For those of you who don’t read the Daily Mail every day, there was a lead article last week all about how awful the Liberal Democrats are. No great surprise there, I hear you say. The reasons given this time were that the Lib Dems are looking to keep the 50p tax rate in place, uphold the Human Rights Act, and “frustrate every effort to cut immigration”. The party is also trying to promote too many green policies as well, ones that “threaten to cripple business”. Apparently, we are “reverting to type as the fringe party mouthpiece of Left-wing causes”.
Yet according to the left wing press, the Lib Dems are either achieving nothing in the Coalition or are basically a bunch Tories with gold ties on. So depending on whether you read the Guardian or the Mirror, the party is either being bullied into submission by Cameron and his crew and may as well not even be there, or are in league with Satan, helping the Conservatives destroy the welfare state, the education system and the NHS.
It’s my Achilles heel, my faith in humanity. I really would have expected more incisive commentary on the Lib Dems in government by now (not from the Daily Mail, obviously), but I’m still holding my breath. Essentially, both the left and right wing press hate us for one simple reason: we’re in the way. Of what is, as far as I can see, a basically shared interest between them in wholeheartedly pretending it’s the 1980’s again. The left wing press wants to talk about riots and “Tory scum” and cuts whilst The Clash plays softly in the background; the right wing press wants to dream about Margaret Thatcher running the country again. This is slightly giving away my age here, but I was a teenager in the 1980’s and for those of you were too young to be there, let me tell you something about the 80’s: they really sucked. I mean, really, really sucked. Why our entire press corps is tainted with an unrequited nostalgia for the decade is beyond me.
And beyond most people in the country, I think. I believe that the majority of people in Britain want to deal with the present and have the problems that face the country sorted in a reasonable and effective way. For instance, I don’t think most people either want all of the rioters given the death sentence, or given medals of honour for their brave struggle against the bourgeoisie. Again, perhaps I give people too much credit but I don’t think most people are that extreme in their thinking.
Problem for the Lib Dems is, we live in an age where mass communications still counts for a lot and most of it in this country is against us. Somehow, someway, we have to figure out a solution to a problem that doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon.
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43 Comments
Is it possible for The Clash to play softly?
Nick, in 20 years time we will be saying “The 2010’s sucked. They really sucked. We threw the sick and disabled to the dogs, we privatised the NHS and my child can’t go to Uni because he’s frightened of debt all while letting those who caused the crisis get away scott-free.”
As a disabled person who relies on the NHS, my life is looking pretty grim. I had such great hopes when I voted LibDem, yet all those hopes have been thrown back in my face. And whenever I post here about my anger and feelings of being let down, I am called a “Labour Troll”.
I hope your MPs are happy with their great pensions, £60k+ salaries, expenses and taxpayer-funded homes. I hope it’s worth it to you.
There’s something annoyingly ironic in the fact that our polling is so low because both sides of the political media are constantly saying diametrically opposite and equally wrong things about us. This means that left-wingers and right-wingers currently hate us for opposite, mutually exclusive, and logically incompatible reasons. Annoying. Very annoying.
Duncan:
I think you can play The Clash softly in the background, so long as you stick to the dub tracks on “Sandinista!”, or the frankly kind of wimpy “Combat Rock”.
Very annoying. They’re all so beastly unfair.
Perhaps it’s because, you know, it IS possible to be both an ineffectual whinger and a crucially important swing-voting toady, all at one and the same time!
Talking of theme tunes, I guess the really big, substantive question ahead of conference is, WHAT music will Clegg walk out to? Gerry Rafferty – stuck in the middle? or maybe Natalie Imbruglia – Left of the Middle (afraid that was the sound track to my teens Nick).
We must apologise to Mr Allen for never being part of his Bush-Murdoch-Gaddafi fan club. We are not worthy.
Tony, serious question here – why do you (among many others) assume that anyone who criticises anything Lib Dem must automatically be a Labour member/voter? I’ve seen it here many times and it never fails to amuse me.
“the 80’s: they really sucked. I mean, really, really sucked. Why our entire press corps is tainted with an unrequited nostalgia for the decade is beyond me”
I suspect part of it is that the 80s were one of the most interesting decades politically, at least in the latter half of the century. The 50s, 60s and 70s were a period of remarkable agreement, with little to separate the major political parties. The 1990s quickly became very one-sided, but the one side has since proven to be a bitter disappointment.
The 80s were many things, but they weren’t dull. The Conservatives put in place a genuinely radical agenda – even if it was a radical agenda that many strongly opposed. Meanwhile, for “The Left”, it was an opportunity to really indulge in every unelectable fantasy know to man.
So, from a journalist’s perspective, “The Left” as pure and “The Right” changed the world. What’s not to like?
Oh, and I’m guessing that many of the editors are a bit older than you, and spent the 80s having a right good time, which might also explain their nostalgia for the decade.
I’d say I don’t care about the Left-Right chasm, but that wouldn’t be accurate, it’s more I don’t care which party we’re talking about, but do care about where they stand on the issues that are important to me, and that’s where the LibDem parliamentary party is failing me and millions of other disabled people like me (there are some positive signs at grass roots, but that doesn’t get the job done).
As a disabled person currently unfit to work, I see the support for those of us dependent on benefits being eroded by a tsunami of hatred from Cameron, IDS, Freud, and Grayling. Scope has stated DWP briefings are directly contributing to a rise in disability hate crime, hate I’ve experienced directly, views confirmed by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions and the UK Statistical Authority. And yet I don’t see the LibDems making a stand to say that this is wrong, that they will have no part in it. In fact I see Lib Dem ministers, in the person of Steve Webb, apparently stepping up to defend DWP, with a response to the Select Committee condemned by its chair, Dame Anne Begg as ‘not satisfactory,’ ‘very short’ and ‘overly dismissive’, while describing ministers as ‘shrugging their shoulders’. (see: http://wheresthebenefit.blogspot.com/2011/08/lib-dem-minister-washes-hands-over-esa.html )
Do the LibDems really want to be seen as a party that shrugs their shoulders on being told they are responsible for a rise in disability hate crime? If you are making excuses as Steve Webb is, then you aren’t just standing by, you’re actively a part of the problem. If you don’t want to be seen as part of the problem, do something to stop it, don’t wring your hands saying that the media don’t understand you.
“As a disabled person currently unfit to work, I see the support for those of us dependent on benefits being eroded by a tsunami of hatred from Cameron, IDS, Freud, and Grayling.”
Really, what a load of nonsense. do you have any evidence at all for this?
@simon McGrath
“Really, what a load of nonsense. do you have any evidence at all for this?”
How very discourteous of you. Unless you yourself is sick or disabled and finding yourself in very difficult and worrying times, you have no idea of the perceptions that someone like David G is going through.
Everyone is entitled to form an opinion from their own experiences of recent events, and for you to call them nonsense is damn right rude
Matt,
Simon may have been a little brusque, but he is hardly the first commentator to refer to a statement with which he disagrees as “a load of nonsense”.
