[Politics] Sunak's benefits shake up

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Listening to him now on radio 5. As always he sounds reasonable and his proposals sound superficially appropriate.

I assume I am missing something. What do people who understand the benefit system think?

I was alerted to the presentation by a prior bit of chat on Nicky Campbell's programme when someone used the odious term 'mental health culture', you know, how people with mental health conditions are part of a movement that is abusing the welfare system.....

 

[North East Seagull]

He is demonising anyone who is not wealthy. What else did you expect?

 

[Weststander]

Did Sunak himself in any way belittle mental health? (Genuine question)

Not ideal, but I don’t get hot under the collar from right wing Tories or all the Reform type characters who come out with that crap. Just months away from arrivederci!

 

[Nobby]

Super Supercilious arrogant piece of sh*t Harry

Apart from that he's probably quite a nice billionaire type of bloke

Let's just kick a few more of our poor folk

 

[medwayseagull reborn]

How would anyone married into a family worth billions understand anything about the benefits system.

 

[Biscuit]

Straight out of the 2010 playbook. I wonder who in cabinet, could be giving that advice?

"Let's appeal to the hard-working middle classes with incendiary comments about a swarm (I've picked that word carefully) of benefit claimants buying wide screen TV's and watching Netflix while the rest get taxed to oblivion."

It has no basis in facts of course, but that doesn't matter. It appeals to the base and the hard of thinking.

Here's some facts that are grounded in reality: The most basic universal credit is the lowest in real terms for 40 years and our unemployment pay is the the stingiest in western Europe.

Life of course made even harder by soaring food prices and energy bills.

Despite what the Tories say, we don't have a bloated safety net that needs desperately cutting back, we have tens of thousands of desperate people, failed by the Government who can't afford to eat.

It's despicable in its cruelness, but hardly surprising anymore.

 

[beorhthelm]

usually changes to benefits sound sensible, then some say how terrible the changes are, manipulate how its presented and everyone turns against it. repeated governements fail to do much radical, worry about imagined stigma associated, rather than worry about dealing with outcomes.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

My initial feeling is that yes, of course it would be lovely to be able to obtain the 'dignity and pride' of work. And of course, if people can work then they should.

But mental health provision, and by that I mean getting a diagnosis and some sort of treatment plan, is pitiful and always has been.

Is Sunak saying that a doctor will grade someone's level of mental health illness, in such a way this will map the the number of hours a week they should be working before they are eligible for benefit? He seems to want to introduce a process whereby people are signed off with a 'fit for work' note.....

....the more he answers questions the more it sounds like a load of old bollocks. He has no idea how this is going to work. He wants 'other professionals' not GPs to decide about a patient's mental health, and has just stated that the GP is biased and not objective when reporting on a patient's mental health, because of the doctor-patient relationship....wow!

Yes, he wants an as yet unnamed group to decide on fitness to work, not GPs. That's the plan.

Maybe he is going to put the 'fit note' granting in the hands of all those people who used to work for the post office and decided that thousands of postmasters were defrauding the post office. I'm sure many of them will soon be looking for new employment....

Brace yourself then, folks, for a 'fit for work directorate' to end the 'mental health culture'.

After all, yes, sinister. Of course it is. What a guy

 

[Was not Was]

They don't have time before a General Election to implement this sort of change though, do they? Nearly all government policy announcements now are just that - announcements - not something that's actually going to happen.

 

[Jackthelad]

Typical Tory last ditch attempt to brutalise the most vulnerable in society. Next up single mothers no doubt.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

usually changes to benefits sound sensible, then some say how terrible the changes are, manipulate how its presented and everyone turns against it. repeated governements fail to do much radical, worry about imagined stigma associated, rather than worry about dealing with outcomes.

Have you considered the possibility that the way the changes to benefits were originally presented may have been manipulated to make them sound sensible?

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Did Sunak himself in any way belittle mental health? (Genuine question)

Not ideal, but I don’t get hot under the collar from right wing Tories or all of Reform type characters who come out with that crap. Just months away from arrivederci!

Too many doctors are issuing sick notes so Sunak wants to strip their right to do so.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

They don't have time before a General Election to implement this sort of change though, do they? Nearly all government policy announcements now are just that - announcements - not something that's actually going to happen.

Indeed. He's shoring up the blue rinse vote by promising to clamp down on scroungers. To do so he's going to create a new body that will decide whether someone can be signed off from work due to illness.

Let's get this clear. The GP will need to do the diagnosis. However, the decision about whether the patient can be signed off from work sick, particularly when the health issue is a mental health issue, will be decided by a new organization, as yet uncreated.

Wow. Just wow. This isn't simply imposing limits on benefits. It is taking healthcare decisions out of the hands of GPs and indeed hospital consultants. Wow.

 

[A1X]

This is the thing where they're taking the decision on people's wellbeing out of the hands of medical professionals and putting it into the hands of some Government contractor to make the decision, isn't it? Or is that a different story kicking around today?

 

[GJN1]

His voice and his tone is so f****** grating.

 

[Weststander]

Too many doctors are issuing sick notes so Sunak wants to strip their right to do so.

Well, then he’s a w@nker. Untouched by mental ill health.

Soon to be on the US lectures circuit with Blair and Truss, earning untold millions.

 

[Weststander]

This is the thing where they're taking the decision on people's wellbeing out of the hands of medical professionals and putting it into the hands of some Government contractor to make the decision, isn't it? Or is that a different story kicking around today?

Will it have time to be operational by the GE?

 

[Soton Seagull]

Punching downwards again. 14 years and counting.

 

[HeaviestTed]

I wonder if any of his friends at multi national companies that provide a workforce at a cost will tender for the contract?

 

[dwayne]

This message board is so left wing !

I'm not a Tory boy , I would probably vote labour at the next GE.

But I saw a stat the other day that showed a record 54.2% of people (36 million) now live in households which received more in benefits than they contributed in taxes, which is a little disturbing. Would be good to see the stats without pensioners.

It does feel like this country and especially the youth (yes I know they have it hard) are pretty work shy these days. Hard to recruit in retail for instance since Brexit.