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”
Stella K
https://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/04/mail-telegraph-disability-benefits-myths/
DisabilityBenefits distorition by the right wing press, surprised? Really? #mhuk #wheresthebenefit #fitforwork « Dawn Willis sharing the News & Views of the Mentally Wealthy
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Annie Bishop
there is .5% fraud with DLA and the condems propose to cut by 20% do the maths , there will be losers if this goes through. I have MS and receive the award indefinately, what will an annual assessment do for me apart from being stressful? my condition does not remit, it progresses so will I be miraculously cured?? I think not, will I get a one way ticket to dignitas? DLA is a benefit people receive to cover the addittional costs of being disabled and quite a few people receive it to support them in employment. I pay tax and I resent the government sponsored hateful reporting of the press directed at disabled people.
Sue Marsh
Anon E Mouse. You simply can’t use my “Labour Agenda” as an excuse here.
If you’ve really read my blog as you say, then you’ll know I have reserved my very worst censure for Labour. “Take Time to Listen and Learn Douglas Alexander” and “Are politicians deaf to the sick and Disabled” are still two of my most widely read posts and their scorn and fury at Labour is fierce.
On the radio yesterday, I went to lengths to point that in fact ESA was a Labour policy that the Conservatives are now making worse.
That’s the simple fact – you complain of poor treatment on this thread, yet you haven’t answered a single question, not one.
All you’ve done is ask post comments that judge and that will always ensure you get attacked back.
You didn’t address the fact that these WCA tests have been found unfit for purpose by the CAB, the Professor who designed ESA, the government’s own advisory committee and Harrington. That’s nothing whatsoever to do with Labour – none of those groups are partisan.
You didn’t address the fact that the article above is merely critical of the press reporting of DLA and ESA and the government spin on the figures. No-one set out an argument here about who’s really sick and who isn’t but you. The papers in question have clearly allowed atrocious journalism and caused millions of people receiving DLA stress and worry by getting the facts completely wrong. This is fact too, nothing whatever to do with Labour and has been confirmed by FullFact.
You say nothing about those things at all. You simply cling to your “knowledge” that lots of people are faking it despite all the evidence in front of you. People tried actually to engage with you on this thread, tried to give information, but you ignored all of it and ploughed on with your “Nothing to see here” line. Can you really be surprised that people became frustrated.
It is a cheap shot from someone who has usually lost the argument to fall back on “Oh well, she’s a leftie, she just has an axe to grind”
Yes, I’m a leftie, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t present you with facts, evidence & links.
Basically, the government can plough on as it is (they announced a total whitewash of the DLA enquiry yesterday, accepting not one single point made in over 5000 submissions) or they can stop and listen before it’s too late.
All I can say is that there has never been an assault on the living standards of sick and disabled people like this in living memory. That is not hyperbole but you can believe that it is if you choose. The effects of these policies will be seen soon enough. I just wish I could stop them before it’s too late.
Elaine
I don’t think there is much of a secret in that one!
I’m an artist. I was training to do person centred counselling. And I meditate to avoid medication. I get angry sometimes that if I was taking the medication and quite possibly interrupting my progress with the inner work any training counsellor has to do but without actual support of trained counselling as that is not on offer here, doctors agreed with the way medications can affect my whole system I am better off doing what I am doing then I get assessed as does not take anti-depressants therefore is no suffering from depression or anxiety or post traumatic stress or the stress of living in substandard conditions, ooh is vocal at times so must be able to concentrate all the time and is surely being a lazy so n so if she is not out earning her living. Basically the fact I still have a sense of worth left is due to hard work and much meditation to let go of the anger of being seen as less than when i am struggling dashed hard. I know everyone is working hard and struggling in their own ways, so jealousy and suspicion are rife. Yeah free love and peas ;o)