The Paralympic Games

[Lateralthinking1]

RM - I accept that the contract was awarded to SEMA in 1998 by Labour and that SEMA was acquired by ATOS. While I don't like that form of sub-contracting, I did say that I was "not overly critical of ATOS". That might be being overly generous. A significant percentage of their testing centres don't have parking for the disabled. They have also admitted to over-booking. Nevertheless, I placed the blame firmly at the door of the current DWP. The difficulties have arisen since 2010. It was this Government which introduced "Fit for Work" medical certificates to replace illness certificates. Those, combined with the savings targets, are key.

I am surprised you used the phrase "the politics of envy". It is the Orwellian phrase that is generally thrown by those indulging in "the politics of greed". And it makes no sense when one is looking at issues as a third party. I do not qualify for disability benefits and never have done. It seems to me right that families in genuine need get child benefit. So I am sufficiently impartial to engage in "the politics of fairness". What I see is that rich healthy people with children have had the clout to protect benefits they don't need. No doubt some even work for the DWP or ATOS. Has Chris Grayling really needed child benefit? I don't think so. In the round, the rich on benefits are the cerebral equivalent to the Victorian style juveniles who harass the disabled - and far more deadly!

[Flosshilde]

Yes because we don't have a bottomless pit of money. And like it or not there are some who do abuse the system....surely you would agree that they should be weeded out? A simple Yes/No will suffice but I am not optimistic.

Why is it that people on the Right think that such questions can be answered by 'yes' or 'no'? Yes, benefit fraud should be stopped, but more is gained by the government through benefits people could legitimately claim, but don't, than is lost by benefit fraud, and more is certainly lost through high-income earners avoiding tax. & the governments plans to cut benefits are nothing to do with 'fraud', but with cutting benefits that people previously, legitimately, were paid by changing rules, and by discouraging people from applying for beneftits they might legitimately claim. As for ATOS & people on disability benefit, there are many, many, well documented cases where people who are incapable of turning up daily to work regular hours are being deemed 'fit to work' because they happened to be tested on a 'good' day, or because the tasks they have to carry out for the test are simple, and simplistic, in the extreme & do not reflect what they would have to do if working.

[Lateralthinking1]

Why is it that people on the Right think that such questions can be answered by 'yes' or 'no'? Yes, benefit fraud should be stopped, but more is gained by the government through benefits people could legitimately claim, but don't, than is lost by benefit fraud, and more is certainly lost through high-income earners avoiding tax. & the governments plans to cut benefits are nothing to do with 'fraud', but with cutting benefits that people previously, legitimately, were paid by changing rules, and by discouraging people from applying for beneftits they might legitimately claim. As for ATOS & people on disability benefit, there are many, many, well documented cases where people who are incapable of turning up daily to work regular hours are being deemed 'fit to work' because they happened to be tested on a 'good' day, or because the tasks they have to carry out for the test are simple, and simplistic, in the extreme & do not reflect what they would have to do if working.

We never hear about the people who don't claim benefit. Perhaps we should do. I had an uncle who lived in a council tower block. An active union member all his working life, he was not well off but had enough money to live on. While he didn't drive a car, he never had a free bus pass. For him, it was charity. Those who accepted it were lacking in self-respect. Work that one out if you can - we couldn't - but I doubt there are many Conservative - or Labour - voters who would look a similar gift horse in the mouth.

There might though be people who never take benefit because they are well-off. Yes, there are those who are in need but don't claim purely out of ignorance. But if there are also silent saints among the wealthy, maybe they deserve some praise. Either way, it seems obvious that most who don't claim can't be in sheer desperation. Weirdly, Government promotes unclaimed benefits and rejects benefits to the needy. Its instinctive self-interest has inadvertent by-products of inconsistency and downright perversity.

The either/or thing - that "yes" or "no" - is understandable. One sees it on the left as well as on the right. "This person" versus "that person", "us" and "them", "the individual" versus "government", "me" and "you". It is a quick one-two and it shapes thinking. There is no room in many for a third element even when such a thing is presented Blair-style as "the third way". Traditionally, people have thought of a genuine third way as "the middle", "compromise", "a grey area" or even "incoherence". Actually, the third introduces the notion of "carer" - eg "me", "the Government" and "who I care for" - and it is also a good place for rational overview.

