To be concerned about what Liz Kendall is up to with disability benefits?

[Locutus2000]

The Times reporting just how enthusiastic Labour are about targeting the disabled.

I can only hope they are getting the worst ideas out there first, if not I dread to think what is coming in the upcoming review.

I was confident Labour would at worst be no worse than the Tories.

I was wrong.

Free archive link here.

Your BIL had a genuine and horrendous misfortune - a stroke. I think he genuinely deserves the benefits he gets. How about a former colleague of mine, who fakes a neuro disease - oh, now you see it, now you don't and laughs at us? Only recently they started asking for a urine test from her to make sure she takes those pills (she does not). I can't stand her, I could not believe when she told me, but I don't feel I can report her because she told me in confidence.

You’d have to work with what you have. Is there a DP or DH on the scene? If so, can you work round his hours, ie when he’s working you’re home, and when he’s home, you’re working? I have a friend who used to be in a similar situation, who worked in a call centre on evenings, and had a job in an estate agency each Saturday. Not ideal, but sometimes these are things you need to do to make things work.

Must be a good ten years ago now but the CEO of Next was on Question Time moaning about people getting disability benefits
Not one fucker in that studio asked him what Nexts policy was on employing disabled people!

Tbh, it's irrelevant whether you have 'no sympathy' for Labour voters or Brexit voters or any other type of voters. No matter what flavour of government we vote in, the growth in sickness benefits is just unsustainable. No matter who is in power has to address it. People can point the finger and blame whoever but one fact is true - it's unsustainable.

Or how much the fuckers pay their staff?

I currently have a very flexible employer but being made redundant and absolutely no soul wants me despite having a lot to offer in skills.

This is why Labour are so bad at this. You have a job m, businesses are reacting to NI increases rn and general malaise

Now this redundancy takes you out of work and hard to find the next one

he is travelling a lot so working around each other wouldn't work. no family or support network. It should not be so hard to find work; or get a school place end help from social care but there is absolutely nothing.

apart from that, I am caring at least 70h per week (two teens with very complex disabilities). Carers allowance should be paid at NMW, not at the poverty rate of some cent per hour. If the government forces us out of work and to provide care on behalf of the government, we should just be getting £81 per week. It would breach every employment law but is good enough for carers. disgusting..

Traumatic events happen. I would say WW2 was pretty traumatic for many people world-wide, but they got on with life during and after. Ditto the flu epidemic of 1918-1920, the polio epidemic and many other events in history.

But that poster specifically said that MN members who are on the disability benefits that Labour is now looking at were happy about the WFA. She said:

A few people on here were very happy they'd taken away the pensioner's winter fuel allowance, they didn't take onboard that they'd be next

So I'd be interested to know who the few people that poster is referring to.

Or perhaps she is just making things up.

We are both working full time although not sure for how much longer as it’s a struggle, we are hopefully each cutting down a day to four days. Dh changed to working in a warehouse and he does an early start so finishes at 245 so he can get Ds from school, I do a late start and drop Ds off in morning, I’ve been at my work for years so they are fairly flexible and it’s the type of job where I can make time up at another time if need be

How much has this changed - if at all ?

I have fibro, bipolar, generalised anxiety disorder, hyper mobility and chronic back pain. I take 6 different meds, 22 tablets a day. I work 37.5 hours per week (more like 60) I claim and am entitled to £0. Just because someone has a disability doesn't mean they can't work. But people need to be given that support and opportunity, and that's what's lacking in our society.

There are those though that are just work shy. They are the ones who are a drain on society. They see benefits as a lifestyle choice.

Firstly, I want to emphasise that those in society who need help because of disability (both mental and physical) should get it. The help might be medical, practical or financial. Access to healthcare, a suitable home etc as a minimum.

secondly, we need to look at what a disabled person can do, rather than what they can’t. If they need a few reasonable adjustments, they should be mandatory. It may be that some people can never work, because they just cannot. There is a big difference between cannot and will not. If people cannot, they should be supported by the state. However, if people will not (won’t pay more than benefit, can’t be bothered, don’t want to) they should be persuaded into work. Work that they can do, maybe with adjustments.

Which sector/ group make up the blue circle?
I can hazard a guess.

Someone in my family has such a disease. Half of their face can go paralysed and they get severe migraines. I think it was neuralgia or something like that. So it’s possible for your colleague to be oksometimes and not others

@PandoraSox if you're after u/n from the pp I doubt you'll get it

A few of us agree on the general take, so there's something that has been noticed.

How about a former colleague of mine, who fakes a neuro disease - oh, now you see it, now you don't and laughs at us? Only recently they started asking for a urine test from her to make sure she takes those pills (she does not). I can't stand her, I could not believe when she told me, but I don't feel I can report her because she told me in confidence

People are free to not take medication (unless they are sectioned). The NHS is not going to test a patient's urine to "make sure" they do so. They may test it to make sure the medication is at the right level, perhaps.

