In excruciating pain. Unable to sleep. Yet John is still ‘fit for work’

Last Updated: October 27, 2016By
[Illustration: Andrzej Krauze.]

[Illustration: Andrzej Krauze.]

More evidence of the failure of the Conservatives to run a decent benefit system. Please read and visit the full article.

John’s world was torn apart on a Monday morning three weeks ago. First came a text message that read: “We will ring you within 2-3 hours to discuss the outcome of your work capability assessment.” Then the phone went. A “decision maker” at the Department for Work and Pensions told John he’d been judged fit for work – despite his extreme pain, despite all his doctors had said. One of the benefits he needed to live on – employment and support allowance – would stop immediately.

You may have seen the new film I, Daniel Blake; John is living it. Just like Ken Loach’s character, he’s in his late 50s. He too is in no condition to hold down a full-time job, yet has been told by his own government that he must find work. His story tells you that the nightmare depicted by Loach and the scriptwriter Paul Laverty is neither fictional nor historical – but is being visited right now on our friends, our neighbours and us.

Just like Daniel Blake, John is slowly being crushed between the twin forces of a lumbering, unsympathetic, tick-box, brown-envelope bureaucracy, and a Tory government hellbent on slashing social security. The result is that a disabled man is today being forced to look for jobs that he can’t possibly do, purely to get benefits that won’t even keep a roof above his head.

Source: In excruciating pain. Unable to sleep. Yet John is still ‘fit for work’ | Aditya Chakrabortty | Opinion | The Guardian

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4 Comments

  1. NMac October 27, 2016 at 8:16 am - Reply

    The nasty heartless Tories are solely interested in tax cuts for the already wealthy. The rest of us, humans and animals alike, just don’t stand a chance.

  2. Barry Davies October 27, 2016 at 9:58 am - Reply

    I’m not quite in the same boat, I at least got my early retirement pension, due to incapacity to work, but I have had all benefits stopped because the capacity for work assessment (WCA), states I am capable of working, what work exactly is of course not described wherein lies the basic failure of the WCA it just claims that you are capable of work, not a specific capacity which means that in a lot of cases you can not do the job you are qualified or experienced in but don’t have the capacity for a considerable amount of other jobs. Until such time as the WCA explicitly states precisely what work you would be capable of doing, how can it be described as an assessment?

  3. Brian October 27, 2016 at 1:35 pm - Reply

    I wish I could send a text to the DWP, saying a QC will ring you, to arrange your appearance at ECHR Strasbourg.

  4. mohandeer October 27, 2016 at 7:20 pm - Reply

    And you wonder why more people are muling and trafficking drugs or stealing and getting involved in criminal activity which they would never have countenanced but have no options other than homelessness, starvation and a lower life expectancy? Driven to despair and angry, what would you do to survive? Until you are there in those shoes, how do any of us know what we are willing to do to survive? If you push people far and hard enough, they can only bend so far – or snap.

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