Dying To Work

It seems cancer with a 3 month life expectancy is no barrier to the scumbags at the DWP. Dying is to be regarded as no real inconvenience to the determined jobseeker, thanks to these idiots.

And to round it off, there's a jobcentre adviser in Britain happy to tell someone, 23 weeks into their pregnancy, they are being sanctioned. All for telling a prospective employer at a jobs fair they are pregnant (as if they could forever hide the fact).

Welcome to Britain 2014.

Even Nature Can't Escape Cuts

The cuts seem never ending with the perennial promise of more, just in case we step out of line. 

Perhaps it's a sign of the times that I, out walking, find that the local council are happy to waste money on cuts that have acutely saddened me. I'm not talking about anything life threatening here, not the reduction of support to people that need it (as seems to be the case ongoing in the UK), but instead a countryside path/cycle route/bridleway. 

The council have sent in a maintenance team to basically cut the hedges/verges and treeline to nothing. First world problems certainly, but it's just sad to see such small minded attitudes. Granted this region isn't the Amazon or the Masai Mara, it's still nature. It's wild and it should be free. But instead council jobsworths with money that could be much better spent just to make sure some leaves don't land in the wrong place.

Unfortunately this area is also rich in wildlife; it has everything from birds and adders to deer and foxes. It seems all to typical of our attitudes these days; instead of letting something beautiful through being natural, it has to be artificially managed in order to be pleasing. None of this was causing a hazard nor in anyone's way. I doubt there was a crisis of sickness though I'm sure, when I can get hold of the right people (the parish council are completely in the dark), the reason will be to manage the land better.

Well in my opinion the land has managed just fine up until now. It doesn't need councillors with money to waste interfering. It just makes me sad to see even something as simple as a hedge along a country lane being fiercely cut back. Is nothing sacred anymore?

Not Much Help

So the Work Psychologist tried to speak to the asperger diagnostic person, but to no avail. That ends a five month diagnostic process ending in failure; a process that is deeply flawed when it comes to adult diagnosis. If you cannot or will not diagnose the individual as they are, then what's the point. Surely if I had what they wanted - a full developmental history from childhood - then I'd already have a diagnosis. Everything else would be anecdotal and probably dismissed, as I have been. 

The last conversation I had with the Work Psychologist, who has done nothing else, featured more of her telling me how great I am, which is of course no help at all. It's like telling the condemned man you cooked him the best meal he'll ever eat. Telling me how much you think I can do whatever I put my mind to doesn't actually tell me how I can do that without any support. 

All she could do was give me the number for yet another social enterprise, this time Alliance Homes, who, I'm guessing, are a housing association. There are a number of these organisations and I've spoken with a few of them, all to no avail. I do not imagine they will be any different. How can they be: they don't have any real power to change the system, nor any influence over decisions made within it. Like the Work Programme (these are the sort of groups that become providers) they can't create opportunities, and have no expertise in mental health, learning difficulties or autism spectrum issues - or anything health wise. 

I am meeting them next week, but I don't have any expectations anything will come of this. I am fully expecting things to be twisted and my position misrepresented. This is what happens now: the individual is always the scapegoat for his situation. He is either lazy, stupid, or ignorant. Always something of his own making. If society cannot get past such superficial attitudes then I don't see how anything can improve.

More likely they will recommend me to visit Positive Step (again) whom they, I'm sure, will know to be the local purveyor of mental health solutions. They will of course have no idea whether CBT, the only thing Positive Step offers, is suitable or even effective. In fact it seems CBT is being pimped by the Jobcentre.

I've tried the 'Beating the Blues' programme. This is what Positive Step offered when I first dealt with them (they have no in-person programmes I could get to, though it would be exactly the same curriculum). I seriously question the efficacy of this programme for anything except minor phobias: like dealing with a fear of spiders (unless you live on the Planet of the Killer Spiders or something). Dealing with more existential problems, such as depression in an era of crisis capitalism and neoliberal class warfare and social engineering overseen by cruel hypocritical greedy aristocrats, requires something else entirely. 

When I tried the course they featured a number of case studies to illustrate
each part of the programme and how it works. One of them was a struggling single mother who's biggest issue was her lacking income. It was quite telling that, in the end, the best they could offer, from her experience of the programme, was that she was reportedly feeling more positive. That's great (assuming it was true - never mind what became of her which we do not know, so how effective the long term prospects are is anyone's guess), but it won't pay her bills, rent or buy her food; exactly the sorts of crises that lead people to feel depressed in the first place.

Essentially the programme tries to teach that you need to develop an objective awareness, in the moment of crisis (such as when you have a wobble about not being able to buy food for example), so as to step outside of yourself and deconstruct your thinking. This is why I say it's useful for minor phobias because we know that, say, encountering a spider in the bath isn't a permanent crisis in the way being sanctioned is. Thus you can, after momentarily calming yourself, realise that the spider isn't a horrible agent of death out for and capable of eating you while you sleep. 

You cannot deconstruct what you can't control, and as the article linked says, you can only be taught to acquiesce. To accept your shitty lot and attempt to make peace with the agents of that system (assuming they aren't of the ilk that will sanction you at the drop of a hat) and take the banker's deal, Noel. Aside from how immoral that is, it's not going to help your self esteem. But they don't want you having self esteem (that breeds confidence which breeds independence of thought), they want your compliance. In that way you can be held responsible for all the failings of the capitalist system, as is the lot of the sick and the poor currently.

Oh and just to remind readers: Positive Step work with Atos (maybe that will change to the new guys, Maximus)!

Rememberings

So many things I keep meaning to post about, but then...don't. Not exactly a promising advert for someone that wants to write, but perhaps reasonable when factoring in learning disabilities/neuro diverse cognitive functions etc. I find that I get ideas, sometimes dictate them into my mp3 player, and then...procrastinate. That's one of the main difficulties I have. I can't function except at my own pace. I can't be forced nor coerced into making things happen because then I lose the plot.

Anyway.

Today is that time of the year again. The time of remembrance. What does that mean for most of us? I can't remember the second world war; I can barely remember the seventies: the decade in which I was born. So how do I remember the sacrifice of people I don't and will never know? People might think that a rather contrary and facetious point to make since what they really mean is that we remember the simple fact that British people died when nations collided. They died for our freedoms, though we will never know what would have happened if they had 'failed' since we won the war and we get to write history.

This is important because the problem with all this poppy day business is propaganda. It is important we remember, but it is even more important we remember accurately; history as they say is written by the victors and we aren't really being compelled to remember the dead from all sides. Isn't it time we did so? Otherwise how can we truly get past the attitudes that lead to nations colliding?

All I see with respect to Remembrance Day is a parade of medals and badges, emblems and esprit de corps. Where is the individual commitment to a personal reflection amid all this groupthink? When people turn up on the TV at this time - for whatever reason - if they aren't wearing a poppy they are pilloried. It has to be a red poppy too, the correct colour, white for peace, is frowned upon worn alone (Caroline Lucas wore both on TV last week). Red is the colour of blood, do we need any more bloodshed? As we are being compelled into this now-religious annual sanitised ritual the government is posturing to commit what will be mission creep in pursuit of the obviously-barbaric Islamic State.

