the regulations so it has the force of law.
I am very grateful to all those who are fighting on the behalf of people with disabilities (semantics, not ‘disabled people’, we are human first).
As all playground bullies do, the Govt. have singled out those who are least able to fight back. It has started with the name-calling (the already sub-human skivers/scroungers), and the dismissive, dehumanising, crushingly mechanistic treatment by their bureaucracies. History shows that it ends with ‘ethnic-cleansing’ and gas chambers. I hope we are too ‘civilised’ to let things go that far. However, they probably consider it cheaper just to destroy our already fragile health with stress and allow us to ‘decrease the surplus population’ (Dickens, Scrooge).
Quite agree, although the difficulty with the term ‘people with disabilities’ is that it doesn’t reflect the fact that society disables those of us with impairments, as it makes it sound as if the disability belongs to us, rather than just the impairment! I personally prefer disabled people, as this simply describes us as people who happen to be disabled… by our impairments, yes, but also by society, big-time (and it’s getting worse, after a couple of decades during which it got better).
Policies like this PIP policy disable us more than we are currently disabled… rather neatly demonstrating the element of truth behind the social model of disability (which is the model which sees disability as a social construct rather than as a feature of our own bodies). Sorry to be pedantic; it’s what comes of having been a disability studies student!
The one point I do think needs remembersing is that it was the last labour Administration which started the whole mess of benefit reform, so they are all as bad as each other!
My father is disabled, my mother retired and also not overly well and the state is happily trying to remove any quality of life they have. I work, pay horrific amounts of tax , am trying to start a business (mainly to remove my family from this country before they finally shut the lights off) but am also now making plans so I can fully support my parents because the state obviously has no plans to. I’m sure I’m not on my own in being a wage slave who’s got 2 generations to support whilst worrying about my own old age in a UK without any real benefits system, pensions or public health service (you can see that coming).
This government is sickening, they are turning a once great country into a sewer run by the minority for their banking pals. We are nothing but tax slaves, once we cannot produce we just get thrown into the sewer and forgotten about.
For everyone fighting this , thank you from the bottom of my heart.
This if correct feels like the government moving goal posts!
Now that the DWP have delayed PIP for those claimants, who have had a lifetime or indefinite DLA awards, until October 2015 at the earliest or after the next general election.
(That means we have had had five years of mental torture by then.)
Therefore, will they be changing the dates of those, who will be 65, from April 2013, to 2015, as there will be some people who by then will be 65, 66, and 67, respectively and having to go through the process being reassessed as OAP’s.
It also says that you will not be able to claim PIP once you are 65 years old, so is it from this croup were the cuts will come from 160,000 will get a reduced award, and 170,000 will get no award, “or am I being cynical….?”
There are currently no proposals to migrate you onto PIP if you are on attendance allowance or over 65 and claiming DLA.
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I suggest that everyone who is at risk of losing their mobility payments needs to write to local health services to ask them to increase the budget for transport for hospital appointments for people unable to use public transport.
The paperwork for claiming fares or getting a patient transport ambulance is complicated so ask for lots of information, forms and policies. If you will not be able to afford to repair or replace a wheelchair you bought give notice that you will need a replacement. Get them worried!
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Why does this government keep attacking disabled and poor people and do nothing to stop the billions of Pounds of annual Tax Avoidance by millionairs and huge (mostly foreign) corporations?
Also, if there really is a need to reduce the benefits bill, why don’t they just reduce every benefit by 5%, then not have to employ Atos and other bureaucratic organisations to do assessments and reports, as well as clogging up the courts? Surely a blanket reduction would not require hundreds of millions of pounds being spent to enforce new regulations and would save the country far more money. Ditch Atos, save millions!
This is terrible, how can they change the distance AFTER two consultations. And say that they won’t consult any more now. I will be one of the house bound. I live in a rural location and rely on my hoist in my motability car to lift my mobility scooter in and out, I can’t self-propel my wheelchair far enough to be useful. So I will be stuck at home. I feel powerless to cope with it. Though I have emailed my MP he is a tow the party line, hopeless Tory fat cat.
