Don't think so.

Mel claims the personal independence payment for mental health problems.

In this episode, she explains how she got there and how one ongoing event in particular pushed her over the brink.

I'm a taxpayer and I'm more than happy for PIP to be awarded to people with mental health conditions. God knows we live in an era that seems designed to drive us all up the wall.

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Photo credit: © photos.snapsthoughts.net

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Last episode for this year!

In this episode, we travel across our rising millennium seas to the home nation of New Zealand!

We're having a starter look at the ways that NZ's useless government is trying to crush benefit claimants.

The aim here is to start painting a picture of the way that governments are targeting vulnerable benefit claimants across the glorious West as it putrefies.

We hear from longtime benefits advocate Kay Brereton about Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's government - and its nasty sanctions regime and limiting claimants' spending to money management cards, et cetera.

Every Western government is pushing nationalism, but they're wonderfully united when it comes to favourite targets - immigrants and benefit claimants.

See you in 2026 :)

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In this episode, we look at another extraordinary email that a professional has leaked to me.

This one shows a Hackney council officer telling an education officer to stop writing support letters for families who need to be moved out of terrible housing.

This officer works with autistic and special educational needs children who live in rotten housing. Their families need these support letters to tell their councils why they must be rehoused.

Some of these letters and reports say that children are at high risk of death in their current housing.

We talk to a parent who has one of those letters.

We also talk about newly-minted secretary of state for the department of work and pensions Pat McFadden.

Specifically, we talk about the lies Pat McFadden is telling about people being able to declare themselves longterm sick to claim benefits. Rot, Pat. Pat McFadden needs to listen to Latoya in this episode, who talks about working 3 minimum wage jobs and still needing to claim universal credit to stay afloat.

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Episode artwork is by Latoya's son.

Music © Concrete Uncle

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In this episode, we look at an extraordinary email that a senior health professional just sent to me.

The email says that a Hackney council officer met with health and medical staff, and told them to stop writing supporting letters for families who need to be moved out of terrible housing - that's families with disabled children.

The email was circulated to this senior health professional in their NHS workplace. That person was writing a supporting letter for a family with a disabled child.

Families want these letters to give to the council, because the letters are evidence that a child's health issues and disabilities are made worse by their awful housing. The letters are evidence that the family should be moved.

But this email tells NHS staff to stop writing them.

The email says that families can find a place to rent in the private sector in one month. That is untrue, to say the least.

The email also says that the council has a robust system in place "to identify need and allocate housing."

That's rubbish as well. There are families in this podcast who have letters and reports which say that their disabled children are at risk of DEATH in their current housing - but they still haven't been moved.

In this episode, I share a few theories on why that is - and why a council might want to shut medical staff up on the topic of potential council failures to keep disabled children safe.

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Episode artwork is by Latoya's son.

Music © Concrete Uncle

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In this episode, Niki tells us how the DWP closed her universal credit claim without any warning at all. They just shut it and that was that. Niki has a 7 year old SEND son who also has autism.

Niki and I called the universal credit helpline to ask what was going on. I recorded that call.

Universal credit kept saying that Niki would have to wait for the DWP to carry out a mandatory reconsideration to get her claim back. An MR, as you probably know too well, means the DWP looks again at a decision it has made, like closing a universal credit claim without warning.

On the phone, universal credit kept telling Niki to keep checking her online universal credit journal to see how the MR was coming along.

But Niki can't get into her journal, because her claim has been closed. Still, universal credit kept saying that Niki should check the progress of her mandatory reconsideration by looking at her journal.

This went round and round and round until universal credit hung up on us. Great.

You know how Liz Kendall, the now-ex secretary of the DWP, has spent most of this year saying that disabled people and their families would be fine and get specially tailored support even as she cut benefits?

This is how this so-called tailored support works. Brilliant, innit.

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All music on this podcast is by © Concrete Uncle

Episode artwork: by Niki's son

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In this episode, we look at Liz Kendall's proposed so-called Pathways to Work programme.

Liz Kendall plans to spend £1bn to bring councils, jobcentres, voluntary groups and private back to work companies together to Get Britain Working.

This means sick and disabled people and people with mental health issues will be targeted for back to work programmes.

It's the gig economy for you, my friends.

Of course - the better idea would be for Kendall to raise the living and minimum wages to £20+ an hour.

Earning enough to live on would make a lot of people feel a lot less depressed.

Labour could also make Amazon and co pay the kind of tax that could be spent on making all workplaces fully accessible, but what would I know.

Let's take a look at this Pathways to Work idea. Let's also take a look at how these ideas have tanked in the recent past.

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This is the last episode for Season 2. The podcast will return in September 2025.

All music on this podcast is by © Concrete Uncle

Photo credit: © katebelgrave.com

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In this episode, Megi talks about:

• the effects that caring for a profoundly disabled autistic child has on mental health
• how difficult it is to get and live on benefits and how that destroys mental health

Liz Kendall and inglorious Prime Minister Keir Starmer never talk about these things, of course.

Their line inevitably is that anyone who claims benefits needs a boot up the arse, and to get work and all the rest of it.

Actually, the facts are that people in Megi's situation very much enjoy working.

Unfortunately, people have to leave work because their kids can't be left unsupervised for a second and never sleep.

Affordable, specialised and trustworthy care is extremely hard to get.

And people have to spend any spare time that they find trying to navigate the extremely unnavigable benefits system to get tiny allowances like carer's allowance.

No wonder applications for PIP on mental health grounds are up.

Labour needs to put this sort of story front and centre of its witterings about benefits. Let's talk about the way things really are.

All music on this podcast is by © Concrete Uncle

Photo credit: © katebelgrave.com

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In this episode, we return to deeply unpleasant DWP secretary of state Liz Kendall and her plans to cut disability benefits.

Liz Kendall claims that disabled people who are most in need (whatever that means) will be protected from her cuts to their support money.

This claim is garbage. I'm calling it.

That is because Liz Kendall has a famously poor record when it comes to fighting for support money for disabled people.

Most memorable recent example: Kendall was on the Labour shadow front bench when the Tories went after the Independent Living Fund, which was money used by profoundly disabled people to pay for extra care support.

Those were people who required round the clock care.

Did Liz take up their cause?

She did not. Well - she took up their cause a tiny little bit when she was running for the Labour leadership and decided that she might need support from disabled people.

Not even better late than never there, Liz.

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All music on this podcast is by © Concrete Uncle

Photo: Sophie Partridge and Mary Laver © Katebelgrave.com

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