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Remploy: Well, they’re only disabled after

 

Not some much a post of humour this week, more a rant of utter exasperation.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so disgusted with our Conservative-lead Government.  Quite how I didn’t leave the expletives in I’m not sure – first the lie.

In 2007, Chris Grayling, MP for Epsom, Surrey said in Parliament: ‘Let me assure Remploy and its employees that the next Conservative Government will continue the process of identifying additional potential procurement opportunities for them and the public sector workforce’.

This has turned out to a great big fib boys and girls, even by a politician’s standards.  The fact is Remploy – which provides work for people with disabilities all over the UK – is planning to close 36 of its 54 factories, putting more than 1,700 jobs at risk. 

Well, it’s only had a 60-year history of giving disabled people a sense of pride and purpose – go ahead, shut the factories down.  Just make sure Mr Grayling it’s you that visits each employee in person and tells them their jobs have been axed.  And while you’re at it, mention their benefits will be cut in the future too.  [And people are alarmed when the suicide rate increases!]

I’ve had a look at the map and you won’t be surprised to hear there isn’t a Remploy factory in Epsom, but there is a very nice race course.  The only people suffering with a disability in opulent Surrey are the ones who religiously count their stocks and shares statements, and acquire a repetitive strain injury in the process.  And they won’t be signing on anytime soon; they will be head-hunted.

I don’t give a monkey’s if Remploy isn’t financially viable – there are more important things than cash, people’s lives is No. 1 on my list. 

Liam Byrne MP, Labour’s work and pension’s secretary, said: “Frankly it’s outrageous that the government has tried to smuggle out the news on the day of the Parliament’s celebration of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee.  “This is the wrong plan at the wrong time.  Unemployment is going through the roof and back to work schemes are sinking under the weight of spiraling unemployment.

A machinist aged 58 at the Remploy factory in Swansea, and a Remploy national convener, described the decision as “absolutely devastating”.  “Where am I going to get a job?  Living in Wales, there are no jobs here.” 

It’s nothing short of despicable, and it’s as if the staunch Conservatives actually enjoy watching the unprivileged and debilitated grafting themselves to death for thruppence/2c a week.  If only there was a workhouse or mine open…

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