Tags
athletes, benefit, benefits, British Wheelchair Basketball, Coalition, Conservative, disability, Disability Living Allowance, disabled, DLA, Employment and Support Allowance, ESA, government, health, Incapacity Benefit, Inside the Games, Job Centre, Jon Pollock, Liberal, Liberal Democrat, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, opportunities, opportunity, paralympian, Paralympic, Paralympics, Parliament, people, Personal Independence Payment, photo, PIP, pogrom, politics, Pride's Purge, scrap heap, spina bifida, Team GB, tom pride, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, wheelchair
Plight of the Paralympians: This is what they were being told to expect in September 2012.
Two years ago, Vox Political warned that the legacy of the London Paralympics would be the loss of disability benefits for the British athletes who took part.
“They have proven they’re fit enough to work and therefore don’t need [the money],” is how this blog’s article of the time described the situation. “Right?”
Right.
Gratitude goes to Tom Pride for drawing attention to the plight of basketball player Jon Pollock, who has been refused any benefits at all since he became unemployed after the Games.
His situation is exactly as Vox Political predicted in September 2012. Following up on previous warnings that the Coalition government had launched a campaign of hate against ordinary people who had been claiming incapacity or disability benefits, the article stated: “We knew that, once the chance for profile-boosting photo opportunities were over… the disability pogrom would be extended to paralympians.”
How true those words were.
On the website Inside the Games, Mr Pollock said: “”I retired after London and since then I’m not entitled to benefits because lottery funding isn’t taxable.
“So when I go and apply for a job, the woman in the job centre said I should do charity work. But that doesn’t pay the bills. “The job centre have been absolutely useless.”
Mr Pollock, who has spina bifida, said: “I’ve given everything I have to my career and now I just feel like I’ve been tossed on the scrap heap. If I’d given two decades of service to anything else, I’d be fine but disability sport is just not recognised as a career it seems.”
British Wheelchair Basketball says Mr Pollock declined support that was available, but this seems questionable. If you have a choice between spending two years looking fruitlessly for work and accepting help to plan a career after sport, you’d take the help – unless it wasn’t worth having, which would be par for the course with our useless unelected government.
Why aren’t ministers queueing up to tell us how well the UK treats disabled people who could have had normal careers but chose to represent their country instead?
They’re nowhere to be seen – because there isn’t a photo opportunity involved.
Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:
Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:
Mike Sivier's blog 
yet we asked we asked tammi she had given it to the committee of but alas their response wasn’t good but now after the games they dropping like flies you see atos has you down has fit to work and getting pips is now looking bleak has of it support was when at olimpics one should have stood up against atos at the olimpics but never mind we don’t turn you away helping you to try again to get back whot you lost meet us daily on http://www.dwpecamination.org were help to fight against these crimes against the disabled jeff3
Reblogged this on sdbast.
Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
Mike did indeed warn us that this would happen to Britain’s paralympians. Sadly, it just seems to be par for the course for the Tories. They’ve done similar things to the non-disabled athletes. I remember back in Maggie’s day, when she wanted to surround herself with British athletes and sportsmen, who would say how much the Tories had done for them. In the case of one female British athlete, who I believe was a skater, she was severely disappointed. This particular lady said that she was absolutely not going to vote for Maggie, as she had cut funding, making it extremely difficult for her to pursue her career as a sportswoman. It’s a vile, shabby way to treat to treat men and women, who have worked hard to achieve excellence in their sporting fields despite their handicaps, and brought glory and respect to the nation at the Games. Some, indeed, became household names. Now the pride that they brought to the country has been tarnished by the government’s betrayal. But after the government has used and exploited them, we can expect the same people or those very much like them to complain next time around about how people aren’t getting involved in sport as much as they should, and complaining about Britain’s decline as a sporting nation. Well, what do you expect when you treat the nation’s sporting heroes like that?
As soon as I found out that ATOS was “sponsoring” the Paralympics, I thought to myself, god help those poor sods after the games finish.
sorry to correct Jeff but you got the link wrong 😦 . Think you meant http://www.dwpexamination.org . But good advice site
thanks tablets again but thank you
Paralympic members of Team GB are being stripped of their benefits in spite of the Government commitment to maintain funding for Team GB elite athletes in the run up to Rio 2016. This includes investment of over £70 million of Exchequer and Lottery funding in Paralympic sports over four years from 2013. This is an increase of more than £20 million compared to the funding available to Paralympic athletes in the run-up to London 2012.
Reblogged this on Same Difference.
Most Paralympians could only do what they did because they got the help they did, they couldn’t have done it without adapted cars and money for equipment. This article gets confused tho with ESA and DLA – whether they have proved they’re fit enough to work, it shouldn’t make a difference to DLA, which isn’t linked to income.
Back in the day, the claim was that they would lose DLA. It might not make sense to you, but that was how it was reported and therefore it’s what I have to go on.
correct but they found a way of taking this off one by calling one in for a talk has they can tell you they had that phone call of who we don’t know but you are now asked to apply for pips were you bet you wont get it so they try all ways to deny you in the start of dla this would have been correct but sadly its not the case anymore jeff3
sad fact is changing from dla to pip isn’t doing anyone any favours you see if ones in that wheel chair then you are fit to work has most who can propel themselves along can press that button yes they come each day to take others cars away has they now deem them not disabled but fit to work how nice to get that label fit to work but inreality its not going to change nothing but making your life more difficult for those who don’t need any more abuse