Criticise the TUC WHEN they cock up!

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve heard rumour piled upon rumour, for the most part negative, about the TUC’s organisation of the 26^th March event. The TUC has capitulated to the Met and consequently all coaches will be forced to terminate at Wembley; there will be no signers at the Hyde Park rally; no provision for disabled people who cannot march has been made.

The complaints I’m hearing are via the Internet. All the complainants know this is a TUC-run event; yet too many of them are simply refusing to refer to the TUC website, a resource which is updated on a daily basis; no, they appear more content in disseminating rumours which serve only to put other disabled people off attending.

Criticism is legitimate. As someone involved in the disability movement for the past 20-years I’ve become fairly adept in the art of criticism myself. Unfortunately, I’ve also been guilty of shooting the messenger before they’ve managed to deliver the message on more than one occasion.

On appraisal of such situations I realise my reactions make me look both petulant and unreasonable. Thus, I try to take a step back these days and at the very least give the other guy a hearing before I go in all guns blasting – alas all too often after listening to the other side I’m critical of what’s on offer; but, I’ve given the guy the benefit of the doubt.

Yes, the TUC is on a learning curve; you know what, anyone or any organisation that isn’t on a learning curve isn’t really doing too much of anything. The most important point is that the TUC is listening and consulting with disabled people for this event.

Again, if people have ideas or issues about the march can I suggest they contact the TUC at march26@tuc.org.uk by March 14^th. For up-to-date information go to http://marchforthealternative.org.uk/2011/02/18/access-and-disability/

If countering rumours which are unconfirmed is patronising, then I’m guilty M’lud; and, I’d like 23,786 other cases to be taken into consideration.

Met Asking How Many Disabled Marchers on March 26th

I don’t really care if the police are enquiring as to how many disabled people are taking part in the march. What can they do if we refuse to give them the information? Will they have teams of ATOS assessors out on the day assessing who is and who isn’t disabled; for, if they do the figures will be skewed after the ATOS people assess 97% of marchers as not being disabled.

ATOS will then report that 970,000 people on the march were fit for work; the Met will claim that only 15,000 people took part; and, the BBC will run a story about a lost Chihuahua being reunited with its distraught 103-year-old owner.

Counter Rumours

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve heard rumour piled upon rumour, for the most part negative, about the TUC’s organisation of the 26^th March event. The TUC has capitulated to the Met and consequently all coaches will be forced to terminate at Wembley; there will be no signers at the Hyde Park rally; no provision for disabled people who cannot march has been made.

The complaints I’m hearing are via the Internet. All the complainants know this is a TUC-run event; yet too many of them are simply refusing to refer to the TUC website, a resource which is updated on a daily basis; no, they appear more content in disseminating rumours which serve only to put other disabled people off attending.

Criticism is legitimate. As someone involved in the disability movement for the past 20-years I’ve become fairly adept in the art of criticism myself. Unfortunately, I’ve also been guilty of shooting the messenger before they’ve managed to deliver the message on more than one occasion.

On appraisal of such situations I realise my reactions make me look both petulant and unreasonable. Thus, I try to take a step back these days and at the very least give the other guy a hearing before I go in all guns blasting – alas all too often after listening to the other side I’m critical of what’s on offer; but, I’ve given the guy the benefit of the doubt.

Yes, the TUC is on a learning curve; you know what, anyone or any organisation that isn’t on a learning curve isn’t really doing too much of anything. The most important point is that the TUC is listening and consulting with disabled people for this event.

Again, if people have ideas or issues about the march can I suggest they contact the TUC at march26@tuc.org.uk by March 14^th. For up-to-date information go to

http://marchforthealternative.org.uk/2011/02/18/access-and-disability/

If countering unconfirmed rumours is patronising, then I’m guilty M’lud; and, I’d like 23,786 other cases to be taken into consideration.

TUC March: Disability Access

There is still one month to go before, hopefully, one of the largest demonstrations London has ever seen. The TUC is still in talks with the Met trying to ease the passage of hundreds of thousands, or more, people through the streets of London on March 26^th.

Unlike the monster marches against the war a few years ago, today’s London is a very different place. We now have a reactionary Mayor in place whereas back in 2002 and 2003 we had the progressive Livingstone in place. Then we had the July 2007 bombings on London’s public transport system, which moved the government to give the security forces, including the Met, greater powers.

How many of us believe the government or Mayor Johnson or the Met wants a massive anti-government march on 26^th March; and so, they'll be doing their utmost to make life difficult for us.

While I hope we can get coaches in as near as possible to drop off demonstrators maybe it will be a case of disembarking at a few miles from the centre; if it is we must ensure that those who can’t use public transport are ferried in by other means.

