News review: Tory led callousness

By Will Stone; Friday 13 May 2011 - Morning Star (UK)
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/10...

Wading through the thousands on the Hardest Hit march it was difficult to spot a scrounger within sight.

Among [those] present were people with no limbs, people in wheelchairs, people with Parkinson's disease, people with birth defects and those with learning disabilities and suffering from mental illness.

Maybe this gentleman is a scrounger? No, he's blind.

Raj Gill, 58, has only been out of work for three months after his partial blindness worsened due to his diabetes.

Now, on top of stressful assessments to check and recheck whether he is suitable for benefits, he stands to have essential equipment snatched away from him such as his talking microwave and clock as a result of government cuts to council funds.

One is to assist him in his daily timekeeping and routine, the other an obvious health and safety measure that without could risk him being killed in a fire.

"It takes the phrase 'Margaret Thatcher the milk snatcher' to even crueller depths," said Mr Gill, marching to Parliament on his way to seek support from his Tory MP for Ealing Central and Acton Angie Bray.

Thousands descended on parliament to lobby their constituent MPs on Wednesday to try and get them to do everything in their power to scrap the callous, Tory-driven Welfare Reform Bill altogether.

But after the lobbying, which took place in Westminster Hall and Methodist Central Hall, Mr Gill said: "I was a bit disappointed really, many travelled with great difficulty for miles to speak to their MPs, waiting hours for them to show, but a lot of them didn't bother to give them the time of day, my MP Ms Bray never even showed her face."

Perhaps MPs are too busy "listening" to those concerned - i.e. everyone - to the government's hapless Health and Social Care Bill as it "takes a pause" from being rubber stamped through Parliament?

Mr Gill added: "The reason this march is so important is because we know that once you lose something you don't get it back, and I think MPs realise that. But if we are being made to justify our own existence then they should justify the existence of these reforms and if they can't they should substantially curtail bankers' bonuses and do something, anything to prevent the billions lost through tax avoidance and evasion.

"Unfortunately it seems they would rather target those like me who suffer from disabilities. I've paid my national insurance all my life but what's the point? Why bother if you're not going to get anything from it when you need it most? The government would rather pig it for itself.

"Unless you suffer from a disability yourself you cannot begin to imagine the stress it causes, so to put everyone through agonising reassessments will cause heartache for thousands up and down the country. They haven't really thought these reforms through as if you take the leap into a new job - which would be a miracle in a jobless market - and it's not suitable for whatever reason. There are plenty of reasons if you have a disability physical or mental [disability] - then it's back to square one.

"However way you look at it this government is a government for big business and they've all got facemasks on."

But Raj is only one story.

Each and every one of these 5,000 marchers - tens of thousands more no doubt would have come but were physically unable to do so - have their own story about [how] the cuts to their benefit will affect them.

One woman in a wheelchair took part in the whole march with a box over her head with "don't box me in" written on the front - it says it all, that perhaps most worryingly of all, these cuts will take away disabled people's independence and human right to have the opportunity to live their lives to the full.

It's little wonder that chief executive of Norfolk Coalition of Disabled People Mark Harrison, who spoke at the march, said Tory minister for disabled people Maria Miller should have her title changed to "minister against disabled people", calling for a vote of no confidence against her - which was unanimous, by the way.

President of three disabled charities - the National Autistic Society, Parkinson's UK and Arthritis Care - Jane Asher summed it up very nicely in her speech to the thousands of disabled onlookers in what she described "the largest rally of disabled people in living memory".

She said: "The myth of the scroungers propagated by the right wing press is so misleading it's awful.

"Prime Minister David Cameron promised us that the savings would be made fairly and that they would protect the vulnerable. Far from protecting the vulnerable these cuts are bearing down disproportionately on disabled people.

"It is very sad it has come to this. Many disabled people are going to be living in poverty. I'm calling on the government to put a stop to these cuts immediately. They are cruel and misguided."

A Department of Work and Pensions spokesman has maintained that the current benefit system is "failing" disabled people.

Key areas in the welfare reform Bill affecting those with disabilities

- Cutting 20 per cent of DLA payments by replacing it with a Personal Independence Payment that will put disabled people through regular assessments to see their suitability for the benefit, removing eligibility for mobility payments for 80,000 disabled care home residents and having a potential knock-on affect to [care giver's] allowance.

- Reforming Employment Support Allowance, formally incapacity benefit, by financing private IT company Atos Origin to carry out "fit for work" reassessments for all current claimants.

- Capping housing benefit that will ghettoise disabled claimants and force families into smaller homes. Disabled families in high rent areas such as London could be forced to live in one-bedroomed flats.