Could they not just buy another paper?

ah, that reminds me – I had meant to post a link to this piece by Paul Gregg on the Work Capacity Assessment scheme for benefit of those interested in this topic

Heh – benefits bludgers call themselves “Armchair Army” in lack of self-awareness shocker!

Or should that be “in complete self-awareness” shocker?

A benefit scrounger is marrying his girlfriend at the expensive of the taxpayer this month.

His name is Prince William

Pagar @ 1

It is not just buying a paper, Pagar, this is about the systematic process to deliberately demonise whole sections of society, within that paper’s pages.

But it is not even about that, not really, because this is a clarion call to the ‘Left’ and where it stands on the social agenda. Obviously, it is beyond hope of anyone from the front bench of Labour Party will attend such an event, this is not nearly sexy enough for them. Good grief the ‘disadvantaged’, what the fuck do they expect?

Though I dare say we would be doing well to keep Frank Field from the event. I would not trust a wolf around a flock of sheep and poor old Frank could never resist such a large gathering of vulnerable people, once he got his blood up, who knows where it would end?

No, this is about the ‘Left’ with a conscience. The Left have been championing those who have been socially excluded for decades. We stood for gay rights, when homosexuality was vilified. We now are at the point when gay people can happily be out and members of the Conservative Party. We stood up for ethnic minorities when the Black and White Minstrels were all the rage and Labour Party Branches were passing motions to exclude black people from joining.

These groups were not just ‘shunned’ they were positively hated. To stand up for these groups of people meant you stood to be ostracised alongside them. In much the same way that the class looked at the bullied schoolboy and realise that that being on the ground getting seven shades kicked out of you was less fun than being one of the kickers, the Left took the brave steps and stood shoulder to shoulder with people who were being attacked.

Sometimes, it is easy to walk away and let people suffer their fate. Why bother standing up for people who are not like you, why suffer being called a poof or a ‘Paki lover’? Surely it is because we cannot see injustice carried out in our mist?

The thing is, this battle for disabled rights has already been won fifty years ago. Slowly but surely we moved away from disabled people ‘being brave’ and living off charity. We had that battle and we won. However, we have let our collective eyes of the ball and we have allowed the scum to peel back those rights. Look at the glib comments on this very thread. Why have ‘we’ allowed these views back into society after all these years? Why is it that those who support the disabled are the people who feel ‘uncomfortable’ and not the fumbling dickend that makes the ‘armchair joke’ above?

It is not the Right we need to be angry at, we should be ashamed at ourselves that we allowed a hard won victory slip through our fingers, simply because we are too embarrassed to be seen to support the disabled, when the Nazi* counterattack occurred.

*I use the term ‘Nazi’ in the real sense. To systematically attack disabled people and vilify them to the extend that people like the Mail have done over the last twenty years is an exact carbon copy of what occurred in Nazi Germany.

I’m sorry, but I do find it hard to believe that all of the 4-5 million people on disbility benefit can do no work. Even the majority of them.

I’m sure the severely disabled, mobility chair bound chap I worked with at HSBC would also disagree, given that he managed to do his job depsite his disabilities.

@Tyler, You must be a clinical professional to be so sure about all us disabled people who claim a disability benefit. 4-5 million ? No wonder you find it hard to believe.

Tyler @ 6

Yeah, but in your haste to post this, you have forgotten to post any ‘credible’ evidence to back up this statement. Surprising as it may seem, ‘the guy you worked with’ is not ‘evidence’ of anything other than you worked with a guy in a wheelchair. Even the most debased Tory cannot think that you can base an entire discussion around a few anecdotes.

To be honest, you have no idea that these people could work, because you have never met any of them. It just fits your lengthening list of prejudices that they ‘could’ work and ‘hey presto’, once a scumbag has convinced himself that the evidence should exist, then it magically appears.

@6 – Wow, this isolated incident you mention vageuly has really opened my eyes. Do you have any stories about an illegal immigrant you know or perhaps you could tell us about the time you were mugged by a black fella.

@8

“Even the most debased Tory cannot think that you can base an entire discussion around a few anecdotes.”

