Post by nickd on Apr 11, 2012 23:45:20 GMT 1
Spartacus, a personal plea..
I guess this really is a personal and heartfelt plea. On Mylegal I could see how you were facing the prospect of welfare reform with utter trepidation, if not absolute fear. I saw it last year when piecing together my own genuine fears over how welfare reform will work in practice. I noted how many of you were viewing the 'car crash' article in great numbers, often well into the early hours. I know because I was up at the same time writing & researching the article.
I also know the fear I see in my clients, I see it on a daily basis. To be honest, I've never seen this degree of sheer terror before. Government has gone to war on those on benefits, it has scandalously and irresponsibly used the media to label you in the most demeaning way by its vile attack on the disabled and vulnerable. I suppose it helps take the accent off the bankers & those who really plunged us into economic disaster by playing with people's lives on the stock exchanges and money markets. Who knows, who cares? - well I do for one, because I know that the people I see are by and large genuine & in no way could they ever be blamed for somehow causing the country to go billions of pounds in to debt. It's sheer lunacy for the government to blame an economic meltdown on a culture of welfare dependency; - the figures just do not support them in such an absurd contention. Anyway, let's leave politics aside - my greater concern is trying to ensure I have done all I can to help try and fight for some degree of social justice for the innocent victims of government's ill - conceived welfare reforms.
Do not get me wrong, I support welfare reform; - but it must be responsible and what we are seeing is anything but - it's downright reckless & playing with people's lives. I hate seeing what I witness every day and I hate to tell you, but I know what's around the corner; - it's not great, it's going to be absolutely awful if the chaotic Employment & Support Allowance is anything to go by. The problem we have is the people who dreamt this whole thing up and think welfare reform is the best thing since sliced bread. Who on earth really believes a bunch of completely out of touch millionaires know the first thing about welfare benefits? - you are all just a scapegoat for a multi- billion pound experiment which is destined to go badly wrong. It's got more to do with lining the pockets of private industries like the infamous A4E than it has to do with somehow getting you all 'back to work'. It's all about paying thousands of pounds to firms who play ball in ticking a few boxes in order to make it look as though you've somehow as if by magic gone from being 'disabled' to 'actively employed'.
The schemes, be it workfare or apprenticeships are an utter sham. How can anyone say working for Morrisons as a shelf - stacker is a worthwhile apprenticeship? - it's just free labour. Why? To make it possible for government to use you as pawns in their deceitful statistical game. What they desperately want is to go into the next election with greatly reduced numbers on benefits. I can see how they play with ESA claimants of nearly retirement age. They target them as they are an easy way of manipulating the figures, especially when the ESA claimant count count mysteriously goes down and the Pension Credit count goes up. It's not dissimilar to how they moved large numbers over from JSA to Incapacity Benefits & DLA in the 90's when they realized our declining industries would lead to huge numbers on the dole. Ironically, it was the Conservatives who became 'disability friendly' back then by introducing the very same benefits they now condemn.
I deplore this government for what they are doing to people, I deplore them for their willful abandonment of anything to do with protecting social justice for people of limited means. I deplore the Liberals who've joined forces and realised it's a whole lot easier to call you all scroungers, muggers, cheats, lazy or malingers than it is too point the finger at the real villains who rip us off out of millions & billions of pounds by using clued up clever tax avoidance accountants. Please don't let anyone tell me we have no money, it's just utter lies. I do not say Labour are without blame in all of this; - but they do have a social conscience. If we had no money we would not be talking about spending billions of pounds on a new London airport or trains which get you from London to Birmingham at the speed of light. For who's benefit? Not you, not I, it's for an array of 'wealth creators' who they see as the saviour to our economic plight. Someone really should remind them just who got us all into trouble in the first place; - it was power hungry men and women of greed.
You tried to do all you could on welfare reform and to be honest you put a lot of us to shame. You rose up from Twitter and Facebook and made yourself a name. The point is you made your mark, you succeeded in convincing the House of Lords that you were right and Government was wrong. You made your mark and had the greatest say. Yes, government shamefully pulled a low down stunt by relying on 'financial privilege' - with their wealth profile It only goes to show what they are really all about; - evoking privilege is after all their wretched trade mark.
At the end of the day Government knows you were right, the years ahead will prove them wrong. I'm not going into another statistical analysis, it's all here on Mylegal somewhere. What I can tell you is that materially the benefit figures have not changed that much over the years, they just shift by name and type. The biggest increases in welfare expenditure are far more to do with people living to a greater age and improved healthcare which better enables people to live longer with a disability. It's just lies to blame it all on an epidemic of scrounging or cheating; - it's just a complete and utter distortion of the true facts.