As for being “entitled to form an opinion from their own experiences of recent events”, I don’t know Simon but I doubt that he is suggesting otherwise. By the same token, Simon is free to form an opinion as to the nonsensical nature of another person’s statement.
Frankly, if “a load of nonsense” was the rudest thing that anybody ever wrote on this website, it would be a blessing.
@Simon McGrath:
As a disabled person myself who works in a charity that helps fellow disabled people, I am appalled that you claim ignorance. Disabled charities have been reporting recently about the rise in disabled hate crime. Over 50 charities recently joined together to BEG the government to reconsider the reforms *and* the language used. I work for a disabled peoples’ charity and I can assure you this is real. I have been spat at in the street for being a “scrounger” (even though the benefit I receive allows me to work). People who I help every day are increasingly becoming scared of leaving their homes, and many report verbal and physical attacks. The Tabloids are full of misleading and downright wrong statistics, they are calling disabled people “scroungers” and “feckless” (yes, disabled people, not just the truly workshy). There are now documented cases where disabled people have lost their benefits and gone on to commit suicide. The Guardian and Independent have been the only papers really to report this. And the only people with any influence sticking up for us appears to be the Greens & Liberal Youth.
I’m appalled and disgusted you feign ignorance of what disabled and sick people are facing right now. Read the excellent “Diary of a Benefit Scrounger” blog and “The Broken of Britain” to get a true picture. You, a Liberal Democrat, should be sticking up for us, instead of pretending everything is rosy.
Excellent post, Nick, and every word true.
Of course, this vicious rhetoric is nothing more than that heard from left and right for several decades, ever since the emergence of the Alliance, just in the past a lot of it was restricted to the odd snarky comment, as the snarks feared taking the LDs seriously. The LDs have now achieved government, something which was never in their scripts. You can expect a lot more of the same treatment.
You can’t leave the carping in the press unanswered, though. Most people just read the headlines and assume they are the truth.
Steve McGrath writes: “Really, what a load of nonsense. do you have any evidence at all for this?”
Well, let’s see, it’s been the common view of pretty much every disabled person I know for the past year and I’m pretty well connected as one of the bloggers for Where’s The Benefit (a collective of disabled bloggers challenging cuts to disability benefits), which also means I’ve been considering it pretty much daily for nearly a year now, but let’s see if I can be a bit more specific:
How about the survey on attitudes to disability from the largest disability charity in the country, Scope — I don’t have any official connection to Scope, but I was one of the people they asked to present their experiences of disability hate crime to the press, and Scope were quite clear that they believe briefing against disabled benefit claimants by DWP to be directly responsible for the rise in hate crime attacks. I got a particularly interesting response from Mark Reckless MP (Con, Rochester and Chatham) on the local news, reacting to Scope’s statement and to my own experiences in which he argued people were perfectly entitled to be angry at disabled benefit claimants if they thought they were claiming unjustly; ‘if they thought’ being the pivotal phrase when you consider the society wide misunderstanding and underestimation of disability.
Then there’s the view of the Parliamentary Works and Pensions Select Committee :
“Another cause of concern for claimants was that media coverage of the IB reassessment had resulted in a very negative public perception of them”
“Nor is it just the tabloid press which presents a negative view of long-term incapacity benefit claimants. The Times published an article in April with the headline “Too fat, too drunk, or just too lazy to work—but not to claim their benefit”. The article said that official figures indicated that “more than 80,000 people are too fat or too dependent on alcohol or drugs to work” and that many of these people had been on incapacity benefits “for more than ten years”.”
“we believe that more care is needed in the way the Government engages with the media and in particular the way in which it releases and provides its commentary on official statistics on the IB reassessment. In the end, the media will choose its own angle, but the Government should take great care with the language it itself uses and take all possible steps to ensure that context is provided when information about IB claimants found fit for work is released, so that unhelpful and inaccurate stories can be shown to have no basis.”
(Bear in mind they’re commenting on press releases headlined “Grayling: latest figures show the vast majority of people being found fit for work” and the like).
It’s this report that has Dame Anne Begg, chair of the Select Committee criticising Steve Webb’s reply as ‘overly dismissive’ and DWP ministers as ‘Shrugging their shoulders’. Meanwhile UKSA has invoked it’s statutory powers requiring DWP to meet UKSA’s code of practise when releasing ESA statistics and explicitly telling the DWP statisticians to keep politicians out of their press releases
By my recall, DWP have briefed against: disabled people in general, disabled people with disabling spinal conditions claiming DLA, disabled people who are Scots (yes, really), disabled people who dare to have disabilities for a decade, disabled people who have addictions, disabled people who are obese (Prader-Willi Syndrome anyone?), disabled people who have coughs (Cystic Fibrosis), disabled people who have blisters (Epidermyslosis Bulosa), disabled people who have cars from Motability (got that one into the Sunday Times, result!), disabled people who claim ESA, disabled people who claim ESA and withdraw their claims (I was probably one of those stats until I got my claim restarted and passed, and it had a lot more to do with maladministration than fraud, and in fact DWP deliberately designed ESA to have a large number of temporary claimants who would withdraw before the WCA, but that’s not what the press releases say), disabled people who claim ESA and fail their claims (yet the Select Committee noted that those who ‘fail’ “will not be very different” from those who pass). DWP claim not to spin their releases, but somehow there always seems to be ‘an anonymous source close to the minister’ ready with a particularly malicious quote – I’d really love to know which Departmental Special Adviser this is – and there was that one release that went only to the Express and the Mail, and not to anyone else….
Then there’s our dear Prime Minister, speaking on the national news, saying he was sure people like you and me wouldn’t want benefits going to people whose disabilities lead to them being obese or prone to addiction. Do you have any idea just how many disabilities have obesity as a side effect? How many mental health issues can leave people prone to addiction? There’s no excuse for Cameron not knowing, but clearly he doesn’t care and sees being openly disablist as a vote winner. Then there was Maria Miller, fondly known amongst her ministerial constituents as ‘the Minister Against Disabled People’, arguing for weeks that it was a national disgrace that more people were getting benefits for disabilities leading to addiction than for visual impairments, only to find out that she was actually utterly wrong. The list goes on.
A selection of views from other Where’s The Benefit Contributors:
More Hate from the Daily Express – http://wheresthebenefit.blogspot.com/2011/09/more-hate-from-daily-express.html
Twisting the facts, printing lies. How the DWP and tabloids are wrong about fit for work stats – http://wheresthebenefit.blogspot.com/2011/07/headlines-today-are-screaming-that-mere.html
Hate from the Government, Hate on the Street – http://wheresthebenefit.blogspot.com/2011/02/hate-from-government-hate-on-street.html
I’m Angry – http://wheresthebenefit.blogspot.com/2011/02/im-angry.html
The Prime Minister’s Instructions “You Have To Make The Fight” – http://wheresthebenefit.blogspot.com/2011/02/prime-ministers-instructions-you-have.html
And finally there’s the Equality Act, which says that the existence of disability related harassment can only be judged by asking the disabled people affected, and I know what we think.
