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Stef Benstead

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Let justice roll like a river, righteousness like a never-ending stream

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    • Dec 20, 2020
    • 6 min

    The Myth of the Undeserving Poor

    I recently finished reading The Myth of the Undeserving Poor: a Christian response to poverty in Britain today by Martin Charlesworth and...

    • Sep 27, 2020
    • 5 min

    Why I'm opposed to UBI

    I am opposed to the idea of a Universal Basic Income on economic grounds – I don’t think that the sorts of money needed to lift those una...

    • Jun 5, 2020
    • 3 min

    To Jonathan Reynolds: a better vision is possible

    Dear Jonathan Reynolds, Re: Welfare should reflect ‘what you put in’ to tackle public mistrust, says Labour’s shadow DWP secretary I am p...

    • Dec 11, 2019
    • 4 min

    PIP: locking chronically ill people out of disabled benefits

    PIP isn’t supposed to be about diagnoses. But even with my diagnoses, I have major difficulties getting benefits assessors from a range o...

    • Dec 11, 2019
    • 5 min

    Learning to live with chronic illness without independence

    Recently I failed a PIP appeal. I get standard rate mobility - which at one point the Tribunal were minded to take away - but was appeali...

    • Dec 11, 2019
    • 4 min

    PIP: maintaining poverty, removing choice

    The point of extra-costs disability benefits is to meet some of the costs experienced by people with disability, in order to raise them f...

    • Nov 4, 2019
    • 7 min

    #IsItOk that sick and disabled people have written books about the harm the UK government has done t

    In the modern hegemony of identity politics, a person is only allowed to comment on something if they have direct experience of it. So on...

    • Jun 12, 2019
    • 4 min

    Subsidiarity and the UBI vs UBS debate

    This post is a response to Simon Duffy’s critique of a debate between Barb Johnson (from Basic Income UK) and Anna Coote (from New Econom...

    • May 25, 2019
    • 3 min

    (satirical) UBI critique – when the robots take over

    UBI imagines a world in which all jobs are carried out by robots. The increased use of robots in work is assumed to mean that we can neve...

    • May 25, 2019
    • 2 min

    (satirical) UBI critique – what happens when no-one needs charity or earnings?

    Let us imagine that a UBI is paid that is at the minimum income standard (MIS). The MIS is enough money for social participation and incl...

    • Mar 18, 2019
    • 5 min

    Where does all the money go?

    I haven’t blogged in a while, though I’ve been meaning to. I’ve been meaning to write about the unexpected expenditures that make a big p...

    • Jan 17, 2019
    • 4 min

    How is PIP expenditure high, when disabled people are struggling?

    The Office for Budget Responsibility has recently reported that spending on PIP, the Tory’s new extra-costs disability, was 20% higher th...

    • Jan 8, 2019
    • 20 min

    Consequences of cuts 2010-2018

    I wanted to find data on the consequences of Conservative cuts since 2010, in the hope that I might remember some of them to use in discu...

    • Nov 22, 2018
    • 2 min

    UC budgeting nightmares

    I logged in to my UC journal today to see where DWP-UC is up to with paying me the right amount of money. They’ve made one correction – t...

    • Nov 12, 2018
    • 6 min

    PIP appeal – overprepared fraud?

    I had a PIP appeal today. I’ve been waiting for it for ten months. I don’t think it went well. There are some points in my favour: the pa...

    • Oct 23, 2018
    • 3 min

    Missed telephone appointment – might I be sanctioned?

    Some moments of sick apprehension today. I remembered, some time after the appointment time, that today was the day for my monthly UC pho...

    • Oct 18, 2018
    • 2 min

    Some good news – I think

    I’ve received some good news. My UC journal today had an letter added to it saying that they have decided that I have limited capability ...

    • Oct 15, 2018
    • 3 min

    The Tories have messed up my council tax

    Naturally, when I’ve just got in from visiting my church’s office to ask for help because I can’t manage without paying someone to do hou...

    • Sep 27, 2018
    • 2 min

    Money matters

    DWP-UC has apparently now told DWP-ESA to stop paying me. I have received, in three separate envelopes that arrived on the same day, a le...

    • Aug 31, 2018
    • 3 min

    Why am I the mediator for ESA and UC?

    Having phoned ESA a couple of days ago, today I phoned UC to tell them that ESA had told me that they needed to send a form to ESA to say...

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