C4's 'Benefits Street' - dark moment for the millions of people who rely on benefits.

The 'Benefits Street' series which was aired and started on Monday 6^thJanuary, on Channel 4 was a dark moment for the millions of people who, for whatever reason, rely on benefits.

Watching the show, it appeared to me that it the programme’s makers had edited their footage in a way that would get the biggest reaction from the public and it has worked.

#benefitsstreet is still trending on twitter and only a quick glance over the tweets revealed some of the worst hate speech I have ever seen. 

I wouldn’t want to repeat them here as some people will find them distressing, but Tom Pride has rounded up some of the worst if you want to investigate for yourself.

The show did spend a little time exploring what had led the characters on the show to need unemployment benefits.

However, this is overshadowed by a bigger focus on the anti-social behaviour carried out by a few of the people on the street.

The truth is, any of us could suddenly become in need of a bit of support

With one in six people being disabled, this is more likely than you might think and its part of a civilised society that we have benefits, to act as a safety net when life takes a turn for the worst.

The show completely failed to explore the various experiences of people on benefits and even where it did cover disability in its portrayal of ‘Fun Guy’, the show focused on his anti-social behaviour rather than taking time to help us understand his ongoing mental health problems which had led to a lifelong addiction to drugs.

There was a brief mention of what seemed to be a request to attend a Work Capability Assessment (WCA).

This could have been a good opportunity to discuss the many difficulties people with mental health problems have had with this assessment and Mind have created a powerful video showing the experiences of people with mental health problems going through the assessment.

The programme was aired on the day that George Osborne announced he is thinking of cutting a further £25billion from an already vastly-reducing welfare budget.

As seen by the reactions on Twitter, this programme helps to form the myth that these cuts are necessary as benefits ‘only go to lazy or troublesome people’.

The reality is the majority of the welfare budget goes to working people via tax credits, paying for housing benefit and — through pensions — people who have worked their whole lives and who aren’t being paid enough to live on… over half of UK’s poverty stricken are from a working family.

54 percent of the welfare benefits spend is on pensions, our aging population only – that’s 15 times more than the UK’s Jobseekers Allowance spend.

Prime Minister David Cameron has recently committed to keeping pensions high because, he says, pensioners deserve dignified lives.

Well, so do disabled people who can't work and need benefits to survive. It’s as simple as that.

We need a benefits system which supports people into work and helps people who cannot work to live in a dignified way. At the moment, our system is failing on both counts.

The Disability Benefits Consortium, has recently showed that 50,000 people might end up unable to work because of changes to the Personal Independence Payment and at the same time, the Work Capability Assessment is stopping people who can't work from getting the help they need just to survive.

Programmes like 'Benefits Street' aren't going to help us get the fair benefits system that we know the public want.

But you can help, if you feel angry as I do about Channel 4’s ‘Benefit Street’ for inciting hatred and even death threats against benefit claimant?

I would encourage you to:

·         Sign the change.org petition calling on Channel 4 to stop broadcasting ‘Benefits Street’ and make a donation to a relevant charity for the harm caused

·         Lodge a complaint with Ofcom and demand that future episodes be scrapped by using their online complain form

·         Support the Who Benefits, a new campaign which aims to get the real stories of people claiming benefits into public debate.

And finally, it is important to communicate and popularise the message of the Free Churches in their excellent 'Truth and Lies' report, which shows how evidence and statistics have been misused, misrepresented and manipulated to create untruths that stigmatise poor people, welfare recipients and those in receipt of benefits.

Disabled people have already been fighting back with stories of their own, if you have something to say why not share your story and help towards a better benefits system.