Maybe it would have been an idea to ask before dismissing what I said as ‘a load of nonsense’?
My apologies, Simon McGrath, not ‘Steve’
Tony, serious question here – why do you (among many others) assume that anyone who criticises anything Lib Dem must automatically be a Labour member/voter? I’ve seen it here many times and it never fails to amuse me.
Because Tory supporters are on average so old that they exceed even the upper age limits to be a silver surfer, thus leaving Labour as the most likely party affiliation
@Tom Papworth
Oh, if only I was being nonsensical, then maybe I and so many other disabled people wouldn’t have to be so terrified!
ILF closed, to be stopped entirely, and make no mistakes, ILF is a benefit specific to the most ‘vulnerable’ of all disabled people, the ones Cameron swore would be protected, yet it was practically the first to be put to the sword.
Housing Benefit changes and caps, that threaten the health of many young disabled adults who will be forced into
house-shares that may be extremely stressful for them and directly harmful to their health, while younger and older disabled people with complex equipment or medical care needs may themselves butting up against the caps and the revised formulae because their equipment or carers need additional rooms. (DLA is supposed to be an exception from the caps, but the predictions are that many affected families will include someone with a disability – not all of us get DLA, while the changed formulae will affect others).
DLA Mobility Allowance to be snatched away from those in care, possibly the single most petty, most spiteful cut of all. Your Spring Conference spoke on this, but it is still out there.
DLA to be changed to PIP, with an arbitrary 20% cut in those entitled, even though the supposedly inexplicable rise in DLA claims justifying it turns out to perfectly explicable if you allow for retirement, and birth, and other such esoteric factors. And then there’s the mysterious three month delay in releasing the corrected figures that revealed that, just long enough to get the Welfare Reform Bill through its second reading in the Commons, and should have been long enough for the Lords too but for delays, and of course it was just so completely a coincidence that it was finally released on the Monday of the riots.
Arbitrary cuts in what Access to Work will cover and a significant fall in the number of people making successful claims (even though ATW is unique in being a benefit that turns a profit, £1.40 to the Treasury in income tax for every pound spent helping get disabled people into work).
Every ATW claimant just given a week to justify their claim or lose it in a DWP letter whose aggressive language has recipients up in arms.
The descriptors for ESA made even harsher, even though it is already excluding far more disabled people than was ever anticipated, even though the 1st Year review by Professor Harrington points out multiple problems with the existing descriptors, even though very many disabling symptoms are not covered at all — so much pain you can’t think? Null Point! Even Professor Gregg who designed ESA calls the implementation ‘a complete mess’
Conditionality introduced for ESA. Do what some half-trained, contracted-out assessor tells you, no matter if your disability says otherwise, or lose your benefit. I’ve seen how conditionality is handled on JSA, many disabled people, particularly those with mental health issues, will not be able to deal with it.
And if you are one of the 17% of claimants who somehow do sneak through into the ESA Work Related Activity Group, then come April 2012 you face Time Limiting, with your benefit cut to nothing if you have a spouse earning more than a little over £5K, similarly for those of us with savings, or a pension. No matter DWP accept we will still be unfit for work, our benefits will be stopped until such time as we are reduced to penury, savings and pensions exhausted, marriages destroyed by the stress of being utterly dependent on your spouse. Chris Grayling openly admits this is purely cutting for cuts sake, there is no justification for the cut other than the money going to fund IDS’s beloved Work Programme, and he professes not to care, while DWP’s equality impact assessment says that Time Limiting will affect 700,000 disabled people between now and 2016, with at least 270,000 having no claim on any other form of benefit, and essentially says it is our fault for daring to have a disability that doesn’t get better in a year. And remember, these are people even DWP admits are unfit to work: makes something of a mockery of Steve Webb’s “‘Those who cannot work will always receive our unconditional support” doesn’t it?
I’m mildly inspired by the evidence of disabled militancy here – it’s definitiely something which hardly existed in the 1980’s when prejudice and ignorance was about who the disabled were not how they behaved, and it’s therefore a clear sign that things have improved markedly since then to build confidence in their political voice.
However, from some of my own experience I’ve seen how the disabled lobby’s growing maturity is now pushing their limits – something that was always going to happen when economic conditions changed, alongside which the relationship between minorities and the state could no longer stay the same.
So perhaps I can challenge DavidG and Squeedle to a more tempered response providing some perspective as balance to their insight.
Incendiary comments such as ‘a tsunami of hatred’ may be understandable, but they are both unhelpful to disentangling the underlying political issues and somewhat dubious. David seems to say there are ‘millions’ who are dependent on benefits – from a liberal perspective this dependency is a restriction on human rights and freedoms, although it is swapped for direct financial advantages provided to create inclusion into a consumerist society. I’d like to know if anyone thinks this is a wholly desirable situation and if it is possibly sustainable.
Just like the 1980’s when establishment dogma on national ownership of industry was overturned there is a smell of reform in the air. How and why we pay for what forms of welfare are questions which are being asked, so those who are affected must get their arguments sorted out – and this presents an opportunity for LibDems to seize advantage in the debate.
Large volumes of people have evidently become accustomed to current health, education, and welfare systems as luxuries by right without any conception of the contract involving an agreement that social improvement and personal improvement go hand in hand – what is the point of the NHS if everyone loses fitness? what is the point of state-funded university while basic literacy and numeracy levels decline even among graduates? etc. The potential for negative compensation means access plus standards was never going to be a zero sum equation.
Government priorities must shift because the public will not, cannot and should not provide permanent subsidies for imperfect personal choices resulting from imperfect policy. Policy must be reformed.
So if we answer ‘what is the point of increasing liberalisation in areas of society if standards are allowed to fall?’ then we must decide that targetting resources to areas where the most benefit will be derived is essential.
For newly vocal constituencies attempting to exert pressure, such as students and the disabled, they must engage with these aspects of the issues to prove their relevance to the debate.
But surely it must be right that benefits can go up as well as down, depending on the state of the nation’s finances?
Not sure that this is terrifying, though the hype in advance may well be.
@Oranjepan:
We have been trying to make “tempered responses” ever since Labour started the current “reforms”. Nobody seems to listen to us. We have been blogging, contacting MPs, giving evidence in Parliamentary Committees and doing all we can to raise the issue. For the first year of the Coalition, hardly any LibDems would talk about this and anyone who challenged the “reforms” were called “Labour Trolls”, even LibDem voters who felt let down such as myself.
I think you yourself make a large number of assumptions. The paragraph above is one. It is not our fault nobody has been paying us any attention, except to smear us and soften the public up with sensationalist, one-off fraud cases and then suggest we are all like that. If nobody listens, does one not shout louder?
Another assumption you make is this:
“Large volumes of people have evidently become accustomed to current health, education, and welfare systems as luxuries by right without any conception of the contract involving an agreement that social improvement and personal improvement go hand in hand ”
You seem to assume we do not want to better ourselves. That the NHS and welfare benefits are an excuse to stay stagnant, perhaps? And you describe them as “luxuries”. Obviously you have no idea of what being disabled is like. When you are ill, health care is not a “luxury”. When you are bedridden or going through Chemotherapy, welfare is often the thin line between starving and living. Many of us who do work are made able to through DLA, and with this being cut so deeply, it will just end up with a bigger benefit bill overall as we will now have to claim full benefits. Do you really see having a roof over your head and enough food to eat as a “luxury”?
