PPE-PIP:A JOURNEY THROUGH BENEFIT REFORM
===

[00:00:00] They say we have a crisis in the NHS. The NHS is broken, but yet they're putting more people into poverty. They're not helping people with their bills, but yet mps get help with their bills. MPS can get expenses. It just doesn't make sense. It is an unfair society. The inequality is getting wider.

Rap Intro: Stories Labels Misconceptions NHS remains a blessing created in 1948. We want it to remain great. A podcast Where we.share our [00:01:00] stories explore solutions in all their glories they say its broken but its not done with your hosts Val Barrett and Dr Jeremy Anderson

Val: welcome to stories. Labels are misconceptions. Co-hosted by me, Val Barrett, 

Dr Jeremy: and me Dr. Jeremy Anderson, 

Val: a podcast where we share our stories, experiences, and explore solutions to the issues we face today within social care and health.

Val: From PPE to PIP. What is the difference? 

Dr Jeremy: Let's get into it. Yeah. 


Val: We all know the story around the PPE. 

Dr Jeremy: Yes. 

Val: And we know we've had the spring budget. Mm-hmm. Lovely start to the spring, I'd say. Great start. 

Val: So I saw online that the latest accounts. Reveal that 9.9 billion of 13.6 billion spent on PPE during the pandemic [00:02:00] was written off. 

Dr Jeremy: Written off, meaning 

Val: 9.9 billion. It was written off. It was useless. 

Dr Jeremy: It was useless. Wow. 

Val: It was useless and. When the government talk about things like this, or, at times they have failed to mention this is also taxpayers money.

Val: So when they start to punch down and talk about the benefits system 

Dr Jeremy: mm-hmm. 

Val: About we need to reform, it's not about reform, it's about cuts. We need to make cuts. So let's punch down. Let's go to the most vulnerable group, because these are the ones that are sucking out the taxpayer's money, 

Dr Jeremy: right?

Val: But yet when they talk about PPE and their pay rise, there's no mention of taxpayers money. There's no other money, everything. Is taxpayers money. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: And it's a choice how they decide to spend it. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. Just [00:03:00] on that then, how did they spend it? What was it, what did they do that caused this write off? Did they produce PPE that was useless 

Val: I think so, yes. And the amount of money it cost to even burn them to get, to, dispose of them. 

Dr Jeremy: So they literally burned them to dispose of them. 

Val: I think they did. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but to get rid of them cost a hell of a lot of money.

Dr Jeremy: So that's the story. They spent 9 billion pounds and through, 

Val: no, no, no, no, no, no. Overall it was 13.6 billion, spent. 

Dr Jeremy: Right. 

Val: And 9.9 billion of that was absolute crap. 

Dr Jeremy: So nearly 10 billion. 

Val: Yes. Yes. 

Dr Jeremy: Gets thrown in an incinerator. 

Val: Yeah. So because of that, now everybody has to. Pay for that. But what about the people that provided them? Are they chasing them for that money, but yet they'll chase a carer [00:04:00] for money? They'll chase, somebody who's on another benefit who's been overpaid, not because of their mistake, , because of the people at the other end, their mistake that they've made in the calculations.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah, 

Val: they'll chase them down. For a few hundred quid. But yet these people that were involved in the PPE, they've managed it so far. So far, they've managed to get away.

Dr Jeremy: So they produced product, they haven't products paid anything that were useless and no one chase them down. 

Val: Absolutely no, no one. And I've noticed that the conversations, whether it's online or on a TV show, the conversation is around benefits people.

Val: The Scroungers should be working. I work, why can't they, . These mobility car, brand new car. I can't get a brand new car. So they talk about things like that. [00:05:00] So perhaps that's more relatable to them. , do you see what I mean? 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: Perhaps they can't relate to, I can only pick up one name at the top of my head, Baroness Mone who's swanning off on her yacht. So perhaps people can relate more to people that are claiming benefits mm-hmm. Than the people behind the PPE. So instead of everybody using their energy to attack government, to attack them, to get the money back, no. Yes. Let's punch down. Mm-hmm. Let's go to the most vulnerable that we are supposed to take care of. Put more families in poverty. When we know that when more children are in poverty, they are more likely to suffer more health issues. 

