Commentary on Jobs

Thanks to Horace for letting us know about Frank Field's proposals for our
welfare system
(link below my signature).

He's been known for "thinking the unthinkable" (I say "unworkable") for
years. It looks like we're in for another round.

If anyone has a letter in them, the e-mail address is
dtletters@telegraph.co.uk

Cheers
John


Daily Telegraph Letters.

Frank Field never learns from his previous experiences about welfare reform.
Once again, he is thinking the unworkable, for which he was sacked last
time.

The people whose hearts will sink on hearing his blunt instrument proposals
(Foreigners get jobs - not welfare claimants, Daily Telegraph, 3 November
2007) are those who are chronically sick, on disability benefits, for whom
it is a case of can't not won't work. You don't enable ill people to work by
imposing a time or number limit on benefits. Those who, thereby, become
excluded still can't work and they become even poorer. You leave them with
the options of charity, black economy, crime or suicide.

Successive governments have said there is security for those who are
genuinely ill but there's no limit to the number of times a person, already
found to be medically unfit for work, sometimes several times before, can be
put through the mill of a medical review, again and again, by a doctor,
unfamiliar with their case, on fat fees. More than two-thirds, erroneously
judged fit for work this time, have their benefits restored on appeal, by
lawyers on fatter fees. Now Frank Field wants to remove any remaining
safeguards by effectively privatising the welfare system, for speed and
efficiency; no mention of care or security for claimants.

It would be a tragedy if any real reduction in numbers of disability
claimants came about as a result of decisions to take their own lives, out
of despair at Frank Field's increasingly merciless obsession.

Yours sincerely
drjohngreensmith@mefreeforall.org
Dr John H Greensmith
ME Free For All. org

Original article at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/11/03/do0304.xml