♫...What else should I be? All apologies. What else should I say? Everyone is gay...♫

Both the mainstream media and the gay press have been writing vast amounts of articles over the last couple of days about Uganda's new homophobic law, punishing gays with up to life imprisonment for having the audacity to love. Rightly so; it's an outrageous law that needs to be condemned internationally.

But there's been one remarkable fact omitted from all the write ups I've read in the pink press, and that's the disablism written into the law.

First-time offenders will be sentenced to 14 years. But people found guilty of "aggravated homosexuality" which means 'repeated gay sex between consenting adults and acts involving a minor, a disabled person or where one partner was infected with HIV' will be sentenced to life. The mainstream media will write about it - that link takes you to The Guardian - but not the gay press.

(Note I said "all the write ups I have read". If you've seen an article in the gay press that I've missed, please post a link in the comments.)

As David pointed out in a post on my Facebook wall with regards to the law itself:

the Ugandan law considers gay sex with a disabled person to be equivalent to sex with a child, so it's simultaneously equating being gay with being a paedophile, and being disabled with being a child. Absolutely massive bigotry fail for the Ugandans.

I'm sure the press don't think it's worth reporting the extra sentencing for shagging a disabled person because disabled people are seen as so disgusting that the authors of the articles themselves would never dream of doing one of us. You have to remember that 70% of people would never have sex with a disabled person, and I've never seen any evidence to suggest that gay people are less disablist. I'm sure that journalists writing for gay publications can imagine themselves going on assignment to Uganda and winding up spending 14 years in jail, but they just can't envisage hooking up with a hot crip; because they refuse to see disabled people as sexual beings.

So I'm an aggravated homosexual alright.

The weirdest thing is that it's not the gay disabled person that's going to get the increased sentence; it's their partner. The press usually suddenly give a crap about disability issues when they start to affect non-disabled people. Like how the papers didn't give a damn about disability hate crime until the death of Fiona Pilkington. But once a non-disabled person had taken her own life because of the disablist harassment her family faced; the press were all over it. Most people still call it "the Pilkington case", despite the fact that she murdered her disabled daughter Francecca Hardwick who'd been on the receiving end of the hate crime.

This isn't the first time the gay press have ignored issues where gayness and disabledness intersect. When disabled gay teenager Steven Simpson was first killed, the gay press wouldn't touch the story. That particular news story for Huff Post's Gay Voices was written when his killer was sentenced nearly a year later (and several other gay outlets did deign to report it at that point too).

The one place that reported the story at the time of Simpson's death was The Daily Mail. Remarkable considering they usually hate both gay people and disabled people in equal measure.

At the time I did Email a gay website drawing their attention to Simpson's death and the reply I got was:

I wasn't quite sure we could draw the connection clearly enough to warrant a story

Because an openly gay kid getting set on fire suddenly can't be connected to anything gay if he also has an impairment. Disability is like the ultimate gay remover. (But no-one tell Museveni that or he'll go around snapping the spines of suspected homos to sanitise the gay away.)

This same website that doesn't think that there's a gay enough connection when a gay kid gets killed is the same website that once devoted an entire article to the fact that the toilet above Ben Bradshaw's Parliamentary office was leaking.

It wasn't gay urine leaking from a gay toilet dripping through a gay ceiling. It wasn't a gay interest news story. Gay kids getting immolated? That's a gay interest news story.

Unsurprisingly I had a bit of a Twitter rant about this yesterday morning. And I got a reply from a gay website. At the risk of sounding like Upworthy: You'll never believe what they said.

You'd think that anyone with a modicum of nous would either ignore my rant or say "you know what: We could do better." Instead the reply was a link to an article. The article was a write-up of a wheelchair user's experience of bad access at a Pride festival.

One article. One. And they expect a fucking commendation cookie for being inclusive?

As a disabled lesbian, the gay press's determined ignorance of topics where gayness meets disability is a personal matter. But I'm not some unique special snowflake. Around 18% of the population have some kind of impairment and that's going to be higher among the gay community due to the increased incidence of mental health problems and rates of HIV. By sticking their heads in the sand where the two issues intersect the gay press are snubbing probably at least a fifth of their audience. The gay press is mostly an online business, and that means they need pageviews to make money from advertisers. By failing to cater to such a sizeable chunk of their prospective readership they're pissing away ad revenue. You'd think the economic benefits of including the whole gay community in their content would be enough to convince them to stop ignoring us.

The Difference Between Relief and Joy #thatcher

Lots of people are celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher which is pretty crass. I've lost my mum and it doesn't matter how grown-up and independent you are when you lose your mum; it hurts. I can't imagine how it feels to be Thatcher's children knowing that people are throwing street parties in celebration of your loss.

But I can understand why there are some people feeling very relieved right now.

Someone ruined my childhood. I'm nearly 34, haven't seen her for 23 years, but I still have nightmares about her. Co-incidentally the last time I saw her was the same year Thatcher left office.

For 23 years she hasn't been able to hurt me. But she still holds power over me.

When the Panorama about Winterbourne View aired my Twitter timeline filled with people saying "I'm going to go to sleep tonight hearing those screams." You know whose screams I heard that night? My own. Once again I was 6 years old and crying and begging for the torment to stop.

Like I say: I haven't seen or heard from her in 23 years. I have no idea if she's alive or not. Once or twice I've tried Googling her the morning after the nightmare before; but haven't been able to find that out.

If I were to stumble across an obituary for her I wouldn't celebrate the fact that she's dead. I wouldn't celebrate the grief of her family: Her family did nothing to hurt me. But I would feel a rush of relief and safety, even though she hasn't been in a position to cause me harm since 1990. I obviously can't be sure of this; but I strongly suspect that the frequency of nightmares about her will lessen dramatically.

I didn't really understand the harm Thatcher caused during her years in office: She became PM 2 weeks before I was born, and I was 11 when she left office. On both sides of my family I come from very working class backgrounds. I knew that Thatcher was bad because I heard it so many times from the people around me; but I didn't understand why.

Now I'm old enough to understand the number of lives Thatcher ruined; and how she ruined them. I understand how her policies continue to ruin lives: Just look at the number of homeless people because she sold council housing and failed to build new properties to replace them. I understand the anger of the survivors of Hillsborough and the anger of the relatives of the deceased.

Thatcher has been out of office since October 1990: Three months after I last saw the woman who made the 80s hell for me. Since 1990 Thatcher hasn't had the power to continue to ruin those peoples' lives.

But I can also understand the psychological harm she caused to her victims. And I can understand why her victims might feel relieved that the woman who caused them so much pain can no longer do so. Though out of office, 87, extremely frail and in a position to hurt nobody; the psychological bond of the damage she caused hung over her victims' heads.

Her victims will never be entirely free from the pain she caused them, but I can understand why that pain has lessened slightly this week. A few of the strings holding that history over her victims heads have been broken.

Everyone who suffered because of her actions has a right to feel relief this week. But no-one has the right to celebrate that a family is in mourning. To do so makes you no better than her when she praised people responsible for mass killings. And given that she caused so much pain; do you really want to stoop to her level? Really?

Don't Hate, Donate is a brilliant idea. Instead of sinking to Thatcher's level and celebrating death; why not donate to a cause that supports her victims?

♫...I'm going underground, (going underground)...♫ #BADD2012

Ken Livingstone’s approach to public transport in London changed my life.
__________________

I was eleven when I went to Disneyworld: A compulsory right-of-passage for every disabled child in the developed world. It was the first time I’d ever left the UK, so to say I was excited would be an understatement.

