SO WHAT EXACTLY IS IT THAT YOU THINK, KEZIA?

From Private Eye.

WHY ARE WE WAITING?

This year’s Scottish Government budget made available up to £50m in Discretionary Housing Payments – widely agreed to be the most effective way of preventing evictions under the Bedroom Tax. However, the Scottish Government is currently prevented from providing the full level of support as the DWP has imposed a cap of £22.85m.

The Deputy First Minister wrote to the UK Government’s Welfare Minister, Mr Freud, five weeks ago to request that the legal restrictions on the amount the Scottish Government can provide in discretionary housing payments be lifted – but has yet to receive a reply.

WHY?

I thought that, if they had no other redeeming features, aristocrats, and Freud is one of them, always had impeccable manners.

To refuse a reply to Ms Sturgeon for 5 weeks, and on such an important matter, is hardly hardly good manners.

And certainly it's not what we pay him a ministerial salary for. It's not like he was elected by anyone ever. Rather he was a merchant banker known for his ability to find gold in a mound of silage (according to Dominic Lawson). And so he was Labour's man to reform the welfare system. 

He jumped ship from the Labour party and joined the Tories so that he was, with absolutely no experience (and by his own admission, no knowledge of social security) whatsoever, able to become a minister in the Tory government with a seat in the House of Lords and a blood transfusion.

Ho hum. Aristocrats just ain't what they used to be...

OUR SALARIES ARE IMPORTANT TO US: YOUR SUFFERING ISN'T

MPs in the Royal Palace of Westminster to discuss their pay increase... of around £8,000 a year, about £2,000 more a year than an OAP gets in pension.

The Tories and the Liberals have standing room only.

Then when they were obliged to discuss the effects that the social security cuts have had on the sick and disabled, oh look, most of them have disappeared. 

I think I can see 5 people from the government side who give atos. The benches which were most empty last time, are the ones which are full this time.

What does that say?

BETTER TOGETHER...WITH THIS LOT... WHAT???

Heartbreaking stories...

...Reminiscent of the 1800s

While this sort of scumbag looks down from on high
Lord Ponse

Makes you proud. Can this be the same nation that hosted the best
Olympic Games in the history of the universe?

Thousands have died and thousands more will die. Who cares?

Incompetent moron

Oh you'll think of something, you bastard

Way to save money...

...which can be redistributed upwards

The white powder is erm chalk

Oh and sharing nuclear secrets...given that no one
else will build your power stations

Only the best  for people of his quality

You deserve it George, for just being born.

I think you already have it

How very generous

Well, you have to look after your family ...

Fancy that, a French Viscount

No use asking me. I'm not George Osborne...thank heavens

Priorities, dear boy, priorities

Britain is a scam if you ask me.

Think about it.  You go to uni; you have £40,000 debt; you get on your bike, get a job and move into your own place, then you get paid off and want to move back in with your mum, but she's had to downsize because of bedroom tax, so you're homeless.  That's modern Britain's offer of a future for young people

Way to go George. You know a thing of two about economics

Greedy spiv

That is just such an insult to the post and the turtle...
 and the bits of dead grass you can see

THERE WAS GOOD NEWS ABOUT APPRENTICESHIPS IN SCOTLAND... BUT NOW THERE IS...

Putting ability first: Isn't that what IDS's scheme is all about...supposedly? So why shut an organisation that does that, and has done it since 1946? You'd only do that if it were about saving money... and it can't be that, because the government says it not.

Bad News: A Remploy worker was found dead on the day his factory closed down.

Disabled grandfather George Scollan had worked at the factory in Glasgow’s Springburn since 1973.

The 58-year-old was found dead in a guest house in Firhill Road, Maryhill, at around 10.10am on Thursday.

Mr Scollan, who had mobility issues and learning difficulties, was the leader of a team of oxy-acetylene brazers assembling wheelchairs at the factory.

Phil Brannan a friend and senior shop steward for the GMB/Unite consortium at Remploy, said: “This is an absolute tragedy. It’s too early to say what has happened, but it is too much of a coincidence for him to be found dead on the day his work closed down.

“As far as I know, he wasn’t suffering any particular health issues, but he had become extremely upset recently about the work situation.

“He had applied for a job with one of the organisations taking people on from Remploy, but he was unsuccessful and he was bitterly disappointed.”