Just like the Tories and New Labour, it seems many LibDems now want to blame the disabled person for his lot, expect more out of him that he can actually give. We are described as “workshy” by the tabloids, even though gaining employment as a disabled person is infinitely more difficult than an able-bodied person doing so. Nobody seems to want to blame the private sector, for example, for not hiring more disabled people. And why should they when it is not in their financial interests? They don’t need the expense of adapting the workplace or workplace duties when the economy is booming, and they certainly won’t be doing this in a recession. It is not the disabled man’s fault that, in a capitalist society, nobody will hire him because he has a mental illness. It is not the fault of the woman on morphine that nobody will hire her. Yet the media and the government blame them instead of the private & public sectors who won’t hire them.
You assume being on benefits is a “trap”. For most sick and disabled people, it is a “lifeline”. Only people who have never been faced with hunger because they did not meet the requirements of capitalism would assume it to be some sort of trap. Tell me, what is the alternative when faced with hostile public and private sectors as pointed out above? Could you live on £93 a week, bearing in mind life is more expensive while disabled?
Further, you are trying to frame the debate on your terms, like all good politicians. Most of us sick and disabled people are framing the debate as a life-and-death struggle because for some if us, this is just that. There have been suicides (which, I might add, the government admitted it knew would happen) already. There are people now being found “fit for work” who have gone into mental breakdown. A man who had a heart attack at the ATOS assessment & later died was found “fit for work”. It is highly patronising, in my opinion, to tell those being affected that they must prove their arguments and themselves as relevant, to play on your terms. Another case of the able-bodied telling us what’s good for us, and what we should do, that’s how I see it.
Imagine that you were disabled yourself. Now imagine that, every few days, the tabloids and/or the government brings out some new, often inaccurate stats to paint the sick and disabled in a bad light. Imagine being disabled knowing hate crime is up, being frightened of leaving your home. On top of all that, imagine having a now uncertain future due to the government’s choice of making the disabled bear the brunt of the cuts. AND if that wasn’t enough, think about how it would feel knowing the party you voted for, the one who promised to protect you, turned against you, too.
If you want to change welfare and the lot of the disabled people of the UK, you could start by putting yourself in our position and stop erecting barriers. You and your party should be helping us and working with us out of moral imperative, not for simple political gain.
Don’t spout off hypocritically abourt “Incendiary comments” and “a more tempered response” when your first line brands those disabled people daring to speak up as “disabled militancy”.
Truly sickening stuff.
Some people really have lost touch with basic decency.
At least the liberal democrat youth have at least some understanding of the issues even if they are being ignored by the coalition.
I think it is very sad that we have such an appalling press in this country, tied to vested interests. It suits both Labour and the Tories to scapegoat the Lib Dems for every problem in the land. If you look at our poll ratings – averaging around 11% – they are dreadful, but no more dreadful than they often are between elections. However, previously that was because we failed to get any media attention at all or were deliberately ignored. Now it is because we are being pilloried from left and right. Nonethless, one recent poll (ICM 21 Aug) put us at 17% and another (IPSOS 22 Aug) at 15%.
If you look at where our vote has gone, most of the defectors have gone to Labour. They have been in the comfortable position of opposing without actually having to propose anything. That will not last forever. At some point, they will have to come up with policies and then they really will have problems. Some has gone to the Greens. At constituency level, that is not likely to hold up in an election situation. Likewise, much of the rest has gone either to “Don’t know”.
It is unlikely we will get back to 24% come the next election, but providing we are given fair media coverage by most of the broadcast media, the scope for revival is considerable.
That is, as long as we don’t let our MPs vote to privatise the NHS…..If they do that, then it really will scupper us totally.
“Incendiary comments such as ‘a tsunami of hatred’ may be understandable, but they are both unhelpful to disentangling the underlying political issues and somewhat dubious”
Surely not as unhelpful as the seemingly weekly ‘scrounger’ hysteria encouraged in the media by selective government data? I would suggest it is fair to say that disabled people DO feel a ‘tsunami of hatred’ and it is not a coincidence that government supporting newspapers are using government data (selectively, of course) to whip up that hatred. The silence of the Lib Dems on this issue should shame every single one of you.
@Oranjepan
Some nice mealy mouthed equivocation. You’d fit right in amongst the other mediocrities at the top of the party.
“For newly vocal constituencies attempting to exert pressure, such as students and the disabled, they must engage with these aspects of the issues to prove their relevance to the debate.”
They needn’t prove anything to the liberal democrats, who as we have unfortunately come to see are politically irrelevant.
“They needn’t prove anything to the liberal democrats, who as we have unfortunately come to see are politically irrelevant.”
Rather funny. Even more irrelevant, for instance, is the Labour Party, which isn’t in government and therefore can only whinge from the sidelines, pretend it would have done stuff differently and misremember recent history.
Oranjepan says: “Incendiary comments such as ‘a tsunami of hatred’ may be understandable, but they are both unhelpful to disentangling the underlying political issues and somewhat dubious.”
Far less dubious, I would argue, than the DWP-manipulated press coverage that regularly announces “75% are scroungers” and the like, that has consistently attempted to portray us as idle, feckless, fraudulent scroungers, to the degree that the results are now visible in disability hate crime statistics. Far less blatant than Cameron’s open attack on national news. How would the country have responded if similar attacks on BAME, LGBT or religious groups were disfiguring the tabloids, even the quality dailies and the BBC on a regular, near daily basis? Wouldn’t there be an outcry if the PM was arguing on national news that people like you and me wouldn’t want benefits going to the likes of blacks or gays? Why is it different for disability, why is it “nudge, nudge, wink, wink, you’re obviously genuine, but the rest of them, they’re all at it, you know!”?
“David seems to say there are ‘millions’ who are dependent on benefits”
2.58 million IB or ESA claimants (Out-of-work benefit, with the migration from IB to ESA assessing about 10,000 cases/week),
3.2 million DLA claimants (Not an out-of-work benefit, applicable to children and retirees, but vital to many disabled people who can work remaining in work)
1.6 million Attendance Allowance claimants (post-retirement)
“from a liberal perspective this dependency is a restriction on human rights and freedoms”
For many of us benefits represent society compensating us for the overwhelming disablism in the jobs market* that it is unwilling to address. This disablism means that we are far less likely to be able to find work, further complicated by the scarcity of employers willing to make the reasonable adjustments to allow us to work and to stay in work even if they might be willing to consider a disabled person, but for many other disabled people no set of reasonable adjustments will allow them to work regularly, and it is society’s role to provide for them. The assertion that benefits represent a restriction on their human rights seems bizarre, if not downright illiberal.