On our first morning there we took a cab from the hotel to the theme park. In the pickup/drop off zone, before entering the gates of Disneyworld itself, I saw the most incredible thing I’d ever seen in my life thus far: A wheelchair accessible bus.

I had never travelled by bus. I’d never seen such a thing as an accessible bus. It hadn’t even occurred to me that they might exist. The fact that mobility impaired people could use public transport in Orlando genuinely rocked my world. Of all the delights that Disney has to offer a child; nothing made me scream “Mum! Dad! Nan! Look at that!” quite as loudly as that bus. It was just a bus; such a mundane mode of transport to the majority of people. But to me it represented such freedom and inclusion that I couldn’t quite believe my eyes.

I lived in a miserable little Essex village at the time. About once a day you could get a bus to the nearest small town and I think you could occasionally get a bus to Cambridge. When I say “you could”; that obviously didn’t include me. The village did have a train station, but unsurprisingly that wasn’t wheelchair accessible.

I was trapped in a village where I had no friends. The local high school was (surprise surprise) not wheelchair accessible so I had to be taxied to a school near Cambridge. This meant all my friends lived about 20 miles from me. Like every 11 year old I wanted to go shopping on Saturdays with my peers; I never could. This was why catching sight of an accessible bus meant everything to me. It held the optimism of a world that I could be a part of.

It was 10 whole years later that I travelled by bus for the first time; and that was in America too. The summer before going to university I decided to spend a month backpacking around the US. My first port of call was Los Angeles and on my first day I caught the 156 from North Hollywood down to Santa Monica Boulevard where I changed onto the 4 down to the beachfront in Santa Monica. So momentous it was that I’ll probably remember the numbers of those buses well into old age; long after I’ve become unable to recall my own name.

Now I travel by bus all the time I’d recognise that journey for what it is: Slow, boring, hot, and full of people that smell terrible. But at the time in August 2000 I felt so free and included. I think you probably need to have been excluded from bus travel for 21 years to realise how liberating it is to be able to catch one for the first time.

A month later I moved to London (well, Uxbridge, but it’s within Greater London) to go to university. The U3 and U4 routes going from the Brunel campus to Uxbridge town centre were accessible, but that was it. I couldn’t get the 207 to Ealing or the 607 to Shepherd’s Bush. Of course, being able to travel by bus was still so new to me that I was bloomin’ grateful for the couple of routes I could use.

The picture was far worse in Central London. When I first moved to inside the M25 there were no accessible buses in the centre of town, the majority of routes around the West End were those nightmare Routemasters. During the day, anyway: Most companies put accessible buses on their night bus routes and it always struck me as slightly bizarre that London transport was only properly accessible between midnight and 5am; like disabled people are the new vampires.

Thanks to the Mayor at the time - Livingstone - inaccessible buses were gradually phased out over the next 5 years. London waved farewell to its last inaccessible buses, the Routemasters running on route 159, in December 2005. In 2012 inaccessible buses still make up the majority of bus company stock around the country. Every time I venture out of the confines of London I find myself grateful to Ken for London’s 100% accessible bus network.

Sadly since he was replaced by BoJo in 2008 we’ve seen London’s most accessible vehicles – the Bendy Buses – taken off the road. Many prefer double deckers for taking up less road space, but London’s wheelchair users miss those Mercedes Citaros dearly. Even with the fact that on the early models the wheelchair ramp would jam if the driver tried retracting it while the bus was still ‘kneeling’. I was once the reason for the breaking-down of three consecutive 453s outside Old Kent Road Tesco’s…

I was also 21 the first time I travelled on The Tube. Most non-disabled people probably think it sounds bizarre to be having all these public transport-related firsts in your twenties. Just like the buses; I also got my first taste of travelling on underground trains in Los Angeles. Unlike our Tube the Red Line there is fully accessible. Even if a little scary because I’d seen Volcano and I kept expecting the train to fill with lava.

Ken may have abolished the inaccessible bus, but despite his good work the majority of tube stations remain inaccessible. Oh to live in LA. And not just for the weather.

In 2006 Livingstone’s administration promised that one third of London’s tube stations would be accessible by 2013. You can’t begin to imagine how much this thrilled me. At the time my nearest accessible tube stations were Westminster, Waterloo or Caledonian Road. All a bus ride from where I’d set up home in Camden. So I never used the tube. The prospect of being able to use one in every 3 tube stations meant I could get to most places in London by getting the tube to a station or two away from my destination and pushing in my wheelchair the rest of the way. I could make it across London in almost the same time frame as someone without a mobility impairment whereas it takes 2 to 3 times as long to make a parallel journey by bus.

Livingstone didn’t retain his seat in 2008 though. Johnson quietly cancelled access upgrades throwing away £20 million of taxpayer's money in the process. What you can’t really put a figure on is all the disabled people who can’t move freely around the city: How many people can’t go for jobs because the return journey to work would be in excess of 4 hours by bus when it’s a 1.5 hour return journey for a non-disabled person by tube? How much tourism revenue does London lose out on because there are no accessible stations in the West End? What about the emotional and social costs for people who are isolated in the suburbs?

If anyone's thinking of commenting with "but he had to cancel the upgrades! We ran out of money!" You can save your little fingers the trouble: Johnson managed to find the cash to fund his pet projects. He spent £1.4m per vehicle on the new Routemasters. A standard double decker is £190,000. It wasn't that he couldn't afford the upgrades on the Tube; he just doesn't care about access.

I am completely opposed to the cuts to benefits and public services. Most people of a similar inclination to me are also opposed to the Olympics and feel it’s unacceptable for the taxpayer to be spending billions on a fortnight long party when disabled people are being told that they’re no longer allowed to use the toilet in the night.

I don’t want anything to do with the games. I’m planning on spending a fortnight barricaded in my flat with a stockpile of food and DVD box sets. But I will never begrudge the games coming to town because the only tube access upgrades Johnson didn’t cancel were the ones essential to the Olympic strategy. The games leave behind a legacy of improved access to the tube and I will forever be grateful for that.

Transport for All published this table assessing the accessible transport plans of the 4 leading Mayoral candidates. Great progress towards a fully inclusive transport network was made under Livingstone; we then saw regression under Johnson. If we want to start progressing again, we need Johnson out of office. He doesn’t propose to meet a single one of Transport for All’s targets.

This isn’t just an issue for those who are currently disabled. Around one in 5 people have some kind of impairment. The figures are skewed by age as the majority of older people have some kind of age-related condition. If you want the tube to be fully accessible by the time your mobility begins declining then you need to vote for improved access to the tube now. Even if you’re convinced that you’re so healthy that you will still be running marathons when you’re 101; there’s a good chance that at some point in your life you’ll break your ankle playing football and be on crutches for 6 weeks. Just bear that probability in mind if you're thinking of voting Johnson because "he's a right laugh!"

I can’t stand the Labour party in its current state. They’re the ones who kick-started the horrific welfare reform by introducing Employment and Support Allowance in 2008. I have no confidence in the current Labour party leadership: I wouldn't trust Ed Miliband to run a proverbial in a brewery, never mind a country. Labour have moved too far to the right for my liking, though sadly I have to concede that out of all the main parties; they are the lesser of three evils. If a General Election were called tomorrow I’d vote Green without hesitation.

It saddens me that Ken rejoined Labour after serving his first term as London Mayor as an independent candidate. I would feel much happier putting my mark next to his name if he weren’t affiliated with a party I have no love for.

