Here in the UK, DLA (short for Disability Living Allowance) is a benefit given out to people with long term illnesses and disabilities. The assessment and judging criteria are getting ridiculous and there have been many cases of needy people getting deemed ‘fit for work’. DLA has mostly been replaced by PIP (Personal Independence Payment). Having a serious mental illness, this is my own experience…

DLA

Come on in, come on in
Take a paltry plastic seat
I’ll be judgemental and discreet
We’ll get your disability claim
Set in concrete
Get these government lies complete.
Can you walk unaided – fifty metres?
A hundred?
Without a walking stick?
Do you wake up and you’ve pissed the bed
Do your psychiatric meds make you sick?
And who does your cooking when you’re alone at home?
Do you cook like that celebrity Gordon Ramsey
Or is it a Chinese takeaway over the telephone?
Is your knee replacement made of chrome?

Do you walk with a pronounced limp?
Do your friends take the piss, do they call you a wimp?
Do you use a motorized wheelchair?
I’m sure you know we really don’t care.
As we watch and we wait in our catch you out lair.
We really don’t give a shit
If your mind is split, if your wrists you’ve slit, if you’ve lost your grit.
We just want to prove you are fit for work
As bitch faced assessor sits there with a demonic smirk.
and the government machine that is full of jerks.

Can you reach the kitchen light?
That’s ten points off, we are always right.
You don’t deserve this benefit handout
We don’t care about your shitty plight
We don’t care that you have to live to fight
Every fucking day and night.
Do you take your crazy meds?
Dd you hear, you faker, what I said?
Do you wake all night or sleep restlessly in your bed?
Can I see inside your lying, denying head?

Because we will catch you out
We will surely catch you out
And we will bring down the weight of our wrath
And you will suffer, you will go without.
Are you crazy all the time?
Is your mind out of line
With reality and is your grasp on sanity fine?
Because you’re wasting your precious time and mine
If you think the insane deserve a quality of life
Living your life on the edge of a serrated knife
Causing society lunatic bullshit and strife.

We don’t give handouts to manic depressives
We don’t give handouts to anyone
Who doesn’t fit into our point scoring criteria.
We just fuck them off and send them to monetary Siberia.
And show us the scores on the doors Irene
And you don’t score the Jackpot, not today, drama queen!
We are the DWP
We don’t give our dosh to any old blagger
It’s never you but always me, me, me
Our purse is full of bullshit not sickness money
Whatever you say falls on deaf ears and granite hearts
You will see

So, take your precious health
It’s not a passport to cushy wealth
You are the scourge of society
In this life nothing is free
Nothing is fucking free.

© Sarah Drury 2019