They have no shame. Utter scum.

recently on twitter:

Drunk George Osborne ‏ @OsborneDrunk

"Iain Duncan Smith is going to cure half a million people with disability. Imagine that! Even Jesus only managed a couple."

Its no coincidence that a lot of Atos assement centres are also known as Lourdes.

There's more:

Drunk George Osborne ‏ @OsborneDrunk

"Unlike Jesus, Iain Duncan Smith doesn't need to touch the disabled to cure them. He just crosses their name off a list and they get better!"

[url=http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/05/14/how-the-telegraph-is-mislead-on-disability-benefits/IDS claims debunked[/url

Most of us disabled have been debunking this to the DM site and FB groups all day. As soon as I read this this morning I knew it was going to kick up a stink. If you read the article in the Telegraph, Daily Mail and Guardian its exactly the same, word for word, it's obvious its more propaganda coming out of IDS's press office.

There is nothing in the article that most of us disabled haven't known for quite a while so, like I have been pointing out all day, why today to realise it? Most of us have seen the draught for the new PIP, hell, most of us have been taking part in consultations with the DWP for weeks about it.

The tide is turning though, I've never read so many DM readers who are disillusioned with this governement, there are some "Mr Angry from Tunbridge Wells" but they are starting to become few and far between now.

[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/fury-as-blind-people-hit-by-benefit-reform-7754452.htmlNow the lame really are leading the blind[/url

Unfortunately it looks like they are leading them into penury

The government are too thick to realise that this will cost the taxpayer (well, thats what DM readers like to bang on about) much, much more than they are trying to save, in more ways than one. For instance a blind person gets DLA for things such as getting taxis to and from work. The descriptors as they stand, if they have a cane or a dog won't qualify them for the full points needed to get a decent amount of DLA[u because [/u they use a cane or have a dog. It will also cost them more to retest amputees and blind people every year.

Even DM/Telegraph et al readers are starting to shake their heads at this governments rather callous attitude to the disabled.

Test them for what? To see if their limbs have grown back or their eyesight has been restored? (and if its ATOS doing the testing ....)

Exactly - everyone including charities, disabled people, shadow ministers etc are trying to get that through to them but like always, they are just not listening. They have consulted the disabled people on PIP (We are now on phase two) but they have not listened to a word we are saying.

No wonder they call ATOS assesment centres Lourdes

[url=http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1073293/housing-benefit-criteria-discriminate-disabled-children?WT.rss_f=News&WT.rss_a=Housing+benefit+criteria+found+to+discriminate+against+disabled+children&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitterHousing benefit rules found to discriminate against disabled children[/url

The appeal court has decided that criteria used to determine how much housing benefit can be paid to a family renting in the private sector is prejudicial to disabled children. Wiltshire Council and the Department for Work and Pension’s, had failed to take account of the children’s additional needs and by doing so they breached British human rights law.

No doubt this government's solution will be to amend the human rights laws

[url=http://bellaciaoliberta.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/taxpayers/Sleepwalking into fascism?[/url

An interesting view of the way language and some of the buzzwords used are helping to divide our nation.

To be fair (ish) to the tabloid gutter press they are fed these stories on a very frequent basis now from the likes of IDS's and Graylings press office. Belonging to a few different disability groups around the net I tend to read most of the daily disability press stories and reports and usually you can quote the same article almost word for word in the different papers. The DM just lifted IDS's disgraceful rant that was in the Telegraph the other day, only with a different headline, as I'm sure most of the other press did the same.

Off the top of my head I saw a document which gave a breakdown of the disgusting words used in these sorts of headlines ie Scrounger, handouts etc used x amount of times in a three month period etc etc and quite frankly it was a disgrace.

[url=http://www.tayfm.co.uk/news/dundee-family-hit-out-after-dwp-letter/#.T7adrQBAo0E.twitterThis must be a new low, even for Atos[/url

That is ...

Words fail me. Awful. Utterly awful.

