General Chat

Speaking of form filling, my mate - a pensioner - receives an annual questionnaire from his ex-employer's pension scheme asking him to 'confirm he is still alive'.

Yes, you’ve guessed it. The old fellow forgot to return it on one occasion resulting in his pension payment being halted. He had a devil of a job to persuade them he was still alive.

When I received DLA back in the late 90s I was told it was for life, I've had to apply for it twice now,and am going to have to do it again when this new thing comes in. I suffer from petti mal witch is a form of epilepsy I've had them since my 4th birthday told I would grow out of them in my teens but still waiting in my 60s other problems has well but nothing stops me. IDS should come and speak to some of us see what it's really like. I said it's never stopped me doing things sometimes it does cos I have really bad days were I sleep all day

The poor & frail have lived without hope for years. Reluctantly, I'm preparing to feel old, grumpy & a nuisance to those who will have to look after me in due course.

The only thing I would believe from the mouths of, Iain Duncan Smith and George Osborne about making sure that the elderly, the poor, the disabled, and the vulnerable will be protected and provided for, is if they announced they were brining back those residential institutions that were known as either "The Poor House" or "The Work House" :-|

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/22/man-who-cannot-walk-or-talk-called-for-jobcentre-interview

Too true, Linda. Ivan died in 2009 - Cameron came in, in 2010, and he and his government has since tried it's hardest to destroy both the NHS and the lives of the disabled.
It was interesting reading this:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/feb/25/ivan-cameron

That's what I thought Maggie he's ok without a worry in the world, but I would have thought our dear PM :-D :- :-D :-D would know better has he lived with a disabled son

Leave aside whether this policy is fair ( obviously not ) or scary ( many people entitled don't claim ) or that making a successful claim without shelling out for an advisor is impossible.

IDS in his desire to please Osbourne in any way he can ( fill in options here ) seems to have forgotten the political side of things.

Disability has no politics it can strike down and enfeeble people of any race, color, religion or political opinion. They can all vote though and have friends and relatives who vote. It is already tough for people relying on disability benefits to make ends meet ( no exemption from bedroom tax !!! ) There is very little evidence of wide spread false claiming for disability benefits though of course when this happens the yellow press jump on it.

It is difficult to believe that the front bench truly believe that further restricting and reducing disabled benefits will make any material difference to the new deity of politics, "the deficit" (*) . Rather it looks to be a part of cleaving the UK into two nations, the have nots and those who have most of what's going. Welcome to 1915.

How this will look to Tory back benchers with slim majorities will be interesting. Cameron behaves as if he has a maj. of 100+ rather than 12. It is not difficult to see "rebels" watering things down until any the jam of savings is simply not worth the political cost. That is already happening to the plan for giant youth offender prison(s).

(*) for many years the great totem was "the balance of payments" which seems to have been forgotten. However the miniboom in property created by the Tories in order to win the election has created a record bop deficit due to all those landlords importing consumer goods like crazy. It is going to bite and bite hard.

How so many people believe the bad mad world of Torynomics makes them economically reliable is beyond me. They have a long history of boom and bust brought about by property and financial ramps, every sort of financial skulduggery and yet somehow it is always the fault of somebody else. It is those ordinary hard working people and smqall businesses we are suddenly not hearing about who pay with their savings, their homes and their jobs.

Does he mean as 'kindly' as they are treated now?

i just saw a pig flying by...

well don't be holding your breath

IDS has said in the commons today that disable people are going to be treated with the upmost kindness from the government when they are trying to find this £12billion

:-D :-( :-D :-D :-D :-D