[quote]The definition of “proven disabled” is up to the not-your-own-GP doctor who has never met you before[quote]
It’s not even up to them, it’s down to a box ticking exercise. If you don’t fit their narrow definitions, then your a lead swinger and get FA.

[quote]This new doctor is employed by the body who benefits most if he pronounces you well. Probably he gets a bonus for each person he sends back to work.[/quote]
This has been the case for quite some time. Unfortunately, the fact that they receive substantial payment is no indication that they actually understand anything said or written by the claimant. Of three doctors sent by the IB agency, one had difficulty with english comprehension, a considerable amount of pomposity, managed to cause me substantially more pain than necessary, and found his judgment successfully appealed (I was wheelchair bound at the time, Fi had just broken her ankle which gives you an idea how obvious the end result was going to be). The next was a native english speaker, had no difficulty comprehending the written documents submitted, and quickly confimed that all was as described. The last was somewhere between the two extremes, but again we were back to a government sponsored axe wielder, sourced outside the UK. After an hour of pretty heavy going, we managed to make ourselves understood. As much as I disagree with the bonuses for getting shot of people, it’s the inconsistencies in the quality of staff I disagree with.

The folk administering these benefits affect peoples quality of life and in some cases the quality of their death, they desperately need to learn how to deal with people in a humane way.

One of the biggest problems I see with this legislation is that in the view of many employers, you only get a job if you have a job already (part of my problem), are under forty (definitely part of my problem) and absolutely not disabled (oops). We still have employers who wont recruit women to positions of any consequence because, “they’ll only get pregnant”. Amtraks view, whilst I was still an employee, and whilst I was keeping skills up to date was that, “they have no work a person with disability could do”. Bullshit. They couldn’t be arsed.

Appearances really are everything in the psychedelic world of UK politics, and it really is about making people “appear” to disappear from benefits to some degree. As you know I had the displeasure to work for at a UBO during the reign of the Grantham Gremlin, and this was entirely the kind of stunt they used to get up to. It’s also about pandering though. There’s a nasty vindictive schadenfreude running through the UK and viewing some of the discussions on the UK broadsheets and the beebs web sites will quickly point this out. I’ve seen the subset of the population known as employees referred to as scum and leaches (let’s see you earn dollar one/build product one without them), I’ve seen Arbeit Macht Am Frei bandied about….. Especially sickening – As you’ll know from history, the concentration camp connection. I’ve seen people tout the idea that the unemployed/disabled/those any kind of incapacity should be encouraged to off themselves as soon as possible. These are self selecting commenters obviously, but they have become majority views. The voters want blood.

Right now, England and the UK generally are swiftly becoming a vomit worthy place to be for anyone not rich, ostensibly white, preferably male and definitely able bodied. Largely it comes down to the population believing the medias scare of the week tales, and our scumbag, morally bankrupt, fuckwit politicians pandering and keeping people in fear. Terrorists, devil dogs, delinquents, “lethal” skunk, and now dole scroungers and the disabled.

I’ve had it with ego masturbators who believe anyone earning less than 150K UK Pounds per annum has no views, knowlege or value that matter. What these cash constipated, arseholes are on about is nothing less than the creation of another, deeper poverty trap, that will swallow even more people than those we already have. For no more reason than voters are having a hard time and as in Germany in the 1930’s want a scapegoat. Our lords and masters know this and are happy with it if they get to keep their seats and jobs.

A stinking leprous pox on all their houses.

– One must now prove that one is truly disabled in order to claim benefits without having to work for them

– The definition of “proven disabled” is up to the not-your-own-GP doctor who has never met you before

– This new doctor is employed by the body who benefits most if he pronounces you well. Probably he gets a bonus for each person he sends back to work.

Likewise, it assumes that all people who are claiming benefits are actually lazy slackers trying to abuse the system. Unlike disabled people for whom you can have a doctor “examine” them and decide they’re not disabled, how can you examine someone to see if they honestly can’t find a job? Instead you assume that *everyone* is lying and send them all back to work regardless.

Of course, if there were enough jobs to be done that all the unemployed people could be sent out to do them, there’d be no unemployed people in the first place. Your point about this taking menial jobs away from those who need them is a good one. Perhaps I’m just showing my cynical colours here when I see only an attempt to reduce the numbers classified as “unemployed” and reduce the cost of supporting them, instead of this being an effort to really fix a major problem in the country.

Perhaps James Purnell will get a huge bonus for saving the Work and Pensions department a whole pile of money?