What does this have to do with the topic though? Are you saying housebound people get too much money? And so what if they buy entertainment from abroad - doesn't everyone these days? Should they have to stare at a blank wall all day? They are still contributing to the British economy by buying their food and utilities here, and as stated, many actually pay rent. To even bring up the topic of housebound people not contributing enough to the economy by supposedly spending money abroad is such a capitalist mindset - why do disabled people need to justify their existence and their pittance in payments by contributing to the economy anyway?

Not everyone who claims disability is claiming for the "can't walk 50 metres" part. Many people on disability work full time even, a far cry from never leaving the house. Many have daily hospital appointments. In other words, many have substantial travel costs. Many people, for various reasons, aren't eligible for housing benefit and have to pay their rent themselves out of their UC and PIP. Your experience of disability isn't the same as everyone else's. Many have nothing left over after paying their basic costs, many don't even have enough for the basics. Also the lowest rate of PIP is £114 a month, not £300.

I'm not sure why you're trying to make being disabled and living on benefits easier than it actually is.

if anything comes up the assessor gets the blame for not working accurately enough and making errors.

In my personal experience, the assessors themselves should shoulder a lot of the blame. I've had assessors blatantly lie on my reports, and come up with stupid reasons to fail me. For example, one wrote on my report that I can see perfectly, even though I told her repeatedly that I'm partially sighted and that vision is not coming back. I had one say that I should constantly rotate my head when I walk, to give me a full field of vision, so that I don't need to be given any points for partial sightedness on the assessment. And when I made a complaint about these things, I was told that the DWP has no idea which assessor carried out the assessment so there is nothing they can do.

I'd say the same thing happens with the entire structure of disability payments. Instead of simply accepting a letter from your doctor to prove your disability, they've built this insane system of assessors and regular assessments, employing over half a million people (in the UK), to harrass each disabled person every couple of years to decide whether they should still get the means of support necessary to their survival. Reject a large proportion of the claims, so the disabled person has to go through appeals, and tribunals, which create even more jobs.

How much do you think disabled people get? Even when I'm in receipt of benefits, its just enough to pay the bills. ie - utilities, rent, food and basic clothes.

Quotes from the article:

*ministers were planning billions in cuts to disability benefits in an attempt to calm market nerves over economic plans.

The Chancellor has pledged to stick to Tory plans to cut £3 billion from incapacity benefits by 2028.

Labour must carry out a root-and-branch overhaul of the incapacity benefits system if it is to rein in rising heath-related welfare spending, it added.*

You bring up an important point that I don't see talked about enough. Disabled people don't have marriage equality for this reason.

Thank you so much for sharing this story, I needed a laugh.

Also disabled people create jobs for other people like nurses, carers, people who make and install mobility aids, etc.

They only want the population of workers to grow, they want to eradicate all non-workers.

What do you think about whether it's true to what Vaino Linna intended? Did they change it at all like they did with the Unknown Soldier?

Have you read the Under the North Star series, or seen the films?

Thanks for the tip, I will check out O.W. Kuusinen when I have the energy. Too bad I can't read the original A War Novel. I clicked on the link but it won't translate the page. Do you know any other good novels or non fiction about Finnish history that are available in English?

What Game of Thrones tie?

Sir Kid Starver is a good one, I'll remember that for future use.

What do you mean, later prints are bourgeosie-washed? Do you mean that they changed later editions of the book? If so I will have to see if I can find an old copy one day. I would love to read more from Finnish writers, it's too bad most didn't get translated. It took me about 15 years just to find a translated copy of the first Under the North Star book. It only got translated into English once, many years ago and all the copies got sold and never re-printed. After years of searching I found a library with a copy.

I would love to read more about how Finland came to be the way it is, it seems to have such an interesting history. I wanted to learn the language too (it sounds lovely) but I don't have the energy to take on such a task and there aren't that many resources for learning it. I learnt a little Swedish many years ago and there seemed to be a lot more resources for learning Swedish at home, very few for Finnish.

The removal of the winter fuel payments affected many other low income people. For example, twice a year for the past few years, local councils have been giving cost of living/hardship payments to people on low incomes. My local council was meant to give us £100 each this winter. I was really relying on that for basics like food. However, because of the government withdrawing the winter fuel payments to the elderly, my local council decided to spend all of this year's hardship payments on the elderly, to compensate them for the loss of the winter fuel payment, leaving nothing for other low income and disabled people like me. So because of the government's decision to take away elderly people's winter fuel payments, I now get nothing.

Kids are so addicted to junk food that iirc they were getting their parents to bring them mcdonalds so they didn't have to eat his food.

I was guessing Sweden (the lingonberry jam and right to roam). I was close!

I started reading the Under the North Star series by Vaino Linna, about the struggles of Finnish history. I've read book 1 so far and plan to read the sequels. I was an au pair in Finland too, many years ago. I loved it and would have loved to stay there but health issues combined with the fact that the nordic countries aren't that easy to move to, made it impossible. I would definitely like to learn more about Finnish history. I keep intending to watch The Unknown Soldier too.

What's your home country?