If you too are disgusted by the way this government has treated sick and disabled people please consider signing the petition below.

Petition:

Ian Duncan Smith has caused, and continues to cause, great pain and hardship to the ordinary people of Great Britain, with his unfair, unjust, welfare reforms.

Not least in his reforms, he is declaring that disabled and sick people are 'fit for work' by ordering the French company, Atos, to get as many people as possible off Incapacity Benefit, and into work related groups.

More than 40% of these so called 'fit' people are then taking their decision to Tribunal, and winning their case on appeal - proving that the decision by Atos was wrong!

These assessments are causing many, many people so much distress, that many have committed suicide! While waiting for appeals, claimants' benefits are stopped - so, as well as having to cope with illness, the claimant also has to live without enough money to both heat their homes, and eat!

Another part of the Welfare Reform, the 'Bedroom Tax' is also the most unfair, demonisation of social housing tenants ever to have been allowed in this country!

From April 1st 2013 thousands of long standing social housing tenants face losing their homes, by falling into rent arrears, as they are deemed to be 'under-occypying' if they have ONE spare bedroom! The councils and Housing Associations DO NOT HAVE the amount of ONE BED properties needed for these tenants to move to - but are persecuting them, for something that is no fault of their own! The situation of shortage in housing is the Governments', for not building enough social housing over the years, and for selling off the housing that we DO have left! So these tenants, that have made their house a home, over 20, 30, 40 years, (as their tenancy states it is a 'Lifetime' tenancy), will not be able to pay the extra 14% in rent that IDS has told them they will have to pay, so they will be evicted!

This man is not fit to run our works & Pensions department...... get him out NOW!

<a href="http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/sack-ian-duncan-smith-ids-now.html">SACK IAN DUNCAN SMITH (IDS) NOW! Petition | GoPetition</a>

Awaiting Atos

More than 20 years ago I was diagnosed with a painful degenerative condition and assessed for DLA and Incapacity benefits. The process at the time was very thorough.  I was sent to a residential assessment center for a week, my every move was watched and I was tested for all possible work activities. The resultant advice was that I could do anything I liked - as long as I did it lying down! I was awarded DLA 'for life'.  Since then life has not been easy by any stretch of the imagination. The pain, frustrations and indignities of my condition are a constant challenge which can be very hard to bear but the knowledge that I would always have a roof over my head and food on the table made it just about possible to cope. Then came Atos.  At first the idea of reassessment  didn't worry me unduly, I am, after all, genuinely and irrevocably too sick to work.  But then the stories started.  Friends who have conditions similar to my own were being tested - and told they could work, on the strength of a 20 minute tick box 'assessment' !  I have watched them go through the arduous process of appeals etc and although they have now had benefits reinstated it has in every case made their conditions worse. I'm still waiting and I am, frankly, terrified! I have coped for this long but everybody has their breaking point and I am now having to take antidepressants on top of everything else as I can't even think about it all without crying. All this talk about 'shirkers' doesn't help either.  Anyone who thinks living like this is a 'lifestyle choice' needs urgent psychiatric assessment. I started paying national insurance the day after I left school and continued to do so until I became ill.  I and my ilk are ENTITLED to the benefits we receive. We are not 'scroungers' - we paid for them!

 I wrote this post this morning,initially as a comment following an article in the guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/17/atos-attack-emotional-commons-debate?fb=native&commentpage=4

Hardest Hit

I'm new to this blogging business but I've read so many good ones just lately, especially those connected to the disability rights movement, it inspired me to have a go too.

Tony and I went on the Norwich 'Hardest Hit' march on Saturday.  Planning an expedition can get quite complicated. Questions like 'where can we park that won't (A) cost a fortune* and (B) will give us enough room to unload my buggy ?'   become rather important.  Norwich is an ancient and beautiful city and as such is a complete nightmare for anything on wheels.  Buggy riding up a cobbled side street was excruciating, I wish those things had better suspension!  We’d wrapped up fairly warmly in anticipation of an ordinary October day but the sun shone and the wind was warm and balmy, such a pleasure to be out and about on such a day.  Had a bit of a moment en route to Chapelfield  Gardens. I had to take to the road to get past some roadworks and got sandwiched between two enormous lorries. Oh well, I’d already started going grey.

A small but enthusiastic crowd was building in the gardens.  We collected our banners and then wandered around chatting to people, surprisingly few familiar faces. We shuffled off to the music of a mandolin.  There was a bit of polite slogan chanting but you could tell this wasn’t a march of seasoned campaigners.  One woman I spoke to said she was terribly surprised to find herself in a street protest but that she had got so angry at the current injustices that she couldn’t help but join in. A blind friend of hers had lost vital sensory support to the cuts. Talking to other marchers it soon became apparent that there were few people there who weren’t  affected directly or indirectly by the cuts.  No mass turn out of support from an enraged electorate, then.   

The local press was out in force, filming shots for the TV news (did you see my 5 second moment of stardom?!) Most shocking was the utter indifference of many of those we marched past.  Most of them looked straight through us or averted their eyes.  There were few, if any, shouts of support while we trickled along, just fingers drummed on steering wheels in frustration at being held up and losing a few minutes of their oh-so-valuable time – ‘can’t you lot limp any faster?’.  

 Why on earth can’t they understand that we’re doing this for them too.  It could be any one of them.  Any minute. Just a tiny slip up and your life can change forever. You’d think pure self interest would drive them to support us.  But they are them and we are us, different from them.  Strange strangers, reminders of mortality and vulnerability.

.  The march ended in a rally.  Brave speakers, unaccustomed to public notice had their say.  Preaching to the converted.     Those who really needed to hear conspicuous by their absence.

 

*Norwich City Council started charging for disabled parking in August last year.  As a consequence most disabled spaces in most of their car parks are empty and every double yellow line in the city is crammed full.  You'd think they’d have noticed by now that most of us can’t afford their parking charges!