Dr Jeremy: Of course. 

Val: Which then. The cost goes. Okay. They'll take the cost away from the benefits, [00:06:00] but then the cost goes back onto the NHS. 

Dr Jeremy: Yes. 

Val: There's a cause and effect.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: They don't look at that, 

Dr Jeremy: that's a recurring theme. 

Val: , yeah. They don't look at the things holistically. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. I think that's something we've been talking about in this podcast for a few episodes now is, you're trying to save money in one area, but all that does is push the cost into someone else's budget.

Val: It does. 

Dr Jeremy: It's all coming outta public finances. 

Val: Exactly. 

Dr Jeremy: So you don't really, it's a false economy. 

Val: It does. Mm-hmm. Doesn't make sense. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: They say we have a crisis in the NHS. The NHS is broken. Yet they're putting more people into poverty. They're not helping people with their bills, but yet MPs get help with their bills. MPS can get expenses. , it just doesn't make sense. It is an unfair society. It is unequal, The inequality is getting wider. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: It's not closing.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah, 

Val: it's getting wider and it's those that have. [00:07:00] Their money is relatively safe ish. It's the middle class and the working class. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: And those on benefits. And these people are most likely to spend money. Remember back in the days, these talk about trickle down. Mm-hmm. Economics. Bullshit to that, that doesn't work because he is gone off to buy a yacht. He's gone off to buy an apartment in Dubai, I'm more likely to spend, so it's gonna go back into the economy. It's so weird because you look at labour as a party, you look at them and think, but you are the party of equality. You are the party of social justice. You are the party for the working class. You are the party for the every man, as they say yes. And it's now, it's like the reverse. It's like they're now the [00:08:00] nasty party. It's like you, you don't, you can't recognise them. 

Dr Jeremy: It is very strange that, this, Labour Party is starting off their term in government. By sounding a lot like the conservatives mm-hmm. Were back in 2009 with austerity. 

Val: Oh yeah, of course. And I personally think that is down to Sir Keir I've read some things that, people are saying, I thought Labour was a party of the people. Another person said, we constantly need to prove we're struggling. These are people who have a disability. It's like you constantly have to prove, Hey, guess what? I'm still disabled. Or guess what? 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah,

Val: my chronic illness hasn't been cured, and it's a constant battle, which creates a lot of anxiety. And you know what anxiety creates.

Dr Jeremy: Absolutely. 

Val: What [00:09:00] else can that lead? 

Dr Jeremy: Obviously, I a lot of these conditions, these chronic illnesses and stuff are all exacerbated by chronic anxiety and stress. 

Val: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Dr Jeremy: So if you have an illness and then you add in a bunch of stress and anxiety on top of that, it usually makes it worse.

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: And in terms of. How do you deal with people who are on benefits, working age, people on benefits, who would maybe like to work or like to contribute mm-hmm. But have a disability or have a condition or have an illness. It doesn't mean they, they can't work, but. There, there's a difference in, in how you deal with that. So 

Val: yeah, 

Dr Jeremy: it seems like the approach the government is making right now is to say, let's raise the bar, let's make it more difficult to qualify for benefits, difficult. Yeah. Yeah. And that will push people into work. And there is a very different approach. I'll just talk a little bit about, when I lived in Canada and I was working in a vocational rehab clinic. I can't remember if I've talked about this before, but, [00:10:00] I worked for a company that our whole mantra was to help people work and some of that work involved helping people who had a condition or a disability, to have what, to find a job as part of a government scheme.

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: That would, actually support employers. To employ people with conditions. 