Now religious: remembrance is the purview of the Christian church. The process of remembrance is held within. Why? War and religion seem fatally intertwined with the blood of ordinary, sadly gullible men and women, being both sacrifice and reward. Given the history of their relationship, shouldn't we at the very least be questioning the role that Churches play just as we should question the integrity of politicians and Prime Ministers who are invited to lay their phony wreathes at sanitised war memorials? Where is the blood? Where is the flesh and bone of those who died, in ignominy and horror, to serve these people? Why is a concrete memorial chosen as an epitaph of remembrance and not the mud and blood of the trenches? That's where these poor souls died? That's why they died. Instead we have concrete emblems that must be kept so clean that any speck of dirt is the most foul desecration in the eyes of society.

Sanitised: this year's memorial 'song' is a version of The Green Fields of France that omits the anti-war message. What is the point then? To make it appealing to viewers of Downton Abbey or patrons of the Simon Cowell dominated 'pop' industry? A nice 3 minute gentle song to make us all remember the 'heroes' and not the reality? If we can't see the truth of war then how can we ever see it for the disgusting obscenity that it really is?

This is no different to the cheering insecure masses with their plastic flags waving on the royal wedding, desperate for a sense of purpose and place. Or the ceramic poppy display outside the Tower of London, described somewhat unfavourably in the Guardian. The poetry of war as written by jingoists and politicians, not the ordinary working souls sent to their deaths or, perhaps worse, their survival.

Well how do you do, Private William McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side?
A rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone that you were only 19
when you joined the glorious fallen in 1916.
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, William McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Did they beat the drum slowly?
did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined
And though you died back in 1916
To that loyal heart are you always 19.
Or are you just a stranger without even a name
Forever enclosed behind some glass-pane
In an old photograph torn and tattered and stained
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?
Well, the sun it shines down on these green fields of France,
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance.
The trenches are vanished now under the plough
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it is still No Man's Land
And the countless white crosses in mute witness stand.
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation that was butchered and downed.
And I can't help but wonder now Willie McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe them that this war would end war?
The suffering, the sorrow, some the glory, the shame -
The killing and dying - it was all done in vain.
For Willie McBride, it's all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again.
Did they beat the drum slowly?
did they sound the pipe lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?

No more war. 

All’s Well That Carswell

It’s easy being UKIP; you don’t need policies, you don’t have any real responsibilities.

And that’s the way they like it.

I don’t think they actually want real power: governing a country, or participating in international politics, for example. Why would they? They’d have to deal with all those grotty foreigners for one!

They thrive at the local level. There they get to enjoy the quagmire of parochial NIMBYist politics where nothing changes and they can stand up for ‘community values’. But they don’t have any real responsibility: they get to continue to agitate with respect to the EU (which I don’t think they ever want to leave given it’s their meal ticket) and immigration without having the responsibility of being able to deal with it.

So when Carswell ‘won’ the by-election in Clacton (where there is no issue of immigration), it was a victory for their small minded brand of politics. Ironically though it represented none of the kind of sea change the party claims to represent: they had won an MP because he was already there. The only change that had occurred was the colour of his tie.

A couple of weeks ago I rang their freephone office number (no way would I pay to talk to these reactionary idiots) to ask their policy on both the environment (they hate windfarms) and welfare (they hate benefits). They still don’t have a manifesto and all they could do was point me to the members responsible for those areas – at least in the case of the former since they couldn’t’ find a welfare spokesman. Consequently all I could get from them was the email for massage loving science denying homophobe: Roger Helmer who, dismally, speaks for them on the environment. How ridiculous is that?

They cannot be taken seriously, and yet they have to be thanks to a toxic media that splashed the I word with the subtlety of a nuclear meltdown. People have tied themselves up in knots over the issue of immigration and yet, as James O Brien expertly exposed, cannot articulate why they support UKIP. Meanwhile NigelFarage aligns himself with the most vicious right wing politicians in the EU (of the sort even France’s Marine Le Penn rejects), just so he can keep his snout firmly in the trough. That’s why I say they don’t want out of the EU – it’s their bread and butter (but emphatically not a croissant – and you can keep your margarine too!).

Because You Aren't Worth It

I don’t recognise our society anymore. I don’t recognise a society that is accepting of the idea of bribing employers (yet again) to hire disabled people. I don’t recognise the attitudes that criticise opposition to this; as if the opponents were in favour of denying vital opportunities to those people.

Who decides the worth of people? What gives an unelected banker, who has been handed a glut of unearned privilege, the right to decide whether someone is worth even a sum of money as risible as the NMW?

Who has decided that money is the sum of a person’s worth?

If a disabled person can do the job then a) hire them and b) pay them at least the NMW. Anything else is exploitation. To then patronise a disabled employee by trying to argue he or she is only worth £2 beggars all belief.

Oh, but these are people that are by virtue of their disabilities, aren’t as productive!

Is that the measure of a man these days? Who decides a person’s rate of productivity? How is this measured? We are human beings with thoughts and feelings, hopes and fears, we aren’t fucking robots! By arguing that a person should somehow be paid less than the legal minimum you are reducing the entire worth of a person to a risible pittance. £2 an hour anywhere else would get you laughed out of town, even the Jobcentre couldn’t compel you (though I’m sure they’d try) to work for that amount precisely because it’s below the legal minimum; it’s an employer openly and obviously trying it on.

But if you’re different; if you have a psychology or a physiology that’s different, then it’s acceptable not only to offer such a demeaning sum but to criticise you if you don’t jump at the chance. Look, here’s a pair of shiny round coins for you, don’t you want to have them? Wouldn’t your life, all that encompasses you as a living breathing being, be entirely the richer for it? All you have to do is sweep the floor, lick some envelopes or press some buttons (because fuck me if I’m going to stoop to doing the dirty work my business requires to function when I can pay someone as little as possible to do it for me). Why would you refuse?

How utterly and completely degrading is that? But the propaganda is in full flow: it’s better to have these people doing skivvy work (because that’s all they are good for isn’t it!) than sitting at home ‘festering’. Again it’s the assumption that the only activity of any worth in society, of any worth to the life experience of a human, is in paid servitude to another. But even that isn’t taken seriously by those that propagate the notion otherwise the work available would be worthwhile and properly compensated. When the boss wants you to work for even the NMW, never mind £2 an hour, you know they don’t care about your well being!

But these poor folk can’t match the productivity of their ‘normal’ peers!

Who decides? Who says? If someone can do the job, why are you looking to pay them less for it than at least their colleagues? No one’s productivity will be exactly the same as another’s. If you think a disabled person can do the job then, by definition, you are agreeing they are worth at least the NMW for it. If you don’t think they can do the job (assuming you are being honest and not disablist) then don’t hire them – but don’t moan about people that can’t find work receiving benefits.

The only barrier to work for disabled people in 2014 is the attitude of employers. At the very least are there not grants and funds available to help deal with equipping the workplace to make it accessible, etc? Aren’t such schemes the mark of an evolved civilised society? Or is it too much hassle (even though making those adaptations is giving work to someone) for lazy employers – the kind that can’t be bothered to dot the I’s and cross the T’s and want to pay someone (as little as possible) to do that for them while wiping their arses.

As ever this attitude isn’t challenged: the Tories pander to big business and the boss class in society while condemning anyone else when they perceive similar demands are being made. It’s ok to subsidise the wage bill of employers, but not to pay people enough to live on when they can’t find work (keeping them desperate enough to accept the shrinking standard of pay and conditions on offer, of course).