But put my mark next to his name I shall. Like I said at the start: His transport policies changed my life. At least now my second nearest tube station is accessible, even if the closest one to my home isn’t.

The post is something of a "two birds with one stone" job. Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day and London goes to the polls on Thursday. I think the word "disablism" does what it says on the tin and clearly a transport system which has wheelchair access at less than one in three stations is a transport system that discriminates against disabled people. So combining the 2 I'm blogging to appeal to Londoners to vote for a candidate that'll make the public transport system a little less disablist.

A couple of weeks ago I got a "Back Boris" taxi receipt. If he hadn't cancelled tube access upgrades I wouldn't have needed a cab.

Priorities

First they came for the disableds,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't disabled.

Then they came for the NHS,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't sick.

Then they came for the grannies,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't old.

Then they came for my pasties,
and suddenly I gave a crap.

♫...Health minister, I mean sinister...♫ #SaveOurNHS

Last week was a pretty ordinary week for me. On Monday morning I got up and went to see my GP so he could refer me to yet another specialist because yet another part of my body has gone wrong. From there I went to my local pharmacy for the second time in 2 working days. I go in there and everyone exclaims "hi Lisa!" I'm pretty sure it's not the kind of establishment the Cheers theme song writers had in mind.

On Wednesday I had a an appointment at a specialist hospital. The clinic in question I was attending that morning is totally unique, there is only that one in the whole country.

I got all this care on the NHS. Without question I wouldn't still be kicking around were it not for the care our health service provides.

Because I depend on the NHS so much, last week I also felt the need to go to a couple of "save our NHS" thingies. Unfortunately with so many of the services I depend on being under threat, going protesting is part of a fairly normal week now too. Rather ironically I couldn't go to the "hands around St Thomas'" vigil because I was sitting in a different hospital having medical implements shoved up my nose.

I've been one of the NHS's most loyal customers most of my life. Growing up with brittle bones I spent so much of my childhood waiting for x-rays that I could spell "danger" and "radiation" from reading the signs on the door at about the same age that most of my peers were getting to grips with "cat" and "dog". During my teens and early 20s I used the NHS much less, though still a bit more than Joe Average. From my mid-twenties onwards my life has been this thrill-o-rama of hospital appointments and increasingly long prescriptions: Some of my current health problems are related to my osteogenesis and some are not. Then there's those that are not really osteogenesis-related, but OI exacerbates them. I'm basically falling apart.

I know of people who are in favour of these reforms who've been mystified by the fact that I'm opposed to the bill but acknowledge stuff like this. It's quite simple really: I think that when you care passionately for something it's important to critically assess its failings as well as its achievements. Acknowledging that something could be better doesn't mean you want to see it dismantled.

I care passionately about my car. Because of my impaired mobility I need it for most excursions out of my flat. Acknowledging that the heating doesn't work properly and that I wish the heating worked better doesn't mean I want my car to be shoved in a crusher.

I care passionately about the NHS too. I need it to stay alive. Acknowledging that it often fails groups of people doesn't mean I want the NHS dismantled. I want to see the problems fixed, just like I wish Peugeot would fix my car's heating so it doesn't get progressively cooler the faster my car is going.

The thing is: The NHS can't fix their problems until they know that they exist, and where they exist. Just like Peugeot can't fix my car until they find where the fault actually is. Not being a petrol head I can't run diagnostics on my car to find the cause of the problem, but I can help the NHS find problems by writing a complaint when I encounter a useless doctor. Evidence like the aforementioned stuff on elderly care, or Mencap's work on people with learning difficulties getting failed by the NHS all help the NHS to identify faults so they can be fixed. Suing over clinical errors was a way of not only getting compensation for injuries incurred, but it was yet another way of providing feedback over where faults lie. The Legal Aid Bill puts that in jeopardy.

And quite simply there's the fact that the Health and Social Care Bill does nothing to improve the care received by the demographics currently failed by the NHS. If anything you can bet that such patients will receive even worse care under a more competitive system.

Another one of the NHS's big issues is waiting lists. Last week my GP referred me to maxillofacial because I need to see someone about my right temporomandibular joint. I need to see someone about it now, not in four months time. At this precise moment my jaw is hurting so much that the pain travels right the way around to the base of my skull. Not only do these reforms fail to address the issue of waiting lists, if anything they'll make matters worse.

When Lansley and co get on the defensive about the reforms they point out that Labour started the process of outsourcing to private providers. (Which is true, but it doesn't mean they have to keep up the practice.) Because it's been happening for a few years I've had a couple of experiences and know first-hand that it increases, rather than decreases, wait times.

Three years ago an orthopaedic surgeon sent me to have my knackered ankle MRIed. I was given an appointment to have it done six weeks later. Two weeks before the appointment I got a letter telling me that my appointment had been cancelled and instead I was going to be having my MRI at a private hospital because they were using private providers to cut down their waiting lists. So did this mean that I had my MRI sooner than the two further weeks I had left to wait? Of course not. Want to know how long I did wait? 10 months. By the time my ankle was finally MRIed it was a year since the consultant ordered it.

Once upon a time orthotists actually made orthotics. As a child I had countless splints made while I waited. Now all orthotists do is take a mould of the body part to be supported and send the mould to a private provider to make the product. The same orthopod that ordered the MRI also ordered orthoses to be made for my shoes. The ones I'm waiting for now have been sent back to the factory three times since they were first made, because the private company can't follow simple instructions. It's been about two years since I went back to the orthotist because the first pair had worn out, so can someone please explain to me how a two-year wait can possibly be justified when they could actually be made on the spot?

I'm really not sure I can face the prospect of waiting a year or two to get my jaw seen to.

Outsourcing to private providers doesn't just result in excessive delays and headaches from where you kept head-butting the wall in frustration; the consequences can be far graver.

The government want GPs to handle budgets taking that responsibility out of the hands of the PCT's. When my GP makes judgements about whether or not I need to see a maxillofacial consultant I want him to make that decision based on clinical need, not budgetary concerns. (Additionally there's the fact that GPs are so untrustworthy according to the government that they can't be allowed to make judgements on someone's fitness for work: That's the government's defence for why they "need" to use Atos). I'd rather my doctor spend his time doctoring, leaving the accountants at the PCT's to do the accounting. If GPs don't want to spend their time dealing with budgets they're going to need to employ the bureaucrats who've just had a severance package from their PCT which is a waste of taxpayers money. And if there's one thing this government like to bang on about: It's taxpayers getting value for their money.

But the big, big, BIG problem with these reforms is around the role of the Secretary of State. Initially the bill removed the obligation on the Secretary of State to provide a National Health Service. This would have been the end of the National Health Service that is accessible to all regardless of ability to pay. Thousands of amendments later the bill now only greatly reduces that obligation, rather than removing it entirely. But it's still likely to see people like me with many health problems, and no money, getting absolutely shafted once the obligation to provide an NHS has been cut back.

The government keep insisting that the reforms aren't about "privatising" the NHS. Yet we keep hearing about more and more services getting outsourced: And the bill hasn't even passed yet! Though ever increasing outsourcing isn't really surprising when you look at the list of politicians with ties to private healthcare companies. This is all despite the fact that patient care is worse under private providers (I refer you back to my own 2 experiences of outsourced "care") and our current system is more cost-effective. It's worth noting that that last linked article is not only from The Torygraph, but the writer freely admits that he has no ideological opposition to breaking up the NHS if a cheaper way of providing care could be found.

Nye Bevan famously said "the NHS will last as long as there are folks left with the faith the fight for it." I'm deeply worried that most people in Britain have become so apathetic and/or cruel (they let the horrific Welfare Reform Bill pass…) that there are no longer enough people with enough faith to keep this world leading, value-for-money, health service alive.