But VERY IMPORTANTLY …..have you seen that the criteria for the moving has been badly written and now means that anyone who can stand and that self propels a wheelchair more than 50m won’t get 10 points. THis is because under section D it says
That should have read
“D Can stand and then move using an aid or appliance more than 20 metres but no more than 50 metres.” 10 points.
I think this should have read “using an aid more than 20 metres….. ”
Sorry I must have forgotten to close the html code.
it does say “stand” so i’m not sure wheelchairs are included, even if they are classed as aids.
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Mr Cameron and gang are not interested in the needs of vulnerable people. They are out to promote the rich getting richer – and, unfortunately, the majority of people with significant disabilities do not fall in that category. I suspect that there is no room for changes – the government having made up their mind that we are all money grabbing chancers. Mr Cameron, by all means nail the idiots that claim illegally; but, do not persecute people with disabilities who need extra support. Many people with disabilities are not able to work. It’s not that they are lazy or scroungers. It’s not that they do not dream of being able to work and have a decent income. They simply cannot for reasons of disability. The current approach by the government is going to ensure that people with disabilities fall well below the breadline in terms of income. You are condemning us sir to added misery. Please … PLEASE … pay attention to what disabled people are saying.
Am I right in thinking that it was the banking industry that got us into this mess in the first place,and when are they and their big fat cat bosses going to pay anything if at all.Cameron and Clegg gave themselves a nice big pay rise by cutting the higher rate of income tax to 45p as if they need it.I have worked all my life and when I became disabled I kept working and have watched as Mr. Osbourn says my neighbour lying in bed while I went to work at 5am in the morning and he still is after 26 years that I am aware of.He is able to do a lot more things than I am able to do but dosn’t seem to have any worries at all.He claims all the benifits that he can including motability at the highest rate but when he goes on holiday his walking stick is left at home.He is able to afford holidays abroad by the way.Mr Cameron and his gang of bullies should be after these people instead of picking on people with genuine disabilities or do they know the system too well for him to win.Cameron and Clegg should be aware that there are a lot of people in the same position as me and that an election cannot be put off forever.
Who’s fault is this? The people who voted the Tories in! Ive lived very day worried that this new PIP assessment will be dropping through the door. I don’t understand how someone else who doesn’t live in my body can tell me how I should be doing! Why not walk an hour in someone’s shoes before judging!!
I have had letters from my surgeons and even my local mp who is conservative told me when she enquired about my case with the minister concerned she received a very frosty reponce and was told atos are here to stay and that it was a matter for the dwp.
I suffer from advanced degenerative osteo artritis throughout my body and have crushed discs in my lower spine and also suffer from E.H.D., Ive had a total knee repklace ment at 49 years of age and in the words of my ortho[paedic and trauma surgeon unfortunatly this has been less than sucessful and needs to be considerd by the dwp and atos when being examined for either incapacity or dissability benefits and in october i had a complete DRUJ wrist joint replacement which the hand sdurgeon wrote a much stronger letter saying the most i could hold in my hand even after six months recovery would be a half litre carton or cup dependent on weather the vessel had handels or not and as for dexterity that would not recover.
i can only walk 50 yards max with a stick as stated after examination with the surgeon by which time my kn ee is the same size as my thigh and im cvrying my eyes out because of the back pain.
I take 15ml four tmes a day of oromorph and two co-codamol 30/500s four times a day and simvastatin, bisoprolol and naproxen and aspirin or co-codamol, injections directly into my spine and the spinal surgeon has now told me that there is nothing else to be done for me as the damage is too far gone. as well as heart meds so that my heart does not give out on me and my wife has to help me get out of bed and dress me because of the athritis and she has to leave me a flask of tea with sandwiches for my lunch and i fall asleep in mid conversation with people because of the meds that im having to take just to barely function
The atos doctor used his own words in the medical and i was awarded no points what so ever and on the 6th of feb 2013 i have now got to go to a full appeal hearing just to try to get incapacity benefit or whatever they now want to call it and as from april im expecting to be summond yet again for an atos medical to justify me receiving dissability living allowance which by these new rules i probably wont qualify for!!, it strikes me as odd that Mr cameron and his wife are worth millions and yet they took money from the state to provide there son with anything he needed but as he unfortunatly died and the camerons no longer need this money (not that they ever actually needed it anyway) it seems that the sick and dissabled are fare game and its a case or he dont mind and we dont matter because if we cant work and provide profits for his rich friends by way of low weages and excessive working conditions then why should we be part of a so called modern society and as for that pet of his nick clegg cameron just uses him as a show dog to try to look like he cares, WHAT A BUNCH OF PIGS!!.