So the attitude seems to be that disabled people will find it hard to get work – unless we offer it to them, but we aren’t prepared to do that unless we are allowed to pay them £2/hour and everyone else, including our rivals in business, make up the rest. If this isn’t the sort of attitude that the Tories abhor, when they perceive it (i.e. create straw men) in the unemployed, then I don’t know what is.

Work is not the be all and end all of human existence. If you want people to make a positive contribution in their lives then give them the means to do so. People that can’t work or can’t find work should be given a decent standard of living, no question asked. They should not be punished by a system frightened that, if they give ‘free money’ they will turn into fat skivers addicted to beer and TV; they should not be victimised by the prejudice of those that have the power to change things. Who knows, with the right support such people might be able to make their own way forward and become self sufficient.

But that’s not what capitalism wants: it wants a compliant, fearful, labour force, willing to believe they are the authors of their own misfortune. This pool is then ready and willing to fight each other for the scraps the masters throw from their banquet table of plenty, like starving dogs. They don’t want people with knowledge and power because then who would choose to work for £2/hour in the gulags of tax dodgers.

Finally, there are obviously limits on what some people can do. However that is true of anyone; people are different whether they are traditionally disabled or not. It has been suggested that Freud’s odious comments were aimed more at those with limited mental capacity: severe learning difficulties or high levels of autism, etc. Not, for example, blind people, or someone whose legs no longer function. I don’t think that makes it any less patronising because the bottom line is the same: if someone is doing a job pay them a decent wage for it. That is surely the best way to creating equality. Ok they might be sweeping the floor or collecting trolleys – and they may even enjoy it (which is entirely their right to do so) – but at least pay them properly, show them they are worth their weight as a human being, not a means of production.

What is our society worth if employers can avoid their responsibilities? Employers should be proud to pay someone a good wage, not look at that as an inconvenience. They should be proud their staff can then contribute economically and not be dependent on foodbanks. They should be proud to pay taxes so their staff can be educated to do the job and cared for if they fall ill.

Why are disabled people exempt from this? Even if their opportunities are in some way limited, that should not mean they aren’t at the very least paid properly. You cannot have it both ways: to both hire someone you don’t think is up to the job and then pay them a risible pittance. If they can do the job, able bodied or not, then pay them properly. That we are having to have this discussion is an utter disgrace. The Tories have long hated the NMW, they argue it inhibits profit. Sometimes that's a price worth paying.

The System Needs A Fundamental Change

This system needs a fundamental change and I don't think Labour will provide it since they are wedded to the same capitalist ethics as the Tories. Their silence and indeed capitulation since 2010 speaks volumes: it was they, for example that facilitated IDS' 'emergency' legislation re: workfare. Preserving his image was the height of this emergency. Labour sat there and voted in support of denying £130mn worth of money wrongly withdrawn from jobseekers incorrectly sanctioned - never mind the legitimacy of forced labour and penury.

That said Labour is the only game in town for 2015. The whole rotten system needs changing, but that's not on offer next year. The priority must be: ousting this vicious lying incompetent government - both the aristocratic murderers led by Cameron, and their supposedly liberal quislings. 

Vicious: they have ushered in cuts and 'reforms' the like of which we have never seen, all designed to erode the safety net and the meeting of social necessities. The bedroom tax was facilitated by a man later put into the Lords who has no experience of benefit, welfare or government, nor was he even elected to any position, let alone the House of Lords. Yet the BT doesn't even account for people who have no alternative place to move into.

Lying: IDS and McVey have made a career out of spin and outright deceit. IDS was interviewed by Andrew Neil in front of a graphic regarding child poverty that plainly said the opposite of what he claimed. Evidence means nothing to him, what he believes is what is. McVey is a grotesque 'yes' woman, a harridan whose ego thrives on the nastiness of her words who shrieks even louder while egged on by her masters. She so desperately wants their respect it's almost misogynistic.

Incompetent: IDS couldn't and cannot even make his own schemes become reality. The aforementioned Mandatory Work Activity scheme was implemented incorrectly, yet he thought nothing of wasting thousands on endless rounds of lawyers to prove his case in courtroom after courtroom. Anyone that challenges his assumed authority is immediately denounced and scorned. He will not listen and he will not learn. UC was 'on time and on budget' for 2013 - or so he promised. It still hasn't been signed off on while its directors (such as the odious Howard Shiplee) have made hundreds of thousands.

Meanwhile the DWP has turned into something straight out of Kafka. Targets for sanctions are an open secret and, when the spotlight shined on the evidence, the managers pretended it never happened and, ironically, wouldn't happen again. However there is report after report, anecdote after anecdote, from individuals and organisations all confirming the awfulness of the current regime. People are treated like scum, sneered at, judged, and then automatically found wanting. People are living in fear of the sanction that will take them below the breadline and into abject poverty, with no guarantee of any support at all. The Tories refuse to explain what help is offered to people that have been sanctioned - and people are subject to these penalties at a frightening rate.

Clearly there have been orders given, by the likes of IDS and the Tories, to facilitate this new brutality, yet what sense does any of it make? The Tories would like you to believe that sanctions are corrective, even character building; they are on record as saying that they have been, in some unbelievable cases, even welcomed. The way an abuse victim, I imagine, welcomes the fist of his abuser.

Sanctions are there to drive people out of society; out of sight out of mind. That no support is systemically offered to people in that position - who still somehow have to sign on if they have any hope of claiming afterward or appealing - is telling in the extreme. They do not want these people to have support; they want them to quietly fade into the night, to turn to dust like hollow souls lost to society.

They will hold these people responsible for their fate because welfare is weakness; money is not a mere energy of transaction, abundant in a society such as ours (while not governed by plutocrats and mandarins), it is the emblem of good character. It is the reward for following the Christianity of capitalism, the supposed work ethic of the entrepreneur. The hypocrisy of it all is breathtaking as these people lap up every benefit they can, arguing they have earned it. IDS deserves his million pound land subsidy, his expensive breakfasts, his underpants, etc; the mundane nature of such expense claims masking the venal nature of the man.

The poor are to know their place; to fight for scraps from the masters table. For the very chance to work for nothing - just to show, skinny and callow, their willingness to say 'how deep' when the rich man with the golden shovel says dig. If you're lucky you might even get the chance to earn a pittance.

Card Shark

The worst thing about this idea, apart from all of it, is that it controls people. By giving them one option you can manipulate people will have no choice but to shop where the government likes. If that isn’t the nanny state – or even communist Russia – I don’t know what is. But it’s ok when it comes to social security because the recipients are not people. So not only do we have the worst kind of state intervention, but we have the government categorising people as less than people.

Surely this is in breach of competition laws – probably those pesky EU laws the Tories conveniently want us emancipated from. Laws that tell us we can’t eat prawn cocktail crisps or dictate the curvature of our vegetables – or so the gutter press claims. Of course that’s nonsense. But telling people where they can shop is ok? Giving a massive boost to particular businesses is unfair surely – especially when the government claims to be a proponent of the free market.

The idea of ‘welfare cards’ cannot be workable, even though similar schemes exist in other western countries, like America and Australia. So much for the First World!

