Author Archives: Kate B

Greece, cuts, cruelty and voting for the Golden Dawn – interview 1

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Audio recording of interview with Kelly, 27 October 2012: Why I voted for the Golden Dawn.

Last week, I went to Athens for several days with a friend called Abi Ramanan. We interviewed as many people as we could about the economic crisis, service cuts and the rise of fascism. We’ll be publishing a number of articles about the experience – we have one in particular that focuses on the racism and warnings about her safety that Abi had to contend with and that I – because I am white – did not. In some respects, our trip had an air of segregation about it.

Abi first called me in about March this year to suggest the trip. She’d just visited Athens, where she’d been interviewing people about the appalling results of austerity there. She knew that I was interviewing people around the UK who were on the sharp end of this government’s cuts – people who were losing care services, benefits, homes and any hope of rescue – and wanted to know if I’d join her on another visit to Athens, to talk to more people and compare cuts stories from Greece with cuts stories in the UK.

I thought that idea had plenty of merit. Making contacts across the continent and swapping notes and plans for fightback seemed a sensible move, particularly as austerity continues to march Europe deeper into poverty, shock, fascism and other forms of oblivion. Reporting that and the wider experience is a crucial part of the response of those of us who refuse to accept that most people exist to serve out as austerity’s fodder. To put it another way – everyone everywhere needs to know when and where poverty and fascism are taking people out across Europe and anyone who is in a position to report that should be doing so.

On this site, we’re publishing transcripts of the recorded interviews we made in Athens. We have about ten to post, which we’ll do over the next few days. We’ll add links to our other articles as they appear. We’ll also be adding the audios from the interviews when we’ve had time to upload them.

This first interview is with Kelly, 31. We met her last Saturday. She voted for the Golden Dawn in the recent elections and plans to vote for them again. She explains why in this interview.

Kelly studied communications and works in telecommunications for four to six hours a day. She earns around €400 a month, plus commission. She also works as a stylist. She lives in Kallithea with her parents and her brother. 

On the political situation, paying the bills and trying to find work:
“I am pessimistic. [There are] many problems. The working class is suffering, I was living a lie. My parents, my tutors and the system told me how my life would be and I realised it wasn’t true.

I don’t know how to get through this and live the rest of my years. I feel it was all a lie because I can’t have the work I think I deserve. I can’t have a family. The crisis isn’t only economic. We don’t believe in things now – it is also a crisis of confidence. The political situation isn’t only in our pockets with work. It’s in our minds – we can’t trust anyone anymore.

Depression, anger, [the fact that] we can’t make dreams is a common feeling, especially among young people in Greece.

[I believe] that the situation has been caused the socialist party of George Papandreou – they took advantage of the good circumstances in the previous period and as a result this generation has to suffer.

On the appeal of the Golden Dawn
“I’m not here to say Golden Dawn are good. I’m here to explain the intention of the Golden Dawn voter. I don’t have a problem with immigrants. If an immigrant came to my house and wanted to eat, I’ll be the first person to give him food. I’m very generous and all Greek people are too – they will help anyone.

But I believe that I would prefer to vote for a party that says [things like] – “you know what? I’m the worst. I’m a fascist” – but [at least] are honest and straightforward in what they do. Not like the other parties who say – “I’ll increase your salary and your unemployment benefit will increase”, which are all lies. I appreciate the fact that Golden Dawn members are very straightforward and don’t want parliamentary salaries, but normal ones.

Golden Dawn is also against the memorandum and the most important reason for their appeal is because it’s a stroke [a hit] against the other political parties. It’s revenge. I believe that Golden Dawn is an extreme party, but I believe that the political system is a jungle and is also extreme. The existing system is pro-austerity.

The worst thing in Greek society is the cultivating media that misleads Greek people. For example, they say that Golden Dawn is anti-immigration, but at the same time, they are selling the country. So, to mislead [divert] us, they tell us about Golden Dawn, but the situation is more complex than that. They are cultivating us. They use Golden Dawn as a means to divide people.

I would not like to see a government with Golden Dawn as the main political party. I feel they should be in opposition, because I’m a little bit afraid of them. Even though I can understand the intention of someone to vote for Golden Dawn, I’m not sure that they should be government. Also, I don’t believe any political party can lead Greece out of this crisis. Only going back to the drachma will solve this. At first there will be a slump but in the future we will grow again.