And as for the cheap foreign so called medics that atos employ to carry out these medicals i have to wonder where they were actually trained and weather there qualifications would actually stand up to a bma scrutinneer and background check on there actual ability to carry out any form doctoring at any surgeries within the united kingdom!!.
because both atos and the dwp think they are better qualified than the surgeons who operated on me over the last 10 years and that they also are better qualified than my gp because i did not get a single point from the quack at atos and even though i also supplied the dwp with the letters from my surgeons the dwp wrote to me saying that in there view the surgeons letters were not proof of illness.
It does seem totally obviouse that any one who is diassabled or genuinly sick is being victimised by the torys and lib dem partners with absolutly no concern for the long term unless it means linuing the wealthy pigs pockets and totally destroying the welfare system at all costs!!!.
I feel very sad. With MS I had left work and was becoming increasingly isolated. Receiving DLA mobility allowance has not only helped financially but has given me access to the blue badge scheme and transformed my life by allowing me to be part of the community again – to go to the supermarket, the cinema, visit friends.
I hate to think of going back to being completely dependent on the goodwill of others.
…and not ONE WORD about anyone who has mental health difficulties/disabilities! Well, at the age of 40 (10 years ago), I suffered a nervous breakdown, which destroyed any sense of worth pr confidence I had previously had. Couldn’t cook food, was paranoid with fear, depressed and suicidal.
10 years later, another nervous breakdown… 3 GPs and a Consultant decided that this, combined with increasingly acute/chronic back problems, meant that, in their words “your working life is over”. Apparently not! ESA – WRAG and DLA STOPPED.
What now? Survival on a mere £69 per week.
Under this “government” of Upper-middle class twits, (they all went to Public schools!), I’d be better off DEAD.
When will they send round the Gestapo-like “cleansing (extermination)” squads? Watch out, its only a matter of time! Remember, Thatcher’s mob lasted 10 years…
As I keep saying there are 24 hours between Striver and Scrounger (not my words) Anybody rich or poor can become ill overnight and unable to work or be made redundant. 24 HRS.
…is a monument to the legacy of greed over humanity. I think ESA/PIP could be inserted at the beginning of the previous sentence. I recently read these words in a book about the coal mining industry in the 1890s. How sad that they should be appropriate in 2013.
Campaigns have limited effect unless huge numbers of population are involved. As I understand it, the mature, retired and disabled form a growing and very large section of the electoral vote pool. Surely together, with close family members and friends, we can threaten, and take, direct action at the ballot box and deprive Labour, Tory and Lib Dems of our vote come election time. I intend to “throw away ” my vote, and vote for an MP that has little chance of becoming elected. Using votes in this way at least cancels out an equal number of votes for the other 3 parties. The strategy has its calculated risks of course, but all 3 parties need a wake-up call. I have told my MP of my intention. This is the only kind of message they listen to. A huge loss of votes is what they fear, – having no winning margin and no majority either!!
I have said it before and I will say it again once a Tory always a Tory , you cannot trust any of them even the Lib Dem’s who are in bed with them they will never get in again, ask anyone out there did you vote for them no I didn’t so how did these scum bags get back into power, Ill tell you because Gordon Brown sold the working class down the drain so he could get a seat in the house of Lords you’ll see, both his parents are Tory’s how can you come from a Tory house hold and support the Labour people. Ed Miliband is no good as the Labour leader hes too far to the Right and not strong enough , look at the Jobs his Parents had in the past , the man who should have been Labour leader instead of Tony Blair was John Smith RP, we need a man with strong convictions and some balls and not just all mouth. Someone Like Dennis Skinner or Paul Kenny GMB, Dave Prentis Unison.