Locally it would require that public transport providers fundamentally adapt their onboard ticketing systems. I have yet to travel on a bus or any mode of public transport (including taxis and trains) that has the facility to accept payment in anything but cash. How then will people even get to the supermarkets they will be forced to patronise? Do the Tories plan to subsidise the technology? Only recently did First Bus abandon their card system (you brought a ticket in the form of a card – you still had to pay in cash) because it continually broke down. They have never had the means to allow card transactions to buy tickets and I’m not sure this would work. Requiring people to input pin numbers, wait for however long for the payment to go through (requiring a connection of some sort to the server), is ludicrous.

There is no way this can work and I would assume that a welfare card would have to function like a debit card; that is, requiring money be topped up somehow from the DWP – though how that works is another matter entirely. The alterative would be a card with a fixed amount that is then disposed of and a new one issued each time the benefit is due. I can’t fathom how much that would cost – at the very least there’d be a market for cards with value remaining. Somewhere the law of unintended consequences is going into overload.

What do they plan on allowing people to buy? Will it be only food and clothing? Where will clothing be allowed to be procured? Will it all be Tesco? What if Tesco don’t have what you need in your size while someone else does? Will it be Primark and their – let’s be honest – sweat shop supply chain?

None of this even touches the moral aspect; the infantilising of a whole section of society. All so another group of benefit recipients can scare the middle classes into voting for them on the issue of ‘controlling’ welfare spending.

What about the account system required? Will every single claimant required to use a card have to have an individual DWP bank account set up to store the money in order to access it and put it on the card/or make payments? How else can it work: if the money is preloaded (presumably like the prepaid iTunes cards and the like) what happens if the card is lost? You’ve just lost your week’s money!

What are the costs of processing card payments? I can’t use my debit card to buy things from the local convenience store because shops like that have a minimum spend that’s required to avoid bank charges. Big supermarkets can ignore these costs (or likely don’t even get charged given how much business goes through their tills). Is it reasonable to assume there would be a charge? Someone’s going to be making money out of this scheme, it won’t be the taxpayer! They won’t be printing cards and operating payments gratis.

What happens if the PIN number used is forgotten? If you’re an addict I would imagine forgetting things, however important, is probably not uncommon. Why should you be punished for it? If PIN’s aren’t used then where’s the security? How would you know if I’m using my card and not one I’ve stolen – and you don’t think people will get stolen, or robbed or burgled? Get real! I would think these cards make you more of a target and are themselves hardly secure: all your resources are on one card. If it’s lost or stolen you are screwed; can you expect that to be resolved quickly?

The Baguette Problem

I’m waiting to part cook a baguette. I’m feeling very faint. This is not new for me, I’ve had this particular issue for around 15 years – at least I can’t now remember not having it. Whenever I get hungry, which unfortunately can be very quickly after eating during the day (night time is ok – mostly), I need to eat. If I don’t the feeling of faint, sweatiness (like when you blush, as opposed to running a race for instance) and the accompanying sensory overload make it impossible to function. I’ve never pursued what happens if I deprive myself of a meal, and I don’t want to.

I have no idea what this issue is; it has been diagnosed – sort of – nominally as hypoglycaemia, but in truth I don’t think that’s accurate. For instance experts say that eating foods like porridge are good if you have this because it gives a slow stable release of blood sugar. Unfortunately about half an hour after a bowl of porridge I feel ill again. More so than if I eat something else (like another cereal, or toast).

The first GP I spoke to about this, years ago, just dismissed it saying that he has similar issues (I can’t imagine him being very effective in his job then; if he had to deal with an emergency while feeling dodgy it would be totally unacceptable). His solution: take a packet of biscuits and have a snack. In other words, snack on junk food when you feel a bit peckish. I can’t really imagine that being tolerable in, for example, a customer facing role.

More important, though, is the effect of the condition. The GP’s attitude is par for the course: it’s the usual dismissive crap I’ve since come to expect (one GP years later said that, because it hadn’t killed me, it wasn’t an issue). They just don’t get it – and being related to food/eating it becomes a joke. In this society hell bent on demonising people who don’t quickly and meekly respond “how high” when the bosses demand you jump, this sort of condition is just seen as a joke; an excuse to get out of a day’s graft. How can I convey the reality of how my metabolism operates – and it would seem this is just a part of my physical body, it’s just how I am? Do I have to collapse faint, sweaty and shaking? Would that even be believed? Again I’d rather not put that to test. perhaps that’s what’s required in this age of ATOS.

But the problems aren’t limited to the public perception of wellness that abounds thanks to the right wing media and Tories such as this clown who thinks, for example, aspergers is a ‘sob story’. That’s half the battle, truly, but as someone with health issues that do affect how I go about my day, who is there in the DWP that takes this seriously? Either one can work, completely in any job at any time at the drop of a hat with no health restrictions, or one is completely incapable of anything. There is no accepted middle ground. For instance were I to say that working from home would be a much better proposition, what help would I get? In fact the response would more likely be to assume that, if I can work from home, I can work…period! The machinery of the DWP lubricated by the ignorance of right wingers and capitalism informs the attitude that anyone who can do anything can do everything. See a person going to the shop to spend his benefit on XYZ (booze, fags, smack, dope, dvd’s, smartphone contracts, xbox games, unacceptable clothing – you know, all the proscribed items) and you’re looking at someone who can hold down a full time job without problems – because in their mind life is just that simple, discussion over.

In a society where full employment is not only impossible, but undesirable, what is the sense of pursuing the weaker members to work no matter the cost? The tragedy is that the machine of right wing capitalism has a ridiculously limited outlook and, where such people could contribute (I’m thinking in terms of culture and creativity, not the conventional workaday world), they could be helped to do so. But instead that limited outlook prevents people from contributing and achieving in favour of chasing a goal they cannot reach, nor could they sustain. All so rich people can profit further.

This is the problem right there: no matter how one tries to interact with the mechanisms that exist supposedly to help, be it your GP or the DWP, one is always, to put it bluntly, kicked in the fucking nuts. There is a quality of bias to the relationship between the individual and the representative of the machine that has all the power (!). it is an unbalanced relationship, hence using the word ‘power’. Instantly I, the individual, the patient with no real influence or power, am assumed to be in the wrong: I am a malingerer, a scrounger. I am someone to be viewed with suspicion; guilt precedes innocence. That is now a literal part of the apparatus of the Jobcentre. What chance do I stand when even my attempts to engage are further dismissed? Work from home? Beggars can’t be choosers! Get off your arse, it’s just a ‘sob story’. That’s the attitude, and the saddest part of all is that it just doesn’t have to be this way.

They associate wealth with morality and character: that wealth must be earned, not acquired. Ironic

Speak Out!

There exists, in the public arena, a cabal of right wing thinkers often feted by the likes of the BBC to inject ‘robust’ discussion into various ‘debates’, usually on programmes such as Question Time. Lightweight so called political affairs where an audience of wannabe Tories, students, and self appointed community leaders and business representatives applaud contrived propaganda.

In other words, gossip merchants and shills who, among other things (such as denying anthropogenic climate change), propagate the insidious notion that poverty is impossible in Britain because it isn’t a third world country (at least nominally). The people aren’t brown babies with distended bellies surrounded by a cloud of flies and dust, they have smartphones and tattoos, and ergo they live in fucking paradise. They now point to places such as the Middle East and the reality of life under ISIS (or whatever they call themselves). Look at the poor people being beheaded and crucified, you scrounger, you think you have it tough!

