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^ My sister has Chrohn's Disease. She's spends half her life in and out of hospitals having one operation after another. Diagnosed as coeliac when a baby and then later as Chrohn's, she gets depressed. Double incontinence ain't fun for her and she misses out on much in life. She also has other health problems.

 

But guess what? She works. Oh heck, she's a telephone advisor for the DWP.

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But guess what? She works. Oh heck, she's a telephone advisor for the DWP.

 

The trouble is, many folk WANT to work. I do not see the relevance of your post there really. There are many folk who have problems work, but being told that you will loose any assistance because of a want just to save money at the cost of the social fabric of a reasonable existence is beyond belief.

 

Employers are not always geared up to accommodate some folks needs, as the DWP are a public body, their policies with regard to equal opportunities are part of law and good practice. It will be of some cost that they employ your sister and others.

 

Add to that, the stigma being attached by the present administration towards folk who claim benefits, no doubt, your sister may be one of them, and the amplification and twisting of the national media of such pernicious tagging of any benefit claimant, I am sure feelings towards these folk by any future employer may be tarnished.

 

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Krugman on Austerity:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/opinion/krugman-the-one-percents-solution.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

 

Part of the answer surely lies in the widespread desire to see economics as a morality play, to make it a tale of excess and its consequences. We lived beyond our means, the story goes, and now we’re paying the inevitable price. Economists can explain ad nauseam that this is wrong, that the reason we have mass unemployment isn’t that we spent too much in the past but that we’re spending too little now, and that this problem can and should be solved.
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Na, you're wrong. The thread ain't closed. Besides, no doubt go.oot.by.dog will have the last word. :wink:

 

I have been reading back over your recent posts and i must say i am some what disappointed yet not surprised that after reading a topic saying that someone had been driven to take their own life due to the stress of ill health and pressures of having their benefits stopped that your reply was not one of compassion, but rather one of, well my sister has this disability and that disability and she works as well :x

 

I am sure Iain Duncan Smith would give her two gold stars :lol:

 

Unfortunately not everyone can deal with their disabilities as good as someone else may and that does not make them any less of a person or a "scrounger" or a "skiver" or as you put it "are at it"

 

Last word from me on this particular post :wink:

 

After all We're a' Jock Tamson's bairns!

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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/britains-richest-mp-richard-benyon-1855405

Britain's richest MP Richard Benyon tells poor families: You shouldn't waste so much food

 

Britain’s richest MP sparked anger today after telling families on the breadline to stop wasting food.

 

Environment minister Richard Benyon, who stands to inherit a £110million fortune, said households were wasting money by throwing away “enormous amounts of food.â€

 

He said “careful fridge management†would help solve the crisis in living standards and suggested families should eat more leftovers.

 

The Tory MP said many people had no idea how to keep fruit or vegetables or that cheese would last longer if properly wrapped.

 

Shadow Environment Secretary Mary Creagh said the remarks were insulting and showed how out of the touch the government was.

 

“Mums struggling to feed their families don’t need lectures on wrapping cheese from the country’s richest Tory MP.

 

“Mums struggling to feed their families don’t need lectures on wrapping cheese from a Tory Government which has created a cost of living crisis with its failed economic plan.

 

“People are cutting back on food, eating less fresh meat, fruit and vegetables and foodbanks can barely cope.

 

"This out of touch Government’s response to the cost of living crisis is condescension and a tax cut for millionaires,†she said.

 

She added: “If Ed Miliband was Prime Minister today, Labour would make a real difference by restoring the 50p tax rate and making a real difference to families, prioritise getting young people back to work, and saying let’s restore the tax credits that make work pay.â€

 

Mr Benyon, the MP for Newbury, was named as the richest MP in the Times newspaper thanks to his family’s vast Englefield Estate in Hampshire.

 

He told families were wasting £50 a month on average by throwing away food.

 

“Food wasted means fewer pounds in our pocket.

 

"Household bills are squeezed at the moment and we have the opportunity through a variety of different agencies to inform people better about where their food comes from and how to use it most economically.

 

“Keeping most fruit in the fridge in its packaging can keep it fresher for a week or more, but around 60% of us take fruit out of the packaging, and more than 70% of us do not store it in the fridge.

 

Re-closing packs of cheese and sliced meats helps to stop them drying out in the fridge, but 13% of us apparently store such food unwrapped in the fridge,†he said.

 

David Cameron admitted Mr Benyon’s words did “not look good†and suggested the minister had been misquoted.