I now implore you to use your depleted energy resources, not to launch judicial challenges which are time consuming - costly and damn difficult to pursue, but to get right behind us on LASPO and make sure we all do what we can to keep our key amendments to legal aid intact. We can do all the challenge stuff at a later date. Protecting front-line specialist advice must be our joint priority. The Ministry of Justice is trying every trick in the book in hoodwinking you into thinking you can go it alone with a benefit appeal, it's producing laughably inaccurate video clips which tell you how easy it is. They are even trying to convince you that the best way forward is to go through their new 'reconsideration' process. In reality it will mean you get fobbed off with a telephone call saying they've looked at your decision and regrettably they can't change it; - they rely on you not to realise you have to then put in a totally fresh appeal. Trust them if you like - you do so at your peril.
The best way of proving this lot wrong is with working with us, with people who know social security law inside out. most of us have done this job for years. That's why they want to shut us up because they know we win the vast majority of cases against the authorities. Legal aid is the only source of statutory funding and costs a mere £22 million to help 135,000 of you get justice which rightly belongs to you. It's not about the money, it's about proving you have a health problem, you know it, your doctor knows it, your family knows it, now let's just make sure you get to prove it with our help.
I know you're all worn down, to be honest it's been tough on us too. We've reeled in a wave of hard hitting redundancies and the threat of the ludicrous LASPO hanging over our heads for too long. I found this out to my own cost when it hit me like a train last year; - campaigning & carrying on the day job is hard on your health and I can honestly say I felt your pain; it came as a shock to find myself rushed off to hospital last year, it resulted in me having to take time off. Thankfully, with appropriate treatment I made a recovery, I can well imagine how difficult it is for some who aren't so lucky. Let's keep an even keel on this and for now do just one thing before the 17th April. It's what you do best; - don't suffer in silence, let yourself be heard by exercising your right to be heard. Shout out, yes shout and shout again, not at me, not at those around you but at the MP's who on the 17th April will try and vote legal aid out. Don't let them, email them, see them at their offices, ring them, write to them and make damn sure they know that if they use the right to exercise 'privilege', you'll be doing exactly the same by marching along to their offices with your benefit problems in droves with one clear message "This is your problem, now YOU sort it out"
Do not be silenced!
Nick D
Here's your link to legal aid, you've got only a few days to save it...
mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=frontline&thread=638&page=1#1495
I guess this really is a personal and heartfelt plea. On Mylegal I could see how you were facing the prospect of welfare reform with utter trepidation, if not absolute fear. I saw it last year when piecing together my own genuine fears over how welfare reform will work in practice. I noted how many of you were viewing the 'car crash' article in great numbers, often well into the early hours. I know because I was up at the same time writing & researching the article.
I also know the fear I see in my clients, I see it on a daily basis. To be honest, I've never seen this degree of sheer terror before. Government has gone to war on those on benefits, it has scandalously and irresponsibly used the media to label you in the most demeaning way by its vile attack on the disabled and vulnerable. I suppose it helps take the accent off the bankers & those who really plunged us into economic disaster by playing with people's lives on the stock exchanges and money markets. Who knows, who cares? - well I do for one, because I know that the people I see are by and large genuine & in no way could they ever be blamed for somehow causing the country to go billions of pounds in to debt. It's sheer lunacy for the government to blame an economic meltdown on a culture of welfare dependency; - the figures just do not support them in such an absurd contention. Anyway, let's leave politics aside - my greater concern is trying to ensure I have done all I can to help try and fight for some degree of social justice for the innocent victims of government's ill - conceived welfare reforms.
Do not get me wrong, I support welfare reform; - but it must be responsible and what we are seeing is anything but - it's downright reckless & playing with people's lives. I hate seeing what I witness every day and I hate to tell you, but I know what's around the corner; - it's not great, it's going to be absolutely awful if the chaotic Employment & Support Allowance is anything to go by. The problem we have is the people who dreamt this whole thing up and think welfare reform is the best thing since sliced bread. Who on earth really believes a bunch of completely out of touch millionaires know the first thing about welfare benefits? - you are all just a scapegoat for a multi- billion pound experiment which is destined to go badly wrong. It's got more to do with lining the pockets of private industries like the infamous A4E than it has to do with somehow getting you all 'back to work'. It's all about paying thousands of pounds to firms who play ball in ticking a few boxes in order to make it look as though you've somehow as if by magic gone from being 'disabled' to 'actively employed'.
