Rishi Sunak has just declared unemployed sick and disabled people the enemy
Those lazy liars languishing on benefits. Not our words, obviously.
It’s been coming for a while, as the amount of news stories about how many disabled and chronically ill people are ‘languishing’ on Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits ramped up. The rhetoric is clear: sick and disabled people are lazy liars who want to take taxpayers for a ride. So, last night a story broke in the Telegraph that Rishi is vowing to end ‘sicknote culture’ which is confusing to many disabled people as the DWP has intentionally called them ‘fit notes’ for years.
But this was just the soft launch of Rishi’s whole evil plan, with the hard launch conveniently coming at the ‘grim reaper’ Iain Duncan Smith-founded Centre for Social Justice on Friday 19 April.
‘People aren’t any more sick than they were a decade ago’ Rishi lies
Rishi started his speech by once again parroting the old chestnut that ‘the rate of people on sickness benefits has trebled in a decade, which makes no sense as people aren’t getting sicker’.
This is so fucking untrue that I can’t even comprehend being this ignorant to the suffering of the common man. To deny people are not any sicker after 14 years of Tory austerity, harsher DWP benefit changes, a sodding pandemic that made millions ill, and of course a cost of living crisis which means were having to choose between heating and eating.
A main defence for this is that Rishi and the government are saying too many people are claiming to be anxious and depressed. Yes Rishi, those of us who aren’t worth £700m are severely depressed.
So what are his proposed DWP ‘reforms’?
First, a consultation on Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
It might seem weird that PIP is being discussed alongside DWP unemployment benefits. However, it’s not when you consider that they’ve been trying to sneakily make it means-tested for years now.
As a result, a consultation will be published soon with proposed changes to the eligibility criteria, assessment, and types of support.
There’s whispers of one-off payments to help with adaptations. But that isn’t what PIP is for. It’s supposed to support us with long-term ongoing costs.
Don’t want to accept the first shit job the DWP foists on you? No benefits for you.
Rishi says that the next Tory government (hopefully in a long time) will legislate to make sure those who’ve been on DWP benefits for over a year and don’t want to accept jobs, no matter how suitable they are, will have their benefits removed.
Activists have predicted this for a long time, because life would be much easier for the Tories if disabled people all died. It’s almost hilarious that he talked about how supported into work disabled people will be – when the Access to Work scheme backlog is two-to-three years.
GPs are “too close” to their own patients, apparently
Rishi said he was also going to change who gave out fit notes. This is allegedly because doctors are ‘too close’ to their patients and often felt pressured to provide one. Not only is this questioning the judgement of qualified doctors but it’s implying people even have the time in this stretched NHS to get close to a doctor.
The alternative to this is that newly appointed DWP assessors will provide fit notes. If they’re anything like benefits assessors they’ll no doubt have no specialist knowledge of conditions – instead, working from tick boxes.
A call for evidence on fit notes is now live. It’s open to disabled people, carers and medical professionals and closes on 8th July. I urge anyone who can to respond to it here.
A desperate grab for votes
What Rishi’s done today is declare sick and disabled people the enemy of working people. Disabled people such as myself, who already live in fear of being attacked in the street and not performing disability well enough for the DWP, are even further terrified.
Rishi’s announcement today is a desperate grab for votes, whilst making disabled people out to be the ones who are stealing all the money.
Let’s not ask him about his Tory donor pals who’ve just had their assets frozen and are being investigated for fraud, eh?
Featured image via the Canary
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Rishi Sunak has just declared unemployed sick and disabled
people the enemy -But also the self-employed people running
small business in the U.K. -Wales -Scotland -N-Ireland areas also.
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Self-employed workers also this dodgy new D.W.P. bills will also involve all self-employed people if they need sick pay help for a short time.
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I find it very disturbing again anther RICH Top Tory member telling us that pay the Benefit bill in work or out of work self-employed alike now by new laws he and D.W.P. will or May bring in we cannot have the sick note protection our Unelected P.M.-M.P. gets now.
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So, U.K people needing Benefits help that have paid into the Govt Tax and N-I pot already you will Not get any help form Tory Govt or D.W.P. Minister if you hand sick note in for any ill reason.
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Now voter of U.K. my BIG (Q) for Sunak-Hunt -D.W.P. Minister who will run the vetting of sick note for D.W.P. -U.C. payment all the dodgy X M.P.-X-Minister of the Tory party that have left Govt now into the private sector after failing us voter in Govt jobs for dodgy reasons or possible corruption and miss use of public cash.
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Point also I will ask Tory M.P. will this new D.W.P. law on sick note apply to immigrant workers on Green cards that also claim sick note cash and are now overstaying on their Green card they should not be in this country at all as they are classed as illegal immigrant by our U.K. l new immigration laws now in place.
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Mr Sunak-Hunt-D.W.P. Minster just tell us taxpayer what cash will be saved on this new D.W.P. law if any? Or is it as we free voter think it a way of funding the wars in other country with more taxpayer money you may or may not save by NOT supporting our British workers and self-employed with any sick note cash benefits payment in the future.
Footnote
To all U.K. self-employed what damage will Sunak -Hunt -D.W.P. Tory Minster sick note rule do to your business if YOU get NO cash help will it close you all down as you cannot pay your bills without U.C. Benefit sick note help while on the sick DUE to ill heath Y-N?
The general attitude to sickness benefits is all wrong. When I was writing an economics newsletter, we used to say the following; “Why is Economania so upset by the cuts in social security? Quite apart from the inhumanity of it, it’s damaging to the economy. If you’re in the UK, that’s your economy, so you should be upset too. When, back in the 1880s, then German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck proposed what his critics called state socialism and we’ve come to know as social security, we understand he did so because, by giving small but regular amounts of money to the unemployed, the sick and disabled, and those too old and infirm to work, those people were turned into economic assets. Necessity dictated they spend the money they were given, increasing the velocity of money in the economy and creating an environment which encouraged corporate investment. Normal taxation, then as now, took care of any potential problems with inflation. This created what’s now known as a virtuous circle, one we should, if we had any education and sense, be emulating. Instead, we’re cutting benefits. This has the effect of reducing the velocity and amount of money in circulation, damaging the economy. Remember, the claimant spends it with the butcher who spends it with the baker who spends it with the candlestick maker. Social security is security for the whole neighbourhood as, when govt’s doing its job, despite the onset of hard times they know there’ll still be money circulating in the economy overall. Further, money that isn’t spent or ‘loaned’ into the economy isn’t ever actually created, so it’s wildly misleading to misrepresent austerity as savings, just as it is to represent savings as something the national economy needs when what we use for money, government IOUs we remind you, can be & are created to order.”” (See https://www.economania.co.uk/various-authors/why-social-security.htm)
While we can dismiss Sunak’s declaration of war as a feeble grasp at hanging on to power, one doomed to fail anyway as his incompetence is writ large beyond any deniability, we should be reminded there’s an economic aspect to it delineated above which is all too often overlooked. Every time small shopkeepers read of financial attacks on benefit claimants they ought to be enraged as if claimants aren’t being given it, they can’t be spending it in their local shops. Similarly retail SMEs should be aghast and complaining loudly against the fact so many £billions in potential turnover isn’t happening because people who ought to be claiming aren’t and probably don’t know they could be. This is an angle no-one except me (that I’m aware of) is using to push against the disabled’s treatment by the DWP (which is routinely harsh under all regimes) and it really ought to be being more widely used.