We've clearly reached the bullshit stage of the thread now.

How can I spell it clearer - she is gaming the system and told me about it. Says people are mad not to rip the arse out of things, if it is available.

The general public are completely unable to comprehend this reality. Also if you can't see it, it's difficult for the general public to believe.

The media and Governments perpetuate this with their demonisation - Daily Mail, Can't pay we'll take it away, Jeremy Kyle.

I now wonder how many Jeremy Kyle participants were actually learning disabled in some way. ( I'm being serious).

Oh yes, those lovely times! let’s all sit around and say how easy it was then to manage on a single wage!

it wasn’t until after 1975 that ….
married women were finally allowed to get a back account in her own name
when women could demand equal pay - we still don’t have it 50 plus years later
2 salaries could be considered for a mortgage- in other words wife’s salary could be taken into account too…even on their own, banks could and would frequently refuse single women mortgages pre 1975..meaning single women struggled to buy a house of her own. Blokes were ok though so that’s alright isn’t it.

It’s not a coincidence that once 2 spouses could apply jointly for mortgages that house prices rouse. But it is way more “coincidental” that Margaret thatcher bought the act in for “right to buy” in 1980, and Deciminated the supply of good quality cheap secure rentals by selling off the nations asset of council properties.

most working class people didn’t buy property, or get mortgages, in low paid blue collar work (of which there was a lot back then). Buying homes was preserved for middle classes and higher waged (QED: men almost exclusively) blue collar work.

the rise in house prices hasn’t come from no where. It was politically and financially engineered to get very wealthy people richer. It still is. From 1980 housing became an investment, not a basic need. We haven’t just ended up here because we didn’t know, it was a deliberate political tactic and the basis of our now financial services based economy

the oft touted mantra of families “could live on one wage” is a fog screen to cover up a huge disparity of sexual discrimination and the fact there was this enormous council house stock. Those families living on one wage also had to pay way more in food cost and fuel costs than now (go look at stats for fuel costs before North Sea natural gas was bought in and homes centrally heated became the norm). In terms of disposable income they were not better off - you forget thst most people didn’t holiday abroad until 1970s, car ownership was lower and certainly not 2 cars, and don’t even get started on electronic devices and the money thst families spend on that these days ..sure we now need it..but you are massively deluded to think it was easier to afford housing by simply comparing the average wage to property price as a comparison. You are not comparing the whole lifestyles and costs of those, and the total income in an average household to cover that.

look at the stats online.

Well I often recognise regular users on MN who talk about the fact that they get disability benefits. I don't remember any of them crowing about the WFA.

But hey, if it makes people feel better to think that all these horrible disabled people are now getting their come uppance...

I'd just like to haul back to ADHD. I work in a sector of the NHS which, among other things, provides ADHD services in secondary care. I don't think people know just how horrifically hard it is to get an assessment and medication for ADHD.

Our team's current waiting list for assessment is currently 7 YEARS. That is just for assessment. So a lot of people go to private providers. Problem is, the private providers overdiagnose because they hope their new patients will also carry on getting their medications titrated and monitored through them. Only the majority of people cannot afford that, so they end up on our waiting list anyway.

Because of the nature of ADHD meds, these must be properly reviewed every year. The side effects can be substantial; this is not low risk medication. Problem is, our service has this 7000 long waiting list to deal with, as well as initial medication titration and those pesky reviews. Would you like to know how many staff the team has?

One.

Yes, that's right. We currently have one Band 7 doing all that work. She has a few consultant sessions and as of last week, a few GP sessions. That's it. The rest of the posts in the team are vacant (there are 3, including the team lead and a Non-Medical Prescriber). We cannot recruit to them because people don't want the job - and who can blame them? It eats people alive.

We have been screaming to the ICB about this for 3 YEARS. We are finally being listened to, but in the meanwhile, hundreds if not thousands of people have been failed. Vulnerable ND people coming out of prison have had no support or medication and guess what? They bounce straight back into prison again, at a huge cost to the taxpayer.

Our situation is replicated in ADHD services across the whole of the UK. Not one is doing well.

Years of criminal underinvestment in the NHS is behind all this. Nobody is saying reform is not needed - but the Lansley reforms were an unmitigated disaster and exclusively focused on cost cutting.

My foster son has ADHD. He gets medication and is able to work. He is one of the lucky ones. Running the NHS better could equip so, so many people for work.

That's just one aspect of the whole sorry mess. Stop blaming disabled people. Start blaming pretty much every government since the 1970s for this.

A lot of people could not cope with the pandemic and lockdown. A lot of anxiety disorders sprung from then.

Oh, at least try to be original!

The 1970s saw a massive 343% rise in house prices. In 1970 getting a mortgage was extremely hard. When I was 12 a teacher advised us to open a bank account and pay in any earnings, so we could build up a history of being sensible with money and get a mortgage.