Val: Exactly. Exactly. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. So what they would do, you'd have someone who's on full benefits and the government would say to an employer, look, if you employ someone who's on benefits 

Val: Yeah.

Dr Jeremy: Then we'll pay half the salary. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah, 

So an employer pays the other half. And so the person is not on benefits. Mm-hmm. But the government is paying half the amount, roughly. That they were paying before. 

Val: How long for, is this forever or for a couple of years?

Dr Jeremy: I don't know if there was a limit. I don't think there would have to be. I mean, either way the government is Yeah. Is paying half of what they were paying before. 

Val: That's true. 

Dr Jeremy: And the employer benefits. Mm-hmm. [00:11:00] By modifying the job role to allow someone to do the job who couldn't otherwise do it. What you've done is you've created a very grateful employer, employee. Yeah. So the example , I always think of is there was a young man who was blind, so he'd never worked before, wanted to do something and there's lots of things that people who are visually impaired or he was fully blind, , lots of things people can do. And it turns out he, you wouldn't think he could do this, but he became a baker because, okay. His employer modified the, I don't know what they did in the kitchen to make it safe for him to do this, but Wow. He was able to work in a kitchen as a baker. I don't know how he mixed the product or whatever it was he did, but it allowed him to do this job. Yeah. And he was incredibly grateful. Now he's a productive member of society. He's not a scrounger, he's not someone who's just,

Val: I don't even like that word, scrounger. 

Val: No, 

Val: it's just awful. It really [00:12:00] is. 

Dr Jeremy: But people feel that, right? 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: And they don't wanna feel like they're useless. They don't want to feel like they're not contributing. No one does. No one does. So this was a government program that saved the government money. It allowed him to become a proud being a productive member of society. Of society. Yeah. 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: And there was no like raising the bar and saying, are you really disabled? Like making people have to prove it. Just give people the opportunity. 

Val: Exactly. But you have to have an employer that's willing to make these adaptions in the workplace. Imagine if you've. Worked somewhere for 20 years. And you're at the top of your field, top of your game, blah, blah, blah. And you are experienced. Mm-hmm. Imagine one day through no fault of your own, you become disabled. 

Dr Jeremy: Sure. 

Val: People come disabled at any time in their life. You don't have to be born it. And this is the thing. Yeah. This is why when [00:13:00] you look at the things that they're doing and saying, it can happen to anyone at any time. So imagine that, and then the employer turning around and say, look, we can't keep you. We can't make all these adaptions for one person. But yet that person has all that experience, all that knowledge walking out the door. It doesn't make sense. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: But government has to help employers. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. It's a horrible waste 

Val: to help people with a disability. To stay in work. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. To stay in work or to find work. 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: And I think the beauty about the system I was describing is that it benefits the employer. If they make the accommodation, if they modify the job in some way, they benefit because they get an employee who they can rely on.

Val: Yes, of course. 

Dr Jeremy: So this example with the baker. Mm-hmm. Bakers are, no offense to bakers out there, but, I know someone who owned a bakery once, and bakers are notoriously [00:14:00] unreliable. They don't get paid that much and so generally no. , they leave the job. Right. So he, he, he would routinely get a call saying his baker didn't show up to, bake the donuts or whatever. And so it was like he was the owner. So I guess he doesn't sleep that night 'cause he has to. Bake the donuts overnight, because his guy didn't show up. So if you have someone who's working in a job and they're very grateful to be there mm-hmm. And they're reliable and, they're counting on this, then that's good for the employer as well. Because, 

Val: yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: And not only that, if the government's gonna pay half the salary mm-hmm. Right. You get a reliable employee for half the cost, that's a huge benefit to employers. 

Val: Yeah. True. True. But it's a hard one. But we will be not today, as you know, my son, he's 31. Mm-hmm. Still living at home. He's going to be coming on. Mm-hmm. He works, he has a disability and he's employers. Absolutely brilliant. So we'll be telling that [00:15:00] story and he'll yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: Fantastic. 

