#ESAendgame: Day Two's Task

Here is the great Sue Marsh's ESAendgame task for today - absolutely anyone can join in. Please post your comments & links via the following:

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/you-in-for-todays-little-task-esaendgame.html?showComment=1362672072572

I have however listed the links I posted on Sue's site as examples. Happy searching!

You in for today's little task? #ESAendgame

*Waves at all the #ESAendgame people blushes a little there are so many, clears throat*

So, most of the public don't have a clue what ESA or WCAs are. For the next few weeks we need to dig out and share some of the best ESA stories or TV programmes or radio debates we remember and share them around. Everywhere.


Please post your favourite links in the comment thread. **IF LINK IS LONG PLEASE INDICATE WHERE IN ARTICLE INFO IS** 

Again if you can please leave your 

Name (or Twitter/Facebook/Pseudonym) &
Constituency


Here's a few tips :

-Always use the full Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) at first so people start to learn what it is. Same with WCAs

-Remember a particualar time Graying got shown for the liar he is? 
-Remember punching the air when the Mail or Telegraph or somewhere actually wrote something fair about ESA? 
-Remember a statistic that literally blew your head off?
-Remember the first time you read something so clear, a huge penny dropped?

-Dig them out and share share share. At work, online, on twitter
-Be prepared to be patient at first if people ask questions. They almost certainly won't be very sympathetic at first, but that's what they've been told, most people aren't unkind.
-Absolutely never rise to trolls under any circumstances. Stay polite and informative.

We need people to really start thinking about ESA, understanding what it is and what we're actually so afraid of and cross about. Print some off and scatter them round at work, in the hairdresser, on noticeboards - nothing is silly.

Time to fightback with facts!!!!

Criminals More Worthy of Jobs Than Disabled?

(Image description: front cover page of British newspaper Sunday Express with headline, "TORY SNEERS AT DISABLED" - their capitalisation.)

For readers from other lands, the Sunday Express is a right-of-centre newspaper that generally supports the Conservative Party, known in the UK as Tories.

Here is some of the article and a link to the full story:

"In a heartless outburst, the Work and Pensions Secretary said he wanted to save money by closing factories and getting more people into “proper jobs”.

…

[W]e urged him to rethink plans that will leave 1,518 disabled workers out of work with little prospect of new jobs at a time when unemployment is at a 17-year high of 2.7million.

An irate Mr Duncan Smith was unapologetic, however.

In a tirade campaigners later branded “unbelievable arrogance”, he stormed: “Is it a kindness to stick people in some factory where they are not doing any work at all? Just making cups of coffee?

…

Stunned, Julie, 55, said: “We work in our factories!”

The minister barked back: “You don’t produce very much at all.”

…

Asked why the disabled were being robbed of a choice between a segregated or mainstream workplace, Mr Duncan Smith snapped: “How far do you want to go with the idea that you can choose to do exactly what you want?”

…

“Remploy provides dignity, support, security and self-esteem to its staff. This is not only a fight to save jobs but to reward hard work and endeavour, something a Conservative-led Government should be only too willing to support.”

…

Mr Duncan Smith was the widely derided Tory leader from 2001-2003. (Sunday Express)

Chris Grayling, Employment Minister, stated only last month in the Commons: "The worst thing for their health and well-being is for them [unemployed disabled] to be on benefits for the rest of their lives…" (Hansard 23rd April 2012)

And yet Ian Duncan Smith wants to condemn the severely disabled to a life-time of unemployment and benefit dependency with a corollary that they will presumably suffer ill-health and poor well-being as a result.

Only two days ago, according to the Independent newspaper, Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary, pleaded for employers to take on ex-prisoners. "At a Downing Street summit this month, he will call on executives from up to 40 companies to play their part by helping ex-offenders to "go straight" after their release by offering them jobs. (Independent)

So if we assume that the so-called joined-up thinking, the Government so often talks about, is in operation here, we can see that the disabled are considered less worthy of employment than criminals.

And that is actually what it feels like in the UK at this current time. We do not appear to be worthy of jobs nor benefits. There are now increasing numbers of reports of disabled folk not disabled enough to receive disability benefits under the guise of Welfare Reform; but likewise are too ill to receive job-seekers allowance because they are not fit enough to work. In this catch-22 they receive absolutely nothing.