Mr McCormack wrote clearly and knowledgeably about the real problems that face disabled people in getting back to work.
It is little known, for example, that the agency used by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to meet the back-to-work targets, Action for Employment (A4E), are not even a Government department, but were the "winners" of a bidding war among private companies, to provide a back-to-work service. They have agreed to meet Government-defined targets to get people off sickness benefit, but not necessarily into paid work.
It is now widely acknowledged that the Jobcentres no longer want sick or disabled people in their premises, instead they are 'farmed out' to A4E for work-focused interviews, training techniques and the rest of the jumping through hoops that the Government demands they undertake in order to receive their paltry entitlement.
The former DWP-supported and financially-backed agency; Workwise, has been sidelined in favour of A4E, making it even more difficult for disabled people to access unconditional advice and support services to seek help with funding paid work.
Has this Government genuinely believed that we could not see that by centralising benefit claims, closing job centres to the man on the street; sending the workshy or sick down to the slick office of A4E; marginalising services and cost-cutting right left and centre; that in or out of work benefits are becoming more and more difficult for people with genuine disabilities?
At a local level, disability advice and support services are seeing council funding reduced or withdrawn. We have seen Remploy close, Kerbside threatened with closure, Calderdale Dart and the Citizens Advice Bureau saw their funding reduced.
Dart were also forced to pay for their own essential building works. All of this reduces the money available for front-line services for disabled people who need help.
This Government is using the sick and disabled as scapegoats. They have allowed perfectly able-bodied people to stay on benefits for years simply because they couldn't find them work.
They have allowed drug and alcohol dependency and its effects, to become the scourge of today's society and then pour millions into treating the addicts and providing a service that mollycoddles and nursemaids them through life.
For all this they need a scapegoat.
So, they apportion the blame to those people who are sick and disabled.
No wonder this country has gone to the dogs!
G Parkinson