Budget fightback – save DLA
As far as the working age sick and disabled are concerned this budget is no change. NewLabour brought in the ‘phony’ Work and Capability Assessment that was meant to ‘test’ whether you were ‘fit for work’ without benefit of doctors. It was going to get 1 million people off IB/ESA which means the ‘test’ was designed for people to fail.
Now the Coalition has extended this phony ‘test’ to DLA (Disability Living Allowance) . This is meant to save billions so once again it is designed for people to fail and be thrown off benefit. Do they have any idea how much fear and anxiety this is causing the sick.
Don’t look back at Newlabour as any friend of the working age sick and disabled. NewLabour were heartless and ruthless and wouldn’t talk about what they were doing and they laid down all the legislation and smeared the sick as scroungers so the Tories are pushing at an open door in abandoning their duty of care to the sick and disabled. Talking about the dignity of work is a trick. Carrots fine – help people to work – no problem – but no threats and sticks – let’s be realistic about competitive labour markets. Sticks just aren’t fair to the sick.
Carer Watch is going to continue to campaign against these ‘phony’ money saving garbage in / garbage out computer tests and to stop them being extended to DLA. Please come and help us get this campaign going. Everyone welcome.
Come and help here.
CarerWatch Blog 
24 June 2010 at 21:50 |
I am 100% behind your campaign to save DLA. However, you do yourself no favours in attacking the Labour Party in this way. I don’t believe New Labour were heartless and ruthless. I do believe they made mistakes and could have done a better. The ESA was a farce for many, and in the end the Labour Government recognised that it needed reviewing. I would like to promote your campaign, but I think you should concentrate on the attacks on DLA, rather than attacking an opposition that is now not in power.
24 June 2010 at 22:28 |
The sick and disabled did not cause this crisis or deficit. The bankers did. It is reprehensible that the cost is falling on those least able to defend themselves. In 2010 this is totally horrendous and puts government attitude towards the disabled back 50 years or more.
9 September 2010 at 12:46 |
I agree with the above statement 100%. I would have made the managing board of culpable every bank personally bankrupt. See how they, their spoiled wives and whinging kids like living in a rought council estate and having to scrape by on benefit.
25 June 2010 at 09:00 |
M McLaughlin – thanks for your comment. CarerWatch is non party political – we welcome people from all parties.
We only call it as it is. Look at our ESA campaign and GE pledge. We lived this for two years. We watched all the debates in both Houses on the Welfare Reforms and we tried and tried to get some protection for the seriously sick and disabled for the full two years. Read the debates.
Call it what you like. Purnell and then Yvette Cooper drove the Welfare Reform bills through and refused to issue one word of comfort to the severely sick on ESA. The Bills are now law and leave the sick vulnerable and exposed. The Greens and Plaid spoke up. Even David Cameron has said he will protect the most vulnerable and they need not live in fear. Find me one quote from a Labour Minister that says this. Some individual Labour MPs spoke up – you can see them on our pledge. Sick people are living in fear. Government have a duty of care to sick and vulnerable people and the Labour government didn’t live up to it.
The LibDems on the other hand spoke up the whole way through for safeguards and protection in both Houses and because of that we have every confidence that after such a long fight they will continue to help and support severely sick and disabled people.
That’s just what happened and how it is.
6 December 2010 at 21:06 |
Tory’s are only putting into full steam what New Labour put into place. As someone on IB & DLA I can say that with experience and having done my research.
Holding a party accountable is not attacking them, but they ARE attacking the poor and the sick so we and you have every right to call BOTH parties to account for their draconian policies, that will only ever benefit the rich.
25 June 2010 at 22:09 |
Unfortunately the LibDems aren’t supporting or helping the sick and disabled. In a programme the other night where David Cameron and Nick Clegg faced an audience after the Budget, Nick Clegg stated that the disability benefits bill had tripled but the number of disabled people hadn’t tripled. He didn’t sound very supportive to me. I wondered where he got his figures from. In fact, not one person spoke up for the disabled. Once again, they are underrepresented in programmes of this sort by the very nature of their physical and mental disability
27 October 2010 at 11:42 |
Kate
Many LibDems are using this argument, that the benefits as tripled but the number of disabled people hasn’t, therefore, this must add up to fraud. Behind this argument is a flawed logic, supported by ignorance, prejudice and oppressive appraisals of the lives of disabled people.
Parliament wants it cake and eat it. It claims to want disabled people to have civil and human rights, to be productive members of society, yet at the same time it passes laws which inadequately address the disabling barriers we face. Many people are on benefits because they are too ill to work, for others it’s because the structures, systems and attitudes within the world of work discriminate against them! Parliament refuses to acknowledge disablism exists.
Despite these inadequate laws, disabled people believe they have a right to citizenship therefore they are no longer accepting the role of “passive cripples” (sic). The internet, chat rooms, self-organisation, etc. has led to greater knowledge and confidence among disabled people and carers. More people than ever know about DLA and what they are entitled to. So people like Clegg fail to engage with the real issues behind disablism and therefore end up hiding behind oppressive measures which will exclude disabled people from mainstream society – DLA reduces the impact of disabling barriers – it’s not like MPs fixing their expenses because they feel underpaid.
