Ok who wants to swap £2500 a month in benefits for my husbands MS and my epilepsy, narcolepsy and fibromyalgia.

[bluebirdblackbird]

Well according to a lot of people on here we are on a good thing.

the 20 seizures I have in a week, chronic pain and night terrors, losing my memory after a seizure, pissing myself, hallucinations. They are all great fun. Not to mention the amount of times I have been accused of being drunk after a seizure.

or there is my husband. Diagnosed with progressive MS. Cronic Pain, shaking, cronic pins and needles, weakness in limbs plus losing mobility. Had to give up his teaching job 4 months ago after gradually reducing hours.

Not to mention the judgement when we use a blue badge because we look ok in that moment. And apparently labour are going to find us both work. Yippee cant wait to meet the employer who is going to take us both on. I am sure pissing my chair on a reg basis won’t matter to them or the losing counciouness at least a couple of times a day.

i am just fed up of yet another they are on benefits and get money and it’s not fair stamp stamp stamp. The bastards have saved up for a holiday- it’s not fair. The bastards have a mobility car but they look fine, OMG- they have got new carpets or a new sofa.

since I am guessing they none of the moaners would actually swap places with us if they could then STFU.

oh and that pip that is easy to get- my husband gets lower rate for both and that is despite providing all the evidence and appealing so we are off to tribunal. He can’t even dress himself most days and he can’t hold a pan safely or manage his medication plus many other things. If he stays on the points he is on he will lose his pip completely under these new labour proposals.

but most people know someone who’s friends, aunts, nephews, stepdaughters, cousin twice removed who lied and got it. I was taking to a lady in a wheelchair who does not get any mobility component of pip at all.

YABU and reductive and frankly a little ridiculous.

If your disability is bad enough, you will in all likelihood continue to receive benefits. That's what they are for after all.

However Brexit has made the UK poorer. Books need to be balanced, there are lots and lots and lots of benefits cheats about.

Check out the official figures. It's horrific.

The system does need tightening up, so the very money being paid to people who are fleecing taxpayers goes to the people who actually need it.

Getting your knickers in a twist about much needed system reform isn't helping anything.

I think it is easy to say stuff like this when you are in the privileged position of not being disabled. and that is only temporary.

If you have a look at what the proposed changes are, then you will see that every disabled person will be affected. there will be a £50 per week cut to the most disabled. That is a loss of £200 per month.
and the people not getting so many points for PIP will be made to look for work, and so will their carers. Where are the jobs?

To all these people who are struggling on low income with health conditions that don't qualify them for support but who seem to want support to be cut for those who are maybe only a little worse, who aren't able to work but have low or lower care needs - do you not realise that you are at incredibly high risk of ending up in this category yourselves? If you already have health conditions you are struggling with and you are finding work really tough, do you not realise that, over the years, if your health deteriorates further, there may come a time when you can't work? And that if you have any savings at all or your partner earns slightly over minimum wage, these cuts would leave you in a position of having zero income of your own - leaving you totally dependent on a partner. You would be forced to survive on one, almost minimum wage income, with no provision at all for the extra costs your disability would bring? You have my sympathy for the position you are in now but it seems like self harm to vote away the tiny amount of support you would be entitled to should your health become too unreliable to hold down your job. Are you not bothered that this outcome is actually quite likely for you or do you think you will always be able to push through no matter what?

And to those of you with one or more partners earning more - how would you manage if you lost the higher earner's income completely? And simultaneously gained around £12,000 in additional disability related costs but weren't entitled to a penny in help because you have savings/a house/the lower earner earns the tiny amount that means you don't qualify for means tested benefits? Do you understand that in that situation you may end up losing all or most of what you've worked for so all the hard work was for nothing? Genuine question. Or do you just have wealthy families that would step in and make it all ok?

Possibly the most ignorant post here. Why post if you know little or nothing about the assessment and decision making processes for PIP ? Surely you can apply a bit of critical thinking to work out why the government has chosen to make a lazy, arbitrary cut which will save money, instead of keeping their promise of root and branch reform of PIP to make it fairer and more transparent.

The cut isn’t ‘reform’. It isn’t about properly supporting disabled people. It’s about saving money by any means, fair or foul. And it isn’t going to save a penny. Because as claimants lose PIP and subsequently their carers as a result of the knock effect on carers allowance, the burden of care will shift to local authorities to provide care, putting a huge extra burden on an already broken system. And that will cost significantly more than the benefit amounts clawed back via a cut that has been ill thought through and shows a shocking level of contempt for disabled people.