 

“What happened yesterday was there was a debate in Westminster on the issue of food waste and as the minister responsible he was responsible for giving an answer on issues to do with food waste and supermarket packaging,†he said

 

Stephen McPartland, the Conservative MP for Stevenage, said: “I don’t think it is right for the Government to preach to people who choose to purchase food and use that food.

 

“Nobody likes waste and families on low incomes often buy in bulk because it can be cheaper.

 

"No one in those families are wasting food intentionally.â€

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Na, you're wrong. The thread ain't closed. Besides, no doubt go.oot.by.dog will have the last word. :wink:

 

I have been reading back over your recent posts and i must say i am some what disappointed yet not surprised that after reading a topic saying that someone had been driven to take their own life due to the stress of ill health and pressures of having their benefits stopped that your reply was not one of compassion, but rather one of, well my sister has this disability and that disability and she works as well :x

 

I am sure Iain Duncan Smith would give her two gold stars :lol:

 

Unfortunately not everyone can deal with their disabilities as good as someone else may and that does not make them any less of a person or a "scrounger" or a "skiver" or as you put it "are at it"

 

Last word from me on this particular post :wink:

 

After all We're a' Jock Tamson's bairns!

 

I read your post as more to do with lack of sympathy/treatment from the NHS re their symptoms than to do with benefits being stopped/told to apply for JSA.

 

People commit suicide frequently at Beachy Head, hence why there is a Samaritans Warden there. If someone really wants to commit suicide then many a time nothing will stop them.

 

The point I was attempting to make is that there are those with IBS who do work. Every individual's case should be taken on its merit.

 

But you're right, not everyone can deal with their disabilities as well as others. I didn't call that person a scrounger and TBH, I'm getting fecked off with every time I post, certain members say I'm calling everyone scroungers when that simply is NOT the case. I'm likewise disappointed that you appear to acknowledge that there are those out there who take pride in bucking the system - it doesn't matter how many but the simple fact that there are some who do.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letters/letters-a-scrounger-driven-to-despair-8584227.html

 

A ‘scrounger’ driven to despair

 

Last night, on Facebook, I watched the messages as someone attempted suicide online as a result of this government’s demonisation of the disabled and withdrawal of the meagre benefits they need to survive. He had given up the struggle.

Fortunately, the rest of the group rallied round and were able to intervene. This morning I have learned that he’s in hospital, but not out of danger. If not for the compassion and concern of strangers, he would be dead by now.

 

While the world recoils at the horror of the Boston bombings, a much greater horror is taking place in the UK as thousands of genuinely disabled people die, quietly and unnoticed, one at a time in their own homes or in hospitals. Their conditions worsen under the stress of fighting for the benefits they were guaranteed but are now denied and their illness overcomes them. Many have committed suicide.

 

What kind of society have we become, where we turn our collective backs on those most in need of help? Where we believe the fable that those on benefits are all worthless scroungers? It’s not just the Government – it’s also this society that supports the Government’s misinformation and turns on the helpless, believing that compassion applies only to their own family and friends.

 

Wake up, Britain. We are exterminating the disabled, not through gas chambers and execution squads, but through despair and desperation. Each life is snuffed out in quiet corners across the country, unknown and unregarded, but each is an individual with friends and family, just like you.

 

Tony Johnson, Scarborough, North Yorkshire

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http://welfarenewsservice.com/disabled-people-living-in-fear-of-having-their-benefits-removed/#.UX13-qLU8oN

Disabled People Living In Fear Of Having Their Benefits Removed

 

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t me. It’s hard to fight when you’re tired of fighting.

 

Living with a disability is exhausting, frustrating, crushing, painful – and endless. There are so many obstacles in my life that I would never have asked for, and sometimes I feel so angry, hurt and frustrated that I don’t know what to do with myself.

 

Cerebral Palsy is not a choice. I would give anything to be able to stand and walk unaided, get in and out of the bath without help, stand long enough to cook a meal for my husband and myself. Hell, I’d settle for being able to carry a cup of tea across the room!

 

All I have ever wanted is a ‘normal’ life – to earn my own money, and be a Mum. None of those options are open to me – and it’s not my fault.

 

I wish society and this government understood what it is like every single day. The energy (and willpower) it takes to do even the smallest thing. There are some days when I really don’t have that energy, either physically or mentally, and it’s all I can do to get out of bed.

 

I know I’m luckier than a lot of people – ‘there is always someone worse off than you’ is something I have always be taught. I live by it, I believe it, and I’ve always done my best to care for and help others, despite what I may be going through privately.

