15 Nov

Crippen and the DWP’s terrible and inexcusable treatment of disabled people

Posted by crippencartoons in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , .

The way the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has treated disabled people in the last 15 years “will go down in history as a terrible and inexcusable crime”, MPs were told this week during a debate on the new government’s budget.

Independent MP Apsana Begum told fellow MP’s during a debate on the Labour government’s budget that there was “extensive evidence about the serious harm caused to people subjected to dehumanising assessments and sanctions, including reports of deaths (as highlighted in John Pring’s book ‘The Department’) directly related to the social security regime”.

She called for a “long-term overhaul of the social security system”, which she said was “not fit for purpose”.

Begum was not the only MP to refer to the impact of the last government’s welfare reforms on disabled people.

Labour’s Emily Darlington, MP for Milton Keynes Central, reminded MPs on Monday that under previous Conservative governments, disabled people had taken their own lives due to welfare reform.

She said that 14 years of “failure” had also led to “three million people using food banks, more than 700,000 children plunged into poverty, mortgage costs nearly doubled, the worst pay rises since the 1950s… mental health worse than at any time on record, more people sleeping rough and more families without their own home”.

She said the Conservative party continued “to deny, to justify and to refuse to apologise to those people right across the country and in my constituency”.

You can read the full story in the Disability News Service article by John Pring

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

The setting is the Crown Court with all of the Tory MP’s who have been associated with DWP benefit changes crammed into the dock. On the floor in front of the judge and the jury are copies of Disability News Service. They each bare a headline telling of Tory and DWP complicity in subjecting disabled claimants to dehuminising assessments, sometimes leading to their deaths. Members of the jury are pointing at the ‘the accused’ with angry expressions. The judge is saying to them: “I think you’ll find that guilty is sufficient – rather than HANG THE TORY BASTARDS!!

27 Oct

Crippen shares a message

Posted by crippencartoons in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

A message from the disabled activists who took John Pring’s new book to Parliament.

Thanks to you we did it!

On 2nd September 2024, Disabled campaigners from across the UK took 650 copies of The Department: How a Violent Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence by John Pring to Parliament. Each one was in a black envelope individually addressed to each MP as a contribution from Pluto publishers.

TV stars Cherylee Houston and Lisa Hammond turned up on the day to help us carry the books along with representatives from Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations supporting the initiative.

Contrary to the advice that we had been given on a number of occasions when different members had contacted Parliament to confirm how best to make the delivery, the books were denied entrance. This meant that the meeting we had booked for MPs to come and hear about the further social security cuts that are planned as a continuation from Tory policy was not able to happen.

Instead, campaigners took a spontaneous decision to blockade the entrance to Parliament. After hours of stand off with the police, Parliament security agreed to get a vehicle to collect the books and take them to the security centre that checks mail.

We are in the process of checking with MPs if they received their copies of the books. So far it looks as if they did. We are in the process of working out our remaining budget to send copies to devolved and regional administrations in the UK.

We apologise for not having updated you meanwhile. We are all volunteers who try our best to be active on top of living with our disablement and we apologise for not being able to do everything as good as we should. We are tremendously grateful for the money that was donated to this and the sacrifices people made.

Links to coverage:

ITV reports on Mum wants answers

DNS report on Disabled activists defy bureaucrats

DNS report on Commons confirms MPs received book

The Canary report on DWP protest at parliament

Big Issue reports on book to MPs

Disability Rights UK report on delivery of book

Disability Rights UK report on activists lobby parliament

26 Oct

Crippen asks again “Fraud – What Fraud?!”

Posted by crippencartoons in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

They’re at it again, claiming that billions of pounds are being lost to fraudulant benefit claims, which includes those by people on long term sick and those who are disabled.

Where they get these figures from is a real mystery as the last government’s own figures showed that benefit fraud was at its lowest ever at less than 3.5%, much of which could be attributed to DWP error.

And you’ll remember it was ex-PM Rishi Sunak who claimed that millions were being  fraudulantly claimed through Personal Independent Payments (PIP) at the same time that DWP figures, released just days before Rishi Sunak called a general election, showed that overpayment of PIP due to fraud had dropped to Zero per cent, a fall from 0.2 per cent the previous year. 

So, where are they getting this misleading information from? Or, are they just making it all up? But why?

