Some much needed positive news....
As most of you know
Sue Marsh has been co-ordinating a report researched, authored and
funded by sick and disabled people which is released formally on
monday.
As happens with every government welfare report, mysteriously,
somehow, details leaked out to the media yesterday and so the coverage
has already started. It turns out that Boris Johnson's submission to the
DLA reform consultation which closed in February 2011 was the smoking
gun we needed and the government hoped no-one would ever find. The
Mayor's submission stood out from the other consultation responses, not
because it was supportive of our claims (almost all the submissions
were) but because it was incredibly thoughtful, well written and
researched. Some people are concerned that this may be to do with
forthcoming mayoral elections. Whilst we understand the concern, we do
not believe that is the case as the Mayor's submission was completed in
February 2011 along with all the other submissions. It would be very
helpful if we could all let Boris Johnson know how much we appreciate
his carefully considered and supportive statement over the weekend.
We desperately need to keep up the momentum over the weekend to ensure this becomes an even bigger story.
We
all need to pull together to make this happen. If everyone shares the
news on their facebook, twitter, google+, blog, email list, friends,
family etc we can keep the focus on the report.
AllBigIdeas is collating a list of the news articles here and so far we've had coverage in;
The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Mirror and The Mail!!
Yes, you read that correctly. No you're not dreaming. The Daily Mail
have actually covered a welfare story, from a welfare campaigners
perspective and had to include the fact that the fraud rate for DLA is
only 0.5%. Left Foot Forward
have always led the way amongst the political blogs with their support
for sick and disabled people's campaign against the Welfare Reform Bill
and have gone above and beyond the call of duty to help us. They would
never ask us for anything in return, but one way we can all thank them
for their support is to ensure their articles are widely publicised.
So please, share these stories everywhere, with everyone you
know. Leave your opinion in the comment threads, email the papers,
contact your local media, tell everyone and anyone. Keep watch here, on Sue's blog and The Broken of Britain and Where's The Benefit for us letting you know the latest developments and most of all take a moment to step back and think.
Finally we are breaking through. We can be ignored no longer. We have
truth and justice on our side. The next few weeks will be the fight of
our lives, but no-one is better prepared for that than us. We are people
who face and overcome challenges in our everyday lives bigger than many
ever have to face in a lifetime. We are used to dealing with confusing
bureaucracy, lack of proper support and having to find our own
solutions. Above all we know how to endure, that however dark the night,
tomorrow will be another day and eventually we find another way.
If you are scared, remember you are not alone. We have come
together to show the true power of our community and that we will not be
ignored. If you think you won't be affected by these cuts, remember
those who will. If you think it'll never happen to you, remember
anyone's life can and does change in an instant. We fight this battle
not just for ourselves, but for you, your family and loved ones to make
sure that in the darkest times of your life the protection you need and
have given to us will be there for you.
With love from Kaliya and Sue.
"Alone We Whisper. Together We Shout"
Non-partisan UK-based Disability campaign. Advocacy for people with invisible illness and/or physical & mental health conditions. Also Carers, their Families and Friends. Our individual voices are too quiet to be heard, but collectively we can shout loud enough to drown out this tide of abuse against us. Disability Hate Crime, lack of full legal protection, people in care homes costing too much to be let out and not one political party willing to fight for us.
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Monday, 2 January 2012
Open Comment to Liam Byrne
I just posted this in response to Liam Byrne's article in the Guardian.
"And what do you propose Liam? When you disappear off into your think tanks and focus groups?
For over a year, you have avoided meeting with me. You promised, but you haven't discussed your plans with sick and disabled people.
You talk of "unearned support" Liam, but this is the Guardian! Here, on these comment threads, we all know the details of ESA, DLA, contributory time limiting and independent living funds very well - almost certainly much, much better than you do Liam. We know about the hundreds of thousands terrified about what happens to those who CANNOT earn support. Until recently, we believed you gave it freely.
You have the audacity to attack an erosion of ESA?(time limiting) When it was your government who introduced this terrible failure? Your government who wrote the descriptors making it simply impossible for many conditions to qualify? "like employment and support allowance that working people have actually paid in for."
Then, you dare to criticise the appeals system for the failure of ESA? When you have ignored me and Kaliya Franklin and all others who have been trying to warn you for years? When we warned you repeatedly? when we tried everything, some risking their lives to engage with you? "current chaos in the assessment of those on disability benefits, with spiralling appeal times and poor back-to-work support, deeply troubling."
You let Ed loose in the Daily Mail then think you can throw us a bone with a few tag on lines about ESA and disability? We already know this is a pattern! Give the scroungers a good kicking then say something nice and fluffy about sick and disabled people in the Guardian.
NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
I strongly recommend you stop dreaming up ways in which the welfare state can be auctioned off to the highest private bidder - even planning the very systems in partnership with those very same businesses and insurers.
I suggest you :
Listen to the suggestions and alternatives of disabled people.
Look at our ideas and policy suggestions
Stop designing policy based on a complete disregard for the evidence
IMMEDIATELY stop reinforcing the scrounger narrative - it makes a Labour Party look utterly ridiculous and confirms dangerous stereotypes.
We will win the public Liam. I promise you. By 2015, we will have made this the "NHS 1997" issue.
So stop casting around for spurious, tough-talk soundbites, that conveniently stuff a few billion more in private pockets and get a real strategy on disability.
I suggest you do it very quickly indeed. Those prepared to apologise for these failures may retain some credibility.
The arrogant will simply be exposed as those who oversaw the biggest abuse of sickness and disability rights and protections since the welfare state was introduced."
"And what do you propose Liam? When you disappear off into your think tanks and focus groups?
For over a year, you have avoided meeting with me. You promised, but you haven't discussed your plans with sick and disabled people.
You talk of "unearned support" Liam, but this is the Guardian! Here, on these comment threads, we all know the details of ESA, DLA, contributory time limiting and independent living funds very well - almost certainly much, much better than you do Liam. We know about the hundreds of thousands terrified about what happens to those who CANNOT earn support. Until recently, we believed you gave it freely.
You have the audacity to attack an erosion of ESA?(time limiting) When it was your government who introduced this terrible failure? Your government who wrote the descriptors making it simply impossible for many conditions to qualify? "like employment and support allowance that working people have actually paid in for."
Then, you dare to criticise the appeals system for the failure of ESA? When you have ignored me and Kaliya Franklin and all others who have been trying to warn you for years? When we warned you repeatedly? when we tried everything, some risking their lives to engage with you? "current chaos in the assessment of those on disability benefits, with spiralling appeal times and poor back-to-work support, deeply troubling."
You let Ed loose in the Daily Mail then think you can throw us a bone with a few tag on lines about ESA and disability? We already know this is a pattern! Give the scroungers a good kicking then say something nice and fluffy about sick and disabled people in the Guardian.
NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
I strongly recommend you stop dreaming up ways in which the welfare state can be auctioned off to the highest private bidder - even planning the very systems in partnership with those very same businesses and insurers.
I suggest you :
Listen to the suggestions and alternatives of disabled people.
Look at our ideas and policy suggestions
Stop designing policy based on a complete disregard for the evidence
IMMEDIATELY stop reinforcing the scrounger narrative - it makes a Labour Party look utterly ridiculous and confirms dangerous stereotypes.
We will win the public Liam. I promise you. By 2015, we will have made this the "NHS 1997" issue.
So stop casting around for spurious, tough-talk soundbites, that conveniently stuff a few billion more in private pockets and get a real strategy on disability.
I suggest you do it very quickly indeed. Those prepared to apologise for these failures may retain some credibility.
The arrogant will simply be exposed as those who oversaw the biggest abuse of sickness and disability rights and protections since the welfare state was introduced."
Sunday, 1 January 2012
A New Year's Message From The Broken Of Britain
"There is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow beyond grief which leads to joy
and a fragility out of whose depths emerges strength.
There is a hollow space too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being.
There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart as we break open
to the place inside which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing."
~ Rashani
a shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow beyond grief which leads to joy
and a fragility out of whose depths emerges strength.
There is a hollow space too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being.
There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart as we break open
to the place inside which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing."
~ Rashani
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Now it's Real. First Cancer Patients, Now Government slash benefits for Disabled Children
Last night, the House of Lords failed to support an amendment put down by Tanni Grey-Thompson, the most successful paralympian of all time, to protect the benefits of disabled children once Universal Credit is introduced.
You can read more here http://www.family-action.org.uk/section.aspx?id=14225 but effectively, under universal credit, all but the most profoundly disabled children will only get half as much support. Child Tax Credit additions for disabled children will fall from £52.21 per week to £25.95 per week - a loss of £1366 per year, or £20,000 over the course of a childhood.
You might wonder what possible argument a government who promised to "protect the most vulnerable" could possibly make for this change. I myself was fascinated to see how on earth they had justified throwing disabled children to the wolves.
Ready? OK, if they didn't betray disabled children, it would just have to be disabled adults. After all, disabled children have parents to look after them. What's more, if they didn't cut money used to buy wheelchairs and incontinence pads for disabled children, they wouldn't be able to afford to address the hideous failures of ESA (Employment and Support Allowance or sickness benefit) and ensure that all those who qualify for long term support, get it.
Could there be a more disgusting example of divide and conquer? Each man for himself. The image of a Victorian gent throwing a handful of pennies on the floor and leaving the cripples to fight it out amongst themselves comes to mind.
