Let’s debunk some myths about illness and disability
This Site’s newfound popularity on YouTube has brought in a new wave of commenters – many of them somewhat misguided – so let’s debunk some myths about illness and disability.
Vox Political‘s latest video, posted on March 6, was about the announcement that Job Centre work coaches are to be diverted towards trying to shoehorn people with long-term illnesses and disabilities into work in the eighth (I think) attempt at such a scheme since 2010 (five of the others are still, technically, ongoing).
It attracted some frankly astonishing remarks which I proceeded to debunk – as I did the comments about immigration under another clip (a few more of those turned up here as well, but let’s concentrate on this for now).
Here are some of the comments – and my responses:
1. There’s lots of shirkers! It’s often multi-generations of the same family on benefits.
The government’s official count of fraud in the disability benefit system shows that there is none at all.
Fraud among claimants of ESA – the main sickness benefit, stands at 0.06 per cent, which amounts to £8 million. Fair enough, it needs to be tackled but Labour’s approach will unreasonably target millions of innocent people, pushing them into further illness and possibly death. If they were all claiming the top rate in the support group – £138.20 per week – then there are a total of 1,110 ESA claimants committing fraud. Good luck to Labour if it hopes to get £5 billion out of them!
It means around £14 billion a year spent on ESA goes to people who genuinely deserve it, and it means that £39.1 billion spent on PIP also goes to people who genuinely deserve it. That is according to the official government figures.
The vast bulk of fraud in the benefit system is in Universal Credit – committed by able-bodied people. So why are sick and disabled people being disproportionately targeted?
2. The main thing they are going to do is tighten up PIP and make the list of qualifying conditions the most serious disabilities only. Then the unfit for work top up will only be granted to people accessed and granted PIP, with everyone else expected to do some work in order to make up the lost income. If you don’t look for work, you’ll also lose the main Universal Credit payment too via sanctions. This could potentially save the country tens of billions of pounds if they follow the Conservatives plan for tackling wasters. Once fully implemented, these reforms could save tax payers as much as £800 per month per economically inactive claimant.
How do they define “the most serious disabilities only”? That is the question. PIP itself was a “tightening-up” of the descriptors used in DLA. They keep “tightening up” the list of qualifying conditions because the number of people becoming disabled keeps increasing. The answer is to tackle the causes of these disabilities, of course.
The practical upshot of this policy is that thousands – maybe millions – of people will die so that the Treasury can save a few pennies.
3. Stop a million or two of the least needy’s benefits and give a small increase to the most needy.
There aren’t a million or two of the least needy, though. They ALL need their benefits (apart from the 1,110 or so fraudsters on ESA).
4. They will still receive more benefits than if they lived in most other places on earth. Imagine those same conditions in most other countries.
The UK ranks 27th among 38 OECD countries in terms of the generosity of its benefits. We are generally considered to be below average, in comparison with other developed nations.
5. This is what the socialist nanny-state has led Britain to – laziness and utter stupidity.
This would be the socialist nanny-state that was run by the Conservatives for 14 years until 2024. They are right-wing neoliberals who took tens of billions of pounds out of the benefits budget, leading to the deaths of many thousands of sick and disabled people.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
whot if whot if
theyl not save anything but give it to the companies who are in government pockets just look at what’s happening from tony Blair’s start of ESA nothing is saved but companies eating away at benefits system welcome to the age of blame
I said this to Esther McVey and mentioned it to you before that the usual Government “Clamping down on Fraud” technique tends to target more Honest, Innocent Naive Claimants who genuinely need help.
When they are refused help, out of desperation they seek it elsewhere at Citizens Advice etc and subsequently on Appeal, get exactly what they are entitled to, but only if they have the energy to see it through (some sadly don’t survive the process).
So rather than have a few “Devious Hardened, Streetwise Claimants” the Government have thousands more educated claimants getting what they were entitled to.
Just a thought, but perhaps the reason for the big increase in Welfare Claimants is that more people have become wiser to the system and the thousands of previously unclaimed Benefits are now being claimed thanks to the Government “crackdowns”.
They unwittingly created a “Rod for their own back”.
Good point. I started wondering if there was a way to measure what the numbers of unclaimed benefits have been doing, but they are likely to have risen with the number of claimants, rather than fallen because more people are claiming.