I have rediscovered my politics teacher, a rare example of decent teaching in my school. In 1981, he was allegedly "neutral" but actually in the SDP. He and I moved on as people do. Even Chris Grayling was an SDP member. So how has the guy weathered the Clegg era, if at all? The internet tells me he became the head of a sixth form college. It also advises that in retirement he is "the senior case worker" for Tim Farron, the man on the Liberal left most likely to succeed Clegg. A fourth way in the making? Not sure!

[Resurrection Man]

Why is it that people on the Right think that such questions can be answered by 'yes' or 'no'?

Why is asking a logical question deemed an exclusivity of the Right? In any case, I am more centre than right....I just like seeing a bit of balance and perspective.

Yes, benefit fraud should be stopped,

Hooray....making progress

but more is gained by the government through benefits people could legitimately claim, but don't, than is lost by benefit fraud,

Quite possibly but is there any evidence to support this?

and more is certainly lost through high-income earners avoiding tax.

Quite possibly but is there any evidence to support this? I know that there are unquantified figures bandied about by the Guradian that look at high-earners avoiding taxes but without any figures for benefit fraud, it's difficult to say if your assertion is correct or not.

& the governments plans to cut benefits are nothing to do with 'fraud', but with cutting benefits that people previously, legitimately, were paid by changing rules, and by discouraging people from applying for beneftits they might legitimately claim. As for ATOS & people on disability benefit, there are many, many, well documented cases where people who are incapable of turning up daily to work regular hours are being deemed 'fit to work' because they happened to be tested on a 'good' day, or because the tasks they have to carry out for the test are simple, and simplistic, in the extreme & do not reflect what they would have to do if working.

Agreed.

[Resurrection Man]

RM - I accept that the contract was awarded to SEMA in 1998 by Labour and that SEMA was acquired by ATOS. While I don't like that form of sub-contracting, I did say that I was "not overly critical of ATOS". That might be being overly generous. A significant percentage of their testing centres don't have parking for the disabled. They have also admitted to over-booking. Nevertheless, I placed the blame firmly at the door of the current DWP. The difficulties have arisen since 2010. It was this Government which introduced "Fit for Work" medical certificates to replace illness certificates. Those, combined with the savings targets, are key.

I agree that this has been handled badly by the Coalition. The principle is right but the implementation too draconian.

.... What I see is that rich healthy people with children have had the clout to protect benefits they don't need.

How so? Seems to me another generalisation.

No doubt some even work for the DWP or ATOS.

What's the relevance of this statement?

Has Chris Grayling really needed child benefit? I don't think so.

Possibly. Possibly not. I am not privy to his financial affairs. Regardless, by extension are you saying that only people who don't claim benefit when they could do should be Ministers ? That doesn't make any sort of sense to me.

Anyway, back to 'yummie mummies'. What was your point exactly? 'Yummi mummie' seems a pretty derogatory tone. Why single out barristers or doctors? Seems rather offensive to make such sweeping generalisations.

In the round, the rich on benefits are the cerebral equivalent to the Victorian style juveniles who harass the disabled - and far more deadly!

I'll let this one pass as to be honest I don't really understand it. Sounds like a sound-bite.

For the record, I have been made redundant on several occasions in my working life. I never claimed unemployment benefit. I'd managed to save (a little) to get me by until I could get another job. I didn't sit on my backside taking state handouts.

[MrGongGong]

I didn't sit on my backside taking state handouts.

Unlike all those spongers you see taking up valuable space with their fraudulently acquired blue badges and wheelchairs , not to mention those with so called "cognitive disabilities" who are simply to lazy or stupid to hold down a proper job !



The use of phrases like "state handouts" shows exactly how many view people with disabilities (see post #15)

[amateur51]

The recent posts are wildly OT and seem to be more of a Politics of Disability 101

Could I ask posters here to confine their comments to the Paralympics and those interested in the politics of disability and associated welfare benefits to start a fresh thread please

I thank you!

[Serial_Apologist]

An interesting discussion on heroics being associated with the paralympics came up on Toady this morning, and it confused me.