Perhaps it’s something about finding a scapegoat for the shambles that exists called ‘government’ and the billions of pounds that are lost, mis-appropriated or mis-managed by initially the Tory party and then the Labour party. The two words ‘piss-up’ and ‘brewery’ come to mind!

Or is it, as has been recently announced by Labour, just an excuse to access the bank accounts of all those who claim benefits? Just another example of the carrot being replaced by the stick once again?

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

Keir Starmer is standing behind a BBC microphone holding in his hand a script with the words ‘Billions stolen on benefits’. Other pieces of paper are spewing out of a printer behind him with ‘Fraud, fraud, fraud’, ‘Disabled are all workshy scroungers’ and ‘disabled costing billions in fraudulant claims’. Sitting at a computer is Labour MP Liz Kendall who is saying: “I wonder what they’ll say if they ever find out that we’re just recycling old Tory lies?!”. Starmer replies: “Don’t start thinking Liz – just keep with the programme!”.

20 Oct

Crippen warns about the UK End of Life Bill

Posted by crippencartoons in Uncategorized.

Disabled activists warned that a bill to allow assisted suicide for people with a terminal illness would pressure disabled people to end their lives prematurely, and that too little time had been set aside to understand its “far-reaching” implications.

Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) from across England and Wales have united to warn of the grave risks of proposed new legislation that would allow assisted suicide for people with a terminal illness. They believe parliament’s focus should be on improving access to health, care and other services. And they have outlined their ethical and human rights concerns in a briefing sent to MPs.

Kim Leadbeater’s terminally ill adults (end of life) bill received its first reading in the House of Commons yesterday (Wednesday) and is now set to be debated by MPs on 29 November. The bill would “allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to safeguards and protections, to request and be provided with assistance to end their own life”.

Ellen Clifford, co-ordinator of the UN monitoring coalition, told Disability News Service (DNS):

“Parliament only gets one go at this and if they get it wrong the consequences will be very dangerous both for individual people vulnerable to abuse and society as a whole. Our support services – palliative care, the NHS, social care and mental health – are currently broken. The government must get on and fix the foundations, so we all have the chance to live with dignity.”

Not Dead Yet UK (NDY UK), a grassroots group of disabled activists who campaign against legalisation, said laws introduced in other countries have started with “relatively strict parameters” but then “expand and expand”.

Phil Friend, co-convenor of NDY UK, explained:

“ … in a world where there is growing awareness of coercive control, and where we know that many do not receive adequate or appropriate medical care, pain management or social care, we are creating the conditions for people to find themselves agreeing that, yes, they should probably die, including to avoid feeling like a burden.”

Paula Peters, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), said the proposed bill had caused “deep concern and alarm for many disabled people”. She added:

“It is impossible to put strong enough safeguards in place to prevent coercion and feeling that we have become a burden on our families and the state. We fear that non-disabled people will be making choices about what is best for us and that our voices will be dismissed as they often are.”

Read the full story in DNS

Members of the UN Monitoring Coalition include The Alliance for Inclusive Education, All Wales People First, Disabled People Against Cuts, Disabled People Against Cuts Northern Ireland, Disability Rights UK, Disability Wales, Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, Liberation and The Omnibus Partnership in Northern Ireland

DPOs who have spoken out against the Bill include Not Dead Yet UK (NDY UK), Disability Rights UK, All Wales People First, Liberation, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Disability Wales and the Coalition of UK DPOs that monitor implementation of the UN Disability Convention.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

A balding, white male wheelchair user is travelling through a cemetery. A small sign in front of him says ‘Plots for Sale’. A larger sign alongside of him reads ‘Special discount – government discount for those disabled people who apply to take their plot earlier by signing a ‘do-not-resuscitate’ notice’.

20 Oct

Crippen shares an article by Bob Williams Findlay

Posted by crippencartoons in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Written by Bob Williams-Findlay October 2024

“In this post, I want to cover a number of tensions and contradictions which I believe run through ‘disability politics’. As ever, I define disability politics as being the social and political action required to end the imposition of disablement and its prime agency, disablism. Together they create the conditions whereby disabled people are excluded from and/or marginalised within mainstream social activity. Hence our Movement argued that we are ‘disabled by society’. I share this slick mantra, but at the same time believe we need greater clarity.

