× Members

Anyone for Coffey?

More
2 years 5 months ago #264479 by phrank
Replied by phrank on topic Anyone for Coffey?
Hi all,

My true feelings are that the DWP will target support group claimants. I know that this doesn 't sound nice, but this is an area which will get the least backlash from the general public.

Cameron, as we know, tried this approach after the 2010 election as it was deemed he would get away with it and that it might even prove popular with the public if the story was told from the right angle.

The Tories, without saying it excactly, so wrongly painted a picture of mainly young lazy layabouts who had no intention of working and it almost worked.

Ian Duncan Smith eventually resigned in 2016 which was a turning point with a flurry of comings and goings with (more than I can remember) DWP secretaries who's short stays meant little further damage could really be done.

The only thing since then really has neen Amber Rudd's statement about pensioners been left alone and not reassessed, but we'll see.

We were in a void then came the pandemic and that stopped everything. And now we are here. The tories are desperate to get money put back in the coffers so how will they go about it?

I think something will be happening fairly soon. I'm not saying things will change, but I think the Tories will test how solid the general public are in supporting the disabled and take it from there whichever they decide.

One piece of comfort is that the government is very weak when it comes to acting boldly and damaging their reputation
thus losing invaluable public opinion points which are their currency for survival.

Regards,

Phrank.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Gary

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
2 years 5 months ago #264535 by Peter
Replied by Peter on topic Anyone for Coffey?
This seems to be Coffey's/the Tories disgusting four step plan:
1-More people are disabled than we'd like to admit, newer PIP assessments just meant that more people need support than we'd like to give and ended up costing us more money. Therefore we need to get people off PIP etc.
2-Disabled people only need more confidence in order to be in work (Coffey wants to focus on “what people can do, rather than the benefit system being driven currently by what you cannot do") i.e confidence
3-Oh what a surprise! Work and (their definition of) apparently providing for yourself gives people confidence!
4-Therefore, disabled people need to work because that will give them confidence and that's what's holding them back!

Now they can blame benefits claimants for not having enough confidence in their abilities/believing in themselves and other lies and justify future more severe PIP assessments that e.g. try and "focus on the positive" whilst still providing benefits based on struggles, in an attempt to further reduce claimants

This plays well into the current narrative/toxic positivity that is often trumpeted by non disabled people when (often disabled) people are going through absolute hell: "Just be positive". "Just believe you can". These phrases may work if you're not disabled but are an insult to most people. Yet this appeals to the majority of non disabled people, whilst only applying to a minority of disabled people.

They may strategically place someone who once believed they couldn't work but then (with the "support" of the government trying to kick them off disability benefits) "realised" that they could work - in a underhand way of telling the general public that most disabled people are like this. Of course, ignoring the reality that most disabled people are not like this.

The merging of PIP and Universal Credit would be a disaster. Imagine a couple where the lady is able to work and the man is not. As the ladies job provides an ok (not high) salary, they are both ineligible for Universal Credit and she part- support her partner in addition to his PIP benefits. Forcing PIP to be part of Universal Credit could completely exclude the disabled person from any help from PIP as their joint household income would be too high.

The man would be entirely dependent on his partner - back to the 1950s? The toll that this would take on almost any relationship would be extremely corrosive. Especially if the couple met when both were able bodied. Being entirely dependent on a partner (especially if one is not able to e.g. do housework) is not sustainable and the couple will likely eventually split.

The man will likely be back living on their own and on Universal Credit, and the state will have to pay far more than the PIP amount they previously got (they will get both PIP and UC) and an otherwise positive relationship/support was destroyed by the state. If the man gets in another relationship, and the person wants to move, and the person has an ok salary, all his benefits will be stopped and the lady would have to be willing to fully support the person: perhaps giving an "allowance" etc. This is also setting the scene for extremely abusive and toxic relationships.

Therefore, merging PIP and UC is mostly short term thinking and division at the expense of the long term both in terms of supporting claimants and will actually cost more money overall. It is truly shocking that this is even being contemplated.

Also, the fact that Coffey is framing the current stigma of benefits being helped by excluding some people from benefits and further stigmatising claimants is disgusting.
Coffey said:
“target that even more so to people who really need that support” which “may improve that… public perception” of the benefit system.
She is literally stigmatising claimants whilst pretending to be destigmatising claimants. I fear that Coffey's recent comments show a scary future to the Welfare system. Her comment that claimants would "only" need to work an extra 2 hours per week in order to reverse the £20 per week cut shows how she fundamentally doesn't understand the system when the majority of people would have to work a lot more than 2 hours in order to reverse this cut. She not only seems cruel, but extremely uneducated about the benefits system.

Cruelty can have a toxic effect on government policy, but combine this with lack of education/understanding towards the system and you have a dangerously potent combination for millions of disabled people across the entire UK. We must try and fight this, although i'm not sure how, but if anyone has suggestions please post them.
The following user(s) said Thank You: MrFibro

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
2 years 5 months ago #264545 by phrank
Replied by phrank on topic Anyone for Coffey?
Hi Oak,

Extremely interesting and depressing reading.

I instantly took a dislke to Coffey as well as Patel but we won't bring her into this as it's nothing to do with her as YET.

Coffey is ( I tried to put this politely but gave up a long while ago) a grubby little piece of work . She sneers in the House of Ccommons and nods approvingly when anything derogatory (obviously said in a cryptic manner as they think people in this category don't understand that they are being demonised) is being said about poor or disadvantaged people.

I hate to categorise people. But she doesn't look the part. If I saw her sitting on the ground outside LIDL on a cold day, I probably wouldn't think twice about giving her the price of a cup of coffey, sorry coffee - and a chocolate biscuit, no let her eat cake, and probably a few bob for some new clothes. (Ouch, sorry that was bad).