The schemes, be it workfare or apprenticeships are an utter sham. How can anyone say working for Morrisons as a shelf - stacker is a worthwhile apprenticeship? - it's just free labour. Why? To make it possible for government to use you as pawns in their deceitful statistical game. What they desperately want is to go into the next election with greatly reduced numbers on benefits. I can see how they play with ESA claimants of nearly retirement age. They target them as they are an easy way of manipulating the figures, especially when the ESA claimant count count mysteriously goes down and the Pension Credit count goes up. It's not dissimilar to how they moved large numbers over from JSA to Incapacity Benefits & DLA in the 90's when they realized our declining industries would lead to huge numbers on the dole. Ironically, it was the Conservatives who became 'disability friendly' back then by introducing the very same benefits they now condemn.
I deplore this government for what they are doing to people, I deplore them for their willful abandonment of anything to do with protecting social justice for people of limited means. I deplore the Liberals who've joined forces and realised it's a whole lot easier to call you all scroungers, muggers, cheats, lazy or malingers than it is too point the finger at the real villains who rip us off out of millions & billions of pounds by using clued up clever tax avoidance accountants. Please don't let anyone tell me we have no money, it's just utter lies. I do not say Labour are without blame in all of this; - but they do have a social conscience. If we had no money we would not be talking about spending billions of pounds on a new London airport or trains which get you from London to Birmingham at the speed of light. For who's benefit? Not you, not I, it's for an array of 'wealth creators' who they see as the saviour to our economic plight. Someone really should remind them just who got us all into trouble in the first place; - it was power hungry men and women of greed.
You tried to do all you could on welfare reform and to be honest you put a lot of us to shame. You rose up from Twitter and Facebook and made yourself a name. The point is you made your mark, you succeeded in convincing the House of Lords that you were right and Government was wrong. You made your mark and had the greatest say. Yes, government shamefully pulled a low down stunt by relying on 'financial privilege' - with their wealth profile It only goes to show what they are really all about; - evoking privilege is after all their wretched trade mark.
At the end of the day Government knows you were right, the years ahead will prove them wrong. I'm not going into another statistical analysis, it's all here on Mylegal somewhere. What I can tell you is that materially the benefit figures have not changed that much over the years, they just shift by name and type. The biggest increases in welfare expenditure are far more to do with people living to a greater age and improved healthcare which better enables people to live longer with a disability. It's just lies to blame it all on an epidemic of scrounging or cheating; - it's just a complete and utter distortion of the true facts.
I now implore you to use your depleted energy resources, not to launch judicial challenges which are time consuming - costly and damn difficult to pursue, but to get right behind us on LASPO and make sure we all do what we can to keep our key amendments to legal aid intact. We can do all the challenge stuff at a later date. Protecting front-line specialist advice must be our joint priority. The Ministry of Justice is trying every trick in the book in hoodwinking you into thinking you can go it alone with a benefit appeal, it's producing laughably inaccurate video clips which tell you how easy it is. They are even trying to convince you that the best way forward is to go through their new 'reconsideration' process. In reality it will mean you get fobbed off with a telephone call saying they've looked at your decision and regrettably they can't change it; - they rely on you not to realise you have to then put in a totally fresh appeal. Trust them if you like - you do so at your peril.
The best way of proving this lot wrong is with working with us, with people who know social security law inside out. most of us have done this job for years. That's why they want to shut us up because they know we win the vast majority of cases against the authorities. Legal aid is the only source of statutory funding and costs a mere £22 million to help 135,000 of you get justice which rightly belongs to you. It's not about the money, it's about proving you have a health problem, you know it, your doctor knows it, your family knows it, now let's just make sure you get to prove it with our help.
I know you're all worn down, to be honest it's been tough on us too. We've reeled in a wave of hard hitting redundancies and the threat of the ludicrous LASPO hanging over our heads for too long. I found this out to my own cost when it hit me like a train last year; - campaigning & carrying on the day job is hard on your health and I can honestly say I felt your pain; it came as a shock to find myself rushed off to hospital last year, it resulted in me having to take time off. Thankfully, with appropriate treatment I made a recovery, I can well imagine how difficult it is for some who aren't so lucky. Let's keep an even keel on this and for now do just one thing before the 17th April. It's what you do best; - don't suffer in silence, let yourself be heard by exercising your right to be heard. Shout out, yes shout and shout again, not at me, not at those around you but at the MP's who on the 17th April will try and vote legal aid out. Don't let them, email them, see them at their offices, ring them, write to them and make damn sure they know that if they use the right to exercise 'privilege', you'll be doing exactly the same by marching along to their offices with your benefit problems in droves with one clear message "This is your problem, now YOU sort it out"
Do not be silenced!
Nick D
Here's your link to legal aid, you've got only a few days to save it...
mylegal.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=frontline&thread=638&page=1#1495