And remember, this is no longer theory.
I've been writing about these issues for 18 months now, sadly my blogs have often contained doom and gloom predictions of horrors to come. Well last night they started to come in a first blaze of in-glory. The Welfare Reform Bill is now at Report Stage in the Lords. These votes will almost certainly decide what becomes law and what doesn't. For disabled children, now it's too late.
Shame on us.
There is one more session before Xmas. Then 4 sessions after Xmas, then the final no-going-back vote to pass the bill. There is still time to lobby peers. There is still time to stop the time limiting of ESA. http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2011/12/time-limiting-esa-template-letter-to.html There is still time to oppose PiP and abolishing Disability Allowance. http://onemonthbeforeheartbreak.blogspot.com/ There is still time to fight Clause 52 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/08/conservative-compassion-disabled-sick and housing benefit changes that will leave thousands of sick and disabled people at risk of homelessness.
In a week where the government suggested all cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy ought to be assessed to see if they can work or not, I can only wonder where this will all lead. I can only hope history is no guide the future
If I can find any tiny silver lining, it is that we only lost by 2 votes. That is the closest vote I have seen so far.
2 votes. 2 Lords. 2 letters, 2 emails, 2 tweets.
There is still all to play for, but sadly disabled children just fought the last stage of their fight. And lost.
You can read more here http://www.family-action.org.uk/section.aspx?id=14225 but effectively, under universal credit, all but the most profoundly disabled children will only get half as much support. Child Tax Credit additions for disabled children will fall from £52.21 per week to £25.95 per week - a loss of £1366 per year, or £20,000 over the course of a childhood.
You might wonder what possible argument a government who promised to "protect the most vulnerable" could possibly make for this change. I myself was fascinated to see how on earth they had justified throwing disabled children to the wolves.
Ready? OK, if they didn't betray disabled children, it would just have to be disabled adults. After all, disabled children have parents to look after them. What's more, if they didn't cut money used to buy wheelchairs and incontinence pads for disabled children, they wouldn't be able to afford to address the hideous failures of ESA (Employment and Support Allowance or sickness benefit) and ensure that all those who qualify for long term support, get it.
Could there be a more disgusting example of divide and conquer? Each man for himself. The image of a Victorian gent throwing a handful of pennies on the floor and leaving the cripples to fight it out amongst themselves comes to mind.
And remember, this is no longer theory.
I've been writing about these issues for 18 months now, sadly my blogs have often contained doom and gloom predictions of horrors to come. Well last night they started to come in a first blaze of in-glory. The Welfare Reform Bill is now at Report Stage in the Lords. These votes will almost certainly decide what becomes law and what doesn't. For disabled children, now it's too late.
Shame on us.
There is one more session before Xmas. Then 4 sessions after Xmas, then the final no-going-back vote to pass the bill. There is still time to lobby peers. There is still time to stop the time limiting of ESA. http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2011/12/time-limiting-esa-template-letter-to.html There is still time to oppose PiP and abolishing Disability Allowance. http://onemonthbeforeheartbreak.blogspot.com/ There is still time to fight Clause 52 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/08/conservative-compassion-disabled-sick and housing benefit changes that will leave thousands of sick and disabled people at risk of homelessness.
In a week where the government suggested all cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy ought to be assessed to see if they can work or not, I can only wonder where this will all lead. I can only hope history is no guide the future
If I can find any tiny silver lining, it is that we only lost by 2 votes. That is the closest vote I have seen so far.
2 votes. 2 Lords. 2 letters, 2 emails, 2 tweets.
There is still all to play for, but sadly disabled children just fought the last stage of their fight. And lost.
Saturday, 10 December 2011
Time Limiting ESA - Template Letter to Lords
Yesterday, I asked you all to write to a Lib Dem peer and plead with them to vote against time limiting ESA to just one year.
Today, I've written a template letter for you to use. Template letters are certainly less effective - many parliamentarians won't open more than one or two of them. However, they are better than not writing at all. For every peer who receives 5, 10, 50 template letters, at least they get to see the strength of feeling people have over an issue.
If you don't have the confidence to write your own, please use this one. Peers might also remember that I write for disabled people. Many cannot write a letter themselves. Due to physical or mental disabilities, I have often had comments from those so very grateful that a template letter I have provided allowed them to engage democratically.
*************
"Dear .........................
I am writing to you in the hope that you will vote against time limiting ESA to just one year in the coming welfare reform bill Report Stage and Third Reading.
-700,000 people with serious illnesses and impairments will be affected by this policy, many losing any right to an independent income. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/esa-time-limit-wr2011-ia.pdf
-The means test is set at just £7,500 per year, meaning that a partner must support an unwell or disabled loved one if they earn more than this.
