Absolutely disgraceful.

What does it say about us as a society that we’re far more outraged about the possibility that somebody, somewhere might be getting a benefit they’re not entitled to than we are about seriously ill people like this woman being left high and dry?

You wouldn’t think it from reading the Daily Mail, but there’s far more cases of the latter than the former.

Disability Living Allowance is a benefit for any seriously disabled person, whether or not they work. It is intended to help with the extra costs that being disabled brings and many people depend on it in order to be able to work. So what matters here is that Sue’s needs have not been recognised; her ability to work, or otherwise, is not and should not be part of the equation.

In a situation where a prominent campaigner has an experience like this, one must question whether there is an ulterior motive in the withdrawal of support. Many disabled people are afraid to raise their voices in protest in case their lives are made even worse, and what has happened to Sue will have a chilling effect. So this is not just an issue for disabled people and those who care for and about them; it is an issue for anyone concerned with the health of our democracy.

As Jennie above says, disabled people and their carers are certainly afraid to raise their voices in protest – and many can’t access the usual demonstrations and marches that are the traditional ways to be heard.

This is why Pat Onions has posted Pat’s Petition (link in my name above) to ‘Stop and review the cuts to benefits and services which are falling disproportionately on disabled people, their carers and families’.

Sue’s case is one very high profile case that emphasises what is happenning – look on the internet and you will find many more, including suicides.

We do all need to work together to stop all these changes which are so unfairly being targetted at disabled people and their families. Please will you help – signing Pat’s Petition would be a small start.

Disgraceful.

You have to realise that fit to work means that if she’s well enough to blog now and then (as she obviously is) then she should get a part-time job on that basis. If she’s well enough to work an hour or two a week, even though she isn’t able to say when those couple of hours might be, then she’s expected to get employment on that basis for those two hours a week. Clearly this is nonsense but medically and scientifically speaking so is the testing itself – there’s only extremely woolly untried/untested theory behind it. What it does do very well however is facilitate the transfer of money from the public purse to the private company Atos. In my view it’s no more than a raid on the public purse in which prominent members of the government appear deeply involved together with their big business chums.

I should point out that Atos have been doing the testing for DLA for some time, as well as for ESA, just to avoid any confusion!

The same thing just happened to me. I am a single father and widower with a ten year old child. On friday, completely out of the blue I recieved a “a doubt has arisen” letter from the DWP informing me that EOS the work programme pimps who I am forced to attend have informed them that I failed to attend an interview on the 31st of October.

I remember the occasion. It was a mondy morning and my child had been sick all weekend. As a result I decided to keep him off school that day and phoned EOS to inform them that as a result of my caring responsibilities I couldnt make the interview and could we reschedule. Now, the letter from EOS makes it clear that if anyone can not attend the interview they must phone to reschedule or risk losing benefits. This is what I did. EOS said it was no problem and an interview was rescheduled for the following thursday and I attended. Nothing was said about benefit sanctions for failing to attend the first interview and indeed I have been attending EOS for the past 2 months. Then behind my back the grubby little creeps at EOS ran to the DWP and asked them to starve my family over Xmas.

I phoned the DWP and informed them that I had followed EOS instructions and phoned before hand as requested and that the threat of benefit sanctions came as a complete surprise. I also informed them that I had, in my hand, phone records showing that I called EOS on that date and that I had followed EOS instructions regarding rescheduling a meeting to the letter.

Regardless, all my JSA benefits have been suspended. I was told I could appeal but until the appeal is decided my benefits will be stopped and of course the appeal decision won’t be made until well after Xmas. They were due on the 22nd December. now I am impoverished and in hardship over xmas. So the DWP, on the unsubstantiated word of a private organisation have taken Xmas off my family.

I am thinking of sending a copy of “A Christmas Carol” to the DWP officer who made the decision to starve my family over Xmas for no good reason. I now have the unenviable task of telling a ten year old child that there is no Xmas for us.

This is extremely distressing. But the reporting is also not quite correct.

The government’s own website says

“You can get Disability Living Allowance whether or not you work.”

Fitness to work is irrelevant here. Sunny, could you amend the post?

The only question is – or should be – whether Sue’s “disability is severe enough for you to need help caring for yourself or you have walking difficulties, or both”.

To which the answer is – self-evidently – yes.

Bill – she’s been turned down for DLA. DLA is not an out of work benefit. It is to assist with the costs of being disabled.

Any way for well wishers to send donations to help out?

When an atmosphere is allowed to develop (or is actively encouraged whereby the tiny minority who abuse the system are demonised out of all proportion to whatever harm they may do, then – incrementally – that demonisation will spread to those completely innocent of anything and everything.

If by such a process you then succeed in demonising most or all of that latter category, that process of dehumanising makes it far easier for you to do things to them without the outrage which might otherwise be generated by your doing so.

It’s an old tactic; it’s as old as the earliest pogrom you can think of. And such is the malinformed nature of publics in general, it still works. Which is why those in power still use it. Remember Niemöller’s words.

Oh, for the record, I agree with Sunny and the others; this decision (and the one described by David Bunting, and all the others like it which we don’t hear about) is nothing short of a fucking outrage. If we let things like this pass, we must forego any claims we have to be civilised.

@11.

Hear, hear!

Those complicit with these micky mouse assessments need to think very carefully about the harm they are inflicting.

I’m very sorry to hear about Sue’s case, and also about David Bunting’s experience.

She says that she has the worst/one of case of Crohn’s in the country.

I believe that.