This is deeply offensive and pernicious: poverty is poverty. It is disgusting wherever it is found – and wherever it is found it must be challenged fought and eradicated. A starving human being is no less in need of food whether he lives in Africa, Palestine, or Peckham.

Of course there are differences between our country – what is left of it under the Tories – and places like, for example, Gaza, Somalia, or Syria. We are a wealthy nation and we do cleave to greater values than believing in tribal ignorance and superstition. Or at least we should be. The wealth in Britain is bound up in land owned by the aristocracy having long since stolen it from the people as well as usurious systems of finance invented by clever rich people to protect other clever rich people. The values of democracy tolerance and freedom are continually eroded by a right wing press that abuses those freedoms to shock people into accepting policies invented by their backers and supporters.

But even so, we hold to these values. Consequently it is all the more important that, when poverty rears its ugly head in modern Britain, we speak out against it. When injustice manifests around the world we speak against it (those of us that do not profit from it, that is). This is because we have the privilege of knowing a better system and so we have a duty to speak out.

It is no different when it comes to the injustices created by this government of rich fools who are exploiting the poor and carving up society for personal gain. In fact I would say it is all the more important we do speak out because the cost of losing these precious rights is too great. If what little freedom still exists in this world is snuffed out, it will be gone forever, consumed by a seemingly rising tide of greed, institutionalised corruption and ambition, and superstition.

Whenever the likes of Peter Hitchens claims poverty doesn’t – indeed cannot – exist in Britain, he must be corrected sharply, directly, and accurately.

Return of the Work Psychologist (she's been on her hols!)

I spoke to the Work Psychologist today (WP). I needed to tell her the best time to contact the aspergers doctor (AD) that has not provided me with the diagnosis I feel I need. The WP is, in her own peculiar way, helpful, but there's always a sting in the tail. It was her that suggested contacting the AD, her idea. I agreed and signed the consent form she sent me to that end. Now she is saying that, while she is happy to do as suggested, it won't make any difference. This is what she does: on one hand she will suggest things or offer help, then later on decide not to bother. She did it at our initial meeting by saying she could undertake such a diagnosis herself, then decided she couldn't, and subsequently when I started on the Work Programme she offered to write a letter to support my case from a mental health perspective and then backed out saying, again, it wouldn't make any difference.

She remains broadly supportive, but the biggest problem I have is that she just doesn't understand the reality of the experience one faces dealing with the DWP as it currently is. The DWP is weaponised to be used against the poor, against anyone that claims benefits. This is a thing, but of course such political concerns are not her remit in much the same way that having to deal with the DWP is not part of the remit of the AD and the NHS at large (ie my GP). It makes it rather difficult to deal with the WP because she doesn't see the totality of my experience. Again she mentioned claiming PIP: i find this curious because the PIP system is in absolute meltdown and people that are on their last legs are finding their claims going awry. In light of that it seems somewhat almost irresponsible to suggest I claim it. She argues I should on the basis of paying for a 'community mentor' to help me...somehow. This is a suggestion that she made in her initial assessment of me two years ago. Nothing was done then (I don't even remember reading that part) and the DWP certainly didn't follow it up - for example by suggesting I claim DLA (as it was) or tell me what a community mentor actually can do. Unfortunately I didn't think to ask.

Any such claim will fail, I'm sure, without proper evidence to back it up, so we come back to the point of a diagnosis. Interestingly she agrees that getting one is important and proceeded to explain that the system of diagnosis is very rigid, at least in the UK. I explained what I thought about the testing done, that it seemed more oriented to a younger person, and that the tests were too specific and ineffective (I've already covered this in an earlier blog suffice to say that they aren't representative of real life experience). She agreed that this was a problem saying that it was clear that, as an older person, I had the life experience/intellect to 'see through the test' - but that argument is countered by saying that same experience/intellect means I can function and compensate for any difficulty caused by an autism spectrum issue. Whether that's reasonable or not I don't know, in fact not knowing is the only thing I can be certain of because I do not have access to anything that can provide certainty. That's the problem!

So I'm left with waiting for her to speak to the AD, whatever that will achieve. She offered words of support that are all very complimentary, and taken in the spirit intended. But they don't translate into actual concrete support and that's the issue. That's why i need a concrete diagnosis because the system needs proof and certainty that my word alone won't provide. Yet every attempt to find that certainty is met with the kind of questioning ("why do you need a diagnosis?" I'm asked) that I'm accused of myself as a means of not engaging with help that's offered. It is very frustrating. The only people left to ask for help seem to be the National Autistic Society, but they really aren't going to be able to sway the AD surely?

Wellness Advisors

(presented as is, no time for editing today.)

Positive Step; I’ve mentioned them before, so have others, in responses to my posts. They are the go-to group referenced by my GP and now the asperger clinician, after so far failing to provide a diagnosis. They are presented as the entry level mental health service provider, but in truth they exist solely as a provider of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and nothing else. So I’m being told to go to them for what will be the third time. I know it’s pointless, but if I am not seen be doing what the doctors think then I will be criticised and labelled as lazy. This is how the game it seems has to be played.

However Positive Step has a history I want to understand. They are connected with ATOS. They call their advisors, whom you might otherwise like to think of as doctors or psychologists, Wellness Advisors. This reminds me of what ATOS calls their diagnostic staff: Healthcare Professionals. Both are, I suspect, unprotected terms, regardless of the background of any individual concerned.

On Tuesday morning I have an appointment with a Wellness Advisor. This process has taken me almost a month. Initially I was told, by my GP, I had to refer myself and did so. Unfortunately trying to get hold of Positive Step is not easy. They have an admin team that do not seem to understand the nature of the people they are dealing with and so instigate a ‘we’ll call you back at some point between now and the end of time’ approach, much like any mundane call centre. I suspect this is the influence of ATOS. When they did call back I was out (it was the evening and I had assumed their office closed). I rang the number back to find it was someone’s personal mobile phone number! They seem to contract out to private individuals the job of booking appointments even though that process includes a brief but personal assessment of your state of mind (presumably so that if you are actually suicidal they can call your GP and get themselves well out of it, as they aren’t specialists). I was told someone was going to call back shortly. They didn’t and I had to ring again (a freephone number at least) the next day when I did manage to get through to someone.

The assessment process however is just an entry point to another level of bizarre and pointless admin: you are then put back on ‘hold’ to wait to be given, again with a phone call, an appointment with the Wellness Advisor who will conduct another assessment! No it doesn’t make much sense. 

This process has taken about three weeks: I rang back twice after receiving two identical letters saying that ‘we called when you were out and so if you want to proceed you have to ring back and go back into the queue’. This really is no way to treat people. I was even told they would email me, as somehow they have my email address (I must have given it to them during a prior appointment – the two times I’ve seen them previously were never this awkward). That didn’t happen either until my third call managed to sort me out with the appointment I have on Tuesday.

Curiously this email, sent by their admin team, includes details of a group called ‘OHassist’. This is the group handling Positive Step’s admin, and they are connected to ATOS. This is what the bottom of the email says:

OH Assist TM is a trading name used by the Atos group. The following trading entity is using the trading name OH Assist: Atos IT Services UK Limited, registered in England and Wales with registered number 01245534 and Vat No. GB232327983; and is registered office at 4 Triton Square, Regents Place, London, NW1 3HG.

