This was the email I wrote as part of a group of people taking part in the anti cuts demo online. It was sent to to the press and anyone else who might be interested. The group is full of people who can't attend a real march for many reasons, lack of money, opportunity, child or caring responsibilities and disability. This was my contribution.
I am a member of the Armchair army, I'm not in London because I am too disabled to get to the protest and to sit in a wheelchair around London. I'm writing because I am terrified by what this government is proposing to do and is doing to disabled people, families and those on a low income including pensioners. These cuts are not needed and it is a lie to say they are inevitable, talk to Caroline Lucas, she and the Green Party have outlined all the courses of action that could be taken if there was the political will to invest and tax wisely. There is no money for a sustainable green economy and disabled people are 'unsustainable' yet there is more money for conflict in the middle east whenever 'needed'.
I am looking at being sent to a French IT company for a tick box computer test that will determine whether I am too disabled to work or not, this company ATOS has been given a blank cheque to assess people as often as they want to, they have a high failure rate for getting these tests wrong, which isn't surprising as they base the results on a 1 hour meeting with no other evidence and the DWP just rubber stamps their reports. My income is dependant on this, it's not a minor inconvenience and I am lucky my condition is not effected by stress, as I am fully aware I may be appealing with only £65 a week to live from for up to six months and then once won sent back to be assessed again. I do not mind an independent test, but it needs to be a fair test, one that takes into account a persons condition from the point of knowledge and not ignorance. How can you assess MS and whether it is effecting someone without knowing what MS is, surely that makes it easier for people to commit fraud if they only have to put on an act for 1 hour and other tests are not taken into account? How low does the fraud have to be before the cost in both money and human misery becomes too much. There must be a balance, tax fraud does not receive this close level of scrutiny, yet is essentially theft from the same pot of money. I agree we should tackle fraud, but it needs to be proportionate and not decimate vulnerable people's lives, people with Severe Mental Health conditions, ME, cancer and MS.
DLA is under fire too, it has one of the the lowest rates of fraud in all benefits at 0.5% and when re branded as PIP will be cut by 20%, I'm not good at maths but even to me those figures do not add up. DLA pays for many people to get out and about to do normal things, like shopping, visiting friends and family, going to work. Mine pays for an electric wheelchair, because I can wobble about 10 meters once in a while inside my house I'm not entitled to one via the NHS, David Cameron and IDS think I should be a prisoner in my own home, that if I'm not eligible for one from the NHS that I shouldn't be able to get DLA to provide me with one of the very few essential things that makes my life better and liveable. I want to go back to work and the only thing that will stop me is loosing that chair, loosing my ability to get around without someone carrying me or pushing me. Under PIP people will be assessed as to whether they can mobilise 30 meters on a level surface, this is all well and good, but how many people live in a world where there are no curbs, or hills or uneven surfaces? If you remove someone's ability to get around in the real world with an unreal test you ruin their very real life, their ability to care for themselves, their ability to work, their very independence. An adapted car is very expensive, one that you can get into and out of with a wheelchair and you are dependant on it, you can't just choose to get a bus or walk to the shops instead - it is a lifeline, that is why mobility exists to make what is necessary both reliable and affordable for all disabled people regardless of income. It is one of the very few things that brings equality to those who are mobility impaired and makes life genuinely less difficult.
You cannot add bars to a prison cell and still tell a person to squeeze through them. Disabled people are being told they must work but that all the things that make this possible are being cut out from underneath them including Access to Work, the grant for equipment so you can work. I have concentrated on the disabled as this is the area I know most about, others will be able to tell you the stories and huge struggles of families and pensioners among others. If we are 'all in this together' you need to understand what these cuts truly, truly mean to real people, not statistics. To me it means the possibility of never leaving my house on my own again, never being able to pay for the swimming that is making me stronger, never getting stronger means never working again and to me that means the death of all my hopes and dreams for the future, it means the end of me. I'm only 28, I can't let that happen without raising a shout, without at least writing an email, and I hope you read it and do not dismiss me, because I am real and I need you to hear me