What can you do? There are 2 petitions to get the bill delayed until the government have published the risk register. One is from Avaaz, the other from 38 Degrees. You could also come to Parliament Square this afternoon, but you might want to be aware that yesterday's demo was just a tad over-policed.

♫ = Andrew Lansley Rap

The #no2av campaign's preying on the uneducated

I've just been talking to my dad on the phone. He has a postal vote so has already voted in the referendum.

My dad will be 77 in July. He grew up long, long, before disabled children had any right to be educated. He was ignored in mainstream school and then sent to a segregated college where he was taught nothing much. No-one taught him to read until a family friend took on the challenge when he was 21.

In addition to poor literacy due to no-one bothering to teach him until he was an adult he's almost certainly dyslexic. They didn't do much diagnosing of that during World War II.

In addition to that it's only been in the last 2 and a half years since my mum died that he hasn't had anyone living with him to help him understand things like the instructions on a polling card. He can read well enough to read the names on a card and identify which are his preferences. He can also count to three so would be capable of ranking his preferences in order.

One of the "no" campaign's loudest cries is that AV is too complicated for the masses. That you need to be some kind of genius to work out how to fill in a polling card under AV.

Out of fear that he wouldn't understand how to vote under AV; out of fear that AV is too confusing and too complicated, my father voted "no".

I am furious that the "no" campaign are preying on people like my dad by telling them they're too stupid to understand AV.

If my dad really believed that FPTP was a better system than AV I'd respect his choice. But that's not why he voted "no". The "no" campaign took advantage of his poor education, of his illiteracy, and his almost certain dyslexia by telling him that under AV he wouldn't be able to understand his polling card. They told him he was stupid and he believed it.

How many more people are going to be tricked into voting "no" because the campaign are preying on their poor education, their learning disability or insecurity about their intellect and telling them that they're just not smart enough to get it?

Pride and St George

If you've been hiding under a rock and not seen the flags everywhere, it might have escaped your attention that Saturday was St George's day; a day that's typically associated with racists and bigots, the EDL and the BNP.

This year I've seen several attempts from decent people to reclaim the day from the fascists, to take pride in England being the diverse place it is. After all, St George was Palestinian so he seems a bit of an odd role model for the EDL to revere.

The trouble is that I couldn't be less proud of being English.

• Universities in England are charging ever increasing fees, this is not true for all other parts of the UK. The exorbitant amounts are a major disincentive for people from a background like mine to get an education.
• English older and disabled people are having to pay more for less home care. This isn't true of all of the UK, Scottish older people get free care.
• People living in care homes are facing bigger bills for less safe care homes and DLA recipients living in care homes will be losing their mobility component from 2013.
• The government are completely dismantling the welfare state. Disabled people are killing themselves because they can't afford to live.
• The government is planning to completely dismantle the NHS in England. I had one experience of NHS outsourcing to private healthcare providers; I waited a year to have my bust ankle MRIed.
• Stories of police violence seem almost daily while hate crimes against disabled people are frequent and rarely appropriately handled by the authorities.
• It's the 21st century and gay people can't get married.
• The government is considering scrapping our anti-discrimination legislation.
• We have misogynists, homophobes and disablists in parliament.
• Our newspapers tell daily lies about benefits claimants, which results in an increase in the aforementioned disablist hate crime.

And that list barely scratches the surface.

You could argue that the decisions made by the government don't necessarily reflect those of the populace as a whole, that the lies printed in the press aren't emblematic of the opinions of the nation. Except they are. We're a democracy, we voted for this government. Look at the sea of blue across England. It's the English that voted Tory rather than other parts of the UK. As for the press? If people stopped buying the lies, the papers would stop printing them.

So could someone, please, tell me why I should be proud of England when England so clearly isn't proud of me?

♫... Pull up to the bumper, get out of the car...♫

Our ever so delightful Mayor of London has come up with another plan to make the nation despise people who don't "look disabled" just that little bit more.

Writing in The Torygraph 2 months ago he proclaimed that the only people who really deserve Blue Badges are wheelchair users, which will no doubt pour further fuel on existing fires around who should be eligible for what.

If you spend much time hanging out in crippy areas of the web you'll come across debates around who it is that needs spaz parking spaces the most: In the red corner you'll have the walkies who need to park near to the door of a store because their ability to walk is extremely limited and if they can't park near the door they can't manage to do their shopping. While over in the green corner you'll have wheelies who need the wider bays to get their chair alongside their car to transfer into it.

In fact the walkies vs wheelies parking debate was even the B story in an episode of House a few years ago when a wheelchair-using researcher got a job at the hospital and Cuddy re-allocated House's parking space to her.

I should make clear that not all disabled people are so selfish that they think that only people with their flavour of impairment are genuine and everyone else is on the take; but sadly there are sufficient people so blinkered that they can't see someone else's perspective that it's a debate that'll go on for years to come. And BoJo just put his PomPoms on to encourage that battle. Presumably so disabled people will keep fighting amongst themselves rather than uniting and turning their energies against him around issues like all the tube accessibility upgrades he cancelled.

I see both sides of the debate: I use a wheelchair but I also walk a bit. Ordinarily when parking I need room behind my car to get my wheelchair out of the boot and assemble it. But there are occasions when I walk away from my car, like a couple of months ago when I had to go to the supermarket shortly after dislocating my shoulder. Walking is excruciatingly painful for every joint in my feet and legs - hence the usual wheelchair usage - but given the state my shoulder was in on that occasion, pushing my wheelchair would've hurt even more. To make the supermarket doable at all I needed to be able to park right by the door to minimise the distance walked.

However, even when I walk I'm still visibly disabled. I have an extremely pronounced limp, I'm of restricted growth and just one glance at my ankles will tell you that ankles aren't supposed to be shaped like that. But there are genuinely disabled people who are invisibly impaired who are no doubt who Mr J has in mind when he says:

the driver reverses into your spot and bounds out, whistling, remote-locking with a backwards squirt of electrons.

I don't remember him, he died when I was 2, but my granddad had an Orange Badge (this was long before they became Blue Badges in 2000) because his lung problems caused him to struggle to walk. Apparently for the first few steps after getting out of the car he looked quite sprightly. It was only after a few steps that the war veteran began struggling to breathe. But he would've been "looking normal" long enough to press the central locking button (if they'd had central locking in his lifetime) thus be the recipient of Johnson's suspicions.

Gardner and Johnson propose that wheelchair users get an extra badge and "special" bays that can't be used by non-wheelchair using disabled people. Would I need 2 badges, one for the days when I'm using my chair and one for the days when I'm not? Because I can walk a little bit would I be ineligible for the "W badge"? If so, then Gardner would be ineligible too; we've all seen him using a zimmer on the telly rather than his chair:

Boris also seems to have some trouble understanding who is actually eligible for a Blue Badge. He constantly refers to Blue Badge holders as "disabled drivers" and, yes, drivers do make up a significant number of BB users. But there are also a great number of BB holders who don't or can't drive. I think I was 5 when I got my first badge. The general minimum age has since been lowered to 2 but children younger than two can still get a badge if the child either:

• must always be accompanied by bulky medical equipment which cannot be carried around without great difficulty, or;
• needs to be kept near a vehicle at all times to get treatment for a condition when necessary

And obviously children that young can't drive! Then there are people who are old enough to drive but can't. My dad can't even push his wheelchair in a straight line at less than one mph, you wouldn't want him driving a vehicle that can do 100mph. Despite being driven everywhere by other people he still needs to park in Blue Badge bays because of the space needed to deploy the lift on his wheelchair accessible van. The argument of "but the driver could drop him off and then park the vehicle elsewhere," doesn't really work when someone takes as long to get out of the vehicle as my dad. Then of course there's people who can't be left alone while the driver parks the car somewhere else because they need constant assistance/supervision.