Now why does a (presumably) small group liked Positive Step even need a multinational IT firm like ATOS, perhaps through a subcontractor or affiliate, to handle phone calls? Why is this long winded process – just to get an appointment with someone who may or may not be a proper mental health professional – necessary?

I don’t know if Positive Step operates elsewhere, that isn’t the impression I get though I could be wrong. Their website lists they are a local group only and I can find no trace of any link to other iterations across the country. They are also supposed to work in partnership with the mental health trust that has been diagnosing me (hence telling me to go to Positive Step). I need to ask my Wellness Advisor (what a stupid term) what his/her experience and qualifications are. I know they peddle CBT and I know that’s all they will offer me so to be fair I am wasting my time, but I have to be seen to go through this nonsense. However I will be using it as an opportunity to ask some questions.

My suspicion is that they exist to offer a very simple one size fits all solution to mental health problems in the local populace with the notion that such people can be quickly helped and thus won’t need to be a ‘burden’. Unfortunately CBT is not suitable for everything or everyone. It might be great if you’re afraid of spiders or heights – something that can be easily debunked and desensitised – but if you have deeper or more serious issues you are not best served. I do not need to be marginalised because I ‘refuse’ CBT. I need to get access to a proper diagnosis and the right kind of support. Is the best that can be provided locally a group linked to the likes of ATOS?

You see the problem is that by regarding all mental health issues as something that can be fixed by CBT you are saying that such problems are ‘wrong thinking’ or ‘negative’ thinking in some way. Certainly the experiences they can lead to can indeed be negative, in that they are painful and limiting. But to regard this as bad is something I would regard as unhelpful; it’s a rather dismissive and simplistic approach just seeking to label a problem as bad and apply a process to ‘correct’ it. CBT doesn’t seem (and wasn’t my experience last time I interacted with it) to take into account the reasons why you have problems. These may well be more serious in nature. I don’t imagine that has changed, otherwise you would require more than a Wellness Advisor can provide.

Aspergers and neuro diversity is not ‘bad’; it is merely how someone’s mind functions. It is how they think. Why is that bad? Problematic certainly; our society demands people be able to function a certain way and, as I contend with my experience, these conditions make life a lot more difficult in many fundamental and unseen ways. I do not need to learn a process to ‘correct’ my thinking; I need a process that helps my issues be recognised and accepted so that I can become independent of a system that currently does not recognise and accept them and in fact (in the case of the DWP) seems to exploit such people.

The Price of Society

Yesterday morning Radio 5 began the week in the manner to which the BBC has become accustomed. A ‘discussion’ about supporting troubled families opened with an appeal to the Taxpayers Alliance. It quickly became apparent this was not a discussion about support, but the cost of troubled families, and involving the Taxpayers Alliance – a right wing populist fear mongering pressure group feted by the media too much – only proves this.

So instead of a sensible discussion of how best to treat families already in difficulty, we entertain propaganda further demonising these people (regardless of their behaviour). All on the basis of how much they ‘cost’ the, to quote one caller, ‘long suffering’ taxpayer. As if these families purposefully exist only to be a burden; that they will never have any worth as human beings because they will never contribute. Don’t forget, that’s how a person’s worth is measured today: in how much (money) they contribute. A position reinforced by the tax dodgers and their apologists. Know your enemy.

What expertise does the Taxpayers Alliance have on this issue?

Alliance! That makes me laugh; doesn’t that sound like a positive and inclusive word. Friendly and helpful – like the heroes in Star Wars. Hardly!

What credentials do they bring to a debate about support (what this should be about)? A rhetorical question of course; I was minded to call in but I’m not going to be put on air to look like a tit (or made to wait for ages since dissenting views won’t be tolerated I imagine) so I just left that message for the BBC drone to pass on to…well, no one I imagine.

It was an hour of people bemoaning spending money on supporting people. All of whom were oblivious to the consequence of not supporting people. We have become a nation that knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. What is the alternative: to continue moaning about the family at the end of the street? Actually it’s worse, the curtain twitchers and penny pinchers want these people to be completely cut off from society. They don’t care for the consequences or the message it sends to dismiss people in so total and so brutal a fashion. This is unbelievably destructive and dangerous to society. Aside from the risk of inviting addiction and dependency in far worse ways than income (we are ALL income dependent, that’s capitalism), you are going to alienate people so much they are likely to abandon any pretence of morality in the name of survival. In other words you are inviting criminality to the point you could well be accused of abetting the crime itself. This is total madness. But the right doesn’t care: these people are alredy scum, so who cares?

They can’t be saved; it’s almost Calvinism. But surely there is no price too high if it means helping people because the alternative is a cost we cannot bear.

As a depressing coda here is the strapline from the TPA website (yes, I went there):

“In areas such as public sector remuneration and quangos, TPA research now represents the definitive primary source used by the media, academics and the public.”

Sadly they do seem to be the preferred source, even if they are biased and in favour of propping up a system – capitalism – that has comprehensively failed (if it hadn’t it wouldn’t have need a socialist cure).

The irony of an organisation that claims to support a democratic voice, telling other people how to live; it is not lost on me.

What's Going On With Employment?

Falling employment seems to be reported as the result each time the figures are released. This seems to be the result. Yet it is never accurately reported by BBC Bristol. I have complained about this before, but it never gets taken seriously. I tried again the last time the figures were released and got through – off air (no way I’m going live!) – to someone called Lucy Tegg. She’s actually one of their broadcasters; for once I’m speaking to someone aside from a random office person.

I had hoped she might take it seriously, but of course when I brought up the fact that a person no longer claiming isn’t necessarily a person now gainfully employed I was rebuffed. My question was met with another; she asked me what angle I was coming from. I told her that I was interested in the facts of the situation and that assuming people are being employed is a stab in the dark at best. Moreover it (quite deliberately, I believe) leads people to think that welfare reform is working.

The phone call quickly ended. I say ended, actually she just stopped talking. My attempts at getting a response just fell into the aural abyss so I hang up; I can’t help thinking that was deliberate. 

This is the BBC. They are not interested in facts, only propaganda.

I just don't buy the claim these figures mean anything significant. Firstly we all know the DWP has adopted a punishingly brutal approach to their 'customers'. This has inevitably and unarguably led to a drop in people claiming. Are people that are on the various schemes, including Workfare or the Work Programme (and any post WP schemes that one finds oneself on for 'failing' it), being counted? Some people say they are most think they are not. I have not seen concrete evidence either way, but it is very likely, given the attitude of the DWP, that such people are categorised differently: in training, on work experience, etc. Not technically unemployed - signing on.

Surely if the reform was as effective as you would assume it to be then wouldn't the figures be greater? According to the Guardian, the unemployment rate has dropped to 6.4% from 6.5! But the government claims success due to what appears to be a consistent, period on period, drop. Yet a few thousand here and there surely can't be indicative of anything. 

The number of people in work rose 167,000 on the previous three months to 30.6 million, with 132,000 fewer people out of work, at 2.08 million people. The jobless total is the lowest since the end of 2009, giving an unemployment rate of 6.4%, compared with 6.5% last month.

There were also 8.86 million economically inactive people – those without jobs but not seeking or available to work – aged 16-64. This was 15,000 more than in January to March 2014 but 130,000 fewer than a year earlier.