“I have previously argued that one of the biggest contradictions within early disability politics and more modern times is that disabled people want to be included in a society which actively excludes them. Capitalism is directly responsible for disablement, however, at differing points the needs of Capital requires society to adjust the unequal and differential treatment disabled people encounter. Here is another contradiction: welfarism cushioned the experience of social exclusion, on the one hand, whilst maintaining it on the other.

“It is understandable that disabled people have pushed for deinstitutionalisation and social inclusion; but to what extent is that feasible? Capitalist social relations rely heavily on the ability of the lower classes to sell their labour. Disabled Marxists tend to argue that this ‘need’ underpins the creation of disablement and the legitimising of it through disablism – the negative evaluation of impaired bodies which justified our social exclusion. Yet, as I have stated already, at times these evaluatons are watered down to encourage or force more groups of disabled people into the labour market. The neoliberal agenda since 2010 has adopted the carrot and stick approach.

“There is much to discuss about ‘work’, what it is, alongside exploring the various benefits and detriments involved. I can’t address these issues here. There is a view that ‘work’ means a degree of security, improved health for some and greater spending power. For me the issue is not about whether or not disabled people can/should work, but rather the impact of disablism on people who are of working age – how are they being both judged and treated.

“In the film, “When Barbara Met Alan”, one of the slogans heard was: ‘we want, what you got’. This raises many issues in my opinion and relates to what I call the ‘disability dialectic’. Disabled people cannot fit into the status quo; if we could, then we would not be ‘disabled by society’. So we fight to ‘transform’ society which means going up against the interests of Capital. We have always fought for ‘betterment’; making our lives better, but only through overthrowing the status quo will it be possible to build an inclusive society.

“So the last contradiction I want to pose is: what does ‘nothing about us, without us’ actually mean in the context of opposing discrimination and oppression? Some want a seat at Liz Kendall’s Taskforce table; to do what exactly? Disabled people were not included in the agenda setting; it is highly unlikely that agenda will address institutional disablism in the labour market. When Rachel Hurst and I promoted political coproduction [the meaning of NAU,WU] it was not only agitational, it was underpinned by the demand for a shift in power relations. As a Trotskyist, I view ‘nothing about us, without us’ as a transitional demand because it challenges the existing oppressive relationships we are subjected to.

“I am not conviced the current disability politics practiced by today’s activists adequately address the structural nature of disablement when they go cap-in-hand demanding “Rights”. Rights are meaningless without the power to enforce them.

“The reason I co-founded DPAC was the unquestionable belief that we, disabled people, had to build a new social movement, foster a sense of community, and build alliances with allies. Over the last 15 years we have not made serious inroads because disability politics have lost their radical vision. Equally does not mean ‘sameness’; it is about people’s lives having ‘equal value’ and capitalism can never deliver that.”

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

A caricature of Bob Williams-Findlay stands alongs side a large stone edifice wielding a large sledge hammer. The edifice comprises of large stone blocks, each block representing the points he has made in the accompanying article about oppression by capitalism. Bob is saying: “Let’s show these oppressors the real use of disability politics and smash this edifice to the ground!”

6 Oct

Crippen hears how Mo Stewart informs the new Advisory Board

Posted by crippencartoons in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

Remember how Labour decided to ignore disabled people when it sent out invitations for people to join their new Labour Market Advisory Board?

Well, our good friend disabled researcher Mo Stewart has now been invited to provide information to the Advisory Board regarding the identified public health crisis and preventable harm created by UK social policy primary legislation. Certainly a step in the right direction eh?!

The sort of information that Mo will be providing is well documented, mostly from her own work as research lead of the preventable harm project and from her many publications including ‘The public health crisis created by UK social policy reforms’.

Mo addresses her concerns to Professor Paul Gregg, Chair of the new Advisory Board and also Professor of Economic and Social Policy in the Dept of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath. She has kindly shared these concerns with me, which, with her permission I will now share with you.

Mo notes that the Advisory Board boasts significant members but no disabled member, and certainly no one with any expertise regarding the identified government induced public health crisis now ongoing in the UK. This crisis is negatively impacting on the health, wellbeing and survival of many of the chronically ill and disabled community who are unable to work.

It is also linked to a disturbing number of suicides of some of those in greatest need following relentless intimidation by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) when adopting the politics of fear using the fatally flawed Work Capability Assessment (WCA) to restrict disability benefit access. This was also identified by Professor Jonathan Portes as ‘one of the biggest social policy failures in the past 20-30 years.’

