Yeah, I’ve always thought that. I had an assessment for a disability benefit a few years ago that went badly; the guy doing it awarded me zero points in every category — i.e. saying I was not disabled at all— overriding years of medical evidence from specialist doctors. After a lengthy appeal process, the decision was overturned, but the most traumatising part of it all, in hindsight, was how nice the assessor guy seemed; as part of the appeal, we requested a copy of the report he had submitted and we were astounded at how brazenly he had lied.

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what kind of person could be so outwardly supportive while potentially destroying people’s lives, especially for a job that doesn’t pay much at all. I wonder what pressures would make someone do this, and perhaps whether he had conditioned himself to see people like me as fakers or “benefit scroungers”. I’ll never know.