So there are 167,000 people more working (in the period until June) than before, but 132,000 people less out of work. That's a difference of 35,000. Where did they come from and why are they being counted if, as well, the number of economically inactive people (those not signing on, I assume, presumably including the sick) has risen. I don't understand that incongruity.

The general secretary of the TUC, Frances O'Grady, said the figures suggested the economy is "very good at creating low-paid jobs, but struggling to create the better-paid work we need for a fair and sustainable recovery".

She said: "Self-employment has been responsible for almost half of the rise in employment over the last year. The fact that self-employed workers generally earn less than employees means our pay crisis is even deeper than previously thought, as their pay is not recorded in official figures."

 This seems to be the key: self employment, which is a potential house of cards because if you aren't found to be pulling enough hours while claiming tax credits (which JC+ will tell you is the way to go), then you could be forced to pay back that benefit. How many people are going to be in that situation, trying to make a living selling Avon for example.

Unemployment is just over 2 million, making a total of 10 million + for people not producing profit to please the government (the only way society deems you to have any worth, of course). Yet we are expected to champion a rise a fall of a few thousand in the claimant count. In fact, as you can see from the BBC article, they only focus on the drop in unemployment - never the rise in employment. That doesn't make much sense to me since one might think that would be the focus - a concrete statistic showing that more people are working. Tellingly they focus on the drop in people claiming - because that's what the Tories care more about; cutting people from the social safety net. The rampant sanctioneering is evidence thereof. I would think these relatively small figures are just the tides of people shifting between, to and from, one McJob to another. That's what a Tory measures as success; limited thinking toward an agenda of curtailing support in a climate of austerity and unease.

Walking Through Fog

My quest for an asperger diagnosis ended in the middle of June when I was told the outcome of the testing process was that, mainly due to a lack of developmental history (i.e. childhood), they could find no evidence to support the claim. It has taken until a couple of weeks ago to get this in writing. 

This process has been painfully slow and I am not very happy with the outcome. Where does it take me and what can I do now? There simply does not seem to be any support at all. I have no idea whether or not I actually have Aspergers, but there is definitely something 'wrong', that is, diverse, in the way I operate, cognitively speaking. There is no easy way to make that point either, which is part of the problem: there doesn't seem to be an official language or any terminology that I can find. Without being part of the club, officially speaking, do I have any right to use such terms? It's like trying to stumble through life with your eyes shut.

The Work Psychologist had offered to speak to the clinician that assessed me (who, I'm grateful, agreed). Last week I posted off the report along with a consent form tha the DWP apparently require in order for two professionals to communicate. I'm not entirely sure why one is necessary, after all I didn't need to sign one when she (the Work Psychologist) spoke to my GP (nor vice versa). 

I presume the WP will contact me afterwards. Or not, who knows; despite her saying all the right things, in terms of support (which itself I suppose given she works for the DWP I should be grateful for), I've no idea what she actually does. It doesn't seem to translate into actual solid support. Not that I've noticed. For example, when I started on the Work Programme she agreed to write a letter in support of the problems I have but then decided that, because the provider is independent of the DWP, it wouldn't make any difference and decided not to bother. I've no idea whether it would have made any difference; given the attitude of that provider in retrospect probably not, but it's better than nothing surely.

If there's one thing I've noticed throughout all my dealings with 'the system', it's that when you decline to do a thing you are accused of not making an effort - of being lazy. But when the positions are reversed it's just practical or realistic, or it's not possible to actually 'make an effort' because of cuts etc. While there maybe some truth in that, after all Work Programme providers really are answerable to no one else, it's a definite double standard that speaks to the nature of the relationship between the individual and 'the system' (I hate using that phrase, it sounds rather childish) that assumes the worst of the former. I don't know how that is ever going to change without a fundamental change in that relationship and...'the system'.

I feel like I'm in limbo really. Things are getting stressful: I have no idea if and when ATOS will call me in for another interview. Ironically the WP advised me to claim PIP! I couldn't bring myself to do this for two reasons: firstly the system is in massive disarray with even dying people having to wait months, and secondly because of that reason - I feel guilty adding to that backlog when there are people much worse off than me who are struggling in these ridiculous delays. Maybe when I talk to her again she can make a better case for me to claim PIP and if she can, maybe she can support that claim. That's the problem I have with her, though, she won't. That kind of concrete support is the one thing she just doesn't provide and is why I am left confused as to what she's actually for!

Meanwhile I have been advised, by the clinician, to pursue another appointment with Positive Step. This will be the third bite of the apple I've taken with them. She said that they are the main provirder of mental health support in the area: in other words anyone that has mental health is supposed to get referred to them, at least initially. If ones issues are sufficiently serious they would refer you to a greater level of support. I tried to explain to the clinician that all they do, in reality, is offer Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - that's it. They have no expertise to offer support for neuro diverse issues or anything like Aspergers, ADD, or Non Verbal Learning Disorder (assuming they believe it exists, unlike the clinician) and, in my experience, CBT doesn't help with those issues. 

My problem with CBT is that it requires awareness to put into practise - and practise to become effective. It's almost a catch 22: you dont' have that awareness when you're stressed because you're stressed! I'm not knocking it per se, if it's effective for others that's great, but to apply it to all issues, as the fundamental mental health service, is a very shortsighted approach. When you are cognitively wired differently to begin with, it doesn't change anything. It also doesn't address the reasons why someone might be struggling; certainly it might alleviate a fear of spiders, for example, but it won't alleviate the stress caused by having to deal with the DWP and the fear of having your only source of income stopped - moreover the practitioner won't be in any position to help if you end up sanctioned!

So to summarise, the struggle goes on. Mental health is a unique situation in that it's invisible nature is hard for people without experience to understand let alone empathise. While in many cases a broken leg might be worse, it's a lot easier to get support - everyone can see and understand that problem. Again I make the point there are people a lot worse off than me (cancer victims waiting for their PIP claim to be decided for one!) - and I hate this divide and rule mentality that forces me to make this caveat. Dealing with spectres that can't be seen and refuse to be identified that, while not as serious as cancer, still exist to make life a lot harder than it ought to be isn't easy. We seem to live in a world that doesn't care if you find things difficult unless you are impaired enough to be the acceptabel face of disability. The problem is that leaves the individual struggling not only to get on with the mundane difficulties of life (finding a job, holding down a job, etc), but wrestling with those spectres. Ghosts that might seem no more harmful to others than the greedy phantasm in Ghostbusters, but remain visible only to the individuaal concerned.

Fairer Fares For All?

Last Christmas First Bus in the South West/Bristol undertook a consultation, presumably because of the constant criticism they rightly received for their dismal service. For years they have been the target of anger and frustration from local people: the service is dire, overpriced and staffed - more than is acceptable - by people with an appalling attitude to customers. I think we've all known times, if we use the buses at all, when we've barely taken our ticket and the driver has put his foot to the floor throwing us around the cabin like a rag doll. I've seen that happen with a woman holding a baby (it didn't end badly, fortunately)!

The result of this introspection was to fundamental change of the system leading to the removal of return tickets throughout the region. The only option now is to pay for slightly cheaper single tickets, priced according to mileage, or pay for a day ticket that costs at least £6. In Bristol itself these changes seem to be somewhat popular, though time will tell if it makes any difference to the overall quality of the service.

