The Tories media war on the disabled begins again.

Right so as much as the demonisation of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees continues of course, but it’s not exactly helping the Tories in the polls, its not popular, Suella Braverman has all the likeability of rush hour traffic combined with the broad consensus appeal of a fart in a lift. As such, the resurrection of attacks on the disabled appears to be making an unwelcome comeback, 10 years on from George Osborne slashing disability benefits, with the human cost that ensued as a result. At the time it was shirkers vs workers, it was Benefits Street, hate crimes against the disabled, ableism, ableist attacks increased as a direct result of the hateful rhetoric used against the most vulnerable in society by a callous and cruel government that was apparently hell-bent on seeing such people dead and a media helping them, after all, who can forget Rupert Murdoch’s Scum rag and it’s ‘beat the cheat’ campaign? Urging people to report their disabled neighbours as benefit cheats? Everyone all of a sudden became a doctor because the neighbour with the neurological disorder had a good day and went outside for once? That’s the sort of shit that went on. This is the period in time that I actually became politically incensed, I got angry. As much as I can attribute Jeremy Corbyn for example as a driving force to aim that anger, that political education I was getting, I was learning very harsh, very tough lessons before that, with two disabled people in my household. I remain to this day a carer for them, all of this my videos, my channel on YouTube all have been part of an evolution 10 years to date in the making, from when Cameron and Osborne functionally came for my family, like so many others. We survived it, but truly it does feel like something we literally survived. Slashing our incomes as Osborne sought to make savings to cut the National Debt, lie that it was. Austerity was a device to shrink the state, push more privatisation and to do so at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable as the wealthiest in society, like they have under the entire 13 year reign of the Tories just got richer and richer. Now we’re back at it again. Jeremy Vine the other week put out a truly pathetic question on social media, now deleted due to the justifiable uproar, asking if it is time to crack down on long-term sick and disabled people on out of work benefits. The question asked was ‘Nearly 4 million people in the UK are being supported by the state without ever having to look for a job. That’s because they’ve been deemed too sick to work. Is it wrong for taxpayers to fund them indefinitely?’ the Dr Jeremy Vine show apparently as it now is. Not. There was no journalistic interest in this post, it was clickbait, it was a callout to right wingers who I sincerely hope never get sick in their lives because they’ll be in for one hell of a shock if they do. It also completely misses the point that a significant part of the reason this number has risen in recent years is people dealing with Long Covid, which can be absolutely debilitating and of which people may or may not ever recover. But to imply that these people are only deserving of so much ‘taxpayers money’ As you know I hate that phrase, its nonsense, taxation doesn’t pay for anything, it’s a control on inflation, public money, our money is there for the good of all, who are these journalists, who is this government working for, if not in the interests of us all? Social Security is a net meant to catch us should we ever need it, most won’t, but decent, civilised people will recognise the value of it and also recognise the fact the Tories have been cutting holes in it for years and now want to take scissors to it again. This isn’t an isolated incident though. Yesterday the Torygraph editor Chris Evans put out a piece advertising a calculator for people to work out how much of a personal burden to them these 4 million people on indefinite sickness benefits are. He said ‘Dear Reader, Nearly 4 million people in Britain who are claiming out of work benefits have been granted an indefinite exemption from finding employment. With welfare spending now close to £300bn a year, economists forecast that it will be decades before taxes return to pre-pandemic levels. You can use our calculator to find out exactly what it is costing you.’ That is fucking disgusting. You’re paying too much tax and you don’t like it, well, blame these disabled people. That’s the message. Never mind people like Nadhim Zahawi, Tory MP, who got embroiled in a tax scandal that he lost the Party Chairmanship over and the very next time he’s in the news now that story has died off is to call for the scrapping of inheritance tax because it hits millionaires like him! He’s completely incorrigible. When government figures come out with priceless gems like that, is it any wonder they don’t hit their millionaire and billionaire donors with wealth taxes? Don’t look at these rich people, look at all these disabled people we’re barely giving enough money to survive on, lets pick their pockets some more. Twisted, barbaric thinking. The people this apply to have been assessed as being too ill to work. End of story. Disability benefits and sickness benefits are getting labelled in the media as jobless benefits and that is a wickedly false scapegoating narrative. The hoops you have to jump through is crazy to qualify for any of this money. It's not just a form to fill out, its an assessment, conducted often by assessors who aren’t medically trained in your specific issues, who cling to inhouse training as their justification for being able to judge your health, but that isn’t the same as being medically trained. People get assessed by physios, by Occupational Therapists, they’re the only people that see you and whatever they write is then used by a decision maker who never meets you to make their decision. Years of being denied assistance by design have meant organisations, CICs, volunteers have sprung up to advise people on what to do during and ahead of these assessments so that you’re prepared properly because you aren’t told how to, what evidence to send in with your claims, because you aren’t told to. All of this is anew culture war being waged by Sunak and Co to cover for their own policy failures. If we can get you hating another group of people you’ll vote for us to kick them some more. If this is what wins them your vote, God I despise you utterly. The difference here and now however, having pulled this con before, is that more people are awake to it. Polling shows two-thirds of people in the UK think Universal Credit payments are too low, so for a lot of people there’s a basic understanding of out of work benefits and the reality of the situation, but the way some in the media, gutter press that they are, especially right leaning, Tory supporting or sensationalist types are again promoting this all of a sudden means disabled people are once again getting nervous, along with those who care for them and after you’ve liked, shared and subscribed to the channel, to keep up to date with all the dirty tricks this government try to pull and more, helping support a channel for somebody caring for disabled people actually working in the only way I actually can around those caring duties by doing so, you can stick with the channel content some more with this little recommendation here where whilst the government are trying to make the disabled out to be picking other people’s pockets, their economic incompetence has made one suggest a recession might be good for us all and I’ll see you on the next vid. Cheers folks.