You sure? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1oQvC4fUtk

Also, aside from the fact that Tyler is spouting nonsense, there are very few jobs even for the able-bodied.

@ 9 LOL!

It’s great to hear that these guys are standing up to the Mail’s bullshit, so more power to them. Although I would also like to opine that Anne Novis is a bit of a dick for her holocaust comparisons.

I doubt the Armchair Army can get the Mail to change its ways, but perhaps they can convince some people not to read it anymore.

Also, aside from the fact that Tyler is spouting nonsense, there are very few jobs even for the able-bodied

Not exactly…

Unemployment is now at its lowest level since the third quarter of 2010. The number of people in employment increased by 143,000 to 29.23 million—the highest number in two years.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703551304576260271192380668.html

It’s possible that some of the disabled could do some work, if the right sort of work was available. So they may need extra help, over and above that offered for JSA claimants. Generally speaking, those who are sick rather than disabled would find it rather more difficult, and would need an employer who could cope with someone who may well need lots of time off. And who would be able to give an employee the benefit of the doubt when their illness isn’t so readily visible – mental health issues for instance.

But sometimes the right sort of work isn’t available anyway. If you’re on JSA there’s pressure on you to apply for anything going – no matter how unsuitable. Would someone with (for example) arthritis be forced to apply for a job involving lots of standing or risk losing benefit? If someone can only sit to work, is there going to be extra help for them to learn to do the sort of job you can do sitting down? Or will cutbacks mean there’s going to be less of this sort of help available?
I suspect I know the answer to that one.

@14

The WSJ is not a credible source and has not been for some time.

@14

Your point? A brief rise in employment figures doesn’t contradict the fact that there are few jobs/not enough to go round.

@ 14 Tim J

“Unemployment is now at its lowest level since the third quarter of 2010. The number of people in employment increased by 143,000 to 29.23 million—the highest number in two years. ”

This may have escaped your notice, but had a sorta crisis on over those two years. Hardly a sensible basis for comparison.

A protest against a newspaper which holds a different point of view on an issue than the protestors? Sorry, sounds rotten. Should I hold a protest against the Grauniad, claiming opposition to necessary cuts is illegitimate and loathsome?

There is something about this shrill smug self-righteousness on the part of certain sections of the left, the whole attitude that opposition to their POV can only be evil. The sort of mindset that will, no doubt, lead to someone calling me a brownshirt troll for posting this. If that were really true then Labour wouldn’t get 28% of the vote at a General Election.

Oh, and I call Godwin on Anne Novis. What a sickening comparison.

@19

Of course you can protest the Guardian if you wish. It’s a free country after all. Although the issue is the lies and slander that the Mail prints, not really their “opinion”.

The WSJ is not a credible source and has not been for some time

Beyond feeble. That article is straight reporting of ONS figures.

A brief rise in employment figures doesn’t contradict the fact that there are few jobs/not enough to go round.

The addition of nearly half a million private sector jobs does tend to refute the charge that there are “very few jobs even for the able bodied”. Employment is rising; unemployment is falling.

This may have escaped your notice, but had a sorta crisis on over those two years. Hardly a sensible basis for comparison.

You don’t think it’s significant that employment is now back up to pre-recession levels?

Those who stand by and allow this [a reform to disability benefit] are equivalent to those who stood by when disabled people and Jews were targeted by the Nazis for annihilation.

Possibly the most morally asinine comment ever made about welfare reform. Good job.

@ 22 Tim J

“You don’t think it’s significant that employment is now back up to pre-recession levels?”

Of course, but it’s not really something to crow about. Reason being, you’d expect jobs to be lost during a recession then be replaced relatively quickly as companies recover and more successful players hoover up the vaccuum left by market losers. And anyway, what basis have you got for the claim we’ve recovered that far? The WSJ article seems to be about absolute numbers, which are pretty useless as a basis of comparison.

@ 19 Parasite

“A protest against a newspaper which holds a different point of view on an issue than the protestors? Sorry, sounds rotten.”

