Post Jubilee Rubble

Over the weekend I received an appointment for a diagnosis to see if I have Aspergers. Unfortunately it's miles away and I don't travel well, so I have begun to question the point of it. What good will getting a diagnosis, if it were to happen, be anyway? 

There's no way I'm going to pass a WCA just because a doctor gives me a piece of paper saying I have Asperger's. All I will be told is that plenty of people that have Asperger's work anyway, plus we all know that you need to do a hell of a lot to pass that test. My doctor is reluctant to write a sick note, even though he agrees the ESA WRAG would be the best place (at least that's the theory), that won't change. What does he think being labelled as an Asperger's sufferer will mean? Does he think that will bypass his role in getting me onto ESA? It won't. Does he think that a whole bunch of doors and opportunities will magically open? In the current climate? Nope. 

What would those opportunities be? How many employers are going to be interested in hiring me if I tell them I have Aspergers? What if I don't; that's hardly fair on me. If I have to apply for jobs I find difficult because of my problems, which is the case right now being on JSA, then how is that going to change if I can't get off JSA?

In the end nothing really changes, so is it really worth all the hassle. I know my own mind, labels don't mean anything. If they can't provide access to help and, more pertinently, an income, then what's the point? I've already had the Work Psychologist tell me that plenty of people with such conditions manage to work. But that assumes one can even find work. The problem is the system doesn't offer any help in these areas and I don't see how getting an official diagnosis will change that. It hasn't so far, and having a piece of paper telling me I'm an official Asperger's sufferer - and there's no guarantee that will happen (the assessment requires that I get someone that's known me all my life to answer a bunch of questions about my behaviour as a child, which is not possible) - won't make a lick of difference.

The problem is until the system is able to help there's not much that will change. Either I claim JSA or ESA or somehow get a job (or sign off altogether and starve of course). But I can't switch to ESA and even if I could there's no chance I'll pass the WCA. Even then I'll still be on the Work Programme, which is still a giant waste of time. So I remain on JSA and have to deal with the continued need to look for work with the implication that there's nothing wrong with me (because of course if there were I'd claim ESA!). Again it seems to come down to the systems that are available which are ever more in decline as the powers that be tell you that you have to help yourself and pull your socks up. That's just hot air though. 

Still I guess I could always go and live under a bridge with the CPUK trainees, forced to work under absurd conditions for no pay as part of their Work Programme/Workfare/Training/Slavery deal. The government dismisses this as a one off 'logistical error' - a bit like that nightshift job Tescos advertised a few months back eh!

Listening to all the excuses and the 'dunkirk spirit' apologists for this practise their words are pretty hollow. Why would anyone choose not to be paid? That implies they had the choice in the first place. Sorry that doesn't ring true.

And just because this is fast becoming the norm, this practise of slavery, doesn't make it right.
But the weasel words of CPUK and Tomorrow's People are just not good enough. It's another attempt to offer a weedy apology in terms of 'if people think we need wrong then we're sorry'. So not an apology. Downplaying this as a logistical error ffs! 

In what world does bussing people into work in the middle of the night, unprepared (except for the camping gear they seem to have had to supply themselves), then giving them the opportunity to get a couple of hours kip - under a fucking bridge like a troll - before working a 16 hour shift make sense?

Logistical error doesn't begin to explain or justify this blatant exercise in getting labour on the cheap and cutting corners. These people made a mistake? Yeah, my arse they did! They got caught out and shame on them - and shame on the pathetic apologists for this crap. You are devaluing your own worth in the labour market. They even had some grandmother on whose grandson felt that those complaining were not only way off base - but were putting his opportunity to get trained up for the Olympics in jeopardy!
 

Tomorrow's People say that unemployed people couldn't be paid because it was against the JSA rules. But that doesn't stop them behaving like gangmasters of course.

 

Divide and rule, alive as ever. Just to round off, here's something typically Tory to cheer us all up!