The organisers of this march are endeavouring to make the event as inclusive as possible. I’ve never known a march of this, predicted, magnitude to try to reach out to as many people as possible. The TUC is giving out contact details for those who need assistance on the march. For my part I’d take the TUC up on its offer of assistance and go to ‘contact page’ and email your requirements.

http://marchforthealternative.org.uk/2011/02/18/access-and-disability/

Shooting the Messenger Before the Message is Announced

Impatience, the bane of my life; a particular trait that’s invariably made me look petulant and sometimes plain selfish – incidentally, I was planning to post this on the DPAC site; however, it’s not allowing me to register!

Anyway, over the past few days I’ve been following the progress of the TUC’s March on 26th March on different sites; and, while agreeing with DPAC’s, I’m a member myself, concerns about access for disabled people on the demo there is an element of impatience on our part. For instance, a letter, ‘Rights not Charity: Letter to Brendan Barber, TUC General Secretary’ was written on 19th February, and today at the bottom of the letter, reproduced on the site, is, in bold: We are still waiting for a response!

The 19th was on Saturday, today’s Monday 21st February. Is it a reasonable expectation for someone to respond to a letter in such a short space of time? Doesn’t the TUC site, which is updating all the time, now give quite a comprehensive list of access details for the day of the demo. They’re also naming contacts and encouraging people to contact them with specific needs.

Of course we should be critical when our needs are ignored and unreasonably refused; but, don’t shoot the messenger before s/he’s had a chance to speak.

Statue of Tea Drinking Queen in Attempt to Move Attention from Cuts

Great, first a Royal wedding set for the summer and now a statue of a Portuguese rosy loving queen. If the first doesn’t take our minds off the wanton destruction of our Welfare State; or, if it fails to recapture that 1950s pro-monarchy spirit that permeate the soul of all Brits, then the second will win us around.

With all that’s going on in the world; especially, with all the cuts turmoil in Lambeth, and Stockwell will be at the front of these cuts; Stand Up for Stockwell decides to run with a story that’s so soft as to sink beneath its own mushy inconsequentiality.

Come on SUS, even I can smell the freshly dug earth under which you’re attempting to bury the bad news of vicious cuts.

Why aren’t you talking about how murderous these cuts will prove to elderly and disabled people, youngsters, and schoolchildren? Explaining that our libraries will become fond memories; how our parks will become venues for dog fighting; that our housing will rot around us; how our front line council staff will have to take on the extra work left by the backroom staff that are going to be made redundant; or, the expected escalation in crime envisaged by the cuts in the police service.

I doubt even the Portuguese will swallow a statue in exchange for the cuts about to visit people in their community.

Positive Disabled Characters in Fiction

For me, Long John Silver is a positive disabled character in fiction. Anyone who fights against injustice and repression, in my book, is a positive character.

According to Silver (in ‘Long John Silver’ by Bjorn Larsson) he lost his leg, shot by the cowardly Deval, while boarding a captured ship. Once the leg has been taken off John persuades the ships carpenter to fashion him a new leg from wood. Thus, he begins his life as a disabled pirate – no mean feat (no pun intended!)

Silver is a pirate; there’s no argument there. Conventional history and some fiction condemn pirates as bad guys, villains.

Blackbeard (Edward Teach), Henry Every (Avery), Henry Morgan, Captain Kidd, Grace O'Malley and Calico Jack (Jack Rackham) were portrayed as bloodthirsty scourges of the seven seas, and therefore enemies of the state; however, Elizabethan privateers (a posh name for state sponsored pirates) Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir John Hawkins, Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Richard Grenville were rewarded for their acts of piracy by the Queen Elizabeth.

Sailors back then had a tough life. Often as not shanghaied, or pressed into either the Royal Navy or onto a merchant vessal captained by a sadist who held the very existence of his crew members in his hands.

All too often men turned to piracy as a last resort; either that or succumb to the, all too often, violence of sadistic skippers. So, it was hardly surprising that bad captains were killed in acts of mutiny, with the sailors then electing a captain from amongst themselves – of course once embarked on such a course there is no turning back.

Yet, pirates, much maligned by writers, were a very civilised bunch. Silver gets a bad press in Treasure Island where Stevenson seeks to lionise the likes of Jim Hawkins, Squire Trelawney, Dr Livesey and Captain Smollet; for, to do otherwise would make Silver and his crew the heroes – and, that’d never do in a Victorian novel.

Pirates, for all their faults, had many positive and honourable qualities. In the heyday of piracy, 1690-1730 as many as ⅓ of pirate crews, in and around the Middle Passage, were black – most likely taken from slavers that fell into the hands of the pirayes. This is not to say some pirates weren’t also slavers; but, it does suggest that amongst some of them a degree of democracy was in operation.

So, I still maintain Long John is a positive disabled character in fiction.