Hardest Hit by cruel cuts

Published: 20 May, 2011

• THANK you for highlighting the Hardest Hit demonstration (‘It’s wrong to label us as work-shy’, May 13). 

This was a very important protest for disabled people. Simply getting to central London was a big challenge for some of us, even from Islington, and the high turnout showed how strongly disabled people feel about these cuts.

Disabled people are already one of the poorest groups in the country, and the cuts will leave many without the services they need to have any sort of quality of life. Disabled people will become even more excluded and marginalised, and many will be unable to leave their homes, let alone get to a workplace. 

The cuts will lead to increased poverty, even destitution and death in some cases. At the same time, some of the media have engaged in a nasty campaign against disabled “scroungers”, which has seen disability hate crime rise dramatically.

Most disabled people are eager to work if they can, but the barriers we face are many. Recent research showed that more than 80 per cent of employers would refuse to employ anyone who had been on incapacity benefit. 

Combine such attitudes with the current high employment levels and job cuts, and many disabled people stand no chance of employment even if they are fit enough to work.

Disabled people will continue to fight these grossly unfair cuts as hard as we possibly can.

JULIA CAMERON
N19