Once again the Tories have shown they are the party of caring and sharing with their latest Daily Mail pleasing attempt at welfare “reform” or in truth, savage cuts if god forbid they regain power in the next election. So we are to return to the ever so successful policies of the 1980’s where the poorest and most vulnerable of society have to pay for the richest.
So all 2.6million people on Incapacity Benefit are going to be reassessed in a rigorous campaign to establish what “work” they “can do” rather than what they “can’t do”. Those deemed capable of doing ANY work are then stripped of their benefit of circa £90 a week and placed on Job seekers allowance of circa £65 meaning an immediate drop of £25 a week in income! In some cases of course, this is fair as any system is open to abuse BUT for a lot more there will be unnecessary suffering in this cut. So after having been transferred to JSA what then? Get a job? In the current climate there simply aren’t any! Training then? Great, gets them off the unemployment stats for a few months… Then the whole cycle starts again. As a disabled person myself who has spent a fair while on both JSA in the past and currently ICB have they considered how much harder it is get employment when you are disabled? Disabled people are both overtly and covertly discriminated against in the Labour market – I know I have experienced it on innumerable occasions!
I’m not saying that disabled people should spend their life on benefits but until laws (strong and easily enforceable ones) are passed making it illegal to discriminate against us all these “reforms” will achieve is to inflict even deeper poverty on the poorest in society.
Their's is a land with a wall around it, mine is a faith in my fellow man. 