I do agree with Johnson that Blue Badge fraud is a huge problem. 6 years ago I blogged when I fell victim to Blue Badge theft for the first time. A year later I got a phone call from the police telling me that the badge had been found during a routine 'stop and search'. This was around about when I fell victim to Blue Badge theft for the second time. My car was broken into a third time later that year, but this was after my parents had bought me a Blue Badge lock for my birthday so the prospective thieves couldn't actually get the badge. I'd be thrilled if there was a clampdown on fraudulent BB use because if it were harder to get away with using a badge that isn't yours then I'd have to pay my insurance excess a little less often.

Parking can be incredibly difficult. Take my local Sainsbury's as an example. They have 7 Blue Badge bays on the surface and 296 regular bays in their underground car park. The Department for Transport recommends that at least 6% of the spaces for shopping be Blue Badge bays (plus one more BB bay for each disabled employee). Obviously my local supermarket falls far, far short of that 6%. I couldn't use the underground car park if I wanted to because there is no lift down to it. I can only shop in my nearest supermarket if one of the measly 7 bays is empty. And they rarely are. The store has such a half-arsed attitude to patrolling the bays; at any given time there are on average 3 or 4 bays occupied by cars not displaying badges and the remaining 3 or 4 bays are occupied by Blue Badge holders, whether the badge is being used legitimately or fraudulently. Which means that I usually drive into the car park, discover I can't park and take my custom to the Morrison's a little bit further away. I've tried queueing for a bay but this usually results in me being subjected to harassment because being only 31 people assume I can't actually be disabled until they see me in my wheelchair or limping.

If Sainsbury's put in the effort to clamp down on people parking in those pitiful 7 bays either without a Blue Badge or using a Blue Badge that was issued to someone not present then they'd get more custom from local disabled people. I know of other disabled people in Camden who don't bother with the store at all, they just go straight to supermarkets with adequate parking.

All Blue Badges have a photo of its owner on the back. The following are allowed to check Blue Badges to see if the person the badge is issued to is present:

• police officers
• traffic wardens
• local authority parking attendants
• civil enforcement officers

If you're asked to show your badge and refuse you can be subjected to a fine. I've been the holder of a badge (blue since 2000, orange before that) for 26 years and I've never, not even once, been asked to present it for inspection to prove that I'm the rightful owner. As I've said before, it's pretty obvious that I'm disabled when I get out of the car and either get in my wheelchair or limp away. But as I've also said already, you can't see my impairment whilst I'm still seated in the car. I recall one occasion when I parked on a single yellow line right in front of a traffic warden. His face lit up and he held his little computer thingum ready to issue a ticket. I put my Blue Badge and clock on the dashboard and he looked disappointed and walked away. He had a perfect opportunity to check that my badge was being used by the person it's issued to, but didn't bother.

The day before BoJo wrote his piece The Sunday Telegraph wrote that around half the Blue Badges currently in use are being used fraudulently. The fab Full Fact investigated but could neither confirm or deny the claim. Based on my own experience of Blue Badge theft the stat isn't surprising at all. After all, at one point there were 3 Blue Badges floating around with my name on; the one in my possession and the 2 that had been stolen from my car.

Johnson twisted the wording in his article to make the 50% stat mean something very different. What he said was:

According to yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, ministers think that as many as half of all blue badges could be going to people who don’t need them.

It's the use of "going to" rather than "being used by" which utterly changes the meaning. Those two stolen badges of mine were being used fraudulently, but they weren't issued to someone that didn't need one, they were issued to me. This trick of language reiterates my earlier point that BoJo is trying to stir up tensions amongst disabled people to keep us divided.

The government keeps on with this rhetoric about how benefit reform is to "weed out the scroungers" whilst "protecting the most vulnerable". It's utter bull of course, they're planning to cut the DLA bill by 20% despite the fact that only 0.5% of claims are fraudulent. But there are many, many, disabled people who think that they'll be OK because they're genuinely disabled (despite there being a 1 in 5 chance they'll lose their DLA) and they constantly moan about the (almost non-existent) fakers. On Facebook and so on I've seen many people with my own impairment moaning about people that don't look disabled getting benefits because that's the kind of bile this government is encouraging. And with BoJo's ideologically driven article he's pushing that Tory agenda even further in encouraging wheelchair users to be (even more) hateful of ambulant disabled people, while paying almost no attention to the real problem: That of theft and fraudulent use. A problem that could be dramatically reduced if only traffic wardens used their powers to check badges were being rightfully used.

Johnson actually had the gall to say:

We are a warm-hearted species, and we like to confer benefits on as many people as possible,

Oh the irony...

♫...London calling? Yes, I was there too...♫

Life, the universe and everything tried to stop me from making it yesterday. From nose bleeds to parking nightmares, I had it all go wrong. I was tempted to just declare "fuck it" and go back to bed (having only managed 3 hours sleep. Not cos I was doing anything fun; I just laid there staring at the ceiling all night). And once I arrived at Congress House I spent most of the day on the verge of a temper tantrum and wishing I had spent the day sleeping.

The first time I heard anyone mention the word "disability" was during the "does the left lead online?" session at 3:30pm. I could've kissed Laurie Penny for bringing up the fact that Labour abolished Incapacity Benefit and talking about the online grassroots disability movement.

This was after I'd spent hours listening to members of other discriminated-against groups tell me that their group was the hardest hit of all.

Now, some of those groups are groups that I also belong to (women, LGBT, working class) so I absolutely understand that they/we are disproportionately hit when you compare us to straight, white, middle class men. But to claim that those groups are the hardest hit group is just not true.

For example; I listened to Dianne Abbott talk about how women and people from a minority ethnic background will be the hardest hit by the cuts. She talked about how people from those groups are more likely to be made redundant because they're more likely to work in the public and voluntary sectors. The same is true of disabled people and for the same reasons; employers in the public and third sectors are slightly less likely to be discriminatory.

But in addition to being likely to lose their jobs due to redundancies in the public sector and funding cuts to the voluntary sector, disabled employees in those sectors are likely to have to quit work due to Access to Work cut backs. Disabled people are also facing cuts to their care packages (which may result in having to give up work due to not having someone to get you out of bed of a morning!) and loss of their DLA.

Abbott also talked about how women and black and minority ethnic folks are more likely to live below the poverty line. This is also true for disabled people. But on top of the current levels of poverty disabled people are facing the prospect of having to pay even more towards their care, losing their incapacity benefit due to the brutal new assessment measures and losing their DLA. People already have to pay more on being disabled than they get back in the form of DLA.

I am not, at all, suggesting that I think that other minorities will not be hit hard. I'm just starting to get annoyed with non-disabled people claiming their group will be hit "hardest" when that is not the case because disabled people experience the same issues but with some extra crap on top.

The complete absence of disability issues from the panels infuriated me too. Why weren't Transport for All represented on the panel talking about transport? Why weren't DPAC, The Broken of Britain or Where's the Benefit represented on the panel about how we're not all in this together? That disabled people are not only being cruelly hit by the cuts but also excluded from discussions about the cuts reminds me of a post I wrote last year about us being the lowest of the low, and something I wrote more recently about how anti-cuts campaigners prefer books and trees to us.

