Keith wrote:This Tory government, whose 'recovery' for rich businessmen included stripping away benefits for disabled people who ATOS deemed 'fit for work'. People like the butcher who lost his sight due to cancer. Him & his wife were forced to live on £70 per week until he died. Seventy quid a week for a couple to live on until he died. But Ian Duncan-Smith thinks it is okay. I personally know of a woman who uses a power wheelchair. ATOS called her for a work assessment. It was in an office on the first floor of a building. When she got there, the lift was out of order. So they stopped ALL her benefits FOR SIX MONTHS because she didn't attend the assessment. The fact that she phoned to say she couldn't get there because of the faulty lift was irrelevant. It took her six months for her appeal to be heard. Fortunately for her, her landlord was a decent bloke who let her run up six months of arrears (how many landlords would do that?) and she was able to max out her credit cards and borrow from her parents until the appeal was won and she got her benefits backdated. Obviously, she still had to pay the interest on her credit cards, but at least she wasn't on the streets. She was, naturally enough, extremely distressed and depressed, unable to go out of the house, experienced damage to her confidence and, in effect, lost six months of her life.
But it's okay, because we're all in this together. It's just that some are a lot more in it than others.
That is a shocking case but it's happening unfortunately to the wrong people, many with mental health problems on high doses of medication, stronger than illegal drugs, are seen as fit for work. Shutting down support like Shaw Trust and Remploy was a bad move by this government, as the job centre staff just aren't trained adequately for specialist disabilities. There a few lazy unemployed but these are a minority spoiling it for the majority.
The H20 link will provide jobs but there'll be firemen and women and an additional 400 police officers (just in Greater Manchester) out of work very soon. Manchester should have a police force only a few smaller than the Metropolitan Police in London, but that's far from the case. They simply cannot provide an adequate service in Greater Manchester for the amount of crime, let alone policing football matches.