 

That’s part of why I’m writing this now – it’s why I’ve written many things. If I can make one person understand what it feels like to live with a disability in a society which still doesn’t accept, respect, and properly care for people like me, then I’ve done my job.

 

Before the coalition came to power in May 2010, I was coming to terms with things. I was more secure, happy, and confident in myself than I’ve ever been in my life.

 

I still felt bad about the fact I couldn’t manage a job, (I did work once before my mobility, pain and energy levels got worse). I did voluntary work too.

 

There was a place in society for me. It’s never been an equal place, but we were getting there slowly. At least disabled people were wanted in society. We weren’t viewed with suspicion, or labelled as ‘scroungers’, leaches accused of bleeding the country dry, or targeted for seemingly contributing (largely) to the country’s deficit.

 

I want those days back so badly. I did not realise how lucky I was – how lucky we all were. We were people then. We are not now, not in the eyes of the government.

 

We are living in fear of losing our vital benefits and our independence. Independence (what I am able to have of it), is a precious thing to me. I have fought to hold on to it against all the odds.

 

When I was 14 years old, I had major orthopaedic surgery in a hospital nearly two hundred miles from my home in Somerset. My bones were broken and reset, muscles were cut, and I had to learn to walk from scratch. My family couldn’t stay with me – they had to go to work, and my sister to school.

 

There were days of agonising physio, crippling loneliness, and the start of my lifelong battle with clinical depression. Now, all these years later, I realise that I had to go through it to keep myself out of a wheelchair, protect my freedom and independence for as long as I can.

 

I’m terrified that the government will take that from me if my Disability Living Allowance is withdrawn. I dread qualifying for Personal Independence Payment – even though I fight the daily pain of Endometriosis and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome on top of everything else!

 

It won’t count under the ATOS ‘tick box’ computer programme that they use to decide our lives. I fear the ‘Work Compatibility Assessment so much that I have nightmares about it. Waking up sweating and panicking with knots in my stomach is not conducive to a good night’s sleep, so I can’t get the rest I badly need.

 

I’m not alone. Thousands of disabled and ill people across the country are living with the fear everyday. I jump at the sound of the letter box, just in case it’s my turn.

 

I don’t trust what they say about dates, regulations and criteria for benefits anymore, because it’s been changed so often, and those changes have been allowed to slip under the radar – and so have the deaths of sick and disabled people who have wrongfully been found ‘fit for work.

 

A growing number of sick and disabled people are dying prematurely after being found ‘fit for work’. Either their conditions have deteriorated or they have chosen to end their own lives; simply unable to face either the assessment itself or a life of poverty and hardship without benefits.

 

Yes, you can appeal the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) decision, but you are not paid benefits in the meantime (as a result of recent welfare reforms), and with changes to legal aid (and who can qualify for it), for some it will be impossible – and even if it isn’t, it will feel it.

 

I’m lucky to have my husband and his Pension Credit to rely on so my situation is nowhere near as dire as it will be for some who have been let down by inhumane system. Even so, I am actually considering signing of Disability Living Allowance, because I simply cannot live with the fear any longer.

 

I will have to close my bank account and be completely reliant on my husband financially – just like I’m reliant on him for so many other things already. I’ll hate that, because I already feel like a burden, even though he assures me I’m not.

 

My precious independence will be gone – but at least I’ll be able to sleep again, and I will not have to fear being judged and told I am not worth supporting.

 

The ‘scrounger rhetoric’ and negative media coverage has attacked what self esteem I have been able to get for myself. I used to feel proud. I was a wife, daughter, sister, writer and disability rights campaigner. My benefits were secure and I all I had to worry about was finding the energy to get through the day.

 

Now, my old demon of not being able to work is back, and compounded, because the ‘aspiring’ ‘achieving’ nation (and its government) hates benefit claimants – no matter how justified we are. They do not seem to care about the affect their policies are having upon vulnerable people in society. It doesn’t seem to matter as long as people like us aren’t taking ‘honest, hardworking taxpayers money’. We work hard just to get through the day!

 

Fighting for myself and others is now more important than ever before. We are fighting for our lives, against Bedroom Tax, the Housing Benefit cap, the closure of the Independent Living Fund, cuts in social care and so many other vital services.

 

Why is it that the cuts have to come down hardest on those that need the most help? How can you call this a fair society when we are struggling, largely unseen and uncared for when the rich bankers (the very people who caused this mess) get bonuses and tax breaks!

