A Conservative minister – a welfare minister, no less – has actually been recorded saying that disabled people are “not worth” the full national minimum wage. It’s unclear how much less Lord Freud would like to pay disabled people: £4.50 less per hour is his first offer. Perhaps he would like to do away with cash altogether, giving blind people dog toys in exchange for a day’s work and wheelchair users shiny coins.
Recorded responding to a question from a Conservative councillor at a fringe event at the recent Tory conference, Freud said: “You make a really good point about the disabled. Now I had not thought through, and we have not got a system for, you know, kind of going below the minimum wage … I know exactly what you mean, where actually as you say they’re not worth the full wage and actually I’m going to go and think about that particular issue … whether there is something we can do nationally … which if someone wants to work for £2 an hour …”
A Conservative minister – a welfare minister, no less – has actually been recorded saying that disabled people are “not worth” the full national minimum wage. It’s unclear how much less Lord Freud would like to pay disabled people: £4.50 less per hour is his first offer. Perhaps he would like to do away with cash altogether, giving blind people dog toys in exchange for a day’s work and wheelchair users shiny coins.
Recorded responding to a question from a Conservative councillor at a fringe event at the recent Tory conference, Freud said: “You make a really good point about the disabled. Now I had not thought through, and we have not got a system for, you know, kind of going below the minimum wage … I know exactly what you mean, where actually as you say they’re not worth the full wage and actually I’m going to go and think about that particular issue … whether there is something we can do nationally … which if someone wants to work for £2 an hour …”
A Conservative minister – a welfare minister, no less – has actually been recorded saying that disabled people are “not worth” the full national minimum wage. It’s unclear how much less Lord Freud would like to pay disabled people: £4.50 less per hour is his first offer. Perhaps he would like to do away with cash altogether, giving blind people dog toys in exchange for a day’s work and wheelchair users shiny coins.
Recorded responding to a question from a Conservative councillor at a fringe event at the recent Tory conference, Freud said: “You make a really good point about the disabled. Now I had not thought through, and we have not got a system for, you know, kind of going below the minimum wage … I know exactly what you mean, where actually as you say they’re not worth the full wage and actually I’m going to go and think about that particular issue … whether there is something we can do nationally … which if someone wants to work for £2 an hour …”
I once was an advocate for disabled people. The charity was run by disabled people for disabled people. They had additional support to help them do their day to day job. Why don’t we do more of that? They then won’t be deemed a burden on the state and benefits bill but fully paid up tax payers and therefore good citizens of this fair isle.
BTW this article is a bit old. I got angry about it a year and a half ago and your bringing up all those memories again.
Dave currently obfuscating on the radio. Regardless of your thoughts on the issue, it’s dishonest to dress up these proposals as something meaningful. I hope the public don’t just accept these at face value…
Soz, didn’t check the date on that article. I think there’s still a great deal of relevance to it, though, especially as it ties into the way they seem to run policy. Mr Corbyn is attracting all sorts of nonsense for those reports coming out of Argentina over the Falklands, and I see people are spitting feathers at the prospect of 3,000 people potentially having their _nationality _put at threat.
Thousands are dying here because of the results of Tory policy. That is now a reality. I know that technically, many of these people have taken their own lives, but that is usually after an indifferent decision from the Government on whether they’re going to be able to eat or not.
Something’s changed in the last five years. I know that practically, people have died in poverty before 2010. It has been a long time since a government has been flat out prepared to pursue a domestic policy, no matter what the cost to human life. I think you could have given them the benefit of the doubt at one point too.
“Ah, they know fuck all. They’re making newbie errors. They’ve never been in government”
To that, I say bollocks. They know how many people have died ( the real number probably dwarfs what we’ve been told ) and they persist with many of those policies anyway, their MPs choosing to laugh at news of hardship.
Thousands are dying here because of the results of Tory policy.
Is that a True Fact? What Policy?
The policy of widening benefit sanctions as much as they have. I’m not going to sit and pretend that no other government has never stopped a benefit. I worked in the rock n roll office down on Millbrook Road East for a bit; we’d have people go out, investigate if people were working, then prosecute them if they were taking the piss.
What we’re seeing here is a systemic effort to stop people receiving state payments. The assumption is that everyone receiving is on the rob, or taking the piss. The emphasis has shifted. It’s no longer about getting people into work, it’s about taking people’s money away. There is almost zero thought as to what happens next.
Side note : Thanks Bear hyperbole was the word I was looking for the other day
Taking peoples benefits away is supposed to ‘encourage’ them to find work, however the pen pushers that read the rules apply them verbatim without any application of common sense whatsoever.
Ah, no, I can help you there Sarb cos I have conducted Extensive Research this afternoon. At first, I found articles saying that _ thousands _ of disability bros had died “within 6 weeks of being denied benefits”. I was disgust about that, because that sounds terrible. It didn’t say what they died of, but even allowing that some was prob unrelated, i.e. hit by bus or whatever, the figure seemed astonishingly high (it was only over 3yr period I think 2011-2014 or something like that).
But then I done some more investigations, and it turned out that “within 6 weeks” meant 6 weeks before or six weeks after. I.e. though you immediately think the benefits was stopped, and they died within 6 weeks, it wasn’t like that. What it was in the “majority of cases” was that the poor bro died, and then, within 6 weeks after death, his benefits was stopped. Which I imagine is probably Normal and What You Would Expect. That’s why i think pap is being hyperbole when he says 1000s, and that “the real number probably dwarfs what we’ve been told”.
I did read some bad stories bout bros killing themselves when they’re benefit is stopped, and stuff like that, so there is still Case To Answer tho.
Good research Bear, nice to have my bed break it down in an impartial way, as opposed to getting stats from the Guardian or Mirror that like to distort facts against the Conservatives (as if people need any help to hate them at the moment?!).
I also have read those stories, and one person dying due to stupid sanctions is one too many.
Like you say, Bear, still a case to answer, and this shouldn’t deflect from genuine cases of hardship and misery, but that is an incredible manipulation of statistics.
I wasn’t just referring to the disability statistics; that’s an area of definite concern. I was referring more to the overall approach. Workfare helps no-one but employers; in fact, statistics have shown that people that attend workfare courses are less likely to find a full-time paying job than someone that is not.
The government clearly thinks that disabled people are taking the piss, pulling a swerve, or are not really disabled. You can deduce that from the huge expansion of the fit to work scheme.
There have been numerous reports, confirmed, that job centres have sanctions targets. Don’t get me wrong; the job of a job centre has always been to reduce the claimant count. Traditionally though, the means they’ve chosen to do that is, like, actually getting people into work.
How many suicide notes have we now seen that directly implicate the government, or Cameron specifically?
I know it’s a bold claim, some might even say strident. to suggest that people are dying in their thousands as a consequence of the indifference of Tory policy, but nor do I think that wide of the mark, or that death is the only negative consequence of these policies. I still spend a considerable portion of my life on my old council estate and get to see them. Loan sharks, people in crippling debt, people trapped in accommodation so expensive that a forty hour week still needs to be subsidised by the government.
There’s nothing wrong with the notion of going for full employment. The Conservatives aren’t doing that, or at the very least, equate “full employment” to “no benefit bill”.