However, she also says that there are 3.2 million people on DLA!

3.2 million – and she is maybe one of ten with a condition as severe as she has it.

Surely, her ire should be directed to the vast majority of the 3.2 million who can in no way have a condition as severe as hers. Surely it should be against the majority of claimants who in no way need to receive more money than the entire income tax revenue of this country (by definition insanity and non-sustainable): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5651825/Benefit-payouts-will-exceed-income-tax-revenue.html

Surely someone like her should get angry with the vast majority of benefits claimants who, were there no welfare state, would be perfectly able to find some sort of employment or support structure, or would not have been sponsored into the situation they find themselves in.

And surely her husband would find it much easier financially if the state took less of his money and he had his own money to look after you/the children etc.

While the Labour people will paint her as a victim of Tory ‘cuts’, I think it is more pertinent to say she is a victim of the huge welfare state created, sustained and nurtured by all three parties (none of whom I support).

At 1:

You miss the entire point.

Welfare payments are more than the entire income tax revenue: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5651825/Benefit-payouts-will-exceed-income-tax-revenue.html

So whether it is done surreptitiously or not, there are a whole load of people who don’t need to be on any welfare. We simply do not have 2.9 people (the number on long term incapacity benefits out of a workforce of 35-40 million) who are chronically disabled in a genuine way in this country.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmpubacc/404/40405.htm

The rise in LTIB has no relationship with any known disabling medical event.

Do the Swiss, who have a limited welfare system, have such a number? Understand my point?

Roshan @15:

You have more than adequately proved the exact point I was making.

[15] ‘Unfortunately, I was on a career break and about to start a new job when I
received my terminal bowel cancer diagnosis. My Macmillan nurse applied for me to receive the higher rate of DLA, I got a letter from my consultant oncologist and
the administration for DWP was completed. So I was shocked when I received a letter requesting that I attend an assessment centre to review my ability to work during my third cycle of chemotherapy. I was told that if I didn’t attend the interview I wouldn’t receive any benefits. No one was thinking about my condition, I just felt part of a conveyor belt system. I met with my local MP to discuss the problems I encountered. It’s essential that the process is improved for future cancer patients.’
Patricia Watson from London.
http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Documents/GetInvolved/Campaigns/Benefits/FailedByTheSystemReport.pdf

If some people are receiving inappropriate benefits then at the very least we need to have confidence in the assessment process – but what we have instead is ATOS, a byword for inhumanity.

@17

On the contrary, unless you are more specific, I would say you have fallen into the left wing myopia of trying to built your monuments out of straw (and what was that law about internet discussions and the Nazis?).

Roshan @18:

“Surely someone like her should get angry with the vast majority of benefits claimants who, were there no welfare state, would be perfectly able to find some sort of employment or support structure, or would not have been sponsored into the situation they find themselves in.”

This is precisely what I meant – the demonising of the tiny minority makes it easier to scapegoat the huge majority in that category as well, and encourages them to turn on each other like rats in a sack. In the meantime, those responsible for policies and decisions which screw up people’s lives can walk calmly away, knowing that it will – from their point of view at least – take care of itself.

Besides which, we have six times more unemployed than there are vacancies now. Where are all these jobs that the disabled or people with major long-term health issues can just walk (crawl, trundle, etc.) into?

“And surely her husband would find it much easier financially if the state took less of his money and he had his own money to look after you/the children etc.”

Ah! I think we see where you’re coming from now. Another one of those who use the veneer of libertarianism to cover up their reductionist social-darwinist view of how the world should be ordered.

Which makes it odd (or even ironic) that your posting name links to a web-site for Islamic proselytisers.

@15

However, she also says that there are 3.2 million people on DLA!

3.2 million – and she is maybe one of ten with a condition as severe as she has it.

Surely, her ire should be directed to the vast majority of the 3.2 million who can in no way have a condition as severe as hers.

DLA has two components which each have a lower level and an upper level (with one also having a middle level, I can’t remember at this moment if it’s attendance allowance or mobility), so you are drawing misleading conclusions. Furthermore, what makes you think that only 10 people in the whole of the UK have a seriously debilitating medical condition? My grandmother also suffers from crohn’s disease (though due to age, and not to the extent that Sue suffers), so I fail to see why you think so few out of a population of 60-odd Million would posses such illnesses.

@The Judge

This is typical of the argument of the left – long on hysteria but short when it comes to facts.

On the number of unemployed – the LTIB levels were highest in 2003 – so no point made there.

On unemployment: between 1-2 million jobs were created under Labour – 70-95% went to ‘overseas’ people – in line with the free migration you get with the EU which Labour (lib dems and Tories too) kills the ‘working class’ with.

On the benefits situation – more is spent than the entire income tax revenue – which is literally insane unless we had just exited a war. So again no point there.

Let me also remind you that Iceland jailed it’s bankers, never bailed out it’s banks and is out of (albeit short, sharp and deep) recession.

On social Darwinism – nope – that is a secular/atheistic concept. I want people to be free to live their lives as they will, so long as they do not bother me (others), I do not care. Let families, charities cover the rest. And occasionally in extreme cases possibly the state, but devolved locally.

It is you who are the social Darwinist, who wants to create nurture and sustain a group of vulnerable people. Like I said, where are the huge numbers of welfare dependents in Switzerland?

So, if you want to make a point get specific, otherwise I will just view you as another left wing hysterical.

