(no subject)

At first, it may seem odd to derive any hope at all from the widely circulated footage of an Egyptian woman being beaten to within an inch of her life by soldiers, especially as it captures the prevailing mood of what has proved to be a bumper year for authoritarian violence, but I choose to for a simple reason: there has been no sign of any self-appointed Leaders of the Faithful labelling her a whore for having her flesh revealed by her attackers or accusing her of adulterous fornication with a soldier's boot. Don't get me wrong, the idiots who think that way are still plentiful^[1], but it's a small sign of change in the Middle East that they don 't have the currency they did even five years ago. Troops on the streets seem to concentrate minds on more immediate problems.

^[1] Just as they are here. We have no cause to claim superiority over any culture that officially blames its women for the sexual violence they suffer when our own territory still contains people who think women can provoke sexual assault merely by how they dress.

(no subject)

Once again, the government outflanks me. Once again, if I’d said that this was what the Tories would oversee once in office, I’d have been shouted down as hysterical, grotesquely distorting the motives and intentions of those I didn’t agree with like some mirror-image Jeremy Clarkson. From the Diary of a Benefit Scrounger last Saturday:

I have severe Crohn's disease. Probably one of the most severe cases in the country.

I have had 7 major life saving operations to remove over 30 obstructions (blockages) from my bowel.

I take chemo-shots every two weeks that suppress my immune system, ensuring that I regularly have to fight infections. Exhaustion, pain and nausea plague every single day of my life.

I have osteoporosis and malnutrition.

I have had major seizures and a stroke.

Nonetheless, I have just heard from my own Disability Living Allowance application, that it has been rejected. Completely. I will receive no support at all from DLA. Despite claiming successfully in the past, despite only getting weaker and more frail and less able to live independently, my reconsideration was rejected.

The only option now is to appeal. I will have to fill in a horribly complicated appeal form over the Xmas period, wait up to one year to go to tribunal, and probably go bankrupt in the mean time.

The state will pay thousands to hear my appeal.

The only conclusion I can come to is that if I don't qualify for DLA, no-one with bowel disease can. [Diary of a Benefit Scrounger]

This is not an error by a rogue assessor—in fact it's firmly in line with what the assessors are tasked with doing. Equally, it’s no error by the DWP, which has been steadily churning out publicity discrediting any and all welfare recipients, releasing a steady stream of tales of cheating and riotously implausible excuses—though, when questioned about those examples or indeed about flagrant mistreatment of claimants like Sue Marsh, it claims with almost touchingly childlike dishonesty that it “cannot comment on individual cases”. (You’ll recognise the phrase from when other government departments or the police have also ballsed up or lied.)

No, this is straightforward coalition policy. It’s austerity logic: if she is no longer classified as disabled, the state will not have to waste any more of its precious resources on her. People like her are being “cured” up and down the country. Seriously, it’s like fucking Lourdes out there.

The coalition faces a challenge, though. Distasteful though the idea might be, disability can affect decent sorts too—even right-wingers. And the more of them who find themselves turned down for benefit claims they were previously and legitimately entitled to, or are found “fit for work” against all the evidence, the more resistance the coalition might encounter to its arbitrary benefit-slashing wheeze.

The trouble is, the government can’t rely on anyone useful in Parliament to stick up for it. The only people prepared to defend its targeting of disability benefits are, by definition, able-bodied affluent types, and even then there aren’t many prepared to stick their heads over that particular parapet (it’s political correctness gone mad, etc). What the coalition needs is a disabled Uncle Tom, a Quisling on wheels—someone who’s prepared, from a wheelchair or maybe even a dialysis machine, to cheer it on in the Chamber. “Won’t someone free us from the tyranny of benefit payments?” they could weakly cry. “I’d have been on my feet years ago if the state hadn’t been paying me to stay supine!” They could be wheeled out to amp up the DWP’s mood music in interviews, on discussion shows, even on—apologies—the stump.

But who could the coalition find to play this role? All the candidates with suitably disabling or debilitating conditions are pro-disability zealots, ideologically opposed to being stripped of their slush funds and thrown off the gravy train. There’s only one sensible answer—someone will have to take one for the team. Maybe a deal can be done with a couple of the Lib Dem peers so keen to reform the Lords, a quid pro quo: we’ll railroad through the elected Chamber you favour, and in return we get to break your legs. Finally, after the setbacks of tuition fees, Europe and voting reform, you get to proclaim an unequivocal Lib Dem win, and all you have to do is give up the use of your kidneys. You’ll be saving your party, your government and your parliament—and helping to plug one of society’s biggest financial drains into the bargain. Now, has your Lordship ever seen the film Misery?

For some reason, the following never seems to be mentioned in this context—the elephant in the Chamber—but surely nothing could be more pertinent. Before he became Prime Minister, David Cameron suffered the terrible loss of a son who had severe epilepsy and cerebral palsy. If that son had lived, he would have required intensive day-to-day caring. How would the PM have reacted to him being turned down for benefit or even generally treated as workshy? Or is it just brutally simple for millionaires—the issue of benefits never even arises because their family will always provide?