Right, so as many regular viewers will know I have a bee in my bonnet when it comes to attacks on the disabled. I’m an unpaid carer, life has been made stupidly hard for families like mine with disabled family members in them, it’s why I make vids these days like this one and am incredibly grateful to all those who have supported me to keep going, because actually when it comes down to it, if I were to boil my personal experiences down to one defining trigger moment that gave birth to this entire enterprise, it would be the war on the disabled first enacted by the original Dr Death, with his work will set you free mentality, when in reality Tory reforms to out of work benefits, sickness benefits, disability benefits have driven people into their graves. The work capability assessment that decides whether you can afford to live or not, the tick box exercise conducted by an outsourcing company more often than not and equally more often than not conducted by somebody without the foggiest about your health conditions or disability. A faceless somebody further up the food chain then makes a decision based on the report sent by said assessor and you hope to God the odds fall in your favour. For too many it proved not to be the case, for too many they were driven to take their own lives, or the decision proved fatal in and of itself. The other side of it is the sanctions of course. The example I always remember is the former soldier David Clapson who died after missing an appointment at the Jobcentre. A diabetic, he couldn’t afford to keep his fridge on for his insulin. He died of diabetic ketoacidosis. He had just three quid in his bank account and his cupboard contained. I suppose the reason this one sticks in my mind, is because he too was a carer for his mother. When she was put in a home, the state failed him. This country for the long term sick and disabled is like the Hunger Games. It could easily be me or any other number of carers in his position, so many of us in this country, caring for loved ones, unable to work, this video making of mine began as a hobby and has expanded to potentially becoming a career for me now in the situation we’re in, but that makes me exceptionally lucky and I’m grateful to everyone who just watches and shares this let alone anything else. But the reason I’ve begun this video in the manner I have is because the Tories are again coming for families like mine and so many others. The war on the disabled is beginning again, the culture war against migrants hasn’t quite resonated as the Tories hope, so they need to start hating on someone else and broken records like they are. Now we kinda knew something was in the offing when the announcement came back in March that Work Capability Assessments were finally being scrapped, completely unfit for purpose as it is, but not until 2026, so would be dependent on the Tories staying in power, seems a stretch. Labour have no plans to abolish the testing regime, abject, lethal failure as it’s been, so little hope things would be much different with them in charge. The plan is to make claiming out of work sickness benefits even harder. How that is going to be done is going to be revealed this week, but the plan a few months ago was to scrap the work capability assessment and lump being unable to work in with Personal Independence Payment. In other words the government would only deem you unfit for work if you had a recognised disability. Why would they do this? There massive Pandemic failure is a driving factor of this, with millions having been signed off work due to contracting COVID and a large number of these left suffering with Long COVID, which is not considered a disability, but a long term sickness issue. This change would in effect reclassify those with Long COVID and leave them at risk of sanction if they don’t go back to work surely? There will also apparently be new emphasis on trying to find work from home opportunities and work coaches to help those signed off with mental health issues find work they can do. Now I’m all for people finding and being supported into work they can do, if this comes to pass as implied, but who trusts the Tories to do that with the numbers of people who have died thanks to their actions? Working from home, doing this, making videos enormously boosts my mental health wellbeing, people often forget how carers themselves get affected, so I appreciate the intent as being sold to us, but I don’t believe it’ll be delivered that way, both because of the Tories track record and the fact support going forwards will hinge on whether you are disabled. Many will not be, will have their health put at risk by this and the new DWP chief Mel Stride can talk about his belief in the power of work to transform people’s lives, but that all very much work will set you free again and we saw what happened when Iain Duncan Smith sang that tune. He didn’t get called Dr Death for nothing, is Mel Stride now going to take that crown? On top of the noises coming from the DWP on this issue though, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt has also weighed in, less in a manner of saying we want to support you back into work, or else, but more that disabled and long term sick people are hurting the economy, or at least this is certainly the note the downmarket and eternally dreadful Daily Mail has struck, bringing up the topic of sickness benefit reforms with the spectre of rising inflation. The Treasury is expecting inflation to rise back above 7% this month, so the Fail is bleating about sickness benefit reforms in relation to the government having to tighten it’s belt. Oh woe is we as tax cuts won’t be coming with this news, but hurrah, let’s attack the disabled again because good old Mel Stride is going to get those shirkers turned back into workers again to get the benefit bill down and stop these people costing hard working taxpayers so much of their cash! We know the headlines, we know the mantra, we’ve seen it and read it all before. Red meat stuff for frothing Conservatives, media pressure on the government to be as harsh as possible, it sold so many papers before when the disabled were dying didn’t it? Let’s have some more of that. Whether you get any help now is whether or not you successfully passed an assessors tick box exercise. What this will amount to I’m certain, will be a change to the tick box form and nothing more, just a way to boot as many more people off support as they can, to seek work that may not exist that they might be able to do in some kind of fantasy world. But it’s not real life and when the Tories went down this road before, people lost their lives. Their driver is to cut the social security bill, not help people because they’re Tories and they only ever help themselves. What are your thoughts on this? Are you backing the government reforms here or do you think its an excuse to absolve themselves of responsibility for those who’s health has been devastated long term by the pandemic? Join in the conversation, leave a comment and have your say. Thanks for watching, I hope you found the video useful, please like, share and subscribe if you did, more content out daily. Meanwhile here’s a video recommendation where the media attacks on the disabled have never really gone away, one notable example recently came from Jeremy Vine who ended up on the receiving end of a substantial social media rinsing and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.