Val: It can happen. And that's what we wanna do. We wanna show it can happen, but it's gonna be the will of the employer as well.

Dr Jeremy: Yes. 

Val: You don't have to necessarily need, a policy document to say, an instruction. Yeah. It's like we always need instructions. 

Dr Jeremy: We need incentives, but I think what the government's doing is they're trying to incentivise. People who receive benefits Yeah. To stop receiving them and get into the workforce rather than incentivising employers to employ those people.

Val: Uhhuh, uhhuh. It's gotta work both ways. 

Dr Jeremy: It's gotta work both ways. 

Val: You may want a job, but if nobody's willing to employ you because you've got a great big gap between the last time you had a job. It's hard enough. 

Dr Jeremy: Exactly. 

Val: And if you've been outta the job market for a long time, you are competing against someone that's been in it for years. So [00:16:00] it's hard. It really is. 

Dr Jeremy: Exactly. A person might be capable 

Val: why should that . Employee you against someone who's A more experience B doesn't need any adaptations? Does it need the employer to move around A, B, C and just can start now? It, I don't know. There needs to be something they need to put more meat on the bones.

Dr Jeremy: Yes. 

Val: They like to make these announcements, these snappy headlines. 

Dr Jeremy: Yes.

Val: What they need, this is just at the green paper stage. So perhaps they will, but they need to get employers around the table. And disabled people around the table as well.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: They've got to stop bashing them. If they can't work, they cannot work. Stop. Bloody Getting them to prove every minute. Yeah. They're still disabled. Yes. Because all that does is. It creates that narrative to other people that are working so hard. To think, why can't [00:17:00] that person work? They don't look disabled. We always get that. You don't look. Yeah. There you say, and I think that's so awful. 

Dr Jeremy: There's actually three categories here. There's the people who are disabled in the sense that they're not able to do anything.

Val: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: Which is relatively small. Then there's people who have a condition and they're, they may be physically capable of doing work. Yeah. But they're not competitively employable. Then there's the group of people who are competitively employable, and it's the gap between capable of working and competitively employable. That is the difference that we're seeing. So I think under the current system, it's incentivising good people to kind of big up their disability, because if you raise the bar to qualify for 

Val: Exactly. 

Dr Jeremy: Benefits. 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: you're incentivising people to. Not lie exactly, but sort of, portray, themselves as being, as [00:18:00] fitting, trying to shoehorn 

Val: fit into their box. 

Dr Jeremy: Fit into that box, 

Val: yeah. But they don't fit into it even though they know they are at that level. It's the government that has moved the goalpost.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: So they need to move 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: Their goalpost to meet that. 

Dr Jeremy: Yes. Yes. 

Val: Which makes sense. 

Dr Jeremy: It's the problem with an unjust set of rules or laws. That caused otherwise good people to be incentivized to do. Things that are not exactly. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Honest. And so I think when we see that happening, rather than trying to punish people for that, we need to realise that the system is misaligned. We need to change the rules.

Val: We need to stop punishment. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: We need to stop beating people with a stick. Mm-hmm. You know, it's, it's cruel.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: It really is cruel and. Reforms as I'm doing in air quotes, [00:19:00] reforms. Mm-hmm. Or cuts, there must be other places that they could have found reforms or cuts. It's like their pandering to a certain group of people to say, look, we're, even though we're labour. We're not afraid to attack the benefits system. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah.

Val: It's like they went out to prove that we're not afraid to do this. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. To challenge the stereotype of labour as being tax and spend kind of 

Val: Yes. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. That seems misguided to me. Yeah. To be so focused on challenging a stereotype. Yeah. 

Val: And at a time like this, yeah, at a time like this, when we still go through a crisis, I don't think it's just the timing is everything combined. It's the amount of money that they want to cut and then I heard they might come back and make more [00:20:00] cuts. Well, you need to go back to PPE and go and get your 10 billion there. That's what you need to do. 

