Conservatives to eat the babies of 1m poor people

[OTheHugeManatee]

Not really.

But AIBU to be getting a bit fed up with the scaremongering threads about things the Conservative Party has not proposed to do? Like abolish child benefit or completely privatise the NHS?

It's silly. Stop it

People lost disability benefit under Labour too. The benefits system was long overdue a complete overhaul. I don't approve of zero hours contracts but I think all those benefits have to be simplified. Some people seem to manage quite well on benefits and others are on the breadline. The whole system is unbalanced and unfair. IMHO. I agree with what the tories have done with tax. People on meagre wages paying tax is wrong.

People were already being reassed to see if they needed disability benefits. It's lies to say they weren't. You had to fill in a 48 page form, send in medical evidence and often be examined by a doctor in order to receive them.

Now, according to the Tories, if you can walk 21m with an aid, in severe pain you are not physically disabled anymore.

TheFairyCaravan well said

You had to fill in the form to apply, not for a reassessment.

I'm not saying I agree with the way the reassessments have been handled, because in some cases they clearly failed, and that isn't acceptable.

But I think it's misleading to say that the Tories believe you aren't disabled if you can walk 21 meters with an aid. Of course having to walk with an aid makes a person disabled, but it doesn't neccesarily mean that you are incapable of working. There is a big difference between the two things.

Ptolemy Don't teach me to suck eggs!

I have been on DLA since 2000. In that time I have filled in form after form after form. They can give you a lifetime award, or they can award it to you for anything between 1-3 years. I have all sorts of periods of awards, never a lifetime, they were very, very rare. During the period of the award they can do "spot checks" where they do a random search through the database and check the people whose names come out. That has happened to me 3 times.

In my cabinet downstairs I have a massive drawer full of all the paperwork and correspondence that the DWP and I have had!

It is not misleading to say that the Tories think you are not disabled if you can walk 21m with an aid because that is exactly what they have done to the PIP criteria. PIP and DLA are in work benefits, they have nothing to do with your fitness to work!

No, you had to fill in the forms to be reassessed too. On a regular basis.

Oh, and the Government's own figures for fraudulent claims for DLA is 0.5% but they want to get 20% of people off DLA. They are genuinely disabled people, so I am not being misleading at all!

The DLA was a living allowance, also for children not in work, to help with day to day living. I don't know, maybe the Camerons didn't need it for their son, so screw everyone else.

Yeah, imagine the proportion of tax Dodgers and if they put even a fraction of the effort into sorting out that kind of fraud. But that's getting too close to home.

Cross-posted with Fairy Caravan. As well as changes to DLA, now you can have sickness-related benefits removed after a year when even ATOS have said you're not well enough to work, if you're suddenly not sick enough under the new system.

My apologies, I stand corrected.

The only disabled person I've ever had the discussion with told me how pleased he was that he only had to fill the form in once because it was such a pain in the arse, so I have made a wrong assumption.

Still, I don't think it's wrong that people should be reassessed, and I do knwi that DLA/pip are not out of work benefits.

Okay then, to talk about the 21-50m change. Do you agree that if you can only walk 21-50m, you can survive without a car?

20m approx takes me from my living room to in front next doors drive. My closest bus stop is (actually relatively close compared to most houses, but) about 100m away

Beyond 20m takes me to the end of my drive. Our nearest bus stop is 1.3 miles away. It's just as well I don't work (but I do own my car fortunately) as if I relied on a Motabilty car I wouldn't be able to get there! Or to the doctors, hopsital, shops, school. Etc!

That's going to be down to the individual isn't it? Some people that can't walk far will manage fine without a car because they use an electric wheelchair/mobility scooter/their partner drives/they have a good local mobility service.

But others will need a car, because the above things aren't practical for them.

Isn't that why people could choose whether they used their DLA for a car or keep it as cash?

I'm incredibly lucky, i got enough mental points on top of my 21-50m tickbox so could get a car. Until then, i wasnt able to leave the house unless my mum could drive me. And she was living in scotland at the time, so i had to rely on her driving 200 miles to visit and arrange hospital appointments etc around that!

what is the point in re asseing someone when their condition will never improve.
just a waste of money.

Because their condition may get worse, and they might need more support. And some conditions do improve.

Or the goalposts might have moved, allowing removal of benefits alotgether.

Because it's not like NHS privatisation and child poverty actually exist and actually cause harm to real people

That's right and its not like Labour started the privatization is it? And its not like Child Poverty soared under the last LONG LABOUR GOVERNMENT.

Years and years of Labour party in power and the gap between rich and poor grew, and child poverty grew.

Did the need for food banks suddenly spring up under a conservative government or do you think the foundations were firmly laid under the long Labour rule?

Well, if you spend five years bashing people, don't be surprised if you get a reputation for bashing things. It's common sense, really.

The Fairy having a huge cabinet full of forms isn't new. We have a relative with LD - and the mum had mountains of paper work and assessments and re assessments, had a permanent, born with mental condition that would never change. That was under Labour.

I remember the rhetoric when they first got in. Cutting DLA by 20% to encourage people back to work. Despite it being an in-work benefit and also for children. They didn't even get their facts straight, desperate to implement purely ideological measures.

My disabled DS has no future under the tories.

John Major's government introduced PFI.

Child poverty declined under Labour

Use of food banks grew massively under the Coalition

Well there we go. Labour introduced something, so that completely justifies the tories making it much, much worse. Ffs.

It really is the most ridiculous argument (when used by either side, not just this example) "well, it might be bad, but they started it, not us". You are acknowledging that it is A Bad Thing that your side (again, it works both ways) have just magnified.

Posted too soon. His disability has been reclassified now. I would say that being unable to relate typically to people in a world full of people is a serious disadvantage but he will be given no help or concessions under PIP / ESA. Sanctions and food banks for him, if not homelessness.