In every party, there are bad people. When there is a protest in Syntagma, some anarchists will take advantage and start to burn the city, in Golden Dawn, there are some – not fascists, but psychos who will take advantage of situations. I’m afraid and a little bit concerned of what comes out of them, with all the news of attacks on immigrants. It’s more extreme than what I thought, but, if there were elections now, I would vote for Golden Dawn again.

On Golden Dawn’s attacks on immigrants
I don’t believe that all the stories are real. But, one day on the bus, there was a big man who started shouting at an immigrant – “get off the bus!” and “get your legs down!” and things like that. I freaked out. That makes me angry. But – I have had situations in the last year [with immigrants that I’ve had to deal with]. I went out for a walk at 11 o’clock at night. There was a man – a Russian or something like that – in his car. He was in the car with a junkie. They had a fight and the junkie got out and started to scream, I waited for a bit and then started to walk.

The driver saw me. He started following me inside the car. He started speaking to me – he kind of blocked my way two times with his car. It seemed like he was coming out of the car and maybe to try to grab me in an assault. I started to run and luckily my house was only ten seconds from this place. There is a problem in Greece – the immigrants here don’t want a better future. They don’t want to work and make families. They are from jails, they are engaging with crime, they are not civilised people. They rape [and] they are thieves. Not all the immigrants – but a lot of the immigrants here are like this. I know this from my own personal experience and from various other incidents. This is not from the media, but from my friends and people I know. Not from the media.

I am against Golden Dawn going into schools and hospitals, but, I also condemn the mainstream media for not giving them equal publicity to other political parties. They have no space in the media and so they have to go from door to door to spread their message and communicate their ideas.

Some of them are fascists but some of them aren’t. I am not a fascist person.”

On the past, friends, family and the drachma
I didn’t follow politics when I was younger. In Greece, when you support a party, you get some benefits [from that] – work and so on, so maybe I should do it, but I prefer to vote for Golden Dawn. I have always lived in Athens and I don’t think I want to leave, even with [the economic] situation. I believe that Greek people are very generous and very polite. We have a good energy. I have travelled to some countries and I believe that believe Greek people are the best.

The majority of people oppose the drachma policy – they say things will get worse and worse. I know people who have voted for Golden Dawn, who are like me, who are not fascist people, and other parties are criticising them again and again. The real fascist people are the other parties. I would never call someone a fascist for what they believe in.

[My friends are] considering leaving Greece, but we none of us want to leave. We love our country. To go away you have to have money and you need work. It is more difficult. Around ten percent of my friends are interested in Golden Dawn.

My parents find the situation very difficult. They feel sad about our generation and the dreams they had for their children, the destruction of the healthcare system and the reduction of pensions. They did not vote for Golden Dawn. I am the black sheep of the family. They understand why I did vote for them though. They didn’t criticise me.

 

Hartlepool, actors and singers, and the bedroom tax

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These are the latest excerpts from recorded interviews I’m publishing as I talk to people around the country who are dealing with fallout from public sector cuts, welfare reform and the recession. These transcripts are from interviews with actors, singers and writers at Shoot Your Mouth Off films – a filmmaking project in Hartlepool for people with learning disabilities.

In the transcripts, people talk about their work as actors, singers and writers.

The people who spoke for the interviews were David Miller, Carole Gill, David Lodge, Daniel Judge, Liz Yeats, Graeme Booth and Wendy Elsley.

Photos by @skinnyvoice at deptfordvisions.com.

People here are dealing with many issues: Karen Sheader, the disability rights activist who set SYMO up, says, for example, that two people in the group are worried that they will be affected by the proposed bedroom tax. The two people live by themselves in two-bedroom flats and are concerned that they will either have to move to one-bedroom flats (if they’re available) or lose part of their benefits. There’s a lot of confusion and worry:

“It does make you wonder where they think people are going to to get the money from, especially those people who are already on benefits. There are a couple of people in our group who live in two bedroom flats who were allocated the flats by the local authority who are now being told that they might have to be moved to a one bedroom flat because of the changes to housing benefit.

“Peter (one of the people who is in a two-bedroom flat) came in (one day) with a letter and he didn’t understand it, because he can’t read. It was about his council tax benefit and his housing benefit and he was panicking. When he got this letter, I rang [the council officer] and she offered to see Peter to reassure him. She was saying this is not going to happen in the immediate future – this (the letter) was just saying that it might happen at some point in the future.”