Dr Jeremy: Sure. 

Val: In any other walk of life, they would've been in court. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: They would've had, what are they called? Enforcement officers or something? What are they called? When people go round to get money and 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah, like bailiffs and bailiff collections. 

Val: They wanna go get that yacht. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. If someone produced faulty equipment or equipment that wasn't up to snuff Exactly.

Dr Jeremy: Then essentially that's fraud. If you said it's, you're gonna, you're gonna provide products, set a certain standard, and if it was, if it didn't meet the standard and it's useless, and now they're gonna burn it. Yeah. In my view, that is fraud. 

Val: So what labour have done, they're going out their way to prove. Yeah, we're not afraid to attack the benefits. We're not afraid to cut now, go out of your way [00:21:00] to prove you're not afraid to go after your own. That's what you have to do. Because it's not this, when they all say we're in it together, we're not in it together. We're nowhere near in it together. I'll tell you why. In this phase that we're going through with cuts, they have frozen universal credit and incapacity benefit for new claimants until 2030 and a one pound cut on increase to basic uc rate. Now let's look at pay rise. MP's Pay Rise is going from 91,346 to [00:22:00] 93,904. That is a 2.8% rise, a rise plus they get expenses. So on top of that. They have made an extra 2,558 carers. Our rise 1.7%. So we are going from 81 pound 90 a week mm-hmm. To 83 pound 30 a week to a grand total. I had a sleep this night thinking. How am I going to spend this money?

Val: I really couldn't sleep Grand total of one pound, 40 1 pound 40. But yet both of us work. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah, 

Val: some carers are on call [00:23:00] around the clock is exhausting work. We don't have a PA. We don't have an assistant. We don't have holidays. Remember when Parliament shuts, we don't have holidays. We're not allowed to have sick days. Yeah. We're not, God forbid, that if we are sick, there's a lot of things that we don't have. You would have in the workplace. That's why it's probably called an allowance. 

Dr Jeremy: Mm-hmm. 

Val: Because there's nowhere in the world, well, in the UK that anyone could work all these hours with no breaks. No sick pay, no holiday pay, all those perks that you get. 

Dr Jeremy: Yes. 

Val: The luxury from. We don't get as carers, but yet this is how they treat us. One [00:24:00] pound 40, I think. What a can of Coke. If you drink coke, um, dunno if you can buy a sandwich. I don't know. Loaf of bread. You know, it's, it's, yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: It's candy bar. Yeah. 

Val: Candy bar. It's pittance. It's a joke. Yeah. But yet the amount of billions. Carers saved this government. Can you imagine? 'cause when they talk about social care, we are part of the social care. Yeah. We are part of the social care workforce. Just don't have that title. We don't have the title and we don't have that respect. Number one, we don't have that respect for what we do. But what we bring. And the sad thing is you can be a carer, age eight and you could be a carer till you are 80.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: A lot of [00:25:00] people might be looking at pension age and retiring. A lot of them probably did retire, but their partner is sick. So they've got to care. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: Hardly any help. There isn't any support. So it's all them cutting, it's all them giving us an extra one pound 40 thinking, scratching my head, what the hell am I gonna spend that on? You know, can't have a holiday. But yet the amount of money, extra money that they're making, they can go on a holiday.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah, 

Val: they can afford to pay for someone to come in and help them. As an MP if they have, caring responsibilities, 

Dr Jeremy: yes, 

Val: they can claim. [00:26:00] 6,120 pounds a year for that, we get 4,258 a year. What's the bloody difference? , where's ours? We are still caring. It doesn't matter whether it's a loved one friend, neighbour, it doesn't matter because that carer. Could be working, could be going out and doing something For themselves. 

Dr Jeremy: Yes. 