I am not trying to make light if what is a truly awful situation but what's the betting that they will have to fill another form in next year just in case 'He gets better'.
I hate using the word but I'm seriously struggling to find another word beside 'Scum' to discribe them!!!

They are testing people around every 12 months even in the Support Group. I'm reading stories of people appealing their decision to be in the Work Related Activity Group, going through the process, sucessfully appealling, being placed in the Support Group and literally one week later getting the forms through the door to go through the whole process all over again. Its an absolute disgrace, not to mention time and money wasting for everyone.

This mans situation does not surprise me. Its been well documented that a man laid in a hospital bed in a in a coma (wife filled out the forms, obviously) was found fit for work.



How people can condone what this government is doing to sick and disabled in regards to the WRB is beyond me.

You can bet the farm that Atos will not see it as a money-wasting exercise. Those venal buggers will be getting double-bubble for every one of those cases.

This is how it all works: the conservatives reduce the mass of the state, what they fail to do is reduce the cost of the processes to the state. So basically decently-waged public sector workers are binned off and replaced by minimum-waged private sector workers. The difference in cost is then transferred onto the balance sheets of the private sector companies.

As I understand Atos receive a fair few hundred quid for every person they recommend is found fit for work because it is the DWP who eventually make the decision under their (Atos) recommendations ie computer says no.


[i"In reply to two separate parliamentary questions about the cost to the public purse of the increase in the volume of employment and support allowance (ESA) appeals, Jonathan Djanogly, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (HM Courts Service and Legal Aid) revealed an increase in funding to the Tribunal Service for ESA appeals from £​1.3 million in October 2008 to £​26.3 million for the year 2011-2012.

He also provided information about the average cost of ESA appeals between April 2008 and March 2011. For the latest period, 2010-2011, the number of ESA appeals totalled 176,567 at a cost of £​42.2 million. "[/i

Nobody has any issues with likes of Hull White Star - genuine claimants - getting the disability. The question is how do you stop the abuse of the system?

Not by placing most claimants into the "fit for work" pile, as is clearly happening now. They are considered guilty until proven innocent. But Ian Duncan Smith obviously has a problem with Steph's claim because he's trying to stop it.

This is what happens when you get a bunch of self-serving, venal bastads running the country. There are already highly-paid, highly-trained professionals making decisions on who is or is not fit for work. They are called doctors and other medical professionals but in order to appear to be tackling the "problem", this government believe that their word is not to be trusted over that of a private-sector employee, with little medical knowledge and absolutely no knowledge of the claimant's condition. They (Cameron & chums) then provide the perfect background to set the working poor against the non-working poor. read my earlier post regarding sleepwalking into fascism.

[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/owen-jones-hatred-of-those-on-benefits-is-dangerously-out-of-control-7763793.htmlTry reading this[/url

So are you saying that all those claim disability are entitled to claim? I personally don't believe that to be case, in my own family I know of 3 disability claimants who should not be claiming. One has just been asked to return 100k of drug dealing gains yet he still claims disability!!

The LA I work at has (as far as I can tell) just implemeted a process where all invoices have to go through a 3rd party processing who, it appears do little more than print the invoice onto new paper, send it to the same person that used to recieve them anyway, they then bring them round to the engineers who sign them off and send them back the way they came.

The only change from the system we used to use is the addition of the external company, that gets to charge a fee to the contractor/supplier for each invoice submitted. Its absoloutly farcical.

You're not saying "a deaf and blind man who is fed through a tube and needs 24-hour care is fit for work because I come from a family of drug-dealing fraudsters" are you?

Of course not, that would be silly.

But it does sound awfully close to saying that.

No, I am saying that the number of fraudulent benefit claims do not warrant the systems that have been introduced and their concomitant costs.

In their rush to bring private enterprise to the system, all in the name of saving the exchequer money, I wonder why they haven't proposed something similar to recoup the £ billions lost to the revenue through tax evasion? You could bet your life if a private company was contracted to find and claim all of this money, for a percentage of the claim, the exchequer would benefit far more than attempting to get the disabled to jump through hoops.

When did you shop the three fraudulent claimants in your family and what was the outcome?