(*The employers themselves proclaimed it a triumph for equality that nearly 3 out of 10 of them would consider employing a disabled person – never mind that it is illegal to consider disability in a recruitment decision at all outside of a small number of safety-related cases)
“I’d like to know if anyone thinks this is a wholly desirable situation and if it is possibly sustainable.”
Clearly the removal of the overwhelming disablism from the recruitment market is a necessary preliminary to the greater inclusion of disabled people in the jobs market and lessening our dependency on benefit, but there seems to be no desire in government, or even society, for making that change happen. However, if we take the split between ESA WRAG and Support Groups as indicative of potential to work within the 2.5 million ESA/IB claimants (even though many people in WRAG will remain unfit for work, though not sufficiently disabled to move into Support Group, for years if not decades – I’m facing this prospect myself) then a maximum of under two thirds of ESA/IB claimants will be able to move into work (assuming the jobs are there). Equally, what is the alternative? You can’t make disability disappear as an act of whim, the prevalence of disability in society means that we will always have a figure of several million disabled people (Support Group, a significant percentage of WRAG, plus Attendance Allowance) who are not able to work and require state support because of that. It isn’t a question of sustainability, this is the reason we have society, to protect those who can’t provide for themselves as individuals by providing for them as a society. Sustainability is a cloak thrown up by those who see disability benefits as an easier target for cuts than other areas of the budget, I can’t find a precise figure for total disability benefits, but given DLA at £11Bn, that suggests a total expenditure likely no more that £30Bn, which is only 4.2% of the national budget to support somewhere between 7% and 11%of the population (difficult to get a precise figure due to the overlap of ESA/IB and DLA eligibility).
“Large volumes of people have evidently become accustomed to current health, education, and welfare systems as luxuries by right”
Luxury? Have you tried surviving on £93/week?
“without any conception of the contract involving an agreement that social improvement and personal improvement go hand in hand”
I worked for 20 years, I had to be forced kicking and screaming out of the door, and that was long after my consultant had advised it was probably time to stop, and that is far from an uncommon experience in the people we are discussing here. Others would love to work, but have simply never been fit enough. It seems from the above that we’re back to the Express’s ‘75% are scroungers’ though expressed in more decorous language. Whose comments are incendiary now?
“what is the point of the NHS if everyone loses fitness? ”
So it’s our fault we’re disabled? As my consultants repeatedly pointed out to my employers, the surprising thing wasn’t that my work was affected by my disability, but that I was managing to work at all.
“Government priorities must shift because the public will not, cannot and should not provide permanent subsidies for imperfect personal choices”
“Imperfect personal choices”? I have a spinal injury that causes permanent pain, and even after 23 years of investigation and treatment the understanding of my consultants can be summed up as “well, something’s clearly not right” (to quote the visiting specialist I saw last week), an experience that is far from unusual. Where exactly is the ‘imperfect personal choice’ in that?
“what is the point of increasing liberalisation in areas of society if standards are allowed to fall?”
Standards? We’re talking about survival. No matter how much effort you may expend to portray it that way, disability isn’t a matter of choice. Do you imagine I enjoy feeling like I have a burn over much of my body? That friends crave their daily dislocations or nausea or whatever? If not, why attempt to phrase the discussion in such offensive terms?
“prove their relevance to the debate.”
There is no ‘debate’, there is simply whether we wish to be a liberal society, or one which exposes their disabled people on the hillside to live or die as fate decides.
Applause to David, there.
The only ways it is possible to argue that there isn’t a deluge of attacks on disabled people as a group are to either not have noticed (including the front page attacks) or to believe that they are accurate. No-one can claim not to have noticed, here, with all of the explanation and illustration so many have made, including some here, and if you think they are accurate, you’re arguing against the DWP’s own stats, for starters. Of course there will be some people swinging the lead in every system. No-one throws the same bile at those taking advantage of tax loopholes to maximise their personal wealth, and there’s very limited condemnation of corporations outright getting away with not paying tax they legally should. Fraud in the system is tiny, and the cost of error isn’t actually that high either. PIP proposes to eliminate 20% of cost – that’s far higher than the current loss due to fraud and error, so it must mean some cut in what’s currently genuine entitlement, through the redefinition what’s considered disabled ‘enough’.
For those who “know people on ESA/IB/DLA who’ve nothing wrong with them”, here’s a thought: maybe what’s wrong with them is something you can’t see. Invisible illnesses can have huge impacts on the life of sufferers, without having any obvious outward sign. “But if they’re in pain all the time, surely they’d be saying ‘ow’ or something,” you ask? Well, no, because it’s not actually an automatic reaction, and saying ‘ow’ all the time would be a drag for us as well as the people around us. People who are ill tend to minimise the impact of their condition in their lives, except when dealing with those they are closest to and trust the most – and not all of them. My partner still minimises the impact of her problems to her parents, certainly, and is only forthright and direct about it with me, and with the government – and the latter just because it’s the only way to not be treated as a malingering scrounger. It’s not just about trust and comfort with the person we’re talking to – it’s also because going into detail about it is not a particularly fun activity. Depression secondary to chronic health problems is very common, and it isn’t helped by itemising all the impacts our conditions have on our lives. Poor mental health also makes recovery (in the medical or social sense) less likely, and it impairs adaptation as well, so stressing us out and making us miserable is not the way to get us back into the labour market.
Picking through the debate on the disabled which I’m neither inclined nor qualified to comment on, Tom brought up a point about the 80’s being one of the most politically interesting decades of the latter half of the 20th century. While that is almost certainly true, I tend to think that it’s for quite negative reasons. In Britain, there was the ultimately incredibly destructive for almost everyone Thatcher-Scargill debate; in America, the hardening of the right and Iran-Contra. I think it was the decade in which the right were able to appeal to a great deal of people they would have had trouble reaching before, selling their “brand” to a wider audience. For instance, I think that’s the reason that not only did Blair take Labour to the right once they got into power, but from a purely psephological stand point he was probably correct to do so.
I suppose that’s why I look back on the decade with such distain and wish we could all move on from it. Well, that and memories of having to listen to “Nothing’s Going to Change My Love For You” by Glen Medeiros ad nauseam on AM radio.
I sense your angst Nick.
The closest analogy I can think of is that it’s like a student going through college or university in the 60’s /70’s. There was a great deal of campaigning, chaining ourselves to railings and banning the bomb. And it was all good worthy stuff.
But then the student qualified, and had to get a job as an accountant, surveyor or solicitor, settle down and consider starting a family.
The analogy starts to break down here because the core of the Lib Dem party still thinks like the campaigning student.
But the Lib Dems that have been thrust into the co-pilots seat of government, now have to (reluctantly) think like an accountant, surveyor, or solicitor.
…………..Just like the 1980′s when establishment dogma on national ownership of industry was overturned there is a smell of reform in the air. How and why we pay for what forms of welfare are questions which are being asked, so those who are affected must get their arguments sorted out – and this presents an opportunity for LibDems to seize advantage in the debate………..
