We didn’t cause the economic crash...so why are we paying for it?

 Now that the Work Capability Assessments are starting, and our DLA (Disability Living Allowance) is being assessed yet again, mental health patients along with the rest of the disabled feel under direct financial, social and clinical threat. MIND did a survey recently about the levels of anxiety among patients about WCAs, and found that 51% questioned were having suicidal thoughts over them.  And that's even before they start in most areas.

And of course, the worry is we will be assessed by people who have no training in psychology or psychiatry. According to legend, there is one Job Centre in Glasgow which the inhabitants of that fair city are already calling Lourdes, because so many people go in sick an come out healed. Amusing but not very reassuring. And oh, it looks like our health minister has decided not to honour the last government's pledge to increase spending on mental health research by 7% - when originally he said he would.

Let's imagine a parallel situation. Supposing we had a government which adopted a policy which could kill cancer patients, and reduced the spending on cancer research. I reckon there might be a bit of a fuss. Not so for mental health, of course.

So why is it happening to us then? I think the answer lies in the coalition Government's analysis and proposed cure for our national deficit.  According to this scenario one of the major causes of our financial troubles is the Welfare State - apparently £1.5bn lost through incapacity benefit fraud.

Of course it is all hogwash. Mental health patients didn't cause the economic crash: that was American bankers and their chums in the City of London. The Prime Minister would of course say that we are all in this together. Except that he doesn't have to go through a hostile interrogation where you are presumed guilty until proven innocent, or live on incapacity benefit, or understand how a hard up single mum might take a few hours' cleaning cash in hand to make ends meet, or have to cope with the fear of living in a society in which the stigma against mental health feels institutionalised.

The figures are nonsense too. What Cameron failed to mention was that HMRC estimates that the loss to the exchequer through VAT fraud – when you give your plumber cash in hand – is £10bn: £8.5bn more than  Incapacity Benefit fraud. Yet we don't see the Government  going after plumbers for their own political ends, it seems much of the Press is horribly involved in all of this, despite their lip service to mental health issues. And yes, of course people commit fraud. But I seem to remember that we have a police force somewhere.

And it does seem a shame that the horrors of mental illness have to be added to in such a cruel way.