Some people in the group are on benefits, while others work in other jobs, too: Wendy Elsley and Graeme Booth, for example, both work part-time at Asda.

I’ll be posting more on this soon. In the meantime, here are some thoughts from people involved in Shoot Your Mouth Off films. Videos to follow.

Graeme Booth
“I’ve got to work two days a week (at Asda), so I’m here on a Monday now. I swapped days over, so I could come back and make films. The best film I’ve done is Dr Why with Wendy. It was just a Dr Who spoof, really. We did it all in front of a green screen. [In the end], I got done in by a big plastic dinosaur.”

David Miller
“I’ve been at Shoot Your Mouth Off films from the start, for five years. When we first came, there were no tables, no chairs – just boxes to sit on. Some of us have got bands in it as well. I’ve got a band called Friends Forever and my friend Daniel Judge over there, he does rapping. He’s going solo now as well. Hope Springs [a soap] is the film I enjoyed the most. The other one I love is called Maniac Mum. It’ll be done for the Christmas show.

Daniel Judge
My name is Daniel Judge, but really my name is… Dr Judge. I’m a musician…and with a good friend of mine. Coming into SYMO has changed my life. All my friends are in here. My heroes too. I’ve been coming here quite a long time. By 2007 – that’s the year when I did a new group with a certain guy called Mr Miller over here – Big Daddy Cool. And I produced the album called Rise to Fame and I was on the radio, Radio Hartlepool.

David Lodge
My name is David Lodge and I’ve been coming to SYMO for just over a year. Acting’s been part of my life [since I was young]. I went to college for four years and did drama and got qualifications. The best way to describe myself is as an all rounder – acting singing as well. I’ve just played the devil in Nuts To You. A couple of weeks ago, it was on Northeast Tonight, which is our local news for the region. Everybody – from my girlfriend to my Mum and Dad and other people have said I’ve seen you on the TV. Even people are coming up three weeks on have seen it. Acting’s been my passion.

Carole Gill
I’ve only been coming here for seven months, since Easter. I like singing and acting and I like to come here, because everybody’s friendly and made me welcome when I came in. I’m in Maniac Mum. I love singing.

I do get nervous…[before our last show] it was terrible. I couldn’t eat nowt. I did it, though. I wouldn’t let them down anyway. When I heard that there was a group called SYMO, I came with one of our staff members. I thought it would be the right thing for me to do and so I wanted to join. Everybody made me welcome and they give us a cup of tea and made me feel that I felt was at home. My best part was when I was singing live music. We had about 150 people in the room. I sang One Moment In Time and Karen was playing it on the synthesiser.

Wendy Elsley
I used to come here on a Friday, but I stopped coming in on a Friday, because I’m working in Asda now and they swapped my days. So I had to finish this film off – otherwise they would have been up the creek without a paddle. I’d worked really hard with it and finished it off. [That was] Nuts To You.

I do adult literacy [classes]. In Asda, I’m doing all the clothes work in the clothes department. We start round about nine o’clock and then we have our dinners around about 12 o’clock and then we have two breaks between ten and three, so it’s been a long day but it goes very quick. I’ve been there quite a while now – 20 years now in Asda. I just get on with what I’ve been told to get on with.

With the [adult literacy classes] – Karen helped me [find one]. I met this new tutor and she is dead lovely. She said – what do you want to do? and I said – I want to learn to read. I want to read and write, because if I don’t read and write, that’s it – my brain is totally switched off. I love reading and writing. My Mum says my reading has improved a lot from what is used to be and it’s helped me with my acting as well because I can read scripts as well.

I just love coming here. If I wasn’t coming here now, I’d just be sitting at home 24-7, so I’m looking for something else to do on a Tuesday. I like art, making cards and stuff.

Liz Yeats
I come here on a Monday. I prefer Mondays than Fridays, because I seem to get on better on on a Monday. I’ve got lots of friends on a Monday, because I love everybody. That’s why I’m here for. And I’m best at drama and I’m a good comedian. I just like to join in.

DPAC protestors block Park Lane 20 October 2012

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While Ed Miliband yabbered on about hard choices and the facts of life and some cuts being unavoidable (we could hear him in the background)…protestors from Disabled People Against Cuts chained their wheelchairs together and shut down Park Lane at the Marble Arch end at today’s TUC march.

