Sue Marsh reports on the Mail and Telegraph misreporting of disability benefits.
Sue Marsh blogs at Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
Oh how very depressing days like today are if you’re sick or disabled. Disability campaigners spend months trying to build up awareness of sickness (ESA) and Disability (DLA) benefits, only to have their work totally undone in just a few minutes by a government intent on twisting the facts to suit their agenda and a media who don’t even know the difference between the two benefits.
“Two million claimants on disability living allowance face being stripped of payments”, shouts the Telegraph, whilst listing a range of at best dubious claims from the Department for Work and Pensions.
The most persistent of these claims is that claimants are simply given DLA by the wheelchair-fairy based on no evidence and are never checked again.
This is nonsense. Claimants must fill in a 40-page form accompanied by evidence from consultants and health professionals. Their claims are reassessed regularly, usually every three years unless an indefinite award has been granted.
The Mail go further, claiming:
• Up to 500,000 are ready to start work immediately;
• People on lifetime benefit are more likely to retire or die than get a job;
• 38 per cent just need the right support to get back to work.
Sadly, the Daily Mail actually have the wrong benefit.
Letters aren’t, as they claim, being sent out today to people claiming DLA asking them to submit reassessments. Letters however are being sent to those claiming Incapacity Benefit summoning them to assessments for the migration to Employment Support Allowance (ESA).
In a staggering bit of misreporting, the Mail also claims:
“Out of the 1,626 people assessed in Burnley and Aberdeen a third of those questioned were taken off the DLA and instead put onto Jobseeker’s Allowance.”
No, that would be Incapacity Benefit too.
Of the 500,000 “ready to start work immediately”, the Mail forgets to point out that assessments have been called “unfit for purpose” by every main investigation into them, including the Citizens Advice Bureau and the government’s own advisory committee. whilst 40% of these “miracle cures” are being overturned at tribunals, costing the taxpayer £19.8 million.
Most people awarded DLA for life have severe, degenerative conditions that will never improve such as cerebral palsy, severe learning disabilities, total paralysis or kidney failure. The government seems unduly shocked that people with lifelong disabilities should receive awards for life.
Surely constant reassessment of those people whose conditions will never improve is the single most ridiculous waste of taxpayers’ money since someone decided MPs ought to get expenses on top of their already generous salaries?
Coalition plans to reform ESA and DLA are flawed and many of us spend our lives trying to inform people and fight for modifications to the welfare reform bill that could end up saving great distress.
This level of reporting is not only lazy, but it could be dangerous. Sadly, all the while the DWP are happy to twist the figures themselves; I can’t imagine things will improve.
121 Responses to “Right wing press need to check facts before screaming at disabled”
Anon E Mouse
Elaine – I know nothing about belittling conditions just that where scarce resources are not directed at those in need I have a problem with it. Clearly your situation is one where it is without question that you are indeed a person with disabilities but there are those who are not in your position.
Having read her blog many times, it is clear Sue Marsh is equally deserving of state help but also she has a clear Labour supporting agenda and personally I think that disabilities and such issues should rise above party politics.
I have big problems with the types of responses I have received on this blog for asking perfectly reasonable questions. If a person is able to make a post publicly then they should be able to qualify that opinion when challenged or don’t make the post.
Unpleasant replies with suggested threats from gwenhwyfaer above for example, or TiddK who effectively states that because I disagree with his/her post means I am uncaring go only to reinforce my belief that party politics should not be involved.
Those two shrill, grubby and smearing responses remind me why I will no longer vote for the Labour Party in it’s current incarnation. It is a shame those two do not realise that their position is undermined by those types of underhand tactics and their case would be far strengthened if they just dropped the politics of this and concentrated on the issue at hand…
Tim Abbott
Nice deconstruction by @suey2y of crap journalism about DLA and ESA. http://tinyurl.com/6dxzayz
Black Triangle
Anon E Mouse:
“Godwin has stated that he introduced Godwin’s law in 1990 as an experiment in memetics.[2]
Godwin’s law does not claim to articulate a fallacy; it is instead framed as a memetic tool to reduce the incidence of inappropriate hyperbolic comparisons.
“Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust,” Godwin has written.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search? q=cache:yaEbRij3Y4gJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin’s_law+Godwin%E2%80%99s+Law&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&source=www.google.co.uk
Yes – THINK A BIT HARDER! The analogy is a sound one! LEARN from it!
Elaine
We all often make assumptions and sometimes belittle each other in subtle maybe unintentional ways. I have merely responded to some of the things and attitudes that make all ill and disabled peoples lives more difficult. I am not interested in character assassinations I get enough of that directed at me, it is not nice and the sooner we all learn to play nicer together the sooner life can be less harsh.
The thing is we all do it to a certain degree. By judging a person as fit for work and milking the system from limited knowledge is a character assassination. When we judge we get judged back and anyone will be judged in a good way by some and a bad way by others. I personally would like to see less anger and vitriol at each other. More understanding that we can’t always see hidden disabilities and more readily available emotional and practical help for those who are struggling, without putting conditions on how a person is allowed to look to the outside world. Which of course can be abused and that is annoying for us all. But there are far less people abusing the system than is being portrayed by media and many people who think they know many who may be.
This is all being eroded, bad service for the ill and disabled is getting worse, the steps some charities are making for fighting the stigma are being totally undermined and people are nit picking at each other trying to see how to apportion the blame. Divide and conquer, it works doesn’t it? We are living in an era where we have been trained to be very suspicious of each other. Where we are always questioning who deserves to have a nice life or a bit of dignity. So we argue and bicker and say nasty things to each other and call each other trolls…and I am going to add a few of my thoughts about trolls…
Trolls live under bridges lurking in the shadows.
Bridge builders beware your inner troll may lurk too.
Feed the trolls love, don’t feed their hate. Never forget if you hate trolls look in the mirror from time to time, you may be a troll too. We trolls who are in the ‘right’, verses ‘wrong’ trolls.
We can learn in discussion. We can change views and we can discuss ways that things can be made more humane. I also don’t personally trust any politician to work for humanity and not to profit the already mega rich.
Anon E Mouse
Elaine – I think you may be a secret hippy woman!
;-}