{"id":1454,"date":"2012-11-10T12:36:48","date_gmt":"2012-11-10T12:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/?p=1454"},"modified":"2015-10-02T18:56:07","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T17:56:07","slug":"the-reality-of-austerity-disability-roulette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2012\/11\/10\/the-reality-of-austerity-disability-roulette\/","title":{"rendered":"The reality of austerity Disability Roulette"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am re-posting this from a blog by Sue Marsh as I feel it deserves the widest possible audience.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Follow her on twitter here \u00a0https:\/\/twitter.com\/@suey2y <\/a><\/p>\n

Read her blog on the link below<\/p>\n

http:\/\/diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk\/2012\/11\/disability-roulette.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disability Roulette<\/h3>\n
\u00c2\u00a0Imagine you work for a big national company. They don’t pay very much and you struggle to make ends meet.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
One day, the manager comes into the office and announces that the company needs to save money and with immediate effect, they will no longer be paying 20% of their staff.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
He says that unfortunately, you are one of the people who will no longer work for money.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Certain that your boss has gone quite mad, you ask -with justifiable outrage \u00a0what on earth you will do?? How will you buy food or pay the rent??<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
He says it’s OK. The company have been very careful to only select workers who have a husband or wife with a job. You shout that your wife only earns \u00c2\u00a38,000 a year working part time as a cashier! He says that will be enough.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Angrily, you tell him he can stuff the job right up his arse, you’re leaving! No-one can work for free! What he is doing is against the law. In fact it breaks more laws than Jeremy Hunt at a Murdoch garden party. You will take him to court.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
He explains that the government changed the law at midnight. From now on, anyone migrated\u00e2\u20ac\u009d onto Nominal salary contract\u009d cannot ever leave their jobs. You must stay with the company, working for free, until you retire in 38 years \u00a0(An aide whispers something in your boss) No, wait, scrap that bit, you must stay with the company until you die\u009d says your boss carelessly, as though he just told you the stationary cupboard needs re-stocking.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
As though stumbling through a terrible nightmare, you realise theres nothing for it, you will have to get a second job. Your boss points out clause 8, subsection C :<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
No employee on a nominal salary contract (NSC) can attempt any other work for any other company or do any kind of paid work beyond the contractual obligations of the NSC \u00a0at all. Any money earned by employees on an NSC will be confiscated and donated to the Treasury in the national interest.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
As you stumble blindly away from him, your boss adds a bizarrely random parting shot Oh, and we\u00e2re confiscating your car and you can never have a bath or shower again.\u009d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Suddenly it feels like you’ve been plunged into a Hollywood movie. The script is so unbelievable, so surreal that youre sure once people hear whats going on, they wont allow it. There will \u00a0be an outcry. Maybe you’re actually dreaming. You phone journalists, MPs, lawyers, you desperately beg your friends to help you, but as though they all been brainwashed overnight, no-one but you and the other people who must work for free see anything wrong with it at all. Or perhaps they do and they’re just glad it isnt them\u00a6.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
As the months go by you plead for help. Once a week, you must beg for free food in a long dispirited queue, but when you try to tell people, they say youre just being dramatic.\u009d You beg someone to help you to keep your home, but they assure you people arent losing their homes at all. You smell because you cant have a bath and you cant get to work without your car.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
********<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Now imagine your \u00e2\u20ac\u0153job\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is cancer.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A Dr has just told you that you have terminal cancer. It won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t kill you immediately, but you probably only have 5 years or so and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing you can do. As the tumour grows inside your skull, you will slowly lose your memory, your speech, your ability to move or swallow until you are fed through a tube, breathing through a ventilator and shitting into a bag.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Suddenly you \u00e2\u20ac\u0153work\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at staying alive -taking endless medications, keeping appointments with doctors and surgeons and radiologists.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But randomly, this government have announced that 25% of people with a serious long term illness or disability \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including terminal cancer, heart failure and transplant patients – \u00c2\u00a0will lose their incomes. All of it. Just like that, overnight. \u00c2\u00a0If they have a partner who earns just \u00c2\u00a37,500 or more a year, they will lose everything, becoming totally dependent on someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s goodwill to survive.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking about people who can genuinely never work again, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not talking about a few understandable mistakes here and there, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking about a thousand people every WEEK who are being wrongly stripped of their entire incomes in exactly the way the employee in my little story above was, only to have them re-instated after a year, even 18 months of fighting and appeals. Some have died before the appeals could be heard. In fact 72 people a WEEK are dying having been found fit for work by this government.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
They can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get <\/em>another job so they must accept whatever the government decide to do with their lives. Their totally trapped.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Next year, half a million MORE seriously ill or disabled people will lose their DLA. Again, almost entirely randomly; again, purely to save money \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the government admit this quite freely. This benefit was awarded whether you worked or not and was designed to help disabled people with the extra costs of transport and getting washed and dressed. Many disabled people won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be able to get to work any more and the government have changed the criteria to define \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bathing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as washing above the waist with a flannel. (I am not a joking.) If your disability means that you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get out of the house or maintain a basic level of personal hygiene you are very unlikely to keep a job or find a new one anyway.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Even if someone who suffers from Parkinson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, or motor neurone disease or is paralysed tries to earn anything, they simply get it taxed or taken off any replacement benefits at levels close to 100%<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
