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The Conservative Party: An Apology
Over the past year and a half I may have given the impression that the Conservative party was in an unseemly rush to reform the welfare system to swiftly disadvantage a majority of disabled people with a focused ruthlessness you might reserve for a mortal enemy, acting purely on prejudices that have accumulated among their ranks due to stultifying affluence.
It is shaming to have to admit that I have misunderstood their motives. In the light of the recent Equality and Human Rights Commission report demonstrating that harassment and bullying of disabled people is more common nationally than had previously been thought, it is now clear that the welfare of the vulnerable in society is in fact a top Tory priority.
Reclassifying as many disabled people as possible so that they are no longer considered to be disabled turns out not to be some callous cost-cutting measure but a brilliant method to move them out of harm's way. Society will attack you if it thinks you are handicapped, the Cabinet is saying, but look! We have stripped you of your benefits and told the media that you are fit to work if only you could be bothered, for one reason only—so that no-one will hassle you! Not that you should really try to find work anywhere, obviously; asking companies to accommodate your special needs will only draw attention to yourself and provoke exactly the harassment we're trying to prevent. Just stay at home quietly and try to cost less.
In the wake of detailed reports of serious harassment and even occasionally murder of a vulnerable section of society, it takes a certain kind of bravery and dedication to persist with a policy that on the face of it might appear to incite more of the same. I thought I had the measure of the Conservative party when it came to welfare reform. It turns out that I did not, and indeed that I have entirely underestimated them. For that, I apologise.
(NB - Obviously the Liberal Democrats are also playing their part in this heroic effort but, as others have pointed out, this may well prove an irrelevance in the long term if their “wheeze of delivering cuts in government and campaigning against them at the next election fails to persuade”.)
It is shaming to have to admit that I have misunderstood their motives. In the light of the recent Equality and Human Rights Commission report demonstrating that harassment and bullying of disabled people is more common nationally than had previously been thought, it is now clear that the welfare of the vulnerable in society is in fact a top Tory priority.
Reclassifying as many disabled people as possible so that they are no longer considered to be disabled turns out not to be some callous cost-cutting measure but a brilliant method to move them out of harm's way. Society will attack you if it thinks you are handicapped, the Cabinet is saying, but look! We have stripped you of your benefits and told the media that you are fit to work if only you could be bothered, for one reason only—so that no-one will hassle you! Not that you should really try to find work anywhere, obviously; asking companies to accommodate your special needs will only draw attention to yourself and provoke exactly the harassment we're trying to prevent. Just stay at home quietly and try to cost less.
In the wake of detailed reports of serious harassment and even occasionally murder of a vulnerable section of society, it takes a certain kind of bravery and dedication to persist with a policy that on the face of it might appear to incite more of the same. I thought I had the measure of the Conservative party when it came to welfare reform. It turns out that I did not, and indeed that I have entirely underestimated them. For that, I apologise.
(NB - Obviously the Liberal Democrats are also playing their part in this heroic effort but, as others have pointed out, this may well prove an irrelevance in the long term if their “wheeze of delivering cuts in government and campaigning against them at the next election fails to persuade”.)
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I'm interested in the fact that it's not just feeb-bashing that's shot up recently (and by "recently", I'm afraid we can go back further than this government's term, but I should make clear that I do think this government has made the phenomenon of specifically targeting disabled people more socially acceptable with its welfare policies); gay-bashing and anti-Semitic attacks have also been slowly on the increase in recent years.
I think Peter Hitchens is sneaking into the main depots of the water companies, and sprinkling his morning shavings of evil into the water.