Mr Brannan said: “George never claimed a day’s benefit in his life and he felt that once he had been made redundant he would be labelled as a scrounger.

“Through no fault of his own, he lost his job today. The government know full well that many of these people now face long-term unemployment. It is a disgrace.” [Scotsman]

As his friend said, it is too early to state the cause for certain, but it is an incredible and horrible coincidence that he died on the day of his factory's closure, given his state of depression.

It seems to me completely counter-intuitive, that a government which says that it is important for sick and disabled people to do what they can work-wise, not because they want to save money from the welfare bill, but because it is good for their health, their self esteem, the economy, the country, in fact everyone, should at the same time, be shutting down the very means by which they can do this.

Remploy was set up by an act in 1944, to employ people disabled in the second world war, and later for others who were for one reason or another in need to employment in a protected environment. But, despite protestations that welfare reform is nothing to do with costs, the government is closing the Remploy factories which do not make a profit! 

So, when they say that it's not about the money, they are lying.

It is notable that Mr Scollan had worked for 40 years, since he was 18, in the factory and had never claimed benefits, but was afraid of being labelled a scrounger. 

So that's what you have done, Mr Duncan Smith, Mr Grayling, Mr Cameron, Ms Davidson and yes, you too, Johann Lamont. You have people who have worked all their days, in this case with the odds stacked against them, terrified of being labelled scroungers...by the biggest scroungers in the country. Oh, the irony.

Open Letter to Iain Duncan Smith

Sue, at the Diary of a Benefit Scrounger has written this heart wrenching appeal to IDS to think again over Welfare Reform. She asks for it to receive as big an audience as possible and I'm happy to do my humble best to help her achieve that end. Not everyone who claims benefit is a scrounger, although that is the mindset that successive governments have been happy to foster. This, is what it is like for so many people, and this is what we are cutting funding for, while being involved in two wars.

The day you get that diagnosis is the day that the blood runs cold in your veins

Sound is muffled in your ears, shock runs through you and you know in that moment that nothing will ever be the same again.

Life, that always seemed so ordered and full of potential becomes precious. A gift greater than any you ever appreciated. A privilege, not a right. Your own mortality comes crashing in around you, redefining love and hope and dreams for the future. Everything will change forever in that one horrifying moment.

If the unthinkable happens to one you love, the sense of impotence and fear is worse. You want it to be you. You'd give anything to change things around, to take away all the pain and suffering. You want to take on every invasive test, every painful procedure. You want it to be you laying there, pail and weak, vomiting endless traces of chemo or morphine into a grey cardboard tray.

You want to be there. All the time. Every minute of every day. You want to protect the person you love most in the world, to fight for them, to arrange the very best care available. Suddenly work and meetings and focus groups are forgotten - irrelevant even - when contrasted with the battle for life.

Money won't save them. It might make things easier, speed up care or assure access to the most innovative treatments, but the battle is yours and yours alone. Together.

You grieve. Grieve for the carefree days, the easy confidence that good health brings. You grieve for the future, so cruelly and randomly threatened. You grieve for the love and support that always came first. You grieve for your children and the spectre that now hangs above their heads every minute of every day. Youngsters become carers and you grieve for the easy innocence they will never know again.

The luckiest of all might be able to leave work that very moment, rush home and gather up family in strong, caring arms. The luckiest will only have to face a battle with the disease now tearing their family apart, with little thought for other practicalities.

Most are not that lucky.

Most will find that just as their world falls apart, they must still pay the mortgage, still feed the children, still keep working hard. They will suffer endless, unimagined agonies as they try to keep all the balls in the air, desperate to fight side by side with their soul mate but unable to do so.

They might lose a wage. Suddenly and without warning their income may half just as they need it most. They may have no choice but to watch in terror as their modest savings drain away, placing fear of poverty side by side with the fear of death.

Is there anything worse? Could there be anything worse than finding your life turned upside down in every area? Job under threat, home at risk, ambitions and dreams destroyed? As your children's faces become etched with fear, do you tell them Mummy will be OK? Do you keep your financial fears to yourself? Do you take on every burden until the pressure gets too much? Do you try to do the work of 10 men? Superman at work, loving support at the hospital bed, devoted father and capable housekeeper? Can you bear the pressure or do you crack yourself?

There is something worse.

Finding that there is no cure.

Finding that there are no magic chemo bullets to stamp out the darkness, no dazzling operations to cut out the contagion. Treatments are patchy - the doctors tell you if you're lucky they can "manage" your condition, but from this day, life will be about survival. Forever.

The treatments won't stop in a month or a year, but they will still make you vomit or send shooting pains through your skull or make you so sensitive to sunlight that you can no longer go outside. No longer take your children to the park or dig sandcastles in the hazy summer sun. They might make you weak, or angry or depressed. They might cause more symptoms than the disease itself, but they keep you alive and "alive" is all those who love you need. Do anything Mummy, but don't die.

The boss who's been so supportive can't support you forever. 6 months, maybe even a year, but in the end, even the most caring boss will have to draw the line. What do you do? Who will care for your family while you work? Is you child old enough to call an ambulance if she has to? Would she know where the special pills are kept in case Mummy won't wake up? Can you teach her your work number or do you fret and worry through every day, never knowing what you will return home to?

Things won't improve. A grey faced doctor might tell you gently that they will only ever get worse. Functions will fail, dignity will crumble, every previously automatic task will need thought and support. There will be wheelchairs or oxygen tanks or feeding tubes. You will have to learn to change incontinence-bags or give injections or rig up sterile feeds. You will have to find money for a hoist or a voice recognition system.

One day, Mummy might not be able to answer. She may not be able to walk or leave her bed. Birthday parties will have to move upstairs to a fetid room that smells of the end, but you will smile brittle smiles and put up bunting, pretending that nothing has changed. You will all laugh a little too shrilly, jump just a little too nervously, but you will pretend. When the kids are safely tucked up and your partner is finally sleeping a tortured morphine sleep, you will cry great heart wrenching sobs into a cushion so nobody hears.

There are legions of us Iain. Probably millions. We fight great battles every day. We find resilience and love we never knew existed. We find pride in the face of indignity, hope in the face of despair. Our relationships are tested every day and every day we have to whisper "but I love them". Every day, that love has to win. Every day, love is all we have left to get us through.

We pretend the poverty doesn't matter and when faced with life or death, it's funny, but it doesn't seem to matter so much. An afternoon in a park at the beginning of spring, watching the children climb steps to great slide-summits, their joyous eyes flashing in the watery sun is almost too much pleasure to bear. The poignancy of knowing it could always be the last time makes the simplest things precious.

We pretend our ambitions and dreams were not important. Strange, but when your ambition becomes surviving to see your children married, it's true, they don't matter so much.

We pretend we're strong, but we only have the strength we all have, buried deep inside us. We just have to dig deep down to find it. Every day. Forever.

****************

This is why you cannot decide, randomly, that after a year, our families must struggle on alone. A year?? Why Time Limit ESA to a year? Why remove all support from these vulnerable families after one year? Why not 6 months or 3 years or a day? It bears no relationship to the real world, it is policy designed by Dali.

This is why you cannot make us wait 6 months for Disability Living Allowance. Why 6 months? By then we may be bankrupt, we may have lost our homes. We may be dead. The state may end up paying much more through picking up the pieces than in supporting us fairly from day one.

This is why more people must qualify for long term support and go into the Support Group of ESA. Because at the moment, you are failing people with lives like mine. People with Parkinson's and Arthritis and MS. Mothers and sons, daughters and fathers. People with lupus, schizophrenia, bowel disease, kidney failure, epilepsy, personality disorder, heart disease, COPD and thousands of less well known conditions that destroy lives. Countless things as devastating as cancer and some more so.

This is not "welfare." Welfare means to fare well. It is the mark of compassion and evolution in a democratic society. It means no-one should be left in absolute desperation. Your policies are causing this total desperation and I'm sure it is not what you want to do or set out to do.

By all means reform. Goodness knows the system does need to change, but the great myth is that it needs bigger sticks to beat us with and stricter reasons to ensure we do not qualify. Please Iain, listen to me today. You have all beat us hard enough for many years. There is nothing more to squeeze or remove or deny. We live in poverty and uncertainly already, and we have reached a tipping point. Labour's ESA was disastrous enough and already failing. Time limiting, tightening the descriptors yet again and leaving a lengthy qualifying period for DLA is going to cause real hardship and suffering.

Please listen. Please think again.

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