What completely emotive rubbish" "The Nation Weeps"? Is Poulton kidding, when only last week the latest opinion poll showed a 75% support for the welfare changes Bill? We all know that Welfare/Disability is now a gigantic industry, with all that self-interested introspection such an organisation inspires! I've just been reading of the Welfare situation in Spain, where carers for the mentally ill haven't been paid for 9 months along with all the various suppliers, food, energy etc, unemployment benefits slashed for the 25% unemployed, benefit payments likewise for EVERYONE including the disabled . The same problems in Portugal, Greece, Italy etc, and yet Poulton and her groupies somehow think that the UK, with it's own gigantic debts, is immune from similar actions, and that "free" cars, carers, DLA, and all the other many benefits can just continue to be poured out regardless of that economic reality. Poulton keeps on regurgitating the same unrealistic propaganda - why?
- John Smith, Birmingham, England, 6/3/2012 12:39
Click to rate Rating 164

To be honest I'm more interested in the long-term outcomes than worrying too much about the short-term morality.
If we want change then, self-evidently, we need to change the minds of people who currently disagree with us, no use preaching to the converted. Sonia Poulton's article's are more effective in the Mail than they would be in the Guardian. If she makes, even a few, Mailites question the shite they are being fed everyday then I won't begrudge her taking Dacre's shilling.

I think the expression ‘you couldn’t make this up’ is appropriate here.

Every now and then I find myself shouting, uncontrollably, at the radio or television as someone is allowed to express views which perplex and dishearten me.

This occasional burst of profanity is often accompanied by rapid jabs of my index finger as if the offending person is in front of me and subject to the full force of my anger.

So it was that I experienced something not dissimilar to this while listening to a radio interview with the Employment Minister, Chris Grayling.

Mr. Grayling had joined the mid-morning show on BBC Radio Five Live - via telephone - to tell the millions of listeners about the importance of work when it comes to the well-being of our mental health.

He talked about how we must justify the use of questionable testing methods for those with mental health issues because, after all, we are helping these poor unfortunates in the long run.

Just when I thought I couldn’t listen to any more of the conversation - if for no other reason than the good of my own personal health - Mr. Grayling issued the Coalition’s favourite trick: the single person anecdote.

Just like David Cameron who dug up that one doctor who supported NHS Reforms - and then turned out not to after all - Mr. Grayling proceeded to relay to the radio audience the story of the woman he had met who had been unemployed for over a decade as a result of long-term depression.

He talked about how she lacked confidence in returning to work. Fair enough. I can see the sense in that. Long-term unemployment can certainly take its toll on people. So, no disagreement there.

Anyway, eventually she was given a job - donating her free time to a charity shop, presumably like one of those lovely Workfare arrangements - and she couldn‘t thank Chris Grayling enough for helping her overcome her lack of self-esteem and the mental health problems that accompanied it.

So it was that on the basis of this woman, Chris Grayling had deduced that work is good for one's mental health and for rescuing people from the misery of depression.

In order to do that, he continued on, we have no alternative but to subject those with psychological issues to the Work Capability Assessment because it will be good for them if they can just bite the bullet in the first place.

Who would've thought it, eh? Chris Grayling the proverbial knight in shining armour riding in to rescue a downtrodden citizen. Spare me, please.

It seems entirely wrong that Mr. Grayling was allowed to espouse such a belief system to millions of listeners and all on the basis of one single, solitary person. Yes, one whole one. And we didn't even get to hear her name or where she works or even if the company took her on for a paid position after she had given them free employment. Although we can almost certainly guess the correct answer to that one.

I despair, I really do. This Coalition loves drawing on anecdotal evidence that seldom involves more than one person to substantiate their point.

If I, as a journalist, used only one example of anything to support an argument I suspect my editor would have plenty to say about it - and quite rightly - and yet we allow our Government Ministers, and even our Prime Minister, to get away with this in order to proceed with measures that will affect the lives of millions.

I think the Poulton article is very good, I actually heard Grayling make his remarks and my reaction was similar to Poulton's. It's a real shame that John Smith is allowed to post about a dozen comments under the article trying to rubbish the good points that Poulton made.

Her last paragraph is interesting, she mentions that if she as a journalist were to use only one example to suppirt her views, her editor would be all over it.

Another scathing attack on Lord Snooty and his pals.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... opped.html