Peter Berry

Dear @JeremyClarkson I saw this on my feed on another platform and instantly thought you needed to see it. "Jeremy Clarkson thinks people who receive benefits should have to send a weekly thank you email to a randomly chosen working person, explaining what they did with the money, or have their payments stopped. So here is mine. If you’d like to give it a share to help Jeremy see it, that would be great. Dear Jezza, Thank you for your concern about my contribution to society. I should say first that you were aiming this at young people you believe are sitting at home doing nothing. But you wrote it as a blanket rule applying to everyone whose benefits are paid. That includes more than thirteen million pensioners, millions of people who receive benefits while working, who may find themselves being ordered to thank another benefit claimant, and me. I receive PIP. That money goes towards the Motability car I use to travel to work. It is not a free car. It is not even my car. I exchange the mobility part of my PIP to lease it. The car takes the lot. Which is awkward, because that same payment is also meant to help cover the additional costs of being disabled, including a wheelchair that is actually usable for my job and hearing aids that allow me to do it. There is nothing left for either. I chose the thing that gets me to work. That car enables me to work and, because I can work, I now pay considerably more in tax than I have ever received in PIP. But my contribution does not end with my own tax bill. I have built programmes that hundreds of people now use to earn a living. They pay tax too. Those programmes have helped thousands of people overcome anxiety, return to their lives and, in many cases, return to work. Then there are all the people supported by the coaches and practitioners I have trained. That is what disability support can do when it is designed to enable people rather than humiliate them. My PIP did not disappear into some great benefits black hole. It helped provide the transport that allowed me to work, build a business, create opportunities for other people and contribute far more than I could ever have done without it. But as we are exchanging thank you letters, perhaps you could send me one too. I paid my television licence throughout the years the BBC gave you the platform that made you famous. I now pay for Amazon Prime, which helps fund the television programme about your farm. I do not choose to watch it. But that is how society works, Jeremy. We all contribute towards things we may never personally use because the entire country would fall apart if every payment had to provide us with an individual benefit. Perhaps you could also thank the taxpayers whose public services and infrastructure support your businesses. And while you have the stationery out, perhaps you could explain the farm. In 2021, you told The Times that avoiding inheritance tax was “the critical thing” in your decision to buy land. In 2024, when that became rather inconvenient, you said it had never been true. You claimed you had actually bought the farm because you wanted somewhere to shoot and that tax avoidance had simply sounded like a better story at the time. I am not sure which version helps your argument. It is funny how public support and clever tax arrangements are treated as perfectly respectable when they benefit wealthy people. Yet when a disabled person receives help to leave the house, go to work and participate in society, you think they should be made to perform gratitude. So thank you for your concern, Jezza. I hope my licence fee, Amazon subscription, taxes and contribution to the economy have all been gratefully received. Please send your thank you letter weekly, along with a full breakdown of how you spent the money. If it is not sufficiently fulsome and effusive, I assume your income will be stopped. That is only fair."