Well it's interesting isn't it, because there are aspects of the arguments I agree with, obviously, because I'm applying it to my own life, but then the way of going about it I totally disagree with.
So, universal credit = good idea. It's really hard work being means tested by so many different departments and working under 16 hours on the old system was very inflexible and paralysing. But then the conditionality I think is a pretty bad idea, and the way self-employed/small business expenses is going to be assessed will sink a lot of new enterprise. I don't think that's helpful.
Supported working/access to work for disabled people = good idea. Isolation and the "sick identity" are both really negative aspects of disability and getting people into work, even small amounts of work, or voluntary work is hugely helpful and therapeutic, even for people with extremely severe conditions. But the reality is that people need a lot of support to work, and highly individual support. My DP, for example, needs housing and assistive technology, but not really personal or intellectual support. He could work 8-10 hours a week in a technical advisory role and we aim to get there. His barriers are all logistical. But someone with LD might need 1:1 support or sheltered. And some people will never be able to work at all, and you can't always tell who they are by the name of their condition. What the government has done is (as the last one did before them, I hasten to add!) is to twist these ideas into basically saying that no one is really disabled, it's just an attitude problem. This is the "bio-psycho-social" model. It locates the "fault" in the individual. It's very unhelpful.
The policy of restricting help to only those with the most need creates a perverse incentive to wreck your life. This is true. I know this is true because I deliberately wrecked my DPs life to get social care support. The way I got social care support was to lie on the floor and scream and scream and not stop until someone helped me. I screamed for a long time, but eventually, when they realised I really was not getting up and doing the care, they helped me. My poor DP had to suffer. Afterwards, I was afraid to get up. This is the trap of the "most need".
But more than that, it creates a sense of unfairness. Fairness is a central concern for people, as we've seen on this thread. The people on the right and left of this debate are both concerned with fairness, they've just got different opinions on what that means. Getting some consensus there is, I think, how we detoxify this conversation.