The person quoted in the article (no, not the Godwinning arsehole, the other one) says that they’re protesting over “lies and half truths”. In other words, not the Mail’s POV, but its attempts to misreport reality to influence the POVs of others.

I have to say this looks like deliberate point-missing on your part.

@22

Give me full employment & we’ll talk. Until then I stand by my claim.

(I mean full employment across the country, not me personally requiring paid work. Although that’d be good too 😉 )

Reason being, you’d expect jobs to be lost during a recession then be replaced relatively quickly as companies recover and more successful players hoover up the vaccuum left by market losers.

No you wouldn’t. Unemployment is, famously, a lagging economic indicator, which is why it’s only now, over a year after the formal end of the recession, that we’re starting to see falling unemployment .

And anyway, what basis have you got for the claim we’ve recovered that far? The WSJ article seems to be about absolute numbers, which are pretty useless as a basis of comparison.

Um, why? Total numbers in employment are a perfectly valid form of comparison, especially considering the comparison is only to two years ago.

parasite: “A protest against a newspaper which holds a different point of view on an issue than the protestors? Sorry, sounds rotten.”

The Mail doesn’t simply hold a different point of view. What they do is publish great long series of anecdotes (in some cases grossly exaggerated) about individual fraudulent ‘disabled’ people, together with editorials which suggest that these anecdotes represent DLA claimants generally (when obviously they don’t). It’s a deliberate campaign of misinformation. They do much the same with Muslims and immigrants (dubious stories of people eating swans etc.).

“Should I hold a protest against the Grauniad, claiming opposition to necessary cuts is illegitimate and loathsome?”

Yeah, sure, why not, if you can find anyone who wants to come with you.

26 – really? So in any conditions other than full employment no welfare reform is possible because there ‘aren’t any jobs’?

@ 28 Tim J

“No you wouldn’t. Unemployment is, famously, a lagging economic indicator, which is why it’s only now, over a year after the formal end of the recession, that we’re starting to see falling unemployment .”

Sigh. That doesn’t contradict what I’m saying. It can lag; my point is that the growth so far is just the reversal of the damage done by the recession. Therefore it’s part of a significant and non-standard event and shouldn’t be taken to mean that the jobs market looks good overall. It’s no better than before the credit crunch.

“Um, why? Total numbers in employment are a perfectly valid form of comparison, especially considering the comparison is only to two years ago.”

Nope, they’re rubbish. They lack context. This is why governments talk about increasing spending on popular areas in absolute figures, so they can hide the fact that spending has fallen in real terms or compared to demand. You want percentages, for a start. Total out of work (discounting retired) compared to total employed.

@30

No, just don’t pick on the disabled. It’s not that difficult.

32 – this is about defining who is disabled, not ‘picking on them’.

Tim J @ 30

I think you are missing the point here. If you have people who have barriers to work, even relatively minor ones, they are going to harder to place into work. During a rescission/time of high unemployment, that is going to be especially true. However, what the Daily Hate has done in the past ten years is to dehumanise great swathes of the people of this Country for their own political agenda.

Simply declaring someone ‘fit for work’ is just stupid: Surely to Christ the socially inept Tories who lurk here understand that simply saying that a person is fit for a mythical job is a totally meaningless gesture if there is simply no employee willing to take them on? Is it unreasonable to accept that if ‘the market’ decides people with even seemingly relatively minor health problems are de facto unemployable, then there is little point in declaring that person ‘fit for work’?

To all above; my bad, it’s not 4-5 million people on incapacity benefit. It’s only 2.6 million (as of 2009). Of a population just over 60 million. I mixed up my unemployement and incapacity stats.

Still find it hard to believe 4-5% of the working age population is incapable of any work at all.

@7 rightwingclipper

You seem able enough to use a computer…I’m sure there is some form of work you can do.

@16 Blue

Seriously? It’s not credible because it’s not what you want to hear? Those are ONS statistics btw….not WSJ ones.

@34 Jim

Why is declaring someone fit to work stupid? It means just that – they can do some work. It’s different from saying there is work available for them though.

