Course fees, asylum seekers, and the disabled on benefits

Friday, August 15th, 2008

I was astonished this week when I discovered that, as a disabled person not in receipt of Disability Living Allowance—I’m still in the process of appealing the decision not to award that to me—I am not entitled to any discount on evening and weekend part-time course fees at my local college. But imagine my surprise to discover that if I were an asylum seeker—note, not a person who has successfully won the right to stay here, but someone who is waiting to find out—I could do the courses for free. How is that fair? But take note: this is not a blog entry attacking asylum seekers. No way. Read on…

English unemployed people also get to do the courses for free. I’m used to the discrimination. The unemployed in England automatically get free NHS prescriptions as well (in Scotland and Wales, all NHS prescriptions are free to everyone, just like the good old days). Those of us on incapacity benefit and single have to pay for prescriptions, which is a neat and thoroughly evil way of ensuring that those who aren’t working and need medicines fairly regularly have to pay for them.

For those of us in relationships and on incapacity benefit, it’s unnecessarily complicated. You fill in lots of forms and your partner’s income is taken into account (which is why I currently get free prescriptions, though that will stop in the next financial year, unless my DLA appeal is successful, because my partner is now earning much more than he did last year). If you’re unemployed, your partner’s income is not taken into account: you just get free prescriptions, even if your partner earns hundreds of thousands a year. This adds insult to injury. We get enough insults from the media as is (anyone for a story about an incapacity benefit claimant caught—gasp!–mowing his lawn?).

We also don’t get any help from animal charities when our pets get sick, because, again, they need proof of unemployment benefit being received, not incapacity benefit.

Anyone who’s read this blog for a while knows I’m certainly not one of the 21st Century Daily Mail brigade—by which I mean, this site is free of right-wing tirades against asylum seekers. Of course, before legislation was passed several years ago now to make it illegal to have a go at gay people, the Daily Mail loved nothing better than front-page headlines accusing lesbians of taking over the world. Perhaps they are. I personally wouldn’t mind, so long as I only had to listen to kd lang occasionally.

But, when all things gay became out of bounds, with prejudicial anti-gay commentaries risking prosecution, the hate brigade turned their full attention to the evil foreigners coming into Britain hell-bent on destroying our way of life, stealing all our jobs, and dragging our women folk off to the caves (presumably this latter outrage excludes the lesbians, or at least one would hope so, for their sake). Papers like the Daily Mail always need someone to hate, it seems. But they only run with that hatred when it carries no risk and sells papers.

What’s more, the anti-asylum seeker stories invariably miss the point. They target individuals and try to make the actions of, say, one the actions of many. If an asylum seeker commits a crime, all asylum seekers are criminals. It was the same with the old anti-gay stories. I remember the outraged front page headline when a lesbian couple that had adopted decided to split up. Now, divorce is more common these days than sightings of Red Admiral butterflies in our gardens, but because one same-sex couple was calling it a day on their relationship, all same-sex relationships were cast as transient, fragile, unstable things—not at all like robust, lifelong heterosexual commitments. In the Daily Mail universe, straights marry and stay married.

So what is the point—or points? Well, we as an honourable nation striving to be fair and just (yeah, right, I know—but bear with me) should welcome asylum seekers and treat them with respect. If they are in terror of their lives back home, they should be allowed to stay here and given help to start over. It’s that simple, yet that offensive to anyone whose feet stand right of the centre line. But it isn’t the fault of asylum seekers when people like myself discover they are given preferential treatment in some areas of life, while native Britons (of all colours and creeds) aren’t offered the same when they need it. Do we need it just as much, though, you might ask? Well, who’s quantifying the level of disadvantage necessary to qualify for assistance? The answer is, the government, of course. So rather than attacking asylum seekers, why don’t papers like the Daily Mail shift their focus somewhat, moving away from attacks on people, and instead attacking policy? They do sometimes, of course—but they always seem to need to bring people into the mix.

I’m not angry at asylum seekers over them being given free courses in this country while people on incapacity benefits are expected to pay full whack. I’ve had the advantage of being a Brit all my life, though unlike the heterosexual majority I’ve faced my share of prejudice and inequality. Indeed, for a time under the Conservative 1979-1997 administrations, Holland accepted a number of asylum applications from British gays and lesbians. I chose to stay here, fight the good fight, and wait for the day.

Besides, I was never one of the many unfortunates who suffered discrimination in the workplace, being a media luvvy. I studied English and Theatre, too. I did, however, know people who were beaten and my partner knew the barman who survived the nail-bombing of the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, only to go on to be murdered by a gang of feral no-hope kids who used mobile phones to video the attack (and that was in the early days of the pro-equality Labour government, towards the end of the 20th Century). I have been lucky. I know this. I wasn’t gay and trying to make a career in law (the legal profession is notoriously heterosexual—you don’t have a wife, you don’t advance, at least, that was the way things were ten years ago) or working on a building site.

