I should point out from the outset that these are precisely the two benefits that I am in receipt of, being my only source of income once I was signed off from work in 2005. I have a condition that they call Fibromyalgia. This, folks, is a condition that affects, well, everything ultimately. If you want a more detailed definition, I suggest you look it up on Wikipedia.
To cut a long story short, it took four years to finally gain some form of credibility with the Department for Work and Pensions, when they finally recognised the fact that this was a condition from which I have suffered for many, many years, even before I ever thought I was 'ill,' if you see what I mean. I was diagnosed with this condition in 2007, and it was after that that many of my earlier episodes throughout my life started to make sense.
Benefits are not something that I take for granted, or take lightly in any way. I am very serious about our benefits system, as I would be whether I was receiving them or not. I believe that we are astonishingly fortunate in this country to have the benefits system that we do. (If, by some miracle, there is someone reading this outside my own country, I am talking about the United Kingdom.) I also recognise, however, that we are in the middle of a workshy generation, largely started by people my age and younger, whose sole use of their brains has consisted of concocting methods by which they can lie and cheat their way into claiming benefits for ailments they do not have; or simply brazenly living off welfare without any attempt whatsoever to find work. It is they who take our benefits system for granted; they grow up with the idea that somehow the government owes them something for doing nothing so that they end up actually believing it.
So what's a government department to do? What any self-respecting government department would do, of course, and punish the whole class because of the mis-behaviour of a few. Consequently people like myself and many others in far worse situations are forced to jump through hoops in order to claim, what, £50 a week in some cases? Let's face it, we're not talking Donald Trump here.
I'll not go into the why's and wherefore's of the Conservative Party's ascent to power at the May, 2010 General Election. I'll save that for another blog. The fact is they're here, they're having an affair with the Liberal Democrats, let's just deal with it and move on for now. And George Osborne, the first Chancellor in history to be younger than me, announced in his Emergency Budget on June 22 that he would force all new and existing claimants of Disability Living Allowance to be re-assessed to see if they can go back to work or not. In 2013. This is supposed to make savings this year? How does that work?
And today, June 28, he announced that Incapacity Benefit claimants are to be re-looked at in a summer spending review to see if they can go back to work or not. Are you starting to detect a pattern here? That's right. George Osborne, Eton born and bred, doesn't like the oiks who are on benefits and is now using the protection of 'legitimacy' in order to smash and kick them when they are down.
Part of me says right, fine, bring it on. I have nothing to hide and for that reason am more than willing to go through all of those government hoops again. But my wife had to go through all of the hoops with me, and indeed many of the hoops on my behalf, and now she must do it all again for me? And she is working! That's right, Young Master Osborne forgets that those who are genuinely incapacitated need carers to do those things for them, and now working people must re-do all the form filling, hospital and JobCentre Plus visits, and angry phone calls to civil servants already pissed off because their pay and pensions have been frozen for two years.
And that's a right bloody encouragement to go back to work, isn't it? I worked for 14 years in Libraries. A public servant working in the public sector, that's right. The department for whom I worked were pioneers in spending reviews, cuts and staff restructurings that led to lower and lower grade staff taking on more responsibility for the same pay. And they were proud of it! Eventually, after 14 years of it, they wore me down and burnt me out to a point where I was no longer able to work.
What's this, I hear you cry, are you actually blaming local government for your illness? Well, no, but let's face it the government are about as responsible for my condition as I am for their fucking deficit.
What irks me most about these politicians, from whatever political persuasion they may come, is that they refuse to accept any responsibility for any of their actions. No, we are all in this together, but it is the taxpayer, and now the benefit recipient, who must pay for past mistakes by bankers who still receive their bonuses. And MP's can still claim for their expenses! This country is £155 billion in debt and Diane Abbott still feels justified in claiming for cab fares because she's going home late at night. Well boo-bleedin'-hoo. They're the ones telling us that we must tighten our belts because we've got to make savings. Well, Miss Abbott, as long as those savings don't include taxi fares, eh? Here's a radical idea: how about paying for your own bloody taxi like everyone else has to?
If I went to the JobCentre Plus (TM) to try to claim, on top of my opulent benefit payments, for a taxi back from somewhere because I am disabled and not able to walk home, imagine the response I would get. Paying for taxis is a luxury and not something you can expect just by blustering your way through the justification. Am I less entitled to claim for a taxi because walking causes me pain that if, say, it was late and I was afraid of the dark?
So George Osborne and his Liberal Democrat bedfellows want to 'encourage people who can work to work.' The implication is, of course, that there are people who can work saying that they can't work which may well be true, but I want to encourage MPs who can pay for their own taxi fares and other sundry expenses to pay for their own taxi fares and other sundry expenses.
Bring it on.
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