A LibDem waxing lyrical about the 1980s; now I’ve heard it all. Over 3 million unemployed as ‘the acceptable cost’ of a political experiment. Record house re-possessions, North Sea oil revenues wasted, the start of ‘non-regulation’ of the financial sector, the police force being used to implement government policy, the list goes on.
…..” there is a smell of reform in the air”…There sure is; it’s just that the ‘smell’, that you welcome, offends many of us.
………………………..Government priorities must shift because the public will not, cannot and should not provide permanent subsidies for imperfect personal choices resulting from imperfect policy. Policy must be reformed…………
The ‘government priorities’ seem to include convincing the public that they, the public, should not subsidise scroungers. Of course running articles, in the right wing press, to portray claimants as scroungers (unless proved otherwise) is a good way to start.
“.Policy must be reformed”…What a lovely phrase, right up there with ‘reorganisation’. Translated, ‘reformed’ just means ‘Saving Money’.
My mum grew up in the 70’s, although she criticises the 80’s, she has far more to say about how hard the 70’s were and acknowledges that a lot of the strife of the 80’s was necessary, and she’s originally from Brixton.
@Squeedle
“If nobody listens, does one not shout louder?”
That’s an odd statement. There’s always somebody listening, especially nowadays. If adjusting the volume doesn’t work, try the balance, the pitch or the rhythm.
The difficulty is in expressing what you have to say in a way the audience grasps – what the listener hears is not always what the speaker thinks they’ve said. And therefore if the desired response isn’t achieved then it’s not going to help anyone’s cause by alienating the people you originally wanted to win over. As David G’s response shows.
@David G
“For many of us benefits represent society compensating us for the overwhelming disablism in the jobs market”
OK, that’s a constructive contribution and I’ll give you credit for it, but I think you lose it for immediately ascribing an unwillingness on the behalf of employers to address this inequality. Whatever social aims an employer has these come after their economic priorities.
Like you say you can’t wish away disability, so it’s unfair to make no distinction between justifiable compensation for a general lack of access to the jobs market and the natural calculation employers undertake when dealing with specific circumstances. Each side of the equation faces a different dynamic.
So where you say ‘there seems to be no desire in government or society to make it happen’ I’ll draw your attention to your own figures of 4.2% of GDP required in welfare support for 7-11% of the population and add that government finances are currently under severe pressure from a growing economic crisis caused by previous overspending.
I have no fresh insight into the level of political will which currently exists at large in society or in government to remove ‘disablism’ from society (umm, doesn’t Cameron have a disabled child, and said he’d give the issue ‘special attention’?), but I can perfectly understand why it would be less of a priority at this time compared to during boom years.
However, you also undermine your argument by moving on from a desire for greater equality (which I wholeheartedly support) to claiming that’s not what is motivating you, rather you say that it’s really a matter of basic ‘survival’ (in which case wouldn’t £93/week have a far greater impact for far more people if it were used for international development, for example?) – and this is in direct contradiction to your earlier reasoning that companies should overlook any budgetary calculation in order to remove structural inequality from society.
“There is no ‘debate'”
If there’s no debate then there’s nothing to complain about.
But that’s not what I’m hearing from you. What I’m hearing is you picking and mixing opposing arguments to suit your interest, despite the fact they are full of holes when put together.
Which is clearly why you’re making a negative stand in opposition to current policy changes rather than a constructive contribution in an attempt to find more positive ways of reforming the system. However much sympathy I would have admitted for your cause I see no effective solutions coming from your side, all I see are complaints.
Which means we are in the middle of a debate.
@Oranjepan: to pick up your point about David Cameron and his, sadly deceased, disabled son, well, Cameron claimed DLA to help with the care costs of his son. Mr. Cameron is reportedly worth over £30M. Yet he, with all his riches, claimed DLA and now has the audacity to describe some disabled people as “scroungers”. He has made personal pledges to parents of disabled children during the election and went back on these pledges immediately after forming the coalition.
What kind of man, who once had a disabled son, pursues such policies that will make the already difficult lives of sick and disabled people much worse? A man who acts as such as not an honourable man. What kind of government knowingly makes scapegoats out of the weakest members of society, taking the most from them to pay for a crisis caused by bankers, politicians and the rich? Certainly not an honourable government.
@Oranjepan
It seems you’re trying to argue for a Parsonian ‘sick role’ definition of disability (Talcott Parsons was the right-wing American sociologist who, in the 1950s, defined disability and illness as deviant), as modified by Unum’s spin doctors at Cardiff University’s ‘Unum Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research’ to argue that disabled people with long-term conditions are actively resisting recovery and therefore should not be supported. The sheer illogicality of this should hopefully be visible to all, but it forms the basis of much of current government policy towards disabled people (and by current government policy I’m referring to a process stretching back to Purnell, not simply to Freud, Grayling, IDS – and Webb).
“I think you lose it for immediately ascribing an unwillingness on the behalf of employers to address this inequality. Whatever social aims an employer has these come after their economic priorities.”
Actually social aims are irrelevant to the argument, the first priority of any company has to be to operate within the law, because the consequences can be not being able to operate at all, and refusing to employ disabled people, discriminating against them in the recruitment process, and allowing those attitudes to persist within your staff, are all illegal, and the chain of illegality runs all the way up to the CEOs and directors. If you allow discrimination to persist at any level in your company, then you are potentially personally liable, and may find yourself defending your actions in court.
Which unfortunately undermines your argument of profit uber alles. Companies operate under the forbearance of society, not irrespective of it.
“the natural calculation employers undertake when dealing with specific circumstance”
Where I come from we call that disability discrimination and don’t try to dress it up in pretty words to make it look better.
“I’ll draw your attention to your own figures of 4.2% of GDP required in welfare support for 7-11% of the population”
Thank you, as should hopefully be clear to everyone, that’s a bargain. What are the alternatives? By definition many of the people we are discussing are unable to work, either at all or without government support, many are unable to care for themselves without help. The old system was for the state to support many disabled people in ‘institutions’, many of which would have needed a sharp makeover to warrant the label ‘gulag’, modern society won’t stand for that, so the alternative would be care in the medical or residential care systems, both of which have costs often in the thousands/week range, against which £93, or whatever, is a remarkable bargain.
“government finances are currently under severe pressure from a growing economic crisis caused by previous overspending.”
I’ve rarely seen the Tory party line recycled so literally and with such an apparently straight face! Isn’t it about time you cut the apron strings and started taking responsibility for your own actions?
“umm, doesn’t Cameron have a disabled child, and said he’d give the issue ‘special attention’?”
Cameron’s disabled son Ivan sadly died several years ago. Unfortunately, as has been observed by many disabled commentators, Cameron doesn’t seem to have learnt anything about the experience of disability for a normal family from his own exposure. His promise that the most severely disabled had nothing to fear from the cuts was rapidly followed by the closure of the Independent Living Fund, the benefit targeted solely at the most disabled of all benefit claimants. Saying he lied sounds stark and unparliamentary, but the evidence speaks for itself, the most disabled have been consistently targeted, right down to the unbelievably petty decision to remove DLA Higher Rate Mobility from people in care homes. His attitude to individual cases in which he has become personally involved is perhaps best illustrated by the case of Riven and Celyn Vincent: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/19/mother-disabled-daughter-care – ‘it’s not my fault, it’s the local council’s fault (never mind I’m the one who cut their budget)’
“I can perfectly understand why it would be less of a priority at this time compared to during boom years.”
