It’s Simple Dependency, Sonia, And We Can’t Afford It Anymore…

And apart from that, given what some MPs consider to be moral behaviour, I'll take no instruction from the likes of them....

Since the pandemic, the number of working-age people out of work as a result of long-term illness has swelled by more than 750,000. There are also more people claiming health-related benefits – both means-tested out-of-work benefits, and the personal independence payment (Pip) that helps meet the additional costs of disability, which isn’t means-tested and is paid regardless of someone’s work status. One in 10 working-age adults now receive health-related benefits, up from one in 14 before the pandemic.

How on earth did we ever get to this? Well, in part, it stems from the Tories eagerness to fudge the umemployment figures: 

No other wealthy country has experienced a trend as marked as this, suggesting it’s not purely about Covid or the cost of living (though it’s worth noting the UK is only now spending roughly the average for comparable countries on disability benefits). It’s more likely to be a product of how these have interacted with the UK’s public services and welfare system.

The low rates of out-of-work benefits for those who lose their jobs – eroded since 2010 – have probably pushed more people towards applying for disability benefits than in other countries.

And now someone's attempting to do something about this state of affairs, there's outrage.  

Starmer aides have been busy briefing that cutting these benefits will resonate with swing voters. That seems unlikely to placate the Labour MPs – including frontbenchers and the normally loyal – who are angry about this not because they think it’s a vote loser, but because they think it’s immoral. Benefits have been pared to the bone since 2010 by successive Conservative chancellors – the poorest decile of families with children lost an astounding £6,000 a year on average between 2010 and 2024 as a result of changes to the tax-benefit system.

They didn't 'lose it', though, they simply should never have had it. We shouldn't be paying people to be idle.  

This Is Mostly The ‘Admin’ That Everyone Has To Do, Though

Sofia Brizo spends four hours a day on what she calls "disability admin". The 27-year-old PhD student, who has cerebral palsy, said she needed to spend that time on making accommodations and planning alternatives, because "the world is not accessible".

Disability Wales said disabled people endured an "immense and often daunting" amount of administration.

*sighs* OK, I'll bite. Give us a 'for instance'. 

Sofia, from Cardiff, who is also a disability activist (Ed: Funny how they always have time and enery for activism, isn't it?), said it was everyday things, such as planning a train journey or booking a routine medical appointment, which can take time. "It's all of these little things that kind of add on to your day and something that, for a non-disabled person would take like 30 seconds, for me sometimes it could take half an hour," she added.

She said she was lucky as her work in academia meant she had a degree of flexibility in her job, recalling how she recently had to leave a meeting unexpectedly to get her walker repaired at a nearby bike shop.

"I feel like my disability is a full-time job sometimes, and it's not just because of my own body and the extra care it needs, but it's mostly because of the inaccessible world that we live in," she said.

No, that's just more 'poor me' whinging. Be specific.  

The para swimmer, from Bergamo in Italy, said she recently decided to monitor how much time she spent on these tasks, after a series of problems, and calculated it was four hours a day. "That's literally half of my working day and then I end up having to work weekends, but paradoxically, it's less stressful for me to do my job at weekends.

"I can't make phone calls about medical appointments on a Saturday or Sunday," she added. The campaigner said a recent attempt to book her smear test was a good example.

Newsflash, love - no-one can.  

"I have a disability as it states in my medical record, I need my legs supported so I need a bed with stirrups.

"They say they'll call me back in a few days. A week later I call again, it takes about an hour, it's a different receptionist, I have to explain everything again."

Gosh, the non-disabled have never experienced that, I bet.... 

Eventually Sofia was able to book an appointment at a nearby medical centre, although when she arrived, they had booked the wrong appointment.

"The whole thing was a disaster," she said.

And none of that is down to 'accessibility' but down to incompetence on the part of the medical staff - something non-disabled people experience too, in even greater numbers!  

The professor said, at times, asking for reasonable adjustments in the workplace could feel like asking for "special favours".

Are they things every other employee gets? No? Then what else are they? 

"The embedded ableism that's in the way that we've designed everything, because it's people who are able-bodied, who have done the designing," she added.

Of course it is - there's more of us.  

Maybe Disabled People Should Stop Paying Council Tax?

Four councils are responsible for bringing more than half of the prosecutions in England for people abusing the use of disabled parking badges.

So, does it only happen in these four, which are Lambeth, Birmingham, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Bromley? Or are the other councils not doing their job?

The AA has raised concerns that councils do not take enforcement seriously, after the data also showed that more than two-thirds of councils, 110 out of England’s 140 local authorities, had not prosecuted anyone at all for misusing them.

Ah. Like I figured.