I think moving someone how can do some work from incapacity to JSA at least in theory incentivises people to look for work who might otherwise not. It is an ideological change I guess, moving the welfare state back towards the last ditch safety net rather than the catchall it is now, and emphasising personal responsibilty. I don’t thats a bad thing.

@ 35 Tyler

“Still find it hard to believe 4-5% of the working age population is incapable of any work at all. ”

And

“You seem able enough to use a computer…I’m sure there is some form of work you can do. ”

It’s not about people being completely and utterly incapable of any form of work. While there will be exceptions, in most cases you would be able to think of something financially productive that a disabled person to do.

However, that’s not the point. It’s about FINDING work.

Say you’re an employer. You’re trying to fill a position, and there are three applicants for the job: one does not have the use of his legs, one suffers from serious depression, and one has a good health profile. Aside from this, they are roughly equal candidates. Who are you going to hire? Someone who can do some of the work well, but not all of it? Someone who can do all of the work but is likely to need more time off than usual? No, you’ll pick the person with the clean bill of health.

Yes, there are laws about employing disabled people, but it’s not really enough. Firstly, like any law of this type, they apply only to larger employees. Secondly, AFAIK they don’t distinguish between types of disability, so employers will tend to hire those whose disability has the least effect on their ability to do the job. This obviously cuts off those who most need help.

If you think a large amount of people on disability allowances would have no trouble working, demonstrate why. Don’t just wave your hand and say “there must be SOMETHING they can do”, because it’s not that simple.

Is it unreasonable to accept that if ‘the market’ decides people with even seemingly relatively minor health problems are de facto unemployable, then there is little point in declaring that person ‘fit for work’?

Would it matter if the person considered ‘unemployable’ by the market had a bad attitude rather than a bad back? Should we give differing benefit payments to all people who, although they are capable of work are considered unattractive employment prospects?

Whether someone is capable of work is an objective question. If they are so capable, they should be treated as such, and the vicissitudes of the employment market shouldn’t be a factor (much less since it is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of disability). If they are not so capable, then they should be provided for. I don’t see this as a particularly morally difficult area.

@37 It is indeed illegal to discriminate on the grounds of disability. However, proving that said discrimination took place is very fucking hard to do, given that at most you will receive a boilerplate rejection letter, and thus employers can discriminate to their hearts content.

Tim J @ 37

Christ, sir, try and stay focused here. We are talking about people with medical problems; we are not talking about people with ‘bad attitudes’. People who have medical problems that mean that they have little realistic chance of securing work Surely to fuck that is not such a difficult concept for you people to get your head round?

There are millions of fit and active people trying to find work in an already tight labour market, pushing people with debilitating illness and conditions onto the labour market will not render people magically employable, will it? You seriously are not that stupid to think that putting someone with arthritis onto a an assembly line will suddenly cure that person’s arthritis?

Let me give you an example of what your strutting little bigoted arseholes have managed. The woman who lives half a street from my mother has a thirty-year-old autistic son. He is built like the proverbial brick shithouse, practically solid muscle. However, he cannot keep a thought in his head for more than thirty seconds. He is unemployable. He needs constant supervision in every aspect of his life; he can hardly open a can of soup without his mother watching him. Since the age of sixteen he has been given, via a number of agencies, various jobs and has never been able to hold any of them down for more than a day. Most of the time he is forced to leave after a couple of hours, because he gets frustrated, angry and potentially violent.

Because he is as fit as a butcher’s dog, he has been past fit for work. Of course he is as likely to work as I have of walking on the moon, because you would need to employ someone to literally stand over him and tell him what to lift, what to push, what to press etc. Who the fuck is going to employ him? Fucking no-one. I know that and so does everyone with an I.Q. higher than a shrubbery, but for some fucking reason, every halfwitted Tory within screaming distance is convinced this poor guy can hold down a job.

Why? What the fuck do you socially backward people get out of ruining the last years of this woman’s life? What are you getting out that? You don’t know her and will never meet her, but she will go to her death, sooner rather than later knowing that her only child faces a miserable life, possibly in a jail. For what? To keep the vile scum happy in the knowledge that an autistic person has been driven into poverty?