That seem strangely at odds with government policy, which proclaims it aims to drive all the so-called scroungers off IB and into work as though it were its number one priority. Meanwhile DWP quiet admits the people it is forcing off IB are genuinely disabled, the employers proclaim that most of them wouldn’t consider a disabled applicant, particularly one who had been on IB,and the money allocated to provide practical help to aid disabled people into work via Access to Work is actually being cut (never mind ATW makes a 40% profit for the government on every pound spent), as is the number of people helped. There is obviously a problem here, a policy that requires addressing all three legs of a tripod of needs is pressuring only one of them – the disabled people actually affected, undermining another – ATW, and leaving the third, the bosses, alone. Does this policy meet the challenge of being ethically and logically implemented?
“you also undermine your argument by moving on from a desire for greater equality (which I wholeheartedly support) to claiming that’s not what is motivating you, rather you say that it’s really a matter of basic ‘survival’ (in which case wouldn’t £93/week have a far greater impact for far more people if it were used for international development, for example?)”
I have to credit you for the sheer chutzpah of trying to claim it would be better to let disabled people starve or freeze here than abroad – something we as disabled people are hearing frequently is other disabled people saying ‘if I lose this benefit then on JSA I’ll have to choose between eating and heating’ – many disabled people have severe problems with temperature and as a consequence have far larger household bills than non-disabled people. Every penny of the entire national budget could have more effect in Somalia or elsewhere than here, but I don’t see the Tories stepping forward to sacrifice the police en masse, or the new carriers, or Trident. No, the Tory party will fight to bring the budget down to the last disabled person. As for equality or survival, am I asking too much to demand both? And of course equality does not preclude targeted support, that is in fact a fundamental principle of the Equality Act, which recognises the difference between equality of opportunity – ‘Adam, Bella, I need you both to go up to the top of the stairs’ – and equality of outcome – ‘…but there’s a lift around the corner that’ll take your wheelchair, Bella,’ and enshrines in law the need for reasonable adjustments as a prerequisite to equality for disabled people.
“this is in direct contradiction to your earlier reasoning that companies should overlook any budgetary calculation in order to remove structural inequality from society.”
Actually I suggested they should consider legality their first priority. Of course many employers brandish the financial argument, that disabled employees will cost them money, yet that doesn’t actually hold up in the face of evidence. Most reasonable adjustments to disability are financially trivial (and many did have ATW support available, some still do), while many disabled people are equally as capable as non-disabled, provided management are willing to offer them the flexibility to work around their disability, equally disabled people tend to stay in post longer and take fewer sick days. In the (paraphrased) words of the advert: “Customised chair, £500. Flexible working hours £0, Being seen not to be a bigot, priceless.”
“What I’m hearing is you picking and mixing opposing arguments to suit your interest, despite the fact they are full of holes when put together.”
Oddly enough that seems to be the problem with your argument, too. I don’t believe there are any holes in my argument, simply blind-spots in your willingness to accept it. Ultimately I am happy that my argument hangs together in a rational fashion and that I am arguing from the ethical standpoint of ensuring every member of our society has the support they need to be able to participate in it as an equal. Can you claim the same when you are advocating removing the sole economic support available to people recognised to have financial needs over and above those of others who are out of work?
“I see no effective solutions coming from your side”
Strange that, considering all the focus I’ve put on needing to change the attitudes of employers to allow those who can work with appropriate support to do so. In fact I’m advocating something that is needed to make even the professed government policy work, but which is strangely absent. But of course you believe that economics trumps all (even the law and fact) and that disabled people shouldn’t expect to be employed – back to the workhouse for us then!
“Which is clearly why you’re making a negative stand in opposition to current policy changes”
‘Negative’ from your viewpoint being ‘dares to oppose the party line’? From where I stand, I’m one of the people who are fighting against a disability agenda originally formulated for the financial gain of an insurance company subsequently labelled an “outlaw company” by the California Insurance Commissioner and successfully sued in class action suits across America — this is not exaggeration or hyperbole, if you doubt me go away and look at the history of Unum Provident and their role in formulating current government policy towards disability benefits (you might also consider Unum’s current sales drive for disability insurance). This agenda involves a wholesale adoption of the Parsonian Sick Role c.f. your “the contract involving an agreement that social improvement and personal improvement go hand in hand”, and the recasting of disabled people as a problem whose issues are of our own creation c.f. your “imperfect personal choices”.
Ultimately we’re talking about the demonization of a minority in the minds of the general public in order to justify the savaging of the support offered to members of that minority to meet their accepted needs, and isn’t that something any liberally minded person should oppose?
@Squeedle
Thank you for pointing out that David Cameron, had indeed himself claimed DLA for his disabled son Ivan.
For anyone who is unsure of the claim they can go to the following link and see exactly what David Cameron said during PMQ on the 19th January 2011
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9365000/9365260.stm
Not only is Cameron on record talking about how difficult he found the DLA claim forms, he said because of his experience he was committed to making the forms simpler. He found the process upsetting and complicated.
He is also on record for admitting that he claimed FREE Nappies from the NHS
He first became aware of Riven Vincent during a mumsnet web chat, before the election, she asked him if he knew how many nappies disabled incontinent children were entitled to. He didn’t know. She told him FOUR. Four nappies per day, that’s all they were allowed.
Later he said Mrs Cameron berated him for not knowing and that Ivan got four per day from the NHS.
David Cameron and the Tories attitude is typical of a TORY Government, 1 rule for them, and 1 rule for us. Screw the public purse for all you can get, even though you are a multi millionaire, then vilify and punish the poor sick and disabled who are reliant on welfare themselves.
The whole thing stinks of hypocrisy and I sincerely hope that someone brings this to the attention at conference
meant to say in my post above. skip to 15.30 on the clip to listen to David Cameron admitting to claiming DLA
@Nick Tyrone
My point actually got swallowed up in the reaction to my “tsunami of hatred” comment on disability benefits, which actually serves to emphasize it. If you say things people disagree with, they will tend to react, and that reaction will be irrespective of where you and they are on the political spectrum, and much more to do with their individual disagreement with the policies you are articulating. Undoubtedly Left-Right/Authoritarian-Libertarian has a role to play, but people hold individual views on individual issues and react to these.
When I say I feel betrayed by the fact that only 4 Lib-Dem MPs voted against the NHS bill (and from what I’ve seen of twitter tonight that’s actually quite a moderate statement), I’m not saying that because I want you out of office, or because I’m locked on the Left, I’m saying it because as someone dependent on the NHS it makes me fear for the future, and because the LibDem MPs were in a position to do something to stop it. The party will be judged on it’s actions, and if the press isn’t favourable, maybe that’s because they recognise that a lot of people don’t like your actions, not because they just don’t like you because of where you sit on the political axes.