By the way someone said it was the banking Industry that got us in this mess, who are they , most of them come from Money Families helping one another get jobs as the Tory’s do best most are from High Ranking Land Owning Families or Business Families Farming and the Like, so its money looking after their money not yours ? or you.
I don’t know whether its even a wise choice voting for the UK Independence Party as they all seem to be interested in looking after them selves not the people as they are supposed to represent. None of you stood up when Thatcher decimated the Mining Industry and look where its got You all now you want to hang your heads in shame, I didn’t like Arthur Scargill but most of what he predicted was correct. The Government keeps attacking the Disable Community because we are an will always be an easy touch and will stand back and do nothing exactly as they want, United we STAND DIVIDED WE FALL , LOOK AT THE MINERS 1984, YOU WILL REMEMBER THEM ?
The Best thing is all to keep together and kick them out once and for all , lets kick them where it hurts, vote with your feet and do as they do when they get in undo any good that Labour does and demand change from your MP demand they stick to their election Promises and reverse any Legislation these Money Parasites implement THEY DON’T LISTEN so make them listen , ask them what age they will Retire and how much a week or month they will get when they Retire. The MP’s are even starting fiddling their expense again.
If they are working for the People they should get paid the same as the People, not lining their own pockets, in France the MP’s are for the People and so are the Police , look at their standard of living and hours worked and Holidays , That’s why the Tory’s don’t want us in Europe because they can see its the thin end of the wedge for them and who they stand for and they want the working class to stay under their thumb, they are frightened they will become a thing of the past like all the other Royal Families of Europe and further a field they want to remember what happened to them , and remember Oliver Cromwell here too , we may even need to resolve to the tactics of the Greeks and the Spanish, direct action is the only way I’m afraid.
What happened to the Queen being the Patron of Motability , and representing the people and not the Politicians for once we should all write to her ? and demand action.
Now that the DWP have delayed PIP for those claimants, who have had a lifetime or indefinite DLA awards, until October 2015 at the earliest or after the next general election, they snuck out this 20 meter’s qualifier just around Christmas, and completely under the radar of “consultation” Remember Vote with your feet get together and Organize support one another take all those to vote who would not or wont normally vote,People were just starting to get a half decent standard of living in the late 1970s – 80s till The Tory’s got in.
Don’t just sit on your backside and do nothing. vote with you feet, I still think we should all write to the Queen and demand action. POWER TO THE PEOPLE ALWAYS WORKS BEST
My personal belief is that somewhere there is a document that has Cameron’s name on it, that is a plan to dismantle the welfare state in its entirety. The point of that plan is, in my opinion, to have a society that ensures that the richest, such as him, don’t pay tax to fund a system that (as the right wingers see it) pays for the health of those who don’t pay their way, or are lazy.
I know many people disagree with my view and who believe this country has a desperate financial shortfall. If we are so hard up for money, where do the billions that these rich boys keep finding for their new initiatives come from? By rights if we are so hard up we shouldn’t be spending on new projects, we should be paying off this debt we apparently have… that was the premise of the original cuts after all. We were to accept this dreadful cuts to reach a point where the deficit was cleared.
Never has there been government ministers who understand so little about disability, who care so little about people. They see bottom lines not people with real lives. “We are all in it together” unfortunately Cameron, IDS, and others are in a different club so technically the aren’t in “IT” with the rest of us.
By the way, I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere lately so I would like to take this opportunity to jog some memories and perhaps introduce others to bit of info about the loveable IDS. In case you missed it, IDS was one of a group of MP’s who took part in Channel 4′s excellent “Tower Block of Commons” which can be found on iTunes and maybe on 4OD. Anyway, IDS was the only MP who didn’t manage to stay even 24 hours in the programme which saw the MP’s moving into an East End tower block seeing what it is like to live on benefits.