I’ll upload more video later today and tomorrow. This one shows the blockade and also the stopped traffic. A protestor argues the case for the action with a copper at the end. After a while, the police worked out that the protestors weren’t going to move and were forced to make all the vehicles on Park Lane – buses included – turn around.

If only Miliband had encouraged the rest of the march to join DPAC and Boycott Workfare in shutting streets and shops across London down. Too hard a choice, perhaps.

 

 

The Billion Pound Gamble – film on Barnet cuts & privatisation

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From the makers of The Billion Pound Gamble:

On Monday 22nd October at 6pm, the world premiere of a new film, Barnet – The Billion Pound Gamble – will be shown at the iconic Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley (52 High Road London N2 9PJ).

The film has been made by acclaimed US film director Charles Honderick and exposes the chaos being wrought by the policies of Barnet Council as the council cuts services and pursues a highly-controversial billion-pound outsourcing deal.

Local residents are interviewed and explain just how difficult life has become. A family with a child suffering severe disability tells how no appropriate accommodation has been provided for 11 years.

Users of day centres explain how cuts to transport have affected them and how they get charged £1.20 for a cup of nescafe. Local traders tell the tale of how the parking policies have forced them to the brink.

Award winning film director Ken Loach explains how outsourcing destroys local economies. A host of experts explain how the One Barnet programme is doomed to failure, it is a Billion Pound Gamble, where private companies will pick up fat cheques, local residents will get shoddy services and local taxpayers will be left to pick up the bill.

The film also features shocking scenes filmed inside the Town Hall as uncaring local councillors dismiss the concerns of residents and laugh as important decisions, which will cause misery for thousands, are passed without proper debate.

The official trailer for the film has been released today and can be viewed on the film website – http://www.billionpoundgamble.co.uk

Notes for Editors.

1. The world premiere for the film will be shown at The Phoenix Cinema on Monday 22nd October. Doors open at 6pm and the film will be shown at 6.30pm. Entrance costs £1.

2. The film has been directed by USA film director Charles Honderick. The film is a follow up to the acclaimed film “A Tale of Two Barnets” which has been screened at The House of Commons, The Edinburgh Festival, The Unison National Conference and the TUC centre at Great Russell St. There have also been over 20 local screenings.

3. The film features a new exclusive interview with award winning film director Ken Loach, talking about life, football and outsourcing.

4. The film website is http://www.billionpoundgamble.co.uk/ . This is being constantly updated with information, details and clips as we move towards the full screening.

5. The website for “A Tale of Two Barnets” is http://ataleoftwobarnets.yolasite.com/. This has full details of all press coverage and clips from the film including full interviews with Ken Loach, Richard Cornelius (Leader of Barnet Council) and Nick Walkley (CEO of Barnet Council).

 

A few truths about benefits

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This is the latest in the transcripts from recorded interviews I’m publishing as I talk to people around the country who are dealing firsthand with fallout from public sector cuts, welfare reform and the recession. I’m posting these transcripts between longer articles and testimonies that are appearing at False Economy and elsewhere.

In this transcript, Michael H, who is 43, from Newcastle and on benefits, talks about growing up on Gateshead’s Springwell estate, his worries for his children in an era and region of high unemployment, his concerns about being moved out of his council flat if the government’s bedroom tax is enforced (he was moved to his current flat years ago after run-ins with gangs on his previous estate) and his own conviction for benefit fraud. Michael has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, has depression and suffers from anxiety and panic attacks.

“I know that this is going to come across really, really strong but I think that it’s a social cleansing what they [the government] are doing, with people the likes of us on benefits… because he’s [Cameron] turned around, calling us the likes of scroungers.

I go to doctors, I go to groups – I’m trying to get better, but when you’re diagnosed with things like this and you’re on the waiting list… I’m diabetic. I was diagnosed in 2005 – I almost died [in 2000]. I’ve got summat in my hands where they attack down the nerves. It’s affecting me like joints and things and the medication that they put us on, I don’t think it agreeing with us. I’m thinking like more suicidal thoughts. I don’t know if this drug is right for me.

