Grossly offensive as well as totally hypocritical sums up
the presence of David Cameron and George Osborne at the London Paralympics at a
time when many people with disabilities are fighting to maintain their meagre
benefits.
Osborne was roundly booed
when it was announced he was to present a medal. Cameron had a mixed reception.
Former prime minister Gordon Brown was cheered, though I don’t know why because
it was his government that first targeted the disabled for benefit cuts.
And while the cabinet was being reshuffled in something akin
to rearranging of deckchairs on the Titanic, even more cuts in benefits were leaking
out.
Sick and disabled claimants could lose 70% of their weekly
employment support allowance (ESA) if they refuse to take part in work-related
activities, according to plans drawn up by the Department for Work and
Pensions. At present claimants can be “fined” a maximum of £28.15 a week if
they are deemed to break their agreement.
The most vulnerable are those placed in the “work-related
activity group” by the private firm and Paralympics sponsor Atos, whose HQ was
besieged by protesters last week. Official figures show there are 340,000 in
this group, of whom over 11,000 have been fined in the last year.
Campaigners immediately attacked the latest assault on the
disabled, with Paul Farmer, chief executive of Mind, warning that the planned
sanctions “risks devastating their mental health".
While Atos is naturally enough in the firing line for their
crude “work capability assessments” (WCA) which have resulted in, for example,
terminally ill people being assessed as fit for work, the firm is effectively
the messenger for all the major political parties.
That much is reinforced today by two Labour MPs, Tom
Greatrex and Stephen Timms, the shadow employment minister. In an article
that previews a debate in Parliament on the WCA, they defend the system, only
querying its effectiveness. They are concerned that too many successful appeals
show that the system isn’t working. They write:
“Most people agree that we need to focus not on what disabled
people can’t do but what they can do. That’s why the idea of a WCA is one most
people support, and it’s why Labour introduced it in Government. It’s important
that sickness benefit claimants be assessed to demonstrate whether or not they
can work.”
They do not reject the basis of the Atos contract – which is
worth £100m a year – but want the tests “improved” and made more competent. But
disability campaigners rightly reject this approach, which Labour adopted to
appease the right-wing media’s obsession with “benefit scroungers”.
And so it continues under the present regime. The Black
Triangle Campaign, which exposes and opposes defamation of the disabled, is
currently locked in a war
of words with Robert Devereux, the permanent secretary at the DWP.
At issue are remarks
made by Terry Moran, the department’s chief operating officer. In July he told hundreds
of civil servants that fraudulent disability claimants should have their
photographs pinned to "every lamp-post in the streets where they
live" to shame them.
Devereux has defended the remarks and rejected accusations
that Moran had broken the civil service code with overtly political remarks. John
McArdle, a founder member of the Black Triangle Campaign, accused Moran of
playing “playing fast and loose with disabled people’s lives”.
The spirit and success of the Paralympics, with packed
venues, stands in stark contrast to the “scrounger” rhetoric put out by
ministers and the tabloids alongside the continuing assault on benefits.
Cameron and company ought to be told their presence at the Games is not wanted.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
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