DWP cuts: why Starmer and Reeves must change course

A very personal plea to Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer: stop the DWP cuts

The Labour-led government has announced £6bn of potential cuts to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits for chronically ill and disabled people.

Stop the DWP cuts

I push through levels of pain and sickness, just to get out of bed in the morning, that would make Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer cry like babies and flee to A&E.

Why?

I have myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).

A devastating chronic condition, for which there is no cure.

I was a teacher of children with special educational needs and disabilities. I loved my work. Then I got Covid-19, became sick, and never recovered.

Covid caused me to develop ME which absolutely decimated my health and life. I was forced to give up my career and apply for financial support from the DWP to be able to afford a roof over my head and to eat.

I would much prefer to work and receive the healthy salary I used to earn. Before I became disabled, I was intending to climb Ben Nevis for charity. Now I cannot walk to the shop round the corner.

Life is a hard. Disabled people deserve respect and compassion. Support and care. Not this barrage of abuse from the people we voted in, thinking they would uphold the human rights of all UK citizens – not just the section of society who have had the ‘luck’ to not be disabled.

Believe me it’s a privilege to have your health. Anyone can become disabled. Tomorrow it could be you. How would you like to be treated?

Stop the cuts, Reeves.

Disabled people are human beings too and deserve to be treated as such.

Featured image via the Canary

Comments 1

billkruse says:

1 year ago

They already know people are in profound distress. In my view, they don’t care. They just want the money. As I’ve been plastering all over Twitter/X, doing away with social security opens up a multi-£bn private insurance market, plenty of gravy for everyone involved, politicians, the media, everyone. That’s all this is about. Greed.
Might not be a bad idea for the Canary to do a piece on this, referencing that the figures the govt projections are based on seem to have no substance at all whatsoever. In other words, the UK govt here appears to have quite deliberately fabricated a crisis with the specific intention of doing away with as much of social security as they could get away with in order to please their corporate masters with personal financial gain in mind. What does this tell us about Starmer, Reeves & Kendall? It certainly doesn’t suggest they’re in any way fit for office… I very much doubt we’ll be hearing a peep about this aspect from the MSM as if this coup had come off they’d be benefiting too from all the advertising. That means exposing this is up to the likes of the Canary then. If not you guys, then who?