 

Disabled and vulnerable people should not be used as scapegoats. It makes me sick to my stomach that we are being punished simply for being too ill or disabled to work, no matter how much we might want to! Blame the people who are really at fault – the tax avoiders, the bankers and our governments for letting this happen.

 

I will spend everyday, for the rest of my life, fighting against this if I have to – but I shouldn’t have to. None of us should!

 

The Bedroom Tax will fall disproportionately upon sick and disabled people. Whilst there have been exemptions made for families with disabled children, those that need overnight carers, people with adult children serving in the forces who still need a room at home, and a few other things, disabled adults are still not exempt.

 

I am one of the lucky ones, because this particular punishment for being on benefits (that’s essentially what many of these policies are) will not impact on me. I am so thankful for that, because I do not think I could stand having to leave my home. I can only imagine what thousands of others like me are going through. They know they have to pay up or move out of a home they may have lived in, loved, and felt safe in for years.

 

Where do they go? There is a national shortage of social housing as a whole – not just the one and bedroom accommodation that many people will need to downsize. Homelessness is bound to rise as people cannot afford to stay (a claimant loses 14% of Housing Benefit for the first spare bedroom, and 25% for two or more extra bedrooms) but have nowhere to go.

 

Each council will offer a ‘Discretionary Housing Payment’ to try and help those they consider to be the most in need. Personally I would like to know who will make that decision and how? It is important to realise that the pot of money allocated to help those hit by Bedroom Tax, is nowhere near the amount needed. People who need help will suffer even more than they already are. I also feel that these Discretionary Housing Payments have been severely underpublicized.

 

I’ll say it once again. It is not fair to make the weakest and most vulnerable in society pay for the mistakes and greed of the rich.

 

Stripping disabled people of our rights, independence and self respect is the coldest and most callous of things any government can do and I have to pinch myself sometimes to even believe that it’s happening in a so called compassionate, caring society.

 

I just wish it would stop. What this government has done to us is psychological torture. We are told we are worthless, scrounging, and lazy day in and day out. On top of that the fear of the Work Compatibility Assessment is hanging over us like the sword of Damocles!

 

It is not fair for anyone to live like this, and I keep thinking ‘please, somebody stop them, before anybody else feels like they cannot carry on’ – but nobody does. I just want a chance to live as normal a life as I can. I’m not asking for much, just to keep what independence I have and to get my self respect back. Haven’t I been through enough already? Have Not all of us?! If I was face to face with you right now, I would ask you only one question – How would you feel if this was happening to you?

 

HELEN SIMS

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Isn't it time to get to the punch line now after 14 pages, of what? Links and copy/pastes, some probably good, some very likely bad, and no doubt a few indifferent as well. What is the intent of this post, what's it supposed to encourage folk to do, where's it supposed to go.

 

As anyone who has ever tried to claim disablity money off H.M's finest already well knows, its always been a performance only surpassed by trying to pull hen's teeth. So, now they'd hired a mob of brainless numpties to check the forms, like that makes any real odds, the system was broken long, long ago, its not like whoever they hire can really make it any worse, only keep it as broken in a different way. So why this sudden uproar?

 

Oh, and before there are any sanctimonious retorts, a few facts:

 

a) I was signed off as medically unfit to work in June 1992, I still am, having been so continously since then.

 

B) I have been disabled to the point of being virtually housebound all of that period.

 

c) I do not receive any benefits whatsoever, and have not done so for some time. I have claimed in the past, but they stopped for reason(s) unknown, as nobody bothered to tell me they had until the Council started making a damn fair attempt at stoving my front door in demanding their back rent.

 

I haven't pursued the matter or reapplied, as to be perfectly honest the invasion of privacy and hoop jumping exercise that is the application process (and the current forms are no more and no less such than the first ones I completed over 20 years ago), simply isn't worth the pittance of pennies you're thrown at the end of it.

 

I never trusted H.M.G. whoever they were, to stump up beyond the last payment they did make, and that sooner or later it would all go yudders up, and made plans accordingly. For once I hate to have been proven right.

 

Yes, any disabled person has as big a problem claiming off H.M.G. what they supposedly have a statutory right to as any possible disability anyone could have, but that ain't new, it was like that with peas and gravy Major, and Toneee, and Brrun, and now whatsisface....so why the sudden fuss over whats been use and wint for at least over two decades?!?

 

I presume I'm wholly missing the point of this thread entirely, as collecting together a slew of links and copied articles all of the anti persuasion can only go one of to places in my mind, nowhere, as it is dismissed as biased opinion, or have a negative effect, in that folk get sick and tired of so much pleepsin.

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