Oppose UK welfare reform

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con-dems add disabled to long list of victims

"The charity said the assessment consists of a series of tasks such as "can you count backwards from 100?" and "can you walk 200 metres?" without truly assessing the more complex psychological issues related to mental illness. "

This must affect loads of people with AS. I am frightened, depressed and angry about it. How do we stop it?

By refusing and letting the papers print the story so that the country can see a rebel against the Government. If I had to do what you described, I would tell them to f**k off.

Just watching Newsnight now and it's all about the issue of raising student fees. Maybe we need an aspie equivalent of the national union of students to argue our case? National Union of Autistics perhaps?

Sadly this "re-evaluation of ability" is not at all a product of the ConDems at all. ESA was introduced as the eventual replacement for Incapacity and Income support by Labour. This came about when it became apparent to the (apparently blind) public that the unemployment figures had not been falling at all under labour, but merely re-allocated to other areas that did not count as "unemployed." After the globo-recession and its ret*d little brother "credit crunch" Labour realised that people EXPECTED huge numbers in unemployment, and realised that they could earn brownie points with the middle classes by shipping everyone they had placed onto the "Doesn't appear as unemployed" benefits back on to jobseekers, and save a few quid as well. Of course because the disabled are a soft target, there was no way they would cause a fuss.

The ConDems are merely using the same vehicle as a way of saving money. In fairness, they are being fairly honest about the fact thats what they are doing. The company they have employed to do this job is the self-same one Labour brought in. (everyone's favourite fraudsters, ATOS healthcare.) In the initial bout of re-evaluating (which occured a lot earlier than this week) ATOS decided that a huge percentage of people on disability benefits were capable of work. The subsequent actions of the ConDems are predicated on the misrepresentation of ATOS Healthcare's fraudulent work.

The fraud being perpetuated (by ATOS and the media) is that "Failing the Medical" is the same as "Not being disabled." This is of course obfuscatory semantic BS, as demonstrated by the sheer volume of tribunal appeals that subsequently took place where the claimants were found to be genuinely disabled and thus quite within their legal right to claim ESA. Expect the same to occur again after these "pilot" inquisitions.

Over and again, Osbourne and IDS have declared that "the genuinely disabled will not be penalised". Sounds great, except that the government (or more specifically the DWP through the agency of ATOS) reserve the right to ignore ANY and ALL medical opinions except that of their own employees, and can legally stretch the boundaries of what "disability" actually is when it comes to "capability for some form of work." Thus virtually nobody qualifies as "genuinely too disabled to work."

Of course, there is also the conveniently forgotten fact that "seeking work" is not "having work." Thousands of the disabled, most of whom will have great blocks against their ability to find employment, will be shipped onto an overstretched jobs market where university graduates and trained professionals cannot find employment. So languish on the dole they will, whilst the voters clamour that they should "work for their dole." so that they can get their child benefit back. And what is working for your dole but indentured service, with fewer rights than the "real" employed, whilst engaging in the same or even harder work? Akin in fact to Labours' "New Deal", where people worked full time hours for an extra ten pounds on their dole money under the guise of "training."

If Cameron wants a Dave New World of a Fair Society then he will look a little deeper into ATOS and what they do, and consider for himself what disability actually means.

Yes. I wasn't trying to make a party political point at all. As Ken Loach said on newsnight the other night "new" labour were tory lite and they are equally in favour of attacks on the weak.

also you are right regarding workfare for those who eventually get put on jobseekers. Will it come in at under the minimum wage? what fun.

I'm not sure how much i'd blame the private company. Dont get me wrong i think their f*****g spivs looking to make our lives much harder to make a profit but there is no fraud being undertaken on the politcians. They're just total bastards.

He doesn't. He's an aberrant cretin.

Opposing this will basically mean campaigning for the reintroduction of the welfare state again. A new beveridge report et al

Honestly dont think i could cope with workfare or anything like that.

ATOS is a subsidiary of an American insurance company. Their "health care professionals" have been caught tampering with DLA applications before they were ever given the contract to perform Incapacity medicals, which then became ESA medicals. ATOS are easily as responsible for this because they have basically been given a legal free hand to do what they like with little or no oversight from Westminster. That they have fraudulently tampered with the claims of disabled people, and yet they still received the contracts is perhaps the worst issue. In other words no matter what you do or what you are like, nor what evidence you present, you cannot be sure that the ATOS representative will be accurately recording the truth.

http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/press_20100323

Look at the list of charitable bodies who agree with this report.

People wouldn't rebel because some marginal group with zero resources is being oppressed. People rebel if they themselves are directly hurt by the government, and if they are organised.

The middle classes clearly aren't disabled enough. After all, its fine to make the disabled work as hard as possible but DON'T TOUCH their extra child benefit that they get on top of their 44k a year jobs. My heart bleeds for them, truly it does.

The ConDems: putting the "N" in "cuts"

How come all these charities can't actually stop it though? Ok they're opposed to it but they dont seem to have any poltical weight. Politicians need to be made aware that people on benefits have the vote and we can use that vote to back up our own economic interests.

This is the very fine line to whether people really care about others or not. Its a dangerous line too.

Most of the major charities including the NAS have endorsed the reports of the CAB, and been heavily quoted as declaring their own worries about the new system. Cameron et al seem prepared to ignore this. One of the many bad parts about Cameron losing his disabled son is that he will never have to deal with this system himself. (Under the ATOS system, his child would eventually have qualified as fit for work.)

I suspect that our best hope lies with the overworked tribunal system, as those people will eventually complain that they are wasting valuable time and money on repeated tribunals. The public certainly don't give a f**k as they have all bought in to the media view that everyone on benefits is automatically a scrounger.

Be aware by the way that ESA retains a review process. Even if by a miracle you pass, they will just try to fail you again later on.

Yes, solidarity is dying around Europe. It is really tragic, but will not last too long. It is simply not rational to be egoistic if you might be on the street tomorrow, with nothing to warm you apart from your jacket.

Yes this is exactly right. It's the undermining of social solidarity and the increasing atomisation of society. Also the cult of individualism where everyones just out for themselves and encouraged to be that way. Also i think since the fall of the Soviet Union that western politcal classes just dont see their populaces as a threat anymore and therefore dont care about undermining social saftety nets as they know nothing will come back in return.