Quietly Despairing

[davidgillon]

A Conservative majority is the worst of all possible results for disabled people, and I'm genuinely scared of what the future may bring.

What little moderating effect the Lib Dems had is gone (I'm actually surprised they got as many searts as they did), leaving the likes of IDS and Freud, and Osborne, free to take a knife to disability benefits. In fact they don't even need to bring in anything new for things to get massively worse for disabled people as so many of the disability cuts have had the worst part of their impact delayed until after the election in order to disguise their impact from the electorate.

The Tories have promised £12Bn in further benefit cuts, and we know from leaked documents that DWP think the only way to achieve that (given pensioners have been bought off with the promise of no cuts affecting them) is for absolutely savage cuts of disability benefits, cuts so controversial that the Tories will have to unlease the worst of scrounger rhetoric in order to try and justify them.

It's a scary time to be disabled in this country.

Comments

[aoifes_isle]

I'm terrified and genuinely not sure I'll survive till 2020.

[cxcvi]

You're not the first person I've seen that sentiment from. I find myself in much the same position...

[hilarita]

It's the slow death by stress that really upsets me. Stress about whether you're 'sick enough' to get benefits, stress about whether the benefits you get are enough to live off, and all that exacerbates mental health issues. Because mental health provision isn't already stretched tissue-paper thin...

[thamesynne]

i feel exactly the same.

[davidgillon]

Minor positives that brought me momentary cheer today:
Nigel Farage not elected and resigning as UKIP leader (though threatening to stand in their leadership election). I'm hoping the entire party will now implode in a burst of self-loathing (they already hate everything and everyone else)

Mark Reckless unseated as UKIP MP in Rochester (having defected from the Tories last year). This is the man who said people were entitled to be angry with disabled people if they thought they weren't genuine as a direct response to me being interviewed about my experience of disability hate crime. So there's a particular pleasure in this one.

Nick Clegg resigning and the parliamentary Lib-Dems facing the wrath of the people for betraying everything they stand for (I'm actually surprised they have 8 MPs left).

Danny Alexander going = see above, but especial pleasure in this as Alexander went from being a fierce opponent of Atos and the WCA to a loyal government lapdog the moment a senior ministerial post was waved in his direction.

Esther 'they get better' McVey, senior DWP minister, unseated. 'they get better' was a line she actually used about disabled people in a TV interview while Minister for Disabled People, I normal refered to her as 'the odios McVey'.

'Gorgeous' George Galloway, friend of dictators everywhere, unseated.

On the negative side: Dame Anne Begg unseated in Scotland by the SNP. She was the first wheelchair using MP, one of the few voices for disabled people in the Commons, and as chair of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions was a major thorn in the side of the DWP. We'll really miss her speaking up for us.

[jesse_the_k]

I'm glad there are some positives, however minor.

In the grand sweep of history I do think we're moving forward. "Disabled people" as a political concept now exists, in whatever nascent form. The vulnerability is palpable.

May all manner of things be well.