Official thread: ‘Get Britain Working’ White Paper released Tuesday 26th November

I wouldn’t use the word ‘trapped’

However in many cases that you try and take a positive step towards getting off the system you need to think twice as it could trigger reassessment or overwise

In my experience with the dwp it’s very black and white - either your too sick to work or do literally anything or it’s basically ‘you can do x so you are obviously healthy enough to full time work’ - there’s not a middle ground or steps towards a to z (my old work coach who seemed to like me as I was one of the few claimants that was polite to her warned me off the record not to make any major step towards work unless I was 100% ready for the jobcentre to start pushing for any old job interviews)

so I wouldn’t used the word trapped - but being a disabled claimant trying to move off system into suitable & safe work is like hiking up mount Fiji and the dwp fill your rucksack with ridiculously heavy dumbbell weights………….

And these extra barriers blocking the possibility of success does disillusion over time - every time you try and fail or get blocked your MH and self worth takes a hit and it gets harder and harder to muster the energy to try again (and it’s a bad attitude to have but you do end up thinking why bother if everything is stacked up towards failure or your life/health decreasing substantially regardless)

On this thread I’ve suggested that prehaps long term we are best trying to jump through labours hope to stop an even worse case scenario for disabled being trusted on in 4 years (apparently the guardian was thinking along the same lines)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/06/labour-government-keir-starmer-nigel-farage

however the dwp do need to do their part in ripping down multiple ‘barriers’, totally change the culture & thought process of job centres and dwp staff, provide more forms of actual help and provide more definitions to the word ‘success’ (note to Kendall, timms and McGovern - paid employment is not the only useful contribution that disabled ppl can make to society and saying it to media every few days do not make it so nor does it endear you to the disabled community)

I think there are so many articles being written by the far right media and disablity activists that they all merge into one another and it’s very easy for mind to get warped by it all especially when you have trouble turning off and ignoring things.

On your comment that this labour government know making the disabled community is a bad decision - I’m not so sure

There are many of the public that see disabled as dead weight that don’t contribute anything and that welfare should be cut and disabled forced to work (though some of the same ppl contradict themselves by saying they don’t want to work in the some place as a disabled person) - basically red meat politics

I’m not sure there’s a way for labour to make both groups happy so may pick to (try and) make the group most likely to help them next GE in terms of votes ‘happy’

I’m not sure either the [removed by moderator - uncivil] right leaning public (those individuals believing the right wing press narrative on welfare and the disabled) or disabled community will ever be ‘happy’ with labours choices and starmer may have already lost voters from both groups - however financially the ‘easy’ option in terms of the gov saying money is to cut welfare and tighten criteria for awards (it shouldn’t be as it should weigh on the conscience - not sure many politicians have sleepless nights over disabled they’ve forced into poverty - esp as starmer only seems to value ‘working people’)

I really hope I’m wrong - but every couple of days we are getting new, harmful sound bites from dwp ministers such as Kendall, timms and mcgovern - I’m not sure what are the odds that none of them realise the damage and hurt they are causing with their constant stream of verbal ‘grenades’ and the amount of goodwill ‘currency’ they are wasting and are just obvious to it all (rather than being intended ‘targeting’)

I should edit that to “in my experience over the past 6-7 years” - during the Tory/lib dem coalition and before 10 years ago there was actually some flexibility in the dwp/jobcentre

There was disability specifically trained jobcentre advisers (they all got retrained as uc work coaches 4-6 years back and don’t cater to specific claimant needs) and they were more then happy (encouraged & didn’t threaten reassessment or sanctions if you wants to try and earn a little pocket money - there’s no way in hell you could get away with that in 2024)

Ironically it may be best for the jobcentres to go backwards then to ‘evolve’ (god knows what it will turn into) and over a decade ago there were a few good ideas which should of never been ditched

@WhatThe - I can’t tell if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me - it’s cool either way as everyone’s entitled to their own opinion