Personal Independence Payment.
I'm old enough to remember when Labour was a socialist party.
this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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They don't seem to be able to filter out the chancers either. I've known a couple of people getting pip who were definitely capable of working if they'd just stop doing drugs all the time. Seems like many of the people who are really in need are unable to navigate the system and the appeals process. It's much less stressful for people who don't actually have a disability!
That said, I'd much rather have a system that less a few piss takers through if it means the people genuinely in need can get support.
I can assure you it's far from easy to get PIP, as I'm going through the process at the moment. It's degrading and stressful (which is the thing I've been told to avoid) and seems entirely arbitrary. The application process is opaque and assessment is not performed by medical professionals. If someone IS getting PIP, they have jumped through MASSIVE hoops to do so. If you think they're "cheating" then I challenge you to try to get it yourself. You really seem to have no idea.
I hate your reductive "if they'd just" rhetoric, whether directed at drug use or other "simple to solve" difficulties that are, in practice, far from simple to solve. You see an outward symptom as the root cause, and you also fallaciously assume that even if that IS the root cause, that it's easy to solve. And before you assume that I'm one of those people "doing drugs all the time", I'm not.
I started working in 1985, and I've worked right up to July last year, when I got ill. Prior to that, I seldom had time off sick - I had less than two weeks off in the past decade.
Thinking critically on your comment here, I'd like to point out that your mention of these "couple of" disability support exploiters is anecdotal and scant, yet you follow-up with implying that said exploitation is widespread and assumed rampant. This is simply not the case at all, is misleading to unaware readers, and belies a deeply-held bias toward stigmatization of this system & its recipients. ☝🏼
Yeah you're right, it's totally anecdotal and I have no way of knowing if this is widespread or extremely rare. Just giving my own experience.
Good on ya for taking criticism and digesting it! That's genuinely awesome to see! 🤘🏼🤩 We're all on that journey, each at their own pace and points along, so don't stress.
Sorry if I came in a little hot. It's a topic I have strong feelings about. 🙇♂️
No worries, it's an emotive topic, particularly to those of us who have disabilities or have friends or family in that position. They should be able to access support without having to jump through Kafkaesque hoops.
It's probably worth mentioning that my experience is certainly coloured by my own history - for many years I was addicted to smack and crack, and so of course my social circle included a whole lot of proper wrong uns. I'm far more likely than the average person to have known people who have committed all sorts of crimes, including those involving benefits. This really does skew my anecdotal experience. I should have made that clear in my original comment.
Completely understandable and, I want to point out: an impressive amount of self-awareness & humility in that adjustment, ngl. That's genuinely appreciated in this current era. 🖖🏼
As for myself, I've been on a different end of the "benefits" system with a lifelong-yet-barely-visible disability —but without any crime nor addiction along the way, I don't fit the gen-pop agit-prop decoy of "disabled" tropes.
Thank you for hearing me, and I'm glad you're here, fellow human. 🙏🏽🤘🏼