I’ve amended the mistake on ‘ability to work’ / DLA. Sorry about that

It sounds like it’s the same chronic type of Crohn’s Disease that my Dad had. He collapsed in the street with renal failure. He went down to 5 stone. He spe t months in hospital at a time. He went on dialysis. He died. My Dad worked hard from the age of 15 until he was 52. He was dead two weeks after his 59th birthday, having spent the last seven months in hospital, unable to walk. Had he been alive today, undergoing this sort of treatment he would undoubtedly have killed himself as he hated the idea that he was some sort of scrounger, a burden to society. I’m so glad he isn’t going through this. It’s absolutely barbaric, the idea that chronically ill people are being denied allowances that help them to live as best as they can. I feel like leaving the UK – just as many were forced to during the 19th century. I have a well paid job, but if I fell ill tomorrow I wouldn’t want to endure any of this – it’s frightening – and yet all but the wealthy can afford to sustain the basic lifestyle needed should they fall ill and be unable to work.

22
I’ve also noticed that there are very few royals claiming welfare benefits and what is even more remarkable – the abortion rate in Southern Ireland is far less than in mainland U.K.
There are also more people in work claiming welfare benefits in the U.K. than those who are not employed.
The Catholic church also appears to have more male priests than other denomination.
Aren’t statistics wonderful?

People should remember that the Tories responsible for this state of affairs are actually decent human beings and have made the decision like this because they are ‘mistaken’ or merely ‘misguided’.

If they actually took the time to read this whole debacle, they would, as one, admit they got it wrong and would work tirelessly to correct this obvious miscarriage of natural justice.

Your average Tory is a thoroughly good egg really, this painting them as sub human vermin is cruel in the extreme, I mean look at the number of ‘decent’ Tories that have came onto this thread to attack this appalling decision? Doesn’t it warm the cockles of your heart to see the likes of…
…er…
Well, I am sure all the Tories who normally find time to comment on every other subject that appears on this blog have all found themselves too busy to post here today. Still never mind.

I am sure this will all be forgotten about when the scum have a give away budget prior to the next election.

Vote Vermin, get vermin.

David Bunting@ 7

Very sad, but are you a banker? If not, then it is your own fault for being feckless. Remember this at the next election, David.

To every decent person who reads this blog. This is what happens when you allow the Tory vermin to set the agenda on who are to be singled out for merciless attacks. These people are simply not to be trusted and not to be indulged with. The ‘Nasty Party’ have not changed, all that that changed was the rhetoric. They are STILL driven by hatred and greed.

Society is polarising into a decent portion and these scum, make your mind up to what side you are on.

Roshan @ 15

Surely, her ire should be directed to the vast majority of the 3.2 million who can in no way have a condition as severe as hers.

Why? What are those other people got to do with it? It is not up to them to test her illness, why would she attack them? Her ire is aimed squarely at the people who deserve it. The sub human Tories who administer the system.

Surely someone like her should get angry with the vast majority of benefits claimants who, were there no welfare state, would be perfectly able to find some sort of employment or support structure, or would not have been sponsored into the situation they find themselves in.

So whether it is done surreptitiously or not, there are a whole load of people who don’t need to be on any welfare.

Again, not a single piece of evidence to back up that claim.

We simply do not have 2.9 people (the number on long term incapacity benefits out of a workforce of 35-40 million) who are chronically disabled in a genuine way in this country.

You have knowledge of these people have you? You have tested these people have you? Or are you simply basing this on your sad, bigotted life?

If you hate living in the First World so much, why not just fucking leave?

@22

“This is typical of the argument of the left – long on hysteria but short when it comes to facts.”

Then I am expecting that you have rigorous and will apply the same standards to your posting here as I do to my own.

“On the number of unemployed – the LTIB levels were highest in 2003 – so no point made there.”

Then the figures for IB peaked and began falling. Incapacity Benefit replaced Invalidity Benefit in 1995 and then rose only very slowly over the next ten years by 200,000. In 2005, they began falling as fast as they had risen but the plans to bring in ESA were already under way for some reason and didn’t change despite the evidence. Labour were happy to play into tabloids myths about them being soft on ‘scroungers’; there would be little resistance to their welfare reforms. Such as it was, New Labour were more harsh on benefit claimants than any other government had been before. Whilst it is frequently alleged that they used Incapacity Benefit to keep the unemployed off JSA and out of the unemployment figures, IB peaked, JSA claims dropped and long-term JSA claimants fell the most. Claimants with physical disabilities fell and were being replaced by those with learning difficulties and serious psychiatric illness.

“On unemployment: between 1-2 million jobs were created under Labour – 70-95% went to ‘overseas’ people – in line with the free migration you get with the EU which Labour (lib dems and Tories too) kills the ‘working class’ with.”

There is not a crumb of truth in this. It was the editor of the Spectator’s bad maths that started this myth. The same technique was used over on LeftFootForward to demonstrate that in fact, more than 70% of those same jobs were taken by…disabled people.

“On the benefits situation – more is spent than the entire income tax revenue – which is literally insane unless we had just exited a war. So again no point there.”

This demonstrates absolutely nothing. It’s a purely rhetorical point with no causative power or consequence tied to the figure of income tax. You might as well say that the welfare bill is more than is received in road tax or or VAT. People imagine that Income Tax is the majority of the funds raised in taxation just because it’s the largest. They don’t realise how many taxes there are.

But the worst part are the often spoken implications: that benefit claim expenditures are X, therefore many of those claims are unnecessary or illegitimate. The slightly more sensible say unaffordable but go into no further specific explanation, preferring instead to rely on generalities.

