Conservatives on the hunt for disabled people's votes?

As reported from the Boycott Workfare Welfare Action Gathering in Manchester, Conservative Government under the 'welfare reforms' of Iain Duncan Smith and Barren Freud seem to have sought to destroy the welfare state.(1) 

How times have changed since 2009, when it was Labour under then Health Secretary Andy Burnham MP that sought to sieze people's Disability Living Allowance (DLA) payments and siphon them into National Health Service budgets!

This blogger was once a Social Care Spokesperson for the Green Party of England & Wales, getting support in that role from then Green Party member Joseph Healy PhD in that role, especially in response to then Labour Health Secretary Andy Burnham's proposals that DLA be scrapped. And so my memory associations with Andy Burnham include DLA, while the search facility on the Community Care website helps reference things.(2)

Burnham says disability living allowance is safe from chop ... Oct 23, 2009 ... Burnham says disability living allowance is safe from chop ... to reform adult care funding, health secretary Andy Burnham said yesterday. ... now ruled out any suggestion that DLA for under-65s will be brought into the new ... LabelledArticles

Tories launch campaign to protect disability benefits | Community Care Nov 19, 2009 ... Last month, health secretary Andy Burnham ruled out using the DLAbudget for people aged under 65, but maintained that it was still ... LabelledArticles

6407-BARCLAYConservatives: Leave attendance allowance alone ... Dec 8, 2009 ... Health secretary Andy Burnham has ruled out using the DLAbudget for people aged under 65, but maintained that it was still considering using ... LabelledArticles

Thus while Andy Burnam said after much pressure from disability charities that Disability Living Allowance for the under-65s was safe, his openness to scrapping Attendance Allowance for people aged over 65; and the Conservatives saw potential of wooing disabled people over the age of 65 because such people would be more likely to vote Conservative — and especially more likely to vote Conservative when there was an apparent mainstream news media blackout on what the party of which I was — and still am — a member of has/had to offer.

The moral of all this, if there is a 'moral' to it, is that as Tony Cox of Scottish Unemployed Workers Network said at the Welfare Action Gathering, it is important to keep pressure on all political parties, and 'not put all our eggs in one basket,' so to speak.

Link addresses

1. http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/kwug-delegates-report-on-boycott-workfare-welfare-action-gathering-manchester-2016.html
2. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/search-results/?q=andy%20burnham%20dla