What realignment ? When Labour came to power, one of the things Liz Kendal said was that they would not follow the trend of successive governments and tinker around the edges of PIP with more arbitrary cuts, because what was needed was root and branch reform of the benefit to make it more accessible to those who need it by designing a fairer and more transparent system of assessment and decision making - including a ‘right first time’ approach to award decisions to reduce the number of massively expensive tribunal appeals taking place.

And what have we ended up with ? Another bit of tinkering around the edges with a lazy, arbitrary cut which has nothing to do with supporting the disabled, or realigning the benefit to better support anyone. It’s simply to save money. It screens out high levels of disability and will render people ineligible who are in genuine need of support. Starmer admitted as much when questioned about it. If you really think that the money saved as a result of this cut will be directed at doing more for the most in need, you’re delusional.

Nope. Nothing to do with Reform. Before the election, Labour were uncharacteristically tight lipped when asked about their plans for disability benefits. I suspect that this was partly because they had no clear plan, and partly because they knew that they would be making significant cuts which would affect the very people who would vote for them.

After the election, the test case for benefit cutting was the winter fuel payment. After the initial uproar things settled and they pushed the measure through. Since then there has been a campaign to deliberately muddy the waters between what is a universal disability benefit and what is an out of work sickness benefit, so that further cuts to benefits for those pesky disabled people single handedly ruining the economy could be pushed through. Judging by many of the comments here it was successful because so many posters are linking PIP with being unemployed, when in fact it’s a universal benefit designed to help with the extra cost of disability, regardless of the ability to work.

And can l clarify something for the ‘PIP shouldn’t pay for holidays’ brigade. The purpose of PIP was never to exclusively pay for disability related equipment or other direct needs, as so many people think. It was designed to make a contribution to the extra cost of living with a disability, which it acknowledges presents a barrier to disabled people being able to fully participate in, and benefit from society on the same level as able bodied people. The assessment is nothing more than a mechanism to determine the level of extra expense people may have, and it looks at the ability to use simple aids and appliances as opposed to needing actual help or supervision as a way of determining that.

There is no prescribed way it’s to be spent. And nor should there be. Disabled individuals know their disability and the limitations it presents, and so are best placed to decide where to spend PIP funding to get the most benefit. Going on holiday presents a significant barrier to many severely disabled people because of the expense involved with specialist needs and services. PIP was designed to help with that too, just as the ‘free cars’ on the Motability scheme which people so often criticise are designed to give disabled people increased mobility in the easiest and most cost effective way - a car.

The clue is in the word ‘independence’. PIP is designed to make it easier for disabled people to find and retain work, to pay for essential services they need, to cover the extra costs of utility bills related to elements of their condition. Basically to participate as fully as possible in society. And that could just as easily be taking a holiday or having support to go down the pub with their mates once in a while. And l suspect that it’s this that able bodied people, who have no problem doing any of these things, can’t get their heads around.

You have no idea do you? RNIB have raised their concerns about the impact on blind and partially sighted people.

Where's your source for loads of benefit cheats about? I'm more concerned about the fraud from the assessor's. If they assessed properly we'd save a lot of money

Yanbu

I'm sorry that people don't understand.

My adult son has disabling anxiety, he NEVER goes out, has some pip, there's little help but apparently he's living the high life. He lives with me so doesn't claim much in benefits. He's only been on pip for just under a year and has been informed of a reassessment because obviously everyone with anxiety makes it up. Has undiagnosed autism still waiting for assessment. He just cannot go through the process again. Awful but the nastiness seen on mn against many with disabilities and mental health issues is awful.

I was told by a surgeon (in a social setting) that fybromyalgia does not exist. It’s an invented, made up illness/condition. Interesting.
i am not a medical person at all
and have no informed opinion on this.

You sound like you’re on my side of the argument.

Im not quite sure why you don’t think the hard right posts on the thread couldn’t be reform supporters. I mean they could be hard right Tories, too, but they plausibly could be reform supporter.

I’ve come across this too. A lot of doctors seem sceptical. I think it’s because fibromyalgia is a dx of exclusion, and mostly affects women.

It's a name given to generalised pain often where there is no known medical cause.

Yes, I’ve heard this, too. There’s another one which I can’t remember! First letter M - generally feeling debilitated.
I believe these ‘made up’ conditions affect women mostly and specialists/doctors who are mostly male could be dismissive of them.

Well it sort of is. It’s a diagnosis of exclusion so we know you are ill but don’t really know why or how to fix it.

Luckily short term for me but I had my own run in with being properly ill. I had so many symptoms half my face was frozen but the other half had a pulsating facial spasm ( they thought I had a brain tumour at one point) various bits of numbness/ weakness / nerve pain throughout. Honestly I could barely stand as all the stuff that you do intuitively (like balance or walk or talk) needed masses of effort. So unbelievably tired and in pain but tests ct scan, mri, lumbar puncture all fine.