“Let me also remind you that Iceland jailed it’s bankers, never bailed out it’s banks and is out of (albeit short, sharp and deep) recession.”

I keep reading the Judge’s posting and yours and I can’t fathom what your point is here.

“So, if you want to make a point get specific, otherwise I will just view you as another left wing hysterical.”

Pot, meet kettle.

Hi Jim. No, not a banker. Neither did I go to public school or even have rich connected relatives to get me a nice job with daddies firm in the city. My fault for being such a scrounging layabout really. Noone forced me to work for Royal Mail for 10 years before being made redundant. I shouldn’t have chosen such a dumb profession. My mom told me to get into offshore derivatives and bond futures but I wouldn’t listen.

Anyway its my own fault for being a single father. I should have thought about the consequences of my wife dying before I selfishly chose to start a family. Bloody broken families like mine are to blame. I should get off my arse, neglect my kid, forget my degree, skills and experience and neglect my son by stacking shelves at poundland while my son hangs around the streets getting into trouble.

What was I thinking I could honour his mom by raising my son alone and in a loving single parent family. Even more of a fool am I for thinking 10 years working hard paying national insurance and taxes would ensure I could rely on the welfare state when things went wrong.

More seriously though, the “get off your arse and get a job” tories who attack unemployed people always stop when talking to people like me, When they are shown the literally thousands of job applications sent out. The countless hours spent searching for work in vain. The countless applications that disappear into the ether never to be heard from again. The hours spent studying trying to gain some marketable skills. The mind numbing, demoralising search day in day out for jobs that just aren’t there. They meet people like me and backtrack. They come out with the “oh, we don’t mean you”. “You are different”.”Your a good claimant” It’s them, the others, the bad claimants, the lazy ones, the scroungers, the bad single parents who have kids to get a council house,or who don’t want a job. It’s them, that’s who we mean. them, not you, them.

When confronted with real people with real stories, they always point to the “other” the stereotype who strangely is never ourselves.

David @ 29

They come out with the “oh, we don’t mean you”.

They may say that to your face, but really, they DO mean you. These people simply do not have a backbone, far less a conscience. They believe in welfare alright,but not for those who happen to be feckless like you and Sue above. People become ill with life threatening diseases to get benefit you know. The money squandered on people with chronic illnesses contracted through laziness and greed could be spent on people with real problems:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2075721/A-financial-Dunkirk-Britain-draws-plans-rescue-expats-Spain-Portugal-hit-financial-oblivion.html

Any sympathy wasted on greedy people like you should be aimed at the truly needy.

This is a message for David – if you need a (smallish) loan I might be able to help. Can’t promise loads but could spare a bit. I’d hate your Xmas to be ruined this because of a terrible decision.

Shelly. What a lovely offer and what an incredibly decent person you are for offering.

But no. Thank you but Its ok. I think I can borrow a little from friends and family to see us through. Your offer is incredibly humbling however and gives me hope that in this age of Tory meanness and hate there is still hope for us all with people like yourself around. I will never forget the offer and, from my heart, thank you again.

and a very happy Xmas to you.

Hope you have a nice Xmas as well and get everything sorted out.

Unfortunately what Sue is going through is a very common experience,with DLA or ESA renewals regarded with absolute terror by disabled people, because of the potentially catastrophic financial consequences, the frequently hostile manner of ATOS and DWP staff, and last, and by no means least, the very real medical consequences (I’m facing ESA renewal, both my previous assessments have caused major flare ups, one lasting months, I can’t even think about the new one).

Meanwhile ‘Roshan’ illustrates the onslaught of hatred faced by disabled people. Non-disabled people have not the faintest clue about the incidence of disability. Government figures (ODI and EHRC) say between one in four and one in five are disabled under the Equality Act definition, but many people are locked into a view that disablity means a wheelchair, a missing limb or total blindness and the rest of us are faking. The view may originate in ignorance, that doesn’t mean it isn’t bigotry.

Most people don’t understand the savagery of the cuts being directed at disabled people, with the most disabled of all singled out for the worst cuts. I’ve just written a guest blog for 38 Degrees (see the link under my name) summarizing the cuts and the demonization and the overwhelming reaction from liberal, socially concerned, non-disabled people has been ‘OMG, I had no idea’. People are quite literally dying and ministers and the media are too busy claiming we caused the financial crisis.

roshan: “I want people to be free to live their lives as they will, so long as they do not bother me (others), I do not care. Let families, charities cover the rest.”

Which would all be marvellous, if only families and charities were capable of covering the rest. They are not, as briefly examining the situation in any country (past or present) with no welfare state would show quite clearly. Your solution sounds to me much like Marie Antoinette naively announcing that the poor should eat cake.

David Bunting: “When confronted with real people with real stories, they always point to the “other” the stereotype who strangely is never ourselves.”

Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more.

The tabloid funders, owners and journalists who relentlessly promote the stereotype of scroungers and the feckless, systematically ignoring the real tales of hardship which don’t fit their tax-cutting goals, should be deeply ashamed of the barbarism they have enabled.

@15
“She says that she has the worst/one of case of Crohn’s in the country.

I believe that.

However, she also says that there are 3.2 million people on DLA!

3.2 million – and she is maybe one of ten with a condition as severe as she has it.