She also notes that Liz Kendall, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for the Labour administration, has invited the involvement of the new Advisory Board when working towards her planned White Paper. However, her comments since taking office demonstrates the same disturbing commentary as the previous Conservative administration regarding the numbers of people who claim disability benefits. This continuing demonisation of chronically ill and disabled people who are not in paid employment, is based on fake news and right-leaning ideology.

Mo tells Professor Gregg that, whilst she fully comprehends that he has a job to do, he should also consider that there has never been any evidence of vast numbers of fake disability benefit claims. That the hostile political rhetoric attacking disability benefit claimants adopted since 2010 by the various governments has worked well, as indicated by the rise in prosecuted disability hate crimes which climbed by 213% during the Coalition government‘s term in office (2010-15). All this of course aided by the tabloid press.

Mo concludes by reminding Professor Gregg that we are living in very dark and dangerous times since the adoption of neoliberal politics in the UK. This, coupled with the influence of corporate America with UK social policy reforms since 1992, and the adoption of social policies introduced using a fiscal priority whilst disregarding the health, wellbeing and survival of those in greatest need, has guaranteed that many people would be ‘killed by the state’ with no-one held to account.

Further, there is a disturbing history of preventable harm against those in greatest need created by successive UK neoliberal administrations and identified by a multitude of academics from a variety of universities, which is detailed in published evidence routinely disregarded by the DWP.

Well, that should give Professor Gregg and his colleagues on the Advisory Board food for thought. … Let’s see what they do with it?

NB: What’s also worrying is that years later, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for the Coalition administration is still attacking the disabled community ‘languishing on benefit’ in his column in the Telegraph, without providing any evidence. It would appear that this man has a habit of using false statistics to gain attention to his hostile rhetoric and has even been challenged by the UK Statistics Authority who identified his many claims advising that they were ‘unsupported by the official statistics’. It’s also worrying that he now appears to be an advisor to the Labour government.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

Professor Paul Gregg, Chair of the new Labour Market Advisory Board is sat at a large table. He is wearing informal clothing and is holding a document that says ‘Preventable harm project’ whilst on the table in front of him are other documents reading ‘Killed by the state’ and ‘High rate of suicide’. Alongside of him are a suited man and a woman and also Iain Duncan Smith (IDS) who is wearing an ID badge with ‘DWP Advisor’ printed upon it. Gregg is asking: “So is someone going to tell me who this Mo Stewart is?!”. The man and the woman are both saying; “Er …” whilst IDS is thinking: “Oh shit!”

1 Oct

Crippen asks “Fraud – What Fraud?!

Posted by crippencartoons in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , .

You may remember back in April of this year I ran a blog article about the DWP hiring more covert surveillance officers to track down disabled people who were fraudulently claiming benefits. At the time the government’s own figures showed that benefit fraud was at its lowest ever at less than 3.5%, much of which could be attributed to DWP error.

Well, having got rid of the Tory’s, we now have a labour government that has decided to continue with the harmful rhetoric that the DWP continue to pump out to a gullible public through the national press. But how did this attack against disabled people start, especially those claiming benefits because they cannot find accessible employment?

You’ll remember the Coalition administration elected in 2010? Well, it was this administration that started to change the public’s perception of disabled people. They vehemently challenged the integrity of the chronically ill and disabled community and routinely accused disability benefit claimants of fraud while failing to produce evidence to support their claims. Their often hostile rhetoric encouraged a 213 percent increase in prosecuted disability hate crimes, with successive administrations disregarded the thousands of deaths directly linked to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA).

And what with recent stats from the Home Office revealing that disability hate crime has risen by 43%. It doesn’t take much of a leap to connect this to the vitriol being pumped out by the DWP.

If you’ve read Mo Stewart’s book you’ll know how the WCA “ … was adopted using a discredited and dangerous biopsychosocial model of assessment to restrict access to long-term disability benefit. Influenced by corporate America since 1992, the UK social policy reforms guaranteed that many of those in greatest need were destined to die when, covertly, killed by the State.”

Sounds a bit dramatic, doesn’t it? “Killed by the state”. But this has exactly what has been happening since Margaret Thatcher started her devotion to neoliberal politics, which is the ideology that supports free market competition with an emphasis on minimal State intervention, would eventually be identified as being at ‘the root of all our problems’ (Monbiot, 2016).

