4 January 2013

The Effects Of The Cuts - Why I Campaign

The Welfare Reform Bill was a disaster waiting to happen, we campaigned against it before it went through but it was forced. The country did not listen and now 73 people a week are dying after being declared fit for work by the deeply flawed Work Capability Assessment. Which is being administered by Atos, a French multinational IT company on behalf of the DWP. This is not a figure we just plucked out of the air like some the government are presenting as reality in relation to welfare, it was obtained from a freedom of information request to the DWP themselves. So it is their own statistic.

 They want people to believe that these measures are "tough love" and they are "helping people back to work" but in reality they are just cutting off peoples benefits and leaving them destitute. There is no support for people who are disabled to find work, in fact remploy factories that employ disabled people, and have since the end of WW2 are being closed. Making disabled people who did have jobs unemployed at a time when the fully able are struggling to find work. What chance do we have?

 The changing of DLA to PIP will mean many disabled people lose this benefit altogether, this benefit helps disabled people cope with the additional costs being disabled creates, Disabled people with jobs clim it to help them work. So disabled people who work will no longer be able to, as they will no longer be able to afford the adapted cars they rely on to get to work for example.

In short none of these cuts are designed to enable the disabled to get back to work, it's just a callous cost cutting measure effecting the most vulnerable in society, and thousands are suffering and even dying needlessly. 

When the proposed benefit changes take effect at the end of April it will effect not just the Disabled but working families who are already struggling to make ends meet. A new survey by shelter shows 1.4 million people in Britain are struggling to pay their rent or mortgage at the moment. People who have never suffered financially like this before are finding themselves facing unemployment and homelessness.  And the government are about to cut housing benefit and council tax benefit, pushing more people even further into rent arrears and poverty.

The government wants you to believe that these cuts are necessary and unavoidable but there are alternatives they could pursue. Tax avoidance costs the state an estimated £95 Billion a year, since the banking crisis the average pay of FTSE 100 directors has risen by 55%, corporation tax has been cut, and rather than clamping down on tax avoidance they have actually cut Staff at HMRC, and there has been no reform of banks.

They are selling off the NHS to private healthcare companies under our noses, when many of the very MP's who voted through the NHS bill have financial interests in private healthcare companies. Click here for a link to a list of Conservative MP's who have financial interests in private healthcare companies, no wonder they voted yes to the NHS Bill.

Social media means it's harder for the government than ever before to dupe the public into believing their lies, we know that what they are doing is wrong and we won't stand for it. It's time for us all to stand up and show them that we will not pay for a crisis crated by bankers who have gambled away billions, while awarding themselves massive bonuses on top of already huge yearly salaries. And millionaires are allowed to legally evade tax.

We will not allow them to make the poor pay for a crisis the rich created, we must campaign and peacefully protest to show them we not passively sit by and allow it to happen. They will drag Britain back to a system of Victorian values where the poor cannot access proper healthcare and are forced into workhouses. The welfare state and NHS are great things that show our compassion to those less fortunate and vulnerable in society, people fought protect and create these things,  over the years many people have campaigned and worked hard to keep them. Don't let this government dismantle them in flurry of propaganda about scroungers and dependency, we are not just statistics, we are human beings.

      

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