The Hardest Hit March - Fight the cuts to disability benefits on May 11th

Details here of the Hardest Hit March, which is for disabled people and supporters to fight the cuts to disability benefits on May 11th. Last week disabled protesters brought the offices of the Daily Mail to a halt by protesting about the way that right wing rag labels disabled people and those on benefits. The attacks on disabled people, which can easily creat the scapegoating climate for hate crimes - and there have been many examples in recent years of disabled people being attacked and killed - must be resisted.

This government, and it must be said supported by many right wing Labour MPs who supported the Welfare Reform Act, is determined to grind disabled people into the dust, to force them into slave labour, on compulsory work schemes with wage rates lower than those of the minimum wage, or to starve. We have already seen recently the scandal, finally admitted by the DWP itself, of staff being told to knock claimants off benefits for minor infractions or none, and many of those people were those with learning difficulties or mental health problems. Now the grasping fingers of ATOS Medical Services and A4E will be let loose on thousands of isolated and vulnerable disabled people, not all of whom will be articulate enough to appeal, especially when so many advice agencies have closed down and free legal aid is effectively abolished.

The government has been clear that they expect at least 20% of those on Disability Living Allowance to lose it. The ruthlessness of the government and its advisors is extraordinary. DLA is a benefit which is given not to those who are unable to work (20% of those on DLA work) but in order for disabled people to live a full life, to be able to access the workplace and to be a full member of society and live a decent life. And even for the 80% of DLA claimants who do not work and many of whom cannot work, where exactly are these jobs to come from? There is already clear evidence in the stats that employers are deeply unwilling to employ disabled people - the numbers of disabled people in employment demonstrate this - or to make the necessary adjustments to make the workplace disabled friendly. Instead these people will be deprived of vital support, creating a great deal of stress and hardship at home, and forced into employment schemes run by dodgy private companies, who are being paid a whopping great fee for putting them on these schemes in the first place.

It is a return to the Victorian Poor Law for disabled people - further evidence of this government's determination to pauperise disabled people. If Dickens were still writing he would describe it for what is it is - the oppressive spirit of the workhouse and parish beadle. I will be marching on May 11th, and I hope that anyone with a shred of social conscience and awareness will do likewise. This must be stopped in its tracks!

Here is a song from that great work of the English theatre 'The Beggar's Opera' devoted to Atos, A4E and the other vulture companies who intend to dine out on disabled people thanks to Ian Duncan Smith and Co.