Thatcher’s well-documented insistence that the welfare state was an unacceptable financial burden on the public purse, opened the door to the influence of corporate America with UK social policy reforms and the ‘planned demolition of the UK welfare state’ (Stewart, 2016).

Incidentally, every 30 years confidential Cabinet Papers from past UK governments are released into the public domain. In 2012, the 1982 Cabinet Papers from the first Thatcher administration (1979–83) were released, offering evidence demonstrating the political expectation to eventually demolish the UK welfare state, including the National Health Service (NHS).

It’s all there folks, you just have to dig for it as John Pring, disabled Editor of Disability News Service (DNS) and Mo Stewart, disabled researcher and lead on the Preventable Harm project, have done. Mo writes:

“Thatcher’s social policy right-leaning neoliberal legacy has been continued by every successive administration. This included introducing American corporate influence for the development of UK social policy reforms by the Major administration (1990–97) (Stewart, 2018); the adoption of American social and labour market policies by the Blair administration (1997–2007) (Daguerre, 2004; Daguerre and Taylor-Gooby, 2004); the adoption of the Work Capability Assessment in 2008 to limit access to the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) disability benefit by the Brown administration (2007–10) (Gentleman, 2011); and the increased use of sanctions, which removed all income to successfully intimidate disability benefit claimants, and to starve some of them to death (Pring, 2020a), by the Cameron-Clegg Coalition administration (2010–15).”

In the Independent Living review of John Pring’s book they comment that: “As demonstrated in the ‘Department’, a disturbing number of chronically ill disability benefit claimants committed suicide, linked in no small measure to persecution by the DWP, and to the fear instilled by the relentless threat of sanctions that meant the total loss of their only income which guaranteed destitution.”

Description of cartoon for those people using screen reading software

The PM Keir Starmer and a Civil Servant are standing each side of a large Labour Part Press Release statement hung on the wall. It reads ‘Disabled benefits claimants are all work-shy scroungers with most of them fiddling the system and taking your hard earned money!’ On a table in front of them are four other cards. One reads: ‘Benefit fraud at its lowest rate ever’, another reads: ‘PIP fraud at zero!’, the third one reads ‘Disability hate crime up 43%’, and the final card reads: ‘DWP ignores research re 600 suicides linked to WCA’. The civil servant is asking the PM: “But Sir – what about the facts?!” whilst pointing at the cards upon the table. Starmer replies: “Facts – when have they ever played a part in politics?!”

28 Sep

Crippen discovers why we’re all so punch drunk!

Posted by crippencartoons in Uncategorized.

Our friends at Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) have been monitoring the language being used by the government recently.

Phrases like “punching down” and “hostile environment” appear amongst the usual retoric, along with the carbon copies of speeches once used by the Tory party.

Of course, I couldn’t resist using one of these phrases for a cartoon!

Interested in joining DPAC? Here’s the link.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

Kier Starmer PM is seen holding up a small wheelchair user by the scruff of his neck. Starmer is wearing a large boxing glove and the disabled person has a prominent black eye. Starmer is saying: “It’s what we refer to in the Labour Party as punching down!”

25 Sep

Crippen hears that Labour has sidelined disabled people from DWP ‘inactivity’ board

Posted by crippencartoons in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , .

Remember when Labour’s general election manifesto stated that it was “committed to championing the rights of disabled people and to the principle of working with them, so that their views and voices will be at the heart of all we do”.

Well, you’ll be forgiven for thinking that another party won the election because everything that they claimed to do on our behalf seems to have gone right out of the window!

As reported in Disability News Service (DNS), Disabled Rights activists have criticised the Labour government’s “hugely disappointing” and “exclusionary” decision to set up a board of experts to examine “economic inactivity” without appointing a single representative of a disabled people’s organisation.

Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall appears to have failed to appoint any disabled experts to the Labour Market Advisory Board, even though she made it clear that its key aim was tackling the “spiralling inactivity” caused by a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness.

But the eight members of the board, labour market experts from across business, industrial relations and academia, do not appear to include any disabled experts and certainly do not include representatives of any disabled people’s organisations (DPOs).

Disabled researcher Stef Benstead, author of Second Class Citizens, which describes the harm caused to disabled people by a decade of cuts and reforms, said: “It should not be thinkable for any modern government department to have an advisory board that does not include representatives of the community impacted by the policy proposals.”

