Keir Stamer, who stays in luxury apartments and hotels belonging to billionaire donors and whose wife is dressed in 10’s of thousands of clothes bought by billionaire donors is worried that disabled people living on the breadline are on the take. Right.
Have you all seen the cartoon of Murdoch with his giant plate of cookies telling the man with only one cookie that immigrants want to take his cookie? It’s all a razzle dazzle - get us all arguing about whether or not someone deserves money to support going to work or to buy products that make life more liveable while millionaires and billionaires get loopholes that allow them to avoid income tax, avoid inheritance tax and so on. Instead of tackling these loopholes and taxing those that have more money than they can spend in a lifetime we’re going after money for mobility aids and incontinence products. We’re arguing about disabled children getting £800 a month when others can live on £1600 - but honestly should someone live on £1600 (that wouldn’t cover rent and bills where I live, let alone food) and is that a reason not to fund necessities for kids that need it?
Stamer is a corrupt Tory and he is giving us all the razzle dazzle to distract us from the fact that the rich are getting so much richer and the tax payers are funding it. But sure, doesn’t he and his wife look spiffing in their lovely “donated” designer outfits!
In terms of sickness benefit - the Tory’s really messed up on covid and as a result the UK was one of the worst hit places. I know someone who went from
running her own successful business to being exhausted and needing to go to bed in the middle of the day. She has had to cut her work by more than half, she has had to give up her rental and plans for home ownership and move home with her parents in her 30’s. She is someone with two Masters who built a business from the ground and now she is barely scraping through her days, should we worry people like that are scrounging off the tax payers? People don’t want to get sick, they don’t choose it. Another friend is working in a public service that is so underfunded that they all end up working evenings and weekends as they deal with vulnerable people and don’t have anyone to shift the work to - several of his colleagues have burnt out and being signed off with stress, one of his colleagues also has long covid and was forced back to work too soon so had a complete relapse. But these people are all scroungers right? Who here would want to swap places with someone so ill they can’t work or who has mentally snapped after years of workplace stress and abuse?
In terms of ND people, it takes years and a lot of evidence to get assessed and then to show that it impacts your ability to work. It is likely there could be some that could go back to work if they were in the right industry with proper accommodations made. If anything there should be more money thrown into researching how to best accommodate people to get into work and supporting them in workplaces. Chris Packham had a wonderful speech about neurodiversity and how it exists in the animal kingdom too with a small percentage of animals displaying different traits but these traits helped the groups in situations like flooding, fires etc… Being different comes with challenges but it can also be a superpower. For instance they did a study on people with ADHD and found that while doing boring tasks they were slower and more distracted than neurotypical people but when doing something more complex that interested them that they outperformed the neurotypical people due to the ability of people with ADHD to hyperfocus on things of interest. Funding research and councillors that specialise in this area to help people find the thing they can hyperfocus on and help them into the workforce would cost money but in the long run would be a better world. Quite a lot if Artists and Novelists have recently announced that they have had adult diagnosis’s of autism and ADHD, wouldn’t the world be a lot less good if these people did as the right-wingers among you seem to be suggesting and just not have kids - quash out the different amongst us.
The world is not easy for people with physical impairments either - most people don’t know sign language, venues don’t have hearing loops or sign language interpreters so people with hearing impairments are often isolated and unable to partake in cultural activities. A lot of buildings do not have ramps or lifts and pavements are blocked by scaffolding and parked cars making getting places and seeing things impossible for people with mobility issues. Buses deny access to wheelchair users because someone refuses to fold their buggy. It is not easy to navigate the world with a disability which is why there are extra payments to disabled people. In a better society we would adapt the world to accommodate everyone.
There is a serious amount of begrudgery on this thread, the disabled are stealing the tax payer’s cookie but don’t look at Keir and his billionaire mates sit there munching on mounds of them (and don’t ask who paid for his suit).