THE Election - Made your mind up yet ??

[Undercover-Elsa]

Some very interesting info about ATOS and how to challenge them here:

DWP ESA Medical Examinations

 

 

Elsa x

[Bookworm]

Some very interesting info about ATOS and how to challenge them here:

DWP ESA Medical Examinations

 

 

Elsa x

that's a great link Elsa.

 

Any chance of duplicating in both the Special needs/disability and the benefits forums? A lot of people post in either/or, and this is information that shouldn't be allowed to get lost!

 

Superb.

[SOD'EM]

Thanks Elsa:)

 

 

I hope you don't mind, but I have posted that link on my thread in the benefits forum.

Edited May 28, 2010 by SOD'EM

[jailbird]

Fantastic document Elsa. Very useful JB

[SOD'EM]

I thought I would post this letter that was in one of today's papers. I couldn't agree more with it.

 

So David Cameron is planning 22 ways to fix 'Broken Britain', it was his Tory Predecessors, Margaret Thatcher and John Major, who helped create a Broken Britain through mass unemployment and soaring poverty.

 

We are about to see history repeated through the Tory-Lib Dem programme of cuts that will lead to thousands of redundancies., all in the interest of giving tax cuts to the wealthy. These ordinary people will lose their jobs through no fault of their own and become stigmatised as work-shy. Just like those who lost their jobs 20-30 years ago.

 

There is probably only a minority of Tory voters who are above the bread line, so it will not be long before the struggling Tory voters will be wishing they could turn back time. I can just hear them now.

 

[Undercover-Elsa]

Glad the link's of use...ATOS have been a bone of contention with me for years since they ignored all medical evidence and ruled I was only due to 50% of my works injury pension.

I've put a thread in Benefits and Special needs, Bookie..and please feel free to post the link wherever it may help!

 

Elsa xx

[SOD'EM]

I think they are about to be a bone of contention with me also Elsa:mad:

 

My medical condition was not recognised in my assessment either.

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/benefits-tax-credits-minimum/259457-i-have-been-released.html

[Bookworm]

That's cos you're all Labour voting ******. If you weren't, you'd have private healthcare, servants to look after you and wouldn't need to sponge off the State.

[Bookworm]

So David Cameron is planning 22 ways to fix 'Broken Britain'' date=' [/quote'] I wonder if he plans to start wearing his yellow underpants on top of his blue bodystocking.

[SOD'EM]

That's cos you're all Labour voting ******. If you weren't, you'd have private healthcare, servants to look after you and wouldn't need to sponge off the State.

 

 

[SOD'EM]

I wonder if he plans to start wearing his yellow underpants on top of his blue bodystocking.

 

 

 

 

 

It's red underpants you stupid woman!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the way Bookie. Don't you owe me something

 

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/show-post/post-2883031.html

Edited May 28, 2010 by SOD'EM

[babybear39]

I've just read as much as I could, it's very hard going...It fully represents the extreme and imovable beurocratic nature that faces most people trying legitimately to claim any sort of benefit. If we could, we'd do without all the hastle. Unfortunately there is no other way for most of us to fund our inconvenient existense

[Desperate Daniella]

As you said before, it's the cheats who make it so much harder for any genuine claimants.

 

They are just the same as the people who take the disabled spaces/mother and child spaces in the supermarket when they shouldn't be there. Apparently 90% of the inconsiderate people who do that have a criminal record. I once asked a woman, "Where's the baby?" and her partner who had got into the car while she returned the trolley got out and came and threatened me (when I had a year old baby in the car). Vicious, threatening, and sadly just so typical of so many people today.

[Fred Bassett]

As you said before, it's the cheats who make it so much harder for any genuine claimants.

 

They are just the same as the people who take the disabled spaces/mother and child spaces in the supermarket when they shouldn't be there. Apparently 90% of the inconsiderate people who do that have a criminal record. I once asked a woman, "Where's the baby?" and her partner who had got into the car while she returned the trolley got out and came and threatened me (when I had a year old baby in the car). Vicious, threatening, and sadly just so typical of so many people today.