Dan White, policy and campaigns officer for Disability Rights UK, said it was “hugely disappointing that not one disabled people’s organisation or disabled people’s expert representative” was on the board, despite Labour’s past commitments to involving disabled people in developing policy. Would any other group be left out of an expert board that is focused on their future?”

Inclusion London said it was “extremely concerned” that disabled people were “once again missing from an important forum where programmes targeting us will be shaped” with their senior policy and campaigns manager Julia Modern adding that:

“Under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the government is obliged to consult with disabled people”.

You can read the full article in DNS.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

Labour politicians Starmer, Reeves and Kendall are attending the Labour Party Conference 2024. Reeves is holding a card that reads ‘Disabled are scroungers’. Starmer’s card reads ‘Recycled Tory Speeches’ whilst Kendall’s card reads ‘DWP work not welfare’. Two disabled activists representing GMCDP and DPAC are in front of them looking angry. One is holding a card that reads ‘UN Convention – Government is obliged to consult with disabled’ whilst the other one is saying: “So not only DON’T they consult with us – they’re also peddling the same Tory lies about us!”

16 Sep

Crippen agrees that cuts to disability benefits in autumn budget would plunge disabled people into deeper poverty

Posted by crippencartoons in Uncategorized.

Recently reported in an article published in the Big Issue Anela Anwar, chief executive of anti-poverty charity Z2K has set out why the new government must scrap cruel and dangerous plans to cut payments for seriously ill and disabled people. They said:

“Since the election of the Labour government in July there has been something of a change in tone when it comes to social security and disability. Speaking to the Observer last month, Liz Kendall vowed to end the blame culture targeted at people out of work and stop the ‘salami slicing’ of the benefits bill that we saw under previous Conservative governments. You might think, given this rhetoric, that the new government will mark a clear break from previous governments’ approaches to health and disability benefits.”

However, since then the chancellor has changed her tune and as reported in my previous blogs she has told parliament recently that within the autumn budget she intended ‘taking difficult decisions’ on social security, and said she ‘will look closely at our welfare system, because if someone can work, they should work’. 

Many disabled people already face a system that is threadbare, where financial support is regularly cut or removed altogether as a result of bad decision-making. For most, the prospect of further cuts to financial support is terrifying.

Anela comments further:

“Much has been made of the previous government’s ill-conceived proposals to make radical changes to personal independence payment (PIP). Among a raft of troubling proposals was a suggestion that PIP cash payments could be replaced with vouchers. Labour has yet to set out its intentions with regards to PIP, but notably have said that they are ‘reviewing the responses people have made to the previous government’s consultation’.

“The new government has also been worryingly silent about its plans for the work capability assessment (WCA). Its manifesto said that the WCA ‘needs to be reformed or replaced’, but Labour has so far failed to provide much detail about what this would mean in practice.”

The basic rate of universal credit is just £91 per week for a single person. It’s hard enough living on this if you’re in good health and able to look for work: Trussell Trust polling released last week found that almost half of those on universal credit ran out of food in the past month. But imagine being seriously ill for months on end, and potentially for life, and having to live off this meagre amount.

The Office for Budget Responsibility analysed the previous government’s plans to encourage people to enter work and predicted that only 3% of those affected by the cuts would move into work as a result of these reforms. That leaves the remaining 97% having to survive on the lowest rate of benefits for an indefinite period.

That’s even before we consider that there is an active legal case against the consultation on which the plans are based. The disability activist Ellen Clifford, supported by Public Law Project and backed by Z2K, is bringing a claim against the rushed and unfair consultation on these plans, due to be heard on 10-11 December. If successful, the action could make the justification for bringing forward these plans even shakier.

Anela adds: “The new government has a real opportunity to reset the relationship between disabled people and the DWP. Bringing forward these poorly thought-out and dangerous proposals would taint these efforts before they’ve even begun. We need to see a health and disability benefits system that provides security and support, not one that pushes disabled people into deep poverty and leaves them at risk of sanctions.”

Anela Anwar is chief executive of anti-poverty charity Z2K.

Read the full article in The Big Issue

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

The prime minister is holding a sign that reads ‘Planned Welfare Changes’ and is standing alongside two placards which read ‘Damned if you do’ and ‘Damned if you don’t’. He is saying “And they say that we don’t give disabled people any choice!”. A wheelchair user wearing a Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) T-shirt is looking at him with a perplexed expression and is saying “WTF?!”.

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »