happy new year?

I hadn't even gone to bed last night and I read that the assisted suicide report was due out. The bias report written in favour of the idea seems to suggest that some peoples lives are not as valuable as others. It is a worrying thing to think of in isolation, that it could become law to put people down because it was the 'humane' thing to do. (the language use there is intentional).

However, when you combine it with the news from the daily mail this morning that re-enforces the scrounger rhetoric, this time coming from the one person who promised he wouldn't use it (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/28/ed-miliband-conservative-votes-win) it gets quite worrying. If you get politicians saying things like [the system] "should ‘not pay out before people have paid in’ It implies once again that disabled people are a burden on society and 'sponge' off the state for the lifetime that they are unwell. Not only does the Nazi poster about the burden of disabled people spring to mind, it is important to remember that in fact, DLA is a benefit that enables disabled people to go to work. In addition ESA is costing the tax payer more to implement than it is paying out (or there are certainly a lot of hidden costs such as appeals, medicals, etc etc.).

Also in the mail today we have another disabled benefit fraud case, once again highlighting the media panic that is being whipped up against disabled people. 

Mr Miliband, Beveridge also said that the state should look after people from the cradle to the grave. Instead of attacking the benefits culture, shouldn't politicians focus more on making work a better option for people? The carrot rather than the stick? Should the focus be on dodgy employers and dodgy landlords who know how to work the system and take advantage of it for their benefit. 

It is all very well to say we need to counter the evils of idleness, but by not giving a proper solution as to how that is going to be achieved it will continue. People need to feel proud of being in work and rewarded and valued for being there, not taken advantage of because both sides know theres another ten people out there to take the persons place if they don't toe the line. 

And lets be clear, disabled people want to work. Please don't punish me for the disabling environments of the workplaces and attitudes of employers towards me. I have the ability and the capacity to work when I finish my degree. I hope I will be enabled to.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2080927/Law-assisted-suicide-confusing-unsafe-says-Met-chief-Blair.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2080776/Now-Ed-Miliband-gets-tough-onslaught-evil-benefits-scroungers.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2080775/Strolling-bank-taxpayer-funded-home-disabled-father-claimed-nearly-300-000-benefits-Britain-AND-Denmark.html