#least lib dem getting some love. not enough. it its something

[eighthman-bound]

On one hand watching these local election results slowly get updated is fascinating from a historical standpoint. Like this is pretty solid evidence the two party system we've had since WW2 is finally crumbling under the weight of greed and failures. Third parties that you'd use to supposedly 'throw your vote away' for are now getting recognition.

One the other hand, this is fucking terrifying because Reform.

[thetimelordbatgirl]

A story about PIP..

I was on this benefit for a few years. It was extremely helpful. I was able to afford decent food and such for the first time in many years.

During COVID I got a letter (the brown envelope of doom) saying I had to come for another assessment, but since lockdowns were still in force it would be a phone appointment this time. The woman who did the phone assessment was clearly working from home, I could hear her dogs barking in the background. The advocacy service I’d been referred to years earlier (which had encouraged me to apply for PIP to begin with and had helped me with the forms and supported me at every stage of the process) had lost its funding and been shuttered in 2018 so I was on my own for this assessment. With the services help I’d scored highly on the PIP form and been awarded the full benefit. Despite my conditions worsening over time, without any help (and with the lone non-medically-qualified assessor working from home with her dogs distracting her) this time I scored ZERO. My PIP was stopped immediately.

I have been living on £6,000 a year since then (2021.) To say that it is not enough to live on is something of an understatement. I live in a small room in an elderly relatives house. I do not go out. I have no help. All I have is this secondhand phone. My prescriptions, thankfully, are still free but the service to deliver them is not, so I have to have someone go and pick them up for me every other week. I no longer have any “outdoor” clothes (just secondhand pyjamas with holes.) I have one pair of shoes. I shaved my head recently because washing my hair is too difficult (and expensive, the hot water, the shampoo. Cheaper and less painful to just not bother.)

PIP was a life saver. Certainly a life improver anyway. It doesn’t surprise me to learn that the government are cutting it. I have learned that no matter who is in charge (Tories or Labour) they all despise the poor and the sick. Some politicians are just more open about it than others. They would much rather we did not exist. And they have the support of many around the country and the world too. The “scrounger” rhetoric really took root. We are hated now. Not pitied, just hated.

(My PIP bumped my yearly “income” up from under £6000 to just over £9000, btw. That is the amount of money we are talking about. Tories, Labour, Lib Dems, whoever. They all think that £9000 a year is simply too generous. For people who live in constant pain and discomfort. £9000 a year is too much. Much more cost effective to simply let the sick poor people die.)

...Jesus christ, I am so sorry that PIP did that to you, the fact that they straight up try to act like they can just decide whose disabled enough and whose not for just money to help out with stuff is just...what the actual fuck.... But sadly true with what you said about the government...so far we had tory's coming after people on benefits like PIP at times and now we got labour out right trying to fuck it up completely with trying to paint anyone on these benefits as bad guys who don't want to work, something that is false as a-lot of disabled people do want to work but can't for various reasons, and are somehow in their dumbass brains thinking depriving of money or at least a-lot of it will somehow get people on benefits to want to work...when it won't because not everyone can work! It'll just lead to more suffering for the people on the benefits but labour don't care about that, especially with Keir Starmer on twitter constantly emphasising his love/support for working people....which is disturbing irony as some on benefits are revealing how they use benefits like PIP to get to work and such so it'll fuck up their work but Keir Starmer don't care about that one clearly.