to think it's flippin' obvious that incapacity begins with a sicknote?

[AgeingGrace]

Our Beloved Premier/s has/have announced that, since half of all long-term sickness benefit claims begin with sick leave from work, the nation must be malingering.

Mr Cameron will say: "We simply have to get to grips with the sicknote culture that means a short spell of sickness can far too easily become a gradual slide to a life of long-term benefit dependency."

Don't they have any statisticians in Whitehall these days? The figures used do NOT show that half of everyone who goes sick from work, they show that half of the prople on sick benefit were in work when they first got ill. I'm surprised it's not higher than that - how did the other half know they were too sick to work, if they weren't already working? That's the half he should be worried about!

Dave: When working people become ill, they have to get a sick note. If their illness turns out to be serious, they have to leave their job and eventually claim benefits. If it doesn't, they go back to work. Which part of that do you see as a problem?

Tsk. Should have read:
The figures used do NOT show that half of everyone who goes sick from work stays off forever. They show that half of sick benefit claimants were in work when they first got ill.

he's a wanker who doesn't understand or care.
Come and rant on my universal credit thread here

That'll be up there with, "Once they've been on sickness benefits for 2 years, they're more likely to retire or die than go back to work."

Yeah, cos dying is such a rare outcome for people with serious, long-lasting illnesses.

Not rocket science is it?

get real, who doesn't know someone supposedly unable to work who obviously could?

IT's all so depressing
I always knew the tories wer cunts but they seem determined to show us just how much of a cunt they cna really be.

chandellina - very good point...but let's not kid ourselves - the majority of people objecting to these proposals are bleating out of nothing more than self-interest, being net welfare recipients themselves.

As such, their views are wholly predictable and equally irrelevant.

Yes, chandellina, I know one. One, amongst about 30 genuine claimants. Even my ratio is higher than average - did you know that 1% of incapacity & disability claims are fraudulent? To put that in perspective, most retailers factor in 10% for pilfering. So benefits claimants are 10x more honest than shoppers ...

I notice that the linked article article is written in the future tense. and that at least one part of the article was wrong (it said the speech would confirm curbs on HB, when it actually rescinded them)

So did he actually say this words?

When I went back to work off sick leave all I got was 'oh, but you don't look sick' - neither did my Gran when she had cancer. That's why they call invisible disabilities, well, invisble. I was actually accused of deceiving 6 GPs and a specialist that I was sick when I clearly wasn't!!!

Surely most people, unless ill or disabled as children or teenagers, are going to find out they're sick/disabled when they're working?

I didn't want to be sick and out of work - my employer fired me for having so much sick leave and then not being able to work long enough hours to complete my workload, thus I am out of work. I know I am capable of work whilst my condition remains manageable but having recently spent 4 months under a sick note it's hard to persuade people who interview me for jobs to offer me a position.

When I only had one disability the job centre said I wasn't disabled enough to be given any extra help but I was told I was disabled enough that people wouldn't want to hire me and that I should conceal it from employers.

I was treated like dirt when I needed time off sick, a lot of the people I know from message boards for my disabilities who have jobs are also treated badly, many have lost their jobs as a result of illness or struggle to find employers willing to make the necessary adjustments. I think one of the biggest issues here are the difficulties people who have disabilities who can do some work have in finding people who will

a) employ them

b) treat them with respect when they do (my old colleagues used to do 'impressions' of people with CP (I do not have CP but do have co-ordination problems) in front of me at work, in front of senior management and one of the people doing it was a manager as well. I was the only person who didn't laugh and who challenged the behaviour and offensive language. I was also left out of social events, training and meetings were often scheduled outside my work hours so I couldn't attend the sessions etc etc.

If the government want more disabled people to work they need to make sure the workplace is made to be more disability friendly.

As a mathematician this sort of thing makes me want to throw things at the radio.
So I am hiding this thread for the safety of my netbook.

Newsflash, NoSuchThingAsSociety, our household is a net contributor, not recipient.

And we find this attack on the vulnerable repugnant in a civilised society. WTF are we paying our taxes for, Dave's photographer?

I have just read his entire speech from this morning (it's on the No10 website).

The Independent got it wrong.

Cameron did not say that.

One of the things he did say:

"But I therefore refuse to believe that there are five million people who are inherently lazy and have no interest in bettering themselves and their families. What I want to argue is that the real fault lies with the system itself"

Is a mathematician a job or a hobby ilethia? Genuine question...

ThisIsANiceCage - well, you can piss your taxes away if you wish. Not me.

I heard it on the radio news, then looked for a reference on Google. I didn't check the veracity of the article, which was written last night. But the fact remains that the "fault in the system" he refers to is loads of people going off sick, then thinking "Ooh, this is nice! I think I'll go off sick forever!"

Which is total, utter, unscientific, nonsensical bollocks.

job. ish. student teacher

Please tell me you have no children or elderly parents, and never use the NHS, the police force or benefit however indirectly from the intelligence services or armed forces, NoSuchThingAsSociety, because I certainly wouldn't want to piss my taxes away on you.

Oh just wondered. What a good rl example to use in your teaching [ grin]

And respect to you for going into teaching. You re a braver woman than me

NoSuchThingAsSociety Thu 17-Feb-11 20:04:16
chandellina - very good point...but let's not kid ourselves - the majority of people objecting to these proposals are bleating out of nothing more than self-interest, being net welfare recipients themselves.

As such, their views are wholly predictable and equally irrelevant.

It is errant nonsense, and deeply unpleasant to suggest that those who object are 'net welfare recipients'.

1. how on earth did you work that out? do you have any reliable source or are you speaking from conjecture and prejudice.
2. just because you can't imagine people campaigning out of concerns for other people, that doesn't mean that concern for others does not exist. This country has a great tradition of the better off supporting the weak and sick, not out of self-interest but out of basic humanity. In fact, to be even more blunt, it is what Jesus taught. (And I speak as an atheist.)
3. Hmm, hold on, so if your views are based out of self-interest, then they are irrelevant?

Then presumably your concerns for how 'your' taxes are spent, as they are motivated by self-interest, are equally irrelevant?

1. Everyone, even the sick and ill and those in receipt of benefits, let's say because they are ILL, then they still have the perfect right to object to changes in policy whether or not they are affected by them personally. That's democracy and equality.
2. We are all of us just one car crash, one aneurysm, one heart attack, one trip to the doctor away from being a 'net welfare recipient'. Have a little humility and compassion. You may need it yourself one day when your luck runs out.

it is a fault in the system that people who could work can be paid not to. how is it that people find the will to work when there isn't a massive benefits net?
but i see there's no point arguing with people who think the state owes them everything, for nothing.

Actually tho, I still would pay for you, NoSuchThingAsSociety.

Cos I'm one of those left-wing loonies who think that just because you're a self-serving twat, doesn't mean we taxpayers shouldn't rescue you when you crash your car, get cancer or some nutter is planning to blow you up.

It's rough being a responsible grown up.

AgeingGrace: he simply did not say it.

He did however refer to fraud, error, over-complexity and perverse incentives as the faults in the system.

chandellina there wasn't a massive benefits net in the 1930s, and certainly not in the Victorian era. Yet people were still out of work, incredibly poor and dying preventably.

meditrina thanks for checking up on that. That's interesting, because the Indy uses an actual quote (David Cameron will say ""), so it's not the normal inaccurate precis problem.

So it looks, as others have pointed out, as if the speech has been re-written between distribution to the press and actual speech-giving.

Hmm, interesting.