-Families already overwhelmingly living in poverty will lose £4661 per year. This is three times as much as higher rate taxpayers will lose in child benefit.
-This policy only affects working families and savers as it only applies to those who have contributed NI or have savings over £6000.
-It is a disincentive to work and will only encourage families to break down http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/esa-time-limit-wr2011-ia.pdf
-The only justification ministers have given for this policy is that "We can't afford it" Sick and disabled people with limited capability for work are conflated with jobseekers as ministers claim ESA must be brought into line with JSA
-Ministers admit that 94% of those affected will not have found work by the end of the year. They also insist that it is irrelevant whether or not they have recovered. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/esa-time-limit-wr2011-ia.pdf
-People with serious, lifelong, and degenerative conditions will all be affected by this. People with MS, Cancer, Parkinsons, Bowel Disease, Kidney Failure, Heart Disease, Lung Disease, Schizophrenia, Bi-Polar and many many more conditions will lose benefits, left in limbo until they are judged unable to do any kind of work at all,. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmworpen/1015/1015vw44.htm
At your annual conference this year, Liberal Democrat members voted overwhelmingly to oppose an "arbitrary time limit" on ESA. http://carons-musings.blogspot.com/2011/09/please-support-glasgow-norths-brilliant.html Please, please, stand by the wishes of your grassroots and of your party and oppose this cruellest of measures.
We are relying on you to help us. Only Liberal Democrat peers can provide a majority and ensure that a one year time limit on sickness benefits is not made law. Please, you promised to protect the most vulnerable and if ever a policy hit the most vulnerable the hardest, then it is time limiting ESA.
Many thanks
........................
************
Here is a link to Lib Dem Peers. Simply click on it, pick a letter of the alphabet at random, and copy and paste in the letter. http://www.libdems.org.uk/peers.aspx
The more you can do, the more we can persuade. Thank you.
Finally, please keep up the pressure and RT, share on Facbook, email to friends and feel free to cross post this.
Today, I've written a template letter for you to use. Template letters are certainly less effective - many parliamentarians won't open more than one or two of them. However, they are better than not writing at all. For every peer who receives 5, 10, 50 template letters, at least they get to see the strength of feeling people have over an issue.
If you don't have the confidence to write your own, please use this one. Peers might also remember that I write for disabled people. Many cannot write a letter themselves. Due to physical or mental disabilities, I have often had comments from those so very grateful that a template letter I have provided allowed them to engage democratically.
*************
"Dear .........................
I am writing to you in the hope that you will vote against time limiting ESA to just one year in the coming welfare reform bill Report Stage and Third Reading.
-700,000 people with serious illnesses and impairments will be affected by this policy, many losing any right to an independent income. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/esa-time-limit-wr2011-ia.pdf
-The means test is set at just £7,500 per year, meaning that a partner must support an unwell or disabled loved one if they earn more than this.
-Families already overwhelmingly living in poverty will lose £4661 per year. This is three times as much as higher rate taxpayers will lose in child benefit.
-This policy only affects working families and savers as it only applies to those who have contributed NI or have savings over £6000.
-It is a disincentive to work and will only encourage families to break down http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/esa-time-limit-wr2011-ia.pdf
-The only justification ministers have given for this policy is that "We can't afford it" Sick and disabled people with limited capability for work are conflated with jobseekers as ministers claim ESA must be brought into line with JSA
-Ministers admit that 94% of those affected will not have found work by the end of the year. They also insist that it is irrelevant whether or not they have recovered. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/esa-time-limit-wr2011-ia.pdf
-People with serious, lifelong, and degenerative conditions will all be affected by this. People with MS, Cancer, Parkinsons, Bowel Disease, Kidney Failure, Heart Disease, Lung Disease, Schizophrenia, Bi-Polar and many many more conditions will lose benefits, left in limbo until they are judged unable to do any kind of work at all,. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmworpen/1015/1015vw44.htm
At your annual conference this year, Liberal Democrat members voted overwhelmingly to oppose an "arbitrary time limit" on ESA. http://carons-musings.blogspot.com/2011/09/please-support-glasgow-norths-brilliant.html Please, please, stand by the wishes of your grassroots and of your party and oppose this cruellest of measures.
We are relying on you to help us. Only Liberal Democrat peers can provide a majority and ensure that a one year time limit on sickness benefits is not made law. Please, you promised to protect the most vulnerable and if ever a policy hit the most vulnerable the hardest, then it is time limiting ESA.
Many thanks
........................
************
Here is a link to Lib Dem Peers. Simply click on it, pick a letter of the alphabet at random, and copy and paste in the letter. http://www.libdems.org.uk/peers.aspx
The more you can do, the more we can persuade. Thank you.
Finally, please keep up the pressure and RT, share on Facbook, email to friends and feel free to cross post this.
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