 

Quite right DD - even Gordon Brown recognised that. Here is a paragraph from a speech he made at the Fabian Society in January:

 

"And the last year has shown that people want a fairness that gives opportunity as a reward for effort, hard work and enterprise; not something for nothing but something for something. What people definitely do not want is the sort of responsibility that expects them to do their best and do their bit but offers 'anything goes' for other people, whether they're a banker taking risks or a claimant cheating benefits."

 

I know that ATOS are not very good to deal with, I've had my own run-ins with them over my Daughter's claim for benefits after she had broken her ankle. It took 7 months to sort out a payment and by that time she'd gone back to Uni.

 

It's worth remembering that it was the Labour party who brought in the current system and it would have continued exactly the same way had Labour won the election.

 

I've known benefits cheats in the past - one in particular springs to mind. This was a bloke who had a genuine heart problem but this was controlled by drugs and if he took them he could just carry on as normal. He had to have a medical periodically in order to carry on claiming. He told me outright that all he did was stop taking his medicine a day or so before the medical, stop shaving, washing his hair etc., so that when he got to the medical he would have all the appearances of somebody who was genuinely ill. He'd then get signed off again. In the meantime, he worked as a barman in the clubs and pubs in South East London - cash in hand of course. That wasn't his only [problem]. His home address was his mother's house even though he lived with his girlfriend and their kids. She claimed for everything she could as a single mother. The two of them had far more disposable income than me and my wife, especially when my wife stopped working after our daughter was born. I was working part time in a pub then, just to make some extra money, which is how I got to know this man.

 

It's people like him who should be rooted out and prosecuted if necessary. It is entirely wrong that genuine claimants should have to jump through hoops. while people like this bloke just seem to get whatever they want with seemingly no questions asked.

[Desperate Daniella]

And sadly he's not one IN a million, he's one OF a million or more doing just the same thing. Mind you, I gather vast numbers of GPs just don't want confrontation so just sign them off, so they are to blame too.

[woody1066]

And now you wander into my area of expertise!

 

As I have stated previously I work with long term unemployed people trying to get them back into work. So I claim to have a little more first hand knowledge than the average person in the street. The vast majority, andI do mean the vast, of people I deal with genuinely want to work. There is a very small percentage that I have met who dont want a job and are happy to live off benefits. I would say that these amount to about 1 in 100 people I have met.

 

It is a very simplistic approach to say all people should get a job no matter what but there are often underlying barriers that prevent some people from going straight to employment. Some of the more common ones are people with numeracy and literacy problems (yes that is still quite common). This governments answer to that problem seems to be at the moment to cut funding for the programs to help these people. Another problem especially amongst the younger jobless is lack of work experience. The goverments answer to this problem is to end the Future jobs fund programme that gave younger people the work experience they so desparatley needed.

[Fred Bassett]

And now you wander into my area of expertise!

 

As I have stated previously I work with long term unemployed people trying to get them back into work. So I claim to have a little more first hand knowledge than the average person in the street. The vast majority, andI do mean the vast, of people I deal with genuinely want to work. There is a very small percentage that I have met who dont want a job and are happy to live off benefits. I would say that these amount to about 1 in 100 people I have met.

 

It is a very simplistic approach to say all people should get a job no matter what but there are often underlying barriers that prevent some people from going straight to employment. Some of the more common ones are people with numeracy and literacy problems (yes that is still quite common). This governments answer to that problem seems to be at the moment to cut funding for the programs to help these people. Another problem especially amongst the younger jobless is lack of work experience. The goverments answer to this problem is to end the Future jobs fund programme that gave younger people the work experience they so desparatley needed.

 

I don't doubt anything you've said. I've been lucky enough to have found jobs on the occasions when I've needed to and I'm now (hopefully) in stable employment and have been for some years.

 

When I have been unemployed, I've always taken the view that it was better to work even if it left me only a few pounds better off. Not everyone will agree, but I think it's important and somehow, it's much easier to find a job when you've already got one.

 

Given that the last government was the one that spouted 'Education, education, education', I think they have a lot to answer for if our system is still turning out illiterate and innumerate youngsters. Clearly the extra billions they threw at the education system didn't work very well.

[babybear39]

Argh!!!

[Fred Bassett]

Argh!!!

 

I think it's a perfectly reasonable comment BB. We're still turning out kids who can't read and write despite the massive amount of extra funding that has gone into the education system in the past 13 years. Something has failed somewhere. It's not the current government's fault yet.

 

Regards.