I was a caretaker years ago and I worked with a broken arm, so it isn’t if I haven’t worked or anything. I have done lots of various jobs. Obviously, growing up, I wasn’t brought up in the best world. It was like…really bad times – a very violent household if you get my drift, so I didn’t have the best of the starts in life. [But] I’m doing everything like I’m supposed to be doing…

Bedroom tax its a different way of cutting the housing benefit bill. That’s all it is. It isn’t anything about encouraging people to move on, because they know that there isn’t any one bedroom properties going. My daughter still comes across [to stay in my flat]. She lives at home with her mam and stepdad and she comes across to mine and she has that room as a little sanctuary thing, because she she’s doing 6th form now. She is going to be a teacher and it’s nice for her to have that sanctuary. In everything, you will get people who will take advantage. It’s doesn’t matter what job you are in – in any walk of life. Look at the Tories with their expenses. Those MPs – in real life, they would have lost their jobs.

I haven’t had an [Atos work capability assessment yet]. I’m on incapacity benefit…I’ve watched the things on the television and seen how [ESA] is decided for people to fail on it. People don’t understand how that plays with your mind, because if your mind is fragile enough now, when you get things like that put on top of you, it just makes you think – what I am good for? The best thing to do would be to end it, because then I wouldn’t be on benefits.

My son and his pals have been on benefits for ages and there is nothing there. He has to go around and hand in CVs to firms in the local areas [as a requirement for jobseekers’ allowance]. They [the job centre] keep asking him to do it and he’s like – if I’ve done every one, how can I go around and do it again? And they are now wanting to sanction people £72 [sic]. That’s their whole benefit, if they don’t meet whatever they [the job centre] wants. Yes, we do know that there is people who do not want to work, because there’s ones that do crime, do drugs, do whatever, but that’s always been there since day dot, but to tar every single person…

The thing is, he [Cameron] claims that it [welfare changes and bedroom tax] won’t have that much impact – but how does he know? He’s a millionaire. He’s not been in our shoes, I would love to have been in his. Because most people round these areas to be honest, they are poor and they accept their lot in life.

At the job centre, they have not got a clue. If they brought in schemes where it wouldn’t affect your benefit – employment training for 12 months, you could go out and train. If disabled people had those rights, if that would then give them the confidence to go back into the workplace and try things out and learn different things. They let the likes of us rot now. We are classed as the worst thing since bubonic plague.

Continue reading →

Disabled people against cuts and UK Uncut protest Friday 31 August London

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Protestors clash with police at the department for work and pensions.

Have a lot of video to upload from today – here’s the start.

This protest was called by UK Uncut and Disabled People Against Cuts as the closing ceremony to the Atos Games week – five days of events and demonstrations against Atos’ involvement in the fiasco that is work capability assessments for people on employment and support allowance.

These first videos were taken inside the protest outside the Department for Work and Pensions in the afternoon. It’s shaky, because I was pushed over a few times, but it rights itself here and there. There were fiery scenes, all right, and the police were pretty free with their hands:

More pushing from the police:

The protest began in Triton Square at Atos headquarters, then moved across town to the DWP’s Wesminster offices after a  couple of hours. That’s where things began to kick off. There were hundreds of people present and things got pretty unpleasant. The lack of mainstream reporting of this protest seems extraordinary – as someone who was in the middle of it all day, I can tell you that it was well-attended and pretty full-on.

Outside the DWP, DPAC’s Adam Lotun tells protestors that people have entered the building with a list of demands for Maria Miller. He also announces his candidacy for the upcoming Corby byelection. That should be interesting – particularly for Labour:

This video is from earlier in the day outside Atos’ headquarters where people started yelling at police, security and a guy in a red tie who refused to answer questions about the company’s WCA record:

More videos to come through the evening.

Schizophrenia, little support and fit for work that doesn’t exist

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This is another transcript from my interviews with people who are dealing with cuts and welfare reform.

This transcript is from a recorded discussion with S_*, who is from Newcastle. Now in his 50s, S_ was diagnosed with schizophrenia nearly 30 years ago. He says that his symptoms – depression, and auditory and visual hallucinations – are getting worse and cuts to services mean that he is struggling to find counselling and the regular support he needs to function. This week – several weeks after his latest work capability assessment with Atos – he was found fit for work (this recording was taken before his latest assessment). He talks a lot about isolation and is especially concerned about finding and keeping a job without regular professional support.

“About 30 years ago, I was diagnosed as schizophrenic. I couldn’t talk to people, including my own parents, about things that were worrying me, particularly socially, and at the first school I went to, I was told that I was a waste of space and I got bullied. In the end, my parents ended up calling in the emergency doctor and then they called in a friend of theirs who is a doctor. He advised them to get a psychiatrist he knew.

