While this is a high-profile case, this is pretty emblematic of Conservative and Forced Labour policy. Labour have cut back even further on what constitutes a disability, when in reality many hundreds of thousands of people who should receive PIP do not.
If a state cannot provide comfortable lives for disabled people and, even worse, stigmatises them as scroungers, it is a failed state.
Personal Independence Payment.
I’m old enough to remember when Labour was a socialist party.
They don’t seem to be able to filter out the chancers either. I’ve known a couple of people getting pip who were definitely capable of working if they’d just stop doing drugs all the time. Seems like many of the people who are really in need are unable to navigate the system and the appeals process. It’s much less stressful for people who don’t actually have a disability!
That said, I’d much rather have a system that less a few piss takers through if it means the people genuinely in need can get support.
I can assure you it’s far from easy to get PIP, as I’m going through the process at the moment. It’s degrading and stressful (which is the thing I’ve been told to avoid) and seems entirely arbitrary. The application process is opaque and assessment is not performed by medical professionals. If someone IS getting PIP, they have jumped through MASSIVE hoops to do so. If you think they’re “cheating” then I challenge you to try to get it yourself. You really seem to have no idea.
I hate your reductive “if they’d just” rhetoric, whether directed at drug use or other “simple to solve” difficulties that are, in practice, far from simple to solve. You see an outward symptom as the root cause, and you also fallaciously assume that even if that IS the root cause, that it’s easy to solve. And before you assume that I’m one of those people “doing drugs all the time”, I’m not.
I started working in 1985, and I’ve worked right up to July last year, when I got ill. Prior to that, I seldom had time off sick - I had less than two weeks off in the past decade.
Sorry, I this came up in a discussion with someone else who replied and I realised that I’d missed out some important context behind my own purely anecdotal experiences. I was, for way too many years, addicted to smack and crack, so I tended to move in those circles. This meant that I saw a section of society much more towards the dodgy end of the spectrum. My experience with having seen crackheads blagging benefits is not something the vast majority of people would see. And it’s probably correspondingly rare.
I’m sorry you dislike my ‘if they’d just. . .’ comment. Yes, it’s definitely reductive, but I stand by it. Addiction is a different conversation, so rather than go off on a tangent I reduced it to ‘If they’d just. . .’. But that’s kinda what it comes down to. I’m not unwilling to discuss my own history, my overdoses, hospitalisations, horrible situations I ended up in, all that stuff that goes with a smack habit. And the crack on top just shifts your problems up a gear. I’ve been clean for a few years now, but just last week at the doctor’s a simple blood test took about 45 mins because I don’t really have any veins left. Humiliating, really, but entirely my fault. I did this shit to myself, my responsibility, my fault. So I kinda know whereof comes the shit I’m saying. ‘If they’d just stop. . .’ is what it boils down to for every addict. I just stopped, and relapsed many times. But you’ve got to just stop. It’s really the only way. At least in my case, things had to get very ugly for me to finally get clean. I still have issues with alcohol and nicotine, but I’ve quit everything else.
Like you, I’ve worked since the 80s. Actually, lots of junkies just work extra shifts to pay for their habits, we just only notice the obvious ones begging in the street.
Sorry to hear you’ve been going through the mill with the system. Yeah, we assume that if we’ve worked and paid taxes all our lives, the state will look after us when something goes wrong. And increasingly that is not the case. A civilised society should look after its poor, its sick, its homeless.
There are organisations that can help you navigate the Kafkaesque corridors of pip, I hope you are able to reach out and get some help.
As I said, I did know a couple of people who successfully navigate this stuff when I really didn’t think they deserved the support - but they weren’t stressed so it wasn’t such a big deal for them. I guess that’s the difference. And again, my life experience and anecdotes are the exception not the norm.
Thinking critically on your comment here, I’d like to point out that your mention of these “couple of” disability support exploiters is anecdotal and scant, yet you follow-up with implying that said exploitation is widespread and assumed rampant. This is simply not the case at all, is misleading to unaware readers, and belies a deeply-held bias toward stigmatization of this system & its recipients. ☝🏼
Yeah you’re right, it’s totally anecdotal and I have no way of knowing if this is widespread or extremely rare. Just giving my own experience.
Good on ya for taking criticism and digesting it! That’s genuinely awesome to see! 🤘🏼🤩 We’re all on that journey, each at their own pace and points along, so don’t stress.
Sorry if I came in a little hot. It’s a topic I have strong feelings about. 🙇♂️
No worries, it’s an emotive topic, particularly to those of us who have disabilities or have friends or family in that position. They should be able to access support without having to jump through Kafkaesque hoops.
It’s probably worth mentioning that my experience is certainly coloured by my own history - for many years I was addicted to smack and crack, and so of course my social circle included a whole lot of proper wrong uns. I’m far more likely than the average person to have known people who have committed all sorts of crimes, including those involving benefits. This really does skew my anecdotal experience. I should have made that clear in my original comment.
Completely understandable and, I want to point out: an impressive amount of self-awareness & humility in that adjustment, ngl. That’s genuinely appreciated in this current era. 🖖🏼
As for myself, I’ve been on a different end of the “benefits” system with a lifelong-yet-barely-visible disability —but without any crime nor addiction along the way, I don’t fit the gen-pop agit-prop decoy of “disabled” tropes.
Thank you for hearing me, and I’m glad you’re here, fellow human. 🙏🏽🤘🏼
No worries mate. Yeah I understand that things are even harder in our punitive benefits system - and across much of society - for ppl with ‘invisible’ disabilities. As a taxpayer, albeit lowest level, I’m fuckin infuriated that more of my contribution isn’t spent on helping the people who need help. The disabled, the elderly, the NHS. Any society that doesn’t make looking after its vulnerable members priority number one has taken a wrong turn. At least IMO.
Anyway, sorry if I offended you and best of luck in navigating the system to get the support you need. I’m just sorry it can be such a nightmare for people in your position. It really shouldn’t be. If you’re having issues with the system, there are organisations that can help. I hope you won’t hesitate to reach out to them if you have trouble. Take care eh
Thanks, fellow poor. It’s rough out here, but at least I’m not living in the car anymore (so far), and the way forward is mostly about avoiding the dragnet of “abnormal” people into camps, instead of that plus the constant risk of bacon takin’ my possessions & shooting my ESA. 😶🌫️ Small victories. 🤞🏼
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While I get the joke, I think it’s a little insensitive.
Would have helped to have the acronym explained in the summary.
Edit: I know it’s probably on the article, but if people needs to go into the article to even know the topic, title and text of the post fail to go their job
That’s fair.
I speed read the article but never did it define what PIP was.
I guess it’s similar to the NDIS in Australia - National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Joke was appealing to the nerdy nature of the Fediverse, but since it’s majority down voted, I’ll democratically delete it.
Thank you for taking the feedback 🙂. Yeah sorry I didn’t realise PIP was not explained. As others have said it’s Personal Independence Payment and it’s basically an extra allowance of benefits for disabled people to account for the extra costs they experience in their lives.
At the moment it’s very hard to get and many mental health conditions have recently been excluded by the (Forced) Labour government to “get people back to work”, even though that doesn’t make any sense.
an extra allowance of benefits for disabled people to account for the extra costs they experience in their lives.
Wow. Here in the US, the average person isn’t even aware that being disabled is more expensive than being able-bodied, so I’m sure it goes without saying that our government does not even attempt to help out with those extra expenses.
Still awful that they make people in the UK jump through hoops to access that help, of course.
I don’t know if it was later updated, but the first paragraph of the article defines the initialism.
You have more upvotes now. Please reinstate it.