I’m angry at the discrimination involved in allowing asylum seekers to undertake courses for free, while those on incapacity benefit have to pay full whack. That’s the fault of policy makers, not people. It is inherently unfair. Were I more ignorant, less intelligent, such obvious disparity would, and for many does, engender anger pointed in the wrong direction, at the asylum seekers. But there’s no excuse for hatred. If the government approached this issue of course fees logically, and simply, at a cost, then asylum seekers and anyone on benefits would get to do courses for free. But that’s not the way it works.

Am I going to do the course? I think so, but only because my partner has generously offered to stump up the cash. It runs for 12 weeks or so, and costs £90. It’s not a huge sum when one considers that somebody is turning up every week to teach or train a group of students. But it’s too much for people struggling on incapacity benefit to pay. The course is held on Saturdays, but even so, it’s well known that those of us on incapacity benefit aren’t supposed to go on courses at any time. We have to notify the Benefits Agency of our intentions, and for some—not me, because of the conditions I’m living with—it can put their benefit entitlement at risk. What a stupid way to approach those on sickness benefits, encouraging them to stay at home, indoors, on the sofa watching daytime TV. Don’t even think of bettering yourself, just stay put, an economic dead-end no-hoper.

This, of course, is why so many people on sickness benefits, regardless of what ails them, end up taking anti-depressants. Some even commit suicide. I have resisted anti-depressants for a long time now, even at my lowest ebb, because I see those tablets as papering over cracks that are better dealt with by other means. In my situation, that is—not everyone’s. The only mental health issues I have are down to everyday life being a struggle I can blame on external factors, not internal brain chemistry dysfunction.

We get no help other than what we’re willing to fight for and attain ourselves. Pills are thrown our way if we say to our doctors that we’ve had enough of all the shit we have to deal with, and we’re willing to chuck the meds down our throats and anaesthetise ourselves. It’s not so much character-building—as the Victorians might have liked to say about life in the workhouses—as requiring strong character just to get from one day to the next. We should, at the very least, get as much encouragement and assistance as those applying for asylum. But we don’t.

You might say those of us left to wither on the vine of incapacity benefit are essentially exiles from the Matrix that is modern life—flushed down the pipe, just like Neo. We all, to some extent, carry the scars left behind by the pipes being forcefully and punitively detached. Those on unemployment benefit are in the deep-freeze holding bay waiting to be reattached to the machine, capable of being rehabilitated into the capitalist work ethic. Of course, with everything we face in the world today that is perilous—global warming, mass extinctions, overwork, personal debt, the food crisis, the credit crunch—more and more people attached to the great machine have opened their eyes. Where they’ll go next is anyone’s guess, but hopefully somewhere good that scares the shit out of our overlords.

Do I want to rejoin the machine? Hell, yes—but not blindly, not slavishly, instead with my eyes and mind wide open to reality and genuine opportunities for personal growth. I have the same need, for all my stubborn individuality, to belong, to be productive, to contribute, as most people do. You don’t have to be a sheep. I did very well before my disability hit me, despite or because of my anti-authoritarian nature. You just have to find a place that fits you when it comes to work. It was never easy but I was up to the challenge. And I still, you’ll have gathered, continue to fight today.

Oh, and what’s the course, you might be asking at this point? Assuming you’ve read all the way down here. The answer: an introduction to parapsychology. I don’t know where if anywhere it will lead me, but we’ve been living in a new town since the very end of last December and still only know a few neighbours on the most superficial ‘hi, how are you today?’ level. I’m tired of only having friends who live about a hundred miles away (though those friends are incredible—don’t, please, think I’m in any way dissatisfied with them). So my thinking is, doing this course just might involve meeting a bunch of people who are not only local to me but also, because of their attraction to this particular course, likely to be rather interesting as well, given my own long-standing fascination with all things paranormal. Common ground is certainly a good starting point when it comes to developing friendships.

Whatever else, doing a course in my local area will improve my confidence, my mental health, and boost me in other ways as well. Shouldn’t we be encouraging all people on benefits, whether disabled or not, to become involved with educational courses, amateur theatre, reading groups, and other community activities? Isn’t it positively medieval to threaten to take people’s benefits away when they seek to build themselves up? As in, if you seek to do anything at all other than reach for the remote, you must be fit to work…? How dare you step outside the front door!

categories: healthy planet, rattle bag