“I was given massive injections and the next thing I knew, I was on my way to the hospital. That was just before my first attempt at college and final year exams and that was stress anyway. I was in there for one and a half weeks and came back to do the last exam, but I didn’t do that, because it [the schizophrenia] started to kick in again as the effects of the medication wore off.

“Things have got better in some ways since then, but they’re not brilliant. I do have suicidal thoughts and I get really depressed, but I usually manage to talk myself out of it. Also, I made a promise to a psychiatrist as well when I was in hospital that I wouldn’t do anything stupid, but I find it very hard. I tell people that I’m a member of society, but I feel on the fringes of it, as if I’m an outlaw and not in the mainstream.

“Yes, I do hallucinate [especially at night]…I see things like giant squid and things like that…I think I’m being eaten alive…. the drugs, the Sulpiride I take, it’s got quite bad side effects in that my limbs shake every night when I go to bed and keep me up half the night anyway.

“It has basically gone on since I was 18, if not before. I’ve coped reasonably well, but there are limits to things I can do and to the desire to do them and the motivation as well. I mean, when I get tired and run down, that’s when things can kick off again.

“When I first got out of hospital, when I was 18, I was given a job by my dad, so that he could look after me day to day and see how I was doing. Since then, I have either worked part time, or gone into full time education, or basically been on training schemes, or been on the welfare state. The labelling [as someone with schizophrenia], I think stigmatises and discriminates against you in the minds of employers.

“I’m in my 50s anyway and that’s another thing against me…and what it has meant is huge great holes in my CV which have been covered by little bits of volunteering. I can’t do really physical stuff. I don’t drive because of the medication and both prescriptions say don’t drive or use machinery or use alcohol if at all drowsy. Also, the schizophrenia means that I’ve got thought disturbance, image disturbance, particularly at night.

“I’ve been on this medication since 1998. I got recommended to go to university – the university, thank god, picked me up through student services and gave me counselling every week and gave me help to write essays. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have got my degree. But I’ve rarely seen psychiatrists since 2004 and when I was at K_, the most concerned they seemed to have been was about whether I was going to use a chainsaw or not. After that, it seemed to be a succession of different psychiatrists every time who seemed to just want to go back into the past – what medication you’re on and so on.

“The community mental health team is overwhelmed…I’m not as ill as others, I acknowledge that, but I do think that I need some help and I get very little. I’ve had to fight for what I’ve got so far, even when I’ve had a relapse and the police have been called and things like that.

“Here, you have got to go through your GP to get a meeting with a psychiatrist…I was originally referred to the cognitive behavioural therapy team. They didn’t want to know, because I had a diagnosis with schizophrenia, so they sent me back to the GP. They sent me to the community mental health team and they originally didn’t want to know and I went back to the GP again and on the second time of asking, they took me seriously. It’s taken eight months of being messed around and of getting worse and worse and feeling more anxious…

“Originally, I was on income support with an incapacity element – this was years ago, so my memory is slightly faulty. This will be my third Atos assessment. I know people who have had four or more over four years – one a year basically and tribunals as well and still been asked back..

“I got a work capability assessment under New Labour back in 2008 and I treated it like a job interview, because I didn’t know what to expect. There was nothing in [my town back then] to advise me and the job centre would have just been a joke. I didn’t know about the disability forum, which was just starting out on this thing. The whole system has become more onerous since the coalition got in and I’ve been yo-yoing between jobseekers’ and employment support allowance. If there’s someone who has asked me to do something, someone in authority, I usually try and do that thing even if I know it is going to hurt me or make me stiff. I usually try and do my best. And that’s what they are counting on – people not knowing the system.

“I would like to see someone to talk to on a regular basis, just for motivation and reassurance. And to be able to have enough a personal budget to employ someone like a gardener and a cleaner because I’m conscious of the fact that the neighbours have done most of the garden and I find mowing the lawn very hard – not just physically, but mentally – getting round to it and doing it. Also, just someone to pop in on a fairly regular basis, just once or twice a month, just to see how I was doing.

“I’d also like a psychiatrist just sort of in the background in case things get worse, but I find that making appointments with the doctor just horrendously difficult. You can’t always get an appointment straight away and frequently, I need one pretty quickly.

“I’ve got a two bedrooom house, but it’s it’s in need of a clean. You know, I’m not very good at remembering to do things like the dishes and clothes washing on a regular basis.