And just like the Hollywood movie, no-one wants to listen. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so farfetched, so horrible, that you all think it can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t possibly be happening.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not here in the UK. Not right in front of our noses. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let our cancer patients and paraplegics die in poverty, here, <\/em>thank you very much. I mean I know Cameron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bad, but even he wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take every penny from people who were actually really <\/em>disabled. Not 4,000 of them every month? Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be silly! \u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll leave you with a quote from Joseph Goebbels :<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“When one lies, one should lie big and stick to it. People will eventually come to believe it.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
And one from David Cameron :<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“We will always protect the most vulnerable”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am re-posting this from a blog by Sue Marsh as I feel it deserves the widest possible audience. Follow her on twitter here \u00a0https:\/\/twitter.com\/@suey2y Read her blog on the link below http:\/\/diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk\/2012\/11\/disability-roulette.html Disability Roulette \u00c2\u00a0Imagine you work for a big national company. They don’t pay very much and you struggle to make ends meet. … Continue reading The reality of austerity Disability Roulette<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disabilty-and-health-news","category-musings"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NRDR-ns","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6609,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2015\/03\/16\/uk-must-spend-more-on-the-vulnerable\/","url_meta":{"origin":1454,"position":0},"title":"UK must spend more on the vulnerable","author":"diana Stone","date":"March 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Letters: Early help for families will save millions of children from suffering needless trauma and save money in the long run","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Powered by Guardian.co.uk","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/image.guardian.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2010\/03\/01\/poweredbyguardianBLACK.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1429,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2012\/10\/03\/benefits-and-work-community-october-2nd-news-letter\/","url_meta":{"origin":1454,"position":1},"title":"Benefits and Work community October 2nd news letter","author":"diana Stone","date":"October 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"2 October Newsletter Benefits May Stop For Claimants Who Appeal Plus New 3 Year Sanctions In this edition we have confirmation that the DWP is actively considering axeing employment and support allowance (ESA) payments for claimants who challenge a decision that they are fit for work.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, claimants will have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "disabilty and health news"","block_context":{"text":"disabilty and health news","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/disabilty-and-health-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1399,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2012\/09\/02\/whats-wrong-with-this-picture\/","url_meta":{"origin":1454,"position":2},"title":"Whats wrong with this picture","author":"diana Stone","date":"September 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"OK kiddies, please watch this video and feel free to draw your own conclusions. Clearly the system is broken, the point is who broke it? If you find this video disturbing and I find this profoundly disturbing myself , then ask yourself the question how have we sunk so low.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "disabilty and health news"","block_context":{"text":"disabilty and health news","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/disabilty-and-health-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3408,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2014\/04\/13\/personal-independence-payments-are-a-punishment-of-the-poor-and-ill\/","url_meta":{"origin":1454,"position":3},"title":"Personal independence payments are a punishment of the poor and ill","author":"diana Stone","date":"April 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"PIP should be a national scandal: Iain Duncan Smith's new system already has a huge backlog and people are dying waiting","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Powered by Guardian.co.uk","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/image.guardian.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2010\/03\/01\/poweredbyguardianBLACK.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7283,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2015\/03\/31\/camerons-workers-v-shirkers-scam-has-at-last-exposed-the-tory-law-of-benefit-cuts\/","url_meta":{"origin":1454,"position":4},"title":"Cameron\u2019s workers v shirkers scam has at last exposed the Tory law of benefit cuts","author":"diana Stone","date":"March 31, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"With the fictional divide beween deserving and undeserving poor collapsing, the Conservatives\u2019 ugly logic is turning into the one story they truly fear","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Powered by Guardian.co.uk","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/image.guardian.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2010\/03\/01\/poweredbyguardianBLACK.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":89120,"url":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/2017\/08\/19\/things-which-make-me-very-sad\/","url_meta":{"origin":1454,"position":5},"title":"Things which make me very sad","author":"diana Stone","date":"August 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Intolerance to different cultures Blaming people less fortunate than ourselves for our own problems Being uncharitable to those with illness or disability Accusing those in poverty of bringing it on themselves Not helping those who are struggling because we consider them undeserving Racial hatred Deliberate spreading and dissemination of lies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Musings"","block_context":{"text":"Musings","link":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/category\/musings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1454"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1456,"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454\/revisions\/1456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glass-cage.com\/dianas_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}