 

Fred

[Desperate Daniella]

A friend of mine was a local councillor who was the Head of Children's Services in his local borough. He cared passionately about education.

 

Different areas will have different problems, but one of the main ones he faced was the fact that so many children in the failing schools did not speak English. It is completely ridiculous to educate children who don't speak English with children who do, albeit badly in so many sad cases.

 

If you have one non-English-speaking child in a class he should pick it up quite quickly. He will want to learn so that he can join in with the other children. If you have half the class who don't speak English everyone in the class will be held back.

 

Children who can't speak English should not be sent to mainstream schools until they can. They should be sent to specific schools to learn English, because without English you cannot learn anything else. You cannot pass exams because you can't read the questions.

 

The time spent trying to teach anything to children who don't understand English is wasted.

 

The second issue is discipline. So many children go to school never having been told what to do, or what not to do. It is apparently a total shock to them that they cannot behave exactly as they please. If remedial classes need to be set up to teach them proper behaviour so be it. Separate classes again if necessary.

 

As Woody says, so many school-leavers have numeracy and literacy problems and it's a disgrace. If children don't reach a certain level in one year, there is no point in moving them up to the next year where they will fail again. Far better that they are kept back a year and given remedial teaching to get them up to scratch.

 

They could also do worse than bring back the YTS. My sister, who was held back a year in school, left with only one exam. She went on to the YTS and worked really hard. The following year she was offered a place to do a degree. She was the only one in her group to be offered that - probably because everyone else didn't work at it and just moaned about being cheap labour. YTS did work and provided opportunities to those who wanted it to work for them.

[woody1066]

I don't doubt anything you've said. I've been lucky enough to have found jobs on the occasions when I've needed to and I'm now (hopefully) in stable employment and have been for some years.

 

When I have been unemployed, I've always taken the view that it was better to work even if it left me only a few pounds better off. Not everyone will agree, but I think it's important and somehow, it's much easier to find a job when you've already got one.

 

Given that the last government was the one that spouted 'Education, education, education', I think they have a lot to answer for if our system is still turning out illiterate and innumerate youngsters. Clearly the extra billions they threw at the education system didn't work very well.

 

The vast majority of people we see who have numeracy and literacy problems tend to be in the 30 plus age bracket. Statistically about 80% of our customers are over 40. So if we are going to blame goverments for bad educational standards (an argument that incidentally is vastly over simplyfiyng the problem) then lets have a look at Thatchers generation

[babybear39]

There's a re occuring theme here gentlemen.

 

I believe it's Margaret Thatcher. The grocer's daughter who stepped spectacularly outside her place and ruined the futures of the linear generation and those generations that came after...

 

Pure evil.

 

Pure poison to a nation that innocently looked up to her and, in childlike wonder, stared at the sun and were blinded...

 

History teaches us a valuable, recurring lesson.

 

We 'forget' because time erodes and distorts the pain.

 

It's a human condition which has it's uses. Predominantly in base survival.

 

We digress, we progress, we are again the same dumb human animal.

 

Our difference? We have the records. We choose to ignore...

 

What hope? There is none of course. We are destined to repeat forever the mistakes, we are blind, to look back and see, the horror just out of focus...

[Fred Bassett]

Quite right. There is always the chance that we will repeat the horrors of the last Labour Government once this one has got the finances under control and the next generation of voters doesn't know what life is like under Labour.

 

That was the mistake we made in 1997, although I'm going to absolve myself of blame for that as I didn't vote for them. Incidentally, I never once voted for Margaret Thatcher's Tories either. Labour governments tax and spend like bears crap in the woods (nothing personal BB), then we all end up paying for it just like we are now. If you want evil, think of the 100,000 or so Iraqis who were needlessly slaughtered so that Blair could get his name up in lights in Washington.

[Fred Bassett]

I forgot to mention + 1 British Scientist - a better man than Blair or Brown could ever hope to be. That took the smug grin off Blair's face pretty quickly and when he found out it looked for once as if he wasn't acting.

[SOD'EM]

If you want evil, think of the 100,000 or so Iraqis who were needlessly slaughtered so that Blair could get his name up in lights in Washington.

 

 

And you beleive that these two will withdraw our troops and bring them back home where they belong?

 

 

Yeah ......Right:cool: