To Think the Tories Are Actually At War With Disabled People?

[JoffreyBaratheon]

I've been mired in the grim process of my son's DLA being changed to the new benefit, PIP. During this time, I have heard the stories of other disabled people and their loved ones. This may make me biased. Or human.

On every forum I have been on for help, can see that thousand of other disabled people, their carers, appointees and loved ones are being pretty well tortured by the vicious cuts and the new, brutal system being forced into place.

Benefits advisers and people at charities in the front line trying to support people like us also seem to report they feel like the disabled are under attack.

Now I will never understand why the most disadvantaged people in society are being forced to pay for the mistakes of bankers and rich people. Losing DLA will be a blow to our family - most of all my son but all of us - we won't recover from. To multi millionaires like Campbell, no doubt it's back pocket change so they are incapable of understanding what they are doing to ordinary people.

The past few months going through this hell, I've often felt like we might as well cut to the chase, sew the lack triangle on our clothes, and wait for the work camp to open. And I don't say that lightly, as someone whose grandad was present during the liberation of Belsen. (Wasn't it another tory - Gove - who said historians got it wrong and the British were donkeys led by lions, or words to that effect - so we know the contempt in which we are held by these chinless wonders already).

AIBU to think that people like Cameron and IDS are targeting disabled people and their carers, specifically?

well seeing as everyone is a car crash away from a disability . surely to fuck people want to make sure that if it was them or their child the help would be there.

pontytidy what you fail to understand is that the poor aren't taking from the poor. The rich are taking from the poor and the poor at all levels are feeling the squeeze. The wealth is not being distributed to those so called benefit abusers it is being channelled into the hands of the wealthy. There is no way to argue against this being true.

I just wish people were aware of just how hard it is to claim any kind of disability benefit.

The stress, the strain, the worry, the sleepless nights, explaining yourselves to a multitude of people over and over again.

Filling in reams of forms.

The waiting, the fear of the phone call or the letter dropping through the letter box.

Knowing you have to do it, time and time and time again.

for everyone whose ever gone through it.

Ffs it's getting more and more depressing.

And is it my imagination or is there actually an increasing number of people that seem to think us work shy disabled are all living it up, not having to work and rolling (or being assisted to roll) in money?

Do you know what Osbourne and every other fucker that thinks like him. You can't 'help' me in to work.

I would be over the fecking moon if I could work, claw back a little bit of pride in myself and provide a better standard of living for my children.

But I CAN'T! You can take everything from me, starve me, but I still CAN'T work or do anything about it.

Thousands of severely disabled people CAN'T fucking work, no matter how much money you take from their already pitiful pile. People I used to work with/for couldn't walk, talk, feed themselves, get dressed or go to the toilet without a hoist and a carer. They can only live in increasing poverty and squalor.

I swear people have been so blinded by hate for the poor/disabled they actually believe we are all just whiners who shouldn't say the word can't...it's all just a frame of mind.

Except for these 'deserving' ones they keep talking about. They feel sorry for those. You know, the fucking overwhelming majority of us getting screwed over.

Well that explained a mystery for me!
I queried my PIP review decision on the grounds that though the end award was ok, the reasoning wasn’t, and I was worried I could get in trouble.
They kept telling me that they didn’t consider the increased help I need in one area (which is scaring me stupid) to be significant, which I do.
I can see I’m struggling to cope, and losing money hand over fist through It, but with assistance there's lot's I can do, including being of useful service to others.

But they didn’t understand why I was unhappy they were disregarding that significant part of what my needs are, as they’d awarded me higher than I thought was correct for dressing, undressing and toileting needs, and when I told them, told me not to worry!

Pontytidy my benefits allow me to work, all be it for under NMW despite the severity of my disability. Is it 'fair' to reduce me to being unable to, when with a bit of assistance I can, and force me onto your charity or lack of it? I didn't ask to end up disabled and you could find yourself in the same boat easily enough you know!

This cut will save a tiny percentage of the profits being poured into the pockets of private investors in PFI schemes.

I'm appalled after reading those links. Absolutely shameful that the most vulnerable in our society are expected to suffer to make the rich richer.
There's another thread about someone whose DH has informed the benefit fraud team about her brother defrauding the system.This hotline enables anyone with the slightest grievance about anyone to make trouble for anyone on benefits regardless of their guilt or not.

The public have been brainwashed (not sure if that's the right word) into believing that people on benefits are a scourge on society and anyone making fraudulent claims must be reported immediately, and you don't even have to give your name to do so. How easy is that.

They'd have us believe that anyone defrauding the system costs the country millions, but don't tell us about the many millions more that they save from people who aren't getting what they're entitled to.

Obviously making fraudulent claims is wrong, but far far worse than someone who might do a bit of work on the side without informing the job center, is this bunch of lying conniving bastards who are putting vulnerable disabled people through hell to allow them to get enough money and help to live a decent life. They are the only real villains in it all. Worse than shameful, it's obscene.