Val: So instead of saying, we're all carers is your carer's allowance, they've got to look at that and think, okay, some of you might want to stay in care. So the ones that do, you give them a wage, you give them a proper wage. Mm-hmm. Because they're doing a proper job. And those that want to work, if they can't work around their caring role, then you need to get them [00:27:00] help. So they can, or you bring in social care is in such a mess.

Dr Jeremy: Yes, 

Val: they wanna give them more, more headache, but they've got to change it. Yes. They've got to change it. Because God help them. Carers are the last ones to down tools. We're not going to down tools 'cause we know there's nobody coming to the rescues doctors can down tools, nurses can down tools. The bin men in Birmingham, down tools. 

Dr Jeremy: Yes. 

Val: We can't do that. 

Dr Jeremy: Yes. 

Val: And they know this. They know we're not gonna leave our loved ones. Because we are caring. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: It's hard. It's tiring, it's lonely. , some of them go on to, mental health problems, whatever. Friendships gone. [00:28:00] We'd lose a lot and gain very little. I say very little. I have gained one pound 40. Thank you Chancellor for that. I think that might cover a stamp. 

Dr Jeremy: Yes. I wanted just to comment on what you were saying, a lot of it's not a case of either you work or you get benefits, what you explained is that, there are people who are working, who are getting benefits, whether you're an unpaid carer, there's plenty of people who are working very low income jobs, they're working a full-time job and they're getting benefits, but they're not earning enough. Yeah. So they're getting a benefit.

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: I don't know what people think about this, but it seems to me that we tend to think of the benefit system as being a kind of a left wing, supporting the poor kind of thing. Whereas I look at that and I say, if you're not demanding that an employer pays a wage, that's [00:29:00] enough to live on. The government is picking up the slack. That seems like government is subsidising businesses. 

Val: Yes. 

Dr Jeremy: 'cause under some systems, an employer just couldn't get people to do that job unless they paid them a high enough wage. But people are willing, or, they'll accept a very low paying job and collect benefits on top of that, because they can, in a sense, some of these, benefits that the government is paying out, actually subsidise businesses that could be paying a higher wage. Yeah. So it's actually a kind of a pro big business kind of system. 

Val: It's like they're balancing the books on the backs of the poor.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: It;s like it's our fault. Why? The country is in the state. It is. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah.

Val: It's either the benefits people, the boat people, [00:30:00] immigrants. Yeah. There's always punch down. 

Dr Jeremy: What would happen though if the government raised the minimum wage to, a standard that people can live on. Some people wouldn't qualify for benefits, right? If your wage suddenly doubled . And now you don't qualify for benefits. Okay. But you don't need them anymore 'cause your Yeah. Your wage just doubled.

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: So now the government isn't paying those benefits anymore. Business is paying. Yeah. Okay. But maybe they should have always been paying that. I don't know. I'm not an economist. 

Val: Neither am I, but, and I think that shows, 

Dr Jeremy: it seems to me that I think the competence idea would be if someone is in work and they're working a full-time job, they should be able to pay their bills.

Val: They should be 

Dr Jeremy: they should be paid well enough. Yeah. That, that they can get their basic needs met. 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: If they have to get a second job or if they have to claim benefits, there's a whole bunch of problems with that. Like if [00:31:00] someone is working two jobs to make ends meet, it means they're not spending time with their kids. They're not doing care. 

Val: Exactly. And still using a food bank. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: I would love it if we could get to a place in this country where we don't need a food bank. We don't need a place where women have to go to get sanitary towels. Where mothers have to go to get the formula to feed their babies. People don't have to go there to rely on food to get through the week. 

Dr Jeremy: Yes. 

Val: We know that bills are rising, even more. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: Water, even though it's full of you know what? Mm-hmm. They have a cheek to make that rise. Yeah. Honestly. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah, so I think that if we're living in a world where, the wealthy or the elite big business, can [00:32:00] work out sort of tax loopholes that they pay very little tax. Yeah. If the government isn't going to collect income or at least very little. 