“Having the ESA/JSA is very important. I still get help which is organised by my family, but that’s to pay the bills. It’s never been good since the new government come in and made the conditions harder and harder. You’ve got to jump through more hoops to justify yourself and you’re looked upon as a scrounger and people ask why you’re not working. They just don’t seem to have any idea what it’s like.

“At my second Atos appointment, I didn’t go with anyone. That was a mistake. I’ve learned now. I got help to prepare all the documents and that sort of thing with the disability forum here and I was told what to take. I have done [the same] this time as well, but the first one I did, I had no idea what to expect and no idea about anything – no idea about medical evidence. I thought you took a note of what your GP said, but they seemed to ignore that, so that’s why I’ve made a point this time of getting back to the community mental health team and secondary services because I think they might pay a bit more attention to them than to a GP.

“The way I feel varies. Some days I just can’t be bothered to get out of bed – I just feel so low. Sometimes, that goes and I physically can’t get out of bed. Even the GP reckoned years ago that I couldn’t handle stress very well, so he was very surprised when I went to university. I always got a bit of extra time, because they were very good – they acknowledged that I had difficulties and they worked around them. I just wish employers would, because I reckon that I’ll be found fit for work again. It’s got to be limited – it’s got to be limited travel, no more than 20 hours a week and less than an hour a day travel, but beggars can’t be choosers, I’m afraid.

“I think I’ll need a bit of advice after [his next work capability assessment], to see what I’m going to do – whether I’m going to appeal. I certainly will if I get no points at all. I need 15. If they say there’s nothing wrong with you, I will appeal, but if they say there is – you have got this health issue but we can work around it, I’ll probably go to the disability employment advisor again. I’ll have to go through jobseekers’ again. Otherwise, I will appeal for my employment support allowance if they say there is nothing wrong with me.

“I just think that the whole welfare state and people who depend on it are being attacked wrongly and the elite bankers are getting away with it – fraudulent things, but getting a mere slap across the wrists and I think it’s totally wrong, it’s immoral. Neither New labour or the Tories are going to rapidly change this. There’s one law for the rich and one law for the poor and I just happen to be in the second bracket.

“I would hate to think where I’d be in six months’ time without support. I think I would be back in hospital at the very least, if not on my deathbed. It’s been a constant struggle anyway, with what limited support I get and I’m trying to get more, but if I didn’t have what I’ve got I think it’d be even worse and I think I’d be on far more medication.

“The help I’ve got at the moment – well, I come here [to a voluntary support organisation for people with mental health problems] as often as I can. I go and see my GP when I think I need to, but that’s difficult, trying to get an appointment. I want to be able to almost on a switch of a button talk to someone, but you’ve got to plan it and even then, there are lots of other people with other problems trying to access their GP as well. I think I need a visit from a carer, or a social worker, a couple of times a month just to see how I’m getting on, but with these cuts I don’t think I’ll get that. And as I say, a fairly regular meeting with a psychiatrist, or a self help group.

“The report I got back said that I am a very passive individual. I thought – oh what else? Then it went through the descriptors and it was like – none of this applies sort of thing and that’s the reason that I appealed. I eventually got to the tribunal and during that wait, I was getting worse.”

*Name withheld.

Other articles: people with mental health illnesses win judicial review of work capability assessments.

Targets for reforming disability living allowance

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Can’t exactly see a fair process being rolled out here….this Treasury paper strongly implies that the 20% cut in DLA expenditure that the government expects to achieve by phasing DLA out was drawn from results of the existing, and flawed, work capability process.

From Treasury 2010 budget costings documents (see page 36)

Reforming disability living allowance – 

Measure description
This measure will introduce an objective medical assessment and revised eligibility criteria for both new and existing working-age claims for Disability Living Allowance, to be rolled out from 2013/14. The assessment will follow a similar process to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) used for claims to Employment and Support Allowance, with a points based system to assess eligibility to the different rates of the benefit.

The cost base
This costing uses the same caseload and expenditure projections used in the main social security forecast.

Costing
Drawing on the evidence of the impact of the WCA, the central assumption for this policy is that it will result in a 20 per cent reduction in caseload and expenditure once fully rolled out. It is assumed that existing claimants would be reassessed over three years, with 25 per cent of the caseload reassessed in the first year, 75 per cent by the end of the second year and 100 per cent by the end of the third year.

Touchstone blog from 2010 on that 20% cuts figure in DLA here.