As I said, the session about the left online improved my mood massively. Not only was there an acknowledgement that disabled people exist, I also had a good conversation afterwards with some UKUncutters (apparently my reputation is starting to precede me).

Then there was the final plenary session. I may be utterly furious with the Labour party for not only the recent history in which they scrapped IB and gave us ESA, but also their ongoing support for the coalition cuts to DLA; but I still intend to vote for Livingstone because the improvements he made to the accessibility of London's transport had such a positive impact on my life. However even he managed to piss me off more than somewhat with his closing speech: He talked about how equal London is in term of race, religion and sexual orientation, but how unequal London is in terms of class and wealth. I think it says something about the inequality of disabled people that we didn't even get a namecheck.

I would love to live in a progressive London. Somehow I don't see that happening any time soon when London's so-called progressives turn up to Progressive London denying the existence of around 18% of the population.

Thoughts on the student protests, policing and the media

I'm so proud of British students right now. I'm especially proud of Britain's schoolchildren and sixth formers who protested yesterday. I was especially pleased when BBC News reported on sixth formers from Cambridge protesting, though I felt a slight pang of jealousy: When I was an oppressed¹ and politically aware sixth former in Cambridge I'd have loved nothing more than to march through the streets to protect my future.

Of course, the media portrayal has mostly been of the tiny number of students who committed acts of damage to property, especially that police van. What most of the mainstream media isn't reporting (in fact I think only The Guardian has) is the number of protesters who tried to protect the van. In this video you can see some of them, and there's this iconic image from The Guardian:

At one point the BBC reporter in the Commons explained why politicians and the media are so keen to report on the poorly behaved few rather than the well behaved majority. He was reporting to the camera what a politician had told him (but I'm afraid I didn't catch who, the trouble with live TV). I'm paraphrasing him, but not much (and only because I didn't get to write/type down his exact words):

If the protests get violent the public will lose sympathy with the protesters and support our plans for higher fees.

On one hand on our TV screens we're seeing looped footage of a few protesters smashing up an unoccupied police van (which some speculate was put there as bait) in the hope that it'll make the majority think "hmm, fees are good! Let's teach these brutal young things a lesson!" On the other hand what we're not seeing is the brutality from the other side.

Thanks to camera phones and the internet incidents of police brutality are harder to hide. And yesterday saw some unforgivable behaviour. Throughout the day there were many tweets being rapidly retweeted with content along the lines of "Officer abc123 kicked a 15 year old girl."

Some actual examples:

• Cambridge student demo: policeman punched student in the face
  
• Police violence at Student Protest London 24 November
  
• Laurie Penny on the children trapped inside the Whitehall kettle until late at night when the temperature had dropped to freezing
  

Why is the right-wing media barely reporting on that? Oh, yes; wouldn't want to garner support for the protesters, would we? Cruelty to children is far less important.

---

¹ The Disability Discrimination Act was written while I was in my first year of sixth form. However it didn't come into effect until years later.

Where's the Benefit?

A bunch of us made a new blog all about the War on Welfare Claimants called Where's the Benefit?. Go on, have a look.

My Email to the Lib Dems on a coalition with the Tories

I’m not usually a Lib Dem voter, my opinion tends to sway between Lib Dem, Labour and Green.

But I voted for you this week. Why? Because I’m terrified of a Tory government.

Terrified as a disabled person. Terrified they’ll take my benefits and leave me starving.

Terrified as a child of an even more disabled person. Terrified that despite my own impairment and health problems that I’ll have to give up what little life I have and become my dad’s carer when the Tories take his care hours away, expecting people to “volunteer”.

Terrified as a lesbian. The election campaign has been full of stories of Tory homophobia. Just google “Philippa Stroud”.

Terrified as a person with oodles of health problems. I depend on the NHS to live. Please don’t support Cameron in taking it apart.

And I voted for you for electoral reform. According to http://www.voterpower.org.uk/holborn-st-pancras my vote is only worth 10% of a vote. I want my vote to count.

Please read Johann Hari’s article on what Britain under the Tories would look like for someone like me: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/poverty-and-injustice-in-david-cameronrsquos-model-borough-1962318.html

Please don’t get drunk on the power of the possibility of a seat in cabinet with the Tories. Please work with Labour, Green et al.

If you do work with the Tories I will never be able to vote Lib Dem again.

*****************************

Footnote pinched from Lilwatchergirl: If you agree, and want to share your views with party HQ, e-mail balancedparliament@libdemvoice.org . They've asked for views before 2pm today, but I'm sure they'd find views useful at any time this weekend.

Sport Relief and child carers

As I type there's a builder putting my kitchen back together in a slightly more accessible way after demolishing it last week. My home is in utter chaos. All the contents of my kitchen have been piled up in my living room so I can't get in there. My whole flat is filled with demolition dust. It's all pretty grim. (If you're at all interested you can see the photos here. So far I've managed a photo a day.)

I'm spending my days sat in my bedroom with my laptop atop my lap mostly watching TV shows on it. With all the dust and the complete lack of kitchen I'm staying at Lilwatchergirl & her Girl's during the week and then staying at my dad's at the weekends. The BettyCat is staying at dad's while the builders are here so she doesn't end up like the cat in A Bucket of Blood so the weekends are my chance for some Betty snuggles.

It's a well known fact that I'm a telly addict, or I like to think of myself as a 'professional telly watcher': My MA is in Cult Film & TV so watching TV is currently my occupation. And yes, I really am still doing a supposedly one year course that I started in 2007; chronic illness, surgery, mum dying, injury leading me to spend 8 months on painkillers that make me sleep all the time, 2 months of swine flu because my immune system is buggered, dad in hospital and still several chronic illnesses have made the course last somewhat longer than intended. Thankfully Brunel have been great about how utterly shit my life is.

Despite being a massive consumer of TV I generally only watch scripted drama TV, I almost never watch chat shows, game shows, the news (which I prefer to access online), panel shows or general daytime tripe. And I also almost never watch TV as it's broadcast, preferring to make use of services like iPlayer.

I'm not living in my own home at the moment though because it's a building site. Staying with other people I'm finding myself watching things I wouldn't usually watch. When someone's good enough to let you sleep at theirs you can't really grab the remote and turn off their favourite show. So on Friday night I found myself watching Sport Relief, which I almost certainly wouldn't have watched if I could get anywhere near my own TV. It was pretty funny. Smithy's sketch, the Olympian and Paralympian Choir and the Ashes to Ashes sketch were the highlights for me.

Some of the appeals were heartwarming. Chris Moyles crying because he'd just seen a baby die from malaria prompted such generosity that they repeated that appeal again an hour later.

But a couple of the appeal videos made me want to smash dad's tellybox in frustration: The videos of children who care for disabled parents. Obviously I wasn't annoyed with the children themselves; their lives suck. They've been forced into a terrible situation and absolutely deserve to be helped.

What made me feel sick was that in a supposedly first world country in the 21st century child slavery is still legal. There's no need for it to be, and it's not something that can be fixed by Sport Relief providing these children with a befriender for 2 hours a week.

If those disabled parents had all their support needs met then the children would be free to be children and would be able to have the carefree childhood they should have. It's a simple fix.

It all starts with a faulty assumption that if a disabled person has a child, or a person has a child then becomes disabled that that child will automatically care for their parent. Laurence Clark once wrote a brilliant article about this assumption. I'm a child of not just one but two disabled parents and I never once had to perform any care roles for my parents. (Yeah, OK, I was more severely impaired than the 2 of them put together up until I started secondary school, but we'll just gloss over that.)