More cuts. FFS.

Pontytidy Have you bothered to look up the figures for fraud?
No, thought not...

Pontytidy figures show that fraud relating to DLA and incapacity benefit are 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent for 2013/14. More is lost by official error (about twice that).

I think you can stop worrying about all these fraudulent claims.

Not everyone shares the views on this thread. I'll just leave it at that as those of us on both sides have very strong views on the topic.

Sorry, Deo I don't understand what you mean? The views on this thread are mixed, aren't they?

Well, no Deo, not least because there are various opinions expressed on the thread already, but also because it's an already-acknowledged fact that there are those who understand the importance of supporting the vulnerable in society and empowering them with as much independence and dignity as possible, and those who are twats.

Let's not forgot DLA (now PIP is just about enabling people to go about their everyday lives, as well - whether they can work or not. Everyone deserves to be mobile and able to meet the cost of their everyday living needs; get to therapies or activities and social things that will be therapeutic.

As a society, either we care for those who need it most - or we turn our backs on them. Isn't it the real test of a civilization that it cares for those who most need it? It's not scaremongering that many of us are wondering where this callousness will end - will there we workhouses/camps?

As I said at the start, my grandad was one of the first who saw what happened at Belsen. Ten years earlier, no-one would have believed that could happen and thought the rather weird and pathetic seeming politicians who brought that about, were harmless eccentrics.

Why did men like him bear witness to that, for the rest of us, for British politicians to be doing this, decades later?

We have to make the connection between that and this, to stop it happening again. People like IDS, Cameron, Boris Johnson, Osborne, look like out of touch buffoons and chinless wonders. But they are perilously close to making us into a society that wouldn't care if people were herded to camps, denied basic human rights.

Think about it. The only people who have been kicked to the kerb in the last several years have been the most disadvantaged in society.

I understand that all tax payers think differently, some would like to pay less tax, some the same and maybe there are people who would prefer to pay more. If tax payers feel that there increased stress be it for an extra days work, overtime or sometimes extr responsibility is being eroded by tax which they feel is paid out then in either benefits that they belive are not appropriate or on other things they disagree with then they will either not take on extra work or find ways around it.

The issue of benefits attracts diverse views and all deserve consideration.

Sorry, what? Ponty?

Pontytidy that might be your reaction, but not everyone tailors their life to tax avoidance.

That post makes no sense at all, ponty.

Simply put then, people who pay tax want to know that the money they earn and then pay in tax is not wasted.

Oh now pontytidy wants consideration of all diverse opinions.

The irony. Oh the fucking irony.

When the poor blame the poorer for taking "all their money" it's safe to say that the elite who are running away with it all have succeeded in their divide and conquer strategy.

Ah. the deserving/undeserving.

Do the figures quoted above not answer that question?

Opinions are one thing (there is of course the old joke about them being like arseholes - everyones got one) but I have no patience for the deliberately disingenuous or willingly ignorant!

Fraud has been known for years to be way below the amount NOT paid to people who would be entitled to benefits.

Many disabled people ARE ALSO taxpayers and most havebpaid tax and NI at some point in their lives so if taxpayers are allowed a say that includes the disabled.

I was watching the last leg last night and loved what Alex said about IDS. He challenged him (a man Alex pointed out is in fact living in a mansion paid for by his father in law, in a highly paid job despite having no decent qualifications or experience - he served 6 nondescript years in the army) to live in a wheelchair and live as if he was this disabled (so no cheating and walking if somewhere inaccessible etc), only have the money someone on benefits would have, plus try to get a job based on his non existent qualifications as a wheelchair bound person. And after a month see if he would still feel motivated and positive about life!

Simply put then, people who pay tax want to know that the money they earn and then pay in tax is not wasted.
It is often wasted, just not on benefits. Benefits has been used by the government to direct your thinking away from other things, taxing of corporations for example, trident, increasing taxable benefits for the rich...

Precisely dawndonna. And those things cost a hell of a lot more than benefits!

Pip is a functional test of ability. Pip is not meant just to pay for aids even if aids are the reason you qualify for pip. The fact that you need aids demonstrates your overall level of disability. Eg someone whose arthritis is severe enough to require the use if multiple aids is likely to need extra gas for heat, electricity to charge a mobility scooter, a cleaner, a gardener, petrol or taxi fares, often relating to medical appointments.
Link to show how the pip cuts will affect half a million people to the tune of £150 a week loss.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/personal-independence-payments-cut-strip-7540344#ICID=sharebar_facebook

Yes that is true , how the government spends its income does not match everyone's view. Opinions are divided and some people belive that it is right that benefits are more strongly regulated, the number of "fraud" cases doe not necessarily reflect the number of questionable claims, of course the true extent of this will not be known.

Propaganda and PR work both ways no political view or party has a monopoly on that.