Surely, her ire should be directed to the vast majority of the 3.2 million who can in no way have a condition as severe as hers. Surely it should be against the majority of claimants who in no way need to receive more money than the entire income tax revenue of this country (by definition insanity and non-sustainable): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5651825/Benefit-payouts-will-exceed-income-tax-revenue.html

Surely someone like her should get angry with the vast majority of benefits claimants who, were there no welfare state, would be perfectly able to find some sort of employment or support structure, or would not have been sponsored into the situation they find themselves in.”

Firstly your figures appear to be referring to the entire social security system, rather than just to disability-related benefits, which makes your argument nonsensical.

Secondly, as somebody who suffers from Crohn’s Disease (albeit a fairly mild form – at least so far), I find your comments highly offensive. Sue needs those benefits, and her ire is rightly directed at the system that is trying to deprive her of them, and at the people like yourself who portray those claiming benefits as scroungers. Why should she change her focus to blaming other people who need that help? Yes, many of them don’t need it to the same degree that she does, but because she does need it, she fully understands others who do, and is willing to do what she can to help ensure that they get it. Quite frankly, you should be ashamed for suggesting that she should take any other attitude.

@15 and further to @36

Some facts on long term sickness and disability benefits:

10 million people in the UK have an illness or disability. 60% of them work. around 5 million claim benefits of which 3.2 million claim DLA which is a WORKING benefit.

It is incredibly hard to get and stressful to claim. It has the lowest fraud rates of any benefit at less than 0.5%.

There are lower, middle and higher rates of DLA care and lower and higher rates of mobility payments. It can be very well targeted and fitted to the illness or disability.

Finally, here are some figures that may explain why “so many” qualify for DLA 3.7 million people have lung disease, 2.6 million people have diabetes, 180,000 people suffer from bowel disease, 5.4 million people suffer from asthma, 2.6 million live with heart disease, around 300,000 people a year are diagnosed with cancer, 1800 babies a year are born with cerebral palsy, 640,000 people live with schizophrenia, 820,000 live with Alzheimers or dementia, 19,000 receive dialysis for kidney failure, 23,000 are deaf blind, around 40,000 people have suffered a spinal injury and 8,500 people suffer from cystic fibrosis.

“I never swear in my blog posts, but this is just…fucking unbelievable.”

Seconded. This is exactly the sort of shit that shows that political parties are not all the same, that there’s a reason to vote against the Tories even if the other parties are tainted as well. I really hope this appeal works out. Sue and many others are suffering at the hands of an ideology that’s not only unpleasant, but deeply stupid and ignorant.

David G @ 34

the overwhelming reaction from liberal, socially concerned, non-disabled people has been ‘OMG, I had no idea’.

Unfortunately, this is down to the fact that we have seen a blitzkrieg of publicity over the last ten years or so regarding the disabled. Slowly but surely we have seen people demonised by the Right Wing press to the point that even the most severely disabled are seen as legitimate targets. Look no further than the latest survey on social attitudes regarding the disadvantaged in our society. To be fair, though, this is a problem caused by the ‘socially concerned’ as we have became complacent over these last few years, think battles won fifty years ago remain won. Over the last thirty years or so, we have seen the rise of a malevolent strain of Right Wingers (in all political Parties) who have began to dominate Parties, but they are especially prevalent in the Tory Party.

I wonder how many ‘One Nation Tories’ like Harold Macmillan would find themselves a home in the Conservative Party of say, five years ago?

Unsurprisingly, the Country’s sociopaths and leader writers for the Daily Hate cheered the news that we are able to stigmatise people in a way that was unthinkable a generation ago. This has been driven by a hate campaign from the Right Wing Press as they have attempted to roll back the post war settlement.

However, there is a ray of hope out there for the long term moral health of this Country. If we are able to detect signs among decent people that when they are confronted with actual hard cases, they feel able to display real sympathy for people, then it may be that what we need is a campaign telling the truth about what the vermin are up to.

Remember, if you have been shoddily treated by these scum it is possible that others have been treated badly too. If the Tories are willing to lie about you they lie about others too. The challenge for the Left and decent centre is to highlight these injustices and hope that we can produce a momentum against the Tories. Look, there will always be scum in this Country, that is a given, but I wouldn’t be Left Winger if I didn’t believe that most people in society are essentially decent, reasonable people. There are times I have my doubts but I genuinely believe there are, or will be a hard core of decent people out there who actually want to improve society.

” I want people to be free to live their lives as they will, so long as they do not bother me (others), I do not care. Let families, charities cover the rest.”

I never cease to be amazed at how proud people like this are of their lack of basic humanity. I’ve got into arguments with Jim and others about calling other posters “scum” and so forth, but this sort of thing makes me sympathise with that approach quite a lot. Seriously, what the fuck is this? “I hold my head high as I pass by on the other side”?

Whoops, got the link to my piece on the disability cuts wrong, hopefully right this time: http://is.gd/Mp1jwp

GWP @ 37:

“…DLA which is a WORKING benefit.”

No, it isn’t. The DLA page on direct.gov.uk says quite clearly:

“You can get Disability Living Allowance whether or not you work”. DLA is essentially attendance allowance for those under 65.

More generally, I’m surprised at the rush to judgement here. We simply don’t know the details of Sue Marsh’s assessment and how she did and did not meet the detailed criteria for needing care and needing help to walk – just as we don’t know the full details of court cases reported in the press and so should not pontificate on sentences.

If Sue Marsh is as disabled as she says she is, and if she needs personal care and/or needs help to walk, then she will win her case on appeal. However, she may not be as disabled as she feels she is, or she may be struggling so valiantly with her condition that she appears to less disabled than she is.