My parents had a care package meaning that I never had to worry if mum would need help getting things down from a high cupboard or carrying the shopping home. When they both had separate accidents in 1994 resulting in a reduction in mobility for both of them that package was increased dramatically. By this point I would've been able to perform a lot of "care" tasks; no longer breaking my bones with such regularity I'd learned to walk a little and was able to push a manual wheelchair infinitely. I could've done the shopping and the cooking and picked up things one of them had dropped on the floor, but I never had to, they had assistance to do the things they couldn't allowing me to be a teenager.

All children in the UK should be free from slavery. All disabled people should get their assistance needs met. If all disabled people got their needs met there would be no need for any child to enter into this one form of legal slavery.

Right now we are in an amazing position to change the lives of young carers. We have a general election coming up. A £5 donation to Sport Relief might give a young carer an hour with a befriender to go bowling but demanding that the politicians gaining power in 2 months time meet the assistance needs of their disabled parents can give those same children back their childhoods.

So please take this opportunity to lobby the candidates in your area about this issue. You have the power to make a real change for these children and their parents. Change that no Sport Relief project can bring. With disabled people being enabled and their children allowed to be children your £5 can then go to buying mosquito nets to save the lives of babies like this one in a country where we Brits don't have the power to effect political change.

Hear me roar!

I am angry. I am really fucking angry. I don't usually get angry because I'm quite lazy and anger takes a lot of effort. I usually just roll my eyes or bang my head on my desk. They're not very labour intensive. Especially if you don't repeatedly bang your head against the desk: Just the once, leave your head resting against the desk and you're in the perfect position for a nap. See? Lazy.

I am angry with NHS wastefulness. Perhaps I should go join the Taxpayer's Alliance? Eh, nice idea, but I don't want to stop all benefits ever and force disabled people into workhouses.

My anger started about a week ago. In 2004 I was referred to the surgical appliances dept at the Royal Free for a splint for my wrist. There was a smattering of wastefulness about my referral: GPs are not considered intelligent enough to refer patients directly to SA, my GP had to refer me to orthopaedics for them to refer me to get a splint. Which seems like a waste of my time and NHS money for me to have to see an orthopod I didn't need to see. But it was a one-off ortho appt, they referred me downstairs to surgical appliances and discharged me from ortho.

Last year I saw an orthopod at UCH about my broken foot. As The Boss promised during the appointment from hell two months later I was indeed referred to orthotics for inserts into my shoes.

"Surgical appliances" and "orthotics" are two different names for exactly the same department. One hospital uses one name, the other uses the other. So, yep, I'm a patient at exactly the same department at two different hospitals. Common sense would indicate that I should perhaps get my details sent from one hospital to the other so I can have all my supporting needs met in one place: Saving my time, and most crucially, taking up only 50% of the orthotics appointment slots therefore costing the NHS only 50% of the current cost. So last week I tried to arrange for that to happen.

Of course that would be far too sensible. I enquired about the possibility and was told that both hospitals have a policy of not issuing orthotics unless they've been prescribed by an orthopod from that hospital. So thanks to stupid policies I need to have twice as many appointments as I would need if the stupid policies didn't exist, costing the NHS twice as much.

The word is "fail".

Then I started reading about the ten23 campaign. A sort of great idea. I say "sort of" because I can't help but feel that the campaign is somewhat misguided. They are aiming their "stop being so stupid" at Boots when elsewhere on the site they have this fact:

In the UK, the NHS spends around £4million every year on homeopathy and the British government supports four NHS Homeopathic Hospitals - Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool and London. What's more over 400 GPs in the UK regularly refer patients to homeopathic clinics. With homeopathy having been conclusively proven to work no better than placebo, there is no place for it in the National Health System, and no reason to support it with money that would otherwise be used to support real, proven treatments with genuine efficacy.

From http://www.1023.org.uk/why-you-cant-trust-homeopathy.php

So, yeah, can't help but feeling that the campaign would be more worthwhile if it was aimed at stopping the NHS wasting money on homoeopathy rather than stopping Boots from selling homoeopathic "remedies". Because I care how the NHS spend their money, how A. N. Other spends his or her money down the chemists really doesn't bother me.

And then today I read this article from The Independent: The ex-gay files: The bizarre world of gay-to-straight conversion (yeah I know it was published eight days ago, I'm a bit slow).

It transpires during the sessions that she gets most of her clients through an NHS GPs' surgery near her home. She says they refer people to her for treatment for their homosexuality.

Yep, NHS money is being wasted on "treating" homosexuality, even though -- as the article recognizes -- homosexuality was removed from the DSM 36 years ago.

The NHS will happily spend twice as much money on orthotics appointments than is needed, they will happily spend millions on treatments proven to not work, they will pay for "treatments" proven to cause more harm than good, but what they won't pay for is a kidney cancer drug proven to extend life.

The NHS is a hot political topic at the moment, so why aren't the political parties all promising to stop pissing NHS money down the drain?

So I'm busy being angry. And having to go to more orthotics appointments than I need to. Grr.

Edit 21/02/10: The end to NHS homeopathy may be in sight!

Care consulation... the last post

The consultation on care ends today!

Makes sure you've signed http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AttendanceA/.

To be eligible to sign you need to either be a British citizen (regardless of where in the world you live) or live in Britain (even if your nationality is not British).

Also, please make sure you've forwarded this on to *everyone* you know that's eligible to sign.

The government has claimed that DLA for under 65s is safe. But that still leaves 2 problems:

1) People like me being plunged into poverty and dependence because we've turned 65.

2) The crap wording of the green paper means they could change their minds about this and take DLA away from under 65s without going to consultation again.

Bear in mind that most over 65s develop an impairment of some kind so there's a very real possibility that this might affect YOU in the future.

Save Our DLA: What now?

(This is a follow up to this post.)

If you've missed the Emails from Benefits and Work suggesting how to campaign to stop the government from taking Disability Living Allowance/Attendance Allowance out of the hands of disabled people, here are the three tasks:

• Task One: Contact disability charities and ask them to speak out against the proposals.


• Task Two: Get in touch with your MP and tell them how important DLA/AA is.


• I can't find a link to the third Email online anywhere, but it was suggesting people go to http://careandsupport.direct.gov.uk/ (the site is currently broken as I type though) and give their comments on the Green Paper.

If you're pressed for time and want to do just one quick thing that'll make an impact then this is it: The Number 10 petitions website reopened for business yesterday following the summer recess. A Save DLA/AA petition has been created: http://3.ly/saveDLA. Please sign and pass the link on to anyone and everyone you know. (The paragraph is italicised for emphasis as it's so important.)

Even if you don't get DLA/AA please sign the petition (as long as you're British). You never know if you'll need to in the future (and as most people acquire an impairment in old age, the chances that you'll need to claim AA are quite high). And even if you're not British you can pass the link on to anyone who is.

Finally the government are having a "Big Care Debate Roadshow" where you can go and tell the government exactly what you think about their plans to impoverish and remove independence from disabled people. For the tour dates see here.

Save our DLA

Below is copied and pasted what lilwatchergirl posted on a messageboard.

Benefits and Work sent me the following e-mail. They're looking for 1000 people to sign up before they start hardcore campaigning, in order that there are enough people on board to make a different. I think their campaign is massively important, given the serious threat to our DLA/AA and other benefits.

