CHRIS Atkins (Letters, February 12) raised an interesting point about people judging him for having a blue badge.

I refuse to watch benefits ‘documentaries’ because they are simply a tool of propagandists to demonise people on benefits and justify the government’s austerity measures i.e. massive cuts to benefits and local authority funding.

No one cares about cuts to benefits or sanctions or foodbanks because they watch these shows and think everyone on benefits is a fraudulent scrounger spending their allowance on drink and drugs and committing crime.

In reality it is the disabled and genuine hard working people who have fallen on hard times who are the victims of government austerity – and now they also have the stigma attached to them that Chris described.

Michael Egan, The Shires (via email)