The latter is very common among the elderly facing assessments for attendance allowance (which is an area in which I have some experience). The assessor will ask whether the applicant has difficulty dressing. The applicant says that despite his arthritis he manages very well, thank you – when the truth is that he has had to change to slip-on shoes in stead of lace-ups, to elasticated waistbands because he can’t do up a belt and to t-shirts because he can’t manage buttons…. These cases are always won on appeal in experience.

Clearly TONB, when the press report on ‘scroungers’ we can jump to conclusions, but when it’s a case like Sue’s, suddenly the knuckle-draggers are all for caution.

TONB @ 42

Fucking hell, are you for real? Why on Earth should this go to an appeal, costing God knows how much money, not to mention distress?

This isn’t a ‘bad back’ man, this is a disease that causes profound difficulty. Surely to fuck someone, anyone wit two brain cells stapled together can see that? Last week you were asking ‘what would you cut?’, well what about the amount of money wasted on completely needless bureaucracy, form filling, doctors reports and the like on cases that should be rubber stamped at day one? Christ, read a list of the symptoms man and tell me you need to have a medical degree to see that Sue is really fit as a fiddle?

This is an incurable disease, she is not going to get better, yet she is being forced to jump through countless hoops all for Political Correctness. Now all well and good, but this fucking madness is costing millions of quid a year, for not a single iota of a benefit.

You say that these types of cases normally get turned over on appeal. THEN WHY THE FUCK DO WE GO THROUGH THIS CHARADE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

People like you want to shrink the size of the State, then why maintain a useless system, that has to be seen making a palpably wrong decision before going through the exact same process with the exact same evidence and the exact same prognosis coming with the correct one?

Why do you see the need in defending a system that you acknowledge is designed to start up with the wrong decision in the first place?

And people wonder why I dislike Tories so much?

[42] “More generally, I’m surprised at the rush to judgement here. We simply don’t know the details of Sue Marsh’s assessment and how she did and did not meet the detailed criteria for needing care and needing help to walk” – christ on a bike. Since the preliminary roll out of ATOS’s automated system “people with terminal cancer have been found fit to work, people with mental health problems have complained their condition is not taken seriously, people with complex illnesses report that the tick-box system is not able to cope with the nuances of their problems. A revised, even more stringent version introduced this month means that blind and deaf people will no longer automatically receive sickness benefit, and are unlikely to qualify for extra help finding work”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/23/government-reform-disability-benefits

Now who do we trust, personal testimony from those with serious health problems who are STILL being called for “assessment” despite suffering terminal cancer, or receiving arduous treatment like palliative chemo, or the profit driven motives of a French owned outfit (ATOS) who seem more concerned with dumbing down the way people with disabilities are processed, sorry I meant examined … mmmm!!

Chaise Guevara: “Seconded. This is exactly the sort of shit that shows that political parties are not all the same, that there’s a reason to vote against the Tories even if the other parties are tainted as well.”

I believe the ATOS assessment system was Labour’s idea in the first place.

Is it such a long time since Labour were in power that we have forgotten their total capitulation to the scrounger-bashing rhetoric? Do people no longer remember Caroline Flint calling for social housing tenants on benefits to be thrown onto the streets as a penalty for failing to look for work sufficiently?

[46] “I believe the ATOS assessment system was Labour’s idea in the first place” – yes, some of the seeds sown by NuLab are finally bearing market fruits – don’t be surprised if the NHS and higher education go exactly the same way.

And who can forget Flint’s ‘giro-land’ gaff?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3554631/Caroline-Flint-and-Giro-land-council-estates.html

Jim @ 42:

You can be extremely ill but not disabled – ie not require personal care and/or have problems walking.
Your general attitude seems to be hand out public money to any one who claims to be chronically sick or disabled without any checks or assessments, even though fraud is endemic in the system.

@43: I don’t trust hearsay. The evidence we have about Sue Marsh is a bit thin – and she is the only source.

[48] the number of appeals has gone up from 217,000 a year to 229,000 and the proportion of appeals that succeed has remained at around 37%. (It should be noted the success rate at DLA and incapacity oral hearings is considerably higher).

Among the main failings of the DWP and ATOS are:
A continuing decline in the number of presenting officers attending hearings to put the department’s case and pass on feedback to decision makers.
Failure to collect all the necessary evidence, especially by simply talking to the claimant.
Failure to carry out proper reconsiderations when a decision is challenged.
Medical reports underestimating the severity of the claimant’s disability.
Failure to listen, or give credibility, to the evidence provided by claimants.
Decision makers lacking the necessary understanding of how to decide how much weight to give to a medical report.
Failure to set up systems that allow people with particular disabilities, such as sensory impairments and mental health problems, to make effective use of the claims and appeals process.
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/latest-news/971-appeals-president-slams-dwp-and-atos

Perhaps YOU should take particular note of a failure to listen, or give credibility, to the evidence provided by claimants.

Why do you think the appeal rate is so high (and often successful)?
Have you considered the possibility the current arrangements might be a teeny weeny bit flawed?

TONB @ 42

Your general attitude seems to be hand out public money to any one who claims to be chronically sick or disabled without any checks or assessments

Not ‘claims’ to be sick, diagnosed by a doctor as having a severe illness. You may have heard of people called ‘doctors’, is it possible that they could diagnose people and we could accept their professional opinion?

