Nice bit of Shroud Waving

From The Grauniad:

... the [interest rate used to calculate the mortgage subsidy paid to  'vulnerable' people] is to be reduced from 6.08% to what the government says is the Bank of England average mortgage rate of 3.67%. Almost 65,000 disabled people, including those with profound mental health problems (1), are at risk of losing their homes because of a cut in mortgage payment support for vulnerable people, according to the body representing housing associations.

1) Since when do people with 'profound mental health problems' take out mortgages? Don't these usually set in after you realise you've taken out an unaffordable mortgage?

2) I'm a great believer in paying extra benefits to the disabled (I'd rather be paying for other people via the tax system than be disabled myself - there but for the grace of G-d, etc) - but according to DWP's Table 1, the total amount of Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance paid out is expected to be £16.8 billion in 2010-11. Then there are other bits and pieces which bring the total to over £20 billion*.

That, my friends, is more than one per cent of official GDP, so assuming it is shared out between the most disabled one per cent of the population, they are each on an above average income. Even if  that's shared out paid out to the most disabled two per cent (i.e. over a million people), that still makes about £17,000 a year each, largely non-means tested and tax-free, which is plenty enough to rent a council flat and have an OK standard of living.

UPDATE: Rational Anarchist points out that there are 4.4 million people claiming DLA or AA. If we add on the 2.7 million people claiming Incapacity Benefit/E&SA (assuming the two are mutually exclusive), that means eleven per cent of the UK population are considered to be disabled, which is quite staggering.

* And that's excluding Incapacity Benefit/Invalidity Benefit/Employment and Support Allowance, which are disguised unemployment benefit, which add up to another £4.9 billion.