Val: Yeah.

Dr Jeremy: Then the only way to get these businesses to pay their fair way. Is to, mm-hmm. Is to demand that they pay a decent wage. They have to pay, we should raise a minimum wage, I would think, 

Val: but then it's always a small businessman. Businesswoman, yeah. That can't afford this. Do you know what I mean? It's different when you look at these major banks compared to a small family run business. Cause then what happens is if they have to pay more. They might have to let some staff go in order to meet those costs so somebody will lose out. They've got rent rates, tax, everything, bloody tax in this country. It's, yeah, it's a lot. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: The small businesses are just about [00:33:00] managing. If not, they're closing all, not how many pubs are closing. Restaurants are closing. Mm. They're all going. Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: So for you, for people to think, oh, they should just pay everyone more money. Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: Well, I guess we've established that I'm not an economist. Eh? Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. I dunno. 

Val: I think we've established we're both not economist. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: That may be , it's just our opinion folks. Yeah. But you know, it would be fair if everybody earned. A wage where they didn't need to rely on benefits to bulk up that money in order to live. Yeah. Decent ish. Yeah. And we're not even talking a life where every year they can go to Vegas you know you've got the school holidays. Look how much money , that costs you are not at that stage. It cost a lot. [00:34:00] So it would be nice if it happened. Mm-hmm. I don't see it. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: Realistically, but the MPs get away with all this. Oh. We don't set our own pay rise. You don't exactly refuse it.

Dr Jeremy: No. On. No, 

Val: they make me laugh. We don't set it, somebody else does then bloody Yeah. Don't take it in principle. Don't take it. You are freezing. Certain benefits, you are moving the goalpost to make it harder for people who are disabled to get benefits for their disability. Mm-hmm. Even though they keep proving year after year, Hey, I'm still disabled, but still you've moved the goalpost you've given me as a carer, one pound 40 extra. I look [00:35:00] forward to it, but yet 

Dr Jeremy: you enjoy that candy bar. 

Val: Oh, I enjoy that. Oh, you know what? When I eat that candy bar that I'm gonna spend my one pound full drink, it is gonna be the best candy bar. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be sweet. No, 

Dr Jeremy: I think honestly, I think pay rises for government, for, MPs and stuff is never gonna be terribly popular, but it's especially. Unpopular At the moment when you're at the, when you're making these kinds of changes, 

Val: when you are making it's unpopular. Yeah. You have to show, I just want one government. Mm-hmm. Show you are in it with us. Yeah. Show it. Yeah. I know this is probably not even remotely like the same.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: Even in the war when the royal family refused to move. Yeah. Just to show their people 

Dr Jeremy: just to show some solidarity. 

Val: Yes. 

Dr Jeremy: This is a, maybe a little off topic, I was reading, a blog article talking [00:36:00] about something similar in, the US there's these cuts and it's affected here too, so Elon Musk cut the US foreign aid Yes. USaid got cut. And Keir Starmer responded by cutting UK Foreign Aid UK was the second largest foreign aid donor in the world. And so now that USaid is frozen. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The UK was the only one left standing. And then Starmer cut that I think in half.

Val: Of course he did. 

Dr Jeremy: And someone pointed out to me, I hadn't thought about this before, is, there's something fairly obscene about the richest man in the world. I know cutting aid to the poorest people I know in the world. I know to the extent the estimation of the number of people in Africa who are going to die because of this is a million people.

Val: it's just Africa, isn't it? It's so to you it's probably just Africa. 

Dr Jeremy: A million people 

Val: I know. 

Dr Jeremy: Just because they froze it. Yeah. And I know they talked about all this horrible waste, [00:37:00] but it's. It's not always, it's, but they use the word it's, but they use the word waste. Yes.

Val: Really and truly, when they put out the story saying, we've saved X amount of money. How do people know that they have, isn't it strange that people 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: Will believe what they're saying? 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: But yet, if it was the other government that was in power before 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: They'll say, where's the proof? 