My diagnosis of exclusion was post viral nerve inflammation, later down the line they found out I’d had Lyme disease which was probably a triggering event. I did get better but had I not then I’d probably of been diagnosed with fibromyalgia or possibly an auto immune condition.

I certainly am on your side from reading your posts here. I’m definitely not disputing that there are some reform supporters commenting here. But it’s the notion that Labour are cutting deeper and faster with benefits because they are somehow frightened of Reform that l’m disagreeing with. I think they always intended to make these cuts. That’s why they stayed tight lipped before the election, because they knew the cuts would affect the people who actually vote Labour.

I think that an additional factor here is that while in opposition, Labour have been vocal in their criticism of similar cuts proposed by the Tories. Now that Labour are in government they’re finding out that sticking to your theoretical principles is a much more difficult balancing act than they anticipated, but as l said, these cuts were always going to be made - the loss of the winter fuel payment was the test case. They just picked their timing.

It’s interesting that Labour were also so emphatic that they would not be implementing any of the Tory proposals, and yet went on to implement one single cut that will prove more devastating than anything the Tories were planning. Sunak must be kicking himself.

Yes ME myalgic encephalitis also known as chronic fatigue syndrome. I don’t think doctors are very good at dealing with stuff that’s long term and cant be fixed.

Yes. By the way - to anyone who reads this - I think OPs sufferings sound horrendous. I wouldn’t suggest she is ‘lucky’ to be on benefits.

You’re right, people are so quick to judge. I feel it’s easy targets like you and your husband that the authorities are going after rather than the scroungers. I’m not putting anyone in particular in the “scrounger” category, just those who would rather live off benefits than work.

Pip is not an out of work benefit. You don't need to be unable to work to claim it. Look at the name of it - Personal Independence Payment. The point of PIP is to help pay for the additional care and support that people need when ill or disabled in order to support their independence. It's not about work or no work. It's about the extra costs you incur due to your support/care/mobility needs for daily living.

I think, TBH, that the split between parliamentary Labourites who fear the threat from Reform and those that don’t sufficiently, is causing, or contributing to, the slightly arbitrary on the hoof policy making.

Yes, I remember they were so very vocal about the cuts to disability premiums under the Tories. If there was cohesive leadership and agreement, they’d at least have avoided the glaring self-contradiction.

Yes this was all in the pre-election rhetoric. Kier make it very clear he was looking to improve the lives of "ordinary working people". It was clear he was not talking about improving the lives of older, disabled, or out of work people.

You realise your original post is still there for all to see ? I was a disability outreach worker for many years and the attitude you show here is depressingly familiar. No-one can know every detail of someone’s medical condition, or their benefit claim. And on these threads there are always posts from people like you who think they do. It’s simply not my experience in over twenty years of dealing with claimants, that anyone would make an openly false claim and then brag to all and sundry about it. Most disabled people l dealt with were very careful about letting anyone know they were claiming PIP because they feared a backlash. And to suggest that claimants can secure a PIP claim for the onset of a condition appearing out of the blue - because it’s based on symptoms and phrases learned from research from the internet - with no actual medical or other evidence to support it, is fantasy. Any assessor worth their salt would see trough it, and reject it in a heartbeat.

Support for cuts is more nuanced and complex than the natgen data implies. It shows clearly that support for more benefits being paid to disabled people has dropped over the past two decades. The support for cuts does seem to have remained low according to their data but then when cuts have actually been made the level of public support is much higher than what natgen data suggests it should be:

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/public-do-not-support-pip-cuts

Look at Reform's success today and Farage's admission just last week that he supports sweeping disability benefit cuts. There is clearly a difference in what people are telling Natgen at a high level and how this is actually manifesting in terms of support for specific policies and parties. It is playing out in real time right now.

I would suggest this is because very few people would outright say that cuts for all disability benefits is needed, indeed I wouldn't answer 'yes' to this question even though I think policy change is desperately needed.

I feel like nothing I say will convince people that I don't actually want these radical cuts and that I am genuinely concerned that ultimately allowing things to continue as they are right now will facilitate much harsher cuts. If you choose to believe that public sentiment isn't shifting then so be it.

IMO, all these posts are designed to whip up public hatred, to smooth the way for the cuts in benefits - and are more likely to be coming from Labour HQ? Why would Reform help out Labour?

However, I find it bizarre that posters who apparently have little understanding of the benefits system and/or tax system, keep telling us “the country can’t afford it…” How do they know? They don’t strike me as economists? The economy is not like a household budget, no matter how often politicians try to tell us it is.