Nothing reveals the heartless, hollow core of this Government like its war on the disabled
Did last summer's Paralympics really teach us nothing? The disabled are not spongers, skivers or scroungers.
Last summer David Cameron and George Osborne went to the Paralympics to hand out medals and bask in the reflected glory of disabled athletes.
And this spring those same politicians kill off the Disability Living Allowance of one million disabled men and women.
The DLA helps towards the specialist needs of disabled people – everything from transport to equipment in the home.
In April it will be replaced with much more restrictive Personal Independence Payments.
Over the next few years, 500,000 will lose their benefits.
Overnight some 280,000 will lose the right to lease a car adapted to their needs.
They will also lose their ability to work for a living and become prisoners in their own homes.
This is worse than hypocrisy.
This is a betrayal of everything the Paralympics stood for.
Many disabled athletes came forward to say that without the Disability Living Allowance they would have got nowhere near competing in the Paralympics.
The DLA represents the very best of our social welfare system.
It is not a hand-out. It is a helping hand to those who need it most – the very essence of what our benefits system should be about.
Nothing reveals the heartless, hollow core of this Government like its war on the disabled.
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