There are some diseases where the prognosis is likely to be pretty grim and unlikely to improve. Once you have been diagnosed with one or other of these diseases, it seems pretty pointless to continuously re-examine them. Cohn’s disease is not going to clear up on its own, is it? Why bother assessing and reassessing this poor woman? What do you think is likely to happen? She will suddenly get better?

I don’t trust hearsay.

Yeah, funny that because you also say:

even though fraud is endemic in the system.

Oh, really? Based on what, evidence exactly?
Based on a meticulous study of thousands upon thousands of cases? Or based on the Daily Hate’s pronouncements? Based on the merciless attacks carried out by the lickspittle Tories? Based on a guy you met down a pub?

Funny that. Funny how you are not willing to accept the diagnosis of a qualified doctor, but when one of the sub human vermin that masquerade as journalists and POW it is read into the record as ‘fact’.

The evidence we have about Sue Marsh is a bit thin

A bit thin? So it is possible that she fakes tumours in her stomach, just for the money? She faked a stroke? She pretends to have Crohn’s disease?

Yeah, people wonder why I hate Tories. People wonder if I can asses them objectively and claim I am a bigot because I don’t give them a fair shake. People wonder why I think of them as vermin.

People claim I judge them unfairly and I should assume they are ‘mistaken’ when I see something that I disagree with. Christ, here is a Tory who questions whether or not Sue is telling the truth. Imagine a Tory worried about ‘truth’ as if they could even understand the truth if they fell over it.

Well if TONB had been following Sue’s writing for any amount of time, it might be a bit obvious that all those photos of her in hospital with tubes coming out of her might make any suggestion of dishonesty the work of a vacuous cretin.

Jim @ 44 & 50:

I didn’t say Sue Marsh was lying. She is clearly very sick. But to spell it out for your unicellular brain:

1. Being very sick – even with a chronic condition with acute episodes – is not necessarily the same thing as being disabled

2. As I said above, “she may not be as disabled as she feels she is, or she may be struggling so valiantly with her condition that she appears to less disabled than she is.”

“Not ‘claims’ to be sick, diagnosed by a doctor as having a severe illness.”

You are confusing a diagnosis with a disability assessment (see my (1) above). And, in any event, the assessors for AA, if not DLA, are doctors too.

Disability assessments are not a charade; but bureaucratic, state welfare is often rather inflexible. Yes, some people will fail the assessment and win on appeal; but that is almost invariably because they have not presented their needs accurately to the assessor in the first place (often for admirable reasons of personal pride). Meanwhile, fraud and deception will have been deterred or uncovered.

TONB @ 52

You are confusing a diagnosis with a disability assessment (see my (1) above). And, in any event, the assessors for AA, if not DLA, are doctors too.

Nope, not true. Once someone has been diagnosed with an illness or condition and a given a realistic prognosis, in many cases it should be easy to asses their needs. We know the likely symptoms of Crohn’s disease and we know the impact it has on a patient’s life. We have thousands of case files detailing what people’s experience with that particular illness is, so why present the same data, over and over again?

Surely to Christ we can allow certain serious diseases to go through on the nod? Come on, think about it from a pragmatic point of view, leave all the ‘I miust be a good Tory’ bullshit and try and look at it through human eyes (or get a decent person to explain it to you). You cannot ‘fake’ Crohn’s disease, we know the likely prognosis and we know the impact that is going to have in people’s lives. So why bother putting her through all this stress?

Sure when you have a ‘bad back’ you might need to asses someone but why bother with someone we know is really sick?

TONB, give a citation for every claim you just made right there because it seems to be word for word the BS that comes out of Iain Duncan-Smith, David Freud and Maria Miller, who evade any such requests made of them to explain those same claims. This in particular:

“Yes, some people will fail the assessment and win on appeal; but that is almost invariably because they have not presented their needs accurately to the assessor in the first place (often for admirable reasons of personal pride). Meanwhile, fraud and deception will have been deterred or uncovered.”

…is a David Freud argument he’s made during in the grand committee room debating amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill. It’s a claim made about ESA decisions and refers to the reasons why decisions are overturned. The bit Freud left out is that the reason why the DWP decision makers only saw the evidence for the first time in most cases is because the process specifically excludes them; they don’t want to hear evidence from a claimant’s GP or specialists. Even the initial claim form does not make it easy for a claimant to deliver the facts.

The rest of your post is tripe that could come straight the ‘diseases are behavioural’ school of thought espoused by Unum and occupational therapists out to make a buck.

@ 46 Jungle

“I believe the ATOS assessment system was Labour’s idea in the first place.

Is it such a long time since Labour were in power that we have forgotten their total capitulation to the scrounger-bashing rhetoric? Do people no longer remember Caroline Flint calling for social housing tenants on benefits to be thrown onto the streets as a penalty for failing to look for work sufficiently?”

Fair points, and I’m not excusing Labour’s faults. But it seems to me that the Tories have made things significantly worse since coming into power. I’m not saying that Labour are the Shining Force of Awesomeness when it comes to welfare, I’m saying they’re notably better than the alternative. Everyone likes to pander to the tabloids, regrettably.

Jim @ 53:

People are individuals, so prognoses are often inaccurate. Some very sick people go into remission at least temporarily. And some people with the same disease suffer more than others. That means many people with the same condition will score differently on their disability assessment.

MDA @ 54:

It may be a David Freud argument; but I have eight years experience managing a team of 9 people who regularly advise our elderly housing clients on how to claim AA, so I know it is true in respect of AA at least. And in eight years, we have lost only two appeals.

