Who are the real scroungers in society ?

As many of you who know me will know i am registered as blind and have been since 2004. I lost my sight due to a rare genetic disease which attacked the cells at the back of my eyes connected my eyes to my brain the optic nerve in otherwords.
This has left me using a white cane and finding jobs and opportunities hard to come by despite my determination to try and live my life as normally as i possibly can still.
I do claim for Disability Living allowance and feel no shame in doing so. I cannot drive and i cant reach places by walking all the time so a taxi or two or to pay a bus fare is needed. I have never played the system as some of the capitalist media like to put it so kindly.
I do work part time at present mostly down to the fact there is little work around at the moment where i am at and a part time position i feel is better than sitting at home doing nothing. I feel proud that i can contribute in my own little way. Its not much i know i'm basically costing up parts for electrical control panels and quoting for prices. This gives me experience in the work place and a sense of belonging too.

But i do get benifits a working tax credit to top up what i dont earn as my wages are so low and a disability living allowance to aid with me living independently as best i can. Life is tough at times i have no bones about that and dont cheat the system but benifits are there to help people live not to fund a lifestyle which is where the government and the labour party have disabled people all wrong.

Benifit fraud although a tiny 1% of claiments are frauding the system is clearly a serious thing people shouldnt be cheating the system of course but we can all understand why people may be forced into such measures by this system we live under. The increasing desperation of people in todays society may be forced into such hard choices.

But we are always being told by every newspaper and every polititian these days be them tory labour or lib dem that benifit cheaters are more of a problem than anything we have ever faced.

In cash terms, it amounts to around £1bn. Yeah, I know. A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking big money. Even so, it is little more than small change in comparison with the £850bn spent on the bank bailout. That comparison is one that everybody on the left should commit to memory ahead of the debates with the right that inevitably lie ahead.

HAVING MUGGED the public with £83 billion of cuts in public spending (to plug the budget deficit caused by bailing out the failed banking system), millionaire chancellor George Osborne has, hypocritically, rounded on alleged benefit fraudsters, accusing them of 'mugging taxpayers'.

While identifying an estimated £1.5 billion in benefit and tax credit fraud, Osborne failed to mention any measures the government will implement to resolve the estimated £16 billion in means-tested benefits and tax credits that currently goes unclaimed every year.

According to Citizens Advice: "Up to three million households are missing out on an average £13 a week in council tax benefit, while as many as 1.7 million pensioners are missing out on an average of £31 a week in pension credit."

Applying for means-tested benefit is complicated and many are discouraged from claiming.

While speaking out against benefit fraud, Osborne is also silent over the estimated £120 billion that is lost to government income through tax avoidance, evasion or uncollected taxes. Collecting this enormous sum has been made more difficult by the government sacking 25,000 tax workers and closing 200 tax offices. Osborne may also be reticent to pursue these billions as several high profile Tory backers are 'non-dom' tax dodgers.

Prime minister David Cameron recently announced that Experian - a profit-making company - will get a 'bounty' for each person that it identifies as defrauding on benefit payments. Such a system is open to abuse as Experian has a financial incentive to throw accusations at people.




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I am a socialist for the reasons i have previously stated i care about others and want us all to be equal. I dont want the world i just want to live comfortably and not ahve to worry about money and i wish for the same for everybody else too. I joined the socialist party last year for this very reason. Finding like minded people who share my outlook on life and the world is a place i want to be involved in.

I think its always important to present the facts as they are and link them to a personal situation it helps you get your point across better i always find and asking people to look up from their copies of the sun and the mail and open their eyes to the real injustices in the world and to find taht people who have benifits oftn often do not wish to be on them and feel stigmatised for it. But it is something they need to help them live. If there were enough well paid jobs to go around for all we wouldnt have this problem. For those who cant work there should be sufficient things in place for them to be still able to contribute to society in some way or fashion.

This is my idea of a socialist society of the future where society is based on the needs of the many not the profits of a few, what is your future world going to look like ?

The criminalisation of the disabled

Something which angers me every day is the way this tory government gives the impression it is a crime to be disabled and we must pay for the mistakes of the bankers. Why should we feel like we have always done something wrong and made to feel we shouldnt be supported financially if we struggle for support.


All we hear in the media and the papers is that we are a country who are work shy and rely too heavily on benifits. We are a country of people who feel it is better to live a life on benifits rather than working. This is so wrong. I really dont think the tories get it at all. Many i know who are disabled would love to work and pay their way if they could. Fact is many of them cant due to severe disabilities and struggles to work. The second fact is that even once these disabled people are passed somehow for work the jobs are frankly not there for them. There is still much discrimination out theer when it comes to employing disabled people. I am blind myself and have found it very hard to come by a job that are willing to support your every need. It is far worse in the private sector where money is everything and any cost they dont have to pay for they wont. This goes for any nessesary adjustments that are needed to adapt the working environment for a disabled people to carry out the work as to the best of their ability.

If we were all garunteed a job and paid a fair wage as i'd love to see happen the disabled would be able to work and not feel victimised for their struggle into work.

I think the drive by the right wing media in this country to alienate the disabled and the people who find it hard to get into work by claiming they are all hooked on benifits and wont attempt to work at all is a false assumtion. What angers me most about this is that our benifit payment as part of our annual public payout is minimal not even 1 % of our national outgoings. What is wrong is how the media fail to see that we loose far more money in tax evasion to the tune of 120 billion pounds plus. This leaves a greater hole in the public purse so why not focus on the bigger picture rather than a group of vunrable people who are only trying to make the best of a life for themselves.

How ridiculous is it that we can afford illegal wars in Iraq and western interventions in Libya now yet we say we cant afford to properly look after our disabled and the elderly too. It is a disgrace in my opinion. What kind of society do we live in really ?