25 June 2010 at 23:21 |
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Tony Taylor, Rosemary. Rosemary said: Come join in the campaign to protect Disability Living Allowance http://bit.ly/a7HImJ […]
26 June 2010 at 09:07 |
Kate – you make a very valid case. As Mark Lawson writes in today’s Guardian – the LibDems are suffering grave internal stresses in this Coalition. But I remember their support during the Welfare Reform Bills and I have hope.
What is more important and something we really need to think about is why there was so little support for us from other people while we fought for two years against sanctions and ESA. I don’t want to say anything against the wonderful Disability Charities who do so much fantastic work – but – they do not seem set up and organised for a political fight. And – now things are getting completely out of hand and we have the mother of all political fights looming over benefits.
Is there any way we can all get in touch with the many Disability Charities we belong to (so many for so many different conditions) and ask them to make some sort of organised collective stand this time. Last time round they were understandably attracted by the idea of all the help that was going to get disabled people in to work (which we have yet to see materialising) and allowed threats and sanctions and unfair ‘phony’ tests to get past them unchallenged.
Who is going to stand up and fight for us this time. Come and discuss this in the discussion group.
24 August 2010 at 11:53 |
As the situation for all sick and disabled gets worse, I am left living in fear of more attacks by the bullies in power and the knowledge that not even my G.P. can protect from the armies of hatred, I cannot think straight enough to put my thoughts coherently so as to post a well thought out reply to the bullies as my mind is always taken up with ending my life. I know that this would be right up the Governments’ street if we all did it, but to be ill and then bullied into starvation or any other form of torment is too much for my mind to comprehend at this time.
13 January 2011 at 23:27 |
Mike. I have just read your views & situation . I would like to offer my support and understanding of how you were feeling at the time. You were right with your analysis of how the evil behind these proposals see the disabled. they want them all to go away and die. You are not the cause of the financial fraud that is affecting the world.Let’s all put a stop to their plans by continuing to fight together as one voice brought together by injustice and the excesses of the ruling families. It is they who should be looking over their shoulders not us. As is evident by the royal familys pulling up the drawbridge over scrutiny of it’s unbelievable wealth and execess. We are, all in this together. Aren’t we? p.s. I wish you well.
29 September 2010 at 22:14 |
But fear can be a motivator, let us gather our wits about us and make an even bigger protest than there was when they suggested giving our DLA to Local Authorities. Get ready to chain the sick and disabled, in wheelchairs and on their death beds if necessary, to Downing St railings or anywhere the media will see us. Then they can know the frailty of those they propose to pass sentence on. In that weakness and vulnerability there can be great strength, because if they choose to carry out these threats then those images will come back to haunt them when people begin to suffer.
30 September 2010 at 18:42 |
Fear can also incapacitate unfortunatelty especially those with mental health problems. That doesn’t mean I’m taking to lying down. I have in fact been lobbying my MP who is also a GP but she was treating DLA as an out-of-work benefit in her replies and I had to keep putting her right. In her last email she said “You are absolutely right that this is a serious issue and I do not feel that those who genuinely need DLA should lose this important allowance. I just do not agree with you that everyone in receipt of DLA continues to need this in the long term.” She is a Conservative by the way
27 October 2010 at 14:03 |
Danny Alexander should be hung for being a traitor!
9 November 2010 at 18:19 |
http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/
Am fighting back here. Sorry I’m a bit late.
9 November 2010 at 19:07 |
Thanks Sue. I tried add a comment to your blog yesterday but had trouble doing so.
Hopefully everyone uniting about these measures will bring us some results.
6 December 2010 at 23:54 |
I am severly disabled and terminally ill I went for ESA assesment and was put in the wrong group I was expected to go and get a job funny enough the time they gave me to find work was the same time as i have left to live I had to get my MP to put it right.
You will now understand why i have no confidence in DLA assesments.
I worked hard all my life and have battled hard since waking up one day seriously ill at 35 years of age I have beaten the odds I am still alive, my doc says I am the only person he knows with my condition that can drive I pulled myself out of a wheelchair and finally have some sort of restricted normal life, if I lose my mobility component of DLA I will lose my idependance and my life, at that point I may as well go back to my hospice and call it a day I am running out of fight.
I can not trust the DWP to get it right and as for people in care homes having it stopped how can anyone let this happen its sick and inhuman
6 December 2010 at 23:58 |
What was the point in fighting illness
7 December 2010 at 00:46 |
That’s shocking, Matt. It’s stories like yours which make it vitally important that they get it right. Isn’t it better that a few people wrongly get it than the right people missing out? I totally understand why you’ve lost all faith in the system and you’re by no means alone. There are sadly so many people who are being forced and bullied and yet nobody hears about these stories, only the ones that the Tory Press want their readers to believe
14 September 2011 at 19:40 |
Proposal to replace DLA with Personal Independence Payment
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/inquiries/dla/
Others http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/