[ssf] Welfare & IB reform - Polly Toynbee

[Dan]

At last, some details!  Toynbee sez:

"For a long time now, No 10 has been muttering and threatening over 
Incapacity Benefit. Nasty ideas have floated across the Atlantic - such 
as time-limiting the benefit: get well, get a job, get out or die.

"It didn't happen. It only sounded that way, as yet again this week Tony 
Blair announced the new policy with a flourish of sabre-rattling 
designed to appease not inform. It sent anxious frissons through the 
ranks of those who have been on IB for years. Backbenchers were cracking 
their knuckles ready for a heavyweight fight on this one. MPs 
representing zones of post-industrial despair know those on IB. The 
usually loyal Stephen Byers was sending up flares, talking of men whose 
spirits and bodies had been broken by long years of hard physical toil, 
men who don't deserve to be harried and threatened now."

"The result? A climbdown by the No 10 electioneers and a more thoughtful 
new policy from the astute and worldly-wise Alan Johnson, the work and 
pensions secretary. It was greeted by backbenchers and disability groups 
alike with a surprised degree of welcome. The opposition parties were 
wrong-footed, and an explosive issue was defused. The new system has a 
better chance of working than anything more punitive could ever have done."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1405606,00.html

Hmm... Perhaps the first meeting in March could be to assess all this.  
How actually will the law pan out?  The devil is always in the detail, 
not in the headlines or Polly Toynbee's rosy view of people's fluffy 
urge to get back into work at any cost...

On the other hand, if disability groups genuinely, and generally, 
believe it's a fair, supportive and workable change, then there ain't 
gonna be much to do...

Dan

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