Dear Jeremy Clarkson

An open Letter from someone who claims "benefits"

Dear Mr Clarkson,

Unfortunately this isn’t the weekly thank you email you've been desperately anticipating. You know, the one you said “all benefit claimants should send” as a thank you to tax payers.

Instead, it's more closely linked to the kind of comments you may have received in backlash to your column. While I'm sure you stand in your privilege and stare down the barrel of injustice at us meer “scroungers” taking your “hard-earned” money every month - yes benefits are usually paid monthly not weekly - believing you are above backlash, I'm here, typing into the void, to remind you that you are not.

I was like you once, judgemental, opinionated, entitled and, (as is clear not just by your comments for those of us on benefits but in your comments about everything) unaware of, or unwilling to accept my privilege.

I got my first job at 12 years old, an unremarkable paper round that admittedly didn't last long. Being a premie baby I have a very short torso and could never carry the bags laden with papers, but by god I tried. It was also during the late 90’s and walking around before sunrise as a twelve year old girl was absolutely terrifying, I did it anyway. I followed the paper round by working in a sandwich shop at 13, then a transport cafe at 15 before I switched to work for the NHS, then the MOD, and later somewhat settled in social housing.

I paid tax for years before my health became too unmanageable. I was forced to quit my job in 2022, after a bout of postpartum psychosis almost cost me my life. The amount of sick days I had during my run of employment would make your eyes water, it sure made me cry, often. The days I’d spend led in bed unable to move were some of the worst of my life. The migraine attacks that still plague me to this day, taking away my reliability and forcing me into “back to work” meetings that felt like court cases.

Even after this, I have continued to try and find suitable work around my family. My husband works full time while also being a full-time carer to me and our two children, and I write for local news when I’m able, while also also parenting two children. I do this with more than six diagnosed health conditions which each include over 100 life-limiting symptoms.

Should I say thank you to you specifically for the measly amount of money I now have to live on because I am too sick to work consistently? Should I beg forgiveness from the tax payer (of which I was myself not so long ago, of which my husband very much still is) every time I buy bottled water instead of drinking from the tap?

Should I thank you for my health being in the gutter and the fact that at nearly 40 years old my mum still pays for my holidays because the “benefits” you speak of, barely cover our council-house rent? Not least the luxuries you seem to believe we are all living on.

You mentioned you're a dog lover, I am too. Unfortunately for me, I had to give up my best and very dear fury friend because I could no longer walk him. The “benefits” you think are buying us all new TV’s certainly don’t stretch to doggy daycare. In fact, they don't cover childcare either. I'm assuming you're probably one of the people complaining about birth rates dropping then also slagging off “full time mums” and dads who dare to ask for paid paternity leave. Or is it only the people with ADHD and anxiety you feel must courtesy in your honour?

Because guess what? I have those too.

The first time I tried to take my own life I was just thirteen years old. Social media didn't exist then so we can't blame that. The reason was in fact due to a feeling of otherness I had felt my whole life. It was also the crippling panic attacks and onset of hormones that led to my wanton demise.

The ADHD diagnosis (the kind of diagnoses you hate so much) took 5 years to get on the NHS. Prior to it, I had countless courses of talking therapies, tried every antidepressant known to man, which by the way, neither the antidepressants or the therapy worked. Particularly because the therapy always ended almost as soon as it began. One course I enrolled in to help with my emotional regulation ended up kicking me off because I had a migraine attack with unilateral hemiplegia and couldn't see to join the online group. I missed two sessions and was thrown back to the wolves without a bye your leave.

After the first suicide attempt I tried to take my own life another 3 times. I was 23 the last time I actively attempted suicide but it's something I think about often. For reference, I didn't get diagnosed with ADHD until I was 35.

I wonder is it only tax payers that deserve thanks or national insurance contributers too? If we use your logic for sick people, then you might even owe me a thanks as I worked in Oncology during my time in the NHS and still pay national insurance today, out of my “benefits”.

What you also seem to fail to comprehend is that benefits such as PIP aren't awarded based on the health condition. They are awarded based on how the condition affects someone.

Do you really believe if one of your children was too unwell to work due to a severe mental illness, or god forbid they find out in years to come they are neurodivergent and it only catches up with them because they burn out in spectacular dumpster-fire fashion, that you would deny them the ability to claim a very small monetary substitute to help them live their lives and pay for things such as therapy? Is that not doing the work? Is that not self investment? I mention only neurodivergence and mental illness here because these are the two that seem to disgust you so much, but it's funny (it's not at all funny) being neurodivergent puts you at a significantly higher risk of physical illness, especially if you're also female. I don't expect you to know this already as your bigoted, and widely-spread views, would lead one to believe you wouldn't know or be interested in us “fairer-sexed”.

Which hastens me to ask, is it only people who have never worked due to illness which makes you angry or do you hate people like me who lost their career to illness too? People who need to top up their household income because the cost of living is astronomical and we're barely making bills, let alone shopping for grandeur.

I wonder, if perhaps through your own health struggles you've ever had to fill out a ten page form that's largely inaccessible, requiring you to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that you do in fact suffer the effects of the illness you're diagnosed with? No? Perhaps then, you’re unable to imagine what it feels like to be walking (semi regularly) around, waiting for someone to tell you “You don't look sick” and “everyone has that these days”.

Or worse, to turn on the news to yet another documentary querying the validity of your diagnosis. Imagine if we all ran around saying cancer wasn't real?

It's a special kind of fucked up to flick through a paper and be likened to a dog because you're not well enough to contribute to the work force.

It would not be too much of a stretch if disabled people were sat in their homes wishing the same for you as you wished for the Duchess. Except of course most of us disabled folk are kind and have empathy in spades, something you seem to considerably lack for anybody who isn't an obedient retriever.

Anyway, thank you, for reminding me why old white men with money are still the most dangerous demographic on earth. Oh I almost forgot, to also thank you for the waffles I ate for breakfast this morning.

Yours,

A disabled mother