Beyond, out in the sticks, it's a different matter: we are also affected by the lack of a return ticket option. Unfortunately this has had the effect of increasing the cost to make such a journey by at lest 25%. In response to my tweeting them about this (i have also made a formal complaint) I was told that 'fairer doesn't mean cheaper'. Not sure what else it means, nor how an arbitrary decision undertaken by management, who defend this by saying it's what customers wanted, is in any way fair.

As an example, a return trip to the Jobcentre used to cost £4.40. Now I have the choice of paying £2.80 each for two single tickets, or £6 for a day ticket. Had that journey been slightly further west (it fits within the influence of the Bristol city zone) that day ticket would be £7 instead. By any definition this is not fair. There is no reason to scrap return tickets at all. They do not require any significant change or difference in the ticket mechanism. This is laziness on the part of a company that needs to be divested of its control over a vital public service. This is the perfect example of the failure of privatisation.

Weaponising Poverty

I went for a walk this morning. This is something I like to do when the weather is less onerous – which includes when it’s hot. Though I hate to moan about our weather (that’s a lie), I find myself struggling in the heat these days. I use the word heat in relative terms; it certainly isn’t as hot as really hot parts of the world, nor has it been as hot as it was last year during that heatwave. You’ll forgive me if I wish for more tolerable weather than that.

The weather has taken a more sedate turn with some welcome rain and a chance to walk where it’s fresh and fragrant. This is surely the essence of a healthy lifestyle. Why then am I made to feel, as someone receiving benefits, the opposite?

We have a society where, even if one does things that are healthy (such as enjoy a simple walk in nature), they are made to feel negative as a result. Currently I feel exceptionally negative about society; I do not see any immediate solution to the problems we have because there is no real opposition. There are certainly a lot of angry people and a lot of people in real hardship as a result, but there is no organisation against these problems.

Problem isn’t even the right word; that would imply something beyond our control. These are circumstances that have been engineered by those in power to both maintain that power and to increase it. I’m not seeing much that will change it, even though we, the people, have the real power because we have the numbers. Unfortunately the will just isn’t there to organise it properly.

I can’t take a walk without feeling guilty that I’m enjoying the most basic thing life has to offer: my passive presence in the natural world. I am made to feel that I should be doing something else, something proactive, because that’s the role imposed on me by the system and its masters. Meanwhile these masters do everything they can to maintain their system. They make sure they are as well as can be; you will hear Tories refer to people such as William Hague as being non-aristocratic, but he receives no less compensation for being part of that power base. Compare that to a teacher who is struggling to survive on a wage far beneath what their workload demands. That is of course deliberate. Steve Webb, Pensions minister and Bedroom Tax apologist, not only receives the generous wage that ministers get (at least 150k) but also a shit load of perks including mortgage relief!

It’s a scam and if you aren’t in on it, or aren’t playing the part of gullible mark, you are to be ostracised. This is the essence of the weaponisation of poverty that has taken place over the last four years. Consider how people that are sanctioned from the system are treated. Whatever the reason given, I can see nothing to justify this almost religious level of punishment: to be removed from society through financial means seems utterly cruel. Once excluded these people are abandoned: there is no policy within the DWP (and I’d love someone to put this to IDS, who will doubtless argue such people deserve their fate) to help such people. They invent the Work Programme, they give money hand over fist to unqualified and unprepared organisations to harass and bully the unemployed, punishing them for their position. Yet no help is offered once you’re out of that system, through a sanction. Does that make any sense? It’s the use of money, to put it crudely, as a weapon. This is reinforced by the revelation that full employment (in the true sense) is not desirable.

There is a strike on Thursday. It looks like it’s going to be a big one. Of course the BBC will be in full propaganda mode (this is the same organisation that denies the truth when reporting unemployment figures) with trolling throughout the day. Unfortunately one day alone isn’t going to cut it. We need the stomach to stay out for longer. Sadly since Thatcher broke the back of industrial action in the eighties there just isn’t the appetite. You can’t really blame people when they are facing a government that wields poverty as a tool against them.

Between Two Worlds

Last Wednesday I had a meeting with the asperger’s diagnosis person for them to clarify their ‘inconclusive’ diagnosis; meanwhile I wait for their report in writing.

As expected this meeting didn’t really help – they aren’t going to change their position even though ‘inconclusive’ surely must default to ‘conclusive’ if any of this is going to matter. In other words, why don’t you err on the side of caution? Why wouldn’t you give the patient the benefit of the doubt? Otherwise why not admit that it is conclusive: conclusively negative? At least be honest.

The reason they give is down to a lack of developmental history to cross reference. I don’t know if this is simply the way the testing process is structured, for right or wrong, and therefore out of the clinician’s hand. My feeling, if I’m honest, is that, if someone has the ‘symptoms’ (words are poor substitutes here, I am not an expert in any of this) then what does their history matter, and if it’s not one condition in particular, so what? These are ultimately just labels; names for disabilities and disorders people face.

That said there was one glaring issue that warrants discussion. I had given them, as supporting evidence, the report provided by the Work Psychologist. When I asked what they made of this the clinician mentioned the following issues:

1. The test undertaken by the WP was out of date (whether or not this is actually a problem I don’t know).
2. The WP didn’t record the actual scores of the test: the clinician said, on the face of it the deviances in areas of understanding revealed were not per se a problem, but without knowing how strong those deviances were it was meaningless.
3. The report mentions something called ‘Non Verbal Learning Disability’, but the clinician denied this even existed.

I subsequently put this to the Work Psychologist. If her report is compromised then I wanted to know why. Unfortunately the records were not kept past two years. Apparently this is standard procedure. However she did say that the test being out of date is irrelevant, and also said that NVLD does exist. Upon refletion why on earth whould she go to the trouble of lying about a non-existent condition? That seems an extraordinary thing to do; I looked it up on google just to see if it was real. It is. This is a condition, the peculiarities of which I don’t understand and are a separate matter, that, despite what the clinician said, is a thing.

So where does that leave me? For all I know that one detail could be the key to unlocking all this. somehow I doubt it; I intend to confront the clinician when the report arrives about this. Why does she claim something that does exist as a disorder doesn’t exist. It’s precisely this that makes it difficult for mental health sufferers (and physical health sufferers for that matter, it’s the same issue) to get taken seriously. Without proper – i.e. recognised – diagnosis for one thing it makes claiming things like DLA/PIP impossible. It will certainly make a reassessment, which, now that my claim passes the 6 month mark, is a possibility.

This to me seems utterly irresponsible: I am caught between two experts neither of whom seem to be able to ultimately help me. To be fair the WP has offered to take another look at the report and, if the clinician is willing, to actually talk directly to her. I’m not confident this would achieve much but I am of course grateful she is offering to help; it’s just a pity that help doesn’t go further. Why, you might ask, can she not diagnose herself? She is a psychologist after all!

To summarise it’s another example of this fragmented system and how, when it’s there to help, it’s fatally reluctant to do what’s needed. Getting an actual diagnosis seems to be the last thing they want to do; a thousand and one reasons are given as to why they can’t and why they seem reluctant. Unfortunately, while these reasons seem credible and compelling, they don’t really get you to a place of actual help. Even the DWP’s own Work Psychology service eludes me: just what are they actually for? This process has taken 5 months and I’m in the same place as when I started.