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Diary of a Benefit Scrounger: Riven Vincent, 1st of Many
See, we haven't been exaggerating, we're not all raging drama-queens. This woman is so ground down, so exhausted, that she feels she has no choice but to put her severely disabled 6 year old daughter into care.

We've all been trying to explain that we're on the brink already. DLA practically impossible to get, ESA slashed, assessments and statements and care applications. Many already living in poverty, the amount judged acceptable for desperately ill people to live on so inadequate that we were experts at austerity long before the credit crunch.

For years and years, successive governments have cut support for the sick or at least made it harder to get the support in the first place. We vocal sickies and carers are shouting now because we simply can't afford to have anything else taken from us. We don't have the energy to fight, but somehow, this time we have to find it or Riven Vincent will be just the first of many, many stories of total desperation.

But do you know why I'm crying as I write this? It's Cameron's response in the Independent.


Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Thu Jan 20th, 2011 at 03:27:41 PM EST
Cameron to look into disabled child's case | Reuters

(Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron said he would look "very closely" at the case of a severely disabled girl whose mother has accused him of going back on a pre-election promise to ensure more help for families like hers.

Riven Vincent made headlines on Thursday after revealing she could not cope with looking after her six-year-old daughter Celyn, who has severe quadriplegic cerebral palsy, and had asked social services to take the girl into care.

It came after she learned that her council could offer no more than six hours respite care a week.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Jan 20th, 2011 at 03:40:12 PM EST
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Cameron to look into disabled child's case | Reuters
"As prime minister, one of the things I'm very keen to do is help families in this position..." Cameron said.
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Jan 20th, 2011 at 03:42:05 PM EST
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"As prime minister, one of the things I'm very keen to do is help families in this position who are mentioned by the media..." Cameron said.

FIFH

I think one problem is that the rhetoric from Miliband is still far too respectful.

The ConDems need to be put on the defensive, and that won't happen while they're being brutally savaged by pastoral politeness from Labour's front bench.

My guess is that the coalition is more precarious than it looks, and a few choice kicks in the headlines and a memorable phrase or two would be enough to undo it.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Jan 20th, 2011 at 09:52:14 PM EST
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Cameron bears brunt of anger at funding cuts for care of disabled - UK Politics, UK - The Independent

David Cameron's attempts to calm the storm over cuts in care for a severely disabled child were overwhelmed yesterday, as more parents came forward to say they were also being refused help in caring for their disabled children following council cuts.

The anger was sparked after Riven Vincent, the mother of a severely disabled child from Staple Hill, Bristol, used a forum on Mumsnet, the influential website that was a key political battleground of the general election, to announce that she was receiving so little support from her local authority that she had been forced to consider putting her daughter into care.



*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sat Jan 22nd, 2011 at 01:38:27 PM EST
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