So not only is he a failed leader, he is a failed leader who is now overseeing the most vicious cuts to disability benefits who had a perfect opportunity to really understand what it is like to try and live on benefits (which he says is possible) but failed to take the opportunity.
He gave an interesting excuse for leaving early. He is seen suddenly packing his bags claiming “I just got a call to say my wife has cancer!”. Now then I have experience, as many of you will, of a family member having to battle cancer. The thing is you don’t get to know that a relative that close has cancer by way of a bolt out of the blue telephone call. Realistically he would have been (one would hope) with his wife to previous appointments and would already suspect before any diagnosis. In which case no right thinking human being would have even started the programme in such a situation.
If Mrs Duncan Smith indeed did have cancer, I hope she recovered. Her husband whoever, ran like a startled rabbit to get out of a situation that was plainly far too repugnant for him to deal with.
As such he is the last person who should be allowed to oversea cuts against any benefit claimants let alone those of us with disabilities.
Do try to get to see this excellent programme if you can if only to see IDS showing his true colours.
As others have pointed out though, this toytown government was not actually elected by the people of Britain. They certainly don’t have a mandate to be doing the things they are doing. Apart from that, they are failing to work as a coalition. This is a TORY government and a right wing one at that. We should have an election now before any more people lose their lives from not being able to cope with the anxiety that comes with Tory decisions.
We need to get out there and demonstrate against these changes. Just as happened over the “Poll Tax” (remember that?)
Come on people we must get back to caring about others again and stop this dreadful march towards the “I’m alright jack” society
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People – no matter how many [excellent] Spartacus reports are published, no matter how many debates they call in the HOC or in the Lords, no matter how many TV Panorama documentaries expose this nightmare and no matter how many damning press articles are published NOTHING at all can or will change….
SEE: http://www.whywaitforever.com/dwpatosveterans.html#documents
Didn’t anyone read my research (referenced above) – now welcomed and accepted by 7 different universities – as it clearly identifies the links between the DWP, Atos Healthcare and the highly discredited corporate American insurance giant Unum Insurance – identified as the 2nd worst in America – and the fact that we are moving to the AMERICAN system of welfare, to be funded by private insurance.
That’s the big secret that the DWP & the Government don’t want the UK public to know and is why there is a press BAN on exposing the links between the DWP and Unum Insurance. The DWP won’t significantly change or improve the welfare reforms as they aren’t running them. SO, the DWP won’t significantly change or improve the Atos assessments as they were designed by Unum and are the same ‘assessmets’ used to refuse to pay out on their insurance policies.
UNUM Insurance freely boast that they are “guiding” UK welfare reforms…. DON’T you remember Unum Insurance flooding the ITV with adverts for their “income Protection Insurance”(??)until disability activists complained to the FSA & the adverts were stopped as Unum were deemed to be benefitting from “insider knowledge” as they had helped to ‘design’ the welfare assessments……
PLEASE do not continue to hope that something significant is going to improve – it isn’t.
I m with “Mardem” – why not “simply” cut all benefits, all government budgets by a small percentage AND increase all taxes by a small percentage?
sounds cheaper, quicker and fairer to me– oh of course then there s no profit to be made by private foreign companies like atos “providing public service” and all the “valuable” companies might run away to foreign shores ; ) and what would IDS etc do with their time? ; )
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`a vote of no confidence` is waht we need for the present coalition.
My husband’s story is the same as many on this…..
We are with all of you 100% there must be something we can do to make them stop and think
what there going to do to people, no one wants to be benerfit reliant but when doctors
right you off what choice do you have!!!
I can see this pip thing making lots of problems for all concerned including suicides!
thats One way for them to save on benerfits I suppose
Hi
I have spinal problems, meneires disease, stenosis of the trachea, gastritis of the stomach, narrowing of the airways, asthma, bowel problems, and I have just been told I am fit for work, and my benefits will stop, as a nurse decided I could take my coat off and step on a stool to get examined on a couch! even though I produced letters from consultants, the government decided the so called decision makers with no medical experience have the last say.
Were do I turn?
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