A spokesperson for paraplegic sports stated that heroics are being wrongly attributed, especially by the media, to those taking part in the Paralympics. Now, some of those competing are disabled by way of genetic inheritance, illness or accidents in the normal course of life, others as a consequence of wounding in action.

We commonly and rightly attribute bravery to those rebuilding their lives after losing limbs, when we wonder how we would cope or even go on, regardless of the rights and wrongs of war. One justification for removing bravery from our thoughts when considering paralympics could therefore be to cease distinguishing cases of bravery from one-another which divide the disabled community fighting for recognition and imroving facilities and access in all walks of life; yet the case putter for this on the programme was adamant in seeing disabled athletes as no different from the rest of the population in individual eagerness to succeed at the expense of all others, which seemed in contradiction with common cause.

I'm sure someone can reconcile this apparent ethical contradiction better than I can, for me!

[Flosshilde]

The recent posts are wildly OT and seem to be more of a Politics of Disability 101

Could I ask posters here to confine their comments to the Paralympics and those interested in the politics of disability and associated welfare benefits to start a fresh thread please

I thank you!

I don't know, am; there is a link, as this article suggests - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...sabled-like-me - and selecting ATOS as the/a sponsor (who's sick idea was that?).

[Flosshilde]

S_A, I think the answer is partly in the article I linked to in my reply to Amateur51 above; the thought in the back of the mind with the Paralympics is that the athletes are representative of, or representing, people with disabilities, whereas athletes in the Olympics repreent nobody but themselves (I'm leaving aside national teams & representing 'the country').

But it is a contradiction - where a group (in this case people with disabilities) hase to fight for recognition & equality, then individuals are seen as representing the group; they will only be seen as only representing themselves when it is not seen as exceptional - or something to marvel at - for someone with no legs to run a race, or someone with no arms to swim. Perhaps it's only when the Paralympics are unneccessary that competitors will be seen as only representing themselves.

[amateur51]

I hope that it may help to look at the social model of disability as advocated by what might be called the disability emancipation movement, in contrast to the medical model which sees disabled people as damaged goods that need repairing and the personal model of disability which tends to tell people to shape up, pick up your bed & walk etc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability

[Serial_Apologist]

S_A, I think the answer is partly in the article I linked to in my reply to Amateur51 above; the thought in the back of the mind with the Paralympics is that the athletes are representative of, or representing, people with disabilities, whereas athletes in the Olympics repreent nobody but themselves (I'm leaving aside national teams & representing 'the country').

But it is a contradiction - where a group (in this case people with disabilities) hase to fight for recognition & equality, then individuals are seen as representing the group; they will only be seen as only representing themselves when it is not seen as exceptional - or something to marvel at - for someone with no legs to run a race, or someone with no arms to swim. Perhaps it's only when the Paralympics are unneccessary that competitors will be seen as only representing themselves.

Thanks for helping clarify the issue for me, Floss. It figures.

[Serial_Apologist]

I hope that it may help to look at the social model of disability as advocated by what might be called the disability emancipation movement, in contrast to the medical model which sees disabled people as damaged goods that need repairing and the personal model of disability which tends to tell people to shape up, pick up your bed & walk etc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability

Thanks AMs.

Yes, these "models" of disability are out of phase with one another - not helped by the complicating factor of ex-combat participants ineluctably carrying in the purported nation's eyes the "glory" of unrelated sacrifices, in itself loaded, of course.

[John Wright]

It's happened again. Politics has hijacked a thread that should be about sport.

Can the mods please move all the political postings to a thread entitled 'the politics of the disabled' or something that Lat dreams up?

[amateur51]

Thanks AMs.

Yes, these "models" of disability are out of phase with one another - not helped by the complicating factor of ex-combat participants ineluctably carrying in the purported nation's eyes the "glory" of unrelated sacrifices, in itself loaded, of course.

Yes the ex-combat participants exemplify the medical model (this does not detract from their achievements, just complicates how these are reported and discussed) whereas the disabled wheelchair-using mum with an autistic son and a toddler and a hubby who wanted to go to the Paralympics to watch and was initially refused the possibility of sitting all together (initially LOCOG had decreed that wheelchair-users could be accompanied by only one helper - like wheelchair users don't have mates and families? ) mounted a campaign very much coming from the social model - and won! YAY! (better late than never, LOCOG )