Sorry Therese, you haven't a clue.

Regards,

Phrank.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Peter

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
2 years 5 months ago #264549 by Mollie
Replied by Mollie on topic Anyone for Coffey?
I think and hope that the result will be less than we are dreading. They have done this before. Made hints and references to what might happen and then when concrete announcements are made it’s not as bad as we were led to believe. This ploy has been used so many times before they must think we are stupid.
I suspect that they may have to repeal some Health and Safety legislation to get us all back in work. I wonder how many people you can get near the door on the ground floor?
BTW, the support you will get is a brush stail inserted in the bottom of the right trouser leg which comes out of the top left shoulder of your jumper. This will keep you upright for work but may hamper your mobility. :ohmy:
The following user(s) said Thank You: Peter

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
2 years 5 months ago #264552 by denby
Replied by denby on topic Anyone for Coffey?
Hi Oak and all, you are so right about the knock on effects. And what's more all this costs monstrously in admin of all the changes - but of course they don't factor that in because a big department is a big empire which they think gives them more kudos.
And meantime they are trying to sneak mass medication without consent ie water fluoridation under the radar. Don't believe the public puff from the invested dental profession and scientifically ignorant politicians, read this childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/fluo...es-iq-loss-children/
As this also increases hip fractures and thyroid problems our poor NHS will have an ever greater workload if we let the gov't pull it off, and our children's intelligence and our health will suffer. And even more people will be struggling to get PIP, as the thyroid is not well understood or treated in much of the NHS.
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/597714/signatures/new
please sign to keep our tapwater safe from this.
Dentists can protest children's teeth with fluoride varnish which is far more effective if that is what parents want.
Yours hopefully, Denby
The following user(s) said Thank You: ThisGovernmentsGoneToFar

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
2 years 5 months ago #264557 by ThisGovernmentsGoneToFar
Replied by ThisGovernmentsGoneToFar on topic Anyone for Coffey?
This peace of work is really peeeeing me right off. As I've already stated PIP is for totally different reasons than UC.

This Coffey has been kept in post for these exact reasons by Boris? As Phrank points out regarding Amber Rudd and regarding keep assessing pensioners, she AR realised it was pointless keep assessing them, which makes perfect sense.

I did read the full guidance on this and she did keep her word, within that guidance it stated if a claimant of the age 57 or over and wasn't going to improve the was giving them an ongoing award under PIP.

Now this from JPs DNS.

Coffey says merging PIP with universal credit is ‘on the table’

The possibility of merging personal independence payment (PIP) with universal credit is “on the table” as part of a fresh wave of social security reforms, work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey has admitted.

In response to a question from Disability News Service (DNS) at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, Coffey twice refused to rule out the possibility of bringing the two benefits together.

DNS had asked her about suggestions of a merger between means-tested universal credit and non-means-tested PIP, raised in July’s disability benefits green paper.

Responding to the question, she initially spoke about a pilot project on productivity in work, but then conceded that “everything is on the table is the best way of saying it, because the green paper is quite broad and we want to get some focus on genuine innovative thinking”.

She added: “Are these benefits actually working? That’s the question I often say past my officials.

“Are they having the intended desire? And if not, what are we going to do about that?

“Or is there something that we can have [that is] better… in that regard.”

Asked again by DNS if she could confirm that she was not ruling out folding PIP into the universal credit system, she declined to do so.

She said instead that the reforms were about “the broader outcome of… improving processes, but also how we encourage and reduce the disability employment gap”.

PIP is paid to disabled people both in and out of work, is not means-tested, and is supposed to contribute towards the extra impairment-related costs they face.

The fringe event was hosted by The Centre for Policy Studies, the right-wing thinktank co-founded by Margaret Thatcher.

Coffey also made repeated references during the event to the need to cut spending on disability benefits, particularly PIP, which again was discussed in the green paper.

She said that “probably” the biggest increase in benefits spending had been on “health benefits”, while PIP had “grown in a way that was not anticipated when it was introduced”.

She said that three out of four young people who claim PIP – a total of 189,000 – state that their primary reason is their mental health.

Coffey appeared to suggest that reducing the number of young people in mental distress claiming PIP would help more people “think of the benefit system as fair”.

She said that targeting PIP on “people who really need that support” may improve the “public perception” that the system is fair.

But James Kirkup, director of the Social Market Foundation thinktank, and former political editor of the Daily Telegraph, blamed the media and its use of words such as “feckless, idle, workshy” to describe benefit claimants, as well as the rhetoric of an “earlier generation of politicians”, such as George Osborne.

He said: “There has been a problem with the way we all collectively, media and politicians, talk about welfare.”

This article is from John Prings DNS. www.disabilitynewsservice.com/conservati...dit-is-on-the-table/


They make my blood boil, I'm not to far from retirement either and already decided I was never going to go on UC when this migration starts from legacy benefits.

All I can say to each and everyone it's certainly not looking very bright for the future of disabled claimants.

I could, and would love to express true feelings surrounding this vile government.

I was formely known as (GoingOffMyHeadWithThisGovernment) Won PIP November 2017 ongoing award HR both. Now kept and got my ESA Support group but took a while.
The following user(s) said Thank You: denby

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Moderators: GordonGaryBISCatherineWendyKellygreekqueenpeterKatherineSuper UserjimmckChris
We use cookies

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential for the operation of the site, while others help us to improve this site and the user experience (tracking cookies). You can decide for yourself whether you want to allow cookies or not. Please note that if you reject them, you may not be able to use all the functionalities of the site.