Incapacity benefit recipients 2.6 million, number of job vacancies 700,000. So if all the vacancies were taken up it would still leave 3.5 million people not working.

Mr Purnell, the Works and Pensions Minister has come up with proposals to get 1million off incapacity by 2015. If there are 1.6 million unemployed what work is there for them?

They are just going to increase the job seekers figure. One of his proposals is that drug users, if they don't get counselling, will lose their benefit. But if the state stops their money isn't that just going to put the crime rate up?

We all know there are people on incapacity benefits who shouldn't be getting it, but I don't think a figure can be given for genuine and non-genuine cases. From my own experience I have known three people who were thrown off sick and died months after. There will be thousands who the Medical Boards will deem fit for work who are not.

I went to one 35 years ago when I had a painful kidney stone diagnosed at hospital. But the Medical Board director just said stand up sit down and touch your toes and declared me fit for work. As an HGV driver I could have been a danger if pain struck while I was driving. I had an operation for it a week later.

A friend of mine has chronic sciatica diagnosed at hospital and takes strong painkillers. She is going to the Medical Board later this month and will most likely be thrown off the sick despite having a note from her own GP.

When the council are informed, they will automatically stop her housing and council tax benefits. She won't be told for two weeks and will receive arrears letters and be threatened with court action. By the time she gets onto jobseekers she will be three weeks in arrears.

If the medical board overrule a person's GP and their sick note is ignored, when they take a job and have an accident due to the medication they are taking, will their employer's insurance pay out?

Mr Purnell is thinking up schemes for the unemployed when there are no jobs for them to go to.

Bad things happen if good men stay silent.

TH Naylor
Mexborough