As for your claim that the rest of my post implies that ‘diseases are behavioural’, I can only assume that you do not have even a basic understanding of elementary formal logic. Your psychological associations are not objective logical relations.

I wish you all would stop going on abut the Tories. Labour started the reforms just like they started the closure of coal and steel in the 70s (Cabinet notes show this to be true apparently). They are both the same, they have agendas that rob peter to pay paul using the smoke and mirrors of taxation and giveaways in alternating sequences to convince you that they are doing it in your best interest.

I have Crohns disease and it is 14 years old. Although minor symptoms for over 25 years before. I am post operative after a second op to remove bowel and part of colon. I am blood poisoned by medication. I am B12 deficient, I have Rheumatoid arthritis associated with it. In 1998 while at work, I broke bones in my back ( not workshy then eh?), and exposed my spinal column. The injury does not ever heal. Gps took 5 years to diagnose Crohns. And 5 years to be given an x-ray diagnosis of the broken back which they entered on their computer as some thing else and so ignored it.

Industrial injuries compensation although previously paid for years was denied. Tribunal judge diagnosed my illness from my notes without understanding what was wrong but accepted an early x-ray technician’ s query of a back disease. Later x-rays being the diagnosing ones were ignored. The lifelong retired Psychiatrist on the panel (I googled him), could not tell the judge what any of the medical terms that I asked him to explain to her were. His examination then did not include tests that would expose the injury as valid.

I was told upon (and here is one for the idiots that consider self sufficiency), that I had an enormously huge amount of money in the bank and so I could not sign on or claim sickness benefits.
That was the money from the sale of my house. They insisted that I live on it until it was gone. Then I could have benefits. They said that I could not use it to buy another property because they would check the statements to see that it had been used as they required. It’s gone. I am in social housing that is not suitable or in the right location to assist with aged sick Mother in law, Mother with Alzheimers, Father in law with a brain injury. Now that my disease has made work impractical, I have had DLA refused. Now they seek to test me for this LABOUR crime against the British people….. ESA. While this is going on, I am faced with finding 24 to 30,000 pounds a year to pay care home fees for my relatives with dementias because the LABOUR idiots changed the health act and the national assistance act that was their crowning acheivement in the 1940s. The funding that assists mentally ill people is being withdrawn by administrative means because people that have no cognition or ability to do anything at all for themselves are getting better. What chance has any one with lesser problems?
Apparently my relatives have got better since having to leave home and reside in care on the advice of their consultants Gps and social services.
No one gets better from dementia but the system can cure them with the special liquid contained within their pens.
It is just as well that three other relatives have died quickly while suffering from these types of dementia and brain cancer because 60 to 70,000 pounds extra, a year is going to be difficult to earn at Macdonalds on a part time contract.
The self righteous prats that think that their paltry savings will save them if they become ill or anyone they love suffers likewise are deluded. Or perhaps are just trolls.
I have had a part time job since I was 11 years old. I worked through 6th form college. And further education. I have always lived frugally and never purchased expensive housing or fancy cars. I brought up my small family and then became very ill. I paid probably more than the prats), to be supported if this happened. Just like the prats did if indeed they ever have worked. Now it is the Tories who get the blame.
So there you have it: 250 years or so of national insurance payments. Tax taken via all forms of over 50% throughout that time and we are not permitted paid help.
I am sure that if a company tried this that the prats would have something to say about it……oh of course it would be something like “well what do you expect from capitalists”.

This is what happens when you fight the Tories for Justice !

You get a vicious slaughtering.

There is no justice, not anymore.

This from Jim – ‘Surely to Christ we can allow certain serious diseases to go through on the nod?’
Yes of course we could. Of course we should too but in my view that would defeat the object which is to transfer public money into the private company Atos. Think oif the whole deal as a scam, as a raid on the public purse. Think of all the demonisation of the disabled, of the unemployed, as a cover for this. Suddenly the repeated testing, obviously pointless from any kind of pragmatic or medical POV, makes sense. Every time someone’s tested, money flows from the public purse into Atos so people are repeatedly, endlessly tested and retested. There’s your reasoning – follow the money.

What do you expect? There was a 0% chance of it being approved. Political orders, I have no doubt, either.

Make a fuss, and the Tories will make sure you starve.

Freedom of speech and standing up for peoples rights can be a dangerous thing !

Look at what happened to Martin Luther King.

In the United Kingdom it is now dangerous to stand up for peoples rights ( The Sick & Disabled ) and now Sue Marsh’s free speech and campaign to help others has been meet with outrageous political might that amouts to an assault on her.

This Tory led Coalition is without doubt Evil to the core that is crushing those that are sick and disabled ( Sue Marsh ) fighting for her and others justice.

We are suppose to be living in a civilized society but this Tory led Government is about to embark on a number of policies that will make the Sick, Disabled, Vulnerable and Poorest in society suffer severely. This is after David Cameron promised live on television during the final electoral campaign 2010 to protect that group of people. You cannot get no more evil than that.

It makes me wonder whether I will get a knock on the door and fit up for something solely for posting a comment or two on this website. Free speech is an illusion under this Tory led Coalition because what has happened to Sue Marsh demonstrates that it operates just like you would expect in a country with secret police such as the old Communist Russia.

i have crohns diease and im a coeliac from birth im now in my 40s, ive never claimed for any benefits, i know people who claim dla and there is nothing wrong with them and they get the high rate, and people like myself dont get dla and people with diabetas should get dla as they never know when they are going to have a hypo,i know people with diabetas who work have hypos and who just relax and get hypos so either way they carnt win.