So you think there’s no harm in tormenting the long-term sick, minister?

The government’s fondness for announcing new ways to make life harder for disabled people proves what I have long believed, says James Moore – that there is a streak of ableism running through this rotten administration… and they don’t care who knows it

Work and pensions secretary Mel Stride’s latest idea, the WorkWell scheme, ‘has gone down like a tuna milkshake’ (PA Wire)

Is ableism now official government policy? I ask as a disabled person blindsided by the seemingly limitless cruelty – and the Conservatives’ fervour – involved in ending what it has termed Britain’s “sick-note culture”.

To put a stop to what they see as a rise in people being unnecessarily parked on welfare, the work and pensions secretary Mel Stride and his team have dreamt up some peculiarly dastardly ideas about how to make it harder to claim disability benefit: replacing cash payments with vouchers; a review of payments to people with mental health conditions; and rethinking the personal independence payment scheme.

Far from being linked to an ability to look for work, PIP is received by three million disabled people to help with the extra living costs involved with a long-term physical or mental health condition. But what does that matter? Stride’s punitive proposals focus-group well in Tory heartlands and with ordinary voters squeezed by the government’s cost-of-living crisis, a fact that may not be entirely coincidental.