@David G,
I’m disappointed by your response, but given the topic of this thread you deserve a full reply. As a case in point this side discussion provides a perfect example.
Earlier you raised ignorance as the root of prejudice, so I would’ve thought you’d be more interested in enlightening the debate rather than rushing to judgement.
It is completely ridiculous for you to attack people for opinions they do not hold. I don’t know how you decided that I’m arguing for “a Parsonian ‘sick role’ definition of disability” other than the fact you say you happen to be disabled and I’m disagreeing with you because I think your political argument is unsound.
I stand by my comment that “Whatever social aims an employer has these come after their economic priorities” and underline it by saying this statement is unaffected by your subsequent statement that companies are required to operate within the law. It is also fundamentally inaccurate for you to suggest my argument proposes “profit uber alles” as a political position (lovely rhetoric btw).
I don’t dispute that additional welfare support for disabled members of society may represent a ‘bargain’, but this does not address the point I made that a period of fiscal retrenchment is potentially the worst time to campaign for it. Value for money and fairness are not the same thing.
You may feel the wider economic environment should be ignored, but I find it difficult to believe you can seperate the jobs market and the welfare state in your analysis and still wish to be taken seriously given their symbiotic relationship. Whether or not I or you agreed with anyone’s deficit reduction plans at the time (and I’m unconvinced anyone’s were perfect), the need for efforts to increase fiscal sustainability is now more pressing than ever.
I make no defence of DWP administrative decisions, but you make an unsupported leap in thinking to go from criticising the banal truism made in unwise terms that some benefit claimants are gaming the system to conclude that government policy is unfairly attacking all vulnerable people as ‘scroungers’. Not only is this unsupportable, but it restricts your objectivity. Welfare is still an area which is crying out for reform to fulfil its purpose whatever happens with the current proposals. As far as I’m concerned this is only the tail-end of a much wider debate about the deep effects of coercion and the need to eliminate negative incentives which society has been avoiding for far too long.
In no way whatsoever did I say “it would be better to let disabled people starve or freeze here than abroad” and I challenge you to justify that remark. What I did say was that the logic of your argument leads to a different conclusion that the one you reach and nothing you’ve said has caused me to change that view.
Is it asking too much to demand survival and equality at the same time? That is a nonsensical question – you can’t have one without the other without presenting them in absolute terms, but because you’ve combined them within a single conflated political argument you’ve obscured their real relationship thereby reducing the ability to aid either and, consequently, both. Policy prioritisation and philosophic principle are not the same thing at all in anybody’s lexicon. Similarly, neither are government spending policy and public attitudes. Your stunning lack of nuance throughout an essay-length replay is telling.
It is bizarre that you wish to tell me what my viewpoint is, and it is wholly inaccurate for you to say I wish to eliminate criticism of government policy (more regular visiotrs here will vouch for this).
From what you’ve said it is clear you have not grasped my argument that effective criticism must be relevant and sound in equal part, and from the fact that you yourself express frustration at your complete inability to score any hits it would suggest that you are not addressing the issues, are resorting to confused arguments and are therefore making unsound conclusions. At least, this is my explanation how you manage at every turn to be completely mistaken about my perspective (if you forced me to develop reasons why you made a conscious choice not to restrain yourself from mischaracterising me I might be less gentle). I don’t know if it’s because you are unable, unwilling or simply unused to engaging your mind, but the effect is the same.
So it is perverse in the extreme for you to claim to be speaking out against the demonisation of minorities whilst simultaneously playing to the gallery in an attempt to demonise me for trying to highlight flaws in your reasoning: there is a poetic symmetry in your scapegoating of those who you feel are scapegoating you.
Frankly I think it is a tactical mistake for you to play the sympathy card, as it leads you into a debating cul-de-sac. While I’m glad you’ve changed your tune on the existence of a debate on these issues, I’d also urge you to change your attitude towards what’s achievable through debate and how to go about getting it.
Finally, by framing your terms and objectives in negative terms you may eventually win a temporary stay of execution but you will not advance your cause in the long run and will probably be doing lasting damage. Your lack of generosity towards my attempts to help you sharpen your critique may not paint me in a sympathetic light on this thread, but I hope you’ll start to see that it’s possible to get much further by other means.
@Squeedle
Exactly, what kind of person doesn’t back up their words in deed.
People who wish to influence the coalition to shift away from some of the more right-wing tendency we’ve seen would do well to pick up on Cameron’s comments and hold him to account for them rather than going on at length about less tangible things.
The power of this point is in that it cuts across all personal, party and public levels. I think it’s devastating to put it to him that he said he’d pay ‘special attention’ to the issue because it had touched him directly – it’s a way to remind him disability does not discriminate and therefore government has a duty to act in order to ensure liberty is protected.
Cameron would be dishonouring the memory of his own son if he didn’t accept his duty.
Some really great comments here on disability. David G argues clearly, calmly and eloquently.
I can’t quite grasp Oranjepan’s position though.
There seems to be a passive aggressive urge to deny clear information and twist it into something else. I’m not sure why that would be.
I would just like to point out that the DLA form has changed since David Cameron had to fill it in. It’s gone up from 30 something pages to 55 and under OUR Government a sly little meanness has crept in. When I last filled in the form you could fill in a brief covering page and send it off immediately so that the benefit would be paid from the date on that page rather than the date that you finally managed to fill in the whole thing. This may sound no big deal but it took me about 3 months to complete. I have M.E. which affects my concentration, my mood and everything about my life and Cameron was right when he said it was upsetting to fill in because you have to face up to what you can’t do rather than persuading yourself that you life is OK really. So now, on top of all that you won’t get the money you desperately need when you need it, but when you’ve finally managed to lay yourself bare on 55 pages of a form which seems to be designed to confuse and upset. It has to be done I know , but how on earth did my Lib Dem party colleagues allow this nasty little change to occur?
I realise that we are in a Coalition and that times are hard but it seems so petty to save a few hundred pounds from those who are claiming at the present time without any debate as far as I am aware. Let us make it clear that we want to cut back on the extravagances and tax avoidance of the wealthy rather than the necessities of the poor. I hope this is made crystal clear at Conference.
“It is completely ridiculous for you to attack people for opinions they do not hold. I don’t know how you decided that I’m arguing for “a Parsonian ‘sick role’ definition of disability”
I’m away from home so unable to fully reply to all of Oranjepan’s points – I’ll pick them up next week if the debate is still active, but to answer this particular point, we simply have to look at Oranjepan’s own words.
“dependency is a restriction on human rights and freedoms”
“what is the point of the NHS if everyone loses fitness?”
“Government priorities must shift because the public will not, cannot and should not provide permanent subsidies for imperfect personal choices”
Three different statements blaming people for the consequences of being disabled seems to me to be a pretty strong indication that you view disability as a deviant social role, which is exactly the definition of the the Parsonian Sick Role, the basis of ConDem (and Labour) social policy and the reason that disabled people feel attacked from all sides.