Dr Jeremy: Exactly. 

Val: But yet the people that shout out where's the proof? They're not saying anything. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. So what they're, cutting is things like hospital care and people not getting HIV drugs. Yeah. In South Africa. Mm-hmm. It, the way that illness works is if you don't get the drugs Yeah. People almost certainly are gonna die. Yeah. There is something obscene about when the rich come along and say, I'm gonna save something. And they do that by penalising the poorest people on earth. 

Val: Yeah. 

Dr Jeremy: And I, I'm not saying it's on that scale in the [00:38:00] UK but there is something, 

Val: we're getting that 

Dr Jeremy: a bit. It has a certain odor about it when you've got very rich people. Making cuts that affect the poorest people in society. Yeah. Stink. 

Val: You get punished for just being poor. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: That is it. I think being poor is punishment enough. You don't need anymore. And I think we'll end on that note, Dr. Jeremy. Yes. 

Dr Jeremy: That was pretty grim. 

Val: Of course it's grim. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: Talk about the government. It's grim. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 


Val: Shall we do our stories, labels and misconceptions. 

Dr Jeremy: I think, this story we've been talking about today is just this relationship between benefits and working, and I think the label. Of, if you're a benefit recipient, we'll say Scrounger is the label. Right? Right. That, , but that's that gu that's the misconception. Right. The [00:39:00] misconception is that the, there are people who, could work, but just don't want to, right? Yeah. Yeah. And the truth being that there are lots of people who are in receipt of benefits. Who would love to work, but. For a variety of reasons. They may be able to work, but they're not competitively employable. 

Val: Exactly. 

Dr Jeremy: And so we need a change to help people get to a point where they can earn some income and feel better about themselves. 

Val: Wow. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I know.

Dr Jeremy: What would be your story label misconception for this episode today?

Val: I like the idea that I said from PPE to PIP. Mm-hmm. Because that just shows you've got wealth on one side. Yep. The people that got all the money for the PPE, and then you've got PIP as they see us the [00:40:00] poor so on one hand they're not chasing them down, getting bailiffs knocking at the door, and in the other hand that really need it. They're cutting, moving the goalpost to make it even harder for you to fit into their nice, neat little box. Mm-hmm. My label is, yeah, that'd be that all people on benefits they're scroungers, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. And the misconception is that all people on benefits don't work.

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: When we know that they do, of course they do. And they work very hard. 

Dr Jeremy: Yeah. 

Val: So we'd like to thank you for staying with us today for listening. 

Dr Jeremy: Yes. And, remind you, , certainly follow us on x and. No, we're not on X. We're not on X. 

Val: No. 

Dr Jeremy: We certainly follow us on where are we?

Val: Don't say anything. [00:41:00] Just don't. 

Dr Jeremy: Okay. Okay. 

Val: I'm leaving that in. 

Dr Jeremy: Okay. Are we, 

Val: we're on Apple Podcasts. We're on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Oh, but I, okay. 

Dr Jeremy: I thought we had an 

Val: What level of education do you have against, sir? 

Dr Jeremy: How many PHDs does it take to run a podcast,

Val: but you're not an economist? You are not. 

Dr Jeremy: No, I'm not. 

Val: Okay. 

Dr Jeremy: But, no, I wanted to say is, that people can support us in all the usual ways, which apparently, I don't know, but, uh, I was, I was gonna remind people that, it really helps if, people wanna leave us a review for this episode or any other episode, it really helps a great deal. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. 

Val: Have you had coffee? 

Dr Jeremy: I'm actually working on my second cup here. 

Val: That's why you're sounding like that. That's, I know. Yeah. So thank you. Just like Dr. Jeremy said, [00:42:00] please leave a review and follow us and we'll see you next time.

Dr Jeremy: Absolutely. Thanks, Val. Bye. 

Val: And don't drink more coffee. Okay. Bye-bye.