Weekender 5: Is It Sunday?

For a brief moment there I thought I'd stopped time. No, it's just lockdown temporal confusion. Is this what immortality feels like: a complete inability to perceive time.

I had read an anecdote from someone in a benefits/welfare Facebook group who claimed he had been called for a Work Capability Assessment, but to be carried out over the phone. I imagine this is true because I don't see the state wanting any reason to loosen its grip on the lives of the poor. That will never change no matter the external situation.

Quite how this will work, though, is another question. I have no idea; a physical examination would be completely of of the question. How would you verify your identity when attendance at an assessment centre requires severe proof of identity? A million other questions of course. So perhaps that wasn't true. But it wouldn't surprise me.

I had my first Work Focused Interview of the year back in January (or was it February?). The next is meant to be six months on. That would be end of summer. Who knows what shape the world will be in then, but I anticipate the Jobcentre opening for business as soon as possible. This would mandate attendance. There would be no falling back on 'corona safety' concerns; to the DWP it would be a case of 'if it weren't safe, we wouldn't be open'. Faulty logic of course.

But who can say what shape society will be in then? There is no doubt the virus will still be present. In the world, possibly in the country, possibly in the DWP. We can reasonably assume that it's presence within society, and thus our lives, will outlast any period of lockdown or curtailment of public services. I would have no choice but to attend.

What will a post-lockdown, pre-vaccine, interaction with the system be like? Given there has been an austerity-driven history of cuts to the DWP how will frontline services manage? If the virus remains actieve then there's a chance a small percentage of the workforce, at any given time, will be out of commission. Does that mean they'll also be claiming?

This is no way to run a society. But claimants will still be called on to meet conditionality during such a period because again: if there's no lockdown, there's no virus, right? But who's going to be hiring and how will you get to work if buses are running reduced services as they are now? Even key workers are struggling.

How many people will have to prove they aren't fit for work because of covid? Even if they fail the test, which as we know only tests what you can do., they will still be contagious. Unfortunately fit for work tests have no criteria for that. So it will be ignored.

This is how the world changes, friends.