I have a lot of respect for farmers and the job they do. I also have a lot of respect for people in poverty, who simply cannot make ends meet especially now in the shit show of universal credit. Labelling anyone as a 'scrounger' is just an excellent way to dehumanise somebody, to make them less than, to make them other.
Plenty of people who now have to apply for universal credit to make up for housing benefit which doesn't exist anymore, are working full time in low paid jobs.
A shocking amount of disabled people have had their disability benefits stripped away. PIP is supposed to be a benefit you can claim if you are working or not, in recognition of the extra cost attached to being disabled - what a joke, they have manipulated it so that basically if you are working you won't get it.
So if you can work, but need to take taxis on some days when your mobility is bad and that's what you spent a portion of your PIP on - forget it. Possibly resulting in people having to stop working, if they can no longer afford the workarounds that made it doable and sustainable. What employer wants to hear you can't get to work on random days because your pain is too bad?
Farmers ARE NOT scroungers, but neither are so many people in a billion other situations but they are painted as such.
There's a really dangerous set of beliefs floating at the moment that many disabled people can simply stop being so fucking disabled, if only they'd just try hard enough. It's the same belief system which tells us that poor people in general are only poor because they're not trying, they are just a little too lazy or unmotivated.
The stereotypes have now broken away from the image of 'lazy scrounger' as somebody on the dole, spending their payment on booze and fags. Now plenty of those being criticised are low paid workers like carers or retail staff, because the criticism levelled at them is that they need to get a better job. Because we live in a world where working full time at fucking minimum wage doesn't give you enough money to cover basic living expenses like rent and yes, the food that is artificially affordable, because it's propped up with subsidies.
Not everyone can just get a better job. Disabled people cannot just stop being disabled.
I will be mocked for saying this, but even if we look at the traditional 'scrounger' stereotype as mentioned above, I bet mental health issues are a massive culprit here. And mental health services are frankly not fit for purpose across much of the UK.
No small kid, when you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, says they want to just sit around and do fuck all everyday. The first you see of that attitude is pre teen at the earliest, when they want to emulate family or friends they admire - but it could not take root without a poverty of aspiration which is the real problem in deprived areas. Low self esteem and low self confidence (frequently expertly masked by bravado and banter) and a poverty of aspiration.