DLA was established, after years of research, because the costs of living as a disabled person in a barrier-filled world organized by and for non-disabled people were considered to be so high. The estimated costs of disability that came out of this research were far, far higher than what is actually now given to DLA claimants. It was also emphasised that DLA should not be means-tested, because the costs of disability are high whether a person is extremely poor or generally has enough to live on.

Yet the government is proposing either means-testing DLA and AA, or removing it altogether. Their proposal to put the money in the hands of local councils is TERRIFYING, especially to those of us who have experienced first-hand the way that council-funded care has been limited, cut and removed from a majority of disabled people. Councils would leave DLA claimants without enough money either to fund their care or to cover their disability-related costs. The end result of this could well be the death of the poorest disabled people. Do we want to live in a society where the richest are subsidised to the tune of millions (HBOS et al), while the poorest people with the highest costs are left without enough money to fund their care, to support their mobility needs or potentially even to eat?

Benefits and Work's e-mail, detailing their campaign, is copied below. They have 300 people signed up to the campaign so far. Help them get to 1000, and then we can start campaigning.

Ideas for smaller-scale campaigns to support this one could be thought up and discussed here, too...
________________________________________________________________

Claimants have just 100 days to prevent their DLA and AA being abolished.

A government green paper has revealed proposals to stop paying ‘disability benefits, for example, attendance allowance’’ and hand the cash over to social services instead.

Under the plan, current claimants would have their disability benefits converted to a ‘personal budget’ administered by local authorities and used to pay for services,– not to spend as they wish.

Once the green paper consultation period ends in 100 days time, if an almighty row has not been raised, it is likely that both major political parties will see the lack of outrage as a green light to end both DLA and AA.

We’re looking for a minimum of 1,000 claimants, carers and support workers to join our campaign to save these benefits from being abolished. Find out how you can take part from this link:

http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/disability-living-allowance-(dla)/dla-aa-cuts

We know that many people will take false comfort from the fact that, unlike AA, DLA is not specifically named as being for the axe. But if the government was planning only to abolish AA it is extremely unlikely that they would refer constantly throughout the green paper to ‘'disability benefits'’, a term which includes not just AA but also DLA.

Others will dismiss this as just another idle discussion document and our concerns as scare mongering. But it’s much more than that.

36 meetings have already been organised around the country for people working in government and the caring professions to meet to be told about the setting up of a new National Care Service which would oversee the system. In addition, a stakeholders panel of more than 50 voluntary sector organisations, trades unions and academics has been established to offer advice to the government.

Some organisations and individuals, such as RNIB and welfare rights worker Neil Bateman writing for Community Care magazine, have already voiced their alarm.

But not every disability organisation is opposed to the proposals and some even agree with them.

In a press release, Disability Alliance has welcomed the publication of the green paper and said that it ‘looks forward to working alongside Government and all the other stakeholders in bringing these plans into fruition.’ They have even said that they agree that there is a case for ‘integrating disability benefits such as attendance allowance’ into the new system.

One thing everyone does seem to agree on is that huge cuts in public spending will have to take place in the next few years as a result of the credit crunch and global recession.

Political parties are desperately looking for the softest targets to be the victims of these cuts. Dismissing the green paper’s proposals as hot air and not worth worrying about could be the costliest mistake you ever make.

Find out more about the proposed abolition of DLA and AA and how you can join our campaign to fight back:

http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/disability-living-allowance-(dla)/dla-aa-cuts

Please sign. Without my DLA I'd be practically housebound, unable to afford supermarket deliveries and would pretty much have no quality of life at all. Also bear in mind that most people develop some kind of impairment in old age; Attendance Allowance, a benefit for over 65s who need assistance, is currently the benefit at the top of the "at risk" list. So signing this petition isn't just for those who are currently claiming, signing up is an investment for your own future!

Links to people talking about the proposals:

Lilwatchergirl
Bendy Girl
Batsgirl
Neil Bateman (I feel like he should be "NeilBatemanGirl" as the other people I'm linking to about this all have "somethingGirl" as their moniker. I do not wish to imply Mr Bateman is in any way effeminate; I do not know him from Adam. Or Eve.)
Edited to add: Purple Noise (OK, another person without their handle being somethingGirl)
More from Lilwatchergirl

If tweeting on the subject please try and use the hashtag #saveDLA. The media takes a lot of notice of Twitter these days so it'd be awesome if we could make #saveDLA a trending topic. A shortened, easily Tweetable link to this post is available: http://short.ie/aws3bv

Edit Aug 7th: There is now a Facebook group protesting the planned DLA/AA axe. And from Nabil Shaban (yes, he was in Doctor Who):

"First they took away your "Home Helps"
Then they took your Incapacity Benefits
They they took the DLA Care, and Attendance Allowance.
Then they took away your Mobility Allowance, and Motability
Then they forced you back into institutions
And then offered you Assisted Suicide"

Edit September 8th: The Number 10 petitions website reopened for business yesterday following the summer recess. A Save DLA/AA petition has been created: http://3.ly/saveDLA. Please sign and pass the link on to anyone and everyone you know.

Nice One, Guardian

In an apparent acknowledgement of criticism of a lack of vision at the heart of government, the prime minister said he had found it hard to focus on strategic planning

From Yesterday's Guardian.

In case you've been living under a rock for the last few years, Mr Brown does literally have a lack of vision: He's blind in one eye and severely visually impaired in the other.

• Jeffrey Marshall, senior organiser for the BNP's London European election campaign. Following the death of David Cameron's disabled son Ivan, Marshall claimed in an internet forum discussion: "We live in a country today which is unhealthily dominated by an excess of sentimentality towards the weak and unproductive. No good will come of it."

Later, in response to comments made by others on the site, Marshall is alleged to have written: "There is not a great deal of point in keeping these people alive after all." He said the comments were private and some had been paraphrased and taken out of context. He admitted making the former comment, but said he could not recall making the latter one in an email to the forum, a copy of which is in the Observer's possession.

From today's Observer.

Oh I wish I could show this to the bitch in the chemist on Friday who said she would be voting BNP. She was a pensioner so not contributing to the economy anymore, thus I'm sure she'd fall into the group of people Marshall would like to see dead.

I'm sure Marshall would like to start by cutting off her free prescriptions in the hope that she'd die. Rather ironic considering I encountered her in a pharmacy.

A junkie in to collect her methadone tried to explain that the BNP are racist Nazis with the same political convictions as Hitler. To this the old bag said "at least they're all English." (As a friend of mine pointed out: They're not all English. They're the British National Party, so some members are going to be Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish.)


If I were the (Turkish) pharmacist I'd have banned the cow from my shop at that point. I wonder where this woman is planning on collecting her free prescriptions when her local pharmacist has been sent back to Turkey? And the next pharmacist down the road has been sent back to India? And there are no trained, qualified "English" people to take their places?

Edited to add: I've just learned this today (June 13th); Nick Griffin is one of us! He has a false left eye. I wonder if Marshall wants to drag him off to a concentration camp too?

Happy Obama Day

So, like everyone else in the world I was watching the inauguration this afternoon. I saw one of the reporters interview an elderly black woman from Alabama. She was of an age to have lived through racial segregation.

She basically said (I'm paraphrasing only slightly) "We had to go to separate schools where the teaching was inadequate, sit in a separate part of the bus, use separate bathrooms...."

Anyone realise that sounds a bit familiar? Disabled children STILL get sent to separate schools with inadequate teaching. Mobility impaired people have only recently got the opportunity to be allowed on the bus at all, we're still at the point of being grateful for the opportunity to sit in a designated part of the bus. Our bathrooms are always separate too.